[102molson102]

Hello

My upstairs computer has a GA K8NS Pro Gigabyte motherboard.

It also has an AMD 3400+ processor and an ALL in Wonder 9700 Pro video card with 128 MB DDR, AGP 8x/4x

My sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

And I have 1.5 Gigs of Ram

I would like to upgrade the present configuration so that I can play the game FEAR.

The game requires
a Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz processor and
a 256 MB Radeon 9800 Pro or G Force 6600 or Equivalent supported DirectX 9 compliant video card with hardwareT&L and pixel shader 2.0 support and
a Sound Blaster X-Fi series sound card.

Can anyone advise me if I have to change my existing motherboard and if so which motherboard I should get?

Can anyone suggest a "best bang for the buck" configuration that would allow me to play FEAR? I have been happy with AMD and understand it is less expensive than Intel.

Thank you for any advice you may be able to give me.

[Hybr!d]

Cheapest answer is to get a new AGP graphics card.

Your other bits should be fine for that game I think.

Alex would best advise here, he'll probably be along in a bit.

[102molson102]

Thanks Dave

Do you have any ideas on a good video card - not the newest one but one that is 8-12 months old when the price should have dropped?

I will wait for any ideas that Alex may have

BoB

[alex]

Originally Posted by 102molson102

Hello

My upstairs computer has a GA K8NS Pro Gigabyte motherboard.

It also has an AMD 3400+ processor and an ALL in Wonder 9700 Pro video card with 128 MB DDR, AGP 8x/4x

My sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

And I have 1.5 Gigs of Ram

I would like to upgrade the present configuration so that I can play the game FEAR.

The game requires
a Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz processor and
a 256 MB Radeon 9800 Pro or G Force 6600 or Equivalent supported DirectX 9 compliant video card with hardwareT&L and pixel shader 2.0 support and
a Sound Blaster X-Fi series sound card.

Can anyone advise me if I have to change my existing motherboard and if so which motherboard I should get?

Can anyone suggest a "best bang for the buck" configuration that would allow me to play FEAR? I have been happy with AMD and understand it is less expensive than Intel.

Thank you for any advice you may be able to give me.

Hi Molson.

Your motherboard will only accept the older socket 754 pin AMD chips, DDR memory and AGP graphics cards, so to change the motherboard out will also mean losing your ram, cpu and gpu.

You'll also more than likely need a new windows license, as in purchasing a new disc.

All told if you go this route you'll be better off purchasing a new system.

The only other alternative is, like Dave suggests, to purchase a new AGP gpu. For this I would recommend the X800XT (if you can get hold of one), but as fear needs a gpu that supports shader model 3.0 for full detail, and I believe the X800 only supports shader 2.0,(It does suppor the Transform and Lighting though), you'll lose some details choices which is a shame considering how good fear can look. But on the upside its not a bad deal because your cpu (1.8ghz I believe) will create a bit of a bottleneck anyway.

Don't worry about the speed of your cpu in comparison to the game's requirement for a 3Ghz Pentium as you've stated above, because P4's were lousy for gaming. Your cpu will be just as, if not more, powerful for gaming than the P4 quoted on the game box.

Apologies i cant give you a more positive answer.

[102molson102]

Thank you very much for a very informative reply Alex.

Seems like my best bang for the buck is to get a new AGP gpu (X800XT).

Thanks again

[102molson102]

Hello again Alex

My downstairs computer has a Pentium 4 2.6 Ghz processor and an All in Wonder 9600 Pro video card with 128 MB DDR, AGP 8x/4x

My sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

The motherboard is an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard with an Intel 865PE Chipset, Intel SATA with RAID, FSB800 MHz, Dual DDR 400.

Again my goal is to also play FEAR on this computer.

Can you please advise my "best bang for the buck" configuration?

Is the only thing I need a new video card? If so which card would you recommend?

Thanks

BoB

[alex]

Originally Posted by 102molson102

Hello again Alex

My downstairs computer has a Pentium 4 2.6 Ghz processor and an All in Wonder 9600 Pro video card with 128 MB DDR, AGP 8x/4x

My sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

The motherboard is an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard with an Intel 865PE Chipset, Intel SATA with RAID, FSB800 MHz, Dual DDR 400.

Again my goal is to also play FEAR on this computer.

Can you please advise my "best bang for the buck" configuration?

Is the only thing I need a new video card? If so which card would you recommend?

Thanks

BoB

The answers pretty much the same as your first post Bob, as this mobo takes the old socket 478 P4's.

Except in this case as well as getting a more powerful gpu, i'd also recommend getting rid of your current cpu and purchasing a socket 478 P4 3ghz for a bit of extra performance. Your current cpu has the Northwood core with a 533mhz front side bus, the 3ghz i've mentioned is the Prescott core with a 800mhz fsb, which your motherboard supports. These cpu's are dirt cheap now.

But as mentioned previously, you'll still see a bottleneck as P4's aren't known for their gaming prowess regardless of their ghz rating.

Something i didn't mention on my original post. X800's, new, cost a bloomin' fortune, so i'd go for a second hand one if you can get it, maybe have a look on Ebay.

[102molson102]

I forgot to mention that my downstairs computer has 1 Gig of DDR SD Ram.

[alex]

Originally Posted by 102molson102

I forgot to mention that my downstairs computer has 1 Gig of DDR SD Ram.

It's ok fella, I kinda guessed you'd have a gig of ram, and you quoted DDR in your original post re this pc.

The answers still the same unfortunately.

Might be 'new system' time.

Again, apologies for the less than helpful answers.

[102molson102]

Thank you very much Alex

It seems to me that it would be much less expensive to upgrade my 2 video cards and to upgrade the CPU in my downstairs computer than to get "new systems".

Do you have an opinion on that Alex?

Thanks so much for your thoughts and speedy responses.

BoB