Video card question

[sixstrings5859]

My computer power supply bit the dust , so i'm updating my Compac pc with a 550/650 watt power supply.Have 2 ea. hard drives,( one for cfs3).I need 4 gigs of ram and good video card with at least 2 gigs,running on xp 32 or 64 bit,(not sure),computer was given to me,as my old one's hard drive died .I will later build a pc with a mid/high line cpu, windows 7 64 bit pro and 16 gigs of ram and mid line,($400/500)video card for woff and rise of flight,eto1.50 and pto rising sun . What is good video card for xp 32/64 bit,p2 intel cpu ,(i think),for my other 12 cfs3 installs? Thanks for any help. I think i need a nvidia video card and DirectX 9.Looking to spend under $300 for video card. Also,what is a ATI graphics card? Should i get one of those too?To any of you computer gurus out there ,this dummy needs help and/or advise.Please help me,or i may have to go to a computer repair shop to get upgraded.

[wiekniera]

i use nvidia all the time which i never had any issue and compatibility with lot games including the old EAW for todays i guess lot to choose depends on what you need as gtx 650ti or 660 think it's enough for value under $200 and a bit new you can pick 750ti or 760 which i think the price close enough with 650ti/660

[sixstrings5859]

Thanks for the advice.I'm willing to spend a extra $100/200 more on a good video card , if XP can use it, because i know the computer ram is limited to 4 gigs with XP.Maybe then i can install CFS3-ETO 1.50 and PTO/PTO Rising Sun on my XP computer and run fine. Does that sound ok? Have read a lot of good reviews on Nvidia video cards. Thanks again buddy.

[Daiwilletti]

Speaking of what XP can use, there was a thread a while back for a wee app which enables XP to use more than 2Gb of RAM. Very useful for CFS3. Anyone remember what it was called? Something like 4Gb extend..

[sixstrings5859]

I know what your talking about. CFS3-OFF uses it because CFS3 limits it's usage to 2 gigs of computer ram. The program allows CFS3 to use up to 4 gigs of computer ram. In my old age i forgot where i read it.

[sixstrings5859]

I found it here at SOH, but it's for 64 bit windows not 32 bit XP.

[wiekniera]

you can use some good small app like 4gb patch, LAA (large address aware), IMAGECFG (set proc affinity <== this one really helping me in speed up strike fighters loading menu and other FS) and additional app to add more performance like wise 365 and enditall i think it might be useful for xp 32bit

adding this one into boot.ini also useful:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional 4GB" /3GB /USERVA=4096 /FASTDETECT /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN

[wiekniera]

Thanks for the advice.I'm willing to spend a extra $100/200 more on a good video card , if XP can use it, because i know the computer ram is limited to 4 gigs with XP.Maybe then i can install CFS3-ETO 1.50 and PTO/PTO Rising Sun on my XP computer and run fine. Does that sound ok? Have read a lot of good reviews on Nvidia video cards. Thanks again buddy.

hmm...if you want to spend more $$$ let say $200 for video card why just don't upgrading your MB & proc?? think it's more useful which can install both xp 32 and 64 cmiiw as i think FS series consumes more processor load than video card and also it didn't cause bottleneck on your system