rec.autos.simulators

by **Peter Hoope** » Sat, 03 Mar 2001 02:31:17

Hi all,

Currently running a PIII600, 128MB, V5 5500 AGP system and although
able to run N4 adequately with things turned down and a cut-down field
of AI cars I am looking into what the possibilities are upgrade wise.
From what I can gather my processor is now the bottleneck so I am
unlikely to gain that much of an advantage by picking up a GeForce
card (please let me know if this is not the case). With that in mind I
would be interested to know your opinions on the motherboard \ cpu
configurations that would give me the best value sim wise.

Money is quiet an issue for me at the moment as I am taking the family
to the States for 3 weeks in September so I have to count the pennies
carefully....

TIA

PH

by **edb** » Sat, 03 Mar 2001 03:15:04

Not for nothing, but I have a buddy that runs N4 well on a stock Cow-way
(Gateway, lol) PIII 450, 128 RAM, with whatever TNT card they were
installing about 18 months ago (16MB VRAM maybe). I have heard stories about
the V series of cards and own a V3 2000 pci (In my N4/N3 server) and can say
I think your system is up to spec, just unsure about voodoo's D3D
implementation. I have a bone stock (read:old) GeForce 256 32mb card on a
PIII 667 with 256/MB RAM and with 15 cars ahead, 7 behind and smoke and dust
turned off (the only way to race online) everything else on and get 40+ fps
on most tracks. If I get down to 30fps, I turn off the grandstands and it
picks back up to near 40+ in a pack, on or offline.

My suggestion would be to drop 70-80 bucks on 128mb RAM, and pickup a new
video card of your choice and I would think you would be absoulutly fine
unless you run everything on with 43 cars at say any track shorter than 1
mile, even then triovals can get choppy thru the trioval sections...I run my
GeForce in OpenGL, 1024X768X32, and am not over clocking anything (v'card or
CPU). I get similar performance in D3D, but OpenGL seems to give me a few
extra FPS.

Best of luck to ya,

edb

by **john** » Sat, 03 Mar 2001 06:40:17

Hi Peter , IMHO you'd be best with a Duron 700 o/c to 1Gz
on an Abit , in the UK that would come in at 185. Probably less in any
other Country !
John

by **Phil Le** » Sat, 03 Mar 2001 08:31:00

Since price is important you might want to go for a cheaper processor which
is overclocked. Check out the following offers from
http://www.overclockers.co.uk:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_AMD_Duron_Bun...
.html

Abit KT7A-RAID/AMD Duron 750 Guaranteed to 950MHz+/GlobalWin FOP32-1 205.58

Abit KT7A-RAID/AMD Duron 800 Guaranteed to 1GHz+/GlobalWin FOP32-1 - Bundle
218.21

Abit KT7A-RAID/AMD Duron 800 Guaranteed to 1GHz+/ThermoEngine V60-4210 -
Bundle 229.96

Abit KT7A/AMD Duron 750 Guaranteed to 950MHz+/GlobalWin FOP32-1 - Bundle
187.88

Abit KT7A/AMD Duron 800 Guaranteed to 1GHz+/GlobalWin FOP32-1 - Bundle
201.10

etc.

Also see:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_AMD_TBird_Bun...
.html

Abit KT7A/AMD Thunderbird 850 Guaranteed to 1GHz+/GlobalWin FOP32-1 - Bundle
237.82

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Phil
--
http://www.legendscentral.com
http://www.geocities.com/f2_festival

F1 GPL Handicap: -0.12 secs
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by **Peter Hoope** » Sat, 03 Mar 2001 08:49:37

Thanks for the info guys....

I'll check your suggestions out.

PH

by **Jagg** » Sat, 03 Mar 2001 10:20:39

On Thu, 01 Mar 2001 21:40:17 GMT, "john"

>Hi Peter , IMHO you'd be best with a Duron 700 o/c to 1Gz
>on an Abit , in the UK that would come in at 185. Probably less in any
>other Country !
>John

AMD just pulled certification on Abit boards for some reason. I would
go with Asus.

rec.autos.simulators

OT: Motherboard Upgrade - Advice Required

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