Here are the specs of my gaming rig, I am aware it is very budget but it works well for me as I am not a very hardcore gamer/overclocker. I have been trying to play GTA IV, and while gameplay is bearable on lowest settings, it still tends to run very slow.

Foxconn A74MX-K (740G)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Brisbane 3.1ghz w/ $20 Rosewill 3100rpm cooler (idle ~40, load ~58)
2x1gb GSkill DDR2 800 5-5-5-15
Thermaltake TR2 430w PSU
Gigabyte Radeon HD 4350 512mb 64bit graphics card
80gb WD IDE hdd

I'm 90% sure that the #(@$&* low-end video card is the number one problem; if it is, will I need to upgrade the PSU along with the card? Thanks for the input,

-Myystical1

Yes, you need a better video card and more than likely a new power supply. The size of the power supply is largely dependant on the video card you decide on. A GTX 260 or an ATi 4890 requires a minimun of a 500 watt power supply.

i agree with slay.

i would replace everything in this order.

1. video card.
2. power supply.
3. memory (you can get 4gb for 44$ these days)
4 hard drive (ide is slow, spend 90$ and get a 1tb 32mb cache sata hdd)

Kind of a "me, too" post ... with a few more thoughts.

The minimum specified ATi card for GTA IV is the x1900, and your 4350 falls well short of that on the performance scale, so you've definitely got a GPU issue. Also, what kind of TSRs do you have running all the time? Things like iTunes, Kodak, bittorrent, and a few other apps on your taskbar will suck the life out of your system performance (particularly iTunes).

Upgrading your graphics card will require a simultaneous upgrade to your PSU, as explained by Slay and TK. The GTX260 Core 216's are relatively cheap these days, and great performers. You can drop about $150 on those and another $60 - $80 on a decent PSU to support it. While your PSU provides plenty of watts (your full system requirements for power show up around 215 watts with a 3870 card installed, down to about 150w with your current 4350), that 3870 wants 30amps on the +12v line, rather than the 14-15 amps your current PSU provides. Make sure you know the amp requirement of any card you upgrade to before you choose the PSU. And when you buy that PSU ... get a quality one. PCP&C, OCZ (same company now), Enermax, and a few others are ones we swear by. I'm told Antec has improved over the last couple years, but you'll never see me buy another one after the repeated issues I had a couple years back.

On a least-most expensive scale, I'd start by upping those 2 GB of RAM to 4 (even if you have a 32-bit OS, you'll still see a significant performance increase.)

Then replace the HDD with a SATA drive (1TB is nice, but if you want budget, 320GB for $50 is available.)

In all likelihood, that 80GB IDE drive needs to be defragged as well. Best tool I've found is JKdefrag (JkDefrag v3.36) it's completely free, extremely effective, and entirely programmable.

-J

Quote: Originally Posted by godling In all likelihood, that 80GB IDE drive needs to be defragged as well. Best tool I've found is JKdefrag (JkDefrag v3.36) it's completely free, extremely effective, and entirely programmable. -J

your telling me people still use the built in defragger???

jkdefrag i would say is one of the best defraggers on the market

GtaIV has a huge vid memory requirment.

You'll need to find a vidcard like a 260 or 275 w 1792 MB mem

EVGA | Products

Thanks for all of your input,

As far as background programs and defragging, I just formatted and installed Windows about a week ago, and I currently have about four items on my startup list, so I'm gonna agree with you guys on this one and say it's the video card. Also, ThermalTake must have redesigned the TR2 430w PSU, because all of the reviews on Newegg complain about the PSU having only one 12v rail with 14-15A, but I'm looking at the side of my PSU right now (TR2-430NL1NH) and it's telling me it's got two 12v rails, one with 14A and one with 15A. But here's my situation: I'm on a tight college budget and don't have the patience to save for a new graphics card. I'd probably plan on spending $60-90 on a new card, so would I still have to upgrade my PSU if I went with a middle-end $60-80 card to replace the 4350 rather than something higher-end, like the $150 GTX250?

Thanks,
-Myystical1

GTA IV says it will take an nvidia 8600 as it's minimum requirement, but I've heard lots of folks say that isn't enough. NewEgg has this 9500 for relatively cheap but you still need a better PSU.

Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P3-N959-TR GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

All very good sudgestions but the one thing that will make a bigger impact than upgrading the ram would be the cpu it does have a high clock rate but it will make a huge difference for gta4 i used to run a radeon hd 4850 with a 4000+x2 at 3.2ghz and when i went to a 4850x2 it didnt even make a real impact on gta4 every other game had a huge performance increase. but once i upgraded that 4000+ to my current phenom 2 940 3ghz quadcore my framerates almost doubled with just a single 4850.

If your looking for a decent cheap vidcards the 9600 GSO cant be beat.

Just make sure you get one with 96 stream processors like ive linked below.
The newer ones only have 48 and stink...

XFX GeForce 9600 GSO Video Card - 768MB DDR2, PCI Express 2.0, Dual Link DVI, SLI Ready at TigerDirect.com
I have 2 of them in my folding rig and 1 in my sons pc and he plays GTAIV on it at medium setting just fine

Tiger direct has them for $79.00 but if you search around you can find them as cheap as $35.99 after rebate.


Here ya go 39.99 after rebate at newegg !!!!! Asus 9600Gso with 96 S.P's
Newegg.com - ASUS EN9600GSO/DI/512MD3/V2 GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards


If you could swing 2 of them for sli youd spank a single 9800GTX / 250 (they're both the same card just a different name)