Cool - if you can return the MX, then you've done well to upgrade I think. You'll see a lot better fps witht he new one.

I just checked, the single player demo doesn't do anything at all when I hit the "~" key, and the multiplayer we sat on this weekend won't start when I'm alone (just got home from a Lan-fest we did yesterday). So I don't know what my numbers are.

I have video sttings to "high", 1024x768x32 @100, graphics high, effects high, environment mapping on, lightmaps on, shadows on, just noticed 80% only for texture but can't think sure that makes too much difference, and view distance 100%. Sounds are quality 22khz, high detail, hardware accelerated (5.1 Philips soundcard). Using the Nvidia refresh rate fix to lock 100Hz in the game mode for the monitor.

I'm picky about graphics, I easily get motion sickness and take Dramamine to play for long. I can't even have the guy next to me shake his foot while playiing, because I can see my monitor jiggle just that little bit. And I had a very pretty screen all day yesterday. The clouds and smoke, etc. were all very smooth with no sharp edges, everything simply looked great. One of the prettier games around this side of Serious Sam. Athlon 1.4~266, 512 MB RAM, Gainward GF3ti200, with the Philips super duper soundcard.

One of the guys mentioned the game being a memory hog, but not sure what that was based on. The good soundcard should keep the CPU from being hit, but primarily it's all up to the vid card anyway... What do you see in 3dmark2001? Or do you use it? I typically hit 7000, give or take depending if antivirus and other such things are running. I can set the CPU to run at 1.5 all day long and turn the GF3 overclock sliders up to 200 and 450, and hit about 8000 on it. But I typically don't do it, since when I do play games I do it for like 24 hours at a shot and figure overheating and killing something ain't worth it.

I can think of a few variables though - 1) The full version you are playing is a lot more demanding than the demo we were playing, though I doubt it at least a little since they'd want the demo to be outstanding enough for everyone to buy the game. 2) You've got some wierd thing toggled on or off that makes a substantial hit on it all, either in the game or out. V-sync perhaps, or something similar? 3) We simply have different definitions of acceptable, though I know mine are pretty high.