Better video card or more RAM ?

[Eue]

Hullo ! I just got a video card for my computer that will run FFXI, but I have a concern. The benchmark program ran a bit choppy. I had a ATI Radeon 9250 128mb at first, then found a used 9550 128 mb for the same price, which is what I have installed. My computer is a 2.2 Ghz Celeron with 512 MB RAM, and the best I could get on the benchmark was 1533 high and 2408 low resolution.

Funny thing is, even though on paper the 9550 is better than the 9250, in practice there was not much of a difference between the two cards. I am wondering if I should spend more for a better video card (i.e. Radeon 9800 is available from the same store I got the 9550 from, and I have a 30 day return) or if I should buy more RAM (say, an additional 1 GB). Does RAM have a big influence oon overall game/benchmark performance, or is it all about the video card ?

Thanks in advance for any help/info.

[neighbortaru]

Re: Better video card or more RAM ?

did you know you can overclock that 9550 to 9600 speeds? should provide a bit of a boost.

more ram wouldn't hurt, but FFXI seems to be more of a CPU & texture (as opposed to polys) intensive game.

[Drogen_Shomuro]

Re: Better video card or more RAM ?

Yeah, I think the choke point is your CPU. The Celerons are kinda weak because they have less cache than a P4 or an Athlon XP. Then again, your video card is a tad on the lower end too.

I get a little over 3000 HQ, 5000 LQ on the bench with
Athlon XP 2600
512MB PC3200 ram
GeForce FX 5700 (128mb)

[Felipe_mTd]

Re: Better video card or more RAM ?

i think that it could be better for you to get a 256mb ddr video card... and buy an aditional 512 mb ddr ram

1gb of ram and a video card of 256 mb make the difference =)

[Kittyneko]

Re: Better video card or more RAM ?

This thread remembers me of the video card I bought a while ago.. I really need help with this, so if you can, /kneel>< I bought a Ati Radeon 9550 256 MB. Anyways.. i installed all drivers.. with the cd-rom.. I boot up my pc.. and desktop and everything, internet you know everything looks great as it should, no problems. I can leave my pc on for hours without any problem. But then, when I boot up FFXI.. The game crashes in TOPS 30 minutes, with the current resolutions i have now on my old GeForce MX440. (The lowest.. 640x800 or so). I tried setting FFXI on the best of the best resolutions with my new videocard.. and guess what? it looked SO GOOD! No lags, SUPER graphics and wow o.o BUT.. with the highest resolutions the game crashed even faster! I wonder what this is.. The card isnt defect, it works on other computers. The experts at the Pc Shop have told me that it might be the overheating, because the card itself has no cooling-van build in, and it happend to other people as well, and they both had the same PC cases.. So it is probably that it doesnt get cooled enough. Please, someone tell me what to do now. Should I buy a van? If so, how do I know if its compatible to build on my videocard(so it will fit on it)? AND if you do know, what brand van i should get, that is compatible with it? And for last question.. Do you have any idea what else could it be, and what to do about it?
Please help me out ; ; I havent used this videocard for 2 months now I just dont know what to do

[Rikaku]

Re: Better video card or more RAM ?

Sweet here is a site for you http://www.1coolpc.com/video.htm EZ to install

on your video card what is under the card do you have a other pci card under it?? that may be makeing your video card over heating. try moveing all the pci card down to the case that way there is more open for the video card. It my be from over heating. Have you tryed playing other games that need a lot of power for the video card?? to see if its the card.


have you checked for newer drivers?? the drivers on the CD are very old. best thing to do is when you install a card go to the there site and down load the drivers that way you are not installing the junk from the CD

[Kittyneko]

Re: Better video card or more RAM ?

/kneel Im gonna try this now. Thank you so much. ^^

[bside]

Re: Better video card or more RAM ?

i think that it could be better for you to get a 256mb ddr video card...

little to no directx8-generation games, which obviously include ffxi, r known to take up even 64MB, so as far as playing ffxi is concerned, having 128 or 256 won't really matter much, coz they r both large enough to accomodate any graphical data ffxi is to send to vid card.

of course, having 256 will help u in the future when u play VGA-memory-hungry games, but at this point, the difference is almost unnoticeable.

/kneel Im gonna try this now. Thank you so much. ^^

no offense, but adding one of those coolers may not solve ur problem, as they don't do anything to exhaust the hot air out of the case.


what did u mean by "crash" in the first place anyway? i'm asking this only because the symptoms of GPU or VGA memory overheating generally result in either freeze-up of the screen or very long lag of. if u were forced back to the desktop, that's usually NOT the sign of VGA-related overheat, but rather something w/ either software or CPU, or possibly combination of both.

i don't know ur pc setup nor what kind of internal devices r installed and where (like which slot out of how many), but even supposing that the vid card is causing it, the overheat problem is often caused by something not directly affecting the component in question, like Rikaku somewhat pointed out. maybe its an internal device installed directly beneath ur vid card, maybe ur pc case is too small or designed poorly to secure enough airflow to cool the internal components, maybe u have something else inside that's getting too hot (i.e too many hdd's w/ limited cooling capability), or maybe the fan for ur vid card is dying.

at any rate, try to be more specific about the problem, so we can help u out better. in the meantime, u can try one of those coolers, as they could solve the problem at hand.