C.A.R25
Genjuro's Frog
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2004
- Posts
- 1,136
I purchased a Battlefield 1942 collection set (original 1942, road to rome 1942, experimental weapons 1942, and battlefield Nam)... I plan on building a powerful PC for both gaming and occational CAD use (for educational and hobby uses, not commertial etc). The last time I had built a gaming machine was 6 years ago (back in the days of UT when 128MB was "lots" of memory.) The computer used today has not been cutting it, the e-machines T2460 (1.7Mhz Athlon XP, 256MB DDR (200 or lower I think), 32MB Savage S3 Savage Pro DDR intigrated graphics, intigrated sound, XP home edition). Using this has been fustrating due to its reliability isssues (2nd machine sent from e-machines now!) and SLOW performance... it can't even make battlefield 1942 playable unless I:
1. Turn EVERY setting to LOW.. this only gets me about 15-20fps MAX with low quality sound on.
2. Turn of sound to gain more FPS (about 5fps more)
3. Turn of virtually all background programs using windows task manager.
And I updated direct X to 9.0b, the HD is not fragmented, all bioses are fine etc.
Now it's "playable" but I hardly get kills due no sound, shit visuals etc and if I put on sound or increase visuals a small bit, the game moves so slow, that it makes me sick (yes, sick... my head hurts and I feel motion sick... NEVER had that happened to me because all my other games like DoD (HL1) runs MUCH smoother.... I guess the choppyness messes with my head.)
So this summer I will build a computer purely for playing war FPS like Battlefield 2, Nam and 1942. What video card is recommended for SLI mode? I won't be playing on HD-TV or anything but I wish to get a 21"-24" flat screen CRT monitor (NO LCD because of super cheap CRT prices now, why get a 19" LCD when you can get a brand name CRT 21" for more with more res?
)
One question though:
How important is more video memory in games like BF2? I know "more is better" but what if you had dual 512MB cards vs dual 256MB ones... will the performance increase be significant at max settings on max resolution with max graphical settings on a quality large screen CRT?
When thinking about a performance to price ratio... what is recommended for today's graphical intensive games? Also, how well do you think they can hold their own in the next generation games?
The mobo I plan to get is the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI X16. Link shown below for specs...
Mobo stat information:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128318
It does Dual SLI in x16 and it can hold a max of 4 PCIe cards, where the other 2 cards can be uses for something else other than gaming (Such as a professional video card designed for CAD, CAE, scientific imaging etc)
The reviews of this product are impressive and they say it's easy to overclock etc.
With this Mobo, my wish to to get:
a. 2 SLI capable video cards 256MB DDR3 min for each.
b. 1 inexpensive workstation video card designed for running CAD software (for example, the ATI Fire GL line, or PNY Quadro FX line... starting models go for around ~$150 for 64-128MB, thus I can run Solid Edge, Inventor 10 etc without the performance decrease of using a commertial card made for video games. The last PCIe slot will be left optional.
c. 2GB DDR2 667 min. The mobo can hold 4GB max
d. Software overclocking to get a min of 4Ghz from a Pentium D 940 (and 1066Mhz min FSB).
e. HD space not very important to me, I guess I would not need more than 100GB, since only a small selection of programs will run ... but I want pure speed. The ONLY games I will run are war simulation FPS like the following: BF2, BF Nam, BF2, Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (That's a UT2004 mod), DoD and CS source.
Other software for the purpose of learning CAD for my own private hobby projects: Auto CAD 2004, Inventor 10, and Solid Edge v17 are the main programs.
Visuals: Plan on future dual CRT set up (21" min and the other will be no more than 17") for CAD use using the mobo's 3rd PCIe slot with workstation video card.
The larger monitor will be a dedicated to pure gaming with the dual SLI PCIe x16 setting from the other 2 PCIe slots.
f. Quality dedicated sound card, don't wana spend more than $100 on this though.
Will be doing some research on overclocking now, I never tryed it before but it looks interesting... I want to squeeze the juicy performance out of my machine!
1. Turn EVERY setting to LOW.. this only gets me about 15-20fps MAX with low quality sound on.
2. Turn of sound to gain more FPS (about 5fps more)
3. Turn of virtually all background programs using windows task manager.
And I updated direct X to 9.0b, the HD is not fragmented, all bioses are fine etc.
Now it's "playable" but I hardly get kills due no sound, shit visuals etc and if I put on sound or increase visuals a small bit, the game moves so slow, that it makes me sick (yes, sick... my head hurts and I feel motion sick... NEVER had that happened to me because all my other games like DoD (HL1) runs MUCH smoother.... I guess the choppyness messes with my head.)
So this summer I will build a computer purely for playing war FPS like Battlefield 2, Nam and 1942. What video card is recommended for SLI mode? I won't be playing on HD-TV or anything but I wish to get a 21"-24" flat screen CRT monitor (NO LCD because of super cheap CRT prices now, why get a 19" LCD when you can get a brand name CRT 21" for more with more res?
)One question though:
How important is more video memory in games like BF2? I know "more is better" but what if you had dual 512MB cards vs dual 256MB ones... will the performance increase be significant at max settings on max resolution with max graphical settings on a quality large screen CRT?
When thinking about a performance to price ratio... what is recommended for today's graphical intensive games? Also, how well do you think they can hold their own in the next generation games?
The mobo I plan to get is the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI X16. Link shown below for specs...
Mobo stat information:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128318
It does Dual SLI in x16 and it can hold a max of 4 PCIe cards, where the other 2 cards can be uses for something else other than gaming (Such as a professional video card designed for CAD, CAE, scientific imaging etc)
The reviews of this product are impressive and they say it's easy to overclock etc.
With this Mobo, my wish to to get:
a. 2 SLI capable video cards 256MB DDR3 min for each.
b. 1 inexpensive workstation video card designed for running CAD software (for example, the ATI Fire GL line, or PNY Quadro FX line... starting models go for around ~$150 for 64-128MB, thus I can run Solid Edge, Inventor 10 etc without the performance decrease of using a commertial card made for video games. The last PCIe slot will be left optional.
c. 2GB DDR2 667 min. The mobo can hold 4GB max
d. Software overclocking to get a min of 4Ghz from a Pentium D 940 (and 1066Mhz min FSB).
e. HD space not very important to me, I guess I would not need more than 100GB, since only a small selection of programs will run ... but I want pure speed. The ONLY games I will run are war simulation FPS like the following: BF2, BF Nam, BF2, Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (That's a UT2004 mod), DoD and CS source.
Other software for the purpose of learning CAD for my own private hobby projects: Auto CAD 2004, Inventor 10, and Solid Edge v17 are the main programs.
Visuals: Plan on future dual CRT set up (21" min and the other will be no more than 17") for CAD use using the mobo's 3rd PCIe slot with workstation video card.
The larger monitor will be a dedicated to pure gaming with the dual SLI PCIe x16 setting from the other 2 PCIe slots.
f. Quality dedicated sound card, don't wana spend more than $100 on this though.
Will be doing some research on overclocking now, I never tryed it before but it looks interesting... I want to squeeze the juicy performance out of my machine!
