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Will upgrading my video card boost the performance of this emulator?

A

AVFC2004

New member
I have bought a radeon 9800 pro 128 mb and I was wondering if this will provide me with a better all round performance on the 1964 emulator and other popular emulators such as project 64.

My current specs for my pc are:-

2.7ghz Intel Celeron
1 Gb DRR PC 2700 RAM
Radeon 9200 SE 128mb

I know the video card I'm getting is superior to the one I have currently but I thought that this may not be apparent when I am using an emulator. Finally I must add that I am not going to upgrade my processor as that will be even more expense.
 
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Clements

Clements

Active member
Moderator
The 9200 SE is a very crippled 64-Bit card, so with a video card upgrade you may be able to up the resolution and use some extra filtering. Don't expect a massive speed boost though that a processor upgade would give (Celerons are also crippled but 2.7GHz should be well fast enough for 1964).
 
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A

AVFC2004

New member
Clements said:
The 9200 SE is a very crippled 64-Bit card, so with a video card upgrade you may be able to up the resolution and use some extra filtering. Don't expect a massive speed boost though that a processor upgade would give (Celerons are also crippled but 2.7GHz should be well fast enough for 1964).
Click to expand...

Well is it possible for me to upgrade the processor that I have w/o having to get a new motherboard???
 
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-Shadow-

Banned
Well is it possible for me to upgrade the processor that I have w/o having to get a new motherboard???
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Nope , you will need a new mainboard . AFAIK the 2.7 GHz Celeron is the fastest Celeron , so you should get an AMD or P4 Mainboard if you want any more performance . The celeron is fast enough to play all n64 at decent performance , anyways , so you don't need to upgrade .

Your Graphics card is nice , ATI Rules :p ! *thumbs up*
 
Clements

Clements

Active member
Moderator
Possibly, depends on your motherboard specs. You have to find out what motherboard you have and visit the manufacturers site, or look in your motherboard manual.

Are your frame rates really that bad? I know the Celeron is a budget CPU and isn't terribly fast, but it should be adequate for most games. I'd think about upgrading the card before you upgrade the CPU since eventually the video card will bottleneck your system with a fast CPU anyway.

Your Graphics card is nice , ATI Rules :p ! *thumbs up*
Click to expand...

Not really :p

The card is greatly slower than my old GeForce4 MX 440.
 
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A

AVFC2004

New member
Clements said:
Possibly, depends on your motherboard specs. You have to find out what motherboard you have and visit the manufacturers site, or look in your motherboard manual.
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Well it says on packard bell's site that my motherboard 'supports Intel P4 FC-PGA2 (Flip-Chip Pin Grid Array), 1400 MHz to 3060 MHz'.

Therefore I know that my type of motherboard I have can take a Pentium 4 processor but the question is whether you can actually take my current processor out and put the P4 3.06ghz on my motherboard.


Clements said:
Are your frame rates really that bad? I know the Celeron is a budget CPU and isn't terribly fast, but it should be adequate for most games. I'd think about upgrading the card before you upgrade the CPU since eventually the video card will bottleneck your system with a fast CPU anyway.
Click to expand...

Well the framerates are ok however I was wondering whether a Pentium 4 3.06ghz will really make any major differences to my PC that will be significant.
 
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Clements

Clements

Active member
Moderator
AVFC2004 said:
Well it says on packard bell's site that my motherboard 'supports Intel P4 FC-PGA2 (Flip-Chip Pin Grid Array), 1400 MHz to 3060 MHz'.

Therefore I know that my type of motherboard I have can take a Pentium 4 processor but the question is whether you can actually take my current processor out and put the P4 3.06ghz on my motherboard.
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Can't see why not. If you got it from a shop, check with them first, but I can't see why not.

AVFC2004 said:
Well the framerates are ok however I was wondering whether a Pentium 4 3.06ghz will really make any major differences to my PC that will be significant.
Click to expand...

A 3.06GHz chip out-performs my 3200+ CPU comfortably, and my chip can handle almost any game. Whether you feel you want this chip and can afford it I don't know, but I was very happy when I upgraded from 1800+ to 3200+ and it made a big difference. This extends to Dreamcast emulation as well as other types. I noticed the increase in frame rates particularly in games such as Goldeneye 007 which have higher requirements. You also won't be as CPU-limited with that new 9800 Pro!

And that 9800 Pro is fine (must have missed that). Crank up the resolution and filtering with that and it'll be fine. I was considering one myself.
 
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A

AVFC2004

New member
Clements said:
Can't see why not. If you got it from a shop, check with them first, but I can't see why not.
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Well I went to PC World the place in which I got my PC from and asked about the processor and the guy there said that the motherboard would need to be replaced for a new processor. However I am not so convinced when he wasn't 100% sure of whether my new video card will go in my PC when I know it will. I know from the advice I was given recently from someone I know who knows how to build computers and recently added new RAM to my PC.
 
Clements

Clements

Active member
Moderator
Okay, seems like PC shop staff aren't as smart as I thought :p

Your motherboard sounds like it can support any P4-based CPU that uses 533 (effective) FSB. Unless they glue the CPU on, or have some anti-upgrade type feature somewhere, you should be able to stick a 3.06GHz P4 in (which is the fastest 533MHz P4 you can buy) you should be alright... I have no experience with shop-bought PCs and their upgradability though. I couldn't say upgrading your motherboard and CPU would be worth it.
 
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Trotterwatch

New member
Do me a big big big favour.... Don't go to PC World for PC advice, they are by and large a group comprised full of clueless halfwits :)
 
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Banned
Do me a big big big favour.... Don't go to PC World for PC advice, they are by and large a group comprised full of clueless halfwits
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You can say that again :D The advises that you get in PC shops are nearly useless , with a few exceptions , of course :D . I prefer to get PC knowledge via PC magazines like the "PC Games Hardware" , they know what they're talki'n 'bout :D
 
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BountyJedi

New member
for me its running really nice with just 9800pro and 3.06 ghz p4 :D my comp isnt very old and was the very latest when bought so all my stuff are up to date for atlest one year more =p (i hope)

well its isnt really bought yet =p its one of these comps you get thru your job and my mom happned to get a new job =p so i should thank her hehe =p
 
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jdsony

jdsony

New member
I read a big article on Celerons but can't remember where. Basically in almost every situation the 1.8ghz P4 outperformed the 2.6ghz Celeron's. Even if you get a P4 2.8 you will notice a huge increase in speed and it will likely be quite a bit cheaper than the 3.06ghz. As for in N64 emulation I'm not sure what performance gains you will get but I have no problem with framerates on my Athlon XP 2000+. If I set the resolution to 1280x1024 with 4x Anti Aliasing some of the more demanding games like Conker would slow a little but the majority of games ran great. I recently bought a new motherboard and some DDR ram to replace my aging SDRAM and my gaming performance has increased about 20% but I haven't tried out 1964 with it yet.
 
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AVFC2004

New member
jdsony said:
I read a big article on Celerons but can't remember where. Basically in almost every situation the 1.8ghz P4 outperformed the 2.6ghz Celeron's. Even if you get a P4 2.8 you will notice a huge increase in speed and it will likely be quite a bit cheaper than the 3.06ghz.
Click to expand...

What really annoys me about this is that I have bought this PC and I have found out that the intel celeron 2.7ghz is completly rubbish. Now that you have said that a 1.8ghz P4 out performed a 2.6ghz intel Celeron, I'm really annoyed. Just shows I should never buy PC packages from PC world again as they are expensive and they give you a cheap computer.

I have recently added 1GB PC2700 RAM and will be adding a Radeon 9800 PRO 128 MB which has cost me about £270. Furthermore I would have bought a Radeon 9800 Pro with 256 MB but that would have cost me a further £130. In addition I had to get someone else other than PC world to fit these parts in as they don't install third party parts into your PC which is extremely annoying when I have just taken out a 5 year cover with them.
Anyway from now on when I buy a new PC I will be doing some research in what are the best parts I can get with my money.
 
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D

dataangel

New member
Seeing as an AthlonXP 1600+ and a Geforce2 can run any 1964 game at full speed, a 2.7ghz celeron (which jdsony informs us should only be a little below a P4 1.8ghz) and a Radeon 9800 pro 128MB should able to run the emu silky.
 
riles9262

riles9262

My dissident is here...
The new celerons (330 d's I think) based on prescott are actually quite good now, but the northwood p4 celerons are uber crappy. However, with your new vid card, you should have hi frames, even with hi antialiasing/anisotropic filtering and any texture enhancements in the emu enabled.
 
riles9262

riles9262

My dissident is here...
For them to be effective the price of them will have to drop considerably, but at least their performance is respectable for a budget chip now.
 
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