ok ok ok, as if my tinkering with my system...

[legoalex2000]

...wasn't enough, i've been pondering about my system.

here's the specs since i deleted them from my sig, yet they are still seen here in this forum. just a refresher

AMD athlon 64 +3200 venice
Gigabyte K8NF9 (rev. 1)
1gb patriot DDR
70gb IDE (i've now started saving for a maxtor 250gb SATA150)
ATI Radeon X1300 512mb.
windows XP x64 (just installed)

now quality is great on flight sim (and im glad it's runnin, i didn't even Have to reinstall!)but performance is lacking. settings are nearly* maxed, and performance has taken it's toll.

which item is worth upgrading to boost performance, espically when vista and FSX come in (other than ram)?

[Ivan]

What item is worth upgrading...

For vista get the largest DIMM your board can handle and fill it to the max. Only WinXP32 won't like it...

[ctjoyce]

The processer by far. Everything else will do ya just fine, but a 4000+ San Deago or 3800+ San Deago would do wonders for your entire system.

Cheers
Cameron

[GeForce]

... a 4000+ San Deago or 3800+ San Deago would do wonders for your entire system.

I think you may mean the 3700 San Diego, not 3800. I'm pretty sure the 3800 is built on the Venice core (512k L2 cache).

Jon

[kipman725]

Ignore CPU recomendations your cpu is quite fast! and is still current generation hardware.

whats giving you poor fs performance is your weak x1300 graphics card upgrade this, even to a 256mb card as 512mb of ram on such a slow card is stupidity the card will never ever use that memory as it will never ever run the detial settings that use it at an acceptable fps, it may even be slower than a 256mb x1300 in certian senarios due to greater memory latancey.

This is also important for vista as it's interface makes exstensive use of the 3d card.

[Weather_Man]

The graphics card is the only thing that needs immediate attention. X1300 is not a gamer card and doesn't even pretend to be. Look for a X800, X1800 series, at least, to enable better graphics.

[legoalex2000]

The graphics card is the only thing that needs immediate attention. X1300 is not a gamer card and doesn't even pretend to be. Look for a X800, X1800 series, at least, to enable better graphics.

hush you, i just bought that. and im happy for the mean time, a new gaphics can come later.

as for everyone else, thanks, i might upgrade since my board has the capabilities for a 64fx or an x2.

ramos

[ctjoyce]

As both of you are right (with the exception of Kipman's RAM comment) he just bought his X1300 so I dont see him upgradeing that anytime soon. I have already had this conversation with him via IM. So look twards the rest of the system. A newer processer isn't just about the higher clock, its about the L2 Cache. And you would be amazed about how much going from 512KB to 1MB can make a difference.

Cheers
Cameron

[kipman725]

As both of you are right (with the exception of Kipman's RAM comment) he just bought his X1300 so I dont see him upgradeing that anytime soon. I have already had this conversation with him via IM. So look twards the rest of the system. A newer processer isn't just about the higher clock, its about the L2 Cache. And you would be amazed about how much going from 512KB to 1MB can make a difference.

Cheers
Cameron

Kipman backs up his point about identical cards with more memory sometimes been slower:
http://techreport.com/etc/2002q3/graphi ... dex.x?pg=6
top graph on that page, the results are avraged so that isn't a one off.
I know it's not a big difference but it does happen and to rubbish someones comment before looking such things up yourself isn't nice.

[ctjoyce]

What you fail to understand is how the X1K core was developed. It uses only the RAM it needs, so you dont get lag when you play games. And when you go to do 3D rendering or movie watching you get your other 256MB back.

Basically yes it has extra RAM, but its not hindering the card. And as all the X1K series of cards were built on the X1K core, a simple BIOS flash would turn his card into a X1800XT, so he has absolutely no reason to buy a new card, just a new heatsink for the current one.

Cheers
Cameron

[legoalex2000]

Basically yes it has extra RAM, but its not hindering the card. And as all the X1K series of cards were built on the X1K core, a simple BIOS flash would turn his card into a X1800XT, so he has absolutely no reason to buy a new card, just a new heatsink for the current one.

Cheers
Cameron

sounds good to me!

Ramos

[Weather_Man]

a simple BIOS flash would turn his card into a X1800XT, so he has absolutely no reason to buy a new card, just a new heatsink for the current one.

I would really like to see that. RV515 and R520 are not the same core. Besides the R520 having 3x the number of transistors, even if X1300 did have 12 additional pipelines on the card, currently disabled, there's no guarantee they all work. That's usually why the core gets tossed to the low-end bin.

[kipman725]

lol x1300 to x1800... not posible the best that you can manage for free speed boosts is the radeon 9550 to 9700pro the x1300 is a compleatly different card to the x1800.

[ctjoyce]

I retract my previous statement about the BIOS flash (was looking in the wrong colum of information and saw series, not core).

However I stand by the rest.

Cheers
Cameron