U can get a stable 125fps with a p4, good agp card, and 2 gb ddr ram

I tried the following on an occasion (sadly, not my computer, so I cannot make further testing):

Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Northwood, S478
512 MB DDR 400
Inno3D GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB DDR
@ Windows XP Professional SP2

Duel was fine at 125 fps, but I didn't have the chance to try out 4v4 TDM or 4v4 CTF on a large map - which case would be also important as well.


I'm wondering if something like this would be sufficient:

Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Northwood, S478
1 GB DDR 400
Sapphire Radeon 9600 / Radeon 9800 128 MB DDR (maybe with Omega drivers)

The HDD would be a 10,000 rpm 18 GB HP SCSI-drive.

ts3 would be running in the background.

:S

The ram is killing your fps. get atleast 256mb video ram and 2gb sys ram for a smooth experience. A radeon 9800xt agp 256mb is able to run ql very smoothly. And why not get a better cpu? P4's are crap and are known for running extremely hot, especially ones from that socket

"2gb sys ram for a smooth experience"

Hmmm...duel was flawless with 512 MB, that's why I assumed 1 GB for more "crowded" gametypes. Do you really need that 2 GB?


"And why not get a better cpu?"

Because it costs ~15 $? : ) If I find a 3.2 GHz version for the same price, it's better though. (And the MB will most likely be S478.)


"P4's are crap and are known for running extremely hot, especially ones from that socket"

This would be a Northwood (with HT), not a Prescott. The latter was especially hot in LGA775; but a Northwood P4 is not that of a temperature-beast.

2GB is optimal for any WinXP system especially if youre gaming / multitasking on a single core p4 lol. itll only speed things up. you will definitely notice an improvement in speed upgrading from 1GB to 2GB on winxp.

if you're using win7 then 4GB or more would be optimal for things to run smoothly, anything less and expect some occassional stutters/slowdowns.

"2GB is optimal for any WinXP system especially if youre gaming / multitasking on a single core p4 lol."

Single core with Hyper-Threading. Other than stable 125 fps in QL, nothing else matters; I have a seperate, more powerful computer for any other remaining tasks.

The "Quake-PC" would ofc run a minimalized and optimized WinXP.
Besides Prism, only ts3 would be running paralel, any unneeded processes would be turned off by WhatsRunning. That's why I'm wondering about the absolute necessity of the 2 GB RAM - I mean with 512 MB, duel was flawless; do I REALLY need the additional +1.5 GB for 4v4 TDM and such? : /


Under Win7, even 4 GB can be insufficient - especially if you run your rig 24/7 for more than a year, and browsing with 2 browsers and with 30+ tabs, like me; you are forced to do a restart from time-to-time. : )

Besides Prism, only ts3 would be running paralel, any unneeded processes would be turned off by WhatsRunning. That's why I'm wondering about the absolute necessity of the 2 GB RAM - I mean with 512 MB, duel was flawless; do I REALLY need the additional +1.5 GB for 4v4 TDM and such? : /

based on my experiences, i would say that increasing RAM has always increased performance especially on windows systems. QL isnt exactly gfx heavy and youre graphics card is OK, so the only real bottleneck i see here is your CPU (not so much, but still a bottleneck nonetheless) and your RAM.

if you plan on sticking with that p4, then my first priority would be to upgrade the RAM to 2GB. i had an almost identical system to what you just posted except my p4 was a prescott on lga775, and i experienced the differences firsthand when Q3 had punkbuster servers running which required additional processes to run in the background at all times which caused additional lag due to its RAM usage (ask anyone, Punkbuster's resource usage was at times even moreso annoying than QLPrism or firefox tabs)

btw if you were running on a less exhaustive O/S like linux or win2k, running on a lower amount of RAM would be ok. but WinXP and will definitely benefit from that 2GB especially if you're not getting 125fps all around.

and if you can, get a cheap AMD duel core / mobo / faster ddr3 ram, it will help a ton compare to that p4 you're running. trust me.

He's right. RAM is the most important part from what I experienced, too. At least on windows systems.

Why are you going for 85hz instead of achieving 120hz if you're planning on running low resolutions on a CRT?

125 fps with 75 Hz somehow feels better for me. I used to play 120 fps with 120 Hz though.

I was playing with Socket A Sempon @ 2.7Ghz (as i remember), 1Gb and 6600GT without any drops or slowdowns.

"without any drops or slowdowns"

Even when you played, for example 4v4 CTF on a large map?

I haven't played CTF that time, but TDM and large CA was working well.

This sounds promising.

u can do it for less than 100$, easy

calculator

amd apu based system. AMD Trinity.

Way too expensive.

I'm planning on an almost complete rig (motherboard, CPU, RAM, VGA, DVD-reader, case + power supply [300 W Delta or something like that]) for about ~70 $, if possible.

all u need is good cpu, thats why we love q3e

Quake has never been much of a cpu resource drain. wouldn't be surprised if it ran on a p1

Are you employed?

This has no connection to the matter at hand.

remembering the old days my q3 ran at stable 125fps on athlon 2500+ with geforce 2 MX lol

this is not even comparable to top of the line p3

Well, the Barton might be enough CPU-wide, but I guess, the good ol' GeF2 MX isn't.

I remembered the first PC I played Q3A on;
Celeron 333A + 128 MB SD100 + 8 MB integrated SiS VGA + my beloved Vulcan G Voodoo 2 12 MB. Used Glide <3 ofc - and Win98.

It was 40-50 fps in 800 x 600 vertex, with medium geometric detail, dynamic lights, shadows and marks off & 16 bit. The texture slider was in the middle. : )

Unforgettable times.

;___;

It would be such an OVERKILL, if I could achieve stable 125 fps in QL with some kind of Voodoo-card.
I guess QL doesn't support Glide, so maybe with OpenGL.

unfortunately ql is way more heavy and unstable to run than the light q3a, both because of some addition at the graphic engine and at the netcode and because it runs in the browser.
Running it as a stand alone program, like q3, would make it way more stable and fluid, and would eliminate a lot of crashes that, to me, occurse even if i've always used mozilla firefox at the latest version, like the os and the nvidia drivers

p4 @ 2.8 ghz, 1 gb ram, nvidia 5200 fx 256 mb, shit hdd - this is what I have and it does NOT run ql ok

1gb ram ... that's ur system's bottleneck

also cheats might require additional resources

that video card is trash. the entire nvidia 5 FX series is a flop as the Geforce 4 outperforms it on several benchmarks. get a better video card and another gig of ram if you can.

better cheat perhaps?

FX 5700 is almost on par with a simple Radeon 9600. With Omega drivers, the Radeon's advantage advances further though.

FX 5900 is not that bad either, but I would choose a Radeon 9700 / 9800 PRO over it, anytime.
Yeah, a Tyan Radeon 9700 PRO or a Hercules Prophet 9800 PRO, yum-yum. : P

As dutra mentioned above, the main bottleneck is that FX 5200 - it really IS a crap card. I know, because I had one back in the days. Even a Radeon 9200 is better (no DX9 though, but this is not a serious matter because of the card's raw computing power).

Get a Radeon 9800 PRO / GeForce 6600 GT (both around 15$) and you'll notice some serious improvement. Not to mention that you'll be able to play lagless H.264 / x.264 720p HD with KMPlayer + CoreAVC Professional (but for this task, a good Radeon 9200 would suffice). : )

thanks. I always thought the cpu is the main problem

ok, noted. but what do u think about these 3:
-nVidia GeForce 6200 512MB
-NVidia GeForce FX5500, 128 bit, 256mb
-AMD Radeon HD3650, 512MB, GDDR2, 64bit

6200 and FX 5500 won't be too good of a choice.
HD3650 is quite pricy for having a 64 bit DDR2 memory architecture, IMHO not worth it unless you can get it at a really low price.

I'd suggest a 6600 GT / 6800 GT on the nVidia, and a Radeon 9800 PRO / X800 on the ATi-front.

For AGP, HD 3850 is a real overkill. I had one of those and I absolutely loved it - but it's not exactly cheap. But best card for AGP. If you get one, upgrade your CPU to ~3.4 GHz and get +1 GB of RAM, your rig will be quite useable for a couple of years onward. And 1080p HD will also be within your grasp.

I had the following rig:

AOpen i865 Springdale
Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Northwood, HT
4*256 MB Hynix D43 DDR400
Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 512 MB GDDR3 256 bit
@ Windows XP Professional SP2 x86

and I was able to play CoD: MW 2 (I know, but I was a bit curious) with low (and some medium) settings with 55-70 fps at 640x480 & 2xAA.
Fallout 3 was at roughly 30 fps with medium-high (!) graphics and lowered fades. Was really playable and I hadn't had to lower the graphics too much.

Regarding HD-playback:
-------------------------------------
The player and the codec is REALLY important.

My results with TheKMPlayer + CoreAVC Professional Edition v3.0.1.0 (absolutely the best software-based HD-decoder, now with 10 bit support - you just have to integrate it into the player as an external video decoder for H264 and AVC1):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Celeron 2.66 GHz + 512 MB DDR + Radeon 9200 ---> lagless H.264 / x.264 720p, I didn't test it with FLAC audio
Pentium 4 3.0 GHz HT + 1 GB DDR + Radeon X1300 PRO ---> lagless 1080p if it's not with FLAC audio or above 6000 kbps video bitrate

With this combo, I was also able to play H.264 480p on a Pentium III 733 MHz + 384 MB SD100 + Riva TNT 2 Vanta 16 MB + WinXP Prof. SP2 (!) with a really minimal lag sometimes - it was watchable by all means.


Hope this post helped somewhat.

intel p 4 2.4, 1gb ddr2, hdd 20 gb, nvidia 210 = its almost free

Start a lan cafe dedicated to Quake Live :0

Provide me funds and I'm all for it. : )

How much?

I guess roughly 6000 $ for starters will suffice.

So what will this give you, all the equipment? What about rent, electricity etc. I think we need to spawn dedicated LAN centres all over the world featuring Quake as the main title. Maybe we as a community can raise money with donations to try and start up at least one as a trial.

8 rigs, rent and other expenses. But I mentioned that it's just for starters. : )

Would be cool to have such a place but I seriously doubt it would be profitable; especially in Hungary. Less and less skilled people nowadays. Majority of the players cares just about graphics. *.cfg and raw mouse input are unknown concepts : /

I would like to know: you are searching for a good hardware combination at the lowest price possible, and that's ok; then what about the input system, the mouse/mousepad/keyboard/headphones?are you searching them also?If you still have them, what is your assortment?

I already have those:

Mice: Razer Salmosa and a Razer Diamondback 3G Earth Green (and a Logitech MX 510 Blue, which needs a cable-change).
Salmosa is the "Quake-mouse" (no driver, MarkC mousefix, 800 cpi, 500 Hz), the DB 3G will stay with the main computer (or the MX 510 with the Allsop pad, if I manage to repair the mouse).

Pads: Razer Mantis Speed, Allsop Raindrop GigaPad XL and a QPAD Gate01 LowSense.
I('ll) use the Mantis with the Salmosa.

Headphones: Superlux HD681 B - I'm quite satisfied with it. Very cheap, sturdy, really long and durable cable with golden connector - and has really good sound (not just for gaming but for movies and music too; and I'm quite an audiophile), especially for the price (~40 $).

Soundcard: SB Audigy! SB0090

Keyboard: a black IBM SK-8820, PS/2, works just fine. An IBM M-keyboard will be it's successor, but it's the tale of the future.

cool how you use italics for proper names. remember a time when I used to be so neurotic (in a good way!) about language. gg

wp ^^

Interesting!
But i was trying to see it in another way: what could be the cheapest gaming gear: for example, for the mouse the first nominee could be, with few dubts, the wmo 1.1a, probably unbeatable under the cost/quality ratio

I see.

Well, for a new mouse, it has to be WMO + hyperglides.
New Logitech MX 310 and G1 costs 20 $ on eBay as well.
But almost any of the good mice in used, but good condition will suffice - for example, I bought my 3 month old Salmosa for 13 $ (including shipping).

For pad, a new fUnc F-Series F30.R-14. 10 $, the legendary 1030 surface - and you get a cord clip too.
If you're looking for a cloth mat, SteelSeries QcK+ is quite a cost-efficient and common choice. I could say QcK mini for half the price, but it's size and thickness are ridiculous.
Artisan pads and PureTrak Talent are not so cheap.. ;____;
But don't forget, that you can buy pads second hand too; I got my Mantis Speed and Raindrop XL for 9 $ each, shipping included.

For headphones, I think it's the Superlux HD681 B, which I have. Really good sound and good build. Roughly 40 $ for a new unit.

For microphone, Hama CS-463 (don't laugh). Costs ~2$, and quite good for the price.

For keyboard, any used 4-5 KRO PS/2 keyboard (with normal-height buttons) will do the trick for about ~2 $.

I think a seperate sound card is also important. The most cost-efficient choice is the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 for about 7 $.

So in total, a complete price-sufficient Quake Live-rig, including everything + 17" Flatron CRT would cost about 150-160 $.

Impressive!
Seriously, now i will go to search the sites of the things you have listed, you seems to be a price-researcher-bot! i'm only a little skeptical about the 2$ keyboard... i mean, for sure to write and basics functions it is enough, but can it be resistant, accurate for that price? I would i've been more quiet with a price around 10-15$ maybe.
By the way, what sites do you use to get what you want? Ebay, i suppose?

"i'm only a little skeptical about the 2$ keyboard... i mean, for sure to write and basics functions it is enough, but can it be resistant, accurate for that price?"

I bought my used IBM SK-8820 3 years ago just for that price (btw a simple, used PS/2 keyboard shouldn't cost more than 2-4 $ - but not all of them are stable 4-5 KRO, so if you can test it somehow then it's a profit). It was already ~5+ years old and judging by its condition (despite of the rough conditions), it will be a keyboard for at least another 10 years or more. I can press 4-5 keys simultaneously and it's never failed on me. It's an IBM.


"By the way, what sites do you use to get what you want? Ebay, i suppose?"

Sometimes eBay, but mostly prohardver.hu and other nearby resources. If I go for something new, I check the local (within country, preferably in the capital) stores first via price-searching engines.

Thank you very much!
a clear and useful point of view!

I'm sorry but why would you wanna do this? Seems really really nerdy and you could be doing much more productive things with your time :/

Do what?

i disagree, because it can be a very useful thing to do: to save money!

+1

And the feeling having a special purpose computer : ), aiming for only one goal; to play Quake Live perfectly - with the lowest possible financial resources spent.

there is something philosophical/artistic in this

You understand it.

gf9600gt, c2d e4600, 2gb ram and i cant get stable 125fps on LARGE CTF MAPS, even empty, other than that ok

The problem is most likely lies within drivers or other software-related stuff.

i dont think so, try standing in the middle of overlord, youll see

Sadly, I do not own a premium account. Any other specific maps?

What is your OS?

Drivers (especially for VGA's) and background processes can really make a huge difference.

i have best drivers for my vga (not newest) and no background processes running, still 80fps there

try reflux :D

I still don't have a premium account.

u dont need for practice and its free this week i think

Doesn't appear in the browser and I don't have the *.pk3.

reflux? choose gametype ctf, should be plenty of devpick servers running reflux now

Winxp 32 bit?

yep

seems like its time for

format c:
/reinstall

honestly those specs should run QL fine on winxp 32bit. whats your CPU usage like? is anything overheating or what? are you using qlprism? runs much better than FF tabs

u have stable 125fps on overlord? :o

I don't play shitty terractf maps.I'm sure I get 125fps on it though since I do on the xmas devpicks

overclock cpu to 2,8 or 3 ghz...125 stable fo sure!

i play with ( laptop) 512 RAM , 64 mb graphic card ( ATI mobility Radeon 9000),pentium 4 ( 2.80 Ghz) with windows xp professional sp2.

i get 125 fps with no problem,game is smooth and everything works great ( exept for bloom effects),even with team-speak or skype.

What about teamgames with at least 8 players?

same thing,works good with 125 fps in any map and with alot of players in-game.

how much do you expect to pay in the end ? you might have an idea (or expectations )
btw, if i'm not wrong, some ddr2 is more expensive per giga than ddr3.

Yes, DDR3 is cheaper.

The total estimated cost for MB, CPU, RAM, VGA, DVD-reader and power supply would be around 70 $.

70$ ? you're a bit optimistic (no?).
first you have to find the proper (crappy) graphic card :P then choose the cpu matching the card correctly + the mb . 1 gig is ok imao
here is a review i've found : a ati 9600 xt runs quake 3 arena at 125 fps with a resolution of 1600X1200. it goes up to 283 fps with a 1024X768 screen.

however here is what i really think of your situation...
My old computer has a 9600XT and a pentium 4 and in my opinion that configuration has no value, too old, nobody would buy it (except you lol). So i was thinking maybe you could search for an old pc nobody uses anymore and make a 50/60/70$ offer. better solution than buying components, if you find that computer of course. i can't sell you mine, that old pc is almost dead.

good luck whatever you do ;)

Let's see the costs:

MB: s478 / s939 - 18 $
CPU: P4 3.0 GHz / A64 3000+ - 13 $
RAM: 1 GB DDR400 - 15 $
VGA: Radeon 9800 PRO / 6600 GT - 14 $
ODD: DVD-reader - 4 $
PS: 300 W Delta - 15 $
---------------------------------------------------------------------
79 $

if I buy everything seperately.

Complete Compaq / Dell i845 P4's are around 40$ with 2.4 GHz P4, 512 MB DDR, DVD, case, somewhat good power supply. Since I don't need HDD, I probably can take them for about 35 $. All I need is a better CPU (+6 $), +512 MB RAM (+8 $), a VGA (+14 $). That's about 63 $.

Or let's say, make the rig with AM2. Looks like, if everything goes well, I can get a MB for free.
Then:

MB: free
CPU: A64 3200+ - 10 $
RAM: 1 GB DDR2 800 - 10 $
VGA: Radeon X800 / 7600 GT - 13 $
ODD: DVD-reader - 4 $
PS: 300 W Delta - 15 $
------------------------------------------------------------------
52 $

Maybe I can save an additional 10 $, if I put one of my 2 GB moduls into the MB, but I'd rather not do that. Or + 12 $, and I have an X2 3800+ instead of the 3200+. Or I get a 6600 GT PCI-E, which is another -3$.

I got a 18 GB 10,000 rpm HP SCSI HDD with controller, so I don't need HDD. I can find some ATX case at home, if it's needed - maybe even a power supply, but I'd rather buy some Delta or 300 W FSP. I have an extra (bit crappy) 17" CRT until I buy some flatron. Keyboard, mouse, pad, headphones are given - even a SB Audigy!, but I guess that I leave that with the main rig.

So if something like this is sufficient (more and more ppl claims so), it's definitely managable around the 70 $ mark - even less.

http://www.quakelive.com/#!faq/faq_question_3

Edit:
I had QL running rather fine on an Intel E2200, ATI X1900, 2GB RAM, WIN XP 32bit

That's rather an advanced machine regarding my financial (and moral : ) ) expectations. : )

you can play qlive for free at the library.
in all seriousness... make sure you have a 2.2ghz+ , A gig of ram+, and a good agp card with about a gig or so.

I already have a comp that's fully capable of the task (AMD X2 5600+ + 4 GB DDRII 800 + GeForce GTS 250 1 GB), I just want a seperate rig for QL (and I attend to a LAN every month at my friend's house and I prefer my PC than any other and I don't like the idea to move the main machine. We only play CS 1.6 (they cannot be talked into Quake; especially not after we played 2 consecutive ezQuake FFA last time: D) and War3 TFT, so the thing that runs QL perfectly will be more than enough).


"and a good agp card with about a gig or so."

It will be a little too much, won't it? : )

not if you want to play with more than 4 people on a server imo.

One of my old rigs was a A64 4000+ (S939) + 1.5 GB DDR400 + GeForce 7900 GS 256 MB and (for example) 8 player FFA was flawless at 125 fps (though I'd like to get a cheaper machine).

i had:
AMD, athlon x2 3800+
leadtek 7800
2gb ram

was running quake3+qlive just fine back in 2009
then some tards updated something in qlive, resulting in mega lag and 75-125 fps.

then I bought some cheap used hardware.
core 2 duo, gf 8 and 2 gbram, and its running ok now.

I was running Quake Live fine on a P4 Core2Duo, a GT 6600 and 2gb of cheap-ass ram with a lot of FPS in timedemo and it ran great if you went in to offline mode and added a few bots(devmap). I did find in both offline/online i'd take fps hits the more people were online on my friends list... i think a few other people noticed this as well.

Not sure if this is still an issue for anyone as i ended up doing a full new PC rather than upgrade.

i can get 125fps on my acer netbook even in tdm, with r_mode 3 and vertexlight. could actually use my old crt and do this :d

other than that something like a 3ghz amd athlon, 1 gig of ram and a gt6600 would probably work pretty well.

what kind of netbook? mine runs like 50fps :(

aspire one 521, amd single core + ati gfx card.

my AthlonII with geforce1 can almost run stable 125fps in quake :(

and thats a 12 year old machine.

How do you put a 2xAGP card into an AM3 MB? : )

I guess you mistyped the CPU.

BTW I'm interested in the machine's exact specs.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon%2...B%20A.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_256

Dont see why they would not fit together, and dindt say anything about any motherboard :P?

Well sure, but why is a K7 600 called "Athlon II" then? :P

its their second model :(

I had a Notebook with 2670QM, HD3000 IGP and had nice framedrops with it, although ingame setup was quite good set to performance.