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[DaDude]

Well, I saw a topic like this a long time ago, and apparantly, everyone here seems to be very good in knowing what to buy, etc.

Now, I've had this PC for 2 years, and so far, it's been great, playing all things on High, only losing Frame Rate when lot's of things are on at once.

However, two new PC games are now not playing well, if at all on this PC. Bioshock and Flightsimulator X. Flightsimulator has crappy graphics (and not so nice framerate), while Bioshock... well, this speaks well for it:

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w203/Unclepeaches/biosdemo-20070823-205353copy.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w203/Unclepeaches/biosdemo-20070823-205412copy.jpg

Apparantly, my video card is the culprit, with a Shader Model 2.0, while Bio needs 3.0. My current PC:

ATI 9800 Radeon All-In-Wonder Pro (128 MB)
1 GB RAM (2.41 GHz)
1280x1024 Resolution (32 Bit) (75 Hz)
AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3400+, MMX, 3DNow
Realtek AC97 Audio

I think I need a new video card and maybe an extra 1 GB of RAM (which = 2 GB RAM), but I'm not sure. This is the thing: Most my games play perfectly to my needs. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 plays beautifully, except with lag when there's a lot going on. Half-Life 2 plays on High with a good framerate (to me anyway), and looks beautiful. I'm not a graphics whore, if Bioshock looked like HL2 on high, I'd be happy. So, I ask, what should I do? Upgrade? Wait a little longer? Get an entirely new PC? I was planning on maybe doing that in a year or two anyway, as that's when I leave school. But yeah, opinions? Thanks in advance.

Oh, and while I'm at it, should I get a Soundblaster X-Fi? And even more, I have Logitech speakers, and while they're great, maybe I should get something more, such as Surround Sound speakers. The ones I currently have are Logitech Speakers X-230 2.1 32W RMS... aka
http://www.smcdirect.com/detail.asp?id=166799

Thanks in advance.

[K!N5L4Y3R]

1. Your graphics card is pretty ancient, and thats definitely would be the main upgrade needed. Depending on what graphics slot you have (AGP or PCIE) will determine what sorts of cards you can get, but a 7600GT (which is available in both AGP and PCIE) would be a decent step up.

2. I dont think you NEED more RAM, but it wouldnt hurt to get more, plus DDR is dirt cheap.

3. Getting a sound card will speed up games a bit, depending on how CPU dependent they are. i wouldnt get an X-Fi and then use stereo speakers, its a bit of a waste. You can get some nice Logitech 5.1 speakers like the X-530 or X-540 to go with a sound card.

[Konrad Beerbaum]

All depends on how much money you are willing to spend . 

In your setup, the graphics card is the only "must" upgrade.  Otherwise it really all depends on the games you play.  For example, Supreme Commander practically requires a dual core system, but doesn't stress the graphics card much.  Battlefield 2 gets a big benefit from upgrading to 2 gigs of ram.  A sound card will improve framerates by ~5-10 fps. 

And the current game landscape is as follows.  Lots of games are beginning to take advantage of dual core, but a fast single core will still play almost all games fine (except Supreme Commander with multiple people).  It is becomming standard for systems to have 2 gigs of ram, especially with vista. In about 6 months there are some big titles coming out such as Crysis that will really stress your system if you want eyecandy, but will probably play fine on a normal system if you are smart about the graphics systems.

If you were building a system for the next batch of titles, you would want a dual/quad core system, 2-4 gigs of ram,and a dx10 card like the 8800.  That will required a complete rebuild and you won't be able to reuse anything from your current system.

Your system is still decently fast, so you'll be able to nurse it at least another year before dual core becomes necessary.  You really just need to upgrade the graphics card, and buy another gig of ram.  You most likely have an AGP system, so buy a decent graphics card from last generation (ATI X1900 series or Nvidia 7900 series).  You should be able to find them for under $200. You might also be able to find a low end 8800 in AGP, I'm not sure if they are out yet in that socket.  Go to tomshardware.com and look at the GPU charts, you can choose graphics cards from a list and see how they stack up against each other in a variety of games.  Use that to make the final decision about which performance in which games matter to you. 

The sound card is up to you.  Onboard sound is fine for most people.  I have 5.1 surround sound, and a sound card (Creative Audigy ZS), and there is a difference when I switch to onboard.  A good 2 speaker setup sounds really good too though, and doesn't require you to find space to put speakers behind you.  If you don't mind the sound you are getting now, I would probably wait until a year when you do your full system rebuild on that.  Don't do it for the ~5 fps performance improvement, if you spend that additional 150 on the video card, you would get 10 times that.  It really only becomes an issue when you've maxed out the rest of your system enough to turn to overclocking.   

[E-Z]

I wouldn't go spending a load of dosh on a high end gfx card for the time being. DX10.1 cards should be coming soon....

[fonfa]

Would a sound blaster live 5.1 lower the strain on the cpu? I have that sitting on an old computer and i could reuse that on a new one. The sound quality is pretty fine on it

[mbsurfer]

My PC's so bad, that when I just try to open the Bioshock Demo the game just crashes.

[Loafie, Hero of Dreams]

I'm in the same boat as you, with a 6600GT and a 2.2 ghz Athlon 64. unfortunately the 939 socket is going to way of the dodo, but it is making it cheaper to pick up multi core cpus for it

[DaDude]

Apparantly, I've been screwed then. I don't need/want the full PC upgrade, as my PC plays most my games just fine. Unfortunatly, to get the one thing I need updated (the video card), I need to upgrade pretty much everything as stated. Many people have reccommended the ATI x1950. How old is that card anyway? Unfortunatly, it doesn't seem to support Direct X 10.0, I believe. So it looks like I'll just follow my original plan... damn, a year without Bioshock? That sucks. Oh well.

Oh yes, for sound, I like good quality as I'm a pretty big music wise guy.

Also, on a side note, I think I can get another GB of RAM, shouldn't be too hard... well, actually, when I looked for it half a year ago, I couldn't find anyway. Oh well.

[FlyBMXer4130]

Well, it really all depends on exactly what you want... example: for me, I have a Pentium 4 3.0ghz CPU, ATi x700 256mb, and 2GB of RAM (and 7.1 optical surround).  Every game I play (GR:AW 2 probably being the most stressful) plays perfectly on high settings, and that's a $30 video card.

Now what I intend on doing is waiting about another 6 months and hope to get a decent DX10 card for around $250, then after that I'll have to give up and go dual-core (or quad core perhaps :-p)...

So basically, it's up to you if you want to spend the money on your system and most likely be outdated for new games in about 6 months, or just suck it up and wait.  Otherwise, maybe just pick up a new video card without spending too much.  Your RAM and CPU seem fine...

[olileauk]

The problem is that major technical upgrades occured 2 years or so ago with DDR2 and PCIe and new CPU sockets for AMD and Intel. Unfortunately, you missed all of that and have old-tech. This leaves you with 2 options. Do what I did and buy a motherboard supporting AGP and PCIe as well as DDR and DDR2, along with a new processor, then upgrade the RAM and Graphics card later (I've just upgraded my RAM having had my Core 2 Duo for nearly a year, and the graphics card will come with a new motherboard because this one runs the PCIe slot at 4x not 16x )

Or, save up and buy a whole new machine. This of course involves saving up uberloads, and bearing in mind the existing DX10 cards (in other words, the nVidia 8 seris and the ATi x2000 series) don't perform as well as they should in DX10, that also involves a wait for the new DX10 cards if you plan on playing DX10 games. Of course many, many games will still be DX9 enabled, because else DX10 games would be limited to those who own Windows Vista.

Regardless, you need to have a look at your options and weigh up the better choice for you. Mine was a slow upgrade, because my PC was pretty decent to start with.

Just bear in mind you have what is now considered an old-tech PC, and prices for upgrades are only going to go up because DDR is not going to be made for much longer - DDR3 is already out - and AGP is on the last ever card unless ATi or nVidia surprise us. Also, just so you know, you won't be able to get a better processor for that CPU socket anymore, at least not for cheap, because they aren't being made.

[E-Z]

Would a sound blaster live 5.1 lower the strain on the cpu? I have that sitting on an old computer and i could reuse that on a new one. The sound quality is pretty fine on it

It should do, would probably only give you a few extra fps in games =/

[Konrad Beerbaum]

You can buy a good graphics card that uses AGP, and upgrading ram isn't a problem either. You don't need a new system to buy a new graphics card.  Unless you have a regular pci graphics card, you won't have a problem upgrading. 

[DaDude]

You can buy a good graphics card that uses AGP, and upgrading ram isn't a problem either. You don't need a new system to buy a new graphics card.  Unless you have a regular pci graphics card, you won't have a problem upgrading. 

Thing is, 6 months later, I'll have to buy a totally new PC again, as the maximum I can get (that my PC supports) will go out of date in that time. Means $600 or so down the drain.

[Loafie, Hero of Dreams]

id keep waiting. with mesh cpus on the horizon, i can stick with a dual core 939 socket for a little while longer

[Konrad Beerbaum]

Well it would only be $250-300, but its still a valid point.  I'm in the same boat, I've got an ATI x850xtpe, which plays everything fine on mid-high settings, but I can't play bioshock because its an sm2.0b card. Fortunately some guys are already working on an unofficial patch to make it sm 2.0 compatible, they've got it up and running already, but not all the effects are working yet.  I don't know if that will help you out, because my card is a lot newer than yours, but keep an eye out.