Building a new PC - looking for advice

Hi,
I currently run two copies of Everquest (original) on two PCs that are
old enough that they have only an AGP slot, no PCI Express capability.
I've started thinking/planning building a new PC and I'm hoping to run my
two Everquest copies on one PC.
I understand about installing the two copies in two separate directories,
and my questions and concerns have mostly to do with the required
horsepower of the CPU and graphics card(s).
Starting with the graphics card, I'm looking at this one:
>>EVGA GeForce 9600 GT 01G-P3-N869-AR Video Card EVGA 01G-P3-N869-AR
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI
Supported Video Card <<
I'd need a motherboard with a PCI Express 2.0 slot.
Would I be able to run two displays off this single card, or do I need to
get two of them and run them in SLI mode?
For the motherboard, I haven't narrowed the search down yet, but I lean
toward AMD rather than Intel and I'm thinking that I will need about 2GB
of memory per copy of Everquest and another 1-2 GB for Vista.
Feedback would be appreciated.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Jun 4, 6:50 am, Wayne Newberry <wayne_newberry_ns.3com.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I currently run two copies of Everquest (original) on two PCs that are
> old enough that they have only an AGP slot, no PCI Express capability.
> I've started thinking/planning building a new PC and I'm hoping to run my
> two Everquest copies on one PC.
> I understand about installing the two copies in two separate directories,
> and my questions and concerns have mostly to do with the required
> horsepower of the CPU and graphics card(s).
> Starting with the graphics card, I'm looking at this one:>>EVGA GeForce 9600 GT 01G-P3-N869-AR Video Card EVGA 01G-P3-N869-AR
>
> GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI
> Supported Video Card <<
> I'd need a motherboard with a PCI Express 2.0 slot.
> Would I be able to run two displays off this single card, or do I need to
> get two of them and run them in SLI mode?
> For the motherboard, I haven't narrowed the search down yet, but I lean
> toward AMD rather than Intel and I'm thinking that I will need about 2GB
> of memory per copy of Everquest and another 1-2 GB for Vista.
> Feedback would be appreciated.
> ** Posted fromhttp://www.teranews.com**

you can run two instances of EQ with less than that

that said, instead of the 9600 ... the 8800 gts is an excellent card;
it's powerful and the third-iteration of the 8800 series, meaning it's
just as efficient but costs far less

also the 9800 gtx is about the same price, and worth considering

both are pci-e x16 2.0, and you will only need 1


2gb of ram is fine; you can run EQ with less - if you want to feel
future-proof and you have to get a new mobo anyway, maybe shoot for
ddr3? it's come down quite a bit (thinking just like ddr3 1300)



a dual core processor will help, but for most AMD dual cores you will
need to set affinity to one core in order to run EQ in two instances



one last thing - you *can* run EQ in multiple instances out of the
same directory if you use 3rd party programs like WinEQ, assuming
those are still around ... but please bear in mind that that type of
"program handler" falls within those prohibited by the EULA (like
MacroQuest, etc)

no one will ever know, but you should make the decision with that
knoweldge


on the other hand, if you have tons and tons of space on a fast, high-
end drive, please don't bother



best of luck!