Amd Sempron vs Athlon XP

[KingmanRoss]

Hi all.I have a Sempron 2500+ Socket A.I also have a tower with an Athlon XP 2300+.Which is better(faster) and would it pay me to switch?I can not afford a new one/new Video card at this time and would like to play more(better) maps on BF2.I have a lot but only able to play a few as they jerk alot.

 

[ricanflow]

Athlon XP is faster.

 

[Trotter]

The Sempron is technically faster (2500 > 2300), but the Athlon has the full memory cache on die, while the Sempron has half. Once you balance it out, the Athlon would be the better bet.

BF2 likes RAM, so give all you can. Two gigs is the sweet spot for it, it you motherboard can handle it.

Jerking sounds like graphcis problems. What graphics card are you running?

 

[KingmanRoss]

ATI Radeon 9600 pro 128mem,1gig main mem.

most maps I added has a lot of heavy graphics and by the time I point to the enemy(after the game catches up,lol) I am already dead,and can not afford a better card or cpu.Bad as I definately want Call of Duty also but do not even have the min. for card/processor speed ,yet.Thanks guys.Really appreciate the info.

 

[Trotter]

Your best bet would be to lower your settings (if you haven't already). Being a BF2 player myself, I can sympathize with your plight. I haven't had your particular problem as I had a 7800GTX when I started playing, but several in my clan have been through that.

Actually, a 9600 pro is not real bad. I'll look around this evening when I get home and see what I can find that might help.

 

[KingmanRoss]

Thanks Trotter,appreciate it.

 

[Trotter]

Start off with drivers. You need to download OmegaDrivers ATI drivers 3.8.252:
Radeon Omega Driver Downloads

Once you have them, uninstall the old drivers. Use AMD/ATI's method:
AMD Customer Care

Once you have them uninstalled and have rebooted, install the OmegaDrivers.

Here are some settings I would try on BF2 to reduce the strain on your card:
Terrain - Low
Effects - Low
Geometry - High
Textures - High
Light - Low
Dynamic Shadows - Medium
Dynamic Lighting - M
AA - Off
Text - High

Sight distance - 100%

Those settings should give you decent gameplay and allow you to see the other guy a little easier.

Download and run ATITool to get the emps of your card. If you are running hot, it can mess up your game; a cool card works better. You can use ATITool to control your cooler on the card, as well as to overclock it if you so choose.
ATITool - Overclocking utility for ATI and NVIDIA cards

 

[KingmanRoss]

Thanks Trotter.Will let you know how it goes.Ross

Good morning Trotter.Well,was no improvement so will have to get a better card.Over the weekend I might (might) switch processors,not sure yet.May wait till I can get a better one on that also.Thanks very much for your help .Appreciate it.Ross

 

[Trotter]

Something else to check... Battlefield 2 is very stingy with resources. Kill everything running in the background that you can (except for AV, of course). You don't have any spare processor power to spare when running it, so make sure it has all there is to have.

 

[KingmanRoss]

Yea,I do that too.Learned that a long time ago.I just have to wait till I can afford to upgrade is all.Built my PC about 6 yrs. ago from ground up but ,like they say,it was uot of date as soon as I plugged it in,lol.