Buying New Pc!

[Macsen]

I'm buying a new PC so that I can play Dark Mod FMs forever more. I'll never need to upgrade again!* :lol:

 

I'm a retard when it comes to PC bits and bobs. Any advice on what runs the Doom 3 engine at its best?

 

*Until Dark Mod II on the Quake VIII engine...

[god_is_my_goldfish]

If i were you i'de put together one from parts, but i don't know if you have that know-how.

 

And if i were to do that i'de wait till the next generation of graphics cards are released in a few months time, so i could either get one of those, or pick up a current top-of-the-line card for less. (mind you, that is what i'm planning to do)

 

Of the current hardware out there, the nvidia 6800's in thier various forms are the best for Doom 3, especially if you have SLI going on.

[Macsen]

Thanks. I can't wait because I've promised to give my current PC to my younger brother in two weeks time. I don't know how to build a PC, but my older brother does, and has promised to do so. I just need to work out what I want and fork out for parts.

[BlackThief]

depends on your budget but in general you can say that D3 runs better on nvidia cards: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/doom3_perf/page5.asp

 

I've got a GeForce6800 and I'm quite happy with it - only problem is the temperature - they can get really hot!

 

I also heard that D3 does/will (?) make full use of 64bit-processors, but I'm not sure on that one and whether you'll have to wait for a 64bit Windows to make use of it or not.

 

that's why I put together this system last year:

Asus A8V deluxe

AMD 64 3500+

Leadtek GeForce 6800

1024 mb kingston ram (512x2 dualchannel)

160gb hitachi-ibm HDD

 

I think it's still a quite powerfull system and I can play any current game in highest detail (except D3 ultra-quality because I haven't got a 512mb gfx-card^^)

[Springheel]

Stay away from Radeon 9800 cards. They are notoriously bad for playing D3--lots of heating issues.

[Ishtvan]

I have a R9800 and it hasn't overheated on me yet... I have a fair number of fans in my case tho

 

I didn't even know this was an issue

Edited April 10, 2005 by Ishtvan

[Springheel]

There are huge threads about it on various D3 boards. Lots of people with 9800s (including me) got all kinds of artefacts and snow when running D3 until underclocking the card or blasting it with more fans.

[Ishtvan]

I had to turn Vsync on or there was bad tearing, but other than that didn't notice these problems... then I again I don't play D3 all that much. Does it matter if it's the 256 version or the 128 version?

[Springheel]

I don't know. I have the 128 version, but loads of people were having that problem. Do a search for D3 and snow.

[Vadrosaul]

I have a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB, and experienced the same bad tearing, but instead of turning on Vsync which kills framerate, I just entered into the autoexec.cfg seta r_displayrefresh "85" and the tearing dissapeared.

 

Didn't have any overheating problems, and I just have once case fan.

[Springheel]

Weird. There was lots of debate over whether it was overheating or some other problem, but I know underclocking and pointing an external fan at my case solved the problem for me.

[Fingernail]

I have had no problems whatsoever with my Radeon 9800 128Mb AIW Pro...dunno.

[Demigod]

I had no problems with my 9800 either, apart from the drivers, to be honest but they aren’t the best cards for doom3.

 

The newer brand of ati card the x800's are faster at shader model 2.0, than the current nvidia cards but not by much. The opposite is the case with opengl shaders as nvidia has allot better opengl support. Nvidia also offers hardware shadow support which is or isn’t used much depending on who you talk to but there is defiantly less of a performance hit on nvidia cards when any type of shadow is in play than on ati cards. The heat thing with the 6800 isn’t a problem I’ve stressed one past 90c and it shuts down, came back up fine. Normal temps very between 50c and 80c.

 

The newest and most expensive graphics card available is the ati x850 pe xt (the names are getting silly) But again a 6800gt can beat this in doom3. Also keep in mind that nvidia cards are a hell of a lot faster in cad and 3d apps.

 

If you use Linux at all forget ati cards. They have just about got the installation issues done on the drivers, but to give an example, my old ti4600 gets more than twice the fps than my 9800 does in some of the 3d apps and games

 

CPu wise. Intel have just launched a dual core cpu which should be in shops in about a month. This currently has much better support for multithreaded apps, light wave etc. but its single thread and 64bit performance is still slower than the comparable a64 chip.

 

A normal single core Intel chip has better multitasking support, thanks to hyper threading (emulates two cores) this is not available in all of the new dual core chips, only in the extreme edition chips in fact which cost an arm and a leg.

The a64 are much better gaming chips and no slouch in anything else tbh. Their dual core isn’t due out for a couple of months.

 

Best set-up I would recommend (bearing in mind I hate ati drivers)

 

a64 3200 or better (Winchester or better Venice core if you can get it as they just came out. the normal heat sink and fan is fine if you don’t over clock madly)

 

6800gt pci express

 

MSI K8N Diamond SLI ATX AMD S-939 pci-e

 

1 or 2 gig of ram pc3200 or better

 

audigy 2zs or audigy 4 (internal sound is ok but takes more cpu time than a dedicated sound card)

 

120bg or 250 gb Seagate HD (sata or ide. Ide is easier to setup)

Edited April 10, 2005 by Demigod

[Fingernail]

Yes, allow me to also highly recommend an Athlon 64 chip. I got a 3000+ last summer and it continues to be great - hopefully well into next year, and when things actually start being 64 bit... (windows XP 64 went gold recently)

[BlackThief]

(windows XP 64 went gold recently)

really? that's great news, but will it be a complete new OS or will it be possible to upgrade Windows XP to Windows XP 64bit?

 

BTW another advantage of AMD 64 CPUs is the "cool & quiet" feature - it works really fine with my 3500+. When I'm only surfing through the net or working in PS you can hardly hear the CPU-fan!

[Domarius]

If I were you I would NOT put together one from parts. Me and my 2 brothers all did that, and our computers all have their own wierd quirks. If you think about it, you're creating a particular configuration that's NEVER been tested in the real world before, so no one knows what's going to happen, and when you tell the PC technicians "I always get this slow bit when I do this" they're going to charge you an arm and a leg to diagnose it.

 

I'm inclined to buy one of these pre-built ones from Dell. You pay a bit more, but they built every machine themselves and know all the ins and outs, so the warranty is really good.

Any problems they'd have would have to be discovered because people would complain about them and they'd fix it and all future versions would have that fix.

[Fingernail]

Windows XP 64 is atm only Professional ... I have Home.

[Demigod]

If I were you I would NOT put together one from parts. 

 

I'm inclined to buy one of these pre-built ones from Dell.  You pay a bit more, but they built every machine themselves and know all the ins and outs, so the warranty is really good.

Any problems they'd have would have to be discovered because people would complain about them and they'd fix it and all future versions would have that fix.

I have only once bought a prebuilt and it lasted that way for about a month.

Since then I’ve built about twenty different rigs for people. The trick is to research everything you get, not just reading the reviews but going to the tech forums and checking for the common problems. That and knowing what the post error beeps mean.

 

It is only worth doing if you feel confident in doing it, but stability and speed wise I would put one of my systems up against a comparatively spec'ed dell any day.

Warranty wise you are covered on the parts, and extended warranties on pc's are worthless due to the depreciation (imho)

 

Dell and hp have improved over the last few years on the gaming side of things, but they do use custom cases and components so upgrading can be a nightmare as one of my friends found out.

 

At the end of the day its all down to what your comfortable doing.

 

The above spec I gave should be available from dell in any case

 

 

edit Ive been looking at xp 64. It seems good but is built on the server 2003 kernal so it has some app issues in the beta, hopefuly sorted in the gold release. Im still running win2k so it a couple hundred £ if I decide to get it.

Edited April 10, 2005 by Demigod

[Ishtvan]

A lot of the time the pre-built brands also buy from the lowest bidder, which leads to stuff like HDs dying sooner than they should.

[Macsen]

Thank you all for your help. :lol:

 

I'll pass your advice on to the person who will be building the PC.

[Domarius]

Well in that case Brain, I think I will resort to my plan B, which is to try and stick as close as possible to the parts that the computer store puts in their pre-built system, but go for bigger HDD or whatever you need. Especially for a local computer store, surely they'd have to be pretty sure about what they make their systems out of?

 

Same principal but lower scale, I would think it would be more important to smaller businesses.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Well getting a pre-built system from dell (heck especially from dell) will end up with you being seriously price-gouged. Also, if you want a motherboard that 's stable and fast, go with giga-byte boards. I have used them for 6 years now with only rare very minor problems. Asus and MSI are also supposed to be good, but have some stability problems at times.

Edited April 10, 2005 by god_is_my_goldfish

[Domarius]

Well I'm looking to upgrade sometime, so this thread has been good for me too. Especially the advice about going down the Dell road, and gigabyte motherboards.

[Macsen]

Ta-Da!

 

Doom 3 runs like a penguin sliding over butter.

 

Yes I know my study is a total mess.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Very nice, so what's the specs on it?