Possible upgrade for gaming - advice needed

[Wolfchild]

Here's my basic system:

AMD Athlon TBird 1333
Asus A7V133 mb
IBM Deskstar 60 gig 7200
512 MB PC133 SDRAM
Abit GeForce Ti4400 128 meg
Windows 2000

I built this about a year ago (the video card was put in recently). Everything runs great. Only trouble I seem to have occasionally seems to be with memory/virtual memory. In the last couple of weeks I've played through Soldier Of Fortune II and a couple of times during the game a warning prompt came up and said I was low on virtual memory. After playing the game there also seems to be quite a bit of clearing of the swap files - hard drive is busy for a while. The only other thing is once in a while, even though my frameratres are usually just fine, there can be some real choppiness when entering a new map area. It's not extremely bad but I would think my computer should be enough for this game. I'm going on to play the other Q3-based shooters next so if any improvements can be made I'm ready for them.

Anyway, I'm looking for any tips on tweaking the game or system that I've overlooked OR are some upgrades in order.

Would adding another 512 megs of system memory do much good (I do notice some swap file usage when I have a lot of apps open also) OR would I be better off putting that money towards a new motherboard and faster Athlon XP and a gig of DDR RAM? I'd do the upgrades myself, money isn't a huge issue as I usually sell the old parts to compensate...my biggest block to rebuilding is laziness and the time it takes to re-install the OS and software.

 

[MIGhunter]

have you set you virtual memory or are you using the default?

 

[Wolfchild]

I don't think I ever changed it from the default. Right now it's at 192-384 on my C drive. I have three partitions on the Deskstar...I install most games and programs to the second and downloaded junk on the third.

 

[MIGhunter]

I used to have this same problem. I changed the virtual memory setting on my PC and it eliminate most of them.

 

[murphy55d]

If you have the money then I'd move to a DDR motherboard. Pick up a Kt333 board + 512 of at least PC2700 and you should see a decent boost.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Wolfchild
I don't think I ever changed it from the default. Right now it's at 192-384 on my C drive. I have three partitions on the Deskstar...I install most games and programs to the second and downloaded junk on the third.

That seems low for VM,I'd set the max to at least 512 (768 might be better), and bump the initial size to 256 or even 384.

You should also defrag the C: drive if that's where you have your swap file located.

Moving to DDR and an Ath XP would make no difference for a VM error. Adding another 256 MB of real RAM might help.

If you're only getting these errors after playing for an extended period (over an hour) the problem may actually just be bugs in the game's code where it is "leaking" memory and eventually running out. I played many games with memory and resource leaks that cause errors after playing for awhile. Exiting the program will let Windows recover the lost memory.

Edit: also your current system should be fine for existing Q3 based games, check out how the Duron and P3 systems did in the Anandtech review of the Celeron 1.7 CPU (in CPU articles section)

 

[Wolfchild]

Thanks everyone. I set the memory to a min/max of 768. Seems to have worked pretty well - when I'm done playing the game I get my desktop back instantly without the hard drive grinding away.

I think I am probably going to go ahead and upgrade to a new board, cpu and memory pretty soon anyway...what the hey.

 

[DougFrippon]

I have the EXACT same rig

I have 512 SDram
60gxp desktar
a7v133
Gf4 ti-4400
just my CPU is 1.4ghz

Or should I say I had...
I broke my mobo/CPU 2 days ago, and I ordered some new stuff witch could correspond to what an upgrade would be for you
I got myself an EPOX KT333, 512 pc2700 ram, and XP 2200+, should be shipped by monday or tuesday

I'll try not to forget and tell you how well is the difference

 

[Wolfchild]

I'll be doing some research to pick a motherboard here. I'll probably go with the highest Athlon XP. I usually buy memory from Mushkin. I hate to admit this but I'm a little confused by the PC2700, PC3000, PC2100 Level 2 etc. What do I really need? I won't be overclocking. I'll probably just buy one 512 meg stick.

I probably sound retarded but I haven't built a system with DDR yet and so just really haven't followed the specs on newer memory like I have in the past.

 

[murphy55d]

If you get a KT266a board, get PC2100. If you get KT333, get PC2700.

 

[AdamDuritz99]

For a motherboard I would get a MSI KT3 Ultra. I have this MB, and I love it. Stick some pc2700 in there and you'll be flying.

peace
sean

 

[desktopsilver]

you could try and download the ato benchmark utility,,,,it also has a cool feature that alows you to change the way your hard drive is set up for video ,or for file's i dont know exactly what it does but I have seen a difference between the two settings in pc mark 2002..

 

[Wolfchild]

I've somewhat narrowed things down and am looking at the MSI, Abit KX7-333 and Gigabyte boards. Sometimes the more I compare the more confusing it gets. It looks like most of these are available with or without RAID controllers for $20 difference. I've never had a RAID setup...don't know if it's even worth the $20 to me or not. Any opinions? I have thought about getting a second backup HDD in the past though.

 

[Bovinicus]

That makes absolutely no sense. You should not be running out of memory at that point. I have 512MB with a 192-192MB pagefile running Windows 2000. I NEVER run out of virtual memory. I do stuff like leave 5 IE windows, various background programs, Music playing, stuff downloading, CDs writing, with a work in progress in Photoshop left open, all while playing a game. It makes no sense that you are running out... Try deleting the pagefile by setting it's size to 0. Then set it to 192-192 like I did. See if that solves your problem.

 

[Wolfchild]

Well...I haven't had any trouble since I reset it to even amounts 768-768. I agree I don't know why with 512 megs of RAM that it would be having to use much VM at all. And when I've checked my physical memory never seems even close to being used up. Is there a setting somewhere where I can force the system to use my physical RAM first? Because it just seems like it's using VM when it shouldn't need to.

Still would like to make the CPU/MB upgrade though for the game framerates What about the RAID controllers?

 

[murphy55d]

I'd just like to throw out a recommendation for the Epox 8K3A+.

BTW like you I had never had a board w/ RAID... I use the RAID channels as extra IDE channels, so now I have my 2 HDDs and 2 optical drives all on their own channels. Very nice.

 

[Wolfchild]

Actually hehe I should clarify...this Asus board I have now has a Promise RAID controller...I'm not using it because I never could get my drive to boot from it. I tried for a while but I think it might be faulty and just went to using the regular IDE as they were supposed to be ATA100 anyway. Disabling the controller really improved my boot time too.

 

[HendrixFan]

I would recommend the Epox 8K5A2 board with some Corsair DDR 2700 RAM. Throw in the AGOIA Athlon XP 1600+ and you have a great setup. Ive just finished doing a third setup like this (8K3A with 2 of em). Running at 333fsb and memory, pushing the processor up to 2100+ is a tremendous step up from my older setup (Iwill KK266 + AMD 1400). Remember, with the fsb and memory running at 333, you are running faster than a "traditional" 2100+ setup, and you can get it all for $300. That should tide you over until the Hammers come around.

 

[Sevenhunt]

Hm, for an athlon indeed the EPOX 8K5A2 (+) and a 2000+ or higher with pc2700 ddr, but as a brand for the DDR, I would go for Dane-Elec or Kingston.

If you`re considering a P4: EPOX 4G4A+ runs perfect with every P4 right now available. Same mem

 

[bunker]

Whatever board you end up getting, get one with the raid controller. It's nice being able to use it as extra IDE channels.

 

[Wolfchild]

Are there any sites with reviews of the 8K5A2+ and how does it differ from the 8K3A? The reviews here and at Tom's are a few months old now...looks like several boards have revisions or newer models now. I still haven't made the jump but probably will pretty soon here.