PC Specs?

[zx9r]

Curious as to what you are all running for a PC, AND how well war3 runs on it. Mainly concerned with team games, as solo games I run fine, but sometimes in large battles in team games I drop to low fps. Here are my specs, dont laugh, I paid 100 bucks for this pc 2 years ago, at the time it was a HELL of a deal (little outdated now, but still runs everything i need it to)

AMD Athlon 1.6 gHz (gogo AMD:rainfro )
512 MB Ram
80 Gig HD @ 7200 RPM
ATI Raedon 7500 64MB AGP
SB Live Gamer Sound Card
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2

I know the specs are a little on the low side, mainly my ram/cpu (which I cant upgrade thanx to my motherboard...) Im leaning towards my ram/video card as being the problem with "lag" under mass units in one area (usually mass units alone isnt enough, like 2 armies sitting in my base wont drop my fps much, just when 2-3 armies collide and spells are going off, towers firing everywhere, etc etc, my frame rate drops to a chug-chug for a few.)

I am thinking about buying a new system and giving this to my younger brother. I dont really want to spend more than $500, and I dont need a monitor or any of the extras. Any suggestions? Last one (current) was purchased on eBay, one of the best investments ive had for only $100 bucks (remember this was almost 2 years ago..) Any feedback is welcomed.

 

[ChrisH36]

The only thing that pwns mine is your RAM count. My 512 doenst match the CAS Latency of the 256, plus it has a defect on one of the addresses. So it is useless: here is a sum up of mine

P4 2.6 Ghz Processor
256 Kingston CL3A (3.0) DDR400 RAM
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (128 MB running at 8x AGP)
80 GB Hard Drive (Maxtor)
Windows XP SP1 (Sp2 crashes my computer, plus SP2 can be made up with anti-virus and proxies)

If you get a new motherboard, you will need to remove some of your old parts and get new ones. Plus the new parts cannot have problems with the motherboard, or you aren't going to get life out of your computer.

 

[zx9r]

Yeah i know all about motherboard issues, ive built 3 pcs in the past, and only one has gone DOA. Was a faulty mobo tho. Im considering building another one, using my HD and possibly sound/etc... pricewatch.com to find some deals on everything else. Also thought about getting a barebone kit, but then again also thought about buying a new motorcycle, so who knows. I live in new england and its still winter here for a few months...

EDIT:
Can other players in RT/FFA/AT games lower YOUR fps? Like if they hare a shitty connection/machine? Because in some battles, I wont lag at all, and in others I screetch to a hault practically. Forget about micro in those situations, hell its hard just to get the TP scroll to work.

 

[ChrisH36]

Well it depends, if they do the Waiting for Busy Hosts... then it screws up.

 

[Jimbo]

p4 2.4
512 ram
9200 se 128mb (radeon)


My new computer that i just ordered
Intel 3.0
1 gig ram
evga 6600gt 128 mb

My old comp never had any problems running wc so i guess im lucky

 

[zx9r]

I think my issue is the FPS drop in big battles on bnet. I can get a 100 food army against 7 computers and it wont drop my fps. But when more than 3 ppl collide at once on bnet, i drop to a chug until it clears. makes it difficult to micro, just gotta "pull n pray" so to speak...