PC Upgrade

[kruk]

I am shopping for a new computer. I am planning on keeping the computer I have as well and spend between $100 and $200 US - no more - to get the most out of it. Here is what I have:

P4 2.4 GHz
1 Gig PC 2700 RAM
Albatron PX845PEV (800/Pro)
ATI Radeon 9600 XT (128)
Soundblaster Audigy 2

I play Battlefield 1942 and Forgotten Hope .7 and do not plan on using this computer for games that are any more demanding. (That's what the new PC is for). I don't play either game at the highest settings now, and on FH .7 I get "slow" gameplay at times. I have a feeling that sometimes my current setup requires some virtual memory use - and the video card is doing its job well. Is there a way to tell exactly why framerates drop? The motherboard has 3 slots, supporting up to 2 Gigs of RAM and my first thought is to get a one Gig stick of RAM. If I were to do that should I get matching RAM or just the best my board can use? I don't know what else to do and am not going to spend more despite some knuckehead telling me to get an expensive vid card, lol.

 

[SugarCoat]

you really only have 2 options. BF42 is not going to utilize anymore system memory then you have now. You can stuff 2Gig into it and it wont make a lick of difference in that game.

What you should try to do is get the processor to 3Gig or as close as you can (if you dont mind overclocking) and/or replace the video card with something cheap. The biggest thing you lack that BF42 does draw on is video memory and raw pixel pushing power.

Since you're upgrading a dead end system, i understand you'd like to spend as little as possible. The best thing you can do for ~200 would be this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102002
if thats too much for you to justify on, the lowest you'd problably want to go is
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130001

but that is quite a bit worse in terms of losing 4 pixel pipes and of course the ram differences. Thats really all i'd suggest. Replacing the processor for any extra 400-600MHz is absolutly not worth it, same with the ram situation.

 

[kruk]

Thanks, I noticed that Forgotten Hope .7 does not run as smooth as Battlefield 1942 even though they are using the same game engine. This lead me to believe that the larger maps and detailed objects was consuming more RAM than I had available. Thanks for the post.

 

[MPI]

I don't agree with SugarCoat. The BF42 mods gobble up a TON of memory, and having 1G is apparently not enough with some of them. I think FH is one of the worst among them regarding this.

But why don't you check by loading it up and alt-tab out to check mem usage, or leave the performance monitor running in the background?

The BF42 engine is weird, though, especially the sound subsystem bugs can cause severe stutter in situations with lots of action. Something to do with sound buffers or something... it never quite got solved even though several patches addressed the issue. Some systems just can't to achieve that butter smooth gameplay no matter what you do. :-/

 

[kruk]

Thanks for the post. I decided to spend the money for a one gig stick of RAM and try that. I have pc 2700 (2x512). My board has 3 slots and supports 2 gigs of RAM. I am not sure what what kind of RAM to get. The board will support up to pc 3200. Any advice?