# Upgrading for Doom 3; Need Help

## apeitheo

Hello,

I'm currently planning on upgrading my computer to get ready for Doom 3.  I only have a GeForce 2 MX400 PCI card as of right now, and my mobo doesn't have an AGP slot, so I'm guessing I must upgrade these.  I have a Intel Celeron 2.7 Ghz, and I'm hoping I don't need to upgrade this, if I do, please let me know.  (the system requirements say a 1.5Ghz Pentium)

1. Mother Board - For the mobo I'd like something cheap (Under $60 bucks) and good, I have two that I've selected out

Biostar (has AGP 8x) - http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-138-020&depa=0

Gigabyte (has AGP 4x) - http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-128-234&depa=0

Which one would have the best support for Linux?  Which one do you recommend, if not these?  (Note I don't know if I'd like to upgrade my case, which is kinda small, so 3 PCI slots may be my maximum)

2. Graphics Card - I'm thinking about buying an nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB DDR AGP card from a friend for around 30 bucks.  Is this a good deal?  He only used it for about a month, and not very heavily...He has a 256MB card now  :Smile:   Is this good enough for Doom 3?  Will I be able to enjoy the game this way? Also, will this card still be ok for games in a few years?  I don't really have the money to be spending $150+ for a graphics card, so I hope this will do.  If not, recommend what would be good for the cheapest possible.

Thanks for the help!  :Very Happy: 

Note: I hope this is the right category to ask this in, if not please move it to where it should be.  (I guess it could also be in Gamers and Players)

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## placeholder

Check out the MSI line. Good mainboard company.  :Wink: 

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## ewan.paton

the gpu is the most imporant thing when playing 3d shooters,  the reason your mate is selling the 5200 is its crap its highly unlikely he needs extra video ram unless he is runing 3d cad on a 30" screen.

basicly the fx5200 is nvidias economy/ cheap and nasty model which shiped with loads of ram and a cool sounding name but a old gf4200 would kill it and its probably only marginaly faster than your mx 

my advice would be wait a couple of weeks after doom3 is out and hit ebay for an fx5700 or better which probably woulnt be full res but should be playable

as for the rest of the upgrades, well a 2.7ghz celleron is probably equivelent to a 1.8ghz p4 thanks to the pitiful amount of L2 cache and intel motherboards tend to be more expensive so it may be cheaper to buy an amd xp and board as im sure you could get a resonable amount on ebay for a cpu/board/card combo

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## Goodle

You need at better video card... The video card is what matters when playing 3d games.  I would recomenend upgrading your video card.  Nvidia card are the best video card for linux.

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## apeitheo

 *ewan.paton wrote:*   

> basicly the fx5200 is nvidias economy/ cheap and nasty model which shiped with loads of ram and a cool sounding name but a old gf4200 would kill it and its probably only marginaly faster than your mx 

 

Even with it being AGP, as opposed to my PCI card?

 *ewan.paton wrote:*   

> as for the rest of the upgrades, well a 2.7ghz celleron is probably equivelent to a 1.8ghz p4 thanks to the pitiful amount of L2 cache and intel motherboards tend to be more expensive so it may be cheaper to buy an amd xp and board as im sure you could get a resonable amount on ebay for a cpu/board/card combo

 

I might just do that.  :Sad: 

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## apeitheo

Ok I've decided that I might not buy the FX 5200, and might go with a better card, but how high should I go?  Preferably something under $90-$100  Should I go with a 256Mb Card?  Should I even go with the FX series?  I was looking at some and found a few, are any of these good?

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-145-068&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-200&depa=0

http://www.gameve.com/gve/store/productdetails.aspx?sku=VC-XFX-021&view=0

Would any of those run Doom 3 nice?  I guess I might need to get a job so I can get a card that's actually good, heh.  :Sad: 

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## JinxterX

GF FX5200 is not much faster than a GF4 so don't buy one, obviously a ATI Radeon 9700 or higher is the best option but they are expensive and from what I gather the drivers aren't too hot in Linux compared to nVidia ones.

Personally I wouldn't waste money on upgrading my pc just to play ONE new game but thats just my opinion  :Razz: 

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## apeitheo

 *JinxterX wrote:*   

> GF FX5200 is not much faster than a GF4 so don't buy one, obviously a ATI Radeon 9700 or higher is the best option but they are expensive and from what I gather the drivers aren't too hot in Linux compared to nVidia ones.
> 
> Personally I wouldn't waste money on upgrading my pc just to play ONE new game but thats just my opinion 

 

 :Shocked:  But this is Doom III.  Have you ever played Doom before?  Have you seen the previews for this game? lol

Edit: I think I've decided to hold off on buying a graphics card at the moment.  I'll wait until a demo is released, or until I can borrow a copy of the game from one of my friends who gets it, to test it out on my friend's FX 5200 card, and if that sucks, try it out on his FX 5500 256Mb AGP card, and see if it performs any better, if it does, I'll go out and buy that card, or better.

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## bk0

The question is whether you want to spend the bare minimum needed to get Doom 3 running or whether you want to have a decent system that you will be able to get use out of for the forseeable future.

If it's the former, probably a video card upgrade is sufficient. If it's the latter you'll probably want to gut the system from the mobo on up, since Socket 370/Slot-I systems are pretty obsolete at this point. You shouldn't need to spend much more than $300 for a new mobo, processor and RAM. Consider a new case too since really they're pretty cheap and are worth the investment. Above all, don't skimp on the motherboard: get a high-quality name brand like ASUS, Tyan, etc and not a crappy whitelabel. The current consensus is that Athlon 64's are the sweet spot right now as far as price/performance goes. The Barton-core Athlon XP's are fast and dirt cheap, as are the motherboards. Intel is fine but you'll pay more for the Pentium brand name.

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## Admiral LSD

meh, I wouldn't consider Doom3 worthy enough to spend money upgrading your entire system over. Just get a copy of that pack that has all three Doom games in it (Doom, Doom2 and "Final" Doom". Same game, lighter system requirements.

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## seppe

I'm going to buy me a new Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop, and I have the choice between a nVidia GeForce FX 5200 or a ATI Mobile Radoen 9600. I couldn't make the choice either, because ATI's linux drivers suck but the GF 5200 on the otherhand is crap.

Finally I made my choice, I just go for ATI. It's just stupid to buy a crappy videocard just because their drivers are more mature. The next quote taken from some forum where I posted about this made me decide to go for the ATI Radeon 9600:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> The ATI Radeon 9600 would on 50% of it's speed still be 3 times faster than a GeForceFX 5200, so that choice is quickly made
> 
> 

 

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## ewan.paton

 *bk0 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> If it's the former, probably a video card upgrade is sufficient. If it's the latter you'll probably want to gut the system from the mobo on up, since Socket 370/Slot-I systems are pretty obsolete at this point. You shouldn't need to spend much more than $300 for a new mobo, processor and RAM. Consider a new case too since really they're pretty cheap and are worth the investment. Above all, don't skimp on the motherboard: get a high-quality name brand like ASUS, Tyan, etc and not a crappy whitelabel. The current consensus is that Athlon 64's are the sweet spot right now as far as price/performance goes. The Barton-core Athlon XP's are fast and dirt cheap, as are the motherboards. Intel is fine but you'll pay more for the Pentium brand name.

 

its only the next generation of grapics cards just hitting the streets now that are cpu limited, every other system is limited by the gpu so thats what the money should be spent on.

as for a board upgrade well the ram would be compatablt with a amd xp board and in my neck of the woods you would be looking at 25 quid for a board and around 50 for a cpu that can oc to the 3000+ pr rateing the cpu cooler may even be compatible

i should add the second selection of graphics cards are all based on the same gpu as the pci board so whille performance may be slightly limited by the 133meg/sec pci bus it wouldnt be a wise upgrade, unfortunatly you get what you pay for and you are probably talking 100 pounds to get acceptable game performance with all the features.

the pollicy of waiting till its out and playable  is probably the best

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## JinxterX

 *Nightgrave wrote:*   

> 
> 
>  But this is Doom III.  Have you ever played Doom before?  Have you seen the previews for this game? lol

 

Hehe you're crazy but good luck anyway   :Laughing: 

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## Moloch

I recently (maybe 4 months ago) bought a eVGA brand Geforce 5700 Ultra 128MB. 

I was in the same boat as you, I haven't been paying attention to all the new video cards and had no idea what to get, plus I was on a tight budget. I almost bought a 5700 256MB card, but it wasn't ultra. Once I dug deaper I found that the ultra was clocked higher especially with memory. As far as I could tell the ultra was the way to go even with less memory. I was also seriously considering the 5600 line. I found though that the 5700 line was a big change in the GPU over the 5600 in performance and ability. 

So that's my recomendation on a GPU. It cost me about $150 at Newegg. So far it has been capable of max detail in most games I'm very happy with it. 

In terms of motherboard, I'm guessing you need an AGP slot, but not 100% sure what you will find that has PCI. With a  2.7 Ghz Celeron you should be ok. For motherboard choice, again I don't know. I have an Abit I'm happy with. I don't think it is too critical these days.

Upgrading a computer for gaming on a tight budget is always tricky. As other's have said, the GPU is the most important part.

My system specs...

Processor: AMD Athlon 1800+ XP

Motherboard: Abit KX7-333R

Video: GeForce 5700 Ultra 128MB

RAM: 768MB PC2700 DDR

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## sxz

Bah, i`ve been waiting for this game the last previous years. Just recently i bought an acer notebook: 1.4GHz Centrino, 512Mb Ram, Ati mobility radeon 9700 with 64Mb of external memory. I HOPE that this will be enough :[

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## ()

From what I understand the Geforce 6800 LE will be quite cheap (~200$?) for its performance, once it hits the shelves that is.

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## John5788

 *Nightgrave wrote:*   

> Hello,
> 
> I'm currently planning on upgrading my computer to get ready for Doom 3.  I only have a GeForce 2 MX400 PCI card as of right now, and my mobo doesn't have an AGP slot, so I'm guessing I must upgrade these.  I have a Intel Celeron 2.7 Ghz, and I'm hoping I don't need to upgrade this, if I do, please let me know.  (the system requirements say a 1.5Ghz Pentium)
> 
> 1. Mother Board - For the mobo I'd like something cheap (Under $60 bucks) and good, I have two that I've selected out
> ...

 

depends how much money you want to spend for the motherboard, but get a nice with that supports dual channel ddr and 8x agp, and SATA maybe if you want.

for the gfx card, get a geforce fx5900xt, those are really cheap and run fast enough to be considered a fx5900. its the best deal, 256bit card for around $175 at newegg.com.

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