I need help upgrading

[Dalamari]

I have a big paperweight right now,

P2 500 MHz, 256 SDRAM, GeForce MX 400 64MB gfx video card, and Cable internet

[Navaron]

A) How much do you want to spend?
B) What can you salvage - how big is your hard drive, do you have an atx case with decent airflow, is your moniter decent?
C) What can you do yourself?

[Dalamari]

Well, I was guessing I would get the things I need for christmas along with PS, so the price limit would have to be 1000, I can do all the installations myself. My monitor and everything else except the tower are in great shape and are practically new. I have a very crappy 4 gig HD

[Nomikahn]

Alright, in order of priority I'm going to put what I would get for PS.

1) A new powersupply (these usually come with a tower, since you said yours was in not so great condition) around 350W +

2) A new mobo, with socket for an AMD, and any AMD Xp above 2000+ runs around the same at the moment for most games IMO.

3) Majority of AMD boards run DDR-RAM, so I would try to get 512mb of Corsair RAM.

4) I would attempt to find a 60gig Western Digital. The reason I say 60, is because all HD's smaller than 60 drop from 8mb cache, to a 2mb cache. While gaming, especially in a game as environmental as PlanetSide, you will want the 8mb.

5) For hundreds of reasons, I believe Nvidia is an unstable product and would get an ATI Radeon 9500 with 128mb Video.

[BLuE_ZeRO]

Well I sort of agree with nomi on some of his ideas but get your system components first.

CPU/Mobo/HD/ram/vid card should be your main priorities.

CPU: Athlon XP 2200-2400 are pretty good values.

Mobo: ASUS A7N8X is a very good board. Runs about $150 but it's well worth it.

HD: Nomi is right, WD is your best choice. The 8mb cache is a great feature and the HD's aren't all that expensive.

Ram: PC2700 or PC3200 are great choices for ram. They are a little more expensive but they are worth it. Corsair is a great type of high performance memory but I don't think it's that neccesary. If you can afford it go ahead but it is quite expensive.

WTF you talking about nvidia being unstable? They have had some of the most stable cards and the most reliable cards for quite some time. Well anyways... You can get a relatively inexpensive vid card from either nvidia or ati. For planetside you can either go with a radeon or a geforece. Suggest either a gf4 ti4200 or 4600. 4200 is actually pretty good and you get decent performance out of it for not that much money. Can't really go wrong with radeons either so whichever you prefer should be fine. I suggest getting a 128mb card if you can afford it.

You can find a case for not that much but you'll have an idea of what you can spend after you get those.

[Dalamari]

Ok, thanks for the help, I have a good idea of what I need now, but are these upgrades to run the game on full? without lag? or is this just enuf to run it on max with lag

[BLuE_ZeRO]

If you get those it should be able to run the game pretty well. We won't know just how great it will run until we get the game.

[Mafia]

yeah....what he said :-) Blue_Zero got his answer in before i could ...
Anyway, as a reminder, remember to get a good power supply; I got a friend who foolishly got a P4 2.5gHz 512 RAM w/ Radeon 128, and only 300 watt power .

Also, a 64MB card aint too bad, (not as bad as my 32 MB )but if you're gonna make the jump to 128, you may wanna wait a while for the 256 GeForces to come out, since usually the next card in line drops in price. That same friend got hosed for $275 for a 64MB card, then 2 months after the first 128's came out, his 64 dropped to $79.99

[Navaron]

I don't know that I agree with that. The best card for your money is a Radeon 9500. Anything better than that will cost more, but will also last longer. The whole new line of radeons are great. Definately try for a 128 tho'.

[BLuE_ZeRO]

Yeah depends alot on how long you want to wait. If you wait a bit longer you can save quite a few dollars hopefully...

[Dalamari]

Ok, so im going for a AMD +2200, 512 SDRAM, 20 gig HD 7200 rpm, and a GeForce 4 Ti 4600 128 MB gfx card

[Navaron]

Unless I'm wrong, you can get a 9500 about the same price, and it's DX9 compatible. Also, I'd watch Best Buy and Comp USA. I just got a 80 gig wd 8mb cache from Comp USA for 100 bucks. That 20 gig is actually a little small, and you're still paying the base price for the HD. Your best buy is about 60-80 gig.

[Dalamari]

Well, i really dont need all that space, I mean I hardly fill 4 gigs with my current drive, I think 20 is enough for me. And I do appreciate the idea of getting a ATI card, but I really dont like them from what ive tried.

[Nomikahn]

Sorry, I mistyped what I meant to say about Nvidia products. I meant to say that with my experiences, Nvidia has proven to be unstable in certain environments. However, I believe Nvidia is a very good product. Go with whatever you like, but I do suggest you go with DDR Ram.

[Bighoss]

Ram and lots of it