Can my game be better if I upgrade my machine?

[Alexina]

A better machine will only take you so far.  You'll get nice graphics, fairly nice speed, but the game itself is poorly written using inefficient and half-assed coding hence why it is so slow, glitchy, laggy, runs your fan to max and uses a helluva lot of CPU power, and if you use mods and packs then that adds more load to the game.

[jezzer]

A better machine will only take you so far.  You'll get nice graphics, fairly nice speed, but the game itself is poorly written using inefficient and half-assed coding hence why it is so slow, glitchy, laggy, runs your fan to max and uses a helluva lot of CPU power, and if you use mods and packs then that adds more load to the game.

Let me translate that for you, Mim:  "I am butthurt because I cannot get the game to work myself.  Please see the thread I vomited out explaining this in unrelenting detail."

[DaSpecialone]

I have the same question .

Is it possible to throw moderate/not extreme money at my machine and improve its S3 reliability?

My specs are:

Xp Professional Sp3
Intel P4 3.20 ghz
Ram 3.25 gigs
Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT W/1 gig video ram
170 gigs free disk space (out of about 420 total)

[Dark Trepie]

I'm sort of in the same boat now.  My old machine blew up and I'm using a new one I bought some time ago but never got around to setting up till now.  It's got seven gigs of ram (Vista 64bit) and a quad core processor so I don't think I'll have any bottleneck issues there.  But it has ye olde PCI-E slots.  I know the new PCI-E 2.0 cards are backwards compatible.  But is it worth dropping the money for one if I don't have PCI-E 2.0 slots?  The regular old PCI-E cards are hella cheap on NewEgg.

[witch]

If you've just upgraded anyway, it hardly seems worth splashing out the money on a card that won't run to its full capacity. By the time you upgrade to a new mobo, video cards will have got better again, most probably.

[wizard_merlin]

A better machine will only take you so far.  You'll get nice graphics, fairly nice speed, but the game itself is poorly written using inefficient and half-assed coding hence why it is so slow, glitchy, laggy, runs your fan to max and uses a helluva lot of CPU power, and if you use mods and packs then that adds more load to the game.

I disagree and think your just full of shit and bile because you can't get it to work on your machine for whatever reason.

I am lucky if my fan speeds get above 50% of max speed, and it usually grabs one core only, which isn't really taxing on the CPU or even a "Helluva lot of CPU power" as you describe it.  I had a couple of sound issues after LN, which would drive up a core or two, but finally seem to have them solved.  The game isn't what I would call slow or laggy, unless playing on the underspec'ed laptop, even though occasionally when something specific occurs it may appear to lag or be slightly slower, but hardly the major disaster you are implying it is.  Yes it is buggy and poorly written, but mods like AM solve most of those issues and clean everything up.

The same thing applies to you as it does to Cwunts, if you don't like the game, stop playing it.

[Madame Mim]

Well, I've chosen the path I'll follow. I'll get a new case, MB, RAM and OS with my current savings and do a new video card in a couple of months time.

[J. M. Pescado]

Your computer is fine. You don't need an upgrade, and your issues are caused by things unrelated to your computer. Perhaps all the CRAP you are running.

[Madame Mim]

Like I said there are little to no issues with my game. I just wanted to make sure that this update time I spent my money in the places most likely to cause improvement to the game performance.

[witch]

Then you have made some wrong decisions. A new case will do squat. RAM's OK, but it's probably not the main bottleneck, you'll need the extra RAM just to run Win7 anyway. You will still be without a decent video card and it's likely your old one will not fit the new mobo. Come to think of it, you're probably thinking of buying a mobo and using its onboard integrated graphics. Oh no, I see you're going to wait awhile for the one thing that might make a significant difference on its own.

You'd get a more responsive machine by cleaning up crap that's constantly running (as per Pescadoian advice), turning off a few unneeded services (see ElderGeek) optimising your registry and possibly purchasing faster hard drives if you have SATA connections on your mobo. And a power supply and video card as previously recommended by at least two out of three shoppers.

How on Earth you made the decision you did out of the information in this thread is completely beyond me.

[Madame Mim]

I need a new case. The old one is physically damaged. The face falls off it everytime I try to move it. A case was always on my list.

I recently bought a SATA HD so there is very little that has been installed on the HD excepting my protection software and, I must admit, Microsoft Office.

I know it sounds bass-ackwards to you, but if I'm updating the case the next logical step is to upgrade from my P4, which means it must be MB & RAM to go with. At that stage I don't have enough left in this kitty to do the GPU this time but I can squeeze an OEM version of Windows 7 out of it I thought that would work. I suppose I could do it in the opposite direction. Start with the card and do the others later. That jibes against my 'begin at the beginning' mentality.

[witch]

OK, that explanation does add new information and make a bit more sense.

One question, do you turn off virus protection while gaming? I turn Avast off so it is not running constantly, though I never turn off the firewall. Virus protection running all the time can really slow some games.

Don't forget you will need a bigger power supply - to cover a new video card, even later on - and possibly power more cooling.

[J. M. Pescado]

Like I said there are little to no issues with my game. I just wanted to make sure that this update time I spent my money in the places most likely to cause improvement to the game performance.

You are not likely to see much improvement in game performance no matter what you do, short of taking extreme measures like running the entire game off a RAMdisk.

[Madame Mim]

I'll admit I hadn't thought of turning VET off. I suppose that might smooth out anything that might be caused by sharing the processing capabilities. I'll admit, though, that I'm vacillating. The case is a must and it's where the rest of the upgrade now idea came from.

I'm going to take this whole thread to my friend who knows hardware and have him read it. I think you were right Witch when you said I missed some intrinsic point. I'll have him add his advise on what to get as well as a new case.

[snapzit]

One question, do you turn off virus protection while gaming? I turn Avast off so it is not running constantly, though I never turn off the firewall. Virus protection running all the time can really slow some games.

Virus protection nearly killed my game. I hated it. Even when turned off, it wouldn't go completely off. It was terrible.

I switched, after a lot of research on various ones, and the one I'm using now is smooth as butter, lightweight, and effective. I can't mention it here due to the "NO SHILLING" rule, because it's not free. I can tell you that you will not find it in a store, so start googling. I don't turn it off during play.

I have a Quad Core, 2.4 GHZ, 3GB RAM, running 32 bit Vista. The graphics card is an NVidia GE Force 9600 with 512 MB Ram. Sims 3 works fine, with only the occasional judder, which almost goes away when I remember to dump the cache files. I have a pretty fair amount of CC, including AwesomeMod. I use high graphics settings in the game.

Follow Pescado's advice to turn off the crap running in the background. It doesn't need to be running and just bogs down the game and strains the computer for no reason. Reset your start-up menu.

[Madame Mim]

Just what is this crap you all think I have running in the background? I definately don't leave my programs running in the background and I don't add programs to my computer that have active services if I can help it. That leaves Microsoft functions and I'm not turning those off without a specific map.

Or do you all think that my lack of hardware savvy means that I don't know enough not to install useless shit on to my machine?

[witch]

I tell you again, ElderGeek. 

[wizard_merlin]

Just what is this crap you all think I have running in the background? I definitely don't leave my programs running in the background and I don't add programs to my computer that have active services if I can help it. That leaves Microsoft functions and I'm not turning those off without a specific map.

Or do you all think that my lack of hardware savvy means that I don't know enough not to install useless shit on to my machine?

There are many programs and drivers that install shit to run in the background without always specifically asking about it, they take the general acceptance to install a program as a go ahead to install anything.  If you install adobe reader, it also adds an updater or something which starts every time you start windows and runs silently in the background taking up resources, Mouse and keyboard drivers sometimes load background tasks to check for updates etc, depending on the brand, I find ATI graphics cards have more background shit than Nvidia cards, but they may be similar in total usage, other programs are iTunes, Quicktime, Microsoft Office, just to name a few.  Not all ask specifically ask to be set to run everytime, they just do it.

If you check the task manager, or bring up the list to customise the start-up configuration, you'll be surprised at how much crap is set to start-up all the time, and most of it you never know about.

[tizerist]

Ditto what Merlin said.

Try to use apps like FPS Limiter, Gamebooster and Task Manager (with Prio) too.

[Madame Mim]

I tell you again, ElderGeek.  

I will go and read.

Merlin, tizerist - I am aware of those sorts of programs. I try not to add them in. I also clean out my startup file (as neccessary) and check for strange processess after adding new programs.

[spockblock]

I tell you again, ElderGeek. 

I will go and read.

What was the question again?

[Narmy]

I tell you again, ElderGeek.  

I will go and read.

Merlin, tizerist - I am aware of those sorts of programs. I try not to add them in. I also clean out my startup file (as neccessary) and check for strange processess after adding new programs.

Always run installers in manual/custom mode, so you can disable things. They love to sneak toolbars into auto installations.

[Madame Mim]

See, now you're just being silly. Who actually lets anything auto-install these days? I can honestly say that I have never accidentally installed a browser homepage setting or search function

[Jeebus]

See, now you're just being silly. Who actually lets anything auto-install these days? I can honestly say that I have never accidentally installed a browser homepage setting or search function

* Jeebus raises his hand
Whoops, I know.

[Narmy]

See, now you're just being silly. Who actually lets anything auto-install these days? I can honestly say that I have never accidentally installed a browser homepage setting or search function

Just making sure. 

You don't want to see my "family computer"... Just glad I don't have to use it, my siblings are imbeciles.