Overall Computer Question

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Hey, I'm looking at buying 07 in the near future, but I have a problem. My old NBA Live game (2005) has never run at over 15 FPS when on these settings:

Resolution: 1024x768
Player Detail: High
Bench Players: Low
Environment: High
Lighting: On
Reflections: Low
V-Sync: Off
Triple Buffer: Off
Texture Filter: Bilinear
Crowd Animation: On

This is after purchasing a 256mb RAM memory upgrade, and then buying an ATi Radeon 9550 256mb. I was pretty damn disappointed, because I had just spent $200 on making my game look like a slideshow. So, I got a job, saved up for a bit, and went out and bought an ATi Radeon 9800 PRO + A new power supply recommended by the store to feed the thing. When I got home and tried it out, I was even more dissapointed, because I only saw a gain of 1-2FPS, and the game was still an eye sore to play. Then I discovered that turning off Bench Players gave a little boost in the FPS, but still all I could get was 17-18FPS at best.

Heres my computer specs:

Computer: Acer Aspire T300
Memory: 512mb RAM
CPU: Celeron 2.4GHz
Graphics Card: ATi 9800 PRO 128mb DDR RAM

Surely I should be able to play this game at around 30FPS? I've been thinking maybe its just the game itself, after hearing that Live has always had bad framerates, but I can't see how they would get that bad. Somebody told me it may be my motherboard, and I would simply have to buy a new computer if I wanted to get results, he said that my motherboard is "holding back" the new graphics card from really having any effect, and that it was probably the same with the 9550, I wasn't seeing the real improvement.

So, Could anybody help me decide on what exactly to do, and if it comes to buying a new computer (which I have wanted to do for a while, and its not out of the question), what I should be looking at?

Also, could anyone with "good" PCs tell me what their framerates are getting at on similar detail settings, and possibly post their PC specs?

Thankyou for your help.

[el badman]

I think you should be able to play it fairly well with these specs, as long as you don't crank up the resolution or other options such as AA (in your card panel) or vsync/triple buffer. You can try to lower a bit the environment setting if it still lags, since it's usually a fsp killer, and maybe also the crowd animation.
However, your card is already a couple of years old, and like you said, your mainboard probably keeps you from getting better performance. An extra 512MB of RAM would certainly be helpful too.

If it's any consolation, Live 07 appears to be quite unoptimized to me (besides the bugs of course), as the performance is not as good as it should be I believe. It's definitely not cutting-edge when it comes to the graphics or physics yet it's more demanding than Live 06 without any real visual difference between both.
I have a X850XT PE, 2GB of RAM and a AMD64 3700, and at 1280x1024, AA and AF on, and everything else maxed out (except vsync and bench details), I only get a fps anywhere between 40 and 50....I can get more with Half Life 2!

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So the 9800 PRO is already outdated... When will I get it right?

Anyway, thanks for the reply, Live must be sweet to play on your computer

[el badman]

Well, I'm kinda biased cuz I'm a hardcore PC gamer, so everything that's at least a year old is outdated for me, but don't get me wrong, your card should be able to handle Live pretty well.
The game looks good on my PC, but I still drool looking at 2K7 screens and videos...

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Hey, just a quick question. If I was too get a new computer of these (or close too) specs:

Memory: 1GB RAM
CPU: 3GHz
Graphics Card: ATi 9800 PRO 128mb DDR RAM

What sort of FPS would you guess I would be looking at for NBA Live 2005?

[el badman]

It's hard to tell what fps you would get cuz it depends on the resolution you'd choose and all the other settings...
Depending on your CPU and mainboard, your card would be a little bit of a bottleneck in this case, but it'd certainly be smoother than what you experience now, probably in the 40's at your native resolution.
Either way, good idea to add some RAM and upgrade your CPU

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native = my desktop res?

Thanks man, everyone I ask just says "Oh I couldn't tell you that" even though Im just looking for a really rough figure. 40 is great, personally I was hoping for 25

Thanks again, and when I did add RAM (although not much of it, 256) it made my computer run alot smoother but the game still went like a slideshow

[el badman]

native = my desktop res?

Thanks man, everyone I ask just says "Oh I couldn't tell you that" even though Im just looking for a really rough figure. 40 is great, personally I was hoping for 25

Thanks again, and when I did add RAM (although not much of it, 256) it made my computer run alot smoother but the game still went like a slideshow

Native is usually the highest resolution supported by your monitor, so it depends if you play on CRT or LCD, but that might actually be too much for your PC to handle if it's something like 1280x1024 or more for example. In your case, you should get good performance at 1042x768 with these new specs, provided you don't use AA and vsync.
I can't guarantee 40fps, but it would make sense to me if you do have a gig of RAM, a decent card and a 3Ghz CPU...