BloodyBucket Posted October 27, 2002 Share Posted October 27, 2002 I might be getting the green light for a new system in the near future. Budget is tight around $700 max and more like $600. Been looking at the Dell 4550, probably configued with a Pentium 4 processor 2.4GHz w/ 533MHz system bus & 512K L2 Cache, onboard sound chip, 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Graphics Card, and of course, Windows XP (Home Edition). Any thoughts as to how this rig would handle CMBO and CMBB? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offtaskagain Posted October 27, 2002 Share Posted October 27, 2002 Originally posted by BloodyBucket: I might be getting the green light for a new system in the near future. Budget is tight around $700 max and more like $600. Been looking at the Dell 4550, probably configued with a Pentium 4 processor 2.4GHz w/ 533MHz system bus & 512K L2 Cache, onboard sound chip, 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Graphics Card, and of course, Windows XP (Home Edition). Any thoughts as to how this rig would handle CMBO and CMBB?Should do pretty well. The Geforce4 MX is a little iffy, but it's still suffecient to run the games at a reasonable framerate. If the vid card is an MX 460, a Geforce 3 Ti500 is only about 20 dollars more and has alot more features and performance. But if you really can't go overbudget the MX will work. I have an Athlon 1200 with crappy 133mhz SDRAM and a TNT 2 32 mb that runs CMBB with only mild choppieness. That system your looking at can handle anything except for "To the Volga". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellros Posted October 27, 2002 Share Posted October 27, 2002 Bu sure to do a serach on "Dell" and the problem it's had with it's internal clock and the turn number graphic in the game and such. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiggDogg Posted October 27, 2002 Share Posted October 27, 2002 Bucket, You should be fully fine with that proposed rig for CMs. However, check to see how much RAM that the system has. With WinXP, you will almost for sure need 512 meg RAM. Cheers, Richard 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PondScum Posted October 27, 2002 Share Posted October 27, 2002 Bucket, I bought a Dell 4500 (now replaced by the 4550) specifically to play CMBB . As mentioned above, the MX varieties of GeForce 4 cards aren't great - I went with a GeForce 3 instead, and when I compare CMBB on my work system (P4 1.6 w/ 512MB and GeForce 4 MX) and my home system (P4 2.2 w/ 256MB and GeForce 3) I'm glad I did. And yes, with 256MB even XP Pro runs CMBB just fine, although it does swap if I alt-tab out from CMBB to the desktop. My next two upgrades will be another 256MB of RAM so that I can eliminate those annoying 5-second swap delays, and an LCD screen to hook up to the DVI port on the GeForce 3 card I haven't hit the Dell time bug that affects the turn clock. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbramsOnPoint Posted October 29, 2002 Share Posted October 29, 2002 I bought a Dell 4500 P4 2.0 w/ 256MB and a 32 meg Rage ATI card. I upgraded it to 512MB and a nVidia 64 meg Ti 4200 card. This runs CMBB without any problems and I haven't had the Dell time bug as yet. I did get the bug on the Dell 4100 1.0 w/384MB and nVidia 32 meg card. It only appeared during TCP/IP games and went away if I hit pause and play on the movie controls. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krazy Canuck Posted October 29, 2002 Share Posted October 29, 2002 Originally posted by BloodyBucket: ..... 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Graphics Card, and of course, Windows XP (Home Edition). Any thoughts as to how this rig would handle CMBO and CMBB?================================================== If at all possible, upgrade this video card to a Geforce3 Ti200w/128 megs. it is absolutely worth it!! KC 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvio Manuel Posted October 29, 2002 Share Posted October 29, 2002 That Geforce3 Ti200w/128 megs is priced at $101 at pricewatch.com Despite these fancy rigs y'all are talking about, my Celeron 566mhz, 191MB RAM, 12MB video does OK w/ CMBB, a little bit choppy...probably more than you guys can stand though. I'm amazed that such good rigs are available for 600-700. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krazy Canuck Posted October 29, 2002 Share Posted October 29, 2002 Originally posted by Silvio Manuel: That Geforce3 Ti200w/128 megs is priced at $101 at pricewatch.com and if it is only a $40-50 upgrade, it then becomes one helluva bargain. KC 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyBucket Posted October 31, 2002 Author Share Posted October 31, 2002 The other choice in video cards is a DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200, for $70 more, or the 128mb DDR ATI Radeon 9700 Pro for about $300 more (out of my range, plus I don't know about ATI and fog). If there is a better choice for less scratch, I could get the 32MB ATI card and replace it (I think that saves about $30 on the system). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted November 1, 2002 Share Posted November 1, 2002 The Dell sounds good, but is the video on board or AGP?? make sure you check this. A lot of the off the shelve systems have onboard vid, thats not good unless you have the money in 2 years to buy a whole new machine, due to the fact you will not be able to upgrade your video card, because IT IS ONBOARD. If you are a gamer you might want to look into getting a custom system built. You can upgrade these, say you start with a 1.5 cpu and 256 meg of ram and a ^$ meg AGP card, with ehis system you could upgrade a year or 2 with buying a bigger CPU and more ram and you won't have to buy a whole new system. Just make sure when you have it built , to see how far it is upgradeable to, get on the net and shop around you can get all the components you need at a hell of a price. For example I picked up a Micrstar 1.5 gig board with a via chipset and onboard sound for $40, you can build a hell of a system for $700 dollars, and the parts are warrantied!! I hope this helps in your decision 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyBucket Posted November 1, 2002 Author Share Posted November 1, 2002 The video chip is in an AGP slot. I have looked for similar systems, no monitor or printer, and it does seem that Dell has a pretty good package going. I would be going from a 350 Mhz AMD based Aptiva, so any improvement is sure to be astonishing at my end. I know the 2.4 gig 4550 sports a 533 Mhz side bus and faster memory than the 2.0 gig model that they are really blowing out. My upgrading will probably be limited to more memory and a better video card as time goes by. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted November 1, 2002 Share Posted November 1, 2002 Sounds like you got a winner then, good luck, 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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