Hi all, i'm looking for a budget video card that can run Crysis at least on high settings under dx9. i live in africa so the card (and possibly a new PSU) will be ordered from eBay and both items(+ Shipping) should not cost more than $300. my current specs: "E2180 @ Stock (2GHz) 2GB (2X1) Dual DDR 667 Biostar 945GC-M7 TE 160 GB Maxtor SATA-2 X800 XL 256MB Pci-E VISTA Ultimate SP1/XP Pro SP3 Dual Boot LiteOn Super AllWrite DVD-RW Drive 20X LG Flatron w1934S 19" Wide LCD 1440X900 @ 60Hz" I know it's not a supercomputer with a P35/45 chipset & quad cpu but i think it does well for me. Personally i had an 8800 GT in mind but don't know what you guys think and how well will the game perform with the the resolution set to the monitor's native. Any advice will be greatly appreciated, thanx. gf

Budget cards don't play Crysis on high settings. Maybe this chart will help with your decision: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/... "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions" - Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction

Thanx for the reply, i think 25 fps for me is playabe (i played doom 3 on a p4 machine with a 9600pro and 512mb ram, HQ and the fps was between 18-27 and it was playable). I also think that if @ 1680x1050 you get 25fps, @ 1440x900 i'll probably get more than 25fps. Another question, if i decide to overclock my cpu (i know i'll be limited by the board/chipset) will i get a tiny bit boost in performance? gf

"if i decide to overclock my cpu (i know i'll be limited by the board/chipset) will i get a tiny bit boost in performance?" The Allendales are very overclockable. What I suggest you do is reclock your CPU to take full advantage of your board & RAM. Hopefully you're familiar with how Intel's FSB rating works & how DDR ratings work? Basically, you take Intel's FSB rating & divide by 4 to get the true speed...you take the DDR RAM speed rating & divide by 2. The E2180 runs at 800MHz FSB, so the true speed (aka frequency) is 200MHz (800/4). Your DDR2-667 RAM runs at 333MHz (667/2), so you can see that the RAM frequency already runs faster than the CPU. Now look at your motherboard specs & you'll see that it supports up to 1333MHz...divide that by 4 & you get 333MHz, the same speed as your your RAM! All you need to do is get your CPU to run at 333MHz & you'll be all set. But before you can do that, you'll have to make sure you have the latest BIOS, dated 04/11/2008. Earlier versions only support up to 1066MHz FSB (266MHz). If you have the latest, you're good to go...if not, you'll need to update the BIOS: http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en-us... Then all you need to do is go into the BIOS & set the RAM at 667MHz, set the CPU clock at 333MHz, & lower the CPU clock ratio to 8X (that's as low as it'll go). Your CPU will then run at 2.66GHz @ 1333MHz FSB (333MHz actual) with your RAM running in sync @ 667MHz (333MHz actual). "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions" - Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction

Thanx for another reply, i've updated the bios as you suggested and now i'm in the bios but i can't set the cpu clock to 333mhz (it says min=200, max=300) and if i put 333 it won't accept. Also i cannot see the clock ratio option, am i doing something wrong? gf

I can only go by what's listed at the BIOSTAR site & what's written in the manual. The site shows the latest BIOS adding support for 1333MHz FSB & the manual shows both the CPU clock & CPU clock ratio as being adjustable on the Frequency/Voltage Control menu. "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions" - Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction

"VISTA Ultimate SP1/XP Pro SP3 Dual Boot" I'm pretty sure you cant dual boot vista since they released SP1..?