What do I need.... ??

[stevo1210]

Hello Everyone,

I have a PC here which is quite good for todays standards. When I got it a year ago, it was classed as a high performance PC. Now my brother uses it for playing games.... only problem is that he's still complaining that it is too slow for gaming.

This is what the PC has inside it:

* Intel Pentium 4 3.00GHz w/HT, Prescott core. (3Ghz, Socket 478, 800Mhz FSB & 1Mb L2 cache)
* Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000-G motherboard. (Intel 865PE chipset)
* 512MB Kingston ValueRAM PC3200 DDR400 RAM.
* nVidia FX5500 256MB AGP 8X graphics card (Active cooling with a copper fansink)
* Netcomm 802.11b/g Wireless PCI card
* NEC 8X DVD Burner.
* 60GB Hitachi ATA-133 IDE Hard drive.
* Dell / Newton electronics (IIRC) 300W ATX Power supply.
* Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1ch PCI Sound card
* Thermaltake Mambo Full Size ATX case with a 12CM outtake fan.
* Windows XP Professional SP2

He is playing World of Warcraft online at a resolution of 1280x1024 (The laptop was running at 1280x800 and didn't lag at all) and I'm trying to figure out why it's lagging.... my guess for now is that he needs more RAM....

I don't know why, but I have a laptop here with an Intel Core Solo T1300 (1.66Ghz) , 1GB DDRII Dual Channel (2x 512MB) RAM and an Integrated 220MB Intel GMA950 series graphics card.... and that still beats the desktop at gaming.... in other words, it doesn't lag at all and it's using an integrated Intel card!!.

With the desktop, I changed out a Gigabyte nVidia FX5200 128MB AGP card a few months back for a new FX 5500 256MB card (The new card has all Rubycon and UCC caps ) and he's still saying it lags behind the laptop.... even with a new graphics card....
About a month ago, I installed for him a Hitachi 60GB IDE HDD that I took out of my PC. His old drive was an IBM Deskstar 40GB IDE HDD.... currently I'm using the 40GB one and he gets my 60GB drive.
Yesterday I put the desktop into defragment mode, but after defragmenting, he still said that there was no difference in gaming speeds.

Could it be lagging behind the laptop because I haven't got 1GB of RAM (2x 512MB) in there to make the PC run in dual channel memory mode??
If I add another stick of 512MB PC3200 RAM, will it make a difference in gaming??

I also checked the cooling in that PC and it seems fine. The CPU fan is a stock Intel one and I've applied Arctic silver onto it for better thermal contact. The 12CM outtake fan is running at full speed because it's connected directly to the 12V line.
At idle, the CPU temp is at 37-40 degrees celcius and at full gaming load, about 50-60 degrees celcius. Using the Gigabyte Easytune 5 utility, the voltage rails seem quite stable. 12V at about 11.80V, 5V at about 5.020V and 3.3V at around 3.200V.... but with a Delta/Dell made PSU, I don't think the voltages are a big issue.
The motherboard has no badcaps either. All the caps are either made by United chemicon or Nichicon and they all look fine.

Is there anything else that I could upgrade to make his PC faster?? or is it time to build him a new one because he's a gamer??.... that's something that I don't have the cash for and besides, I really like that PC because it's good quality and also powerful .

Personnaly, for my own use, I also use an Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz PC, but mine is a 530J series and runs on an Intel DP965LTCK motherboard with a Seagate 200Gb SATA drive and 1GB of DDRII RAM.... that one is also good quality and powerful.

Thanks.

[kikkoman]

Re: What do I need.... ??

The FX5500 is no big improvement over the 5200. The whole FX series sucked.
If you can get an older Radeon (9500Pro and up, you'll get one cheap on eBay for sure), you'll see a significant boost.
I don't play WoW, but some more RAM won't hurt. Not only for gaming.

Does the system lag only when he's gaming?

PS: just saw that the minimum reqirement for WoW is a 32MB TnL card, so maybe it's just time for new drivers. Nevertheless, the FX series still suck in comparison to the respective ATI cards.

[stevo1210]

Re: What do I need.... ??

The FX5500 is no big improvement over the 5200. The whole FX series sucked.
If you can get an older Radeon (9500Pro and up, you'll get one cheap on eBay for sure), you'll see a significant boost.
I don't play WoW, but some more RAM won't hurt. Not only for gaming.

Does the system lag only when he's gaming?

PS: just saw that the minimum reqirement for WoW is a 32MB TnL card, so maybe it's just time for new drivers. Nevertheless, the FX series still suck in comparison to the respective ATI cards.

Well I purchased for him an FX5500 card because it had 256MB of RAM compared to only 128MB on the old FX5200. And also the new card has an S-Video output whereas the old FX5200 only had a component video out (even though he never uses those features anyway). I went to a computer market not that long ago and I was offered a second hand Xpertvision ATi 9800SE 256MB AGP card for only $50AUD but didn't buy it.... now I'm kicking myself for not buying it.
Instead my friend bought it for his Dell Dimension 4600 because he needed an upgrade from his original Intel extreme graphics 2 integrated card....

I just asked my brother about the lagging issue in more detail. He said that the game lags in areas with many players.... such as a city in WoW.... but if he is out in the countryside (at least I think that's what it's called) in WoW, it runs smoothly. He says that in the areas with many players, he can hear a lot of hard drive activity and also experience the graphics lagging.... He said that he was sure that it didn't happen on the laptop.

I don't play WoW.... but I can ask him for the exact locations in WoW where the lagging happens.
Before WoW, he was playing the Sims 2 and he was also complaining about some lagging and high disk activity.... but I think he fixed it with a defrag.

Under normal operation, such as using the internet etc. the PC does not lag at all. In fact i can multitask with no problems.
Half Life 2 runs fine on that PC at 1280x1024 resolution at 32 bit colour.... I know that because I play it.

I borrowed the WoW box from my brother and I'm looking at it right now and the requirements are:


Here are the Minimum Requirements on the WoW box:

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP - Intel Pentium III 800MHz or Athlon 800MHz - 256MB RAM - 32MB 3D graphics card with hardware T&L (e.g nVidia GeForce 2) - 4GB HDD space - 4x CD-ROM - ISDN or better Internet connection

Here are the recommended requirements on the WoW box:

Intel P4 1.5GHz or AMD 1500 - 512Mb RAM - 64MB 3D graphics card with vertex and pixel shader support (e.g FX5700 and above) - Broadband Internet connection - two button scroll mouse.

Now after looking at the recommended requirements.... everything looks fine apart from the graphics card....
I have an FX5500 256MB card and it says the recommended card is an FX5700.... Is there a big difference between FX5500 and FX5700??.... but then again, it did actually run fine on an Intel GMA950 series card.... so I am not sure If it really requires an FX5700 or not??
I don't think it's my internet connection either.... I am currently running a high speed ADSL 2+ connection supposed to run at 24Mbps.... but right now it's running at only 10Mbps....

If I remember correctly, the graphics driver that he is currently running on is nVidia Forceware version 84.21. I'll have to check again to make sure.

Thanks.

[starfury1]

Re: What do I need.... ??

humm well not really into games and know very little on how the latest Internet gaming is done really technology wise

but isn't online gaming somewhat depend on on the lag to the game servers...?

reason I mention this is its not how fast your broadband is but the relationship with the game server

The other thing stevo 24M ADSL2, you will never get there.
at 10 your probably doing reasonably well

The speed you get depends on the net at the time your distance to the ADSL modem at the exchange
speed is dynamic and will change The plans are the theoretical max really, not what your going to get

not sure on the following at all;
I think ADSL2 may be somewhat more dynamic in its speed nature and does work differently to ADSL1.
(sometimes here the net just runs like a dog even though its 1.5M adsl1 service there are a few factors as to why that could be)

So I guess a question to ask is it always lagging in high graphics content areas cityscape and always ok in the less graphic demanding areas like landscape back round.

I have to say Iam a noob on this stuff

on the pc side if there is lots of HDD activity it sound like a lot of stuff is being shuffled around
so if its only 512MB ram an extra stick wont hurt
video drivers have been known to have issues so its worth doing a search on them (I think at one point people were rolling back some version of nVidia drivers because of issues...)
so yeah possible

well I dont have an answer for you but I would take it to 1 GB ram to start with, not saying its going to solve your problem (Hoping it might thought)
but I really think it wont hurt.

Since you say it has no issues on a laptop (less specs then the box) it seems to possibly rule out a few things in regard to net speed and gaming servers

cheers...you get all the fun ones Stevo

[stevo1210]

Re: What do I need.... ??

on the pc side if there is lots of HDD activity it sound like a lot of stuff is being shuffled around
so if its only 512MB ram an extra stick wont hurt
video drivers have been known to have issues so its worth doing a search on them (I think at one point people were rolling back some version of nVidia drivers because of issues...)

I've just discussed with my brother about getting another stick of 512MB RAM and he's agreed so far.
I am going to get him a stick of RAM made by Kingston. I'm looking at the 512MB PC3200 DDR400 Kingston ValueRAM because it's good value for $50 and also the stick in there right now is a Kingston ValueRAM stick.

About the video driver. I first started off with nVidia Forceware version 91.47 and then had to go back to 84.21 because everytime 3D started on the FX5500 when I used Forceware 91.47, the graphics would extend extra wide off the screen and become pixellated. It didn't happen with the FX5200 though which is quite strange.

[kikkoman]

Re: What do I need.... ??

You could try the Omega drivers. They're improved nVidia drivers, maybe it fixes that display problem.

[starfury1]

Re: What do I need.... ??

Ram yeah better to use same type for lest possible issues...in fact its probably better to use a matched set.... 1Gb should keep winXP a lot happier then 512MB

[stevo1210]

Re: What do I need.... ??

Yeah, I am going to use a matched set to achieve full performance. I that the main reason that the system is lagging is because the RAM isn't running in dual channel mode like the laptop and the other PCs with 2 sticks of 512MB RAM.
But the amount of memory also plays a big part.... I guess 512MB isn't sufficient for gaming. But then again, I can still remember the good old days where my Celeron 667MHz PC had 256MB of RAM and that was overkill for windows 98SE.

[gonzo0815]

Re: What do I need.... ??

I would agree, 1GB is recommended for WoW. My brother does playing it a lot too, his system is a Barton 2400, 768MB ram and a Ati Radeon 9600.
With the 512MB ram it was IMHO not that good.

[stevo1210]

Re: What do I need.... ??

I went out shopping for RAM today and I bought a stick of 512MB DDR400 PC3200 Corsair Value select RAM for my homework PC. The Corsair stick was on sale too for only $45AUD.

I gave my brother my stick of 512MB Kingston ValueRAM DDR400 that's currently in my homework PC.... I did that because the two Kingston sticks were identical and would also make a matched pair.

Now his gaming PC has 1GB of RAM and in Dual channel mode and he said to me that it made a big difference in gaming.... Problem solved.

Thanks.

[starfury1]

Re: What do I need.... ??

so 1GB solved it good one stevo