ATI Radeon xpress 200 chipset boost!

[Crowlips]

Hi, Ive got a bit of a budget machine sempron 3000+ 1.8ghz 768MB ram and ATI xpress 200 chipset taking 128MB system memory from 768MB ram.

To be honest, its not bad at all even for video editing which can be heavy on resources.

However, I do have few problems with some games. If i turn anti aliasing off and set a lower resolution my problems are resolved but if I have this turned on with resolution 1024x768, it does struggle even some screensavers.

I was wondering if anyone could advise of a good companion for ATI Radeon xpress 200, PCI graphics card perhaps.
Thanks

[PC TECH250]

The review and tests on that model compared to NVidia and VIA suggest ATI has outdone
the others with the newly designed chipset. http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njg1

Antiliasing being disabled is common even with AGP cards at a 1280x1024 resolution with a
pair of 512mb dimms installed. Does your board have an AGP slot? Which games are giving
you issues would be another question? Are you running a 512mb with a 256mb dimm or 3
256mb dimms? Some games grab at 1gb or more of installed ram.

[Crowlips]

Thanks for replying, rs480 board, PCI Express, no AGP slots.

One of the games is Doom3.

RAM is 256MB & 512MB dimms.

I do think more more memory is required. Turning off windowblinds helps a bit too.

Can you reccommend a compainon for my ATI Express 200 chipset or maybe just chuck another 512MB stick in.

Thanks

[PC TECH250]

There are some good pci cards that have 256mb onboard. Pci is still limited over agp by the
long shot there. An equal match of installed memory generally runs smoother provided the
dimms are the exact same type and usuallt the same brand from the same production time.
Matched pairs of dimms are those that are pretested to work together on one board. Those
newer games always seem to run better with more available ram as well as having a good
VPU(video processing unit) on the video card itself which takes the load off of the installed
main cpu freeing processor time.

Some of the newer model pci type cards have dual vpus on them. Most of those are above
the basic pci type you are using however. There are a few things that can help with having
a more resource demanding game run better however. Using the msconfig utility a number
of non essential startups can be reduced to free up system resources. If you are running a
pci slot video capture device to later edit video or even a usb capture device you would then
uncheck the listings in the msconfig to manually start them when used.

If you are unfamiliat with the msconfig utilty the process is basic. You first go to Start menu
and drop down to the "Run" prompt there. Type in msconfig and press the enter key to see
a new display come up on the screen with several tabs. The last on the right is the startup
listings for installed softwares which also include the video and sound. Those you would be
keepoing checked unless an extra caused issues with Doom 3. Once you uncheck all of the
non essential items listed you then exit and restart the system with more free resources as
well as available memory. With XP the next tab is where to check the "hide all ms services"
to avoid disabling needed background items that are necessary. Video and sound there too.

[Crowlips]

I could of done with a couple of AGP slots however, Im led to believe PCI Express surpasses AGP in both bandwidth availability and graphics features, I dont know of many that provide both AGP and PCI Express.

Either way, I had tried to reduce system to just bare essentials with msconfig still no joy.

Just play at a lower resoultion for the time being, thanks

[PC TECH250]

Sorry to hear that one. But it can often help on a variety of systems to free up memory for
some of the newer game designs. High end gaming machines will often use a pci-e dual card
setup for going the length. Your board does support the pci-e line of cards. But cost on dual
vpu or dual cards setups can climb fast. Running a memory tester on the installed memory is
another idea to see if your installed memory has any faults. If the memory is incompatable
with each other or has flaws that will effect games often as well.

Memtest V.165 can be found at: http://www.memtest.org The old Linux utility is updated
for 64bit cpu support can tell if you have any problems with the current memory. Having the
same sized dimms in each slot can also be a help at times. Mismatched memory can have a
bad issue with game resolutions even with supposedly matched pairs if they are found to
have flaws or incompatibilty issues. Soldier of Fortune II, HALF LIFE2, NIGHTFIRE, and some
others would lock or crash to the desk when a matched pair was found with errors. So much
for the "matched" in matched pairs.

[Crowlips]

Thanks for your help, I think someway down the line i will look for an ATI PCI-e card.

[JLK03F150]

Speaking of budget, how much would you be looking to spend for a video card upgrade? A pci-e card slightly better than your x200 onboard starts around $50 & they go up to several hundred for high end gaming cards. A good mid-range card is $130 to $190.

And don't rule out nvidia because you have an ATI mobo. Nforce4 motherboards work great with ATI video cards.

[PC TECH250]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JLK03F150

Speaking of budget, how much would you be looking to spend for a video card upgrade? A pci-e card slightly better than your x200 onboard starts around $50 & they go up to several hundred for high end gaming cards. A good mid-range card is $130 to $190.

And don't rule out nvidia because you have an ATI mobo. Nforce4 motherboards work great with ATI video cards.

Some far more elaborate setups go up over $2500- at times for gaming machines.
The chipset doesn't always have a bearing as long as a good card is run. You can take
an Asus, MSI, and others with the NVidia as well as ATI brand cards and see some
good results there. You have the support for the PCI-E readily available.

[chefde]

Nvidia - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130258 $179 + ship

ATI- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814142052 $175 + ship

Just make sure your power supply is good enough!!!!