Me and my dad had gotten 'matching' PCs two years ago, and just a few days ago, we traded the old one he gave us for his that 'matches' mine. (Long story, for some reason he just HAS to have two computers for his own use, his main computer is quite a good PC)

Anyway, now me and my wife have 'matching' PCs with minor differences:
Hard Drives:
Hers: 1 - 250gb SATA
Mine: 1 - 250gb (E?)IDE, ATA/100 (I've got 3 more of various sizes/speeds, but C:\ is on the 250gb one)

Memory:
Hers: 1 - 1gb DDR400, running at 333mhz for some reason?
Mine: 2 - 256mb DDR266; 1 - 512mb DDR266 (300 maybe?)

Video:
Hers: GeForce3 Ti....500?, 64mb, AGP, 1 monitor
Mine: GeForceFX 5500 256mb, AGP, 2 monitors, 2nd through HDMI?-VGA adapter

PSU:
Hers: 350w
Mine: 400w

CD Drives and different expansion cards, she's got Firewire, I've got extra USB, blah blah. I deem it unimportant to go into details.

Everything else is the same, the mobo (and thus bus speed, cache, ect), CPU, even the fans and cases.

So now it's the damnedest thing, but in WoW she gets a slightly better FPS than I do. I put my video settings to what hers are set at. I've turned off all the extra spiffy video card options on both. (mine has a few more) Yet I haven't seen an improvement. (which means I can turn them back on at least without prodding my FPS) She gets a good 10 more fps than I do, so it's kinda frustrating when I'm running at 19-24fps outdoors, and can notice that hers runs smoother than mine.

My question is (finally getting to the topic at hand) since I have 2 monitors hooked up, vs her one, can that cause me to have lower FPS, or is her better HD and memory helping her out?

It's her RAM.

Seriously? You'd figure with me having the better video card I'd still be getting better FPS. =\

Oh wait, I missed that somehow.

No, it's probably because your video card is horrible.

Don't be surprised, the GeForce 3 Ti 500 is better than the GeForce FX 5600.

But mines a 5500.

Seeings how though, that the 5200 and 5600 are below the GF3 Ti 500, wtf?

How can a card made years before one be better? With less memory? And slower? (Mines AGP 8x!)

Which is worse than the 5600. Transitive property ftw


Because the design of the FX series architecture is a disaster.

As I understand it, the FX series created a whole new definition of fail.

I find this hard to believe!

Any good reads about it? I'm not saying all those guys at that forum or wrong, or even you, but I'd like to understand why my card, which should be better, isn't. *sigh* At least I didn't pay for it....

Just google it. Really, Commander 598 is dead on.

I know I know, google. I've been searching since I lsat posted and can't really find anything substantial, just reviews. No "Well there's your problem!" information.

Wikipedia.com to the rescue! Found what I wanted to know.

Yeah, they're horrible. They have absolutely no DX9 performance. If you want a REALLY good read, go hit up Gabe Newell's rants on the Geforce FX series back when HL2 was first released. It was one of the reasons the Radeon 9700 absolutely raped the competition.

Yes the FX series is cheap and crap all in one package.

I remember one of the first reviews for Oblivion was someone using an FX... It nearly or completely unplayable on uber low settings. My craptastic 9700 TX (Budget 9700 I suppose) on 512MB of RAM could manage decently playable low/medium settings.

Is there anything I can do to boost performance? I'm not crazy about all the card options you set in the CP and always have them turned off.

Get any other cheap graphics card that's not an FX and also a cheap stick of RAM to match the one you already have, maybe?

get an 8800 GT. it will melt your face.

Hehe, I have a GeForce FX 5600.

You can get a Ti4200 for 18 bucks here...not sure how much of an improvement it'll be, but it's faster than a Ti500.

I suggest 3850 XT for similar reasons

I'm hopelessly out of date with my paltry 7900GT, aren't I..

Sure. Isn't there a donut sale somewhere you should be?

D: But I like my face.

Would a GF 6200 be a decent choice? The list Emon linked seems to think so, and it's in my price range.

If by decent you mean better than your previous card? Absolutely.

If you mean decent by decent in gaming, not really.

No. Just...no. You're going from **** to ****. One's higher quality ****, but it's still ****.

Why do people spend 50 bucks on a video card? Why? You know they're just gonna be back in 2 weeks "OMG WHY DIDN'T YOU GUYS TELL ME IT SUX!?"

Probably why Source defaults to using DX8 with the FX series... my old FX 5200 sucked at DX9.

My current card is a 6800GS. If I were you I'd go high 7000 level, or at least high 6000 level.

Low 6000 is probably WORSE than high 5000, at least from what I understand.

But it's **** at an affordable price. :p

I haven't done much in the ways of computer gaming in the past few years, up until recently, the most strenuous thing I played was JK with JKE.

While it'd be awesome to have all the card options on, all the detail settings to max, and get 30+ fps, all that's not necessary for me.

Ok, now I'm curious, what would I need to do that for WoW? >.>

christ just spend $250 on an 8800 gt. it'll last you for so long.

Y'know Jon'C, you're right.

Here, why don't you save me some trouble, reach into my *** and pull out the $$ for me.

8800 GT is what made the earth.

You're one of those people who lease a new Civic every 3 years, aren't you?

I'm editing this out because it was angrier than was called for. I will instead politely suggest that you save up the money so you can afford a card that is worth buying, instead of wasting a smaller amount of money on a card that is not worth buying at all.

3850XT is very comparable and is 50 bucks cheaper--and I hear the 8800GT is goin for 300-ish because of its lack of availability. Honestly I'd go for ATI's solution if you're looking budget.

Otherwise, obviously go with NV (for the GTX at least).

No Jon'C, I'm one of those people who have very little left over after every paycheck, after necessary bills. :saddowns: I can't justify spending, nor saving, a 'huge' amount of money on something that isn't an absolute necessity that I probably won't fully use. To me, it'd be like buying a Vette and never speeding or racing people from stop lights or taking it out to the drag strip. $50 isn't even something I can plunk down instantly, but I can within a few weeks or so. And besides, my AGP mobo would probably bottleneck the max an 8800 can push anyway. (if they make it for AGP that is)

You mean like WoW?

Zing

Than save. Spending fifty dollars on a video card doesn't save you any money because you'll have to constantly replace it with another fifty dollar video card. If you could make your self save for a few weeks you could buy something that would last you for a much longer time. Save 150$ buy an X1950pro and be done with it. If you want to play games at all, spending 50$ on a video card is just dumb. Sure it may be a third of the price buts it's a twentieth of the performance. You'll end up spending more than that just trying to stay above the absolute minimum.

Buy something that isn't total crap or stop gaming altogether.