GeForce Question

[Walt]

You've got to be carefull.

Most of the top of the line components out there today will cause you allot of headeachs if you're not into hardware with a vengance (if I got a computer that worked, what would I do? I'd be way too bord).

One thing you should keep in mind, there are VERY few programs that will benifit from a CPU faster than 600Mhz. In fact, if the most taxing thing you're going to do is play Combat Mission, you'd be better off going with a Celeron. You could throw together a CPU, and a new Geforce or TNT and even get a new sound card for allot less. You could even splurge on a monitor, which is after all the most important part of the graphics subsystem.

An important question is, what do you have in your system today? If you have an AT power supply you will need to get a new case. Depending on what type of motherbord you may be able to get a faster chip and not have to upgrade all the other components.

The one thing I would recommend against is buying a Pentium III. Intel is having trouble producing high enough yields with the coppermine core above around 733mhz. That translates to higher prices for the consumer. Those higher prices are the reason Gateway has started using Athlons for their high end systems.

There is a large problem with the chipsets used by the coppermine. The cheepest chipset is the 810, which does not provide for a video card other than the built in intel junk. You wouldn't be happy with its performance. The 820 and 840 use RDRAM, which is amazingly expensive because of the tolerences needed to manufacture memory that runs at such a high speed. A 128 meg stick of RDRAM can cost more than all the other components in the system. Further, it doesn't actually feed the buss faster than good old PC100 SDRAM. Intel caught this and provided a translation hub on later 820 based bords that uses PC100 RAM, but the result was much slower than a normal BX based motherbord. So you would best not buy an Intel motherbord.

As for the Geforce, I think you would definetly apreciate the diference when compared to other cards. Don't opt for the card with 64 megabytes of RAM, it will not offer you much of any improvement. Be sure that you buy a DDR RAM based card, it's much faster than a regular car at higher resolutions. you will pay a premium for the DDR card, it's up to you to decide if it's worth it.

Really, I would recommend a Pentium II or III 450Mhz processor on a BX based motherbord with a Geforce. it's not the fastest computer out there, but it will run rock solid untill CM 3. After a year or so you can buy a new top of the line AGP card. Then, when the framerate in Quake 5 is unbearably slow, you can build a new computer.

[Dschugaschwili]

Walt,

the problem with your suggested setup is that you'll have trouble finding a BX based board. There aren't that many of them aroung anymore. Plus the BX chipset has the disadvantage of allowing only 100MHz for the memory bus and not having AGP 4x. You can build a stable Athlon based system today, and if you look at it, The Athlon is even cheaper than a Pentium III at the same clock speed. Plus you can have a motherboard without all the drawbacks that all the Intel chipsets have nowadays (ok, there is a good VIA chipset for PIIIs too now). If you look around a bit, there are more than enough sources on the net where you can find what to do to make your Athlon a great platform.

I actually think that the Athlon 600 is about the best you can buy now in terms of price/performance (regarding the future too) ratio.

Dschugaschwili

[Guest MantaRay]

Walt, I have to disagree to an extent. You said that it is better to just get a Celeron because it is all you need for CM.

Well bro, there are other games out there that FIonn playes that require more than what CM does, and buying a DDR card for a Celeron is kind of overkill since the card wont be taxed at all by it.

And this kind of thinking, " Buy a crappier computer cause wargames dont need them to be P3-800's" is exactly why Steve cant make more out of this game...cause his customers cant run it. Sad, Sad, Sad that the richest, most dedicated gamers( WARGAMERS) cant have all of the same perks as the RTS people.

And where did you get the idea that games need only up to a 600MHZ chip or it is a waste? Look at Halo and tell me that you wouldnt like a 1GIG Athlon to be able to run it. And in 2 years a 600MHZ chip is going to be low end anyway.

Ray

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MantaRays 5 Pages

[Los]

It just so happens that I have a PIIIe 750 w/ ASUS 133 mhz bus MB and an ASUS GE force 4x AGP. It runs everything smooth as glass at the highest resolution2 (Flanker 2, HL Q3 UT, CM, whatever) SO I'll give an endorsement to the ASUS GE Force that someone else mentioned. (though I agree that right now my Rig is kinda overkill since I also get great performance (at a lower resolution(1024) on my PII450 w/ a V770.

But the AI caculations on huge CM games with the 750...whew!

Los

[Lee]

Yeah, if nothing else, it will make the turn calculations go *real*

fast.

And when buying computer hardware to run games on you always

have to think ahead and see what kind of demands that the

newest 3D games will place on your system. I prefer to get a super

fast system and not only enjoy the bliss of ultra smooth gaming at

high res/32 bit color but also to know that even the most demanding

3D games coming out 1 year from now my system will run prefectly

smoothly. The only way to ensure that is to get an extremely fast

system.

I'll be getting my new system within the next 3 months or so, specs

are as follows:

Athlon 1100 or 1200 mghz (the new one with full speed L2 cache),

256 meg PC133 ram, either an NV-15 (replacement for GeForce) or

a voodoo 5500 video card (depends on speed and visual quality

comparison), 40 gig ATA66 HD and a positional sound card (either SB

Live Value or one based on A3D 2.0).

Now, that may seem like overkill and I suppose it is for today's

games but I intend for this system to run anything the game

companies can throw at it for a long time to come. I don't like

having to upgrade my system all the time. And with a rocket

like this I won't have to worry about that. Plus, I want to run

Quake III (yes, I play FPS as well as realistic wargames and

am even the world no. 1 player at Action Quake (a mod of Quake II) )

at 1024x768/32 bit color/max detail with 15 other players running

around firing rockets and still get over 60 frames per sec at all

times. Only a monster machine will do that. And I want CM2/3

to run like glass, too.

My brother just ordered an Athlon 650 from Gateway with a voodoo 3

3000 and I expect that will run quite nicely as well.

[Lee]

Hey Los, how fast does your system calculate turns? It must

be pretty quick.

[Walt]

Be carefull.

The Geforce doesn't have much problem runing on a slower system. Go to WWW.tomshardware.com and look at the benchmarks.

Buying a supersystem is a waste of money, unless braging rights are your only incentive. A PIII 450 will do him fine for a long time, will have great stability, and will play combat mission good enough.

I don't know what other games he'd play, if he's a quakehead then go for the faster processor.

You can quite easily grab a good BX based motherbord.

I would gladly grab a AMD system, but I'd also have to be sure that the power supplie will work with the notoriously finiky Athlon, and make sure my drivers were stable enough on the newer platform, and overclock it all to hell.

If he's willing and able to do that, go for the athlon. I don't get the impression that he wants to spend allot of time in the box. He's more likely have have a stable computer by grabing a PIII450 or Celeron 366, and I think stability is what he's after, not just speed.

Keep in mind that a BX bord will usually perform within a few FPS of a AGP 4x, PC133 RAM motherbord. The simple fact is, 133mhz FSB and RAM can't feed the card enough to geta ny advantage out of AGP 4x. Untill we have the Athlon runing on a 266Mhz buss, and 266Mhz DDR SDRAM AGP 4x is just something to print on the box.

I would imagine an Athlon 600 with a Via chipset would be a pretty good choice. Not as established as a BX solution, but a little more speedy. Geting a faster athlon probably wouldn't be a good idea right now. They're hindered by the terribly slow L2 cash. After Thunderbird comes out you'd have an easy upgrade in line. And of course you'd put in a new video card ever year or two.

Why waste money on a few more FPS and sacrafice stability? Building a giga system is great IF YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TWEAKING THAN PLAYING.

I would recomend a Celeron 366/400 with a Geforce, or an athlon 600 with the same. There's no reason for any one who doesn't want to have braging rights to get a less stable solution.

[Lee]

For the average gamer, the system that Fionn is getting is fine.

But if you want to run things like Falcon 4.0, Quake III, B-17 II,

IL-2 Stormovik, Babylon 5: Into the Fire, etc. at extremely high

frame rates even under max graphics loads then you have to get

a very high performance system. There is just no alternative.

When I get my new Athlon system I don't expect to have any

problems with performance or stability.

[Dschugaschwili]

Ahem, an Athlon 600 with a TNT2 won't run Quake3 reasonably???

I'm playing Quake3 with my K6-2 333 and a Voodoo2. I'm not euphoric about the performance, but I can live with it. Just don't try to run at 1600x1200 with FSAA and every picture quality option set to highest.

Fionn's planned system is fine.

Dschugaschwili

[Lee]

Dschugaschwili: Like I said, I'm not talking about running things

reasonably. I'm talking about super high frame rates even under

the most extreme graphics loads imaginable. Only the fastest systems

can deliver that kind of speed on the latest games and the ones that

are soon to come out.

Look at something like Babylon 5: Into the Fire (space combat sim),

one would expect to have situations where there are dozens of

large capital ships and fighters soaring through space all around

one with lots of energy weapons, explosions and advanced special

effects going on simultaneously. In a demanding 3D environment

like that you will have to have an extremely fast machine in order

to be able to maintain very high frame rates at high res/32bit color

at all times.

Now, if you plan on playing less demanding games and/or you have

a greater tolerance for lower frame rates, then you don't need a

system that fast. It just depends on what kind of performance you

want. And in some of these sims the 3D loads can very extreme at

times and you'll need all the system you can get to keep them running

completely smoothly.

[Guest Madmatt]

Errr, didn't you guys hear? Bab5:ITF was cancled months ago! Or has it been resurected?!?

I got to play an early Alpha build of it as Gencon last year and even then it was VERY impressive. They had 6 people going at once in a dogfight with Starfuries and Thunderbolts and there were some Minbari flyers roaming around as well. They had a couple Cap ships implemented (Hyperian and Narn Cruiser) but none of their guns worked and damage modeling was not running.

All in all it was shaping to be a cool sim although massive cost and production over runs eventually spelled its doom, that and the canclelation of Bab5:Crusade which meant that it was going to be released into the bloated Space-Sim market as a 'dead' license, which means it would not have any support via the media i.e. No show to back it up AND the fact that while the audience for Bab5 has always been faithfull there were never enough...

I hope that perhaps that this project has been resurected and I am not the tardy voice of doom in regards to this whole matter.

Madmatt

“If you go to Z’ha’dum, you will die...”

“You can’t save them all...”

“Babylon will fall. This place will be destroyed...”

p.s. After thinking on this topic I decided to do some snooping around and found some info. it appears that there is work going on to re-lease a FREEWARE version of a B5 flight-sim, check out http://mods.firstones.com/b5fsf/

for more info!

p.s.s. I just found this interesting page devoted to news on the resurection of the Bab5 game, here ya go:

http://www.firstones.com/station/current.html

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If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

combathq.thegamers.net

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 04-14-2000).]

[Lee]

Madmatt: There is an effort well under way by a new company called

Sector 14 Studios to aquire Babylon 5:ItF and finish it.

The game looks awesome and I'm *very* much looking forward to it's

release.

The center of activity for this effort is located at firstones.com

If anyone here is a B5 fan, I encourage you to stop by and lend your

support to this most worthy effort.

[Walt]

"I'm playing Quake3 with my K6-2 333 and a Voodoo2."

Lucky Bastard! I've got a Pentium MMX 200 with a Monster3D II 8 meg!

[Fionn]

Oh God Matt, looks like we have B5 in common now too .

I'm a major B5 fan. I still stay up till close to 2am once a week to watch re-runs and as befits my weakness for "cool" weapons systems I'd have to be a Minbari in-game .

[Guest Madmatt]

Any and all Bab5 fans should check out the excellant table top game from Agents Of Gaming called (what else) Babylon 5 Wars!

B5 Wars faithfully follows the specs and weapons systems and is an absolute BLAST to play.

http://www.agentsofgaming.com/

They also have a Fleet Action scale version coming out (I got to Beta test it at Gencon!) where you can redo say the Battle of the Line! The games designer and producer are VERY COOL guys (hmmm, reminds of me of two other guys! ) and the line of minatures they have is very strong and well done. Their is a good and fully devoloped fan community and AOG even releases extra rules and ships each month. Last April they put up the stats for an Imperial Star Destroyer for fun! Yeah, that baby can tear an Omega Destroyer to sheds in no time!

Also allot of fun is the Bab5 CCG (Collectable Card Game) this game really shines when you get three of more players together and emphasises guile and deception and remains close to the show in execution. I don't have this companies web address handy though...

Both products have many many supplements with new Ship revisions and races and time periods ect...

I highly recomend either or product with the greater nudge going to B5 Wars.

Madmatt

If you go to Z'ha'dum You will die...

p.s. BTW Agents of Gaming are the guys who bought the license for Star Fleet Battles from task Force Games all those years back and are VERY respected in the tabletop and minatures gaming circles, and they live right up the road in Dayton from me!

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If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

combathq.thegamers.net

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 04-15-2000).]

[Lee]

Babylon 5 is one of my all-time favorite shows. Absolutely

outstanding. Have been watching it from the first time they aired

the pilot episode. My favorite ships are the Earth Alliance ships.

They have a certain no-nonsense functional/militaristic look to them

that I really like.

The address for the B5 CCG is below.

http://www.societyeternity.com/b5/

[dumbo]

Hey Fionn,

I wouldnt bother going above a TNT 2 or Voodoo 3. Unless you do 3D art you are throwing a lot of money for less and less gain.

Unless you REALLY want to get into the video card wars (a tedious world I assure you) then I would stick to the best selling name brands 8 meg cards. Its all your gonna need for a few years.

I would spend the money you saved (obviously you are not going to put it in the bank) on memory , HD space or a dedicated Video capture card (if thats your bag).

Anyways just my 0.02c

_dumbo

[Agrow]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn:

I'm a major B5 fan. I still stay up till close to 2am once a week to watch re-runs and as befits my weakness for "cool" weapons systems I'd have to be a Minbari in-game .<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Which are the Minbari?

I only watched B5 twice.. the two movie versions and i forget the aliens names.

[Guest Madmatt]

Minbari are the ones with the seashells strapped to their heads!

They are one the oldest of the 'young races' and have technology only surpassds by the Vorlans and Shadows (which are two of the Elder races) They posses anti-gravity technology and propulsion systems through a battlefield mistake engaged upon a war of total distruction against the forces of Earth which culminated in the masacre called the Battle of the Line. For some mysterious reason, on the eve of the total destruction of Earth, all the Minbari forces conditionaly surrendered to the Earth and withdrew. A fragile peace was established but the neither side knew fully WHY the Minbari had stopped. That answer is one of the keys to the whole Bab5 story arc.

The rest of the Main races (there are many sub races) are:

Narn: The reptile like warrior race.

Centauri: The romanesque former Empirial race (they have the fan hairstyles) who in the past had enslaved the Narn civilization.

The Shadows: Ethereal pan dimensional high tech race which embraces chaos, but are they really evil

The Vorlons: A secretive and obscure race as old as the Shadows but with a hidden agenda.

If you want about the best webpage for episode synopsis and info on t he series than check out: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/

You wont regret it!

Madmatt

Deconstructing falling stars...

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If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

combathq.thegamers.net

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 04-15-2000).]

[Agrow]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt:

Minbari are the ones with the seashells strapped to their heads!

They are one the oldest of the 'young races' and have technology only surpassds by the Vorlans and Shadows (which are two of the Elder races) They posses anti-gravity technology and propulsion systems through a battlefield mistake engaged upon a war of total distruction against the forces of Earth which culminated in the masacre called the Battle of the Line. For some mysterious reason, on the eve of the total destruction of Earth, all the Minbari forces conditionaly surrendered to the Earth and withdrew. A fragile peace was established but the neither side knew fully WHY the Minbari had stopped. That answer is one of the keys to the whole Bab5 story arc.

The rest of the Main races (there are many sub races) are:

Narn: The reptile like warrior race.

Centauri: The romanesque former Empirial race (they have the fan hairstyles) who in the past had enslaved the Narn civilization.

The Shadows: Ethereal pan dimensional high tech race which embraces chaos, but are they really evil

The Vorlons: A secretive and obscure race as old as the Shadows but with a hidden agenda.

If you want about the best webpage for episode synopsis and info on t he series than check out: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/

You wont regret it!

Madmatt

Deconstructing falling stars...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Agrow]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Minbari are the ones with the seashells strapped to their heads!

And do they hear the sea

Yes I know who they are now. I saw the movie which shows the beginning of the war between the humans and the Minbari (Fionn made me watch it).The whole thing started because of an accident.

The alien I would like to play are the Narn (lizards).. I liked the one who argued with the Fan head / Count Dracula character who was always lying to everybody. That lizard race was right in trying to kill them off.

[This message has been edited by Agrow (edited 04-15-2000).]

[Lee]

Hey, some good news. The Sci-Fi channel will be airing the

entire Babylon 5 series starting in September. Weekdays, 7 P.M.

eastern time, IIRC.

Those new to the show can see it from the very first episode.

If you like sci-fi at all, I highly recommend it.