Tips 4 this newbie with his hardware..?

[Bighunk]

Hey everyone,

Back with some questions, this time about my own computer... I'd like to see if I can get some tips on whether or not it can perform better for games like GTA3( & GTAvc soon :cool: )

K7S5A w/AthlonXP 1700+ 1.46GHz
ST340823A 37.27GB hard drive
LITE-ON LTR-40125S CD-RW
LITE-ON DVD-ROM LTD-165H
2 x 512MB (I believe SDRAM)
RADEON 9000pro 128MB video card
Creative SBLive! sound card

Basically I bought it from a friend for 700 bucks, & for graphic design programs & internet browsing, it's been more than an excellent machine, but things changed the day I got GTA3... Being the freaky car enthusiast I am, i'm now officially addicted to the game as well as installing some of the fiercest mods available, and well, I find myself having to choose between either excellent game textures but crappy performance or vice versa...

Being fairly new & inexperienced in computer hardware, I was wondering what would be my options in either:

a) changing a couple of settings here & there of what I have
b) tossing whichever part of my pc that could be making the other potentially decent components suck
c) sticking to minesweeper, pinball & solitaire & forget about 3D games until I shake the newbness off (as well as shake the moneymaker enough to be able to afford a better machine...)

Any ideas? :confused:

[BaLa]

your board accepts SDRAM and DDR SDRAM

if you're running SDRAM now; that's prolly slowing you down some...
you can toss it and get PC2700 DDR..

also down the road or maybe now (depending on how much moneys you got) it wouldn't hurt to get a better mobo
like a NF2 Chipset mobo...that should deff. speed up things as well...

[monkeyhead]

your weakest links in your comp would be your proc and RAM.... therefore to upgrade them you would need a new motherboard.

[SLK]

GTA 3 runs choppy on my Ti4200 also... I don't think anyone got it to run smooth...

[Bighunk]

Originally posted by SLK
GTA 3 runs choppy on my Ti4200 also... I don't think anyone got it to run smooth...

Yeah that's what I was reading on one of the fan sites just earlier... I hate it! :( Hope the new one is less demanding of resources like they say it will.

Also found interesting that a lot of the people who play(ed) GTA3 mentioned having 512MB, 256MB, & even 128MB of RAM yet still their comments make me believe they didn't have such a bad a problem with the game as I am. Guess it was probably DDRAM, is DDRAM all that much more superior to SDRAM??

[Bighunk]

Wondering what the difference ratio would be between a stick of SDRAM & a stick of DDRAM, meaning, if I were to start out by putting 256MB of DDRAM, & taking the 1 GB SDRAM outta there; would my system feel(more, way more, same, bit less way less) sluggish than right now that I have 1GB of SDRAM?

[newbie1]

I think you'll notice a speed difference between the DDR and SDRAM even if you have 1 gig of ram

DDRAM will be faster, noticeably fast


you'll be surprised with what you can run with only 256MB of ddr ram, right now im running 2 windows of IE6, AIM, kazaa, folding@home, winamp 2.8 (playing a song), ftp server, and Microsoft word, it's great playing Counter-strike

and everything is running fine and fast, i have allready left it on for 2 days straight, and nothing is sluggish

and this is under winxp pro,

but with the 1gig of sdram you'll be able to load alot more programs, if you're not running a server of any sort(SQL,HTTP,FTP etc.), i say sell it , and get up to date ram if you're not that type of POWER USER

that 1 gig of ram is having alot of capacity but not alot of speed

kind of like compared to a 80GB 5400rpm vs. a 40GB7200rpm
hard drive


replacing SDR with DDR will only boost your performance especially in gaming, and opening simple application like IE6,AIM,MIRC,WINAMP,WMP etc.

[SLK]

Originally posted by Bighunk
Wondering what the difference ratio would be between a stick of SDRAM & a stick of DDRAM, meaning, if I were to start out by putting 256MB of DDRAM, & taking the 1 GB SDRAM outta there; would my system feel(more, way more, same, bit less way less) sluggish than right now that I have 1GB of SDRAM?


Pending on the speed... 15-30%

[newbie1]

btw i can tell you from experience, that having 1 gig of SDRAM and switching to only 256MB PC2100 DDR (not even pc2700) ram is a huge improvement in speed


Originally posted by SLK
Pending on the speed... 15-30%

yeah around 30% if not 40% if it was pc2700, but i can't say that because i only have pc2100





i can still notice a huge performance gain switching to DDR from the SDRam i had, with running apps and games

when i upgraded from that 1GIG of sdram to 256MB pc2100 DDR SDRAM, i couldn't help but think "WOW the technology today!"

[RoscoPColtrane]

HOw can i find out if my system will run pc2700 ddr? I curretnly have hte asus a7v266 mobo and the book says that it will handle up to pc2100 (which is in it!). However the book also says it will handle up to a 1700xp processor. However ive seen on sites that i can upgrade to the 2600xp. So was the book writen when the ddr maxed out at 2100 and thus not having the option for something that didnt' exist yet (2700ddr or the 2600xp proc)?

And also will i see a big change on jumping to 2700 from 2100 with a 266 fsb?

thanks for the help

jbkm

[ub3r_n00b]

Better Mobo, processor.. and ram.. and.. vid card.. :)

Upgrade processor first.. considering you have a bunch of ram though..

-Preet

[Brk]

Mobo and RAM first...get a board that supports at least PC2700 (333 MHz) DDR, and pick up a stick of Crucial PC2700, which is dirt cheap today.

[Bighunk]

newbie1, thank you!! :2cool:

...almost drowned in confusion over here - first thing tomorrow I'm gettin' me sum o'that dee-dee ram :)


Mobo and RAM first...get a board that supports at least PC2700 (333 MHz) DDR, and pick up a stick of Crucial PC2700, which is dirt cheap today

about how much do each of those things go for in the u.s.? i'm right next door, & it'd bee cool to have an idea of what it goes for before I make yet another mistake in my purchases...

thanks everybody!

PS: If someone followed the other post I have going on about my sister's tampered hp, I think I found what's wrong with it...

[kieofwoo]

I like GTA3 as well :)

It runs fine on my machine:
Athlon XP 2000
512MB DDR
GeForce3 Ti500

My specs are a notch higher than yours, except for the vid card which I think is probably higher spec than mine (? never been au fait with ATI).
However I have heard of lots of people with your specs running GTA3 without probs (well with DDR not SD), so perservere, easy days cruising in liberty city could be just around the corner