Project Reality Forums

Firstly a bit of background.
I live in a very expensive place, what with post and customs, small parts like mobo' s or GPU's cost double, big things like cases or PSU's just aren't an option to order from afar.
I have been playing PR, and only PR for 6 years on a trusty old MSI GX720 portable which is either dieing or more likely needs a reinstall. Thanks to playing PR and these forums I'm happy to build my own machine.

So last week when we went to the capital I bought:

Antec sonata case with an Antec 550 PSU (actually a rebranded seasonic) for $30 with a rear fan and a front filter!

The guy gave me a Asus P5Q and Asrock 4coredual sata2 mobos saying he thought the Asus worked but not the asrock.

4 x 2 GB DDR2 800 super talent ram. $80 (2 for another PC) so $40 for mine.

SATA CD DVD multi $10

Sapphire HD 6850 GPU with DVI to VGA adaptor, $100, a week later a GTX760 is available at 150. PSU has the two six pin PCIs needed.

Standard intel cooler $10

Hitachi SATA3 500GB HDD $45

Forgot VGA cable, mouse and keyboard though but can borrow from other systems.

I have an E8500 and E2180 chip as well as Sata cables.

Total so far $235

So On we go.

I checked the PSU with a multimeter and no load was fine.

I tried to get the P5Q going but even after trying three different known good RAM (this mobo is a SOB for RAM compatibility), using a breadboard test with a good CPU, no beeps form the case speaker which I tested with another known good system. So I think it's dead.

Next to test the asrock .... and fine! This is a 8 year old mobo! And the second time I've been very happy with ASRock. Reading about its only good for 2GB of RAM but there is a bios (2.20a) adapted to allow more, but as the NB is bad max is only 3.25.

So far I have put it all together and after trying to install ubuntu on it and failing, I have used a win7 64 disk but as its the OEM disk for my portable I've only one month to test before buying something else.
I have installed ATI catalyst and to my joy it works and the GPU seems to be fine bearing in mind it's apparently only a PCIE X 4 slot....

Rather annoying to discover my E8500 isn't supported as the FSB is to high, so I'll see what's available later....

My present issue is trying to flash the bios with the new one, even the asrock official 2.20 didn't seem to have what it should have.

As of now my boy has been playing VBFSP 1920X1080 all high but no AA and the renderer .drawfps has it at around 60 in the action. But the E2180, 2 GB RAM and the dodgy PCIE slot are clearly not helping the 6870....

So I'm having fun playing with this and I'm learning alot, but any help on BIOS flash, OS options and anything else would be nice.

Well I tried PR Muttrah coop, an it was the same as my laptop, I was able to do my own silly benchmark taking the same route. So around 20 at worst, so over to plan B....

Give Mrs my portable after a 're install and nick her mobo, which is a new G31, which asrock says will support 8GB RAM, but Intel says G31 is only good for 4.
It has the E8500 3,16, and a proper PC1E x 16, so should get alot better with 4 x lanes to GPU and 60 per cent faster CPU.

I just have to change the broken DVD drive in the laptop first.

Did you buy a whole bunch of used parts? Because all of that sounds years behind.

Especially the part where you say you bought DDR2. The world is moving into DDR4 now.

4gb of ddr3 > 8gb of ddr2 in most cases; since you probably won't be using more than 4gb including while gaming.

Gtx 760 is a lot better of a deal...

Free old mobo.... I'll be leaving here in a few years taking only a bag so as longs as it lets me play PR for two years that fine.

So I tested my new/old system:

Asrock G31GS Mobo
E8500 Core 2 duo 3.16
AMD 6870 1GB
Vista 32
3GB RAM

and I found on a few maps on COOP 60-100fps.....

I have a vista64 installation waiting and 4GB of QVL RAM to out in, but as the mobo max is 4GB there may not be much point.