Can I play too?

I also know nothing about graphics cards. I have a P3 800 with 384 ram and a Nvidia TNT2 M64 4xAGP card. Can I play too?

You Should (no guarantee here) be able to play just fine, however more memory would not hurt.

Try downloading and runing the client opening screen. It may or may not give you a message about your video card. If the pre-logon screen comes up ok for you- you should be able to play ok

Technically you meet the current requirements. I wont say that the settings will be desirable, but you should be able to play.

haha yeah you can play if you set everything to lower quality settings... graphics cost lost of comp memory and things like that, which is why im switching to an athlon fx64.

why, you ask? because 64bit compared to 32 bit = WOOT lol, you can multi-task like crazy with a 64 bit processor (perferably a 939 hehe)

[/end rant]

How sad is it when we think his system is "old school"?

LOL good point. This is the result of technology that moves too fast for the 'average person' to keep up. Not a bad system at all, for my grandma .. LOL If you can possibly get more memory for your machine, I would do it for sure.

I'm trying to think of why you could multitask better with a 64bit processor as opposed to a 32bit processor and I can't seem to think of why that would be true, especially specfically a socket 939 processor. Can you explain?

-Virt

The problem here is that 64 processors while they are very good, does not mean they can multi-task better than anything else it only REALLY means that once companies begin to make 64 compatable hardware and software then you will be ready. If you look at www.AMD.com you can see what it is all about. I personally only have one because I needed a new processor and it was compatable with my current hardware specifications... that and Intel is evil.

Right - now having said that, Windows XP 64 has gone gold and will be available very soon. You can also run a 64 bit distribution of linux or freebsd now (and have been able to for some time).

Edit: To answer the OP's question, I think your video card is going to give you trouble. That version of the TNT2 has a 64-bit bus connecting it to the video ram. That makes it slower than the vanilla TNT2 card I had in 1999! You *might* still be able to run the game at the lowest settings, but I am inclined to doubt it would really be playable.

Alright, thanks for the info. Probably will end up upgrading to a new system, but I thought I'd check anyways.See you all on the 28th.

It does not process data at 64 bits. This is a common misconception, but when they say the AMD 64 is "64-bit ready" they mean exactly that. 64-bit processors do not offer better multitasking either. They do not execute two threads for every clock cycle, but rather, when you have two heavy-load applications open at once, the processor will slow because each program will demand instructions. Hyper-Threading allows a processor to execute two instructions per clock cycle, 64-bit does not. It simply allows a higher bandwidth of code transfer.

Doesn't the actual determination of whether a processor can multi-task without degredation of performance depend on the number of stacks and memory pointers inside the processor? In a one stack processor either the stack is swap in swap out or split, and in either case the speed degradation is very bad. Hyper-threading obviously will be the better way for 32 bit multi-tasking applications in that it is two separate processors on a die basically. That's obviously dual everything.

Also it's my understanding that alot of these processors do 3 and 4 or even more instructions per clock using a prefetch that loads the code in a nice quick index the processor just ingests without having to do any code verifications because the prefectch has already done this.

With what I have come to know about processors, if the AMD 64 has more than 1 stack that processor can easily "split" itself at no or virtually no performance loss unless one of the the applications required full 64 bit throughput to sustain normal performance.

I don't know enough about the internal architecture of the AMD 64 to know if it has dual stacks, memory pointers, or if it even has a prefetch to accelerate code executions through the pipe. The hyperthreading processors would obviously be superior for multitasking because they are split by hardware, however, to run 64 bit applications they will dog! I would say there would be a throughput drop to about 1/4 (25-30%) of the original throughput because of all that has to be done outside the processor to accomodate 64 bit addressing, and even then it would be with a single stack set up to lineal address the 2 separate stacks, if such code could be accomplished in a small enough space to be rom/bios/eprom available.

Any claims that hyperthreading will be fine in 64 bit environment would suggest intel included some 64 bit moding they knew would be implemented, yet this would only accomodate about 10% of the 64 bit processes, so best result achieved would be a throughput drop to 75% depending on how common those instructions are. Most likely the throughput will still drop to 40-50% as a hardware accomodation that is still fooling the 64 bit instruction remains a form of emulation.

Obviously, with the 64 bit revolution in the threshhold of the house and climbing the stairs to the processor master bedroom to claim it's rightful place in history, Intel needs to make a 64 bit processor and of course be saavy enough to engineer it for a hyperthreading 64 bit model.

Just some considerations that came to mind.

Can I ask another stupid question? If I upgraded to a 128mb PCI Express ATI Radeon X300 SE card on a P4 3 ghz, would that be able to run the game on higher settings? (how about highest?)

avoid SE cards like the plague

no way highest settings

EDIT

potential gamers should also steer clear of graphics cards that use a 64-Bit memory bus, such as the Radeon X300 SE or the 64 Bit GeForce 6200. Unfortunately, these cards are not always sufficiently labeled, making them hard to pick out. It's about time the card makers did something to remedy this situation.

What's wrong with the SEs?

the above comment is from a review of the card

to repeat

potential gamers should also steer clear of graphics cards that use a 64-Bit memory bus, such as the Radeon X300 SE or the 64 Bit GeForce 6200. Unfortunately, these cards are not always sufficiently labeled, making them hard to pick out. It's about time the card makers did something to remedy this situation.

it is 64 bit memory bus instead of 128 which is a massive choke point in graphics

the video memory is slower as well which only makes it worse

How about this card, more than enough?

Interface: AGP Interface/2X/4X AGP supports
Chipset : ATI Radeon 9000 pro
Memory :64MB DDR, 128-bit memory /Maximium memory Interface :6.4GB/s with 4000MHZ D.

Could i play w/ the highest setiings?

Hyper-Threading does indeed allow a processor to act as two theoretical (CPU0/CPU1 Physical/Logical) processors.

Intel already has the 6xx Series, which are 64 bit-enabled. What you need to take into consideration is that the AMD64 architecture was built (More or less) around 64 bit computing. NetBurst was modified to allow for it. Not to mention the NetBurst architecture doesn't stand against an AMD64 in IPC, and still, as anyone would expect, falls short in 64 bit performance due to its longer (With shorter stages) pipeline.

As far as I know, the AMD64 can do around 3IPC. But ILP is different from MTP, and they must not be confused. Although the AMD can perform ILP by re-arranging instructions and executing them out of the typical order, they can succesfully provide programs with (Typically) enough data to continue. It depends on how "heavy" the program is especially. Hyper-Threading executes two seperate threads in parallel. As you know for typical programs (Lets use Firefox and MSN as an example) are not going to cause problems for an AMD processor, because out of 2 billion clock cycles a second, you simply wont notice.

And Droppz, that card wont be able to play the game on the highest settings.

In general SE=slow edition. Avoid SE cards.

As well, my step dad betad this weekend and played on the lowest settings with a geforce 2 just fine (has a 1.0 gig processor though).

About the S939 AMD64's, the reasons I bought it were:
64Bit ready (not that special now, but will be later)
FSB (memory controller) has been moved to the processor, removing the load from the northbridge
Dual channel memory (put identical sticks of RAM into each channel and you will theoretically get twice as fast memory speed, as it can address each seperately at the same time). I put 1GB (2x512MB, one in each channel) PC3200 in here, so (again theoretically) I'm getting 800MHz memory speed.

Also, remember that the A64 processor don't have a front side bus. The memory controller is on the die. So, "FSB" speeds are actually the same speed as the processor

Honestly, with the system you mentioned above, you won't be able to play the game on the highest settings with any video card. The rest of your system will be holding it back. I can play the game on its highest settings and get a pretty respectable framerate, but I built my system within the last 2 months (Athlon 64 3000, Radeon x800 XL, 1 GB Ram, etc. and with a healthy overclock on everything). With the card you have listed above, you could probably run the game reasonably well at low-middling settings. To do much better than that you will probably have to spend a fair amount more money and either buy a much better video card or (preferably) put a whole new rig together.

My system is close to your Zenn. You video card is much better than mine though. I built this system about a year ago.

A64 3000+ @2.42Ghz
9600 Pro
1gig RAM
Chaintech VNF3-250
homebuilt watercooling

SSE4

For mentions sake, speaking in acronyms (i.e. ILP, IPC, etc) can be about as useful as chat speak.

I believe my asking of a question at the beginning of my post was taken in the "challenge" way rather than in the "addendum" way. I was agreeing with you in stating the questions that brought me to arrive at those conclusions to connect-the-dots regarding what I had to say, as it seemed it would be more explanatory that way. Your posts are informative so I was merely continuing the trend in the best way I knew how.

Hope this clears that up.

I don't mean to sound like I'm opposing you in any way, I simply like to explain things thoroughly in case anyone actually cares. And sorry, to go over what I was talking about with the acronyms: ILP is Instruction Level Parallelism. IPC is Instructions Per Cycle. MTP is multithreaded parallelism. And I think that was everything. It's a rather nasty habit, but I often use those just so it takes less time to type, I apologize. Although I bet just by looking at it you knew what I was talking about anyway.

Back to the topic, you can play the game on a system with 256MB Ram and a GeForce 2 MX with all the settings on low or off and it will be playable. BUT everything will load slow AND PvP will be very difficult since your computer will slow down with all the close combat.

SSE4 nah, and me too man. I don't wanna come of opposing either, so I apologize if I did, was just making sure is all.

So far as the acronyms, no I haven't been an assembly programmer for a decade or so. Many modern day terms are not part of the "school" I was in. Besides I was self-taught for the most part, books were my school marm, so to speak. And as you can imagine most of the better books for structure and basics in programming in assembly were older than a decade ago. Was a fun time and fun to learn but my friends, family, etc. lost ability to contact me, even if I was in the same room.

I mean, you know you been programming too much when people say your name, or any word for that matter, and you give them the hex, binary, octal and ASCII (sorry I didn't do EBDIC) equivalents off the top of your head. Basically lost my mind to the machine and have made many an effort to rid myself of those kinds of habits.

Imagine your having a girlfriend of the Jenny McCarthy type and interrupting a...umm...moment of regular importance for a couple with "I have to work this out, I have to debug this right now!" They don't last long then. I would dream a program, debugging it, and type it in the next day, and ya it would run, fully debugged.

See that's not "normal" or "reasonable" so I had to get out of it before I lost my entire sense of being at all made of flesh and blood. Some parts of the flow though remain, almost intrinsic. Thats why what I posted earlier had any sense of validity to it. I appreciate any clarifications and corrections you were making too. If I understood the theories or methods you were naming I would probably better understand the response but it's okay. We have lots of time on the board to learn more.

Sin, you have officially earned my respect. I used to dabble in assembly a bit and really getting things done is several orders of magnitude harder than any higher level language. I once wrote an x86 emulator and assembler (it would accept only a limited subset of the x86 instruction set) and dealing with all of the assembly was the biggest PITA.

Anyway while I am glad to hear you have "recovered", I mourn the loss of good assembly programmers. It is rapidly becoming a lost art on everything but embedded platforms (and even many of those).

Wow ZennZero I'm impressed! Yea it seems it is getting lost in the inefficient "i can pull a library" high level language mess. I was into it quite a while ago really. Like I wrote a word processor for 66 char across that had to have timing loops to communicate with teletypes (110 baud era). Yea I go back a ways. It was fun though, 2k of ram and it would center and right justify and left justify, tab, just very basic, but it was how it had to interface where the real programming was.

I had to write it on an apple II with a Z/80 CPM card because they were cheap and easy to get, then it was put on a Kaypro or Osbourne portable computer. Purpose was so people could communicate with their home office through the phone line, to work on a letter, etc. Back then that was a big deal. and when you only had 64k of ram if you were lucky (most machines had 16k) what I wrote was considered a marvel! hahahaha I played with 68000 assembly too just because I love the 14 addressing mode, like "Post incremented pre decremented absolute" hahaha

Was your emulator for carrying programs to a particular platform or the kind that one uses to test programs, like to put in a hex code or neumonic to see the accumulator and stack results? If it's the latter i'd be interested in checking it out sometime, maybe do some brushing up

More the latter - It was actually written in (relatively early) Java so as to be cross platform. You could run your x86 assembly on PPC, ARM architechture or whatever, so long as it had a JVM. I did it so long ago (as a student project in college) that I would be rather embarrassed to show it to anyone But I appreciate the interest. It was a horrid and massive beast of a program of like 10K lines of code (for both pieces together) -- certainly a far cry from your 16K of assembly of yore. I used to noodle around on Apple II's, but I was far too young to have experienced what you described. The closest I came to doing anything remotely resembling programming on those was Logo (if that can even be classified as such). At any rate I am glad this community has some old school hackers in it. It is a refreshing change from the "D00dz w1ll my d4d'z c0mp. run guild wars y0?1/? I g0tz 256mb ram!!" crowd.

Someone had to keep the holes open or the system would be impenetrable today!

One of my favorite things was figuring out how to read the unreadable from a disk or how to replicate the unreadable sector. Whatever it took to copy it as long as I had something to go by, some program what I could edit the track sector parm table to. Sometimes it was a change you could make to DOS so the disk just read like a normal disk, then you copy the files over flawlessly.

Then there were dongles....EEPROM burning baby!

When I had my software company our disk protection was really simple but seemed impossible to the would be hack. Eventually the 100th monkey thing happened, but that was about 3 years later. See we always added one more track, later we found a way to add 2, but the thing is the copy programs and most going through the normal DOS wouldn't read that far unless changed. Some disk utilty eventually let people read one more track and that's why we went another out. See we would put the disk catalog on that track, FAT and all. No way to read the disk without accessing the track and no way to do that without booting in our modified OS, which, if you format a disk to copy the program, puts it all on that same outside track again. Imagine getting the copy, going to your computer that is already booted up, putting the disk in and it doesn't read. Then imagine booting from the floppy and running the program but it can't find your hard disk directory and asks if you wanna format it. God we had fun! Just one of the "simple" protection moves we made at the time that is rather commonplace today.

Interesting stuff - do you still work in the software industry?

No, I left it. I can't discuss for a variety of reasons. Let's just say I didn't like the direction it was headed as far as how it would affect the way I lead my life. Retirement was a far greater option and it was at a reasonable time to make that decision.

You lucky retired dog you

question answered.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=4262