Upgrade CPU or Video card?

[Wyl]

I thought I could survive with a celeron300 o/c 450 and a G400 until June...but Giants simply will not run smoothly on my system with the lowest settings.

Right now I can only afford to upgrade either to a celeron 566 o/c 850 or a new radeon 32 DDR. Which will offer the most improvements?

Thanks

 

[Compellor]

For gaming, the CPU you have now will be the bottleneck if you buy the Radeon. Get the faster CPU, then get the Radeon later on.

 

[tonyou]

Try increasing the resolution when you play to see if you are still getting the same framerates. If you are, then definitely time for you to get a new CPU!

Tony

 

[BFG10K]

You definitely need a new CPU first.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Uhhh, you need both..... badly

Anyone else that responds, how many of you have played the game?

Which do you want more? Without all the feature support of the Radeon(or GeForce) the game looks very poor. Without a decent CPU the game chokes. The Radeon(or GF) supports hardware T&L which will offload your CPU of some tasks, but not enough to "fix" the FPS. The game slows down a 1GHZ GF2Ultra system in some places, to put a perspective on it.

How much RAM do you have? I'll have to recheck it but if I recall it is close to swapping on my rig(320MB).

If you just want the game to run, then a CPU will likely be the better option(providing you have enough RAM). If you want improved performance(though likely not as much as an extra 400MHZ in the CPU department) and the ability to see the incredible graphics go with a Radeon.

Running a GF DDR and an Athlon 550 right now and turning everything off and dropping to 640x480 16bit is the same speed as everything cranked 800x600 32bit. I've got a Duron waiting for a mobo here(should be today or tomorrow) and can tell you what kind of boost that gives when it gets here.

Oh yeah, what kind of FPS are you seeing?(hit the "t" key and then type fr and hit "enter" if memory serves) This isn't a game to look for 60FPS with, not with anything out right now at least(though it isn't needed either).

Edit-

Just tested a bit. RAM useage, after playing for about five minutes on one of the earlier levels, peaked at just over 270MBs. My FPS didn't change all the way up to 1024x768, and then they plummeted(I would say exceeded my 32MB of VRAM by the looks, dropped from an indicated ~20FPS between 640x480 16bit everything off and 1024x768 32bit everything cranked all the way down to 4-5 indicated FPS at 1152x864(I think, the one between 10x7 and 12x9)). CPU useage was pegged at 100% the entire time(makes sense if I was using AGP texturing at the higher resolutions, it is processor intensive).

I don't think the indicated FPS is correct on this game at the moment, 20FPS looks as smooth as 35-40 in Quake3.

 

[bluemax]

I've heard that with a faster CPU, a G400 will perform very, very close (sometimes a touch higher, like the G400 MAX...) to a Geforce SDR card.
That's not bad, really - since the Geforce2 MX is only just barely higher than that! (Not including overclocking...)

In short, the G400 is not a bad card and has probably some of the best QUALITY out there, giving the Radeon a run for its money in the quality department. (It's only missing the speed, FSAA, and HSR...)

Get the CPU...

 

[oldfart]

I would agree. CPU.

 

[BenSkywalker]

bluemax-

Giants supports Dot3 and hardware T&L, both heavily. The G400 is not even close to the GeForce SDR on this one, though a CPU may still well be his best bet.

Edit- Forgot to add- for what he is asking about, Giants, the G400 will look like crap compared to a Radeon or GeForce.

 

[Wyl]

Thanks for the advice.
Presently I have 196 MB of ram.
I get abt 15 fps at 640X480X16...the same when I bring the resolution up to 800X600X16. SO I guess I should upgrade the cpu first.
However, I'm reluctant to change the CPU as I've been wanting to move on to the AMD bandwagon so that means a complete overhaul in June and the celeron would go to waste. Whereas I can still use the radeon. I guessed my question now is will the radeon helped me get around 30fps for the game. I know this will be impossible to answer unless I try it out =P.
Thanks again for all the patience...

Sigh...all the decisions

 

[BenSkywalker]

A Radeon 32MB DDR will set you back roughly $150.

I just picked up a MSI K7TPro2A, Duron 650 and heatsink/fan for $200 total including shipping. My hopes are to hit 900 with it(which seems to be well within reason).

If you were to ask which of those to chose from(Celery, Radeon, or Duron/mobo) then the Duron makes more sense. Upgrading to a Celeron@850 is roughly equal in performance to a Duron 600 if you don't OC the Duron(and they OC as well, possibly a bit better, then Celerons).

Will either setup get you to 30FPS? I doubt it. Possibly both a Duron and Radeon will do it, I should have my Duron/GF up tomorrow and will let you know what kind of performance I hit with that combo. I would wager that a Celeron 850 with a G400 won't hit 30FPS, possibly not even peak.

If you upgrade your mobo and CPU now, you can just drop in a higher clock T-Bird in June combined with a gfx card instead of an overhaul.

 

[miniMUNCH]

I don't think I've heard of a Duron 650 that couldn't run 900 stable, even with a stock fan...slap a Chrome orb with some Artic Silver (or just leave the thermal tape crud on) and "oh yes!".

I've had a Chrome Orb setting in my office for weeks, but I haven't installed it yet because I'm lazy...heck, I just got around to grinding down one side [so it will fit on my KT7] last night.

Got my Chrome Orb from 1st look computers for $15 shipped.