Up the creek with my Socket 939...

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Ati products do not have any distinct advantages over nvidia products in an HP case (nor any other distributors for that matter). Hp decision to ship ATI products came about from a cost driven standpoint. The X1, hd2, and hd3 series are successors in order from right to left (3 being greater than 2 ect). In each series there are the high end ( x8xx- x9xx ) middle ( x6xx) and lower end cards (x1xx - x5xx). Generally the high end of a series is a bit greater than the middle of the next series .An x1900 will offer better performance than an x2600. However, to further confuse you, because technical specifications will do that, the x3000 series is really the x2000 series rebadged. There was no *real* technological jump.

As for a card suggestion, I suggest you go with this card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121237

It has 512mb of good memory, and will run the latest games on medium without too much of a problem. The 3850 is a little out of your pricerange, but would be the next step up (at 120 after a rebate).
 
According to Caamsa's post, you are lacking in both. (I believe you said you have a P4 @ 2.53GHz) You really need to upgrade both to make the game work well.

The problem is neither a new CPU or GPU will carry over to a new system. Both the S478 and AGP bus have been replaced by the S775 and PCIe bus, so neither upgrade is a good idea. Any way you can limp along until you get a better machine?
 


Turbine needs to do some optimization on all their games. I can't get Crossfire in LOTR Online, and other people can't get SLI. I guess D&D Online is similarly taxing on all graphics cards. That said, I recommend you put the money into a new graphics card. A 3650 would be a couple of generations past an X1300. It should make a big difference.

See the best card for under $100 in the Best Gaming Cards: March 2008:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/05/the_best_gaming_graphics/page2.html#best_pcie_card_for_under_100_tie

Another poster mentioned the 3650, which is too new for the article. It's a generation past the X2600 XT or Geforce 8600GT. The last page of the article lists equivalent cards at each performance point. Your X1300 XT is 3 categories below today's recommended GPU's for under $100.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/05/the_best_gaming_graphics/page8.html

IMHO, all you need right now for that system to do better in D&D Online is a better GPU. Just because you can't afford $400 does not mean there aren't better choices than what your have, and I really don't think your CPU is a problem.

PCIe x16 and the 2.0 standards are modestly different. A PCIe x16 2.0 card will work in your PC. If I missed something and you have AGP, the article has recommendations there too.
 
Agreed. You defiantly need a new vid card my friend. Look to the 2600XT or a 3650 if you can find one in your range. That CPU will do everything your looking to do for at least another year, if not two.


Heheh, as an aside, back in October, I built a new box for my Dad, was gonna throw a 3400+ in it, but caught an X2 3800 for $60. All he does is check his e-mail and maybe IM a little, so I bettin that I dont have to upgrade him for at least 5 years, maybe more, lol.
 
that logic is so counter productive as to make my head explode trying to understand what you were smoking when you posted that at lower resolutions frame rate goes up as graphics are reduced and most games today are GPU not CPU dependant.

reffering to a post on the previous page saying that cpu works harder at lower resolution due to reduced graphics load

 


*waves hand* Hello? I'm right here? :kaola:
 


This is the kind of thing I'm looking for - what defines these "categories"? I may be a noob, but I'd prefer to be an informed noob. :)



I've got a straight PCIe x16 slot. Will putting a 2.0 card in be a waste of the 2.0, or are there at least some bonuses to going 2.0?
 
No. PCIe 2 is nothing more than bandwidth. It just allows for more lanes or x's. Like 16x. More and more hardwares going PCI, this just allows for a greater use of it. There are other things involved, but as far as 1 vs 2, currently it makes no difference in graphics cards. Dont know if youve tried these yet, but have a go here http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=739&model2=1061&chart=275 This will show you exactly where youre at with your current card. It doesnt look good. If you compared that with current cpus, your find your processor somewhere in the middle. Essentually you want a cpu to balance with the gpu. Both working as hard as they can, without one out performing the other. Currently, your cpu is better than your gpu
 
Rather then categories, think of different architectures on the card. The x1300XT is based off of the same x1800XT that I have in my computer. (x1800xt>x1600>x1300) After these cards, they "re spun" the silicon, and made a new "category" or architecture. These were the x1950>x1650 cards. (not sure what the low end was.) The next re spin were the 2xxx series cards, then the 3xxx series cards. I'd actually argue that we are 4 generations back. (many people lump the x1800 and x1900/1950 cards together, which you shouldn't. The x1800 has a single Pixel shader attached to each pipeline, while the x1900/1950 has three.)

If you didn't understand that, try this. When someone says your X product is 3 categories, generations, architectures back, realize that you have some seriously old hardware and you need newer stuff.
 


Categories, architectures - I don't know either one. For example, I realize that (in general, following the usual technology industry behaviors) within one brand, a higher number usually translates roughly to more powerful / better performance / something of that sort. How do I compare, however, ATi cards to nVidia cards? What numbers or descriptions should I be looking for that tell me "Card X is better than Card Y"? That's the kind of thing that would be really invaluable - thanks for starting to point me in the right direction!



If I wanted/needed to keep up with the ever-changing "today's standard", I'd agree with you. However, I've never been one to keep up with the Joneses unless it happened to suit what I myself wanted to do, independently of what the Joneses were doing. In this particular case, I've been looking not to come to today's standards, but the standards of a game that was essentially frozen in its requirements at its inception two years ago. In other words, I want my performance NOW to match the potential from back THEN. That's all.

The example I gave with the car was a fairly good expression of the way I approach this kind of thing. Sure, I could keep getting new cars every few years to keep up with THIS generation of what's offered on cars, but my purposes and needs don't match with today's "standards" (OnStar, GPS, onboard hard drive, iPod connectivity, built-in Bluetooth, intelligent antilock brakes, swiveling headlights, automatic headlights and so forth). I just want to fix my damn fuel injectors or do a transmission-fluid flush, whichever will bring the car up to sufficient running standards. 😉
 
When you come in and say you can't play X game well enough, you are now trying to keep up with the Joneses. Again, I'm not sure why you are fighting this that much. Yes, RTS and RPGs do require more CPU power then FPS games, but how many people do you need to tell you your video card is under powered? Just because some people told you to increase your CPU doesn't make them right. If I'm finally remembering my threads correctly, you need a P4 @ 3GHz to handle this. You have a 3700+, which is quite a bit better then a 3GHz P4. Your x1300 however is not as good as a 9800pro.

As for your other question, this is tricky. AMD and Nvidia's naming scheme aren't interchangeable. There also aren't any metrics that I'm aware of for proper comparing. (meaning you can't compare clock speeds, number of shaders, bus width, etc) You can try using the video charts found on this site, but some of them (mostly AMD/ATI cards) were tested with older/slower drivers. You really have to review each of the cards your looking at, or come online and ask people who have no life what to do.

Have you given us a budget yet? Do we know what size monitor you like to use?
 
Ok, I am pretty sure that the 3ghz chip they are talking about in the specs for the game is the old pentium 4 netburst. So his 3700+ is still very capable.

@ Shecky I think that if you don't have the money to do an entire upgrade and you have a decent PSU and a PCI express slot then the way to go is a new video card. The only question now is what is the maximum you can put out for a new card.

From what I have been reading DDO does not support multi core.
 
The X1300 is about the same/a little slower than today's integrated, so almost any GPU will give you a big improvement.

As for the naming scheme, higher isn't always better. For example, an ATI 3400 is not faster than a 2600. Then if you try to compare cross brand it gets impossible to do by number. Check out the GPU charts to see where you stand:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=738&model2=1064&chart=296

Oh, I take back what I said. I guess it depends on what 1300 you have. The one I highlighted above is decent. You can see though that a 2600 is nearly 3x faster than the fastest 1300.

And back to the GPU/CPU argument, the way I think of it is this:

At low resolutions & quality the CPU has to calculate all movements and such to run the game. THe GPU does almost nothing, thus the comp is CPU limited.

At high resolutions & quality the CPU still has to calculate the same basic gameplay processes, but the GPU is now doing a lot of work. Thus, the system is GPU limited. This is your case as the 3700 is still a good single core processor for games.

Hope that helps a little.
 


Whoa. Good chart. THAT is EXACTLY what I've been looking for! Thanks!
 
Okay, I'm getting it narrowed down (I think). Found a couple of choices here; please give me an honest and complete reaction in comparing them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103053

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127331

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3642161&CatId=1826

What's been your experience with the brands - reliable products that the company stands behind, often lemons with no support, or somewhere in between? Is the 1GB on the first one helpful, and if so, how much?

Please don't hesitate to say exactly why you like X or dislike Y.

*EDIT* And what are your impressions about the differences between the HD 2600XT and the 3650?
 
I was going to say don't bother getting the 1GB 3650, until I noticed that it was about the same price as the 512MB model If you decide to wait until its back in stock, might as well get that one.

The 3650 is cheaper then either of those however. The cheapest one that newegg has is this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131084

After rebates and shipping, your looking at $66. This one isn't a bad deal.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127335

$82 after shipping (no rebate) but comes with a free copy of "Witcher". If you've wanted to play that game and haven't already bought it, you can buy that second card and basically get it for $16.

Differences between the 2600XT and 3650 are small. The 2600XT runs at 800MHz instead of the 3650's 750, but you can't see the difference in games. Partly because the clock speeds are so close, and partly because AMD made tweaks to the silicon to help it overcome the slower clock speeds. (the 3650 isn't a brand new chip, its mostly a die shrink of the 2600) I didn't know how different these cards performed compared to each other, so I went looking. It was pretty much a tie, both cards scoring within a frame of each other.
 
Okay... I'm really leaning towards the first one, the 3650 with 1G. Tell me - does anyone have any impressions to share about Diamond? Are they reputable and stand behind their product, but most importantly MAKE a good product?

*EDIT* Sorry, didn't see your response until after I posted. Just so it's clear, I'm NOT all about lower prices; if it costs a bit more than the other but is still within my budget, I'm more than willing. Why were you saying not to bother with the 1G 3650? Is the performance difference that small? Or were you going solely by price?

PS: How are MSI and PowerColor? Are they quality manufacturers?
 
The problem with a 1GB 3650 is that the GPU isn't really powerful enough to use that 1GB to its full potential. You need a serious GPU to utilize that much bandwidth/memory. Why pay extra for a 1GB if the 512GB will perform just as well? I see no reason to buy a card for $99, if another costing ~$70 will perform just as well.

MSI and Powercolor are ok. The top manufacturers of AMD cards are Sapphire and HiS. (other then AMD itself ofcourse...) I would put MSI and Powercolor down a notch from them. They aren't bad cards, but the bundles are light, and the warranties are probably small.
 


Any games or settings that significantly benefit from 1gb of ram on the video card are going to be too much for a 3650 anyway. Its like taking your bicycle and throwing on tires that are rated for 200mph. By all means, go for it if it's not going to cost you anything extra, but you're rarely going to be in a situation where it matters.
 


I would get the second one since it uses GDDR3 Memory which is faster than CDDR2 Memory on the first and third choices (The GDDR2 will hinder performance compared to GDDR3 quite a bit). I am supprised that no one caught that.

Here is another good one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161174
 
I think I'm sticking with the second one (the MSI) - the one you linked to seems to have problems with crashing (see reviews), and I'm not tech-savvy enough to dig my way out of that kind of trouble. The MSI only has 5 reviews, and the only one not at "5 eggs" finds cons that don't seem to be cons for my purposes; yeah, it's only 5 reviews, but nobody's seen a substantial negative yet, and based on what I'm seeing in this thread and in the item's specs, it seems to be a little ahead of the pack.

Let me see if I have the essentials, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, folks:
1) 512M instead of 1G is fine, since 512 handles what I need it to handle and the 1G is built to handle more than the card can.
2) GDDR3 instead of GDDR2. (Is it really that much faster/more efficient?)
3) Higher memory clock speed (1600) than the others. I'm assuming this helps.
4) PCIe 2.0 - from what I've seen that you guys have been saying, this might actually help in comparison to regular PCIe.

Did I miss anything?
 
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