Ram or graphic card?Follow

I'm using my P42.8GC + 4 x 256mb DDR400 dual channel + ATI 9800Pro 128MB to run EQ2. I'm satisfied with the performance using the default settings of the game. However, when I turn on more visual effects, the performance decrease becomes noticable though the performance is still acceptable (depending on how many visual effects turning on). Since I want to get better graphic from this game, I decide to upgrade my PC further. Under limited budget, I could only replace either the graphic card or the 256MB sticks. I conducted a simple test, I replaced my ATI 9800Pro with my old GF 4400Ti. I found that the performance was almost indistinguishable under the default settings. Since I don't have 512MB sticks, I can't conduct similar test on the effect of increase in memory size.
So if I want to get better picture, whether I should replace my graphic card with say 6800/X800 with 256MB ram or I should replace the 4 x 256MB sticks with 4 x 512MB sticks? Thanks!

I vote for the RAM upgrade. Nice graphics wont make much sense if the computer is crunching heavily due to swapping.

If you want better graphic performance go with the Video Card, just make sure your mother board is compatible with it. Sucks to drop hard earned cash on a card just to find out it wont work in your system.
A RAM upgrade won't give you the visual boost that a a new card will. RAM will improve load times (starting up the game, zoning...). New RAM is always great, but for graphics performance you need Video RAM, which comes with a graphic card upgrade.

If you already have 1 gig of ram then go for a video card.. the new cards (GeForce 6800 GT/Ultra & Radeon X800) have much better performance doing things like shadows, reflections, etc. Just haveing a card that has 256 MB of ram (DDR 3) will let you run higher quality textures, though the highest quality textures need 512... and I dont think that us lowly consumers can get those yet

Thank all of you giving me such useful advices!

Last night, I borrowed from my friends' 2 sticks of 512MB and a GF 6600GT AGP to test the effects of the both memory and graphic card. I first swapped 2 x 256MB with 2 x 512MB so the the system go up from 1GB to 1.5GB, I ran EQ2 in Balanced mode, couldn't feel the difference. I then ran EQ2 in High Quality and Very High Quality, no difference, increasing the memory didn't improve the performance under higher quality settings, didn't notice any improvement in the frame rate, i.e., the lag was still there. Maybe the loading time was shortened, but not to an extent that I could feel. The marginal effect on performance by adding more memory beyond 1G dimished.

I then swapped the ATI9800Pro with the GF6600GT, no performance difference in Balanced mode also, but in High Quality Mode, the performance of ATI9800Pro was better than the GF6600GT though still lagging, maybe this is due to the 256bits design of 9800 versu the 128bits design of 6600GT (just a guess). So I conclude that running Balanced mode/High Perfomance mode, a mid-range graphic card like 9800Pro, 6600GT or even a GF4400Ti (perhaps the frame rate is lower, maybe 15fps compared with 12fps)is sufficient. Another interesting findings is that the picture quality of ATI9800Pro is better than the GF6600GT, especially the edge details and colour. But since X850 and NV48 will be coming out shortly, I don't know if it is wise to buy a AGP X800Pro now!

one thing you did not mention is the motherboard. it does play a big part in performance. the northbridge processor handles a lot of the traffic between your CPU, video card and memory. your problem here could be a bottleneck in performance.

in short, an older mobo could hinder performance if you have newer hardware



Edited, Sun Dec 26 18:36:16 2004 by asidrave

i am a veteran of eq1 with all expansions now i have moved to eq2 my old system i sold since it was custom built for eq1 but not even probably able to function in eq2 but even with my new system which is a pci express nvidia 6800 ultra 256 meg vid card and sound blaster live eax sound card 1 gig of 400 mhz ddr ram and 80 gig 7200 rpm hard drive and a 3.4 gig p4 processor and a 100 meg pipeline broadband connection the game sets my default options to medium with most all shadows lights particles etc .turned off i know max settings is for a 512 meg card and 2 gig ram but since the game has very low ,low, medium,high ,very high ,and maximum detail settings you would think it would go over medium with everything off ?i custom set my options i turned on all the check boxes for diff lights spell effects shadows and all and set textures and details to high it plays a little choppy but looks awe inspiring so in my opinion it will be awhile before you can get the system u need to really flesh out the game because i thought with all i had it should do better than choppy and laggy on just high settings not even very high or max it plays real smooth on default and low settings but the way i understood it on the box you would think this system would perform better is anyone else having this problem??

The problem is your GF6800U. After getting so many advices from the above, i opted for the graphic card upgrade. I had two choice at that moment, X800Pro or 6800GT. For above the same price, the spec. of 6800GT is more attractive than the ATI counterpart, i.e., 16pipelines vs. 12pipelines, DX9.0c vs. DX9.0b. But i saw a thread in the official web site of EQ2 that many 6800 users complained about the stuttering issue of 6800 family of cards. So I borrowed one 6800GT from my fd (who operate a computer hardware store) to see if it was the case. The outcome is that although the frame rate is significant higher than my existing 9800Pro, but when new object appears on the screen, the famous stuttering appears. When you play EQ2, many new objects will pop when you are around, so you will experience the so called lagging. I discovered it on the character selection screen that when the carmera pan across the tree and even the character weapon starts to emerge, it stutters, one can also notice it when riding on the griffin. This effect is so annoying so I decided to put my 9800Pro back and i prefer experiencing the real lagging in densely populate zone rather than the real annoying stuttering. I don't go for the X800Pro because the PCI-X version of X800XL with 16 pipelines and a lower price tag is coming out soon.