upgrade the agp card or get a new cheap system?

D

darshie76

CAG Veteran
Hi there

I am trying to understand what would be the best choice to run old games like neverwinter nights, baldur's gate 1 and 2, icewind dale, kotor 1 and 2, theme hospital, star trek bridge commander and starfleet academy 3 and such.....the list is long

At the moment i have a mac pro with W7 via bootcamp, it works fine with modern games, but for the old games is a pain; the screen does not resize, giving pixels out like if i was on 320x240; or going with a small window in the middle of the screen that makes you think why did you spent money to buy a 24 inch lcd Many other games don't even start or crash as soon as i launch them, so I decided that maybe is better to have a dedicated system to run these old goodies

So I've pulled out of my closet an old ShuttleX, is a P4 (3.2 maybe?), the ram is 1gb and the speed is 400 (so is 200x2 since is DDR); I can add another memory stick since there is only 1 slot available. The graphic is integrated on the mobo, but it has an AGP slot (4x or 8x...not sure, i only know that is a 1.5V so should be 4x).

Now my questions are:

1)is this system enough to play these old games? I am planning to install Xp on it

2) should i get an agp card? If yes, which model sold today is enough to play these games? The shuttle is pretty small (a cube-ish shape basically, is an old model called SB61G2), so i need a card that uses little power, does not overheat that much and is low profile, since the agp slot is right on the left side of the mobo, so once that you put the cover on it there is very little space

3) is there anything sold today that is cheap cheap cheap, and small and can run the aforementioned games? In this way i just get it and throw away the shuttleX

Thanks in advance; tried with a netbook but the results were pretty bad, so i guess that it is not an option, so gotta go for a regular desktop computer, but would like to get the smallest that you can get without spending a fortune (i am planning to spend not more than 40 bucks for the video card, or not more than 200 for another system).
 
lol @ AGP

That takes me back..

I think the last nvidia agp models were the 6/7 series. Those should be overkill for the type of games you want to play. Not sure about the older cards
 
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LOL

I know that is dead, but i cannot play new games on my system, so gotta jump back in the past decade and use a system that i haven't touched since 2005 :p

I don't need a game system, i already have one for modern games; just need to know how to improve the hamster box that i have so i can play with baldur's gate and similar games on xp :)
 
indeed i do not expect to play COD or similar; I wanna play games made between 2000 and 2006 :)

The P4 is not that bad, few years ago was a good cpu before that they started with the dual and quad core, so I do not expect incredible performances, just that i can set on medium the settings for many games and i will be more than happy :)
 
I would check Ebay to see if you can snag an old AGP card worth getting. Just because technology is old doesn't mean it retails for cheap; I heard DDR2 is way more expensive than DDR3.

I played NWN/KOTOR2 on a GeForce 2MX which was pretty awful, so I imagine that integrated would be just as bad. They were fine on the Radeon 9600 system, which was sluggish for another reason (256 MB RDRAM).

Theme Hospital doesn't require that much so you'd be fine with integrated.
 
haha, okay i have experience in this exact issue.

got an old system in the office i use to download stuff to watch on the tv, xvid rips etc..., i also do a bit of video editing and wanted this old p4-OC'd to cut some stuff. didnt want to change mobo/cpu/ram, but needed nicest agp card you can get.

the 3870 is the fastest agp card out there, but really hard to find.

you should be able to get a 3850 no problem though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=3850+agp&x=0&y=0 - sold out on newegg

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=3850+agp&_frs=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m359 -theres a few 3850s on ebay


these can do blu-ray, hdmkvs, most modern games with a few obvious exceptions.

might want to OC that p4 a bit and definitely stick another gb of ram in there. i would replace with matching sticks of some good stuff.

it will be a decent little machine.

if you want to get retarded with it, get an SSD! LOL!
 
[quote name='guyver2077']Unless something crazy drastically changed recently.. i very much doubt this.

DDR1 on the other hand can still be expensive. DDR2 should be cheap as hell . DDR3 is the latest good stuff[/QUOTE]

Its not a huge difference, but DDR3 is cheaper than DDR2.
 
DDR3 is definitely cheaper. I'm still running a C2Q with some DDR2. One of my sticks died recently so I tried to buy some new stuff, some of the prices are pretty insane.

Same can be said for AGP cards. The price/performance ratio is horrendous. Newegg wants $125 for a 4670 whereas the PCIE version is $65. You'd probably be better off building a cheap ~$300 or so C2D PC.
 
You know, when I think about it...

Of the games on your list, Theme Hospital is the most dated and I can see problems with that since it originally ran on Win '95. (I haven't played the Star Trek games). Your Mac should be able to run all the other games. You sure you have the right drivers?
 
I think the biggest problem with trying to stick with an AGP graphics card is the availability of hardware. As noted eBay is your friend here, and browsing what is available at Newegg might not be a bad choice, imho.

You may be better off buying a really cheap system, but then you run OS compatibility problems with your games, if not hardware support issues. Even downgrading the OS to Win XP (or even Win 2000) may not solve most of your problem in that department.
 
Here's a review of the OP's system:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Shuttle-SB61G2-XPC-Review/

It has an 8x AGP slot and the most it'll support is 2GB of DDR400 RAM. It's an 865G chipset, so it's nothing to write home about.

Finding an AGP card would be very difficult these days, and the money spent on an AGP card versus the PCI-E version of the card would be better spent on a new system.

If you put 2GB of RAM in it and as good an AGP card as you can find, it should run most games in the 2000 - 2006 timeframe you're talking about. Best you're going to find would be a Radeon 4670, though the price difference between it and a 4650 wouldn't be worth the money. Some Radeon 4650 card to look at:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102851 ($59.99 AR w/$5.99 shipping)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161308 ($79.99 AR w/free shipping)

Another 1GB PC3200 DDR DIMM is anywhere from $30-$45 on Newegg, or a complete 2GB kit (2 x 1GB DIMMs) at $60 with free shipping:

http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemai...EFL122610-_-EMC-122610-Index-_-E0-_-PormoWord

You're probably looking at around $60-80 for the 4650 video card and around $30-$60 for the RAM (1GB or 2GB), so it'll be $90-$140 to goose the system up as high as it goes. Regardless, it'll still be a single core CPU, maybe with hyperthreading, and any current CPU will mop the floor with it.
 
Thanks for your replies guys :)

-Indeed AGP stuff is hard to find....got a 6200 8X from a small computer store for 20 bucks used; it scores 2800 on 3dmark 03 as is now, so seems that is pretty decent to run these old games now :)

-memory: I've just got a 3200 DDR 400 MHZ at Fry's, for 25 dollars is a good price (1 Gb), and so far the speed of the computer is almost doubled up! As you noticed the shuttle support up to 4 Gb, but the 32 bit os does not support more than 2 Gb, so putting more is a waste (Xp limit is 2 Gb, there is a trick to beef up memory, but if the program does not address the extra memory, the only advantage is that you can see 3 or 4 GB in the control panel; other than that nothing changes); I've ran tests even on Vista and W7 and if you use a 32 bit version the limit is still 2 Gb; it is recognized but not used (if i recall correctly, the only few exceptions that would use the extra ram would be some 3d packages like 3dsmax or maya, since they access the memory of the system independently from the OS....but i could be wrong thou).

-the slowest thing now is the drive; I will probably stick in a SATA drive that i have here sitting in my drawer (was the original drive that came with my mac pro 1.1, a 250 Gb), that should be faster than my PATA for sure (is a 60 Gb, probably one of these 33Mbps, that is kinda slow compared to the modern SATA that goes at 150Mbps or SATA2 that goes at 300...of course the chipset on the mobo is crap, so i don't even hope to get that kind of data transfer speed :p); I just gotta figure out how to put XP on the shuttle now...it get stuck at the installation screen (when you have the 3 little things running in the bar under the XP logo; someone said that is an ACPI issue; but I tried to install Vista and it runs just fine).

-BTW the games that i have are not running on my mac pro; is not a matter of drivers (why drivers?), is just that the mac pro has a dual Xeon quad core with 8 Gb or ram and windows 7 64 bit, and i can barely launch games for Xp, but older games are not even starting (quake 3 for example, or star trek away team are not working at all, same for some old star wars games); the issues are the OS installed and the fact that the machine is too new to play these games, unless you play with settings or change something....and i have 0 tolerance for things like this....after all when i boot windows is just to play MMO games or call of duty/oblivion/splinter cell games, since they do not run on MacOSX (god bless steam for working on mac, so i can play counterstrike and HL2 without problems now :D)

-I am not trying to run new games on the old crappy shuttle, just trying to make it "on par" for the games of his generation (circa 2003-2007) :D so the objective is to get cheap parts that nowadays should be for free, otherwise is not worth to even spend money on that crappy shuttle :D

-Another problem with the video card is the power consumption and the size: the shuttle fits barely a medium size card, with a passive cooler (no fan), cannot add any connector since there is no space for another connector, and the PS is already at the limit with 2 Hd and 1 DVD drive, so i cannot get any of the high end ATI cards....first because they don't fit, and second because they would require extra power :( So i am forced to stick with low profile cards, and this means crappy performances....but in the end i do not plan to play any new game; maybe the newest games that i would play are neverwinter nights and guild wars :)

Now if XP decides to install, i can get even better performances (vista is just a resource eater lol), and finally i can play the older games :D As now i can play mame games, Amiga games and Guild wars just fine; thanks to the 6200 and the extra gb of ram; but many games are still not runinng since i am under vista.

Thanks a lot for your replies, has been so long since when i had to deal with these problems....and now i realize that being out of the pc world for few years made me forget a lot :D
 
[quote name='darshie76']-BTW the games that i have are not running on my mac pro; is not a matter of drivers (why drivers?), is just that the mac pro has a dual Xeon quad core with 8 Gb or ram and windows 7 64 bit, and i can barely launch games for Xp, but older games are not even starting (quake 3 for example, or star trek away team are not working at all, same for some old star wars games); the issues are the OS installed and the fact that the machine is too new to play these games, unless you play with settings or change something....and i have 0 tolerance for things like this....after all when i boot windows is just to play MMO games or call of duty/oblivion/splinter cell games, since they do not run on MacOSX (god bless steam for working on mac, so i can play counterstrike and HL2 without problems now :D)[/QUOTE]
Your problem is the 64-bit system. Many games will not run properly in 64-bit environments.

Have you tried this?
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx

Having hardware that is "too new" shouldn't impact anything. There might be a problem with the cores for old games like Brood War (which requires some trickery to get it to run on 1 core only) but other than that there shouldn't be any problems.

The thing that prompted me to ask about drivers is because you said the windows aren't opening properly and only sizing to 320x240.
 
[quote name='kainzero']Your problem is the 64-bit system. Many games will not run properly in 64-bit environments.


Having hardware that is "too new" shouldn't impact anything. There might be a problem with the cores for old games like Brood War (which requires some trickery to get it to run on 1 core only) but other than that there shouldn't be any problems.

The thing that prompted me to ask about drivers is because you said the windows aren't opening properly and only sizing to 320x240.[/QUOTE]

I see; so the problem itself is the OS then :(

Yeah, i was trying to understand why did you asked me for drivers; since the only games that gives me problems are the old ones (found today that diablo 2 does the same....just crash at startup after the intro, while the mac version that i purchased last week is working fine, even if it looks horrible on 1600x1050), while the new ones works fine.

Let me check this virtual thing; I use parallels under mac to run various Windows OS so i guess that should be similar :)
 
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