Quake3World

hoping to fix a problem i'm having, but i'm certainly not willing to go for a whole system overhaul, so which do ya'll think will help more:

i have a p4 3gig, 512 megs of ram, geforce 6800 graphics card, onboard sound.

sooo, do i go for the extra ram, or the decent sound card? here's the problem:

in single player i maintain 60 fps indoors, and 30 fps outdoors, but i get occasional thrashing or hiccups, it's loading something, but i can't tell if it's textures or sounds. my performance doesn't change between 1024 800 or 640, regardless of high or medium quality, either. so i guess the cpu is the choke on the fps, but that's tough, i'm not upgrading that. the hiccups i'd like to get rid of however.

in multiplayer the sounds are just plain arse, honestly. they cut each other off and clip all the time. so i'm torn, the extra ram would prolly help my hiccups more, but the sound card MAY alieviate the hiccups and would prolly at least fix the crappy sound in multiplayer. suggestions?

-also, if there are console cmds to help the sound or loading, please post those too!

id go RAM

I'd go with least one more stick of 512mb and a faster CPU if u can afford one. The ram would be a better choice and cost a lot less, but it won't give you much improvement on the FPS. What socket is the cpu? If its 775, then I guess its worth it to get more ram now, so later on you can upgrade the CPU and keep everything else.

the fps isn't buggin me, and i don't have money for a new cpu. it's not like my cpu is slackin in anything other than this.

i'm more concerned about the hiccups and funky sounds.

edit: well, an upgrade to my sound drivers have helped the hiccups, still get them a little though.

The funky sounds are a general issue with the game (I suspect) and either via drivers or a game patch it can probably be fixed in software.

I recommend an extra 512Mb ram. This should cure the hiccups.

How much RAM on your video card?

only 256, but again, i'm not able to afford a better card at this time, and it's not really lackin in anything but this

edit: and it feels as though it's running rings around my cpu, anyway.