1280x1024 Vid Card Upgrade

Actually Dodson, I could probably use something.. chat with me bout it later.

On this (my main machine) is a GeForce 5700. Middle (really old comp, mostly the msn machine, but will prob do something in eq, has some kinda even older ATI card) and newest one has that craptacular GeForce 8500.

Realized last night just before heading to bed, that my older two use AGP cards. Only the newish one that has the GeForce 8500 waiting for it uses Pci-E cards. Know if either of those cards is better than the 8500, or if either use 300w or less? Thats the one reason I've never gotten around to putting it in, is it wants a 350 or 400w power supply

Nvidia's tend to be power hungry, especially on the high end of a line - I'd imagine those to follow the trend, but that's just a quick response on them as a trend - not as individual experience with the card.

I've heard good things about Windows 7 so far. Definitely an improvement over Vista (although that's like saying a cell phone's better than 2 cans and a string).

Zuth, was thinking further on your computer. Isn't it still the case that EQ more utilizes processor / RAM than it does the video card itself. Seemed to me that last time around I got more benefit out of upgrading RAM than I did the video card. EQ2, on the other hand, was fully utilizing the video card.

Depends on exactly what part you're worried about, but yea - my video card pegs EQ1 at max fps already anyhow - I'm not concerned about it from an EQ standpoint.

Not sure about processor holding much weight though, but RAM I know is huge for reducing zone times. (As well as low seek-time HDs)

After finding a nice tool at http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine for recommending PSU wattage looks like I'll be in the clear - even assuming it's lost 30% of it's oomph it's still got 40W to spare at 95% load.

Does upgrading from 1gb of ram to 2gb of ram in Windows XP help much? Had one person telling me recently that XP won't use over 1gb of ram, and that going to 2 would be useless. Mostly thinking in terms of EQ, I rarely play many other games on the computer these days.

1 -> 2 GB is big. Over 2 GB is debatable. (Depends a lot on what you do and how much you care about alt-tab speed)

Any 32-bit OS will only utilize 3.5 MB or so. (There's technically a 64-bit version of XP around, although incredibly rare, is why I put that stipulation in rather than being blunt about XP)

Technically I believe the full numbers thing on it is 3.5MB minus whatever video RAM is on the video card or something like that? (3.5 MB total but VRAM trumps standard RAM for priority or some such)

Zuth is right on the 3.5G or so limit. I'm running the 64-bit XP, and it runs great with 8G. The extra RAM is a great help for the things I do, but most people get by fine with less RAM. As an aside, running 4 sessions of EQ at once is no problem on such a system. With a 32-bit system one would have to turn off some things. The extra RAM helps when you have a lot of stuff running.

Newegg sells the 64-bit version, so its pretty easy to get.

Ah neat, last I'd checked XP 64-bit was only a MS mail-in and wait deal.

with win xp you wanna go 2gigs if possible its a huge improvement over 1 gig , for EQ it alllows less hard drive access when lots & things are going on the screen (ie slowdowns) & quicker zoning.


as far as EQ goes what improves preformance the most in order is memory, cpu, video card

There are other sources too, although people with access to them should know they have it. For example, MSDN subscribers can get images/keys. Academic Alliance members can get images/keys as well. In both cases one just downloads what they need. So if any of you are students you might check to see if your institution is a member of the academic alliance.

PS: For EQ I think I'll place video cards ahead of the CPU. I've seen systems choke on the video before their CPU became an issue. Lack of texture memory for example. The newer cards are coming with obscene amounts of video memory, which is kind of nice. I mean, 1G of video RAM is a lot.

I would hold off & just get win7 when it goes retail to be honest ... win XP has been a dead OS for a while now .. MS no longer supports it

Although if you do Win7 early and use an ATI - keep in mind some games get funky with the video card if you use the ATI official drivers rather than the MS ones.... (they used some weird ASCII hyphen instead of a normal one - so some games can't read the character correctly leading to chaos until you do some annoying kludges, or revert to MS's ATI driver [no parsable difference in driver performance from what I can gather])

Each to their own on OS versions, but I must correct a couple of facts.

First, XP is still supported by Microsoft. There are rumors of this support ending in April, but I don't see MS doing more than threatening at this point.


As for being dead...

From Nov 2008 article (http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/100809/vista-gains-market-share-in-october-but-may-never-beat-xp.html)

Quote :

Windows Vista grabbed almost one percent more of the OS market in October, according to figures from Net Applications. Vista represented 19.29 percent of web users, up from 18.33 percent in September. Vista’s share in October 2007 was 7.94 percent.

Windows XP’s share was down, from 68.67 percent in September to 68.11 percent in October. The market share of Mac OSs was mostly unchanged, going from 8.23 to 8.21 percent in October.

Before we can declare XP dead, something needs to take its place. Maybe Windows 7 will claim the title. I haven't tried it yet, but I haven't heard of any new features which I need. Since I don't believe Microsoft will ever abandon its requirement that device drivers be signed, they are preventing me from doing some of my work. Now if Windows 7 lets me decide what software I can run, I'll be happy to give it a fair shot.

But I don't represent the majority of Microsoft's consumer base. Thinking of them for a moment, I must ask why in these economic times any business would spend money on OS upgrades unless there is a benefit. "Well we laid off 500 workers today, but gave people a flashy new UI".

Win 7 doesn't require signed drivers anymore - it will say "This isn't signed are you sure?" and after clicking Yes it doesn't care anymore. And that's with default UAC.

I like it already.

But I'm still suspicious.

The reason is that it is possible for a kernel mode driver to access raw memory directly, and could be used to strip DRM from media which
is being played. This has nothing to do with my work, but it was the justification given for preventing unsigned drivers. I don't see media companies
like Sony allowing Microsoft to give us full access to our machines.

On the gripping hand, Apple is removing DRM from Itunes so perhaps the trend will be to lighten up in this area... Who am I kidding.

if anyone is looking for a monitor newegg has a super sweet deal going on right now ...

ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD for $229 using promo code: EMCLNMV55 + Free Shipping!

Only support for DRM that I've seen on 7 is that it allows SecuROM and the like to install still - but those are easily removable - and doesn't haven't run into any programs that once I've undone SecuROM that has belly-ached about me wanting to run it sans-CD. (I own 90% of what I play more than a day - but with Laura and I both juggling CD's like we used to do back in the day we always destroyed them at some point - be it forgetting to recase them, losing them, etc. - we own probably 600-700 CDs worth of games [literally 2 movers boxes are filled with old ones - no boxes, just cases and manuals], and I'd bet 70-80% of anything beyond the 18 mos or so that I've figured out how to work around DRM wouldn't complete an install [heck even NWN2 which is within that timeframe I had to pirate a copy of to use it, because the DVD I own is trashed - still use my own CD key though])

I was referring to DRM on media (video especially).

Ah, I'm one of those old fashioned types that either listens to the radio/Pandora or buys CDs - no clue on WMP and other player DRM.