Upgrading for BF2

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Well, it's time for me to do some upgrades so I can enjoy BF2 more. At the moment it doesn't run acceptably well at 1280x1024 with the details cranked up. Here's what I have:

Athlon XP 2700+
ASUS A7V8X-X mobo
1 gig PC2700 RAM
80 gig UDMA100 Maxtor
Geforce 6200, 128MB

Obviously I need a better video card.. What's the best in the ~$200 range? Also, my motherboard supports PC3200 RAM. Would there be a significant difference if I upgrade?

AGP or PCI??? and I would think to add another gig would help but thats just me.

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AGP.. My motherboard doesn't have PCIe and I don't want to replace it just yet.

Then I think theres like a really top of the line Radeon for 120 but then you have to ask yourself is it worth it when its going to need to be replaced soon anyways. (though I am no computer expert)

_________________
"we never get respect ... never a fair trial
[swearing removed by lau] ... as long as we smile"
Im tired of smiling.

Vote for me in 2020

It's probably ram and a better 3D card you need mate

Mine starts struggling on medium settings because it's using virtual ram.

I find once I'm playing I'm not too bothered about the graphics anyway.

For BF2, the nVidia GeForce 6600 GT (128 or 256MB versions) will work fine. I'd personally got for one of the 6800GTs or Ultras if you can afford it.

Yeah mines got a 6600 and it only slows down coz of virtual ram

I'm saving up for corsair or other decent ram.
The cheap stuff is a false economy, I recently binned a gig that failed.

I'm told it'll soon get even cheaper as the new 64 bit technology
means we'll soon be able to support hundreds of gigs of ram
not just 3 or 4

I ended up getting a 6600GT. That made an incredible difference! I also found that it is VERY overclockable, even with the stock cooler. BF2 plays wonderfully now.

I know what you mean about crappy RAM.. I have 2 sticks of 512MB in my computer. I let a friend borrow one stick for his new motherboard while another DIMM was on order. BF2 was almost unplayable with more than 8 or so players at 512MB. When his new stick arrived, I tried putting it in my computer. It had the same exact specs as my other DIMM, but it wouldn't boot with my mildly tweaked BIOS settings. I reinstalled the chip that my friend borrowed, and it fired right up. I eventually got the new chip to run stably in his computer by increasing the latency times and cranking up the voltage to 2.9v (it's supposed to run at 2.5!). I used to think most memory is pretty much the same.. Not any more!

Next thing I need to get is a CPU cooler. Even without overclocking it, when I'm playing a DVD or something it often exceeds 60 deg C! That Athlon makes a great space heater.

you could lower the screensize and maybe some of the less useful graphic features.

The video card was a good choice for the budget. You may also want to have at least 1.5 GBs of ram. When BF2 is running, it generally uses around 1.1 GBs of ram on a computer with 1.5 or more. That means that unless you have at least 1.5 GBs of ram, there will be fileswapping from the HD. This will cause some stuttering in game.