Squeezing Performance

[DPalmz]

I'm trying to seek and squeeze the most performance out of this old computer of mine on a limited budget .  Any suggestions of what i should upgrade first vs priority/price.

AMD Athlon XP 3200+
AsusTek A7N8X-X MB
1 Gig OCZ DDR-SDRAM PC-3200(200MHz) - [DDR-400]
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 (AGP)

[Allan]

What particular problems are you experiencing with the system?

[DPalmz]

playing games like CS 1.6...i get 99 fps until theres lots of action and shooting happening all at once...this is playing online also.  IT was drop down to 30 and around that....really notice it when someone has thrown a smoke grenade out

[patio]

Probably has more to do with your connection...rather than the hardware..
Visit speedtest and do 3 -4 passes over a 1 Hour period...

[DPalmz]

i did a speed test on there...i was getting anywhere from 17 - 22 Mbps and an Upload from 2 - 3 Mbps...so im guessing those aren't a factor at all.

[DPalmz]

im thinking its possibly the video card...ive read alot of reviews on it since this post and maybe thats possibly bottlenecking my system

[Computer_Commando]

...NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 (AGP)

I don't think you're going to get any more performance from an AGP card.  PCI-e cards have double the bandwidth of AGP 8x

[quaxo]

Maybe... MAYBE... another 1GB of RAM and a slightly better video card might help. It'll will probably be a minimal difference though, especially if you're running Windows XP because 1GB is enough for most anything on XP.

In my opinion, you'd be better off saving that money and then some for a new system.

[patio]

Maybe... MAYBE... another 1GB of RAM and a slightly better video card might help. It'll will probably be a minimal difference though, especially if you're running Windows XP because 1GB is enough for most anything on XP.

In my opinion, you'd be better off saving that money and then some for a new system.

And i agree...

[BC_Programmer]

a new system for running CS 1.6, which is a mod for half-life released in 1998?

[quaxo]

a new system for running CS 1.6, which is a mod for half-life released in 1998?

It sounds outrageous and I'm not suggesting he spend $750 on a brand new computer, just a completely new configuration. He's not going to get much more out of what he's got. Like I said, a bit of memory and a better card (if he could find one) might give some improvement, but it won't be much. If he wants even more than that, he's looking at a new system, with new or used parts. There are lots of used parts that could easily outperform what he's got, still still saving him money.

However, you end up with a bit of a domino effect if you want to upgrade something this old. The 3200+ Barton was about as fast as one could go with 453-pin processors. If upgrading the memory and video card won't give him much better performance, he'd need to look at the processor then. If he got a better processor, he'd need a different board as the 3200+ was about as high as you can go with that board anyway. If his memory doesn't work with the new board, that's more money he's got to spend. He'd have to find a board that has AGP to use the old card or he'd have to get a PCIx card. About the only thing he'd have left in the end is the case, drives, and maybe the power supply.

It's an ugly and unfortunate truth, but it's still the truth. 

[BC_Programmer]

Oh... got sidetracked by his later post... his first post definitely entails everything you mentioned. (I was thinking that they <only> wanted to make CS 1.6 faster).

OTOH, given the case they mentioned it sounds like the best way to "squeeze performance" from the machine would be to simply perform proper maintenance (disk check, virus check, unnecessary startups, etc). Definitely agree that an actual hardware upgrade won't be very cost-effective compared to simply saving that money to buy a new machine entirely.

[quaxo]

I did a bit of looking around. If you're really intent on getting what little more you can out of the system...

The best AGP card I could find was the 6200. Not a huge step above what you've got, but it's still better. NewEgg.com has a number of them:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600030348%20600007850%20600007303&IsNodeId=1&name=GeForce%206%20series

You could also go with one of the ATI cards from the 4000 series, they made a number of these for AGP as well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600030349%20600007850%20600007317&IsNodeId=1&name=Radeon%20HD%204000%20series

A video card is going to cost you between $24-$70+, depending on what you want.

As for memory, another gigabyte for that will be about $45. Going over 2GB for Windows XP is overkill. Don't waste your money. So, for about $70, you could upgrade both, or go all in for $110 and get the best you can. Now note that these are prices for NEW parts. You could go for used parts for a fraction of the price, but there's not telling how reliable those will be.

As for what BC suggested, that is also a way to get a bit more out of what you've got. Regularly performing the things he's suggested will keep your system running as smooth as possible. As he said, disk checks, virus checks, reducing the number of programs that come on at startup, in addition to regular defragmentation, stopping some background processes, closing all unused programs while you're playing games, turning detail down a notch in-game (I know, I hate doing that too)... that, combined with a new card and more memory might give you a boost, but I still don't think it will be a whole heck of a lot.

Oh... got sidetracked by his later post... his first post definitely entails everything you mentioned. (I was thinking that they <only> wanted to make CS 1.6 faster).

No worries mate. It's not like I haven't done the same.