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nForce2 video - suitable for the following type of gaming?

D

DevilsAdvocate

Banned
I want to build a rig for light gaming and I plan to upgrade the video card once the next group comes out, or the 9600XT drops in price.

I am thinking about building an nForce2 system based on the Shuttle mATX board with onboard video, LAN, MCP-T, etc. - for $81, it is hard to beat that deal. I thought about picking up an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ to pair with it for the time being.

Would this be enough to play Unreal 2, C&C Generals, Splinter Cell, Battlefield 1492, etc. at a low resolution with decent level of detail? Again, I plan on upgrading shortly.
 
Light gaming, probably. I wouldn't worry too much about BF1942 performance, but Splinter Cell and Unreal 2 might be kinda choppy.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
The onboard video is more like the MX series as it has no hardware support for Direct X.
Click to expand...

Dammit, I'm sick of people saying that.

It has plenty of DX7 hardware support. It just can't run all the Shiny Reflectivey Bits. 😛

- M4H
 
I have an XP2500+ Barton and a 9700 Pro... NForce2 rocks.

I traded in my P4 2.4 @ 3GHz for my NF2 setup and I don't regret it for one second.

the XP2500 is plenty strong, shouldn't even have to be "for the time being".... I got over 15,000 on 3dmark2001 at everything default with this setup.... love it.

I play Splinter Cell frequently, and it runs like a charm. 🙂
 
DevilsAdvocate - Nforce2 built in video is decent, but remember - DUAL CHANNEL DDR is the key. Nforce video needs all the bandwidth it can get, so dual channel DDR400 would be by far the best way to keep it fed.



Originally posted by: CraigRT
I have an XP2500+ Barton and a 9700 Pro... NForce2 rocks.

I traded in my P4 2.4 @ 3GHz for my NF2 setup and I don't regret it for one second.

the XP2500 is plenty strong, shouldn't even have to be "for the time being".... I got over 15,000 on 3dmark2001 at everything default with this setup.... love it.

I play Splinter Cell frequently, and it runs like a charm. 🙂
Click to expand...

Splinter Cell runs great because you have a Radeon 9700!!!

 
I just built a computer for a friend of mine using the Abit board and the onboard video and it didn't do to bad with the Aquamark benchmark program and it ran surprisingly smooth. I have the rig till Monday and I have BF'42/UT'03 so maybe I'll give them a go for some stress testing 🙂
 
Originally posted by: paperfist
I just built a computer for a friend of mine using the Abit board and the onboard video and it didn't do to bad with the Aquamark benchmark program and it ran surprisingly smooth. I have the rig till Monday and I have BF'42/UT'03 so maybe I'll give them a go for some stress testing 🙂
Click to expand...

Thanks, dude 🙂 That would be much appreciated. 😀
 
I'm using the onboard GF4MX on my epox nforce2 board. I get about 5000 3dmarks after overclocking my FSB (and therefore the video card's shared RAM) to 185mhz. Splinter cell and Unreal 2 are somewhat playable at low resolutions with low detail levels. Framerates are in the 20's - low 30's. Battlefield 1942 runs smoothly at 800x600, high detail.

As others have said, definately get two sticks of RAM to run in dual channel if you are using the IGP. Before I went to dual channel, newer games were completely unplayble; my 3dmark2001se was somewhere in the 2000 range. Also, get at least 512MB of system RAM, as the onboard video eats up some of your RAM.
 
I have a 3rd computer that is running on the following

Athlon XP 1800+ OC'd to 2048
Shuttle MN31N
512 MB PC2700
2 HD's 1 40gig and 1 20 gig

It runs BF1942 at 800x600 16bit color very playable
It runs Midnight Club II at 800x600 32bit color, some settings turned down. Very Playable
It runs UT2003 perfectly at 800x600
It runs Dance Dance Revolution too!

Still not as cool as a beast computer, but for your friends can come over a game on it.
 
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