Atomic Systems

It is commonly accepted that many of the newer routes will not run on a low grade PC without dropping many of the graphics and sound settings - which reduces the pleasure in running the route. Whilst several posters have indicated how well these routes run on their higher specified computers, many of us cannot afford new machines of the right quality.
I am one of those who lives on a relatively small and reducing pension and can only contemplate an up-grade to my present PC. Sadly this is not easy.
The general opinion seems to be that MSTS runs best with a fast CPU, fast access hard drive, adequate RAM memory and a good but not especially expensive graphics card. My socket A motherboard does not allow for more than a marginal up-grade to the CPU as the socket A market now appears to be reduced to processors not much faster than my present Athlon XP2400+. so a new motherboard is required. But I have a reasonable GeForce 6200 256<Mb AGP8X graphics card which I want to re-use ; there is only a limited range of motherboards now available which will take AGP8X and allow for decent specification CPUs.
My present thoughts are as follows; you may not agree but any constructive criticism would be welcome, remembering that cost is a very important factor.

ECS nForce3-A939 motherboard
Athlon 64 3200 64bit 512 cache CPU
Seagate ST5160811AS 160Gb 7200.9 SATA II hard drive
Re-use existing 80Gb 7200 IDE hard drive
512 DDR400 memory (1 unit - allowing for 2x512 in the future)
SoundBlaster Audigy 7 sound card

Plus the usual optical drives etc.

Unless anyone knows differently, I will not be able to transfer my present hard drive with Windows XP Home OEM to a new motherboard, because of Microsoft/s anti copying software,
.

Tony

Its not strictly true, providing the motherboard has the same chipset on it as the old one you can transfer the hard drive to the new machine but more often than not you cant,

I quite happily can plug my hard drive in my mates i have nforce 2 and he has nforce 4 and its quite happy

I would also maybe look at the price difference between the 3200 and 3500 procssor, as i have been told the 3500's perfor far better than the 3200's

It is unlikely that a new motherboard will have the same chipset as the old one.
The 3500 is better than the 3200 but there is quite a big price hike for the extra speed and cost is important to me. The 3200 is a compromise between perfomance and price- is it good enough?

Tony

I have successfully used the same hard drive (with Windows XP) on 3 different motherboard / chipset configurations (original installation and 2 upgrades). First time, it was up and running straight away, second time (this August), I had to re-register Windows by phone (internet registration wouldn't work), but had no problem doing so (still getting all required updates).

Regards,

Tim

Hi
I currently run a Athlon 2500+ Barton....built 3 years ago (at a cost of £320)
I have no intentions of upgrading for MSTS....because there is no need.

Over the last three years I have upgraded with
1024Mb RAM
Twin 10000 RPM SATA stripe RAID HDs
6600GT Nvidia
19" Flat panel TFT.

Total cost around £300

I think I possibly have one of the most 'useable' MSTS PCs going....well nothing in MSTS has made it fall over yet.....and I generally run with everything maxed out.

Cheers
Jon

Nothing wrong with a 80 Gb 7200 rpm disk, but dont forget to defagment sometimes.
Wim

Can you get a motherboard with AGP and PCIE? If possible you should, as you'll prevent yourself from upgrading your graphics card without a new MB, and my personal opinion is it's better to spend £10 now than £100 next year, and when doing things on a budget, looking towards your next incremental upgrade is crucial. If you have any designs on getting KRS, your existing graphics card will probably become the weak link.

You can get a Geforce 7100 w/256MB on PCIE from dabs for less than £40 here, so restricting yourself to AGP might prove a false economy. I should point out that I have no idea if that card is any good, but it's the same memory and a faster chip than your current card.

Good little spec, although I would advise going for AM2 instead of that ole' 939 socket you got there as the possibility for a future upgrade is possible, also AM2 offers you the ability to go to DDR2 RAM, up to 800 MHz, which is much better than the max of the 939 socket. (DDR400)

AGP motherboards are now very hard to find as PCI-Express is taking over due to there being 16 channels as opposed to 8. It all depends on what you want; although I think you'll find increasing ATi support from AMD thanks to the recent take-over, after all, a decent ATi X1600 goes for about £60, and you can put on a board like this one:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =MB-148-AS

You could create a PC similar to your specification for about £350 I reckon with AM2 and the Athlon64 3500+, not so sure on Windows though...

Thank you all for the suggestions received so far, I appreciate them all. The problem, is that all of them involve more expense than I want to lay out. Some of you may be aware that I have just had my 84th birthday, so that my visions for the future are rather more limited.

Jon. my motherboard will not support SATA and an adapter will only run the SATA at IDE speeds.

Tony

Tony, NewEgg in New Jersey and California were offering a free motherboard with an Athlon 64 CPU for $99 (not much over £50) a couple of weeks ago (I have one sitting at home waiting for me) which might be worth investigating, too. It was a limited time offer, but the mobo had SATA and PCI-E, onobard sound, networking and video - for the money I couldn't turn it down. I know the on-board stuff isn't always top grade, but
I've never had a serious problem with it.
Shipping will put the price up a little but shouldn't be prohibitive.


BarryH - thenudehamster

Tonysmedley wrote:Jon. my motherboard will not support SATA and an adapter will only run the SATA at IDE speeds.

Tony

Hi Tony
Thats what I added....no problems.
Although mine is now considered slow 150 SATA.
I would assume a 300 SATA adapter would see a reduction.
Basically with no virtual memory, and the RAID I receive no stutter....which I think is the goal
I do not run other games though.
Cheers
Jon

Barry, I had a look at Newegg ( never heard of them before) but couldn't find that offer. Unfortunately the links on the site all timed out before they got established so I could not check very far.

Jon, Interesting tio hear your experience which seems to go against the general advice! Perhaps it is the striping which makes the difference - you cannot stripe IDE drives.

Tony

Tonysmedley wrote:
Jon, Interesting tio hear your experience which seems to go against the general advice! Perhaps it is the striping which makes the difference - you cannot stripe IDE drives.

Tony

Hi Tony
You can if you wish....but they are obviously slower to start with.
Basically by striping you are halfing the HD access speed, whatever the speed of the drive is to start with.
The fastest in the world ATM is 320 SCSI, but they are very expensive.
My point is, its all well and good having a powerfull CPU, but it is sat idle till you can get the information to it....and that is still MSTS's main problem.
Cheers
Jon

Tony - try this: http://promotions.newegg.com/amd/cpu_mo ... index.html - even cheaper You'll need to check the board specs to see if it'll suit your needs; the name is an active link.

BarryH - thenudehamster

Going to the other extreme...I'm planning to upgrade my PC next year after KRS comes out to something fairly cutting-edge, but am I likely to have problems running MSTS on the new PC?