rec.autos.simulators

Can anyone help, give input, ideas, suggestions etc. on the:
Asus A7A266 for AMD Socket A Processors Motherboard

sims [including GPL] that is talked about here in r.a.s.?
I want to upgrade and have always been an Intel person but
it seems the P4 is having to many problems for gamers...
Any & All help is appreciated. Anyone!! :-)
Tia.. Thom_j.

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Hey Thom J.

I can't give you any specifics on that MoBo and CPU combo, but I can say
that I have switched from Intel to AMD of late (Currently running 2 AMD
Tbird 850's and a 1 Ghz in my office) and I can say that their performance
is outstanding. All of them are on MoBos that mysteriously fell off the AMD
appraoved list, ABIT KT7RAIDs  (most likley due to this board's ease of
OCing). There is a computer show at the civic center this weekend and I will
be there buying an AMD proccesor and some kind of MoBo to upgrade my
personal machine. Probably a 1+ Ghz CPU and a MoBo that's Bios allows "Boot
to CD" so OS installation will be much easier.

As far as *** performance goes, one of the 850's is my league server (for
N4) and runs the game very well indeed. It also has been tested with N3,
GPL, SCGT, and Viper Racing. Everyone ran just fine, the only bottle neck
being the cheapo Voodoo 3 card in the box. But hey, it's primarily a server
and doesn't need all the eye candy to serve that purpose.

I know you have enough sense to just make sure that the case and cooling
soultion is adequate, so I won't remind you :) I would suggest if you
haven't already, visit the AMD web site and verfiy your MoBo on their
"approved" list to save any possible headaches.

Best of luck to ya,

HB aka SimRacer

Ok HB thanx for the info!! Also, Yes I know all about heat in these things
as I already have 4 extra heavy duty [push-pull thru] fans for my atx case.
Maybe it might be better if I add my present PC specs? Here they are:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel P3 800mhz w/abitSA6R mobo, Asus GF2GTS'Pro 64mgs ram &
I have Twin Voodoo2s in SLI, OS=Win98SE, PC133Dram 256megs,
SbLive sound, 3x30gig Maxtor HDs..w/ a ViewSonic PS790 Monitor..
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

| Hey Thom J.
| I can't give you any specifics on that MoBo and CPU combo, but I can say
| that I have switched from Intel to AMD of late (Currently running 2 AMD
| Tbird 850's and a 1 Ghz in my office) and I can say that their performance
| is outstanding. All of them are on MoBos that mysteriously fell off the
AMD
| appraoved list, ABIT KT7RAIDs  (most likley due to this board's ease of
| OCing). There is a computer show at the civic center this weekend and I
will
| be there buying an AMD proccesor and some kind of MoBo to upgrade my
| personal machine. Probably a 1+ Ghz CPU and a MoBo that's Bios allows
"Boot
| to CD" so OS installation will be much easier.
|
| As far as *** performance goes, one of the 850's is my league server
(for
| N4) and runs the game very well indeed. It also has been tested with N3,
| GPL, SCGT, and Viper Racing. Everyone ran just fine, the only bottle neck
| being the cheapo Voodoo 3 card in the box. But hey, it's primarily a
server
| and doesn't need all the eye candy to serve that purpose.
|
| I know you have enough sense to just make sure that the case and cooling
| soultion is adequate, so I won't remind you :) I would suggest if you
| haven't already, visit the AMD web site and verfiy your MoBo on their
| "approved" list to save any possible headaches.
|
| Best of luck to ya,
|
| HB aka SimRacer

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I just got one (mine's an A7M266 mobo, are you sure you mean "A7A"?) and
it's GREAT for GPL! Everything maxed, smooth as silk. Pretty, too. With the
GeForce 2 Ultra it's a dream game machine.

Thanx for the great info aka input Rob! Yes on Asus's site it does
say "A7M266" instead of "A7A266" but my local Chinese Gurus,
who build my boxes, show they only have the "A7A266" version.
I'm calling them tomorrow to find out what the diff is between the
two numbers but my guess is it is probably the diff between a full
boxed version to buying in bulk!! Just a guess tho'...
Again much thanx for the reply! Thom_j.

| I just got one (mine's an A7M266 mobo, are you sure you mean "A7A"?) and
| it's GREAT for GPL! Everything maxed, smooth as silk. Pretty, too. With
the
| GeForce 2 Ultra it's a dream game machine.
|
| > Can anyone help, give input, ideas, suggestions etc. on the:
| > Asus A7A266 for AMD Socket A Processors Motherboard

| > sims [including GPL] that is talked about here in r.a.s.?
| > I want to upgrade and have always been an Intel person but
| > it seems the P4 is having to many problems for gamers...
| > Any & All help is appreciated. Anyone!! :-)
| > Tia.. Thom_j.

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I just got mine this week (A7A266 and 1.33GHz AMD) and it's not bad at all.
(FYI the A7M supports only DDR and is disco'd because ASUS couldn't get the
AMD760 chipsets, the A7A supports both SDRAM and DDR RAM)  Honestly I don't
notice an incredible speed difference when doing Windows'y' kind of stuff,
but for N4 it definitely helps.  Now I'm running 1600x1200x32 with
everything maxed and getting about 36 fps with my GeForce 2 Ultra.  It's a
nice safe combination to go with.  No issues what so ever.

Also the heat dissipation on the 1.3+AMD is good, it was the 1.2- that had
problems.  (Check www.tomshardware.com for details...)  Just in case I got a
Global Win CAK-38 heat sink and fan combo.  It's a little noisy (and heavy)
but it keeps mine at about 109 degrees F even in this heat (no air
conditioning)!  Again, check www.tomshardware.com for heat sink reviews...

Hope this helps,
Mike

ASUS A7A266
AMD 1.333 GHz
512 MB PC133 SDRAM
3D Annihilator 2 Ultra
Maxtor 30GB ATA66
SB Live! Value
Adaptec AHA-2940AU SCSI Card
Sony CRX140S SCSI CD-RW
Sony CPD-E500
Sony SMS-1PB Speakers
Win98 SE

Great Info Michael !! Thanx for clearing up the A7A verse A7M for me
too! Also Michael I have 256megs of PC133Dram do you see a big diff
here with 512?? Do I need the GPL patch for the 1.33GHZ AMD cpu?
Tia..Thom_j.

| I just got mine this week (A7A266 and 1.33GHz AMD) and it's not bad at
all.
| (FYI the A7M supports only DDR and is disco'd because ASUS couldn't get
the
| AMD760 chipsets, the A7A supports both SDRAM and DDR RAM)  Honestly I
don't
| notice an incredible speed difference when doing Windows'y' kind of stuff,
| but for N4 it definitely helps.  Now I'm running 1600x1200x32 with
| everything maxed and getting about 36 fps with my GeForce 2 Ultra.  It's a
| nice safe combination to go with.  No issues what so ever.
|
| Also the heat dissipation on the 1.3+AMD is good, it was the 1.2- that had
| problems.  (Check www.tomshardware.com for details...)  Just in case I got
a
| Global Win CAK-38 heat sink and fan combo.  It's a little noisy (and
heavy)
| but it keeps mine at about 109 degrees F even in this heat (no air
| conditioning)!  Again, check www.tomshardware.com for heat sink reviews...
|
| Hope this helps,
| Mike
|
| ASUS A7A266
| AMD 1.333 GHz
| 512 MB PC133 SDRAM
| 3D Annihilator 2 Ultra
| Maxtor 30GB ATA66
| SB Live! Value
| Adaptec AHA-2940AU SCSI Card
| Sony CRX140S SCSI CD-RW
| Sony CPD-E500
| Sony SMS-1PB Speakers
| Win98 SE
|
|
|


| > Can anyone help, give input, ideas, suggestions etc. on the:
| > Asus A7A266 for AMD Socket A Processors Motherboard

| > sims [including GPL] that is talked about here in r.a.s.?
| > I want to upgrade and have always been an Intel person but
| > it seems the P4 is having to many problems for gamers...
| > Any & All help is appreciated. Anyone!! :-)
| > Tia.. Thom_j.
| >
| >
| >
| > ---
| > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
| > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
| > Version: 6.0.259 / Virus Database: 130 - Release Date: 6/5/2001
| >
| >
|
|

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    Hi Thom,

    No problems with any games using my P4 1.6 on an ASUS P4T board. The 1.7
beats out the 1.33 in almost everything except Office and a couple other
pointless benchmarks according to Toms Hardware. I dont get very frustrated
when Excel opens 4ms slower than my 1.33 on a  A7V sitting next to the P4.
Running any game in 32 bit color is pointless btw, I have yet to see any
difference except less FPS. In N4 I get an avg of 50 fps at 1600x1200x16.
Also, P4's run very cool. I have yet to see a reading higher than 43* C
under load. At this very moment its at 37*C.  The TB 1.33 is idle at 51*C
right now w. extra fans and a SuperOrb dual fan on the processor. For this
reason I like the P4 overall. With Ultras in both machines I cant tell any
performance difference fps wise w/ GPL/N4. Yes its a 1.6 but for the P4's
lower FSB I expect lesser performance but still  get equal performance to
the 1.33. My P4 has a P4 Dual switching power supply that has a polished
finish, lol :) But seriously its a little slower with the smaller cache
size, it uses quad 100mhz bus which is why it runs so much cooler, and the
advantage of the 1.33 fps wise (none) does not seem evident to justify the
cheaper machine always wondering when/if its gonna die. Oh well thats what
warranties are for. You will enjoy your machine whatever it is, wanna buy my
1.33? :)

   Charlie

I have the A7V133, 1.2Ghz (266) and 512MB CAS3 RAM and a Hercultes GTS II
Pro card.

GPL, using the D3D patch, is pretty much maxed out everywhere (it can't do
better than about 33fps anyway).  N4 is running 50-80fps depending on how
much smoke there is.

No problems performance wise in any other games.

Personally, I don't think there's a game out there that won't run at, or
near, full speed.

-Larry

Larry thanx for the info!!
Comment & Question: With my 800'mhz I have everything maxed in Gpl
& N4 with all 3do addons in GPL you can think of.. I have a solid 36fps
in GPL in almost every track with a 20-field & me in the back of the S/F
except for two tracks! My N4 is about the same as yours with 50-80fps
full field in the back of 43 online or off..
Question: Whats your graphic screen setup? i'.e. 1200x1600, 800x600
etc... Tia... Thom_j.

| I have the A7V133, 1.2Ghz (266) and 512MB CAS3 RAM and a Hercultes GTS II
| Pro card.
|
| GPL, using the D3D patch, is pretty much maxed out everywhere (it can't do
| better than about 33fps anyway).  N4 is running 50-80fps depending on how
| much smoke there is.
|
| No problems performance wise in any other games.
|
| Personally, I don't think there's a game out there that won't run at, or
| near, full speed.
|
| -Larry
|
| > Can anyone help, give input, ideas, suggestions etc. on the:
| > Asus A7A266 for AMD Socket A Processors Motherboard

| > sims [including GPL] that is talked about here in r.a.s.?
| > I want to upgrade and have always been an Intel person but
| > it seems the P4 is having to many problems for gamers...
| > Any & All help is appreciated. Anyone!! :-)
| > Tia.. Thom_j.
| >
| >
| >
| > ---
| > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
| > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
| > Version: 6.0.259 / Virus Database: 130 - Release Date: 6/5/2001
| >
| >
|
|

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In N4 I run 1280X1024 and GPL is 1600X1200.

-Larry

Well, all I can say is to definitely get the Athlon chip unless you
like spending LOTS of dollars. If you do some reading, you'll find
that DDR ram will only gain you about 1-5% increase in speed over SDR
ram, since the Athlon was not originally designed with DDR in mind.

I've just upgraded myself to an Iwill KK266 mobo with 1ghz tbird. The
board is VERY stable and runs GPL, n4, etc. at lightning speed:)
You've also got plenty of scope for overclocking (if you're
interested) with these boards - I'm running at 1.466 ghz, 300mhz fsb
at the moment and very stable. Easy to unlock your AMD cpu...

I'd suggest keep hold of your pc133 ram and get a KT133A chipset mobo.
A very good article to read is at Anandtech at
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1489 which is a roundup of
all the kt133a mobos.

Rafe Mc.

Did VIA ever get their 266 chipset up to par? The last I heard the only good
266 chipset was the AMD 760 chipset based MB's.

Their chipset is out and available, but the amd 760 pretty much beats
it everywhere. Even the Ali migick tends to be better, except when run
at 200 mhz fsb. I think it'll take a bit of time for that one.

Rafe Mc

On Mon, 18 Jun 2001 17:46:13 -0500, "Lannie Schafroth"

Did you see the latest SIS 735 review? Scary since SIS was the worst chipset
known to man years back.  Looks pretty good now. :)