problems with sim

[simon c]

i have a e machine with a 3d agp intergraded ati radeon 9100 but the sim keeps stopping and judders do you think i need a better graphics card and if so what should i buy please help

[Biggles]

e-machines....oh dear someone shops @ currys or pcworld....nevermind. what cpu are you using and how much ram do you have installed?

I also believe the ati radeon 9100 is an onboard chipset not an actual 'seperate' card...but I could be wrong.

What sim are you using???

To run a sim (xtr or phoenix) I would recommend a P4 2.8 with H/T, 512mb-1gig of ram and a minimum of a 128 mb agp fx card.

This gives the ability to run the sim plus all the other background stuff your pc runs (AV etc)

[Raptormadsteve]

Hi Biggles i have a similar problem i have a pentium 4 1600 with a readon 256 and 256 meg of ram.
Regards Steve

[Biggles]

I take it you are running xp? If you are 120 megs of that 256 megs of ram is taken up just running xp...then add in your av and various other 'startup' programs....you are also running a p4 1600...thats sounds like a gen 1 p4.

People also say they have a P4 when on closer inspection it is an intel celeron cpu.

You could trying adding extra ram and make sure you have an agp slot for a new GFX card as onboard gfx are not really up to the levels required to run a sim smoothly.

Here is the lowest spec pc I have to run XTR on at the highest res without stuttering etc.

P4 2.8 800mhz fsb, 1mb L2 cache, 1gig DDR2 pc4200 Ram, 256mb pcie Nvida gfx card.

This runs full screen with 1280x1024 resolution while keeping the av running and all the other programs in the background.

[robgt]

Thats quite a high spec machine
I have a lower spec machine (333 mhz FSB) with 1.6ghz Athlon XP which ran Reflex fine fullscreen (turned off V Sync) - however, I always have thrown RAM at my PCs as without it, any PC is wasted. I run a minimum of 1 gig of RAM.
It's so cheap these days for reliable, good quality RAM, there's no point not doing this.

Go to www.crucial.com and use their system checking tool to get perfectly matched RAM for your system - then buy as much as you can afford

Cheers,
Rob

[Raptormadsteve]

Hi Guys just ran the scan and here are the results !
Maximum Memory Capacity: 2097152 MB
Currently Installed Memory: 512 MB
Available Memory Slots: 1
Number of Banks: 2
Dual Channel Support: N.A.
CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
CPU Family: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.60GHz Model 1, Stepping 2
CPU Speed: 1597 MHz
DDR PC2000

Is this good ? bad ? or crap lol................. I know less than nothing about computers
Regards Steve

[robgt]

You have 2 RAM slots, one of which is currently housing 512 megs (half a gig) of RAM. You can install a maximum of 2 gigs of RAM (2x 1gig sticks).

It's not bad to be honest - although if you're having issues running the sim or newer games, etc (even with a 256meg Radeon card...) - adding more RAM can't hurt.

What model Radeon card is it, do you know?
Cheers,
Rob

[Raptormadsteve]

Hi Rob the graffix card is a radeon 9800 xt at the time it was quit posh.
I dare not touch this pc as the last time i tried to upgrade memory on my last machine it never worked again lmao!
Regards Steve

[robgt]

Graphics card is fine mate - should have no issues with that one.
If you have problems with it running Phoenix? then the first thing to check would be stuff running in the background (how many icons to you see in your system tray (next to the clock, bottom right) when it's fully expanded?
After that, fragmentation of files can casue serious slowdowns.
Pagefile size (virtual memory the PC uses once your physical RAM has been used up - it uses pre-allocated space on your hard drive) can be increased to help - but on a badly fragmented drive, it won't make much difference.

If you've never run the defragmentation tool, and you're on Windows XP, I'd suggest leaving it running overnight some time, as it takes a while on badly fragmented drives.
Access it here: Start > Program Files > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. (Going from XP memory - I run Vista now...)

The built in defragger does a decent job (Microsoft bought it in from Diskeeper - an excellent 3rd party utility).

Cleaning up your system can help with overall system speed too. Stay on top of installed programs. If you don't use some programs at all any more, uninstall them using Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel.

Installing new RAM should not kill your PC... I don't know what happened there? Perhaps the wrong type of RAM was installed? (Hence running Crucials checking tool helps you to purchase the RAM matched to your PC).

Cheers,
Rob

[Fixxxer]

More Ram will make all the difference, XP needs 512mb to function properly so most of this is already allocated once the system has booted but you may have problems getting PC2000 as its a pretty old format which only runs at a low speed compared to the new stuff (10 times slower in some cases ) which is going to create a bottleneck.

[Raptormadsteve]

Hi Fixer do you think it could be replaced by something better? The ram i meen.
Regards Steve

[Fixxxer]

The only way to change the type of ram is a motherboard change which then throws up all sorts of other problems like getting a board to fit that cpu etc. The rate of change over the last few years has been extreme. Personally I would have a scout around on the web/ebay and see if you can pick up an extra 512mb of ram cheapley. It may also be worth dropping emails to a couple of the specialised memory retailers ( just google memory etc ) to see if they can fix you up but I wouldn't spend a huge amount, rather save the cash up and get a newer pc, with prices coming down all the time there are some decent spec machines to be had.

Another thing that may help is to install windows defender if you haven't already, this will give you a piece of software called 'software explorer' which is located in the control panel. Running this will allow you to see all currently active programs that the system is running plus those loaded at startup with the option of turning them off or disabling them completely. If you run through the list and stop anything that doesn't need to be running, basically the only programs needed will be those listed under microsoft corporation and your anti virus software. It's perfectly safe to change things and if theres a problem then just change it back.

hope this helps a little.

[robgt]

Steve,
Just a thought, but on crucials' website, once you've run the system scan, it displays a list of what your PC uses hardware-wise (motherboard, ram etc) - it also offers more details of the motherboard on that page and you may find that newer RAM will work in your PC (i.e. PC3200 may work even though yours uses PC2000) - the page should tell you this - so if it doesn't mention that fact, then your motherboard doesn't support that option.
Some do, some don't.
The one I helped buy RAM for this evening did, which is how I know about this feature
Cheers,
Rob

[simon c]

i have a e machine 5210 2.50 petium 4 80 gb 512 mb ddr cpu 250ghz would this run phoenix ok

[robgt]

It should run phoenix fine - however, there are other factors that come into play too.
If you run WindowsXP, you need a bare minimum of 256 megs of ram, otherwise, it's just a painful experience.
From there, it then depends on what other programs you have running at the same time as you want to run Phoenix (or any other software for that matter) as to how well it would perform.
Your system has 512 megs of ram, 256 is written off for windows, leaving the other 256. If you have lots of programs running in the background, they all consume resources, and the longer Windows is running, the more resources it tends to want (because generally, it's bad at managing itself over extended periods of time).

It never hurts to install more ram in a PC - you will always see a boost in performance from doing it, however slight that might be...

So short answer, yes, your PC will run Phoenix.
Long answer... it depends

Cheers,
Rob