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ELN Board Member, Bigfoot Networks CEO
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 9/8/2008 7:13 PM
Posts: 266,
Visits: 636
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I'll be writing more about this in my Blog, but I just wanted to start some discussion here:
the premise:
"Never have too little of any one thing"
When you're designing a gaming system, remember the key word "system". you can't have too little of any one thing.
Tons of examples, and I'd love to hear from all of you.
Right now, for example, A Gamer Chic friend of mine has a hard-drive issue... she's got a great Geforce 4, 512MB of Ram, and a 2.5Ghz Athlon.. but her HD is a 5400rpm FRAGMENTED piece of junk!
Clearly, you can hear it chugging from time to time (and her low memory doesn't help that).
She should:
Clean her current drive up, and defragment.
AND buy at least a 7200rpm HD, or a 10,000 rpm one would be better!
What component do you have too little of?
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[ELN]Tytus - EndLagNow.ORG
Member of the Board of Directors of ELN
CEO + Mad Scientist of Bigfoot Networks, Inc.
http://www.bigfootnetworks.com
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Member
 
Group: Moderators
Last Login: 7/12/2006 6:04 PM
Posts: 34,
Visits: 31
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Tytus (4/10/2006)
I'll be writing more about this in my Blog, but I just wanted to start some discussion here:
the premise:
"Never have too little of any one thing"
When you're designing a gaming system, remember the key word "system". you can't have too little of any one thing.
Tons of examples, and I'd love to hear from all of you.
Right now, for example, A Gamer Chic friend of mine has a hard-drive issue... she's got a great Geforce 4, 512MB of Ram, and a 2.5Ghz Athlon.. but her HD is a 5400rpm FRAGMENTED piece of junk!
Clearly, you can hear it chugging from time to time (and her low memory doesn't help that).
She should:
Clean her current drive up, and defragment.
AND buy at least a 7200rpm HD, or a 10,000 rpm one would be better!
What component do you have too little of?LoL I know this is overkill But here are my System Specs AMD Dual Dual-Core Opteron 248 @ 2.4GHz per core (x4)
8GB PC3200 DUAL CHANNEL Corsair 2-2-3 Cas
BFG Dual SLI GeForce 7800GTX video cards
Tyan Nvidia 4 Motherboard with SLI x16PCIe
4x 300GB 16MB Buffer 7200RPM Maxtor 5 year drives
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
LG DVD+/-/RAM Burner
Weekly Routine
- Virii Scan at 3 am daily
- Adware/spam scan at 5 am daily
- Defrag every Friday night at 2 am
- System clean up (reg, unused apps) every end of month
LoL one thing i probably lag at.. is the video card, and maybe getting 10k rpm hard drives like you suggested. Otherwise, i think i shouldn't be complaing about my system. I'm also lagging at boot times. Im thinking about tweaking my system to be on ram rather than on a hard drive (i.e. ram drive)
_______________________________________ Yes, I am a crackberry addict.... What can i say? I'm a gadget freak!
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ELN Board Member, Bigfoot Networks CEO
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 9/8/2008 7:13 PM
Posts: 266,
Visits: 636
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Nice Specs.!
You are ripe for LLR by Bigfoot Networks! 
A 10K rpm drive will help your boot speed, but not as much as a fresh install of Windows.
You should add a bi-monthly reinstall of your OS.... ;0
I love your ram amount, wish I had that! I'll share my system specs when the time is right: don't want to create TOO much envy!
Tyt.
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[ELN]Tytus - EndLagNow.ORG
Member of the Board of Directors of ELN
CEO + Mad Scientist of Bigfoot Networks, Inc.
http://www.bigfootnetworks.com
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Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 1/19/2007 1:21 AM
Posts: 31,
Visits: 159
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Howdy,
Well, I can always use some advice for upgrading... My systems specs probably come nowhere near your systems but I'm a starving grad student and ya can't eat a motherboard... I use the system for both school related stuff and gaming. Lag is often an issue in my gaming and living behind a campus network only seems to make it worse! Any suggestions? (Keep in mind that budget is a concern LOL... more bang for my buck and all that.)
I play World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and I'd love to play Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but alas it would probably eat my system.
Here is my system specs:
Custom Built Machine:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (~2.09 Ghz.)
Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X
Memory: 1 GB PC2700 DDR
Graphics: ATI X700 AGP 256 DDR2 (Powercolor)
Soundcard: Audigy 4 SE
Drives:
Western Digital 30 GB HD (7200 RPM)
Western Digital 160GB HD (7200 RPM)
IDE DVD-ROM 16X
IDE DVDRW 16X
OS: Windows XP, Home Edition
Internet Connection: Cable (Intercampus Network)
Custom Built Case:
http://likeagod.blogspot.com/2006/02/i-made-this-computer-case.html
Thanks!
like_a_god
Monitor: BenQ FP93GX 19" 2ms LCD Monitor (1280 x 1024, 60hz)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Motherboard: Abit AT8 32X
Memory: 1 GB of DDR 400
Video Card: Powercolor ATI X1600 Pro 512 PCIe
Soundcard: SB Audigy 4
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 250 GB SATA
DVD RW (OEM)
Power Supply: Antec Power NeoHE 550
OS: Windows XP Home SP2
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Noob
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/11/2006 3:47 AM
Posts: 5,
Visits: 4
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to the system 2 specs above me.
hooly crap. 8gb of 2-3-2 ram, youd better be doing some serious webhosting with that thing.
to the system specs right above me.
thats a pretty sweet system, pretty well balenced, that system should b able to handle oblivion at a reasonable res with low quality everything.
the graphics card does games. games = graphics cards. i bet you with a 7800GS+ from gainward (has a 7900GTX core in it) with this old atholon XP that i could run oblivion. not that many games are CPU intensive to the point where you need super dual core X2 5000+/FX62/X6800 Core 2 Duo procs. thats mostly for other things, such as encoding.
the ram stands out on your system. Pc2700/DDR333? thats no good..... but then the Asus A7N8X only has an FSB of 300mhz hmm.... hmmmmmmmmmm.... you might try taking some crash courses in overclocking, taking some crash courses in ghetto modding (IE put a 9cm fan on your North bridge... actually i dont know enough about K7 architecture to comment on that...) and getting some nice DDR400. that will give you a chunk of a boost.
im sorry, im to tired to go on a hunt for some oc sites for you, ill do that in the morning, otherwise you can just google up "overclocking guide" or "how to overclock" etc etc.
also. just so you know what on-board memory for graphics cards does, it caches Pixels, meaning it stores information about textures for the graphics card. ultimatly, it effects max resolution. more on graphics board ram = higher resolution. 256MB should be able to do 1600X1200.but maybe youll have to settle for 1200X1000.
and as for the first posting person.......
thats not so bad. defraggin would be good, but im still running on a 5400rpm drive, and i have a better (6600GT) graphics card, more (1gB dual channel) ram and possibley a better (Atholon XP 2.5Ghz) processer, my bottleneck i still believe to be the 6600GT.
but hes got a point, and a very valid one. my dad is an avid fan of Ram buying. i tell him its pointless on his old P2 but he does it anyways.
(heres your example). your system is a river. you want to make its banks as parralleled as possible. get as much water from point A to point B as possible. research your computer before doing any upgrades. that little 8.50/hour techi kid at futureshop wants you to buy that 7900GX2 for $800, because he wants to make the sale. it will outperform everything out there, but it might not help your computer at all in performance.
Wireless is bad! its that simple! wireless mice, wireless keyboards, and biggest of all wireless networks all slow down your reaction time. stick with good old bulky annoying wires for the best performance.
id sell my soal for pings so low!
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Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 1/19/2007 1:21 AM
Posts: 31,
Visits: 159
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MrWizard6600,
Thanks for the info... I had heard from tech friends that the board is unstable when using the DDR 400 memory. Hence, I didn't install that in the system.
This also brings up an interesting discussion I had with another techfriend recently. Apparently he has seen studies that show that there is little noticable improvement 'in-game' between using DDR 400 and DDR 333. It argued that basically the CPU/System bottleneck makes the difference between the two speeds somewhat irrelavent. Apparently you don't agree...
Also, I'm not overclocking this board because I can run as hot as 50-60 C when I run WOW and with the ambient room temp reaches above 85. I've tried everything to cool the system save for water cooling. (Although I hear that this board also has issues with onboard heat sensors).
Anyhow, I'm looking at upgrading and I think I'm gonna build the new system around the ECS RD480-A939 (V1.0) motherboard:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?MenuID=90&LanID=9&DetailID=583&DetailName=Specification
I'll salvage what I can from my previous setup, including sticking with my current memory (until I can upgrade at least). However, any suggestions would be benefitial. You sound like you understand something about the new computers...Keep in mind of course that I only have a budget of no more than $500.
Likeagod
Monitor: BenQ FP93GX 19" 2ms LCD Monitor (1280 x 1024, 60hz)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Motherboard: Abit AT8 32X
Memory: 1 GB of DDR 400
Video Card: Powercolor ATI X1600 Pro 512 PCIe
Soundcard: SB Audigy 4
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 250 GB SATA
DVD RW (OEM)
Power Supply: Antec Power NeoHE 550
OS: Windows XP Home SP2
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Noob
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/26/2006 6:20 AM
Posts: 2,
Visits: 14
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| Hi all I'm looking for comments on my systems, I'm trying to get 3 pcs up to scratch to play rise and fall-civilizations at war over a lan. I've been toying with these to get them to work, and they do until its battle time (3000+ units on field) when lag can hit a framerate down to 1 frame every 5 seconds (ouch). I'm using a belkin router with built in 100mb/s switch. these are the specs of the 3 pcs pc 1 athlon 64 3000, dfi lanparty nf3, 512 DDR400 ram, 7600rpm 180gig maxtor, radeon x850 pro 256 mb. pc 2 Pentium D dual core 2.66gig, intel mboard with x300 radeon onboard graphics (128mb shared ram), (+and empty pci-e slot) 512 DDR400 ram, 5200rpm 20gig HD pc 3 Athlon xp 2000, Asus a7n8X Deluxe, 512 ddr333 ram, 5200rpm 20gig HD, ge-force 5950 ultra 256mb) can I have some recommendations on buying new hardware (£200 tops), i.e. put ram to 1 gig per machine, 1.5 gig per machine, get new hard drives, get a pci express for the pc with onboard graphics etc. Cheers Ern
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ELN Board Member, Bigfoot Networks CEO
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 9/8/2008 7:13 PM
Posts: 266,
Visits: 636
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Ernie,
those specs don't seem too bad. Not Over the top great, but a very nice start.
I think that you will be best by getting everybody to 1Gig, and get that PC2 off of shared mem memory!
Even a cheap NVIDIA 7600GS would be better than your onboard stuff...
Otherwise, they should all be great for Rise&Fall.
Tytus
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[ELN]Tytus - EndLagNow.ORG
Member of the Board of Directors of ELN
CEO + Mad Scientist of Bigfoot Networks, Inc.
http://www.bigfootnetworks.com
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Noob
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/26/2006 6:20 AM
Posts: 2,
Visits: 14
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| Thanks, that was my gut instinct as well, hopefully that should make some impact on the painful experience of lag, will let you know How i get on. Thanks again Ern
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