rec.autos.simulators

by **Ed Solhei** » Fri, 04 May 2001 01:01:53

that is the question!

I want to upgrade my system so I can enjoy N4 a bit more...

Right now I got a Celly 700 running at 873mhz, 384mb Ram and a V4500 card..

I've been looking at one of them nice AMD's and hope to go the distance
with a 1.3ghz T-Bird.. :-)

Is this a good time to upgrade - or should I wait abit more?

The "plan" would be to get a Abit KT7A m/b and the T-bird for now.. (as
well as a new case that is..) and then go for a GF2 GTS 64mb video card -
somewhere down the line....

Btw, while I'm at it... could someone tell me how much a fast HHD mean?
I.e right now I got an old 7gb drive - prob. ATA33 or Ultra DMA (I have
*no* idea what this means tho :-)

Also, whats the story on memory... should I keep my PC133's or go for DDR
(and why?)

Help, advice, money - all received with great happiness! :-)

ed_

by **Larr** » Fri, 04 May 2001 04:50:45

The latest salvo in the price war between AMD and Intel just occured, so I'd
say it's a good time.

1.33Ghz T-Birds are UNDER $200 now :)

From the performance charts I'm seeing, The 1.7Ghz P4 still doesn't impress
me. Nor does it's RDRAM mandate.

-Larry

by **Mark Aisthorp** » Fri, 04 May 2001 08:28:40

As much as I'm loath to say it being a Voodoo 5 5500 owner, from what I've
read on in this newsgroup I would say if it's just for N4 then the geforce
would probably be the best bet, unfortunately the Voodoo's just don't seem
to cut it in N4.

Mark

P.S. hey Ed is that all a celery 700 will go to ? my celery 600 is rock
stable at 954, just wondering.

by **K O Slette** » Fri, 04 May 2001 12:37:06

Hi Ed....I been thinking about this too....I decided to stick with the PC133
ram and go with either the
Abit Kt7A or Asus A7V and the 1.33 Ghz (266) T-Bird.
Right now there is not much of a performance difference between the VIA 133A
chipset and the DDR chipsets
A 7200rpm Ultra ATA/100 HDD will be a big speed improvement over the old
ATA33 and at about $110
for a 20gig drive it's well worth it.

Forever Upgrading,
KO

by **Rolf Weseman** » Fri, 04 May 2001 16:29:09

Hi Ed,
if money allows it, I would buy the brand new Geforce 3 Card, maybe from ELSA.
They lowered the price to under 1000 DM, that would be 400 $, this price is
deeper, as when they started with the geforce 2. And the tests say, it is much
faster and allows new graphic features (for the future). I don't own one I
have a Voodoo 5 5500 and Athlon 1,2 GHz, but if I would buy a new Graphic
adaptor, it would definitly be the Geforce 3.
Rolf

by **Tim Elhaj** » Fri, 04 May 2001 15:56:36

> The "plan" would be to get a Abit KT7A m/b and the T-bird for now..

[snip]

DDR RAM is not going to work with that board. Otherwise, sounds like a
decent plan. I went from a lowly P3 550 to an AMD 1.2 on the KT7A. Had a few
compatibility problems with the board and my sound card, but sorted it out.
N4 is sweet with the V5's 4x FSAA at 8x6x16, framerate a constant 20,
everything at its max. I can also turn off the FSAA and pump up the
resloution. Both look about the same, with the FSAA edging high res
slightly.

Good luck!

by **Ed Solhei** » Fri, 04 May 2001 20:01:00

out.

Mind if I ask what kind of soundcard you had problems with?

ed_

by **Ed Solhei** » Fri, 04 May 2001 20:04:02

> A 7200rpm Ultra ATA/100 HDD will be a big speed improvement over the old
> ATA33 and at about $110 for a 20gig drive it's well worth it.

I've always had the idea that a faster disk would only make the programs
load faster - i.e that disk preformance didnt affect game-*play* much. Have
I gotten this all wrong?

If so - care to explain why?

Thanks!

ed_

by **Nos v7.000000** » Fri, 04 May 2001 20:43:24

>I've always had the idea that a faster disk would only make the programs
>load faster - i.e that disk preformance didnt affect game-*play* much. Have
>I gotten this all wrong?

>If so - care to explain why?

>Thanks!

>ed_

I'll jump in if it's ok. You won't see the frame rate go up, but the
data will transfer quicker and lessen (remove) any loading pauses that
sometimes happens in games.
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **Ken MacKa** » Fri, 04 May 2001 21:25:22

> P.S. hey Ed is that all a celery 700 will go to ? my celery 600 is rock
> stable at 954, just wondering.

Speaking of overclocking celerons, whets the best bet for getting over 100 fsb

Ken

by **Larr** » Sat, 05 May 2001 05:14:20

You're kind of wrong...

7200 RPM drives excell at work that is highly transactional. In other
words, lots of little hits coming fast and furious. Databases are an
excellent example.

It's due to the lower latency times...

So are some games. With all the graphics transitions going on, and all the
textures being loaded, etc... a lot of games can benifit as well.

Sustained thru-put is more affected by data density and drive/interface
design than the rotational rate.

-Larry

> > A 7200rpm Ultra ATA/100 HDD will be a big speed improvement over the old
> > ATA33 and at about $110 for a 20gig drive it's well worth it.

> I've always had the idea that a faster disk would only make the programs
> load faster - i.e that disk preformance didnt affect game-*play* much.
Have
> I gotten this all wrong?

> If so - care to explain why?

> Thanks!

> ed_

by **Larr** » Sat, 05 May 2001 05:16:00

The Swami in me says it was a SoundBlaster Live :)

-Larry

> > DDR RAM is not going to work with that board. Otherwise, sounds like a
> > decent plan. I went from a lowly P3 550 to an AMD 1.2 on the KT7A. Had a
> few
> > compatibility problems with the board and my sound card, but sorted it
> out.

> Mind if I ask what kind of soundcard you had problems with?

> ed_

by **Mark Aisthorp** » Sat, 05 May 2001 05:52:46

Don't really know they weren't out when I bought my 600, what multiplier are
they that's what determines what speed they run at what FSB, i.e. my 600 has
a 9x multiplier so 9x106=954 but I think the celery's top out about 1 gig no
mater what FSB you throw at them, and it sounds to me like the bigger one's
wont go as high as the smaller ones, try www.overclockers.com on there CPU
database but try to read past the bulls#&t.

Mark

> > P.S. hey Ed is that all a celery 700 will go to ? my celery 600 is rock
> > stable at 954, just wondering.

> Speaking of overclocking celerons, whets the best bet for getting over 100
fsb

> Ken

by **Tim Elhaj** » Sat, 05 May 2001 11:19:05

First it was a SoundBlaster Live! Value, which a lot of folks are having
issues with on that board. Foks suggested I go with a Turtle Beach card, and
I did, but I still had problems (although it wasn't as severe with the
Turtle Beach). I ended up going back to the SB Live! because I found that if
I put it in the first PCI slot, right next to the AGP slot, everythign got
along.

> > DDR RAM is not going to work with that board. Otherwise, sounds like a
> > decent plan. I went from a lowly P3 550 to an AMD 1.2 on the KT7A. Had a
> few
> > compatibility problems with the board and my sound card, but sorted it
> out.

> Mind if I ask what kind of soundcard you had problems with?

> ed_

by **Tim Elhaj** » Sat, 05 May 2001 11:20:54

Heh, yep, but the kicker is it ended up being the one that worked the best
when I put it in slot 1. I'm not looking forward to upgrading my video,
though, because I wonder if that problems are going to rear their ugly head
again...

You'd be surprised (at least I was) how badly one misbehaving sound card can
muck up an otherwise very fast system.

> The Swami in me says it was a SoundBlaster Live :)

> -Larry

> > > DDR RAM is not going to work with that board. Otherwise, sounds like a
> > > decent plan. I went from a lowly P3 550 to an AMD 1.2 on the KT7A. Had
a
> > few
> > > compatibility problems with the board and my sound card, but sorted it
> > out.

> > Mind if I ask what kind of soundcard you had problems with?

> > ed_

rec.autos.simulators

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....

To upgrade or not upgrade.....