Game Guides Archive

G-Force 6800 GT,a bit expensive but truly one of the best out there...

Yotto Waki

I'm running a Athlon 2600 processor and 512MB of RAM. I think the processor is good enough and I should just go for another 512MB would you agree? Because I get really bad lag usually. Everywhere I looks suggests upragding RAM is the best you can do for SWG. Before getting a video card anyway.

We need to see more system specs then you are giving us to suguest a good route to go to improve performance. There might be other bottlenecks other then you're vid card. Also if you are not runing current drivers for vid card and mobo/chipset you can be missing out on some performance also. Please list the following:

CPU

Mobo

Ram

Hard Drive

Sound Card - If integrated, can really hurt performance

Vid card

If you don't know this information, go Download CPU-Z, it is free and post some screenies of it for us to see what ya got It is a great lil tool.

Also temps @ full load for CPU and Vid card, there are thermal limits and if you are runing hot you can start to loose performance as well.

ATI has just anounced that they have a new line of cards to go above the x800 series, if you can hold out it might be worth waiting (although will prob be PCI-E and not AGP). If you do get an x800, make sure it is the x800xt PE. The PE handles OC much better. Also if you get the correct 9800pro vivo (with r390 core or sum'n don't remember exact one) you can flash it to XT speeds. Extremeoverclocking.com has some great infor and board members for tweeking computers.

*edit* - Tomshardware does not have the reputation of being....how can i put this....all to accurate or up to date on alot of stuff. Like he will gripe about something that has an easy fix, but he will not know it. Not all the time, but the site really is hit or miss IMO for solid info.

For $500 you should be able to get either a nvidia 6800 GT (or ultra cant remember which is best), or a Radeon X800XT. I chose the x800xt as it is slightly faster, but these are the top 2 gaming cards of the moment. However like others have said, you should have a good processor and lots of ram otherwise either of these cards will just go to waste.

I run with an Athlon 3200+ 64bit processor, 2gb of RAM and the x800xt(asthe basis for my setup). This will run swg with very little lag. Obviously with an online game there will always be lag at this current time, but its very slight on this system. I am also in JTL beta,(I dont think this is breaking nda), but I have absolutely no lag what so ever in space either.

The system can run games like doom 3 on max settings at 1280 * 1024 resolution with absolutely no slow downs too, so worth it for single player games as well.

I havnt used the Nvidia card but I know they are very good. So if your just getting a graphics card the x800xt or 6800gt (ultra? whichever is best),are the top choices IMO. Also if you go for the nvidia you will need 2 spare molex connectors for power, the ati only needs 1 so is faster and more effient power wise.