My bro's problem...

[XBoy]

Ok so I tell my brother that I have GTA: Vice City, and he see's me playing it. He say's it's awesome, and he loved the ps2 version so he wants it on his PC. Heres the problem... his PC:

ECS K7S5A
Duron 950
192 MB of PC133 SDRAM
Geforce 2 mx200 64 MB of SDRAM

*sigh* so I say to my bro, that he is gonna need more memory, and definetly a better vidcard. He has like $75 bucks right now. I told him I could slap a Geforce FX 5200 Ultra 128 DDR in there for that price. Then the problem remains in his memory, it's mediocre at best for running a game like Vice City. The Geforce FX 5200 Ultra has hardware directX 9 support, which is why I chose that, so it won't slow down his already slow box. My question is would he benifit more from a video card upgrade, or by throwing a 512 stick of PC2100 DDR in there? The Duron is fine, as I talked to a guy with a Duron 750 with 512 PC133 SDRAM, and a Geforce 3 original, and he said it ran fine @ 1024x768 32 bit color. My brother is probably going to be striving for 800x600 @ 16 bit color. I personally know that Geforce 2 mx200 is a POS, as I had it in my old box. It can barely do the HL1 engine with 60 fps, let alone a new-school DX 9.0 game! I also took a look at the Xabre line of cards. They seem to be alright, but I am kind of stuck to Nvidia, as I like them a lot. I have a Geforce 3 ti200 128 DDR, my dad has got a Geforce 4 mx 440 128 DDR, and my brother the Geforce 2. Not to mention I have an Nforce 2 board, and the Xbox I have is based off of the Nforce 1 technology. Lol So basically I am saying what's the *BEST* vidcard for $80 or less dollers that would enable my brother to play his new love... Vice City @ 800x600 w/ 16 bit color?

EDIT: Eventually he will upgrade to 512 of PC2100 DDR, but right now it's the video card that's going to enable him to play Vice City at more than 3 fps ! Vice City also runs noticably better, and more stable than the original GTA3 for PC, which is definetly a good thing.

[GBRRICCI]

i have the same POS mother board, i would suggest getting any other one as soon as you can,

i am saving up to get the giga byte GA-7VAXP ULTRA

but are the temps good on his comp? i had bad power/aux temps so i bought some arctic silver 3 and it droped it from 50-60 to 30-40 C

i put it both on my procesor and on the chipset, but if you put it on the chipset get the ceramic one or one that holds the heatsink to the chip (because it will fall of if only using arctic silver 3)

....but i also need a better power supply....

[XBoy]

Yea his temps are decent, and he's got a good heatsink. On my old ECS K7S5A that I sold to my friend, I put a fan on the chipset, and a heatsink on the clock generator. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: . But... WTF does this have to do w/ my question lol?

BTW: IMHO the board is pretty good, given the right chance :)

[Wiggo]

The ECS K7S5A is quite ok for Durons it just starts to have probs when a higher current draw Athlon is plugged into them. Really though you'd need to do both at the same time to see any real performance benefit as doin' them one at a time the other part will still be a drain (vid card 1st though if ya can't).

[XBoy]

Actually as of right now we can afford one stick of Crucial 256 mb of PC2100, and a Geforce FX 5200 Ultra :thumb: *joy* :)

EDIT: We will grab the other 256 Crucial stick, once my bro can afford it :)!

[GBRRICCI]

if only i had a job...then i wouldnt let my parents buy crap. such as the k7s5a which is causing me many problems as well. along with my crappy power supply