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Old November 25th 04, 12:17 AM
kony
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On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:39:21 -0500, Eddie Crismond
wrote:


WinXP and the RDRAM are the only things that could not be transfered
over to another system. And because of that, I agree that it is hard to
justify the upgrade because of the cost of those two components. But the
Sims!2, video card, and even a hard drive (although any modern HD I
install will be limited by the IDE controller, which I think is ATA-66
in this PC), could all be used in another system. I also might get some
geek satisfaction from taking an old system and making it better. Hey,
some people have more expensive hobbies.

I am still afraid however, that she may not be happy with the
performance of The Sims! 2 + Windows XP/2000 on this 600Mhz system. The
Sims! 2 + Windows 98SE may be a consideration.


It's not 2K or XP that'd be slowing it down, it's the CPU
and amount of memory, memory bus speed, etc (maybe video
card too?). Win2K or XP might need a few dozen more MB of
memory than Win98, but putting that into context of a system
that has 512MB and SIMM games which are notorious for
needing piles of memory (usually 1GB is a good target), and
the OS isn't going to be enough of a difference to matter
during gaming, expecially due to DirectX/GL the OS itself
will have minimal impact.

If the IDE is ATA-66, is that a Via 693 chipset board?
I ask because that chipset has very poor memory performance
already, it's sort of the opposite of the ideal board for
SIMMin' even ignoring the slow CPU. In other words an
Intel BX or Via 694 chipset board with all other components
same might SIMM 10% faster just due to that issue alone.
10% isn't much on a box that can do it @ 50 FPS, but might
be on a box that does it @ 14 FPS.



You'd have far higher
performance just buying a $55 nForce2 motherboard, an Athlon
XP2000, and 2 x 256MB PC3200 DIMMs. If the case won't
accept these parts you might need a different case too, but
the end result is a much faster system.


I may consider building her a new system. I doubt I will be able to use
the Compaq EN Series case. The Compaq MB has a PCI riser card.


You might be able to buy an upgradeware Tualatin Celeron
adapter and get the system up to ~ 1.4GHz or so, don't know
for sure if the board would be compatible or not. Otherwise
it might make a router, fileserver or ??? someday.


But, I also have a Dell Dimension with Pentium III 866Mhz, 384MB SDRAM,
ATA-100 hard disk controller and what ever else I decide to throw in it.
This may be more suited for The Sims!2. So trading her the Dell for the
Compaq is worth considering.


MIght be though 384MB is a little light for the SIMMS too,
someone I know is playing on a box with 768MB and wondering
if they should upgrade to 1280MB. 384MB is a nice size for
moderate WinXP use though.