Wasn't exactly where to post this. Just wondering what you guys would recommend upgrading as I haven't got a clue when it comes to this sort of thing.

LFS works pretty well on my system 50+ FPS online and offline on normal road courses but the only time I experience problems is when I'm on autocross with a heavy layout my FPS will drop below 20 the majority of the time or if I go near another play I'll get frame skips, yet I can be next to 20 cars online on a road course and barely have any problems.

These are my system specs.

Windows XP SP3
Celeron 2.81GHz CPU
1 GB RAM
Geforce 6200 512mb DDR2

What's your budget? You'd be better off just buying a new system than putting any more money into this.

Thats the problem, not such a big budget as I'm out of work at the moment, when I do find employment I'll be buying myself a gaming system and beating this one with hammer (: I did think about just buying a couple gigs of ram to slap in it see if it helps at all.

RAM probably wouldn't do much for LFS performance. Do you know what motherboard you've got just now? If you don't, download Speccy and give us the manufacturer and model information from the motherboard display section.

Model SiS-661
Chipset Vendor SiS
Chipset Model 661FX
Chipset Revision 11
Southbridge Vendor SiS
Southbridge Model 964
Southbridge Revision 36
BIOS
Brand Phoenix Technologies, LTD
Version 6.00 PG
Date 03/01/2006

Quote from Pox3d :

Chipset Vendor SiS
Chipset Model 661FX

OK, you've got 2 options as I see it:

1. Upgrade the CPU to a decent Pentium 4 socket 478.
2. Upgrade the graphics card to a new-ish AGP card (note: make sure the motherboard is compatible first, as I mention below).

I'd choose option 1, as I think that would give you more performance for the money in LFS and in other general usage.

CPU:

You'll struggle to find any online retailers selling decent socket 478 Pentium 4s new (though there are one or two floating about). You'd probably be better off getting something from eBay instead. For ~£20-30 you should be able to get around a 3.00 GHz socket 478 Pentium 4 that would give you a decent boost in LFS and other usage.

Graphics:

Try to find an AGP graphics card for around the same price (~£20-30). You can still buy AGP cards new, but you'd have to consider the power supply if you went down the graphics card route, especially with a newer card. Open the side of your case and see if you can find any labels on the power supply, so we could try and determine if it could run a more powerful card. Another potential problem is that the manufacturer's site for your motherboard specifically lists 1.5V compatibility for AGP. I'm not sure how many of the newer AGP cards would be compatible with your board...perhaps someone else with more specific knowledge could help you out there.

The graphics card I have is AGP8X what ever that means lol, I pad £40 for it at PCWorld a few months ago and I thought Celeron was newer than Pentium 4? wouldn't that make it a better processor?

Edit:

Ok I've found one on eBay, are they fairly simple to install and does it mean reformatting the system?

Quote from Pox3d :

I thought Celeron was newer than Pentium 4? wouldn't that make it a better processor?

The Celeron was effectively the budget line in Intel's CPU line-up. They were cut down versions of Pentium 4 chips (e.g. they had less on-chip cache). For a very quick comparison look at this list of CPU rankings. The Celeron 2.80 GHz chip is ranked 911th fastest CPU with a score of 335 on the Passmark CPU benchmark. The Pentium 4 2.80 GHz model is ranked 839th fastest with a score of 415. The Pentium 4 3.00 GHz model is ranked 769th with a score of 491.

How about this? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intel-Co ... 4aa83235f6#ht_2669wt_1080

Am I going to need to reformat to install a new processor?

Quote from Pox3d :

How about this? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intel-Co ... 4aa83235f6#ht_2669wt_1080

That's a mobile CPU (intended for use in a laptop). Even though it's a socket 478, it's incompatible with your motherboard, so it wouldn't work. See the last sentence in the "Technical specifications" section here:

Quote :

While the Intel mobile CPUs are available in 478-pin packages, they in fact only operate in a range of slightly differing sockets, Socket 479, Socket M, and Socket P, which are also incompatible with each other.

Quote from Pox3d :

Am I going to need to reformat to install a new processor?

If you're only upgrading the CPU you should be able to stick the new one in without reformatting your Windows installation. However, you might need to upgrade the BIOS in your motherboard to support a newer CPU. That depends on what CPU you choose. I've tried for a few minutes to look for BIOS updates on the SiS website, but it's really horribly laid out, so I've given up for the moment. I see from an earlier post your BIOS is dated as 2006, though, so it should be OK for P4 CPUs, but you'd need to check to make sure once you'd selected a CPU you wanted to buy.

INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.2 GHZ SOCKET 478 CPU SL7E5, Should be in my hands on wednesday, I'll let you know how it goes once installed. Thanks for the help.

Quote from Pox3d :

INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.2 GHZ SOCKET 478 CPU SL7E5, Should be in my hands on wednesday, I'll let you know how it goes once installed. Thanks for the help.

If you're buying a second hand CPU there are a few things to consider. Firstly, you need to know if it comes with a heatsink + fan or not. The heatsink + fan is the big block of metal with a fan on top that you place on the CPU to keep it from overheating. If the CPU doesn't come with one you may need to buy one for it (I don't know if the one that's currently on the Celeron will be rated for the P4; I suspect not). The second thing is that there needs to be a thermal interface material applied to the heatsink before you put it on the CPU. Most new heatsinks come with a pad of thermal interface material already applied, but for a second hand heatsink you'll need to apply some thermal paste before using the chip. If you don't you're likely to run into overheating problems as the CPU develops hot spots where the contact between the CPU and heatsink isn't sealed properly. The best advice I can give you is probably to take your PC to PC World when you get the new CPU and ask them for advice on fitting the new CPU. They should walk you through the thermal paste and heatsink issues and, if you bought something from them a while ago, they might be willing to do it free for you.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, never upgrade such an old system. You won't be happy with the results. Save your money and buy a new system. Any dual core system will beat the shit out of a single core P4.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

I've said this before and I'll say it again, never upgrade such an old system. You won't be happy with the results. Save your money and buy a new system. Any dual core system will beat the shit out of a single core P4.

Read the start of the thread...

My single core Celeron D356 (single core @ 3.32gHz and 512kb cache) with 1.5GB of RAM and a Sapphire X1950PRO 512MB AGP is pretty good with LFS. Hi-res textures, max graphics all run at about 40FPS and looks damn good. I'd recommend that GFX card - cost me £38 and all worth it.

...but that one is for socket 775 and has larger L2 cache on which P4 architecture was very dependant. This is quite difference

I would recomend to spend just really few bucks and buy better graphic card.
Do not invest more into that system. Its waste of money and save it for a new one once you will be able to do so.

Processor got delivered today, only to find out my original processor is a socket 775 not 478.

Quote from Pox3d :

Processor got delivered today, only to find out my original processor is a socket 775 not 478.

I'm very sorry about that (I can't apologise enough). It looks like your board is available in both varieties and I mistakenly thought it was only available in socket 478.