Help with PC upgrade pls (1 Viewer)

[pythag1]

Ok, happy to replace parts but not really proficient in knowing what works best, thinking of an upgrade as I try and 3 box using one pc (only a big issue when zoning to be honest) heres what I am using.

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-M61SME-S2
CPU - AMD Athlon 64x2 dual core 4200+ 2.21GHz
Ram - 2gb
Video Card - Gforce8600GT 512mb
Hard drive 1 - 150gb
Backup Hard Drive - 80gb

Its all set at default as per normal install.
So where do I begin to upgrade? Would appreciate any input
Signed
Clueless pc tinkerer

 

[Maskoi]

Cheapest - fastest and most noticeable would be to upgrade your ram.
go 4gb if Win 32 bit 8 gb if Win 64 bit

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2507&dl=#ov

 

[hoosierbilly]

I agree increasing RAM is the cheapest, easiest, biggest improvment you can make. I did some performance monitoring and found that each box on same machine used roughly 1GB RAM. I did not use any playnice programs, just loaded each box from a seperate folder into a seperate window.

If you are buying a whole new computer get the biggest, fastest you can afford. I saw big improvment with both, increasing RAM and getting quad processor system.

 

[pythag1]

I did not use any playnice programs, just loaded each box from a seperate folder into a seperate window.

So you actually would have a seperate EQ folder per account? I just use the same one which will be from the same eq directory

increasing RAM and getting quad processor system.

I guess quad means a new cpu then a motherboard as the one I have I dont beleive will take that.

 

[hoosierbilly]

So you actually would have a seperate EQ folder per account? I just use the same one which will be from the same eq directory

Yes - I use a completely seperate folder / directory for each instance of EQ I play on the same computer. I had problems with an older computer and that was how I got two boxes to work on same computer.

 

[Sym]

I just spec'd out a pretty decent upgrade for the wife for about $385 from newegg.

Core i3-2120 3.3 GHz cpu
MSI H61M-P21 motherboard
PNY VCGGT4301XPB GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB video card
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 memory

Using existing hd/dvd.

I currently 6box on a core2duo with 8gb/ram using wineq2.

 

[Marbury]

I would at least upgrade your RAM and possibly look to see the compatibility of your video card with a cheaper 4/5 series Nvidia card. I would then use your old video card as a PhysX processor.

 

[AnonymousHero]

Cheapest - fastest and most noticeable would be to upgrade your ram.
go 4gb if Win 32 bit 8 gb if Win 64 bit

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2507&dl=#ov

Take this man's advice... RAM! RAM! RAM!

EQ is not very taxing on the CPU. It's not very taxing on the GPU but one instance of EQ can use up to 1.5GB of RAM (and at 2GB you wont be able to box worth a shit)

 

[Marbury]

EQ was notorious for memory leaks, and I recall back in the day what a blessing EQwindows and EQPlayNice were.

 

[pythag1]

I would at least upgrade your RAM and possibly look to see the compatibility of your video card with a cheaper 4/5 series Nvidia card. I would then use your old video card as a PhysX processor.

Ok ram is my answer - may look at new board so I can get to 8gb however as its about £45 for 4GB not a great deal more for 8. What is Physx, can a pc muppet do this?

 

[Maskoi]

Don't worry about Physx. It only matters for the most recent pc games that need super high end graphics rendering. EQ is not one of them. Your motherboard takes 8gb of ram but windows will only recognize it if you are using a 64 bit system'

2 DDR2 DIMM memory slots (supports up to 8GB memory)(Note 1)
Supports dual channel DDR2 800/667/533/400 DIMMs
Supports 1.8V DDR2 DIMMs

(Note 1) Due to the limitation of Windows 32-bit operating system, when more than 4GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory available for the operating system will be less than 4GB; Windows 64-bit operating system doesn't have such limitation.

 

[dragonfire]

I dual box on a P4 3.0 with 4gb of RAM (3.2 usable) and a NVidea 7300 GT without any difficulty. Box cost me $99 used. EQ is in one directory. Loading is a glacially slow but macro both boxes for days on end without any difficulty. The horizon (something plane) setting being set short helped.