End-of-Lifecycle upgrade

Just about ready to build up a new machine, and I'm looking at updating my old one so it's not as pathetic as it currently is. I've been mainly playing games on my SO's laptop lately, but this machine will likely remain in service as the network printer service and oldies game machine for for a while. Since I'm stuck with the motherboard (due to XP activation), I can get a faster processor, more memory, and a better video card, and I can get them pretty cheap since this is all old tech anyway. The motherboard (Asus A7V8X) is SocketA, with an AGP video slot.

Rule #1 - this box must be able to run MTW
Rule #2 - this box MUST be able to run MTW. I don't know if my new machine will be able to (Vista, video driver issues, etc.)

My mobo can support up to a Athlon XP 3000+, so I'll be digging around on eBay for one soon. I'll probably be kicking it up to 2GB RAM as well.

So that leaves the video card. I've been looking at the ATI Radeon X1650PRO 512MB AGP video card. Anybody know if this runs MTW, and if it's a decent card in general? Any other cards out there you can recommend?

As as aside, does anyone know of a laptop company that still offers XP? I'm debating desktop/laptop for my new machine. And, yes, I am a Vista hater. :yes:

MTW is very friendly to cards by today's standards. This is my old box and I put a bottom of the barrel Geforce 6200 card in it a few months ago that cost me $30 at Fry's and it does just fine with the first Med. Total War, and Shogun for that matter. As long as you aren't 'upgrading' to Vista on your old box that card is probably overkill for MTW. :yes:

:egypt:

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Originally Posted by Ramses II CP

MTW is very friendly to cards by today's standards. This is my old box and I put a bottom of the barrel Geforce 6200 card in it a few months ago that cost me $30 at Fry's and it does just fine with the first Med. Total War, and Shogun for that matter. As long as you aren't 'upgrading' to Vista on your old box that card is probably overkill for MTW. :yes:

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No plan to upgrade to Vista, like I said this box will remain for playing the oldies. My current video card (Radeon 9700 Pro) runs MTW fine, what I'm looking for is extra performance for other games, while not running into the driver problems seen in MTW with newer cards. I don't particularly want to upgrade to a new card and then be forced to run old drivers on it just for MTW.

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Originally Posted by drone

So that leaves the video card. I've been looking at the ATI Radeon X1650PRO 512MB AGP video card. Anybody know if this runs MTW, and if it's a decent card in general? Any other cards out there you can recommend?

As as aside, does anyone know of a laptop company that still offers XP? I'm debating desktop/laptop for my new machine. And, yes, I am a Vista hater. :yes:

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Hi drone,

I've the ATI 1600 PCIe 512 (Hypershare memory, 256 MB real RAM).
I'm very satisfied with this card. It has shader 3 support and even runs M2 on almost highest settings. Medieval 1 runs without problems at all at 1600*1200. Generally I think that ATI cards give you fewer problems with regard to Total War games. BTW, get those 2 Gigs, you won't regret it.

I've bought an Acer notebook for my Girlfriend recently and it came with XP Prof. Asus and some others also offer XP. You won't be too happy with a notebook if you want to play a lot. Get a decent desktop and check out if the new Asus EeePC (or one of the new cheap subnotebooks) is something for you.

What's that about the XP activation?

R'as

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Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

I've the ATI 1600 PCIe 512 (Hypershare memory, 256 MB real RAM).
I'm very satisfied with this card. It has shader 3 support and even runs M2 on almost highest settings. Medieval 1 runs without problems at all at 1600*1200. Generally I think that ATI cards give you fewer problems with regard to Total War games. BTW, get those 2 Gigs, you won't regret it.

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I've had pretty good success with both the ATI 9*** and X-series running MTW. When I bought the laptop for my girl I made sure to get one with the ATI card. ~;) The X1650 should do well, and it should function as a decent second box for LAN games

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Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

I've bought an Acer notebook for my Girlfriend recently and it came with XP Prof. Asus and some others also offer XP. You won't be too happy with a notebook if you want to play a lot. Get a decent desktop and check out if the new Asus EeePC (or one of the new cheap subnotebooks) is something for you.

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I don't get to play a lot, theoretically I'm an old man with responsibilities. :rolleyes: The portability of a decent gaming laptop would help some, the missus won't complain (too much) if a laptop is set up on the den table. She complains loudly when I'm holed up in my office playing games, not so much when I'm doing it in front of her and listening (supposedly) to her talk. So the laptop decision is more of a domestic tranquility choice. I'll check out Acer again.

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Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

What's that about the XP activation?

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I've heard you can't really change the mobo without getting another license, the XP activation thinks that too many devices have changed and balks. If this is not the case, feel free to chime in.

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Originally Posted by drone

I'll check out Acer again.

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Check the 5220. We've that with one Gig RAM and it's decent.

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Originally Posted by drone

I've heard you can't really change the mobo without getting another license, the XP activation thinks that too many devices have changed and balks. If this is not the case, feel free to chime in.

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Hmm. Not sure there. If that is the first time you've changed the hardware and the first time you need to reactivate, then it should be okay?
Don't take my word for it, I'm not certain how that procedure goes.
What a hassle, you've a legit copy and a serial key....but still.
Makes you wonder if an evaluation copy wouldn't be easier to handle. :laugh4:
Anyway, certainly someone here has gone through a reactivation before?

R'as

I am in the same situation you are.

Running AthlonXP 3000+, ATI 9800 Pro, 512 RAM

Looking to start from scratch in a few months and make this one my media box.

In the meantime, I REALLY want to be able to play M2TW in all its glory, so I decided to put some of my tax rebate towards a small upgrade.

Tomshardware says X1650PRO is the best AGP card for <$100 as of February. I picked one up yesterday at Newegg for $70 with free shipping. I also plunked down $80 for 2gb ram. Hopefully that will keep me happy until I build a new rig.

I only buy from Newegg, I will sing their praises all day. Same day shipping and their customer service is THE BEST. I bought a processor from them a few years ago which turned out DOA (well, it might have been slightly AFTER arrival :oops:) and it was an absolute breeze to get a replacement. Plenty of their customers reviews are of the tune "I bought such and such, it died after 2 months, Newegg was awesome and sent me a new one without a hassle." You can't beat a 12 month replacement guarantee on almost everything they sell. Their slogan is "Once you know, you newegg" and it is very true.

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Originally Posted by ReiseReise

Tomshardware says X1650PRO is the best AGP card for <$100 as of February. I picked one up yesterday at Newegg for $70 with free shipping. I also plunked down $80 for 2gb ram. Hopefully that will keep me happy until I build a new rig.

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I just did what you did Tuesday night. I ordered 2 GB of RAM and the HIS ATI X1650 Pro 512MB IceQ from Newegg. Haven't ordered a replacement processor yet, I was looking at some benchmarks and got confused. The 2800+ Thoroughbred did better than the 3000+ Barton in a lot of performance tests. :inquisitive:

I looked at the X1650 XT cards, but couldn't really justify the cost considering the future of the machine. The Pro should work fine, and the extra system RAM will be a godsend.

Got my parts yesterday after my shipment was misrouted by UPS (Grrrrr). Sapphire X1650 PRO 512 and Patriot 2x1GB DDR 3200.

I spent half a day messing around before I could use my pc again.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Popped the new ram and vid card in, boot up, install drivers all is good, then noticed the ram was running at FSB -33 so I changed that and things went from minor problem to unable to POST. After many ram-swappings and CMOS clears i resigned myself to the fact that my mobo will not let the new ram run at its advertised speed - oh well, this will all be replaced in a few months anyway. I also ran into problems because after the crash I moved my PC out of the room so I had space to lay it out on the floor, and I was using an old 15 inch monitor instead of moving my heavy-as-lead 19inch CRT. On first boot the monitor worked, then no more as soon as windows loaded - the refresh rate was all messed up and the image was garbage so I couldn't even see what I was doing to change it. After 2 hours of thinking my power supply couldn't handle the new card (Ok i was actually just looking for an excuse to buy something else new), I swapped my old card back in and had the same problem - ooops, the old monitor was OLD (circa 1996) and couldn't multi-sync to adjust to the video settings. I hooked up my dad's LCD and magic - it worked.

Now I am still dealing with driver issues. The ATI drivers on the Sapphire CD are crap, M2TW and any other game immediately CTD while loading. Admittedly I was impatient and didn't uninstall the previous drivers beforehand so maybe that is the problem. I read other people had luck with Omega (modified ATI) drivers so I uninstalled everything ATI and installed the Omegas but got ridiculous frame rates (1 fps) on M2TW so I will try something else. I read Catalyst 4.2 or some other old version works with X1k series AGP cards, but I don't have the willpower to try them right now after fighting with this all day. Any suggestions are welcome.

On a bright note, the difference between 512MB and 2GB ram is HUGE. Loading times for M2TW seem almost instant compared to what they were (I used to go the bathroom, smoke a cigarette, come back, damn, still loading my battle....) When I close the game I can immediately open Firefox or whatever instead of having to wait 30 seconds. When browsing files in Photoshop the thumbnails open almost immediately instead of 1 every few seconds. Very nice indeed.

I really wish I didn't have to work tonight so I could get this figured out, but alas, the money has to come from somewhere :beam:

You can go to corsair, enter your MB model and they normally give the supported RAM.

My stuff showed up Monday, I'll probably put it in this weekend. My mobo has 3 memory slots, but only the first one supports PC3200, so I knew I would not be able to run at those rates.

I'm probably going to start with drivers straight from ATI, not the ones on the disk. My experience with ATI is that you definitely have to uninstall the previous drivers. Following the ATI drivers menu, they point to Catalyst 8.3 for XP and the X1650.
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_ca...=xp/radeonx-xp