Upgrade: more ram or better video card???
 

I have 512 ddr ram and GeForce 3 Ti200 card. Would you get 512 more ram or the latest, greatest, video card?? Which would improve gaming more?

A GF3 is a good card, but then again 512 megs are plenty. If you have a AMD XP or a P4 or above then I would go with a new video card, But if you have an older CPU the newer cards are not going to help you at all, You then may want to consider a CPU motherboard upgrade.

Good luck and let us know what you decide and how it helped

What are you suggesting my guys if have a p3 800 381ram tnt32mb

more ram, new videocard (of both)

for quickfist that tnt32mb is your weakest link...

for Meat Grinder 512 meg of ram should be enough for moh, adding more should not make a significant difference... however, your GeForce 3 ti 200 is not outdated yet! upgrading to a geoforce 4 would be expensive and not a huge difference... i would hold off and wait for new video cards to come out...

I'm in agreement with lysis, Get a new video card quickfist.

So, buying more ram won't help much? I have P4 1.8gz processor. And the best Gforce 4 won't improve either?

Right now, a upgrade to a GF4 will not give you earth shattering improvement. You may want to hold off and check out the new, ATI 9500 or 9700 card.

Quick fix needs a new vid card...

Meat should just save his money, any upgrades aren't gonna be worth it...

Of course, that's what everyone else is already telling him, I'm just reitterating what they said!

Hnestly, (and i know people are going to yell at me, but) after a certian point, RAM gets useless. 256MB is plenty, and 512MB is excess. At this point in computer technoligy, most PC's don't need more than 512MB. Basically, it's like fuel in a car; you need a certian amount to keep the car running. You buy a full tank, not just enough to drive, and the only time you really use the extra fuel is when you use that initial fuel the car needs.
The only difference is is that today's PC's don't really use that extra RAM, but for future upgrades, it's always good to have.

I would recommend either a GF4 Ti4600, or a RADEON 9700.

Agree with Joe. Forget about the GeF4 and get a Radeon 9700. With that setup you should be good to go for a while.

Or...save your money and wait. I have a GeF3 200ti 128mb and a radeon 8500 in my rigs, I'd love to have the 9700 but it's not worth it now for me.

Garasaki - I haven't seen you or the 9thGD boys around lately. Been playing?

which videocard is the best?
-gf4 4200 128 ram
-gf4 4400 128 ram
-radeon 8500 128 ram

The GF4 Ti 4400, with the RADEON right behind it, and the 4200 a little bit farther down the line.

ok people listen up. for anyone with a p3 800mhz like one of u said u had. listen to me! i had the same system specs as you.

900mhz celeron (little diff but not really)
382mb sd ram
30 gig hard drive
32mb tnt2 video card.
what i did was simply buy a g-force 4 64mb ddr ram, with dual 350mhz processors. and guess what? my gameing expiereance cant be ANY better. even soldier of fortune 2 works great on EXTRA HIGH textures. and it cant even support extra high textures on my girlfriends p4 1.7 ghz computer with 256mb sd ram and 32mb g-force 2 3d card.

so if anyone wants a good 3d card. buy a g-force 4 mx 440. thats what i have, and god dam, is it awsome! mohaa doesn't have ANY flaws. with this 3d card. i now run mohaa in all high textures. with resolution at 1000sumthing X 700 something. and its smooth as hell. and this includes real dynamic lighting and full entity lighting. EVERYTHING is on high. i strongly recommend this video card. it also has video out, so u can watch it on your tv, or play games on your tv if you buy the s-video cord. and best of all! the card is only 230 bucks. in canada. so cheaper in the u.s.a!

i hope this helps everyone a bit:)

regards: Lt.Col.Racer 7th Ranger Battalion

[quote="Ranger Racer":01294]ok people listen up. for anyone with a p3 800mhz like one of u said u had. listen to me! i had the same system specs as you.

900mhz celeron (little diff but not really)
382mb sd ram
30 gig hard drive
32mb tnt2 video card.
what i did was simply buy a g-force 4 64mb ddr ram, with dual 350mhz processors. and guess what? my gameing expiereance cant be ANY better. even soldier of fortune 2 works great on EXTRA HIGH textures. and it cant even support extra high textures on my girlfriends p4 1.7 ghz computer with 256mb sd ram and 32mb g-force 2 3d card.

so if anyone wants a good 3d card. buy a g-force 4 mx 440. thats what i have, and god dam, is it awsome! mohaa doesn't have ANY flaws. with this 3d card. i now run mohaa in all high textures. with resolution at 1000sumthing X 700 something. and its smooth as hell. and this includes real dynamic lighting and full entity lighting. EVERYTHING is on high. i strongly recommend this video card. it also has video out, so u can watch it on your tv, or play games on your tv if you buy the s-video cord. and best of all! the card is only 230 bucks. in canada. so cheaper in the u.s.a!

i hope this helps everyone a bit:)

regards: Lt.Col.Racer 7th Ranger Battalion[/quote:01294]

Thank you so very much. I bought a Radeon 7000, doesn't fit, so I'm taking it back and I didn't know what to get, I won't have enough for it, but in 2 or 3 weeks I will. But, thanks a lot. Everyone said get the Ti 4400, but I didn't want to waste that much money. I have a P4 1.8GHz, and 512MB SDRAM. I only have an ATI Rage PRO II 16MB, which is really holding me back. Thanks for your advice.

Wait a gosh darn second here, you said it did not fit? was it AGP, or PCI card? Did you try it in the right slot? I am sure I don't have to say this, but you are not going to get an AGP card in a PCI slot without a sledge hammer, and vice versa with a PCI, into an AGP? I might have missed something though. swordfight:

Depending on the AGP voltage. newer AGP cards will not fit into the old type slots.

Ok, here I go:

It's AGP, I have an AGP slot. It fits in fine, BUT, the metal piece that has the plug to hte moniter, extends over my case, so, when I try to close it, I get a problem because it doesn't fit, I don't know if it's because I have a vertical tower or what, but, it's too big. I have a Dell Dimension 4300S, if that helps...it's a stupid vertical tower, I hate them.

I suspect you have me confused with someone else, but yes I have been playing lately. What servers do you usually play on??

DONT GET THE GF4 MX!! Its a terrible gaming card. That dude who recommended it has no idea what he's talking about (no offense intended, its just the truth). If you want a cheap card, get the Radeon 7000 or 7500. The Ti4200 cards are a a great value right now, and they outperform the Radeon 8500, but dont overlook the R8500 as you can get them for less then 90 bucks right now, which is a killer deal. However, they tend to cause headaches and not be quite as compatiable as the GF4 cards (although that happens to a vast MINORITY of people who buy them).

Also, on amounts of RAM necessary, on any system but XP, 256 megs should be the most you ever get. All windows operating systems (except xp) dont use more then that. XP on the other hand, can use an infinite amount of ram, and 256 is about the minimum you should have. 512 is a real good number because once you go past 512, you will hardly ever actually use the extra ram you have on. So i'd say don't buy more ram!

I think my Gforce Ti 200 is only 64 mb of ram. Does 128 help???

I say a video card with more ram will help you. Not sure by how much but id go with a video card that has 128 mb ram.

[quote="=[DOA]=Meat Grinder":446ff]I think my Gforce Ti 200 is only 64 mb of ram. Does 128 help???[/quote:446ff]

Well, that really depends on a lot of things. The short answer is no, not at this point.

The longer answer is that sometimes it actually hurts you. Most manufacturers ship their 128 cards with slower ram and gpu speeds then their 64 meg cards. This means that in games where more then 64 megs of video ram is not useful, the 64 meg cards will perform better then the 128 cards. Right now, there are very few games that can use more then 64 megs of video ram. Games that will come out in the next few years will benefit more from the additional ram. But, they way the graphics card market works, you shouldnt ever buy for future games, because there will be much more improved video cards out by then. So a good strategy is to buy the cheaper cards now, then buy some more cheaper cards later (cheaper then, but better then what is top of the line now...).

And the moral of the story is that you can't judge a graphics card's quality based on the amount of memory it has. There are a lot of other, much more important factors to look at. So don't buy a card JUST because it has 128 megs of ram. If it has 128 megs of ram, AND other good features, then buy it!

Yes I second that point that a GeF4 mx420 is not the card for anyone who games. And yes, the Radeon8500 is a great card and can be bought for under $90. I bought mine for $190 when it came out only 10 months ago!


Garasaki - there is a clan 9th GD and there's a guy there named Garasaki that used to play on Rude's AA.com server from that clan. I thought it was you. I'm pretty sure it was spelled that way.

Also ZRGEN JP - I found this about your dell 4300s at this location:
http://delltalk.us.dell.com/messages/me ... o&id=zxqpp

"Looks like a GeForce4 may not work in the 4300S. The 4300S uses some kind of slimline power supply form factor, so substituting a higher-rated standard ATX supply is not an option?

Any ideas for working around these potential problems? I'd be surprised if Dell shipped 180W power supplies for Pentium4 systems as claimed by Dell online documentation.

= Dell Tech Reply ===

Your system power specification shows that your system support
only 180 W and hence you can not upgrade your video card to NVidia
GEForce 4.

and this:

The card itself won't fit. It just fits in full size cases.

In fact, you will have a hard time finding any video card that is short enough to fit in that slot.

You will notice that Dell didn't give any video card upgrade options for it. Even though that is were they make their profit margin look good.

Oh wow, there's another Garasaki out there...how disturbing...

I'm Garasaki[TRU] on mohaa...

Theres a specific form factor called micro atx which is probably what that dell uses. This is why you build your own computer (or have someone else build it for you) instead of buying from dell...

Not really too much you can do for upgrades if this is the case. You can buy a new case, power supply, and motherboard to accomidate a new vid card, but if you're gonna go thru all that you're probably better off to drop a few extra bucks and just get a whole new computer!

So, what you're saying is...I'M SCREWED? Stuck with a crappy 16MB video card, with no upgrade options? That's bullshit. Excuse my language, but, FUCK DELL! My computer's a piece of shit...I can't do crap with it, only one CD-RW drive, and one HDD. Seriously, Dell can kiss my ass.

Well it's true that Dell does a lot of proprietary things so that you are forced to either upgrade with them or buy another computer for them.

But you're not totally screwed. If you wanted to upgrade, you should be able to get a new motherboard, video card and case.

If you're interested, post another topic and we'll help out. Looks like Garasaki knows what he's talking about as do I when it comes to building. Rude and Hollywood know too. There are a bunch of people here with good knowledge if you want to upgrade.

Nomar, as much as I'd love to build my own computer, my mother, of course, thinks that I'm always wanting the newest and best stuff, well, it's true. But, my computer does suck pretty bad, she still insists that when we got it, I thought it was the best. Ok, when I heard it was a Dell, I didn't know crap, I didn't even know what RAM was, so, I was happy. When we got it, I took one look, figured it was junk. Ever since, I've hated it. I need to "specially order" one from Dell, BS. I guess I'll live with a crappy computer until I get a job, once I'm old enough, and pay for a new one, or just build one. But, thanks for your help. If I had enough money, believe me, I would trust you guys enough to help me out. Though, I don't really know you guys, I believe that you could help me. I only have $55 right now, but I need to return my Radeon 7000 and get my $60 back...so, $115 and in five or six weeks, once I get the rebate from my RAM back, and I send the other one, I'll have about $180-$200. So, maybe then, if I'm still interested, I might think about it. But, I still will have to wait until I'm legally old enough to get a job. (14) Next August, *cough forever cough* I'll be old enough to work at a local Win-Dixie, and make $5.20/hr...hey, beats $10/wk. Thanks for all your help guys.

[quote:94af5]So, what you're saying is...I'M SCREWED? Stuck with a crappy 16MB video card, with no upgrade options? That's bullshit. Excuse my language, but, FUCK DELL! My computer's a piece of shit...I can't do crap with it, only one CD-RW drive, and one HDD. Seriously, Dell can kiss my ass.[/quote:94af5]

I think everyone - who didn't learn about computers from someone else - went this route in the beginning. Letting a big company make their computer for them, and getting stuck with the fall out. Not your fault. Now you know. You know you can always SELL your current computer after getting a barebones one. You could spend less than 250 and get a very nice motherboard, cpu, and case.

I know here we have fries and they have sales on combos all the time. FRY's is perfect for the smart computer shopper.

And where - besides EBAY [thanks but no thanks] can u get a 8500 for less than 90? First vid card I got was a NVIDIA mx/mx 400 64meg. I'd love a 8500.

http://www.newegg.com

Its a killer online computer retailer!!!

I too started out with a dell and knew nothing about computers. Thought the dell was awesome too. When it got outdated, I started researching computer upgrades and what not, and now, a year and a half or so later, I feel pretty confident in my knowledge about computers and what not. It's really not even all that hard, once you stop being itimidated about it.

Exactly. Newegg is the only place to shop for computer parts.

Hey what about putting a PCI card in this thing? Dosent the GF4 MX come in a PCI version? I know it sucks, but it'd probably be an improvement!