So you only have PCI slots and want to game?

[teklord]

Did you build that computer?(I AM guessing you did and its not a prebuilt, because from what i hear you can't OC prebuilts)
If so , maybe you need to buy a cheap MB from newegg

This PC was OEM and it was given to me. I can't put a mobo in from Newegg because the chipset needed to be the same to avoid getting Code Purple lockout on this HP. 3.5 GHz is OC on the CPU but it would be nice to have more. Glad to get what I can though. This card is still twice as powerful as a 9500GT PCI would have been. Even more so if it wasn't for the CPU bottleneck.

 

[Tha General]

Well i guess the best thing to do is save up for a new rig and use the card on it. You can get a dual core amd system for like 350 at best buy if you are into prebuilts.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9170844&type=product&id=1218043606347

If you are into building, i guess newegg will be the best bet.

 

[teklord]

eMachines have a bad rep, of course that could be because the people using them are n00bs. I really wanted to build my own rig and have it future proof for a few years instead of this eMachine which will be obsolete soon. A rig like that is tempting however, so long as it doesn't die on you or malfunction.

 

[red1776]

emachines have a bad rep because they are made with cheap components, computers are like most things, you get what you pay for

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

eMachines use rubbish components, the main culprits being the motherboard and PSU, both of which fail simultaneously most of the time. There are tons of threads on this and other forums with users having these issues, to this day.

And pre-built PCs may cost upto thrice more than a custom-built PC.

 

[Tha General]

Another new PCI has been release and i am not sure what PNY was thinking, but:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9359945&type=product&id=1218090909674

LOL, the only good thing about , is the box and maybe the price.

Anyways, i have a 2 year warrarnty on my emachine

 

[LinkedKube]

Anyways, i have a 2 year warrarnty on my emachine

doesnt make it less of a crappy emachine pc, just be sure to do a lot of research when you replace it, and act as though you've never heard of emachines.

 

[Tha General]

doesnt make it less of a crappy emachine pc, just be sure to do a lot of research when you replace it, and act as though you've never heard of emachines.

I bought a emachine because i couldn't get a gateway or acer at a decent price at best buy. And i have no plans to replace it.(i hope it last just as long as my p3 did, well the p3 is still working after all this time haha, and its going on 10 years. I don't have the p3 anymore tho).

 

[teklord]

Another new PCI has been release and i am not sure what PNY was thinking, but:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9359945&type=product&id=1218090909674

LOL, the only good thing about , is the box and maybe the price.

They were thinking that the PCI bus is already fully saturated and release a GeForce 9 series card would be a waste of time. Of course, I can personally vouch that this is not true and using a 9 series PCI card helps a lot over the FX 5 series but still is no replacement for PCI-e or even AGP.

 

[LinkedKube]

Or they didnt plan people wising up and converting to pci E for dirt cheap prices. So they're just tryin to get rid of old stock.

 

[teklord]

3DMark Benchmarks

As requested, here are my results from the battery of benchmarks run for the 3DMark series. I couldn't get the 1999 and 2000 editions to install on my PC, not sure if anyone else has had this problem as I haven't Googled it yet. All tests were run with my setup as described in my drop down box with the CPU OC'ed at 3.5 GHz except for 3DMark06 which froze at that clock speed, so I tuned it down to 3.3 GHz to complete the test. I didn't OC the HD 3850 because my CPU is bottlenecking the card and using OC produces no results whatsoever.

Some of the scores were up to 5 times higher than my setup with the 8500GT PCI but also overall that setup was not as complete as it is today so the HD 3850 AGP 4x isn't quite 5 times as powerful as the 8500GT PCI but it isn't far from that either. I recommend this card to others with AGP slots and never use a PCI card over this.

3DMark2001 - 16546 3DMarks

3DMark2003 - 25667 3DMarks

3DMark05 - 7143 3DMarks

3DMark06 - 4473 3DMarks

 

[LinkedKube]

4k marks isnt bad for agp, what games are you currently playing.

 

[teklord]

4k marks isnt bad for agp, what games are you currently playing.

Right now, I'm playing demos to get a feel of what this card can do. All games are on max settings (except Crysis demo).

Company of Heroes demo seems to average close to 30 FPS but when you zoom in and pan the camera, it drops to single digits. Sacred demo stays locked at 60 FPS on default camera but when you zoom out it drops to 30 FPS and in town it gets close to 20 FPS.

Games that seem to average 30+ fps include Doom 3 demo, CoD 4 demo, CoD UO demo, Titan Quest demo, Quake 4 demo. Crysis demo averages 30+ FPS on low settings and about 10-12 FPS on the Very High XP hack. (Until it hangs and quits running)

Games that run at a constant 30+ FPS include Dungeon Siege II demo, Far Cry demo, CoD 1&2 demos, Hitman 2 demo, F.E.A.R. demo, Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast demo, Battlefield 2 demo, Republic Commando demo, Transformers: The Game demo. Half Life 2 demo gets incredible FPS at constant 30+ FPS and gets into triple digits because it is optimized for ATI drivers.

This GPU really masters older games like Jedi Outcast and Hitman 2 (constant 60+ FPS) with my P4. Max Payne 2 demo is almost always at 60 FPS, Freedom Fighters demo is locked at 85 FPS. CoD 4 runs surprisingly well considering the CPU bottleneck. My sound card is very good also and helps a lot with FPS performance.

This is the best AGP card you can buy and it is better than the ATI 4xxx series GPUs that are coming out for AGP in benchmark tests, so get this if you have AGP and don't want to full system upgrade but know that your CPU will hold you back if it isn't a dual core.

 

[Tha General]

You card is a beast, but the p4 is holding you back thats all. What rig or building route are you looking into ? newegg i guess? quad core?

 

[jives11]

latest nVidia driver

Well today I did some maintenance on the Dell 2350. I've had a couple of nasty malware programs get past AVG free/SpyBot so I'm experimenting with avira free av which seems to have neutralized the winav.exe trojan


Anyhow ... I also installed the latest nVidia driver on my rig with the 8500 PCI Sparkle card. it scored 5704 on 3dmark03, with no over clock.

I also noticed that the control panel for nVidia now allows you to enable the Physx hardware acceleration , which nvidia obtained when the bought Aegis. I have not had time to try this yet, not sure how many games can exploit this or if any of the 3d bench marks test this feature. I have read a few people expressing the view that it might improve FPS on slower CPU computers

 

[teklord]

You card is a beast, but the p4 is holding you back thats all. What rig or building route are you looking into ? newegg i guess? quad core?

This card handles every game available currently, including Crysis I postulate, but my CPU is the leash that restrains it from it's potential.

Would like an Intel E8500 (dual core) + GTX 260 rig ASAP, but I have ongoing financial obligations that require my immediate attention, hence my stopgap solution of the HD 3850 AGP for my P4 rig. The only program that needs a quad core currently that I am aware of is GTA IV and that should run great on a E8500 regardless.

Newegg always has the best prices on PC build components, so I recommend them. What you are paying for your eMachines OEM prebuilt, you should put towards my recommended system. I could message you all the parts you need, you just need to put it together. Google a tutorial on how to do it and you will be very very glad you did when you see it in action.

Core i7's are very powerful but not necessary unless price is no objective for you.

 

[teklord]

Well today I did some maintenance on the Dell 2350. I've had a couple of nasty malware programs get past AVG free/SpyBot so I'm experimenting with avira free av which seems to have neutralized the winav.exe trojan

AVG free is the most common anti-virus program, so hackers are very familiar with it and know how to work around it. You might try Dr. Web Cure-it anti-virus, it finds virus' that AVG misses. Ad-Aware isn't bad either although it behaves as adware itself and won't shutdown unless you disable it in msconfig through Run.

Anyhow ... I also installed the latest nVidia driver on my rig with the 8500 PCI Sparkle card. it scored 5704 on 3dmark03, with no over clock.

Latest nVidia drivers are supposed to be quite an improvement over previous releases I understand. Should help you squeeze a few more FPS out of that 8500GT PCI card. 3DMark2001 should work well for you as well. Doesn't hurt to max out the RAM and OC the CPU on that old Dell as well. X-Fi sound card is working excellent for me and is much better than onboard and improves FPS although I have yet to test games without it to see the difference, it has excellent positional sound.

I also noticed that the control panel for nVidia now allows you to enable the Physx hardware acceleration , which nvidia obtained when the bought Aegis. I have not had time to try this yet, not sure how many games can exploit this or if any of the 3d bench marks test this feature. I have read a few people expressing the view that it might improve FPS on slower CPU computers

nVidia makes a quality product, so new features like CUDA & PhysX should only help not harm performance.

 

[Tha General]

Anyhow ... I also installed the latest nVidia driver on my rig with the 8500 PCI Sparkle card. it scored 5704 on 3dmark03, with no over clock.

The 186 new drivers that was release yesterday?

I also noticed that the control panel for nVidia now allows you to enable the Physx hardware acceleration , which nvidia obtained when the bought Aegis. I have not had time to try this yet, not sure how many games can exploit this or if any of the 3d bench marks test this feature. I have read a few people expressing the view that it might improve FPS on slower CPU computers

The Nvidia Physx hardware acceleration was in 185.50, even before that. As for decreasing performance, i was trying to figure that out myself, i made a thread about on another forum. Some say it does and some it does not, i notice it does with my 8400gs. I think Nvidia gpu acceleration is lame and it does decrease performance, so i just use the ageia physx software which is the best.

Would like an Intel E8500 (dual core) + GTX 260 rig ASAP, but I have ongoing financial obligations that require my immediate attention, hence my stopgap solution of the HD 3850 AGP for my P4 rig.

I remember when i had my p3 , and was using my 2400HD or 8400gs, there was a major bottleneck, but come to find out it wasn't the cards that was giving me a bottleneck, it was my external HD being hook up to my USB 2.0 PCI card that was in one of the slots. Are you sure, you don't have something that is giving you a bottleneck within your system or outside of system?

What you are paying for your eMachines OEM prebuilt, you should put towards my recommended system.

What i am paying for? Its already paid for and i already have it lol. You don't know i have a new rig already? I don't have the Pentium III anymore.

I could message you all the parts you need, you just need to put it together. Google a tutorial on how to do it and you will be very very glad you did when you see it in action.

Sorry man, but i don't shop online and i don't build computers. My next rig , which will be the secondary rig is going to be the gateway quad core, i wanted another gateway computer anyway, and the system i am buying should be very good.

 

[jives11]

Thanks Teklord and Tha General,

the nvidia driver is Version: 185.85
Release Date: May 06, 2009
Operating System: Windows XP, Windows XP Media Center Edition
Language: U.S. English
File Size: 76.1 MB

My Dell 2350 is pretty maxed out as it is. It has 2Gb of memory (Dell says it can only take 1), but I'm unable to OC the CPU which is a P4 2.6 Celeron. BIOS has no support for OC. I have in the past OC the GPU, and I might try that again to see the highest 3Dmark3 I can achieve. The updated saga is inscribed here :

http://mr-ives.blogspot.com/search/label/Dell

My Son is playing SIMS2 and the original Operation Flashpoint on it , and it still works pretty well.

 

[teklord]

...but I'm unable to OC the CPU which is a P4 2.6 Celeron. BIOS has no support for OC.

I can't OC my CPU through the BIOS either as there is no option for this old P4 but I use a shareware program called CPUFSB which is the FSB adjusting portion of CPUCool. Try either to give your CPU some OC and you may notice a slight incremental increase in performance as I do, something along the lines of 3% - 5% in graphic intensive programs I would estimate.

 

[Yukikaze]

As requested, here are my results from the battery of benchmarks run for the 3DMark series. I couldn't get the 1999 and 2000 editions to install on my PC, not sure if anyone else has had this problem as I haven't Googled it yet. All tests were run with my setup as described in my drop down box with the CPU OC'ed at 3.5 GHz except for 3DMark06 which froze at that clock speed, so I tuned it down to 3.3 GHz to complete the test. I didn't OC the HD 3850 because my CPU is bottlenecking the card and using OC produces no results whatsoever.

Some of the scores were up to 5 times higher than my setup with the 8500GT PCI but also overall that setup was not as complete as it is today so the HD 3850 AGP 4x isn't quite 5 times as powerful as the 8500GT PCI but it isn't far from that either. I recommend this card to others with AGP slots and never use a PCI card over this.

3DMark2001 - 16546 3DMarks

3DMark2003 - 25667 3DMarks

3DMark05 - 7143 3DMarks

3DMark06 - 4473 3DMarks

Interesting. My P4 at 4.2Ghz with 2Gb of RAM and an OC'ed HD3850 AGP gets:
3DMark03 - 24919
3DMark05 - 10121
3DMark06 - 6887

Links are to the screenies.

 

[teklord]

Interesting. My P4 at 4.2Ghz with 2Gb of RAM and an OC'ed HD3850 AGP gets:
3DMark03 - 24919
3DMark05 - 10121
3DMark06 - 6887

Links are to the screenies.

Congrats on the scores. Your system is significantly more powerful than mine, with a faster P4 and AGP 8x, so I feel pretty good about my 3DMark scores. Also, all my scores were at default settings and I noticed that on all your tests you increased the screen resolution, so your scores should be even higher since default settings are the true standard.

 

[Yukikaze]

Congrats on the scores. Your system is significantly more powerful than mine, with a faster P4 and AGP 8x, so I feel pretty good about my 3DMark scores. Also, all my scores were at default settings and I noticed that at least on one of your tests you increased the screen resolution, so your scores should be even higher since default settings are the true standard.

It is a common misconception that 1440x900 is harder on the GPU than 1280x1024, which is the standard for 3DMark benching. 1440x900 has 98% of the pixels of a 1280x1024 screen, so these results are pretty accurate as it is, and perhaps a tiny bit better than what it'd get at 1280x1024.

 

[teklord]

It is a common misconception that 1440x900 is harder on the GPU than 1280x1024, which is the standard for 3DMark benching. 1440x900 has 98% of the pixels of a 1280x1024 screen, so these results are pretty accurate as it is, and perhaps a tiny bit better than what it'd get at 1280x1024.

I believe only 3DMark06 is 1280x1024, the other versions are 1024x768 if I am not mistaken.

 

[Yukikaze]

I believe only 3DMark06 is 1280x1024, the other versions are 1024x768 if I am not mistaken.

You might well be right, when I think of it....