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[Nadaka]

I am no longer playing DF on an 8 year old laptop with burned out cooling fans and a cpu that was in such rough shape it often took upwards of 5 minutes to start firefox.

As a result of my posity of home computational ability, I had been playing mostly browser games and DF in microfortress (1x1) mode.

I now have a AMD 965 (3.4 Ghz) with sufficient ram (4 gigs) and the best integrated graphics chipset currently available (ATI 3300 HD. ok, so I skimped on a few things.)

Now I get to rediscover DF with large maps, vertical cliffs, abundant features and armies of dwarves, hopefully without having to worry if I can get my frame-rate above 5.

The joy. It bleeds.

[tNok85]

That is a great processor.

I don't know how the new versions work with using a graphics card, but I don't have a computer without a gaming card. Not sure how it will perform on the integrated.

[Lord Dakoth]

That is a great processor.

I don't know how the new versions work with using a graphics card, but I don't have a computer without a gaming card. Not sure how it will perform on the integrated.

Meh, it should work fine as long as you have ample RAM. 40d16 is fine on integrated, but slower than with an actual card. 40d16 is a helluva lot faster than plain 40d, though.

I have a Gateway laptop running Vista on 1 gig of ram. I get to watch my dwarves get cut down in bullet-time.

[Nadaka]

The ATI 3300 HD should do just fine. It has about 1/10th the transistor count and gigapixels of the latest and greatest cards (ATI 58xx series). That places it about on equal footing with the high end cards from late 2005 to early 2006.

[Tilla]

The ATI 3300 HD should do just fine. It has about 1/10th the transistor count and gigapixels of the latest and greatest cards (ATI 58xx series). That places it about on equal footing with the high end cards from late 2005 to early 2006.

Is this a lappy as well or a desktop? If it's got the expansion space, there are some dirt cheap discrete graphics cards out there right now that do quite quite well. I'm going to be selling my HD3870 next month when I upgrade to a 5 series radeon. A year old mid-to-high gpu only runs about $30-100 .

[tNok85]

It has to be a desktop, I've never heard of a Phenom II 965 (quad core) in a laptop...


As for the discrete graphics card, check your power supply before buying anything. Make sure it's powerful enough (there's a lot more than just wattage to it) and that it has the right connectors. If it doesn't, you'll need to buy a card that doesn't need the 6 pin pci-e power adapters - 4670 is the most powerful card ATM that doesn't, and on sale you can get it for $50-$55.

[Draco18s]

I now have a AMD 965 (3.4 Ghz) with sufficient ram (4 gigs)

Is that a 64 bit processor?  If not, then you really only have 3 GB of ram (limitation of the 32 bit addressing system).

[tNok85]

I now have a AMD 965 (3.4 Ghz) with sufficient ram (4 gigs)

Is that a 64 bit processor?  If not, then you really only have 3 GB of ram (limitation of the 32 bit addressing system).

It is. His OS install is what matters now. 32 bit OS has the same limitations, 64 bit OS will lift it.

[Nadaka]

In reverse order:
*Yes its a 64 bit processor.
*Yes I have a 64 bit os (I have an MSDN subscription from work, I essentially have my pick of windows, dual booting Ubuntu/Vista Ultimate x64 right now, probably upgrade to Windows 7 once I know how it works with boot loaders).
*No, its not a desktop, they don't make a battery big enough to feed an 965 for more than 15 minutes.
*I built this computer with upgrade potential. The PS is 750 watts with two 6+2 PCIE power connectors. That can handle most any 1 or 2 card configuration I could want. I'll probably wait till I can afford the ~$300 for a high end card, it will have to wait though.

I am planning on doing a DF stress test this weekend, maybe a good old fashioned 5x5 embark or larger.

[Armok]

I now have a AMD 965 (3.4 Ghz) with sufficient ram (4 gigs)

Is that a 64 bit processor?  If not, then you really only have 3 GB of ram (limitation of the 32 bit addressing system).

I thought that was 3 GB PER THREAD, not in total for the entire machine?
I might be wrong thou, I just asume this and haven't looked it up.

[Dwarf]

*No, its not a desktop, they don't make a battery big enough to feed an 965 for more than 15 minutes.

You contradicted yourself. You meant it IS a desktop, I presume?

[Nadaka]

*No, its not a desktop, they don't make a battery big enough to feed an 965 for more than 15 minutes.

You contradicted yourself. You meant it IS a desktop, I presume?

doh! You are right, thats what I get for trying to get a post in before going to work

[Jay]

3 GB of ram

3 GB PER THREAD, not in total

Both wrong.
It's 3.25GB in total.

Yes, 256MB can make a difference.

[Dwarf]

3 GB of ram

3 GB PER THREAD, not in total

Both wrong.
It's 3.25GB in total.

Yes, 256MB can make a difference.

No, it is either 3.256 GB or 3.25 GiB. Yes, what most people think of beine Gigabytes and Megabytes and whatever are, actually, Gibibytes or 1024 Mebibytes. 1000 Megabytes are a Gigabyte.
</nerd>

[Armok]

...

I used an integer to think about the answer, I know it's slightly larger.