WOW - New Graphics Card or more RAM?

[Tharn]

I did not read the replies (sorry, guys), but I had pretty similar configuration before as you do (AthlonXP 1800+, 512 MB RAM and GF4 Ti4200 128 MB) and I upgraded to 1 GB RAM and Radeon 9600 Pro 256 MB RAM.

1) Turn off antialiasing
2) Upgrade RAM, it's worth it if you're planning on playing more (which you apparently do)
3) Upgrade graphics card only if you want to increase resolution (then nVidia 6600 is the way to go IMO, Radeon 9600 does not cut it for higher than 1024x768). I pretty much regret the upgrade now.

The difference between 1 GB RAM and 512 MB is that when the game is loading, you're experience a LOT of HDD lag with 512 MB and it's good to stop for a while, but there's no slowdown at all with 1 GB and you can play without any problems even when HDD works full-speed (maybe you'll just see some objects later). Typical difference would be starting game in Orgrimmar near AH - you would have to wait like a minute with 512 MB RAM, but with 1 gig you'll just do what you want, while game will be loading in the background.

[nobbie]

What would be less expensive in terms of graphics memory/speed:

1.) running the game at 1024 x 768 resolution with 2x Anti-Aliasing ON or

2.) running the game at 1280 x 960 resolution with all Anti-Aliasing OFF?

[Tharn]

I'd say about eqal, with maybe antialiasing being more demanding, but you can always test it on your system.

Antialiasing/higher resolution stress especially fillrate, while additional players stess more geometry processing - so having more or less players will matter little in this case, you can easily test it in some more demanding area with few players (Ashenvale is very nice, but any forest should do, IMHO) and see the difference.

[nobbie]

I've now found a very good compromise for my system with P4 2GHz, 512MB RAM, Geforce4 Ti4200 64MB and a 19" monitor:

- 2x Anti-Aliasing in the Geforce4 driver setup is now turned OFF, resulting in much better texture detail but also more "jaggies" especially at object edges.

- To make the now visible "jaggies" less noticeable and increase texture detail further, I've raised the image resolution from 1024x768x32 to 1152x864x32.

- The "Mipmap Detail" in the Geforce4 driver setup is set to medium quality (best compromise between application speed and image quality).

- The in-game graphics settings of WOW are now set as follows: Image Resolution is 1152x864x32 at 60Hz monitor frequency, Terrain Distance ist about 33% (of 100% max.), Environment Detail is LOW, Anisotropic Filter is LOW, Terrain Texture is LOW, Texture Detail is HIGH, and Level of Detail is ON. From the Shaders, only Terrain Highlights is turned ON, Vertex Animation Shader is ON, Vertical Snyc is ON, Hardware Cursor is ON, and anything else is turned OFF.

It's amazing how effective this change from an anti-aliased 1024x768x32 resolution to a non-anti-aliased 1152x864x32 resolution is. About 20% more image content (image pixels in relation to the 19" monitor) and no Anti-Aliasing means more texture detail with hardly noticeable "jaggies" and at the same time much better performance for a 64MB graphics card. Bat Flights even over terrain like Silverpine Forest with lots of trees and detail are now acceptably smooth, and the noticeably higher harddisk activity during such flights is mostly due to the constant loading of new visible content. At this point, the PC would certainly benefit from more RAM, i.e. 1024MB instead of 512MB to make content loading faster. I also think that my Geforce4 Ti4200 could deliver even better image quality if it had 128MB VRAM instead of just 64MB, but I'm not sure that an extra 90$ for a new graphics card like an older Radeon 9600pro with 128MB would justify that extra bit of quality. What do you think?

[redinter]

At this point, the PC would certainly benefit from more RAM, i.e. 1024MB instead of 512MB to make content loading faster. I also think that my Geforce4 Ti4200 could deliver even better image quality if it had 128MB VRAM instead of just 64MB, but I'm not sure that an extra 90$ for a new graphics card like an older Radeon 9600pro with 128MB would justify that extra bit of quality. What do you think?

I dont think the investment would be good. The radeon 9600 is almost outdated. With the coming of yet another card generation in the next months, current cards will probably drop in prices. I would recommend saving up a bit of money and to buy a newer card for around 180 euros in a few months. Then you can play the game with highest settings and truly see an improvement.

[nobbie]

I dont think the investment would be good. The radeon 9600 is almost outdated. With the coming of yet another card generation in the next months, current cards will probably drop in prices. I would recommend saving up a bit of money and to buy a newer card for around 180 euros in a few months. Then you can play the game with highest settings and truly see an improvement.
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Ok, some months more or less don't matter if I can grab a Radeon 9800 or GF 6600 at moderate prices then :)

[Roland]

As was pointed out by Thecla, the typical memory footprint of most systems when this game is running is going to be in the area of 650-820 MB.

Interesting. I don't think I've ever seen my footprint above 300 MB or so. Will have to check that, but I'm fairly certain it's not nearly as bad as PS was (that thing ate up 600MB+ for a SNACK; the funniest / worst part was when they first implemented their "fix" to allow users with 512MB better performance - it backfired, and made performance WORSE for them and better (or the same, depending) for those with higher! The uproar on the forums was hilarious. Response time on it was quick, though, so the turnaround fix was ~1 week, tops, IIRC. Still funny as #$%& to watch though, as it happened shortly after I upgraded my RAM. :D). I'll have to take a look to satiate my curiosity. :)

Update:
Indeed, mine tops around 250,000KB (hasn't even hit that yet; I'm estimating, as it's currently ~210,000KB and holding, but occasionally goes up 1,000 when I advance into new areas). Maybe after hours of play the footprint gets that high, but truly I can't see it getting any higher than 300,000KB.

Update 2:
Ok, so I got it above 255,000KB by running around Ashenvale a bit. Still, I have a great deal of trouble believing it can get as high as 600MB, let alone 850MB+!

[Roland]

Gonna jump on the bandwagon here and ask for some additional input from others as to my own personal upgrade decision for the near future.

I'm running an old P4 1.6A on a (shudder) ECS mobo. I THINK it's running PC2100, but it could be PC2700 (for whatever reason, I can never remember :P). I have 1024MB of RAM, in 2x 512MB configuration, single-channel, of course (DDR was unheard of at the time I receieved this PC). Recently-bought BFG 6800 OC (BFG purposely OC's their cards slightly to boost performance; they also offer lifetime warranty, even if you OC), although it runs a bit hot - may have to take it apart and throw some Arctic Silver on there, if I can find my little tube.

Essentially, I have an outdated system with some relatively high-end components (high, albeit slow, RAM and a good new-generation video card). My goal is to upgrade what I have, using as many components as I possibly can, while getting a large boost in performance (I know, I know, like that ever happens, right? :) But it IS possible with my system, since almost all the components are still supported, unlike most people who upgrade from a 5+ year old computer). I have a big PSU that can accommodate any of the new P4's (~450W, IIRC - I went overboard at the time because the price difference between low and high was small, and I had just blown up my old PSU, so I didn't want that to happen again), so that's not an issue. I have a VERY old 15" monitor that still, miracuously, works (albeit not the best at times - tapping the cable has a tendency to throw all the color guns out of whack :P), and as I said plenty of RAM and a good graphics card. So, I decided that now is probably the best (and nearing last) time I'll have to make an upgrade and still be able to use all my old components, while having room to upgrade in the future.

I picked out a cheap mobo and processor, all lined up, and they come out to $249.99 including shipping.
Processor: Intel P4 2.8GHz LGA775
Motherboard: Abit "AS8"

A new HSFU would probably be advisable, but I'm sure I could get by with the reference cooler since it's not even remotely at the high-end for heat dissipation (should be around either 75W/80W or 100W; can't remember the cutoff points at the moment). It nearly doubles my processing power, adds in HT support, has onboard audio (not necessary, but nearly unavoidable), LAN (outdated, though; I'll post some of my other mobo options that have GB LAN), Serial ATA (forward compatibility, which I'm looking to get as much of as I can for my dollars), RAID 0/1 (a big plus, since this system will invariably be get downgraded to either "server" or "secondary" computer status), 3x Firewire ports (a nice but indifferent plus). It supports my AGP video card (no PCI Express, but I can live with that; as I said, this system will invariably be downgraded when I build myself a brand new system in a couple years), and IIRC dual-channel is backwards-compatible with single channel so it supports even my lowly PC2100 RAM, with options to get up to PC3200 (and, I'm sure, even higher with OCing), with options to upgrade up to 4GB. :)

Essentially, it gives me all the bells and whistles I need, with some I don't, for a pittance of money (well, right now "pittance" = "penny"), but with my tax returns coming I hope to budget enough money to afford this upgrade - we'll see though). It SHOULD provide me with at LEAST 3 years of use as a primary computer (I do mostly gaming with my rigs, so I gear them heavily towards that), and plenty of use as a secondary / server rig.

So, what do you all think? I think I picked out a nice little package, but I'd like others opinions, especially since I'm unfamiliar with Abit's boards. I know OF them, but I have no personal experience with them, so I'm ever so slightly skeptical. The clincher for me was the RAID. I think it was the only board that had it and firewire (not that I care about IE1394) together, but in any case the price difference between the 6 or 8 boards I was looking at was minimal. I think the most I saw was $15 - $25, tops. So, it only made sense to get RAID built into the board, especially since this board was in the mid-to-low price category at $88 (highest I saw was either 95$ or ~$110, lowest was either $76 or $82).

Here's a link to all my options for motherboards. Having dealt with the CRAP that is ECS, I avoid them and any other "cheap" brand like the plague. I want loads of features in the BIOS and as much overclocking potential as I can possibly get. Gigabyte, ASUS, Abit, and MSI were all candidates, with Foxconn and Soltek being potential candidates. Abit and Soltek were the only ones out of all of them that had RAID, so I went with Abit since it was cheaper and since I don't know Soltek too well, although it did have Gigabit LAN and dual-RAID, but didn't seem to have any OCing options. Plus the price was almost $20 more, so I decided to pass on them. :P

BTW - the difference between the AS8 and AS8-third eye is some BS extra feature that I don't care about, something to do with LCD / TV display of temperature, etc. or some such nonsense. The price difference was large and the feature nonsensical to me, so I passed gladly. Just an FYI.

Anyway, I'd appreciate people's input on this. And if I've made any glaring errors, please let me know so I don't waste my money. :)

[Kevin]

PC 2100 RAM is DDR.

Dual channel means, basically, that the motherboard can read from two memory banks at the same time to increase performance, it has nothing to do with the memory modules themselves. If you turn on dual channel and you have 2x 512MB sticks you will have 512MB of system memory that is theoretically twice as fast as the speed you have it running. If you have 2x 512MB sticks and run single channel you will have 1 GB of system RAM that runs at speed.

I haven't looked at the rest of what you posted but I wanted to clear up that confusion right now.

[Nystul]

Ok, some months more or less don't matter if I can grab a Radeon 9800 or GF 6600 at moderate prices then :)
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Yeah, I would wait until you can get something better. It's tricky though, because Nvidia and Ati have gotten very good at selling a wide variety of gimped cards to keep the prices high. Some of this is legitimate quality control, and some of it is simply price gouging.

AA is usually about the last graphics option I consider turning on/up. It's more important in some games than in others, and it's probably a matter of taste as to whether poor interior textures bother you more than poor edge lines. But raising resolution helps with both :D

[Roland]

PC 2100 RAM is DDR. 

Dual channel means, basically, that the motherboard can read from two memory banks at the same time to increase performance, it has nothing to do with the memory modules themselves.  If you turn on dual channel and you have 2x 512MB sticks you will have 512MB of system memory that is theoretically twice as fast as the speed you have it running.  If you have 2x 512MB sticks and run single channel you will have 1 GB of system RAM that runs at speed.

I haven't looked at the rest of what you posted but I wanted to clear up that confusion right now.
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There was no confusion. I'm a techie. I build computers for a living, and have plenty of experience doing so. I know all about DDR, DDR2, and old SDRAM, as well as single- versus dual-channel. The only thing I was even remotely reluctant on was whether my RAM chips would work in the new motherboard, seeing as they are single-channel and the DIMMs are dual-channel. But as I said, I'm 99% certain they will. Call it a personal lack of confidence in my ownabilities at times. ;)

[Nystul]

Some random comments for you, Roland. I have had your graphics card and an Abit motherboard since about the start of the year.

I'm curious what kind of in game performance levels you are getting with what you have now. It seems like it should already be a pretty nice rig, but the CPU probably can't keep up. If the card came with Farcry, what kind of settings and FPS are you getting? Just curious.

6800OC attached to a 15" monitor sounds like a Yugo with nitros :rolleyes: I'm sure 15" monitor is plenty big enough for all practical purposes though. If you really want overkill, try to unlock the pixel pipelines using RivaTuner.

I have an Abit motherboard, but it is the AV8 (Athlon64 rather than Pentium 4). So far, so good. If you like to mess around with overclocking, you will probably like the microGuru, which can allow you to make a specific group of voltage/fan/FSB settings, save it, and then flop it on at any time without needing to reboot. You can even bind such a profile to specific programs, such that everytime you run "diablo.exe" you automatically get a more agressive overclocking to provide the necessary performance boost for such intensive software. (Advanced memory settings and some other things can only be changed in BIOS). The practical side of me, however, has never seen enough performance boost from overclocking to justify the added heat and potential stability problems. And if your current memory is PC2100, it may be even less practical to overclock.

The main problems I've heard about with Abit mobos in the past involved northbridge fans. I don't know if those issues apply to the current models or not. My model does not seem to have any fans at all, just the funky blue heatsinks, so problem solved.

There is at least a decent chance that your memory will be able to run in dual channel if you do go through with this motherboard/processor upgrade. As gnollguy said, there is really no such thing as "dual channel RAM". It is just a matched pair of DDR SDRAM. You already have that, just older and slower, so it might work in dual channel configuration with very conservative memory settings.

Since you already have the AGP 6800, and I'm betting you have a few things that demand a regular PCI slot, it is probably a good choice to avoid the PCI-Express motherboards for now.

[Roland]

Some random comments for you, Roland.  I have had your graphics card and an Abit motherboard since about the start of the year.

I'm curious what kind of in game performance levels you are getting with what you have now.  It seems like it should already be a pretty nice rig, but the CPU probably can't keep up.  If the card came with Farcry, what kind of settings and FPS are you getting?  Just curious.

I get fairly decent performance all around. Nothing worth truly complaining about. My biggest issues are the graphical lag I get in WoW, especially when I boost the effects (AA, mipmap, and aniso). Also, flying on a Gryphon / Hyppogriph leads to very choppy performance; most displeasing. I'm not positive that my video card is entirely powerful enough to do what I want, but it theoretically should be. I don't think I should be having the graphical problems I am currently, let me put it that way (bugger the fact that I have to run the damned game in Windowed mode, because it freezes at startup in fullscreen mode, and Blizzard STILL has not done ANYTHING about this problem).

Besides, my CPU is way outdated for some of the hardware I have in there (namely the video card). The processor runs at 1.6GHz, with a 400MHz FSB. It's sad, really. Doubling the FSB, nearly doubling the CPU power, and adding in HT should vastly boost my overall performance, in theory. I DO notice, IIRC, that when my games get choppy, my CPU light seems to go haywire, and the internal sound (fans, drive clicking, etc.) increase a fair bit, so it's my sneaking suspicion that my computer issues are due to bottlenecking in the CPU. Understandable, but undesirable, especially since I can fix it this easily for this cheap. :D

I haven't played Farcry much lately (though it did come with the vid card), and only played it for a couple weeks before abandoning it for other interests, but I was able to sustain fairly high-end video settings with acceptable performance rates. Again, I think the CPU is the major limiting factor, although the video card is certainly a bit low to handle the full-blow Farcry experience.

As a sidenote, I run all my games in 1024x768 resolution so that it matches my desktop. Aside from that, I'm not sure what more this monitor can handle (it's a ProView - just terrible), especially since anything above 70Hz is inaccessible.

6800OC attached to a 15" monitor sounds like a Yugo with nitros  :rolleyes:  I'm sure 15" monitor is plenty big enough for all practical purposes though.  If you really want overkill, try to unlock the pixel pipelines using RivaTuner.

Not quite. The extra horsepower under the hood helps deliver the visual content. The monitor just displays it. Not quite sure how to fit that into a car analogy, but your example is a little off. :)

I have an Abit motherboard, but it is the AV8 (Athlon64 rather than Pentium 4).  So far, so good.  If you like to mess around with overclocking, you will probably like the microGuru, which can allow you to make a specific group of voltage/fan/FSB settings, save it, and then flop it on at any time without needing to reboot.  You can even bind such a profile to specific programs, such that everytime you run "diablo.exe" you automatically get a more agressive overclocking to provide the necessary performance boost for such intensive software.  (Advanced memory settings and some other things can only be changed in BIOS).  The practical side of me, however, has never seen enough performance boost from overclocking to justify the added heat and potential stability problems.  And if your current memory is PC2100, it may be even less practical to overclock.

I tend to lean towards middle ground when it comes to overclocking - enough for a boost, but not so much that I'm worried about killing my hardware. That was also one of the defining points on why I chose the Abit board - the OC software. Soltek didn't offer it, and Gigabyte I'm still iffy with (their included software is only mediocre; BIOS options are good, though, and I'm very comfortable with working within a BIOS). MSI I have no experience, but generally they have very good OCing capabilities. Unfortunately, sometimes they are hit & miss with the quality, but generally good overall. ASUS, sadly, didn't have any boards available, or I probably would have chosen them.

The main problems I've heard about with Abit mobos in the past involved northbridge fans.  I don't know if those issues apply to the current models or not.  My model does not seem to have any fans at all, just the funky blue heatsinks, so problem solved.

Bridge fans can be replaced easily. Not a big issue. :)

There is at least a decent chance that your memory will be able to run in dual channel if you do go through with this motherboard/processor upgrade.  As gnollguy said, there is really no such thing as "dual channel RAM".  It is just a matched pair of DDR SDRAM.  You already have that, just older and slower, so it might work in dual channel configuration with very conservative memory settings.

Ah, but that's the thing: I don't have "matched pairs". There is still a slight chance it will work even without matched pairs, but the likelihood is very slim. I'm not at all concerned about it. In the future, I'll look into getting a set of matched pairs for a RAM upgrade, but for right now I've boosted just about everythihng I can without forcing myself into a mobo / cpu upgrade. The time has come to do this last bit, and now is right about the perfect time, since Intel is / will be soon phasing out the 478 socket CPUs, and the 865PE / 875P Northbridge chipsets. Thankfully, for the time being motherboard makers are combining 865PE / 875P with LGA775, providing for a very good CPU upgrade while still maintaining the heavy performance of the old Intel chipsets, as well as AGP support (which Intel dropped form their 9xx line of chipsets, sadly). :D

Since you already have the AGP 6800, and I'm betting you have a few things that demand a regular PCI slot, it is probably a good choice to avoid the PCI-Express motherboards for now.

Aye, indeed. I don't care about PCI-Express except for video, and even then the advantages of PCI-E are a LONG way off. Currently, there's virtually no reason to switch, save for SLI with nVIDIA cards, and that's way out of my price range ATM.

It's all speculation anyhow, at this point. I'm on unemployment temporarily, so once I get my first check and know how much I'll be getting, then I can budget whether or not I can "afford" to upgrade, or whether paying off more of my debts is the "best" / only solution. I know I SHOULD put ALL my money into removing debt, but sometimes you just have to treat yourself when you can. :) I'm good with money, so it's just a waiting game for now. In time, all things will get payed off. My biggest issues right now are my student loan payments and my car insurance payments (that JUST started up again this month, urgh), which make up the bulk of my "debt". :P

What kind of rig do you have? And if you play WoW, how well does it run for you?

[Drasca]

So... can old PCI cards function in the new PCI-express?

[Roland]

So... can old PCI cards function in the new PCI-express?
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Thanks for the chuckle.

And to answer your question (since I know you were being serious): no. You'd have a better chance of fitting an elephant into a teacup, as that's essentially what you'll be trying to do. ;)

[Nystul]

What kind of rig do you have? And if you play WoW, how well does it run for you?
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With the previously mentioned AV8 and 6800OC, add a Athlon64 3000+ (1800 Mhz), and 2x512MB PC3200.

I don't have WoW, and I didn't have this gear when I was beta testing, so I can't comment there. I really don't think the graphics card is holding you back at all though. I run Farcry and Doom 3 single player pretty smoothly at 1600x1200 with very high settings for nearly all of the graphical options (AA is usually the thing that gets sacrificed if things do get choppy). If we are only talking about graphics cards, I suspect that both of these games are more demanding than WoW, although WoW obviously puts a lot more characters on the screen at one time and kitty flights are just insane.

CPU (and mobo as needed to support it) would clearly be the place to start, if you scrap up the cash for a limited upgrade. Would memory bandwidth be a bottleneck then? It might be, but you would gain little or nothing by getting faster memory with your current mobo/CPU. And a gig of memory is still a pretty expensive commodity.

If you're like me, you'll probably end up upgrading hardware and then getting hooked back on something like D2 or Deus Ex.

[Drasca]

And to answer your question (since I know you were being serious): no. You'd have a better chance of fitting an elephant into a teacup, as that's essentially what you'll be trying to do. ;)
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Hehe. So no dumbo rides then?

Yep, I was serious. Wasn't sure, as I have no experience with PCI vs PCIe, and though suspecting not--confirmation is good.

Gosh I hope there's going to be an AGP + PCI + PCIe multiboard with SLI someday... err. Its just pointless to have SLI on my forthcoming AGP 6600GT as of right now.

Fortunately, the 6600GT will suit my needs for a long time coming.

[nobbie]

Fortunately, the 6600GT will suit my needs for a long time coming.
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Are you sure?

When I bought the Geforce4 Ti 4200 about 2.5 years ago, I've said that, too :D

[Drasca]

Are you sure?
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Hehe, long as in, long enough in computer age terms! It should last me at least 2 more generations of gfx cards. My only real reasons for upgrading is because my current is overheating too much for my taste (to the point of causing system display freezes+reboots from it), and drooling at the bang for buck deal of AGP 6600GT upgrade.

Hey, that GeForce 4200 is still serving you! Hmm? 2.5 years is decent.. and its ongoing until it goes poof, or until you upgrade.

I'd play WoW on my Geforce 4600 if I was sure my card wouldn't overheat.

In other news, I've WoW put on order at amazon.com this weekend... and the box should arrive wednesday with 2 day shipping. My 6600GT should arrive monday today, so I'll get to try it out before WoW.

I wonder if you'll have the option to play NA servers when EU WoW comes out... or vice versa. If so, see you there!

[Tharn]

I have a VERY old 15" monitor that still, miracuously, works (albeit not the best at times - tapping the cable has a tendency to throw all the color guns out of whack :P)

On your place, I would not think twice and buy some 19"+ LCD or CRT. It will greatly improve your overall experience with the computer (even more when you're not gaming). Once you experience larger screen, there's no way going back :) .

Just look - you have 6800 card, which can comfortably handle games at 1600x1200, maybe with AA&AF too, but your 15" monitor can't display more than 1024x768 wihtout text beeing too small or your eyes too close* - can I say, imbalance?

So I would put my money there.

*screen should be at arm length from you