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Haven't built in 3 years, want to play BioShock/Crysis/SC2

Z

zathan71j

Junior Member
I am currently running:
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
AMD 2500+@3200+ w/ Zalman hs/f
GeForce 6800GT w/ Zalman hs/f
Antec modular SmartPower 420W (or 480?)
Antec P180 case
1gb Corsair DDR

Obviously, this is not sufficient. And obviously, it's a big upgrade.

I want to play BioShock. And I want to play it fairly well. I know the rumors of 9800/8900/whatever coming out in November, but BioShock came out *today*.

Here's what I'm thinking... I want to pull the trigger SOON or I never will....

PLEASE advise. I haven't even LOOKED at stuff since I built my last system, so I am really, really, really rough around the edges at this.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029 )
CPU HEATSINK/FAN: Zalman CNPS 9500 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118003 )
MAINBOARD: I have no idea. I don't want to do SLI. When I was building, ASUS was king. I love ASUS. Suggestions welcome.
VIDEO CARD: GeForce 8800GTS 640MB ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150215 )
GPU HEATSINK/FAN: ????
POWER SUPPLY UNIT: Do I need a new one? Is my poor 420W (480W?) going to be overwhelmed?
RAM: Corsair 2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 800 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034 ) or Crucial 2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 800 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565 )

I don't think I can really afford an 8800GTX. Will these new gigantic cards fit in my P180? I am dual screening just some older 19/17" LCDs right now, but I will eventually upgrade at least one of these. My price range....This is all right around $800ish. $1000 is the ABSOLUTE ceiling. Lower is better.

Probably be rolling out Vista 64.

Please, suggest, criticize, review, attack!
 
You can play Bioshock decently on your 6800GT... maybe just upgrade to 2GB RAM and you are golden. The tweakguides.com guide will probably come out next week and with it bioshock performance will be excellent on your machine if isn't already. Bioshock is a well optimized game and the 6800GT is a good card still (and I presume yours is overclocked).

Now Crysis that will probably be another story but that game comes out on the 17th of November and by then the new nvidia cards will possibly be released and you can build your computer then.

Graphic generations are worth waiting for, if you still don't wish to wait at least get an EVGA card for the step-up.

If your current computer couldn't run current games then it would be understandable why you'd want to rush your build but your current computer is good enough and waiting 2 months in this case IS worth it.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

If you want advice on your build I'd recommend a quad core, trust me its quite worth it and you can get a Xeon X3210 for around 210 and that processor will easily get to 2.8-3.0GHz if you decide to overclock (which looking at your current build you probably will). As for the motherboard, the Gigabyte DSR3 is really good but the X38 chipset is coming out soon, another reason why waiting might be wise. Also what is your monitor resolution?
 
I agree with Piuc2020. BioShock runs well on many systems. I would just get the extra gig of RAM and you will play BioShock pretty decently I think. You might have minor slowdowns because of single core processor as I've heard others have some decreased in frames here and there but nothing too major. Overall I've heard a lot of older systems running it fairly well.

I think holding off would really be smart cause that way you can save up a bit more and get a Quad core and the new 9800GTX in November. SC2 won't be out for who knows when and Crysis comes out in November anyways. And you can still enjoy BioShock until then, although maybe not on max settings. Then you can replay it when you do get that even better rig.

So my advice... maybe get some cheapish RAM and then start saving!
 
People were reporting high/medium with advanced features off at 800x600 on a 6600GT (framerate in the 30's and higher) on the 2K forum. I think you'll be fine same settings at 1024x768 or maybe even 1280x1024 on your 6800GS depending on your framerate tolerance.

Also tweaking your game and keeping your computer in tip top shape (current drivers, defrags, etc) can go great lengths, the tweakguides Bioshock guide should come out next week and I wouldn't be surprised if you can turn your resolution up a notch with minimal performance or IQ losses from the tweak guide alone. At least those tweak guides have brought MASSIVE performance gains for me in the past.

The point is, Bioshock runs well on older systems and the 6800GT is still decent, heck, its faster than some current gen midrange offerings.
 
I have the same card but inferior CPU (Athlon 64 3000+) and Bioshock runs respectably with just a few features off.

Like you though, I'm planning to upgrade soon for games like Bioshock, Crysis, etc. Unlike you, I'd rather wait a few months to see what the new cards are like before I drop the money on a new system. 🙂
 
BioShock's not great for me on my current system - I just tried the demo for a few minutes. However, it's playable for a single player FPS (20-25FPS.)

I am thinking about just playing BioShock on my current system, maybe picking up an extra GB of cheap RAM to throw in next to my current GB of RAM that kicks ass. I can then (closer to Crysis time) see what the new nVidia cards are - and if I want one of those or if 8800 GTS/GTX/Ultra fall in price as a result.

What's a good way to tweak my stuff up? I did just upgrade DX and Drivers.
 
Are you using the latest nvidia drivers (the bioshock specific ones?)? That could help.

Aside from that, you can make sure the least programs are running when you try to run bioshock (kill any anti-virus programs, any "speed launch" services like ad-aware 2007, ituneshelper, ipodservice, etc) this should help you with your 1GB of RAM.

Run a registry cleaner, Registry Mechanic is great but its not free, CCleaner is great and also cleans out your temp files and other crap. Make sure you defragment, Perfect Disk is an awesome tool.

Download TuneXP and run the tweaks (don't run ALL tweaks, just the ones that help performance), not all help with game performance but some do. make sure you have no spyware or viruses eating away your memory and CPU cycles.

Download RivaTuner and overclock your card (though yours probably overclocked already) and see if any of the Direct3D tweaks help you. Disable v-sync in the game options and experiment heavily with your in-game settings, you may find several options that give minimal image quality when turned on but considerable performance gains when turned off.

Then when it comes out, use the tweakguides guide for Bioshock and you'll be golden.

If all else fails you can always play in a resolution like 1024x768 and use centered scaling for no IQ loss if you don't mind the smaller frame.

Also upgrading to 2GB should give your comp a considerable boost.

There is some more, check out the general tweak guides at www.tweakguides.com, they provide guides for forceware drivers and Windows XP.
 
You can play Bioshock , Crysis on : 7950gt/x1900xt 256mb , 2GB ram , Dual core cpu on high on medium res.
You can play Starcraft 2 (mega tweaked DX9 game) on Ti4200 , 9600pro , P4 1.8Ghz/AMD XP 1800 , 512mb ram. (billzard has to cater to millions of Korean not the high end )

sorry to break your Mega Upgrade Bubble ;(

 
Pretty decent advice, nothing to add really. BioShock will run on the settings tuteja mentioned btw, Crysis is a frigging guess, no-one knows. As for Starcraft, yeah it won't be that cpu/gpu intensive, they made a point of that from the start. Perhaps a little CPU intensive with a lot of units on screen, but nothing a normal processor couldn't handle.
 
Originally posted by: tuteja1986
You can play Bioshock , Crysis on : 7950gt/x1900xt 256mb , 2GB ram , Dual core cpu on high on medium res.
You can play Starcraft 2 (mega tweaked DX9 game) on Ti4200 , 9600pro , P4 1.8Ghz/AMD XP 1800 , 512mb ram. (billzard has to cater to millions of Korean not the high end )

sorry to break your Mega Upgrade Bubble ;(
Click to expand...

Are you sur e about this?

I played the demo on an x2 4400+ 2 gigs of ram and a 256 7900gs at full details native res (1280x1024) without it choking on me at all. iwas initially suprised thinking "this is it?hought it would be deathly" and i just thought that perhaps they didn't realease the crazy texture packs that would suck up all the videocard ram
 
Hi I Dont Mean To Hijack This Thread But I Am Wondering If I Can Play Bioshock On My New PC I Will Be Getting I'll Have

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Processor w/ HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
1Gig ram
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS
Windows Vista Home Premium
 
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