Why AC3D?

Clear · 8th October 2007, 03:51 PM

i have a intel 845g. i also have a pentium 4 2.8 gig pc. i have 768 ram. should i buy more ram a new videocard or both? priced within reason of course as im just doing this for fun

lisa · 8th October 2007, 08:40 PM

Well, either one never hurts, but with the card you have you'd probably get more bang out of better video card than RAM. I just checked the reviews, and BlueSmoke say that the GeForce2 MX400, which is only a $50 card, runs Quake III about twice as fast as your card. There's a lot of decent cards out there for under a $100 bucks these days, so I'd consider an upgrade.

If you don't have money for a new card though, you could always consider changing your workflow. Part of what makes subdivisions cool is that you can change the level of subdivision at will. You can work at a lower subdivision level, and only bump up the rez right before you're ready to render. I never keep my models at max subdivisions until I'm ready to export, which keeps things running snappy even when I have a lot of models in the scene.

Gooberz · 11th October 2007, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clear

i have a intel 845g. i also have a pentium 4 2.8 gig pc. i have 768 ram. should i buy more ram a new videocard or both? priced within reason of course as im just doing this for fun

768? As in, one 512 RAM card and one 256? Mixing RAM like that can cause system instabilities.

However, your problem with "Sluggishness" lies in a lack of RAM (Unless you have stuff actively textured, etc.), or just your RAM being eaten up by other programs. You can try to shut some RAM muchers off though the Task manager (CTRL-Alt-Del > Task Manager, or just CTRL-Shift-Esc). New RAM shouldn't run you up too much (I'd suggest Geeks.com)

bcRIPster · 15th October 2007, 06:17 PM

Gooberz, sorry, I'm going to have to call you out on that post. Mixed RAM size is not an issue here. The 845g is a lowend consumer chipset with an integrated video design targeted at users that really don't do much more than word processing and e-mail.

The only place were matched RAM sticks is critical is when you have multi-processor systems that used banked memory slots. Or your system requires ECC or some other Parity based RAM. The critical component with this systems RAM is to be sure that each stick is of the same class/rating. If that's good then there should be no issues there.

The other problem with this chipset is it normally doesn't ship with it's own dedicated video RAM, it's utilizing video RAM from the system RAM, which in and of itself is a performance hit since system RAM does not run at the same clock/bus speed as dedicated RAM on a video card. I would have to vote that buying a cheep video card upgrade in this case is the optimal solution to the problem. The Nvidea card Lisa recommended should do the trick, but even then the 845g uses an older AGP bus (I think 1.1), so I would personally recommend that any video card you buy be PCI based with this board. It will save you the headache of having to research PCI compatibility, and you can find PCI based Nvidea 6200 (256MB) over on NewEgg right now for $45 (US) made by EVGA.

8th October 2007, 03:51 PM	#1
Clear Junior Member Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 12	Re: Why AC3D? i have a intel 845g. i also have a pentium 4 2.8 gig pc. i have 768 ram. should i buy more ram a new videocard or both? priced within reason of course as im just doing this for fun

8th October 2007, 08:40 PM	#2
lisa Senior Member Professional user Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 917	Re: Why AC3D? Well, either one never hurts, but with the card you have you'd probably get more bang out of better video card than RAM. I just checked the reviews, and BlueSmoke say that the GeForce2 MX400, which is only a $50 card, runs Quake III about twice as fast as your card. There's a lot of decent cards out there for under a $100 bucks these days, so I'd consider an upgrade. If you don't have money for a new card though, you could always consider changing your workflow. Part of what makes subdivisions cool is that you can change the level of subdivision at will. You can work at a lower subdivision level, and only bump up the rez right before you're ready to render. I never keep my models at max subdivisions until I'm ready to export, which keeps things running snappy even when I have a lot of models in the scene. Last edited by lisa; 8th October 2007 at 08:41 PM. Reason: can't spell

15th October 2007, 06:17 PM	#4
bcRIPster Junior Member Junior member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 7	Re: Why AC3D? Gooberz, sorry, I'm going to have to call you out on that post. Mixed RAM size is not an issue here. The 845g is a lowend consumer chipset with an integrated video design targeted at users that really don't do much more than word processing and e-mail. The only place were matched RAM sticks is critical is when you have multi-processor systems that used banked memory slots. Or your system requires ECC or some other Parity based RAM. The critical component with this systems RAM is to be sure that each stick is of the same class/rating. If that's good then there should be no issues there. The other problem with this chipset is it normally doesn't ship with it's own dedicated video RAM, it's utilizing video RAM from the system RAM, which in and of itself is a performance hit since system RAM does not run at the same clock/bus speed as dedicated RAM on a video card. I would have to vote that buying a cheep video card upgrade in this case is the optimal solution to the problem. The Nvidea card Lisa recommended should do the trick, but even then the 845g uses an older AGP bus (I think 1.1), so I would personally recommend that any video card you buy be PCI based with this board. It will save you the headache of having to research PCI compatibility, and you can find PCI based Nvidea 6200 (256MB) over on NewEgg right now for $45 (US) made by EVGA.