Lordfluffers Posted November 25, 2000 Share Posted November 25, 2000 Ive got a Voodoo 3500tv with 16mb VRAM and am beginning to realise that its getting a bit slow. What I'd like to know is whether its worth upgrading to something like a relatively cheap Nvidia or Radeon etc. based card with an extra 16 meg min. or save up for several months for one of the newer big boys. Is my Voodoo 3's 16mb too little? Thanks in advance. (Ive got an Athlon 500, 128MB RAM machine.) [This message has been edited by Lordfluffers (edited 11-25-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeski Posted November 25, 2000 Share Posted November 25, 2000 What's the rest of your system. If your processor is under 233mhz it won't take advantage of a better video card. AGP or PCI? ------------------ "If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them." - Jack Handey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoop Posted November 25, 2000 Share Posted November 25, 2000 Your Voodoo3 is still a good but not great card. The new Nivida Geforce cards cost around 300$ and the older Geforce 1 cards {which I have} are around 100 to 150 I think. So I would wait. What kind of Processor do you have? It may be your processor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted November 25, 2000 Share Posted November 25, 2000 A 32MB Nvidia TNT2 card is a good card. If you've got an 4x AGP compatible motherboard they'll do for a while for the money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tris Posted November 25, 2000 Share Posted November 25, 2000 I now have a used Diamond Viper v770 TNT2 w/32MB that's an excellent performer. It's available because I just upgraded to a GeForce2 w/64MB. Make me an offer. It's a shame we lost Diamond. They made awful good stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 25, 2000 Share Posted November 25, 2000 The TNT2-based NVidia cards are approximately in the same speed range as the Voodoo you have. If you want a speed upgrade I'd suggest a GeForce2 MX which retails at approx. US$120-150. They're not as fast as the standard GF2's, but they perform quite well and they would be a cost effective step up in speed for you. I'm not sure which models out there may have TV output if that is a feature that is still important for you (with your Voodoo 3500TV). Basically a faster video card with more memory will help when it comes to moving around the battlefield plotting moves, etc. To get the most out of upgrading a video card a faster CPU may be desireable (to push the video card to its performance capacity). With some of the newer video cards you may want a faster CPU if you're running under 450Mhz or so (as a rough and subjective guide). With such an upgrade (of the video card only) you'll probably notice the speed difference, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to justify the expense for the difference in speed (which may not be much). I guess the main question here should be - are you happy with CM's performance right now with your current system ? If not, how much can you afford to upgrade your system ? Sometimes a single component upgrade may not have as large an affect on speed as hoped for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordfluffers Posted November 25, 2000 Author Share Posted November 25, 2000 Thanks for the reply everyone, I don't care much for the TV option, it doesnt work too well on my PC anyway. CM moves fine most the time except when they are large numbers of units present or the map is quite large. Plotting moves becomes erratic as the waypoint line jumps around bit, and during the action phase on a big and complex scen, the units don't move entirely smoothly. So is it worth holding onto my Voodoo for a few more months? Should I just get another 128MB RAM, upgrade my 500MHZ Athlon to something higher or not do anything. I don't know. P.S. anybody played B17 2 yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tris Posted November 25, 2000 Share Posted November 25, 2000 I don't think BTS can take advantage of more RAM--at least I've noticed no difference at all since I bought another 128 MB DIMM, and no one from BTS bothered to respond to my direct query on this issue. It might be that the game can access another 64 MB RAM up from an original 64MB, but that I don't know. What you need for sure and for certain is more video memory than 8 or 16MB, because you're asking your video board to push around a lot of pixels real time. Throw in a few hi-res mods along the way and pretty soon you've overloaded your video pipeline. A faster CPU/MB might help, but you never get as much bang for your buck with that sort of upgrade as you do from a change of video boards--as a rule. Another good rule of thumb (re CPU's) is to not upgrade until you can at least double (and I much prefer triple or even quadruple) your current clock speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dschugaschwili Posted November 27, 2000 Share Posted November 27, 2000 Your computer still seems adequate for playing almost anything. If you want a new graphics card (probably the best area for an upgrade), I suggest a GeForce2 MX. This should fit well in your system. Dschugaschwili Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wwb_99 Posted November 27, 2000 Share Posted November 27, 2000 Tris: I just added 128mb to my system (up from 64mb) and there is a world of difference. Note that I am also running an 800mhz processor, so it might not help on slower systems. Graphics cards: Check out the Inno 3D GeForce 2 MX cards, about $100. (www.pricewatch.com) The reason to go with these cards is that they use 6ns SDRAM which lets you overclock and turn the card into a real screamer. You can get the memory running upwards of 200mhz on the card. WWB ------------------ Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salatamus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boff Posted November 27, 2000 Share Posted November 27, 2000 At the other end of the spectrum.. my Celeron 400 (overclocked to 500) and secondhand Voodoo 2 PCI (paid 20 UKP) system does all I want it to, the only thing that doesn't work properly in CM is the hi-res smoke. It also runs Quake 2 (yeah, I know..)at over 60 fps in 800 x 600 resolution. Can't see much point in upgrading just yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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