Aja on 24/3/2006 at 04:21
Renz is right about widescreen - the game is clearly meant for it, so if you have a large CRT, I'd second his suggestion.
I won't be playing it for a while though. I have to finish Morrowind first, and I'd like to upgrade the computer. I can tell the battles are cool but they're too jerky to really enjoy.
Renzatic on 24/3/2006 at 04:53
Quote Posted by godismygoldfish
Renz, does the game support 1280x800 resolution?
Yup, it does.
io organic industrialism on 24/3/2006 at 05:20
OK, i turned shadows all the way down, turned off grass rendering... now framerate is playable, but i haven't really gotten to any scenes with lots of monsters yet ..............
i also realized that 1st person camera is WAY better than 3rd .... guess i will have to deal with it :cheeky:
Renzatic on 24/3/2006 at 05:51
I have no idea how you're getting crappy framerates on your comp. A 7800GS and an XP 3000+ should give you more than a smooth framerate in high settings. Either you're really picky and don't consider 30 FPS or slightly below a playable framerate, or something is severely screwed.
Oh, and for all you people that, like me, don't want to spend the cash on a new PCI-e mobo and a new graphics card all in one go, I've found an excellent stopgap solution. I've never heard of the company that produces and boxes the mobos, nor have I heard of the manufacturer, but after digging up a few reviews it seems like it's almost too good to be true.
It's an Asrock ULi m1695, an AGP/PCI-e combo board. Normally I'd avoid these like the plague since they're usually complete crap. But apparently this one actually has full featured AGP support, along with supporting PCI-e 16x SLI without any problems whatsoever. What's even more surprising is it's performance is easily comparable to an Nforce4, actually ranking higher than most brandname boards that use that particular chipset. AND it's only $60, so it's practically a steal at that price.
Because of this find, I've already started the whole upgrade process. If it turns out Anandtech and the other tech sites lied to me, I'll just switch my mobo to a better known chipset when I finally upgrade to a full fledged PCI-e 7800GTX. But at the price I figured it'd be worth the risk.
The only problem is it's hard to find. But if you can grab it now, it'd be a steal for people that want to open up their options but don't want to get rid of their AGP card just yet.
RyushiBlade on 24/3/2006 at 07:47
I've been looking for a mobo like this for ages! I could only find the aforementioned crappy types, with sub-par AGP and PCI-E slots. I owe you one, Renzatic :)
I'll buy one as soon as I get back from Spring Break! My only concern is that it uses AMD processors. I've been an Intel guy since I was nine and, to be honest, I don't understand the AMD processors at all. They seem to be slower (less gigahertz) and more expensive, but I'm sure this isn't the case.
I have a P4 3.4GHz processor right now. Is there an AMD equivalent, performance wise?
scumble on 24/3/2006 at 09:39
The processor speed doesn't really tell you how much work a processor is going to get through. Pentium chips have very long pipelines partly so they can run at a higher clock speed (to fool people like you into thinking they are "better" ;)). AMD chips don't have long pipelines but they can process as much at a lower clock speed, and fool . It's the same with other chips based on a RISC design, like G4 and G5. Shorter pipelines that get through more work in less clock cycles.
Hopefully that makes some sort of sense...
If you want more detail, I learnt about all that from (
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/p4andg4e.ars) this article on arstechnica.com - a comparison of the Pentium 4 and PowerPC G4e
Renzatic on 24/3/2006 at 09:48
Yeah, the whole AMD rating thing does get a little confusing...and it's started getting kind of obnoxious recently, too.
for the straight up XP/64 chips you can take the rating about on face value. An Athlon 64 3400+ is gonna be roughly equivalent to a P4 3.4Ghz. It might be a little better, might be a little worse, but ultimately it's gonna be in the same performance bracket.
Thing is you already have a nigh on top of the line processor, I'd say it'd be better just to upgrade your mobo and graphics card at the same time. If you switch to AMD you might have to get new ram (if you're using DDR2 anyway) along with the new processor and motherboard. In the end it probably cost you more to swap platforms just so you can upgrade your card later than it would if you just do a mobo & graphics card upgrade with your current system.
RyushiBlade on 24/3/2006 at 10:09
I have an IDE PCI Card, which would allow me to hook up all my peripherals without needing to go to SATA straight away. I'd forgotten completely about memory, but I'm fairly surprised to find the memory I have fits in that board. Upgrading should, if I have it right, only cost me around $250, including a cooling fan/heatsink for the processor.
My worry is that as the market changes over from AGP to PCI-E, these dual boards will become scarce. I'll be going into college soon, and even for a few years afterwards I doubt I could plop down more than $1000 at once, just on a beastly machine.
So - considering I can upgrade it at my leisure for the next five or ten six years - do you think I should do it?
Oh, and thank you both. If it makes either of you feel better, my laptop has an AMD processor (but my other three desktops have Intel *coughs*)
Renzatic on 24/3/2006 at 10:22
Because of the processor, you're gonna be spending an extra $120 that you wouldn't have to if you upgraded your current system. But it will give you alot of extra breathing room and you can upgrade to an FX or a dual core Athlon along with a PCI-e card. It's your call, man.
And about that IDE PCI card. Are they pretty good performancewise? I have 2 IDE drives, an ATA133 and a 66, and it'd save me a load of cash if I didn't have to buy a SATA drive right away...if you've had good experiences with them I might go that route instead of upgrading.
RyushiBlade on 24/3/2006 at 10:27
I got an extremely cheap one (I think it was around $15?) which added two new IDE ports, or support for four peripherals. I've never had a problem with it at all, except that it adds about four minutes onto your boot time. That's no exaggeration, either.
I've honestly never connected a hard drive to it, but you should be fine, especially considering the performance I get out of such a cheap card. You can get some which have four ports on. That's eight IDE devices :o
