What to upgrade? Want 4x AA and 16x AF in Planetside

[m1ke101]

Alright I just picked up planetside today from a friend and wow its a great game! But I haven't played such a graphic intensive game in a while. I wanted your input on what upgrade would give me the best cost/performance. My system as of now

8rda+ (using onboard nforce sound)
1700+ @ 2.4ghz (200 x 12)
512mb pc3000 2-2-2-5
80gb wd hd
radeon 9500 softmodded to 9800 clocked @ 400/320

I was thinking about adding another 512mb of ram, because the dual channel might give me a little boost and planetside might use the extra ram. I don't think the cpu can really be upgraded any higher unless I wanted to do a complete overhaul and do a p4 system. Video card wise it would just be a waste to spend $300-400 on a new vid card when I'm getting overclocked 9700 pro performance from a $150 card. What do you guys think?

 

[joeryu]

your system looks good, i would get that extra stick of 512mb also and take advantage of DCDDR

 

[Nebor]

Your card is softmodded to 9700, I believe, not 9800.... especially since the 9500 and 9800 were never in production at the same time, that would be impossible...

 

[m1ke101]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Your card is softmodded to 9700, I believe, not 9800.... especially since the 9500 and 9800 were never in production at the same time, that would be impossible...

Yeah I know that, but theres a little hack that I guess enables a few features of the 9800 I believe? I'm not too sure but its supposed to give a little boost in performance either way.

 

[Nebor]

How could it enable the features of a technology that didn't exist?

Where did you get this softmod? I'd like to softmod hyperthreading into my p3 1ghz.

 

[bacillus]

Originally posted by: Nebor

I'd like to softmod hyperthreading into my p3 1ghz.

LOL

 

[Lonyo]

Many sites say there are only driver hacks to make a 9700 into a 9800 (supposedly) which give a small boost in speed. The other boost comes from higher clocks, in which case you coul dget a 9500 into a 9800.

The extra RAM would probably do most as (from the software forums) 1 gig of RAM IS used by Planetside/SWG etc, and helps performance.

 

[m1ke101]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
Many sites say there are only driver hacks to make a 9700 into a 9800 (supposedly) which give a small boost in speed. The other boost comes from higher clocks, in which case you coul dget a 9500 into a 9800. The extra RAM would probably do most as (from the software forums) 1 gig of RAM IS used by Planetside/SWG etc, and helps performance.

thats what i'm talking about

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: m1ke101
radeon 9500 softmodded to 9800 clocked @ 400/320

First things first.
It`d be soft modded to 9700. The 9800 thing just enabled a new driver path that the 9800 uses, it give most 9500/9700 cards a 5% performance increase. You dont get any new features. At all.

I`d go for another 512mb ram. That should smooth it out a bit.
Consider using these settings for Planetside.
1280x1024@max detail, w/2xFSAA & 8xAF.
That`ll allow you some great visuals, but with little or no slowdown.
There is little difference between 8xAF and 16xAF imo. And 1280x1024@2xFSAA looks very good.

 

[Nebor]

Does this mean no hyperthreading for my p3?

 

[anomaly]

That is going to be rough to accomplish. Planetside has a high poly/triangle count, and inefficent coding/mapping/texture/modeling. Id suggest another stick of 512, as well what is your connection speed?

 

[Smilin]

I've got a pretty similar system (see sig). You'r probably getting decent framerates but occasionally it hits the toilet like when you walk outside or something.

Another 512 memory will fix this no prob. Planetside appears to use up to 800megs of system memory if it can.

 

[bjc112]

Ram is basically the only thing left to put in that system (Very nice i might add)

May-b a WD Raptor would fit the bill...



- No need to go the P4 route, that AXP @ 2.4 ghz will put a hurtin' even on some of the P4 C's .

😀