rec.autos.simulators

Hi All,
I have a 3 year old computer , 500MHz PIII with a ATI Rage 128 GL AGP
card.  It appears that the card is not direct x compatible (or the drivers
aren't).

I have been playing F1 games at low res, low detail etc. etc.

I cannot justify buying a new computer so I am considering just upgrading
the video card.  My concerns are:

Will upgrading the video card only be enough? If I leave the CPU at 500 MHz
am I still going to have problems?

What card should I get?

My hot lap times are nothing like those some people seem to acheive but I have
improved a lot with time.  Maybe a decent card will help.

BTW. Do the tracks on F1 2001 look narrower than 2000 or is it just me?
Also, the setups are like driving on ice.  Really needs FF.

Simon

If you have the money you'd be better off upgrading the whole PC, as you're
kind of on the "cusp" for recent games. However, if you were to throw a
GeForce 2 GTS or something in there you'd probably get decent performance on
most games, for not too much $.

Depending where you live you can probably get a pretty nice AMD 1.4 system
with a GeForce 3 for around $1000 US, especially if you already have a
decent monitor.

If you live in Canada, make that $2000 Canadian :(

Well a video card will help to a point. You won't need a ATI 8500 or a
Geforce 3 by any means. Probably a Geforce MX card would be plenty. If you
go that way just watch the ram speed. Alot of the really cheap cards are
using low speed ram. Another option would be an original Geforce 256. A
buddy of mine just paid $45 for one of  those. Before you buy anything
you'll have to check to make sure you have a AGP slot. I belive the GL
series are built right into the main board and they did not include a
expansion AGP slot so you may have to go PCI.

MadDAWG

I know what you're feeling. With a PIII 500, I thought that I was being left
out of the loop as well. I ditched my ATI Rage 128 for  an ATI Radeon 7200 with
64Mb SDR RAM for $99. Then for another 20 bucks, I bought 128Mb of computer
memory, to go with the 128 I already had, for a total of 256. Now I'm getting
35-42 fps at 1024x768-16bit while testing.

I just bought a FF wheel, and currently waiting on that patch by EA. Crossing
fingers that it does happen! Don't dispair, an inexpensive upgrade may be all
you need. Good luck.

That's not a bad system. The ATI 128 chipset is roughly equivalent to a
first generation nVidia TNT; you shouldn't have any trouble running DirectX
with ATI's reference drivers.

David