Wierd, I have a simple gForce2 MX and it runs Farcry fine with high details. My CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ 1.46 ghz. Memory is 512meg DDR2400 (where farcry gives me problems is I occasionally loose the sound. In spite of upgrading to a SB Audigy Gamer from my old SBLive Value.)
One thing that will make most any game lag is if you let windows manage your virtual memory. It is perpetually changing the size of the HD Cache (min of 0mb and max as needed.) Set your Virtual memory to double your actual RAM. And be sure to set the min and max to the same value. It will create one big swap file. Also, it helps enormously if you defrag before setting the virtual memory. (remember to turn off VM before defragging) The final result of this will make your system seem like it is a good 50-70% faster.
That's it for my tip of the day.
Cheers!
P.S. About Graphics cards,.. depending on your motherboard getting top of the line might not show any improvement at all. If you have a max 2-4x AGP then the new cards won't work, and it will cost you a MB upgrade to use it. It's just common sense. My next Upgrade will be a gForce 4 Ti or gForce FX. (depending on what I can get for approx 150$cdn. Last time I looked the FX was creeping into this price range.) Since my MB has a max of 4x AGP, I'll buy a card that will run at this speed. So even if I get the FX at 4-8x AGP I'll be running at less than peak performance, but that's ok, it means less heat issues.
My upgrade after that will be to change my CPU to a AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (since that is tha max my MB will allow.)
Nuf said, Cheers!
[ June 01, 2004, 15:29: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]
Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
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