is the geforce fx 5200 any good and is there an app which alowws me to spread the game over the two cards as kegtes(spelling) soft th2g uses two cards and would this work with agp, or will i have to get a th2g but i am only 14 and have just spent all my money on a g25.
sorry for all the questions

thanks
james

Like it says on the website, i PCI-e card is the best bet, while AGP works, the bandwidth is nowhere near enough

Whats your main card? i find it unlikely you have a board with two AGP slots

sorry i wasnt thinking iv got two one in each desktop pc i have i was being a bit of an idiot saying about the two but is 128 mb graphics good enough in a amd athlon xp 2600 pc

Hi James,

The FX5200 is great ... if you have a budget of £5 for your graphics card. I'd guess on low graphical detail it could be useable at 1024x768 in 16bit colour, in multiplayer you might have to drop down to 800x600 if there's a lot of cars on track.

Using software routing with on board and AGP cards would just slow things down - its not like most FX5200s suffer from a lack of Ram, they're just slow.

what about a geforce 6200(i think) 512 turbocache as they have 256 onboard anyway

6200 are rubbish, TurboCache is rubbish too

Quote from james12s :

what about a geforce 6200(i think) 512 turbocache as they have 256 onboard anyway

well, it also depends on what the rest of your specs are.
I have a really modest setup as LFS is about the only game I play. And after my Radeon 9800 got fried I had to get a replacement. I chose the 6200 because I'm planning to upgrade anyway somewhere later in the year. It's not a bad card at all.
I have an Athlon XP2600+ and 1,5 GB RAM. The 6200 works fine with that, I run at 1280*1024 resolution (although 1600*1200 runs pretty good as well), I use AA and AF, and I get decent framerates (60-ish) with a full field. I get framedrops at the racestart but nothing too bad.
If you're stuck with AGP and don't have a superfast PC it's a good card, a much faster card wouldn't be able to keep up with the rest of my PC anyway.

i am going to build a pc with amd 4gig chip 1gb+ om ram sata hdd etc

4gig chip? AMD's fastest CPU's run at 2.8 GHz stock, even overclocked they only hit 3.2 MAX

care to elaborate?

what speed ram?

your post doesnt really help!

maybe he's talking about a 64 4000+ or maybe a 64 x2 4000+ and thought 4000+ number referred to its clock speed.

and stay far far away from the 5200. it is slow. you'll be lucky to get playable frame rates at 800x600, depending on the game and the settings. if you want an old agp card, find a ti4600, a ti4800, or a radeon 9600, 9700, or 9800. all of those cards are better than the 5200. in fact. stay away from the whole nividea 5xxx line. the 5900s were decent (for their time), but pretty much the rest of the lines sucks. and now that they are several years old, they just aren't worth it.

go for a x800, a 9800, a 6800, a 6600, or at the low end, a 9600xt if you want a cheap agp card.

and, if you are building a new system, you really should go PCI-e. agp is very much a dying technology.

equevelent to 4 gig so a 4000 athlon single core as i wont run more than one program at a time but i will buy a motherboard that supports amd dual core

as for the card i will go pcie as the fx 5200 will be given/sold to my dads mate

Quote from JamesK :

Hi James,

The FX5200 is great ... if you have a budget of £5 for your graphics card. I'd guess on low graphical detail it could be useable at 1024x768 in 16bit colour, in multiplayer you might have to drop down to 800x600 if there's a lot of cars on track.

Using software routing with on board and AGP cards would just slow things down - its not like most FX5200s suffer from a lack of Ram, they're just slow.

I used one of these cards for a couple of years in LFS at 1024 x 768 and with AA/AF. It produced surprisingly good results and since LFS is not graphically intensive (CPU is more important) the 5200 did a fine job and was hardly a bottleneck. LFS rarely taxed this card. Modern cards will produce better results of course, but the FX5200 certainly is adequate for LFS.

I was going on its performance in my son's machine, 1.6GHz P4 with a 5200 - its ok in 1024x768 but can get well choppy in MP ... his new MB should be here tomorrow, 3.0GHz P4, might see what difference that makes.

You should see a massive improvement with that new CPU.

Well I had a FX5500 AGP card, still have it in another PC. And I was able to run LFS maxed out, and go a respective 30-40 FPS in multiplayer. Not sure what the difference between the 5200 and 5500 is, but i know its still the FX range ( which was pretty crap for its time )

So I got a "free" upgrade to a higher spec PC, higher memory higher HD, but lower GFX card, and OMG lfs was awefull. South City was almost unraceable due to jagged lines ( it was latest P4 3.8 dual core, with 1.5gb Ram, and 2x SATA drives ) but on board GFX card, yes maxed out in Bios.

I have just dropped to a P4, 2.8 with 1.5gb 400 dual speed memory, and a ATI 9800 pro, and I have double the frame rate, from 40 to 80 - 100 multiplayer.

With LFS, the GFX does make a HUGH difference. Basically, it needs to be Hardware Lighting and Texture, plane and simple.

This is my findings anway.

Previous PC:
Sempron 2800
1gb DDR 400
FX 5500
1 x IDE 80gb, 1 x SATA 160gb

Next PC
P4 3.8 Dual Core
1.5GB PC2 DDR Ram
2 x Sata Drives
Onboard Intel GFX CARD

Last PC
P4 2.8HT Processor
1.5GB DDR Dual Speed Memory
1 x 80gb IDE + 160gb SATA
Radeon 9800 Pro AGP

Last PC is miles better than any of the other 2

Quote from james12s :

equevelent to 4 gig so a 4000 athlon single core as i wont run more than one program at a time but i will buy a motherboard that supports amd dual core

right, you mean a 4000 Sandy then? i had one - how much are you spending? Core 2 Duo would be a better bet

Quote from Gunn :

You should see a massive improvement with that new CPU.

i am going for in on the price mainly and am looking if i can et the mothboard and chip for about 100-120 i want a board with no onboard graphics, alot on usb agp if poss and atleast capable of a good speed ddr ram 2gb at least and has sata, and recomendations on board on manafacture,
thanks
for your help
james

p.s. i can push the price a bit but would like dual core capability
in the end it will be a no thrills but powerful pc no dvd rewriter,
not a massize hdd but big enough, etc as i will use it for siming only i wont even put office on also onboard gig lan would be nice.
sorry for the high specs and long post

right then, it would help if you actually help if you set a budget (in £'s) as a Core 2 Duo could prove a much better bet

for the board alone about £70 max but i do want to get the 4000 san diego as they are supposed to be very good and i cant really afford a dual core

for £70 you could pick up an Asus A8N-SLi Premium for that much, although why do you think 4000's are supposed to be very good? their the quickest non-fx single core cpu AMD ever made, but dual core would be a better idea, and you could pick up a Core 2 Duo CPU for about £100, and a mobo for about £50 and it would OWN the 4000 setup

(And just so ya know, i used to have a 4000, which i swapped for a 3700 because it overclocked much better)

how about this for a board:
Manufacturer Asus
Product Name ASUS SKT-939 A8R-MVP S/L C/FIRE 2000MT/s
Web Address www.asus.com
Model Number A8R-MVP-EAY
Package Type Retail
Warranty 3 Years
BIOS AMI
Chipset ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire
CPU Interface Socket 939
Max. CPU Support AMD Athlon 64 4000+
AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core 4800+
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57
AMD Sempron 3200+
AMD Opteron 154
AMD Opteron 175 (Dual-Core)
Front Side Bus 1600MT/s
2000MT/s
RAM Technology DDR (Dual Channel)
ECC / non-ECC un-buffered
RAM Slots 4 x 184-Pin
RAM Speeds DDR266
DDR333
DDR400
Max. Memory Support 4GB
Expansion Slots 2 x PCI Express x16
1 x PCI Express x1
3 x 32-bit PCI
Storage Controller(s) 2 x IDE (ATA-133/100/66/33)
4 x Serial (ATA-300)
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 1+0
RAID 5
JBOD
On-Board LAN 1 x 10/100/1000
Marvell 88E8001
On-Board Audio 6-channel
ADI AD1986A
Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Parallel
1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Output
1 x COM
4 x USB2.0
1 x IEEE1394
1 x LAN
3 x Audio
Internal I/O Connectors 1 x 24-pin ATX Power
1 x 4 pin ATX 12V Power
1 x 4-pin EZ Plug Power
1 x Game
2 x USB2.0
1 x IEEE1394
1 x Audio
1 x CD Audio
1 x AUX
3 x FAN
Form Factor ATX
305mm x 245mm
Special Features ATI CrossFire Technology
AMD Cool n Quiet! Technology
AI NET2
PEG Link
Precision Tweaker
C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)
ASUS Q-Fan
ASUS CrashFree BIOS2
ASUS EZ Flash
Package Contents User’s Manual
2 x IDE Lead
1 x Floppy Lead
4 x S-ATA Data Leads
2 x 2-port SATA Power Leads
1 x Games & USB Riser
1 x IEE1394 Riser (1 Port)
1 x MVP-Switch Card
BackPlate
Driver CD

its £61.45

and which dual core would you recomend

how about this processor:
Manufacturer AMD
Product Name AMD ATHLON 64 X2 3800+ 1MB SKT-939 RET
Web Address www.amd.com
Model Number ADA3800DAA5BV / ADA3800BVBOX
Package Type Retail
Warranty 3 Years Direct With Manufacturer
Interface Socket 939
Bus Speed 2000MHz
Core Frequency 3.80GHz
Process Technology 90nm
Memory Controller 128KB
Special Features Cool And Quiet Technology
Dual-Core
Supports 64-bit Computing
Package Contents Heatsink & Fan