Better Proc Or Graphics Card?

Crisqo

Ok, I have money to upgrade something on my computer, it can be a geforce fx 5600 (256 mb version) or a better proc (by about 500 mhz). I don't know which one will give me the highest fps on higher detail settings. For refrence I have a 1 gig amd athlon proc and a geforce 4 mx 440.

Night_Shade

Unless you're doing uber physics calculations (hl2 anyone?) the better card will in theory boost performance more than the processor will.

Having said that, its fairly dependent on your current config.

BigMadSteve

I'd recommend a graphics card for gaming. It can make a much larger difference than a CPU unless the CPU is a lot faster.

Jabba_The_Hunt

yep, graphics card, although as night shade said you will probably have great graphics in hl2 but physics settings on low.

pielemuis

The graphics card will give you a nice performance boost (eventhough HL is rather CPU limited). The cheapest way to upgrade would be getting more RAM. More RAM can give you a huge performance boost.

Thansal

what pie said

what is your RAM? is it ddr? how much you got?

you already have a 1+gig cpu and a GeForce4, so whats your RAM?

Jabba_The_Hunt

The only real difference I find with extra ram is in loading times, there again I've never played half life with less than 256 <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->.

Crisqo

I have 384 mb of sdr ram, but I don't think ram will help me too much?

And what does proc speed have to do with physics? Isn't that just the game where it says "Ok, you shot a plank of wood, now I just have to play wood1.wav and have it fall over the in the direction it got shot."

Thansal

that will do it <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->

however If he wants all around increase in comp usage I really would sugest going with an upgrade around 512 DDR (this will really perk up any system <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->, well not those already running this or better <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->)

Confused

bang for your buck you can buya nice, not great, ati vcard and a cheap athlon chip. for no $$$

using prices from at current time (includes shipping to us adresses)
www.pricewatch.com
$88 - Pentium 4 1.5GHz
$51 - Athlon XP 1500 or $73 - Athlon XP 2400
$64 - RADEON 8500
vs
$148 GeForce FX 5600 256MB or

for this kind money cou could even go teh route of a new mother board as well for teh same ammount of money.

im running ns at a constant 99* my 8500 ( any frame loss is dsl realted instead of video card)

excepting 32 person severs but that.. yeah

littlewild

Graphics Card.

fat_al

Go with the 5600. I have that exact card, I run NS at almost 99fps ALWAYS.
Good luck. <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo-->

Crisqo

Is that a vanilla 5600 or the 5600 ultra?

Dracka

If you want good fps etc in NS, imho buy a better cpu.

Soylent_green

contrary to what seems to be popular belief a geforce 4 mx 440 is really a geforce 2 über ultra, it's not really much like the ti's, it doesn't even support direct x8. If you don't need dx9 a ti4200 is a very nice buy..

As far as I know a new CPU should give you better performance because even my mx440 could run NS in 100 fps at 800*600 únless there where huge turret spam or something, when the processor was no longer a limitation. My p3-600 MHz and mx440 could hardly run the game(it could but well, it was really choppy).

A new graphics card mightgive you the biggest overall boost in most games but I suspect it won't help much in NS.

If you turn off vsync, record a demo and run it as a timedemo at different resolutions you can see when the graphics card becomes the limitation because the CPU usage isn't much affected by resolution but the graphics card is. If the frame rate is constant at different resolutions you will know it's the CPU(at that resolution and framerate) that is your biggest bottle neck.