Upgrading a spare machine to play TDM in case primary one fails.

[lost_soul]

Right, I have a good laptop with 4 gigs of ram and a Geforce 9800 that plays TDM great, but...

 

I also have two other old desktops and I want to turn one of them into a spare TDM machine. The specs are:

 

P4 3.0 GHz with HT

1 GB memory

160 GB HDD

Geforce 6200 (ouch!)

200 watt power supply (ouch)

 

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.2 GHz)

1 GB memory

160 GB HDD at 5400 RPM (ouch)

Geforce 7600GS (not complete garbage)

400 watt power supply

 

Which system should be upgraded with what? They both use DDR memory, which is extremely expensive, and both only have AGP. My first instinct is to throw a $45 hard drive that is SATA and 7200 RPM in the AMD machine. It would increase system speed, and I could pull the HDD out and use it somewhere else if I want.

Edited July 17, 2010 by lost_soul

[Baddcog]

I'd probably go with the athlon machine too, how fast is the hd in the p4 machine, maybe just swap it out if it's faster.

 

You could probably have a decent machine with no money spent that way. Might have to run on lower settings than you're used to but hey, it's free and ready.

[Berny]

I think at least +1gig of ram would boost your system the most!

 

A faster hard drive is not that important

 

2 or 4 gigs of ram and maybe a used Radeon HD 3000 or / 4000 AGP - a better processor would also be fine - which Socket do you have? 754 or 939

 

 

Edited July 17, 2010 by Berny

[lost_soul]

Unfortunately it is socket 754. That means the fastest chip available is the Athlon 64 3700+

 

I do also have two extra video cards here: A Radeon 1600xt and a Radeon HD2600xt. The HD2600xt appears to be dead though, because when I installed it I got no picture or beeps.

Edited July 18, 2010 by lost_soul

[Bikerdude]

Hi LS

 

Is that LS from the ttlg forums and the same LS that came to my party..? if so why didn't you pm or email me, you know Im good with this stuff.

 

Anyway the X1600XT is the fastest card you have there, so put that in the athlon system (replacing the 7600gs) and I would upgrade the ram in that system to atleast 2gb.

 

[update]re: the gfx cards, whats the exact makes and models, as it may come down to clocks speeds as to which is the fastest.

Edited July 18, 2010 by Bikerdude

[lost_soul]

Well, I found this: a 1 GB memory module for $30 that should work in the old machine. I played TDM on it last night, and it is pretty slow. It displays all the symptoms of not having enough memory, including taking 10+ seconds to go to the desktop when you quit the game. Perhaps I should just order this.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Technologies-Desktop-KVR400-1GR/dp/B0006ITYJ4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1279476230&sr=8-4

 

Don't know how bright it is to buy used memory.

[Berny]

I think the best thing you could do is buy a new cheap am2 system, mainboard, grafic card, cpu and memory.. so you spent about 400 dollar but you'll get a machine which will be more the 3 times faster than your current machine (when you spent about 200 dollars for upgrades)

 

but for this you'll have to ask in an hardware forum.. i build my system on my own,.. with a bit professional help it's manageable

 

 

[lost_soul]

http://www.techspot.com/review/14-visiontek-radeon-x1600xt-agp/page6.html

 

Interesting... Radeon 1600xt vs 7600GS.

 

@bikerdude: There are 2 "lost souls" at TTLG. I am lost_soul, not lost soul. Both cards are 512 MB, but I think the x1600xt is 800 mhz, while the 7600gs is only 400 mhz. The main reason I've been using the 7600gs is because of the superior Linux support. Perhaps I should give the x1600xt another chance though.

[Bikerdude]

ah linux, yes nvidia does have a track record for working better on that os. but that said Ati should be good enough theses days.. Also buying used memory is ok in my book as long as it comes with some kind of warranty - so if it becomes faulty you can get it replaced or refunded etc.

[lost_soul]

I've done a bit more research. Both systems have 800 MHz FSB speeds. The one with the crappy geforce6200 has faster RAM though (400 MHz). I think the RAM in the AMD system with the X1600XT is only 333 MHz (if that). It was very old RAM from early 2002. So, if I take the RAM from the gf6200 machine and put it in the X1600 machine, will I get higher FPS in The Dark Mod? I'm sure load times would be faster, but will the FPS? Thanks.

 

Here are the two systems.

 

X1600XT (AMD system) http://www.superware...d/K8N/ps/440624

Pentium 4 3.0 GHz (gf6200 system) http://reviews.cnet....7-30904887.html

 

Apparently the P4 has 1 MB cache, where the Athlon 64 3200+ only has 512 KB. I bet the P4 is faster.

Edited July 22, 2010 by lost_soul

[Tels]

http://www.techspot.com/review/14-visiontek-radeon-x1600xt-agp/page6.html

 

Interesting... Radeon 1600xt vs 7600GS.

 

@bikerdude: There are 2 "lost souls" at TTLG. I am lost_soul, not lost soul. Both cards are 512 MB, but I think the x1600xt is 800 mhz, while the 7600gs is only 400 mhz. The main reason I've been using the 7600gs is because of the superior Linux support. Perhaps I should give the x1600xt another chance though.

 

Believe me, if you replace the 7600gs (I had one, too) with a 8x00 nvidia or current one (midrange, doesnt even have to be the highrange), you will see double or triple framerates. The memory speed of the main system (400 Mhz vs 333Mhz) and the cache size (1 Mb vs 512 Kbyte) don't matter, in your system the graphic card is the trouble. Only with a much faster card the CPU will become the bottleneck.

 

Edit: I don't know how strapped for money you are, but in Germany you can buy PCs for about 300.400 € and they mop the floor with whatever junk hardware you have now So better not spent 200 € on upgrading it, only to end up with something like only 50% faster.