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Downloaded demo and plays fine untill i put extreme terrain and extreme trees on.Screen stutters and drags from level 1 and 2.Its playable but not as smooth as CMBO, unless I put trees and terrain to very minimum.

systen is 733 mhz

256 mb

32 video card

pentium 3

15 g/52x

What should I upgrade too have game run perfectly?

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What 32mb video card? 3d Chips are not made equal.

Which 733 mhz processor? In CM there is a big difference between Celerons, Pentiums and AMDs.

I play on a system of generally similar speed (Celeron 800, 384mb RAM) but with a GeForce2 Pro/ 64mb DDR card and it does fine in general.

WWB

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Ya missed it Wyatt, he said 'pentium 3' lower down ! ;)

(I do that all the stinkin' time, missing one detail in user posts)

As Wyatt said, the particular 32Mb card you have here can be a major difference. There's quite a performance range with the different graphical chips. To be honest I think one of the biggest issues is supporting all of CM's features without problem. If the card can do that and perform reasonably, then it gets my nod as a decent card for CM.

If you're really lucky a driver upgrade or setting may be all that you need to get the performance you're hoping for. So let us know which video card/chip you have, the Windows and DirectX version you have installed and the video driver that you're using. If possible also tell us which motherboard model or chipset you have too (this sometimes makes a significant difference too).

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Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

So let us know which video card/chip you have, the Windows and DirectX version you have installed and the video driver that you're using. If possible also tell us which motherboard model or chipset you have too (this sometimes makes a significant difference too).

Schrullenhaft:

Well...yet another post re: CMBB performance. For the most part, I was pretty happy with CMBB's performance on one of my systems that's gettin' kinda old.

Intel PIII-500

512MB RAM

Intel 440BX MoBo/Chipset

ASUS 7700 Geforce2/GTS 32MB (AGP)

WinME (gasp!)

DirectX 8.1

Only when I set some of the graphic settings to extreme was it choppy beyond what I would like. However, my question isn't about updating a driver or something else to get some better performance. I'm a Detonator freak and have kept up with drivers, et.al.

Here's the beef....

I like going to computer shows in my area where they sell lots of hardware pretty cheaply. Recently, I was looking at vidcards there and saw GeForce4 MX cards (I think some were Ti4400...or something like that) for dirt cheap. Maybe 40-79 bux in some cases.

My own little ASUS GF2GTS set me back a couple a hundred in it's time and now I'm wondering whether one of these awfully cheap GF4MX cards of dubious brand would outperform my own card in a noticeable way. It would be cool to be able to gain a serious performance boost for 50 or 60 bux. However, I remain unsure as to whether or not it's just a dream. :D

Any ideas? Any info would, as always, be greatly appreciated.

- Holzem

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If the cards are GeForce 4 MX 440's then it might be a somewhat noticeable upgrade. Taking the stats from NVidia's site:

GeForce2 GTS:

Memory Interface: 128-bit DDR

Fill Rate: 800 million texels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: 5.3 Gb/sec

Triangles /sec: >25 million

GPU Clock speed: 200MHz

Memory Clock: 166/333MHz (DDR)

GeForce4 MX 440:

Memory Interface: 128-bit DDR

Fill Rate: 1.1 billion texels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: 6.4 Gb/sec

Triangles /sec: 34 million

GPU Clock: 270MHz

Memory Clock: 200/400MHz (DDR)

GeForce4 MX 420:

Memory Interface: 128-bit SDR

Fill Rate: 1 billion texels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: 2.7 Gb/sec

Triangles /sec: 31 million

GPU Clock: 250MHz

Memory Clock: 166MHz (SDR)

As you can see from specs alone that you may get a noticeable (but probably not drastic) improvement in speed if the cards are the MX 440's. If they're MX 420's, then I would nix the idea. The memory bandwidth is quite a bit lower and that can make a difference with games like CM that use a lot of textures. Though improvements to the memory controller (LMA II) and other core features on the GeForce4's should help a bit, I don't think they make up enough for the memory bandwidth difference on the MX 420.

Technically your BX motherboard is AGP 1.0 spec and there may be problems running some of the newest video cards that are requiring AGP 2.0 spec (though I believe your GTS card is also 2.0 spec). If your motherboard is actually an Intel brand motherboard, then I'd guess that the newer cards should be OK with it if it is matched to a good power supply.

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Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

you may get a noticeable (but probably not drastic) improvement in speed if the cards are the MX 440's. If they're MX 420's, then I would nix the idea.

Schrullenhaft:

Although I only quoted a portion of your post, it was a perfect explanation and just what I needed to know. Much obliged for the clear and concise information!

Technically your BX motherboard is AGP 1.0 spec and there may be problems running some of the newest video cards that are requiring AGP 2.0 spec (though I believe your GTS card is also 2.0 spec).
Exactly! Although I never had any problems with CMBO whatsoever using this card, I believe the AGP 1.0 spec did cause me innumerable problems with OpenGL games. I had crash after crash after crash with lots of the FPS games out there (I know,...blasphemy!). However, once I updated my MoBo bios, I never had any crashes again. I used to use a GeForce Tweak Utility to force the card to use the AGP 1.0 spec, but that had mixed results. Again, flashing the BIOS with the latest updates gave me miraculous results.

I think I might just give the MX440-variant a try, crossing my fingers that the AGP spec won't ruin it all for me. I'm thinking that it might just help run CMBB more smoothly and with more graphics goodies enabled. BTW... seen any good prices on these? ;)

BTW...why doesn't anyone ever mention the Geforce 3 cards as an option? Didn't they have improved performance as well?

Once again, thanks a bunch for the ultra-clear information. It's greatly appreciated and I won't forget this.

- Holzem

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