Ok, I have a two year old Dell laptop...It has a mobility radeon 9000 card. I'm in college so when i got my computer i figured i needed a laptop. I used to have an old pc with a 433mh processor on which i played Unreal Tournament for about 4 straight years. I mean i was hooked...and the game played fairly well on the pc. then i tried to d/l the UT2k3 demo and play it and i couldnt see barely anything. So when i got my laptop i expected to be able to play newer games with ease. I bought UT2k4 and have never been able to play it decently on my laptop. I bought World of Warcraft and it is absolutely horrible. so i popped in good old UT yesterday and loaded it on there expecting a good experience. After all my laptop came out 4 or 5 years after UT99 did. But after a couple online games, i found that even UT was playing pretty horrible on my laptop. i remember when my 433 mhz pc ran it with no problems and now my 3.06 Ghz laptop is playing it crappy. so this ticked me off pretty bad. if anyone has any suggestions on how to make my laptop run UT or these other games any better that would be great. But if not, then i was thinking of buying a new computer mostly for gaming. I don't need a supercomputer or anything, but i'm willing to pay a good amount for decent performance. im not a computer guru by any means, but any general good gaming pc setups would be appreciated

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck

Are you asking about a new desktop system or a new laptop? The video card is the key ingredient. 384MB isn't helping your gaming experience either, especially when a portion of that is shared with the onboard video. I bet your old system wasn't running WinXP.

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1280MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

no, no more laptops for me, and no my old system had windows 98se true, but i dont see how it could perform better than a laptop that was 6 years newer. I'm looking for an a good gaming build for a decent price, no supercomputer. also should i build or buy from alienware...or get one of those build kits from newegg. if i should build what would be good components. ive already looked at the ATI all-in-wonder 9600xt (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102352) for a video card and AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice socket 939 processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103536)...wondering if these are good choices as well as all the other component i would need for the PC

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck

what do you define as "decent price"? Alienware is not "decent price" usually. If you want to have any gaming pc, build it if you know how to. You will save a lot of money.

decent price would prob be around $1500, maybe more, to me. I've never even thought about building one, but ive gotten this dell laptop and it blows, and the dell desktop my dad got blows as well...im lookin for some reliable yet good performance computer game action here people, for around the price mentioned above, maybe some more if its worth it.

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck

Then make one on your own, put in what you want. Learn! Lol It wil come in handy because almost ALL company made computers are crap in one way or another because the person isnt happy with something they could have simply put on if they made their own but cant due to how the company made their system. ( Such as a video card upgrade.. Might not be possible on a dell or HP due do power supply issues. They only give their computers enough power for what THEY put on it. )

Yes, yes i know...i want to learn how to do it as well, but i need some basics, like what vid cards are best for the money and such...i am just looking for suggestions so any are welcome

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck

Motherboard 85$

http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productdetails.asp?submit=&item=13-130-491&ATT=Motherboards&CMP=OTC-pr1c3watch
_________________________________________
CPU 146$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537
___________________________________________
Memory 83$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440
___________________________________________
Hard drive 77$

http://www.nt-micro.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=9128
___________________________________________
Video Card 239$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125196
__________________________________________
Power supply 126$

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=100117&AFFIL=pricewatch&NR=1
_________________________________________
A total of 756$
You now have 750$ left for a case,Roms,Monitor and speakers : )

$126 for a power supply? *rubbing eyes*

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153007

Still great quality and more than half the price!

Would also highly encourage an Nforce4 Ultra chipset motherboard instead of a vanilla Nforce4. Better upgrade path.

"Barbra Streisand hasn't ruined the culture since Yentl."

from browsing around this forum ive seen some bad things about Nvidia, you still think i should use them for my mobo or should i look into something else?

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck

They are currently the best performing chipset for Athlon 64's, but it's true their drivers with NForce4 have caused problems, rendering machines unbootable. Most problems are associated with their IDE drivers and the Network Access Manager, both of which are optional to install. Still, you should be aware of this. If you're willing to put up with this, go NVidia.

I did have good results from installing the latest 6.66 drivers (gotta love that version number). No problems whatsoever. The 6.53's prior to this release however deleted PCI.SYS from two different systems upon install (mine and a new system build for a client), forcing me to copy the file from the WinXP CD using Recovery Console to allow the machine to boot again.

Via chipsets don't suffer from as many problems from drivers, but they still do from time to time. I would say if you're looking to avoid major driver problems, VIA would be a better choice.

"Barbra Streisand hasn't ruined the culture since Yentl."

ok now about the video card, should i go with a Geforce or should i consider an ATI, ive heard the ATI is better ATM

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck

If you're a Half Life 2 addict, ATI is better. Everything else, it depends on your price range. In the $150-$300 range, in most games, Nvidia graphics cards are beating the ATI's. I'm assuming that's your price range.

You mentioned a 9600XT. I would go with something more powerful, nvidia or ati.

"Republicans in Congress are moving to ratify a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, thus ending the Iraq insurgency."

i was looking on newegg at setups for comps around 1500 bucks and this one came up, was wondering what you guys thought about it, if i were to go with something like this, should i consider a different vid card?

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/WishList/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1578218&WishListTitle=OC'ing%20AMD%20Gaming%20System%20under%20$1500

Get crazy with the cheez whiz -Beck