Posted July 15, 2011
Mediocre Performance is not surprising with Mediocre hardware. I have what I consider a low-mid range setup and its a hare to your tortoise...
It's relatively cheap to build nice mid range machines these days. Build one for a friend of mine using newegg for about $600 (no monitor or keyboard obviously just the tower) that will probably be good for years before having performance problems with newer games.
Adding ram is always good advice, but this could very well be bottlenecked by a slow bus in addition to low ram / mediocre cpu. For upgrading I would recommend you at least look at new cpu-ram-mobo rather than just cpu or ram, as the three can bottleneck each other easily. Be sure to check motherboard specs in particular to ensure you purchase speeds that are compatible (ie the same) between all 3 components.
I'm not real familiar with Ati's 3k series so Idk if it would need to be upgraded at all (i'm a nvidia guy myself) but mid-high end gpu's can often be found on sale for between 200 - 300. also keep in mind you'll need enough power and a case large enough to facilitate these components if looking to upgrade.
Keep some of these points in mind if you decide to upgrade. Good luck running games smoothly. I had years of trying to increase performance on a shoestring budget so I know how frustrating it can be.
PS might be helpful to check out tweakguides.com when you have trouble with games in the future. They can provide some good tips for tweaking out the extra performance needed. I noticed they unfortunately do not have a GTA4 guide.
It's relatively cheap to build nice mid range machines these days. Build one for a friend of mine using newegg for about $600 (no monitor or keyboard obviously just the tower) that will probably be good for years before having performance problems with newer games.
Adding ram is always good advice, but this could very well be bottlenecked by a slow bus in addition to low ram / mediocre cpu. For upgrading I would recommend you at least look at new cpu-ram-mobo rather than just cpu or ram, as the three can bottleneck each other easily. Be sure to check motherboard specs in particular to ensure you purchase speeds that are compatible (ie the same) between all 3 components.
I'm not real familiar with Ati's 3k series so Idk if it would need to be upgraded at all (i'm a nvidia guy myself) but mid-high end gpu's can often be found on sale for between 200 - 300. also keep in mind you'll need enough power and a case large enough to facilitate these components if looking to upgrade.
Keep some of these points in mind if you decide to upgrade. Good luck running games smoothly. I had years of trying to increase performance on a shoestring budget so I know how frustrating it can be.
PS might be helpful to check out tweakguides.com when you have trouble with games in the future. They can provide some good tips for tweaking out the extra performance needed. I noticed they unfortunately do not have a GTA4 guide.
