Advice needed: Buy new PC or upgrade old one?

[ivo]

OK, I have reached a tought decision. I need to buy a new PC. I made the mistake of buying a Pentium 4 when I should have bought a
AMD. My computer seems to struggle and the frame rates aren't acceptable. With FSX being released soon, I either need a new
computer or upgrade the old one.

This is my computer:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docum...en&lang=en

I have upgraded the RAM to 1GB now, but I still struggle with the frame rates. I need some advice on whether I should buy a new PC, one
that is optimized for gaming, or I should keep this PC and just upgrade the RAM and the Video Card.

These are the computers I might choose from:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp;...e=category

These are some suggestions. Of course, I will wait until the Vista is released so that I can get the newest thing on the market. If I do
decide to get a computer I will have to get a summer job. It's not easy since I will only be 15 in the summer(I turn 15 on June 15th). Most
place looking for teens to work want 16+ year olds. I can't meet that requirement. I have found an amusemt park near my house, and I
might apply there if I need cash. I won't however make lots of money there.

I am currently a 14 year old with no job and no money. So, what do you think I should do? Should I try and upgrade the RAM and Video
Memory of my existing PC, or should I try to purchase a new one?



Post Edited ( 04-20-06 03:36 )

[Air France]

Keep your computer just buy more Memory and a new video card!!!

[DanSteph]

I have a P4 1.7GHZ with a TI4200 and most game still run fine (AOEIII Silent hunter Fs2004)
what do you mean by "the frame rates aren't acceptable" ?

Dan

[ivo]

I only use payware planes such as the PMDG 737 and 747 and the Level D 767. At some airports, at night with bad weather the FPS
might drop to 2-5 range. I use AsV6. Also, on approach it usually drops down into the 5-8 range. It's really hard to fly a plane manually
when you get the impression that the game stops and go, then stops and gos again.

Also, someone told me that when you have a lot of files in 'My Documents' is slows up your computer. They mentioned something about
it using up your RAM or something. Is this true?



Post Edited ( 04-20-06 04:19 )

[Galih Prasetya]

hmm......you have P4 3,2 1GB ram, BUT "Integrated with up to 64 MB allocated video memory"

I think you should buy a new VGA card....

I have P4 2.8c, 1GB ram, ASUS P4C800dlx motherboard, and ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB....and with EHAM cloud9 + PMDG744, Project AI traffic, Active Sky 6 ----> 15 fps on approach at bad weather

ah, and I have 2 windows instalation on my computer. one only for FS2004 (with some unnecesary windows services terminated), and one for my 'normal' use.



Post Edited ( 04-20-06 05:24 )

[fruitfly]

I think before making a decision you should have a chat with this gentleman:


http://www.avsim.com/pages/0306/FSGS/fsgs.htm

http://fs-gs.com/



Post Edited ( 04-20-06 07:09 )

[Dutch64]

I don't think the hardware is really the bottleneck here. You just mentioned it yourself already, bad weather, busy airport, lots of ai traffic most
likely, as6 maybe configured a bit too optimistic, addon planes etc. etc. SOme tuning might do wonders and will save you some money.
If you like to get some hardware for vista and fsx, then better wait till it's there (by then the prices of hardware available these days will have
dropped for sure), get some sli motherboard, two graphics cards and an AMD X2 processor and min 2 GB RAM.

Also, someone told me that when you have a lot of files in 'My Documents' is slows up your computer. They mentioned something about
it using up your RAM or something. Is this true?

Never heard of that. I don't see how stuff in my documents can use memory. Instead, check with msconfig or anything what processes will startup and do
some cleaning there

[highlander]

Definitely a new video card - integrated graphics tend to suck. Intel Extreme chipsets, especially so - they tend to have compatibility issues. My
work computer has Intel Extreme, and it won't play glQuake; it will only support software rendering.

HP Computers tend to be rather poor at managing memory - I've no idea why, but any HP machine I've used (and I've used a lot of them in the past 20
years) tend to eat memory like nobody's business.

You'll probably be fine if you upgrade your machine by installing a new graphics card. nVidia GeForce 6600GT or 6800GT is pretty good, and should
have no issues with Flight Sim 2004. I've no idea what the equivelant ATi graphics card is. You may also want to upgrade to 2 GB RAM, but the
priority here is definitely going to be your graphics card.

You may also notice a slight speed boost by replacing your built-in audio with a new sound card - one that uses a hardware DSP, rather than relying on
the processor - this will free up some CPU time. This is less of a priority than the memory though, so don't sweat it if you don't have the money for
this as well.

Always remember to turn off your on-board sound and graphics on the BIOS if you do replace them, otherwise you're still going to be burning resources
unnecessarily.

[Kstinson]

Well my friend, we seem to be in the same boat. I am 16, also no job and have been saving up my allowence all yaer long now. My
computer is AMD 1.8ghz, 512mb RAM running at 64, intergrated sound and a brand new NVIDIA GeForce 6600gt overclocked. My
graphics are quite good however i think I will overclock it some more. Here is my advice. 1) Try to get cash for X-Mas, Birthdays, etc or
actual computer parts. DO NOT SPEND IT!!!!! 2) Go to NCIX.com (it is a canadian site so if your in another country prices will differ
however you can change from canadian dollars into American dollars) This is the best site I know of as you can see all the top PC parts
and read costomer reviwes and you can purchase full systems if you really want to. I would like to advise you, at this point, that it would
be better to buy a brand new PC. Look for some good parts, read the reviews, go to the company sites and call some technicians to see
how well it works.

Hope this helps

[ivo]

If, I can get the money, I might buy a new PC. But if I'm working for 5.50/hour, it might be hard to save up for my dream machine.
Otherwise, I'll just have to upgrade the Video Card and the RAM. But that might only be a temporary solution until FSX comes along. Then
I migth start experiencing low frame rates again.

[ivo]

If I buy a Graphic Card, will I be able to use it with another computer later? Also, can you upgrade graphic cards and RAM on laptops? I
don't have a laptop but I might be getting one in a couple of years?

I have decided that I will probably buy a new video card, preferebly over 256MB. Here, a good 256MB graphic card is around $300. I
512MB is around $600. I will also try to use FSGS's services, and hope they can improve my frame rates so I wouldn't have to buy a
graphic card. If they can't help me, I will try to get the best possible graphic card and RAM. Also, if I buy a more RAM and a graphic card,
can I use it on another PC later? For example, if I buy more RAM and a graphic card and then I buy a new computer in 2 years, can I use
the graphic card and RAM from my old PC?

[highlander]

512 MB graphics cards are currently not worth the extra money. 256 MB is fine.

Future compatibility IS an issue - if you've got an AGP graphics card, you may find that most new motherboards these days will have PCI Express slots
only, meaning your AGP card won't work.

Unfortunately, this is where we hit the "Ah, sh*t" factor - your motherboard DOES NOT have an AGP slot, nor does it have PCI Express. You're limited
to PCI graphics cards only. This means that, while your graphics card update will be cheap, you're not going to get all-singing, all-dancing
performance from your current machine. You can still get PCI graphics cards of reasonable quality - the best I remember having seen was a GeForce
FX5500 128 MB.

You'll need to shop around to find the best prices for one of these, but try eBay - there's likely to be a few on there that you could pick up quite
cheaply. It'll give you a nice performance boost, and should keep you going until you can afford a top-notch gaming rig. Forget the memory upgrade;
it's not worth doing on the system you own. Sorry. Damned HP!

[ivo]

I did buy a 256 graphics card before, but it wouldn't fit in my PC. Then the guy at the store did say something about our computer only
being limited to a certain graphics card. Maybe I do need to buy a new computer?

[jeffrey11190]

ivo wrote:
I only use payware planes such as the PMDG 737 and 747 and the Level D 767. At some airports, at night with bad weather the FPS
might drop to 2-5 range. I use AsV6. Also, on approach it usually drops down into the 5-8 range. It's really hard to fly a plane manually
when you get the impression that the game stops and go, then stops and gos again.

Also, someone told me that when you have a lot of files in 'My Documents' is slows up your computer. They mentioned something about
it using up your RAM or something. Is this true?

same probelm with me p d 3.0 2gigs ram nvida 6800

[jeffrey11190]

my avdice is just build your own cheaper!