I have a chance to buy an ati radeon 2600pro 512mb to upgrade an old system I have. I am really just a poor college student and I really want to play COD4, hah. So yeah, I would be upgrading from a radeon 9800pro 256mb card. Do note this is an AGP system, and with a weak 350watt power supply from what I remember.
My question is if getting a 2600pro for around $30 be a good buy and a good increase in power over my 9800pro? Will I be able to play COD4 at decent framerates? The last time I really gamed was with BF2 at 1280*1024 with around ~30fps with AA, and shadows and stuff off.

I think the specs were:
P4 2.53 ghz
1gb of DDR memory (should I get another gigabyte?)

bump?

go for it.

Make sure you use the hotfix drivers. http://support.ati.com/ics/support [...] onID=31542

Mactronix

I think you might be disappointed by the results of the 2600 in COD4. I have one in an older Pentium D setup and it was barely playable. It was frustrating. So frustrating that I bit the bullet and bought a new motherboard and an 8800Gt. I would think that a 3850 in agp would give you acceptable rates and they can be had for around $100. My 2600 pro was a big let down. Just thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

May I ask what settings you were playing at, ie were you using AA or any other effects. I don't mind turning down the settings to achieve at least 30fps. I'm kind of used to play games at low quality.

I don't think I want to go through the trouble of upgrading my mobo because I mine as well do a whole build, which I don't have the money for. I am also worried about the power requirements of the 3850agp.

well by old 6200TC play it 25+ frames with texture on extra (very high) and rest on low @ 640*480 with 2xQ AA.

so i think the 2600 would to much better not max with 4aa but very playable with decent settings

ya, i never played a game below 800x600. All other settings were normal (2AA). And I have to say that I was playing online mostly. So maybe with settings low and low res in singleplayer it would be fine. I should have tested the single player but I was so disgusted with the multi that I gave the card to a friend.

Since then (about 2 months ago) I went wild on the credit card and got SLI with twin 9800GTX. Play everything great now.

Good luck.

Oh ya, I was running vista 32 on a pentiumd 3.4ghz 2 gb ram when I tried that card. If you are running xp you might have better luck.

I actually just bought a 2600xt 256mb pcie for one of my other computers, hopefully my weak 300watt power supply will survive.

Your CPU will greatly limit the playable detail levels in COD4; It's a minimum spec CPU for that game. You'll be stuck at low details, which the 2600 pro should have no problem handling at almost any resolution. $30 I would go for it as it is a cheap price for so much added performance in many games. Just keep in mind the CPU will kill you in some games, COD4 unfortunately is one of them.