adisman11

Hi,

I have a P3 450, with 256MB RAM, and a Riva TNT2 16MB. When playing
FS2002 with the display settings around the middle, I get 15fps, which
is OK. However, with additional scenery my fps drop to around 4, which
is not a lot of fun when trying to land... I don't have enough $ for a
new computer, but I was thinking of upgrading my graphics card. I'm
looking at Gainward GeForce FX5200 128 or 256MB DDR. Is it worth the
upgrade? Will the frame rate increase significantly, even with all of
the details cranked up?

Any more ideas will be appreciated.

Thanks!

rickd

I think about all you could do is replace the entire system, you've got
yourself a dinosaur. The FX5200 would be severly bottlenecked in that system
and to be honest the 5200 is a piece of crap anyways.

h2so4

I agree, I understand that FS2002 is a processor intensive application.
Spending more money on your present system would represent a very poor
investment. Depending on the age and specs of your components, i.e., hard
disks, CD, PSU your most economical approach to an upgrade might be to
upgrade your processor, motherboard and memory and to cannibalise your old
system, but I doubt it.

adisman11

I know I've got a dinosaur, and I know that any new card will work
only at a low capacity. However, until I do have the money to buy a
new computer, will a new graphic card help at all? In any case I can
move it to the new computer once I buy it. And if the 5200 isn't that
good, any recommendations?

paul s

You could just upgrade your processor for not a lot of money. OK you can't
get new Slot-1 P3s anymore, but there are plenty of used 700Mhz+ P3s on Ebay
for around $10-$30.

This would give you a definate improvement, as an alternative to spending a
fortune on a dogs-bollocks graphic card for an archaic system.

--
Paul S

ed medlin

Adi,
You might try eBay and try and find a GF-2 GTS for your system. It would be
one of the best "matched" for yours and would not cost much. I think they
had 32megs of DDR memory and were the fastest thing around when your system
was state of the art. Anything later than that would be overkill for your
system and I doubt if your MB or PSU would work with an FX card. You
probably only have an AGP-1 slot (short plug-in) and doubt if it supports
the voltage requirements either. The other card to look for would be a GF-3
Ultra. Either of those should not break the bank and would help some until
you can upgrade.

Ed Medlin


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adisman11

Thank you all for your help! I guess I would have to wait a bit...
Maybe by the time I get a new system FS2004 won't have so many
problems...

rickd

Yeah it probably will