Avian Gamers Network

I got some money burning in my pocket, only $300 so not enough to get anything really great, and I feel I need an upgrade. I can't run Bioshock even with the driver updates and hotfixes so this potential upgrade is definitely out of frustration

my question is what will get me the most bang for my buck, heres what I'm running now:



Not the most bleeding edge setup, I know It's kinda old, 2 years but I can't afford a brand new rig so upgrade is my only option or start buying lotto tix in bulk
Right now I want to go with a GeForce 8800GTS 320MB but I've been reading recently that everything is now SLI-this and 2GB RAM that. Any recommendations?

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Avian Football League 2007 Forum Thread

I dunno with the graphics of yours. I my self have a Radeon X1950 Pro with 1 GB. (Atleast that's what most tests that is following some games is saying).

But maybe check out what the BioSchock need of graphics or Memory. Those are the two things I would point my finger at.

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1st Feb 2008

More RAM will give your computer the most bang for the buck. hell, even a 256 meg vid card will make the game scream with 2 gigs of ram.

I was bored at work today.... so i happened to throw my old AGP 7800 vid card into a really old Dell 360 workstation, put 2 gigs of ram it it, and installed bioshock on it.... just to see how it'd do.... if i didn't have the settings at max the game woulda ran smooth as a baby's butt.... but as it was, it was definately playable.

Thats proof enough you don't need a monster video card to play bioshock... but you could probably do with a decent upgrade with the cash you have left from RAM upgrade.

hella sweet game.

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~Ravage™
~I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
~The problem with facts, is that sometimes they don't support your opinion.

from what I read the prob w/ my card was the pixel shader 3.0 issue. The 850XT doesn't have it, so that's why I was thinking that would be the upgrade I needed most if I wanted to play just bioshock.

So whats good RAM these days (price and brand)? Can I just get 1GB of anything and plug it in or do all the sticks need to be the same brand/type?

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Avian Football League 2007 Forum Thread

Corsair is good stuff.... http://www.ncixus.com/products/18582/TW ... 4/CORSAIR/

and top it off with something like this card, will be more than adequate to play the game, and keep you under budget.

http://www.ncixus.com/products/23716/25 ... 1-AR/eVGA/

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~Ravage™
~I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
~The problem with facts, is that sometimes they don't support your opinion.

I've had a drink or two tonight so I wont' attempt specifics but I will echo Rav's endorsement of Corsair. Good stuff and I'm putting their high-end DDR2 chips in my new machine (no, I'm not going DDR3 - too pricy)

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

cool, thanks guys for the help. From reviews I've read I might just get some Corsair and get a card later, like x-mas or something. But we'll see how much my computer frustrates me

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Avian Football League 2007 Forum Thread