Too slowwww......Should I Even Bother?

[Brunzattack]

Well I realize from reading the posts that my system is just a tad slow  

   Celeron 400
   310RAM
   8 mB Diamond Speedstar  
   Windows XP

I successfully created and logged in.  When I get into the world, it is reallllllllllllllly slow and my computer sounds like it\'s going to blow up any minute.

I\'m going to try decreasing resoution and go to 16 instead of 32.  Is there anything else I can try, or am I just wastng my time?

Thx for any input!

[Keldorn]

i wouldn\'t want to play ANY game on that system. Please if you have any selfrespect left, upgrade today.

If it\'s too expensive to upgrade the whole lot, go for the video card first.

[Greatwolf]

I\'d like to mention that at one point I was using a system that was similar to his: celly 400, 128megs, nVidia TNT 16meg video card and the like. I was actually able to run Asheron\'s Call when I was selected to beta test it. It was actually playable on my system without too much slow down for the most part. The only time where it gets really laggy is when there\'s a lot of people concentrated in one area. Looking at the graphics in Planetshift it seems to be on par with AC at the very least.

I suspect that the real problem with the slow down might be with the fact that planetshift is still in pre-alpha and that a lot of it\'s code is still unoptimize. That memory leak where the client gobbles up all of a system\'s ram doesn\'t help either.  

Keep in mind however, regardless of what I just said above, that it\'s not an excuse not to upgrade your computer especially if you plan to do any kind of serious gaming on it. Last I checked as far back as January, an amd 1700+ Tbred processor can be had for 47 bucks shipped so you might wanna consider upgrading.

[Brunzattack]

Thx for the responses guys.      I pretty much knew that the main problem is my system.  I\'ve never had a problem with any other game.  But I reduced resolution and  the color scheme and was actually able to move around with only 10 seconds of lag!!!  

I saw my first actual other person in the game...but by the time I got there he was gone

Yes, I am in a very tight money crunch, and the first things I\'m gettin are a new vid card and motherboard!

But is there ANYthing else I can do to make it reasonably playable in the meantime?  



ps, any advise on which video cards to buy out there?  I don\'t need the top of the line, but somewhere in the middle will be fine.  thx!

[Keldorn]

Don\'t know where you live but here are some prices (in euros) for a couple of video cards

VGA RIVA TNT II M64 32Mb ? 29,50
VGA GeForce2 MX400 64Mb ? 45,00
VGA GeForce4 MX440 64Mb DDR ? 57,50
VGA GeForce2 MX400 64Mb PCI ? 75,00
VGA Geforce4 Ti4200 64Mb ? 149,00
 
Asus V9180 T8x MX440 64Mb ? 80,00
Asus V9280 TD8x Ti4200 128Mb ? 189,00

 MSI Geforce4 MX440 SE-T 64Mb ? 72,00
MSI Geforce4 MX440 TD8x 64Mb ? 109,00
MSI Geforce4 Ti4200 TD8x 128Mb ? 209,00
 
Hercules ATI 9000 128Mb ? 149,00
Hercules ATI 9700 Pro 128Mb ? 445,00
 
Creative 3DB Personal Cinema ? 129,00
Creative 3DB4 Ti4200 64Mb DDR ? 159,00
 
Matrox G550 Dualhead 32Mb AGP ? 139,00


i would go for the GF4 Ti 4200 from Asus
Good performance for a reasonable price.