Okay, think this will improve my game performance? After months of talking, shopping, wishing, thinking, and more shopping, Hubby's getting ready to order more RAM and another new video card for our poor old compter. Current specs: Dell 8250 2.4 ghz Pent 4 nVidia GeForce 5500 256 mhz 512 Mb DRAM (RAMbus) Future Specs: Same Dell, same pentium 4. nVidia GeForce 6800 256 mhz 1 gig of DRAM Y'all have seen plenty of my fuzzy screenshots, and have heard my complaints on performance. It takes forever to boot the game and to load lots. When a sim does a walk-by, or an event happens, the game freezes momentarilly. Without using cheats or teleporting shrubs, I can only invite 2 or 3 sims over. Larger lots are torture to play!! Now, remember, I am a custom content junkie, I have about 1 gig of CC files in my Downloads folder. So, am I going to see a big difference?
In all honesty, the amount of money you are going to pour in, you may as well invest into a new system Kristal. RAMBUS memory is one of the most rare and expensive memory around currently, and could even be more expensive than some top notch gaming DDR memory. As for the GeForce 6800, 256MHz core doesn't seem all that much of a good deal. The GPU core itself is designed to operate in much higher extremes, around 600MHz.
Yeah, we keep saying "New System" but then other expenses keep coming up, like the fridge and stove. So, we're trying our best to upgrade this one. We bought the two RAM-chips last night from zoomzipfly.com. It was $188, and should be here Friday via FedEx. Hubby plans on installing them this weekend. What Graphics Card would you reccomend? We found a GeForce 6800 512 Megabyte on newegg.com for about $200. Hubby wants to buy this systen: Socket 939 Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 2.0 gig 1 gig DDR RAM 200 Gig Hard Drive nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra Dual-Card Tower with 500 watt power supply My Bro-in-law builds them, and like I said, he and hubby have been doing a lot of shopping and talking. We had planned on using our income tax return to buy the parts for the new system. But, our refridgerator is trying to die, and we are getting enough to replace both the stove and fridge, so we thought it would be a better, more practical plan to upgrade this system so that it can keep Simming for another year (and Hubby really wants Quake 4).
I would take another look at what processor you're going to get, as it may bottleneck the GPU. Also, what motherboard are you getting?
Duhhhh, I don't know, Flamey, I'm too slow to understand your question. Are you saying that the processer Hubby wants is too slow for the computer?
Y' know, it might now be better to wait a few months and go for a full blown 64 bit system (with Win Vista) as soon as the hardware makers have caught up ... 6-12 months after the escape of Vista if comparisons with XP are anything to go by. Of course when Vista hits the stores, the computer shops will be stuffed full of "brand new" computers with Microsoft labels on boasting they have been "specially configured to run Vista" ... if you closely at most of them (especially the lower priced ones) you'll find it's the samne stuff that was being sold the week before but with a new label (and a different installation disc). Within a few months, tho the components stores should be getting in new stock all marked up as Vista compatible. I seriously anticipate that a lot of folks with 64 bit processors are gonna be tearing their hair out trying to install Vista when it appears. I had enough of a job with XP ... half my peripherals were running on bare-essential generic drivers because XP would accept the makers' discs :(
Also don't get the Old P4 systems. Get the new Core Duo processors from Intel (or Dual-Core ones from AMD...same concept..etc.) That's the future
Yes. 2.8GHz or higher I would recommend, but remember the fridge comes first, and a BBQ. You don't need a stove.
The fridge for the cold tinnies one presumes ... the world just loves to chuckle at the Aussie in his natural habitat
No you keep the old fridge for the tinnies, that way you have heaps more room to put them in. Bigger fridge = more beer. Our beer fridge is dying, so we actually need a new one
LOL "I can hear you speaking to me, but I have no idea what you're saying. Are you sure you're speaking English?" Oh, wait, that's Austrailian. Isn't it funny how we colonists got creative with the "Queen's English" once we got on our own continents. Anyway, the RAM chips are here and installed, and Hubby actually ASKED me to play TS2 last night to try it out. It worked great, much smoother game play, the special event cinematics showed a great improvment, and I even noticed little details in their faces I haven't before. Very odd. Why did the RAM improve my picture? For example: My gypsy has warts!!!!!!!
Because the game can write more data for faster access. The HDD takes too long to respond without a slowdown (unless you have a 15,000RPM HDD ). Yeah but my old fridge kept setting off the safety switch.
That's when you invest in a new old fridge. Second hand. That's all we're gonna do for our "new" beer fridge. Actually it's not specifically just a beer fridge, there's wine in there too. Plus, if we get one with a freezer, that's extra freezer room. I hate not having a big enough freezer.
If you're going to make any adjustments, even though I often express my distaste for Windows Vista, this is /THE TIME/ to do an entirely new system. Or if you're extra stringy you could wait for PPUs to come out (unless they come out on PCI slots). And yes, that is a pretty decent system, though as other posters have said, your CPU is going to bottleneck your video card, and if you're going to get SLI Geforce 6800 Ultras, you might as well get a Geforce 7800 GT(X) instead. Considering that 6800s aren't current gen anymore, even if they are a lot cheaper now, the Geforce 7800 GTs are good buys now that they're actually in stock for about 300-400 dollars. But by all means, that is a great system that will run The Sims 2 great. I'm just ranting on because I'm obssessed with squeezing those extra few frames. (I swear I can tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS)
PC version of Halo 2 to be Vista only http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4698072.stm Brace yaselves kids. Your old tin boxes filled with 2nd Millenium Intel and AMD chips are about as much use as your great grandpa's bakelite boxful of vacuum tubes. Save your pennies you're gonna need 'em ... either for a new PC or for the arcades
