VIA Epia Gaming

P

Prmetime

n00b
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
30
I have looked at the FAQ and I have tried to read other forums to get as much info as possible regarding the Epia motherboards and their processors. I'm still unclear how well one of these machines would do as a primary system to include light gaming. By this I mean mostly older games like Starcraft, IL2, Homeworld, and Battlefield 1942. Does anyone use their Epia MB for gaming? If so which MB and processor and how well does it do?

You see, the reviews of every video chip that VIA has made have been terrible except for HTPC uses. The latest Chrome 25/27 cards (which appears to be the equivalent of the ATI Radeon 9800 pro card I'm currently using) seem to be pretty decent but I haven't seen that option on any of the Epia boards. Can anyone please help?
 
I wouldn't expect to play battlefield 1942 on it. (I'm assuming you are talking about the C3?)
 
Games like starcraft which was 2d would run fine. Homeworld doesn't tax graphics that much so I would think it would run it.
 
All the integrated video i've seen on EPIA boards are the ProSavage/Unichrome (both based on the ancient Savage4 chip) and none have AGP slots. Shared memory Savage4 gaming performance is terrible, even by 6 year old standards.

There are PCI cards that can play all the games you listed. The Radeon 9100 PCI (R200, 8 pipelines) cards are rare, the 128-bit memory 5200 PCI cards are easier to find (make sure it has 8 chips or 256MB memory), and there's even a NV44A based 6200 PCI card out now. 9200 PCI and 9250 PCI (non-SE) cards would also work and are somewhat reasonably priced on ebay.

Even though the CPUs on the EPIA boards aren't very fast, getting a video card with 64-bit memory (except on the 6200 PCI... the NV44A chip only supports 64-bit memory) will kill gaming performance.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
9100 is 4 pipes, like the 8500. the 5200 is also 4 pipes :p
Click to expand...
er i meant 4x2 for the R200 (9100/8500), 8 texturing units. :eek:

The FX 5200 has 4x1 pipelines, 4 texturing units.
 
In other words, the current generation of processors and graphics chips on the Epia motherobards will not do what I want them to do. Now if they can just make an Epia with a C7 processor and a Chrome 27 IGP, I would be all set. :D
 
Would the twin C3 processor board do a better job? I'm still stuck with the IGP but a decent PCI graphics card might do the trick.
 
lol, it's funny because our company installed 4 EPIA m10k systems onto our inside sales desks.

with all the latest drives, the m10k runs the following perfectly:

- Starcraft&BW
- HL, CS 1.6@1024x768 perfectly/smoothly. i believe i was getting 40+fps but i didn't measure. let's just say all the workers had fun during breaks =).
- Quake3Arena@1024x768. of course, all eye candy were off, but also 40+fps.
- i think anything after Q3A it had problems, but i didn't really try it. the thing actually runs FarCry@800x600 w/everything turned off! =).

just FYI.
 
JediFonger, thank you for the information. That is much better than I though it would be. Admittedly none of these games are cutting edge but they are still fun and among most of the games (or age of games) that I currently play. I might just get one of these boards after all.

I wonder if the C7 board will have dedicated video RAM? That would probably inprove the performance quite a bit.
 
these boards are gonna tap into the RAM for memory. but if you stick a gigabyte stick in there, no probs. that is if you can find a comaptible one. these boards are picky when it comes to 1gigabyte sticks. stick with corsair/crucial, etc.
 
That is a good point. I think they would work better with dedicated video RAM but what the heck. :D I did write to VIA asking them to make an Epia with their new Chrome 27 graphics chip. I doubt they will listen to one person but I can always hope.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top