to wait or not to wait...

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
7,504
0
76
i currently own an asus geforce2 32 meg gts ddr whatever

i wanted to get the albatron ti4200 turbo from newegg for 185

my question is... when is nvidia's next generation gpu coming out? and should i get the ti4200 now or wait for the new one to come out so that the price of the 4200 will drop?
 

merlocka

Platinum Member
Nov 24, 1999
2,832
0
0
Wait = teh good, unless there is something your trying to do and the GTS is just choking.

I did the dumb and moved from a GTS to a Geforce3 about a year or two ago. There really isn't a game (which I play) that the GTS can't still play.

Although, that Albatron looks pretty nice.

Tough call, it's your $$$ :)

 

merlocka

Platinum Member
Nov 24, 1999
2,832
0
0
well i'm tired of choppy play when there's a lot of action in wc3.

that's more of a cpu upgrade right there.
 

XMan

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
12,513
49
91
I have much the same dillemma. I have Ti4200 and a 2.4GHz P4 . . . will it be enough to run Doom 3? Or do I buy a Radeon 9700? ;)
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
7,504
0
76
merlocka... is wc3 really that cpu intensive?

because here's the option...

albatron ti4200 turbo 128 megs --- $185

OR

MSI KT4VL --------- $84
AMD XP 1600+ ---- $52.99
SAMSUNG 256 MEGS PC3200 $79
FREE SHIPPING (newegg.com) $235.99

cuz if it's a cpu thing, then i'd go with the second option... what do you think?
 

merlocka

Platinum Member
Nov 24, 1999
2,832
0
0
oops.... for some bizzare reason i though you typed cw (as in rtcw). I have no clue how wc3 runs with either card. Sorry.

 

rogue1979

Diamond Member
Mar 14, 2001
3,062
0
0
Well, how about this? Buy a Radeon 8500LE or a Geforce3 Ti200 for now, either about $80 shipped. Wait until a really big price drop shows up and then upgrade again. You will probably end up with an even faster video card the second time around, and end up paying the same or less for both cards. In the meantime, either of the cards mentioned above will kick butt on games, especially compared to what you are currently using.
 

Mockmaw

Golden Member
Dec 15, 1999
1,143
0
0
Yes, WC3 is that CPU intensive.. My P3-900 plus Geforce2 GTS DDR gets a little chunky in medium size battles and up, running at 640 with all detail settings at low... My 1600+ machine with an original Geforce2 MX SDR runs smooth as glass at 1024 with all detail settings at medium, even in large games with large battles.

CPU upgrades are so darn cheap right now, I would not dump money into an expensive video upgrade until you know it's what your bottleneck is.

My thoughts on Doom3: People were buying the original Geforce3's because Carmack said Doom3 would run on them.. now we're at Geforce4's, and the next line of Nvidia/ATI products will be out before Doom is. Since no one (except the developers at ID and maybe a handful of other people) actually knows how Doom performs on different hardware and configurations, it seems absurd to purchase something in hopes of satisfying an unknown prerequisite. Wait until it's out.. afterall, wouldn't it suck to buy a $250-300 video card now only to find out that when the game actually comes out, the card doesn't run as well as you'd hoped?

Lastly, if you are thinking about upgrading your main components (board and chip), I think you can do a lot better than $235 through newegg. I went to my 1600+ for $160, I think.. my brother went to a 1600+ for about $90 through newegg simply by staying with an SDR platform. If you look at it, while there is a performance difference between DDR and SDR, I don't feel it's large enough to justify the price in all cases (assuming you already have good PC133 memory sitting around).. I think a decent speed XP with at least 256mb of SDR and an older midrange video card (Geforce2 or better) can pretty much play any game on the market at respectable framerates. Sure, you can't have all the detail settings up in all the games.. but I don't feel that things like FSAA and Aniso are worth the extra $150-200 in hardware. I can buy 5-7 new games for that price.. I'll get a hell of a lot more fun out of that then a couple features in the games I already have.
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
7,504
0
76
thanks for the reply mockmaw...

the thing is that... i have this weird flash error on my mobo and i can't flash it in order to get support for amd xp... so i need to get a new board... i could get a sdr board but might as well get a ddr board seeing as it that ddr is performing pretty well these days... that's just my opinion though..

 

Wind

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2001
3,034
0
0
Originally posted by: Shimmishim
thanks for the reply mockmaw...

the thing is that... i have this weird flash error on my mobo and i can't flash it in order to get support for amd xp... so i need to get a new board... i could get a sdr board but might as well get a ddr board seeing as it that ddr is performing pretty well these days... that's just my opinion though..

If u hv a flash error...most probably u r not using the correct bios file. And yes, getting a DDR mobo (266 & above) proved to hv a performance boost between 10-30%. But most importantly...wht u need now is a processor upgrade.
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
2
0
Hmmm....I would upgrade your vid card first. Athlon @ 1.4 gigs is a very capable CPU, but your memory is definitely on the short side....very short side. 256 megs minimum for WC3. You should try and pick up a cheap stick of pc133 off of FS/FT or Hot Deals.

As for GPU vs. CPU intensive, its a bit of both. WC3 requires a pretty hefty CPU b/c of all the calculations it has to make (its essentially D&D^1000) b/c of all the die-rolls and modifiers, but nothing a 1.4 gig Athlon can't handle. On the GPU side, it requires a nice vid card especially at higher resolutions with more of the eye-candy on.

I've had the game since legit Beta, and I really couldn't play it at anything other than 1600x1280x32 with max details. The game just doesn't look as good, b/c the character models are all boxy looking and aliased at lower resolutions. Also, with slower video cards and lower detail settings, you don't get all the nice spell effects and animations, you get a slide show... :(

Also, this is the first RTS game I've played where bad fps can seriously hinder your ability to play the game effectively. You simply can't micro in large battles if you can't get good framerate. I've played the game with a gf3 ti200, and since I upgraded to my ti4200 turbo, I've seen a SIGNIFICANT improvement in performance. Still running 1600x1280x32, but now I have no scroll hiccups and there isn't a stutter even with 6 90-food bloodlusted armies hacking away at each other :D

I think you'll see the biggest perf. gain by upgrading your vid card, and throwing in some more memory would be a bonus.

Chiz

Edit: PS, you'll know your CPU isn't the bottle-neck if you load into online games and you are one of the first that gets the "Green Light". I'm always first or second, with some people taking a minute or two longer. I'm on Azeroth (East) under Chiz-Falco if you have other ???'s.
 

MustangSVT

Lifer
Oct 7, 2000
11,554
12
81
that is odd, maybe you have your settings too high? it runs smooth even thru large battles on 800x600 wiht medium settings on my Celeron 950 with Geforce2 MX overclocked to (200/200).
 

Serp86

Senior member
Oct 12, 2002
671
1
0
I have to agree with mustang - I ran along quite happily at 800x600x16, detail high on my P3 1ghz, 256 PC133, GF2MX400.

If you are using 32bit colour, get it down to 16bit - you will hardly notice any difference - at least with my experience. I only turn on 32bit to enble FSAA.

P.S. It ran choppily at 1024x768x16, even more at 800x600x32, but when i got the radeon 9700 (yeah - i know what your'e thinking - what a waste with that cpu....anyway - i got it 4 free!!!) i can easily get to the highest resolution quite easily with no jolts. I think that vid card update nowadays make more difference than they used to
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
7,504
0
76
ahhh

i'm getting different opinions from this forum and the software forum about the game...

i actually have 512 megs of ram... i should have updated my profile...

i think i'm going to try to lower the quality of the game first then i'll think about buying a new video card... i mean come on guys... don't you think that it's time to upgrade from a geforce2? i mean i resisted geforce3 and i KNOW that they're supposed to release a new generation gpu soon from nvidia... :)
 

Necrolezbeast

Senior member
Apr 11, 2002
838
0
0
I have a 1600+ @ 1743 and it performs a lot better than the normal 1400mhz. I have an Albatron ti4200p 128mb at stock speeds, 256mb generic pc2100(hehe lucky to get the overclock with 2.6v). I have yet to see slowdown when playing a 12 player LAN game, very large battle that without the overclock I used to choke on...although it was even worse with my old ti200 128mb. I have it at 800x600x32(highest my monitor will run it, although it is rated at 1024x768 and can run that in windows and any other game....weird, eh?) with everything at high detail, quincunx and 4x inso.
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
7,504
0
76
hehehe....

can you guys just stop tempting me... PULEEZ!!!1

:)

i think i'll go for a systems upgrade first... then get a new video card in december...

MAYBE!