ATI RADEON 9600??

[beavereater]

I bought the 9600 pro with 256RAM...just wondering if that extra ram really will be worth it, or if there is anything out there that does take advantage of this already!?

[808smokey]

Newer 3-D games will love the extra memory.

Like Half Life 2 (if ever released)

[beavereater]

Ya know...I bought that card for just that reason...I am a gamer at heart BUT for some reason my PC isnt handling the games very well. I have no idea what to set the video settings at sometimes. Can an old harddrive cause slow down in games. My harddrive is about 3 years old, IBM something or other 30 gig...it gets pretty hot...don't have a front fan in my case, it broke!!

[miksu]

9600 Pro is more than adequate. It's completely different thing than 9600SE.

Slow hard drive is not likely cause, since 30Gig IBM (without knowing model) is propably fast enough and it's likely to be 7200rpm drive with adequate buffer.

I suspect it's main memory. You need at least half Gig, if you are using w2k or XP. Xp needs much more than 2k. What processor you are using? Anything faster than AMD XP2500+ or P4@2.4Ghz should do for sure. Just notice, Celeron isn't even close to real P4 at same clock rate, nor it can be compared to AMD.

[thecoalman]

I have no idea what to set the video settings at sometimes.

I set the video card settings to "let application decide" Then in the video settings within the game I turn everthing to the highest setting or on except the display size. Then I turn up the display setting until the frame rate becomes noticeable.

Right now I can run most older games (2 years) with everything on high at full resolution. Guess that will change once DOOM3 comes out within the next decade. Anybody see those empty boxes they were selling at Best Buy during Christmas to reserve the game LOL suckers.

[Treebeard]

Doom3 will not be out next decade. They finally set the release date at August 5th I believe. So its just around the corner. As for Half Life 2, that may be 2-3 months away.

[BobV]

Doom3 will not be out next decade. They finally set the release date at August 5th I believe. So its just around the corner. As for Half Life 2, that may be 2-3 months away.

I thought half-Life 2 was out? I was going to go look for it this weekend. Doom, thata where it all started

[Treebeard]

Nope there is still no official release date for half life 2
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/previews.html

Far cry is another great game that is already out there.

here are doom 3's requirements

An Nvidia GeForce 3 graphics card or ATI Technologies 8500: Column author Dwight Silverman says that given the game's demanding visuals, serious gamers should splurge for a GPU from Nvidia's GeForce FX or 6800 line or ATI's Radeon 9800 or X800 series. He says more frugal PC owners can make do with a GeForce 5900XT or a Radeon 9600XT.

A 1.5-gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 chip or AMD Athlon 1500: Though these will run the game, Silverman suggests a 2GHz Pentium or equivalent, with the "ideal" processor being 3 GHz or over.

384MB of memory: Again, Silverman stresses that this is a minimum requirement, and he recommends 512MB at least, with 1GB preferred.

Two GB of hard drive space:. Four GB is suggested if your PC is running low on free space.

[miksu]

And chip-makers, nVidia and ATI, they both will love your wallet, if you buy brand spanking new XVI-series card (ATI) or 17858XT (nVidia)! And Samsung, Infineon and Hynix love your wallet, too, since there is 2Gb of sub-one-something-second-goddamned-fast-Generation-Golf-memory

Even our humble welding machine maker in Finland will love you (especially, your wallet), since needed PSU is something like welding machine in it's specs (low voltage, high current and lotsa POWER!). Of course, it costs you something (lot), since free meals doesn't exist...