Need advice on friend's pc

[dorian hawkmoon]

My friend has got a PC that's considerably outdated, he wants to know what games he can play.

His config is:

P4 (2.4 Ghz)
512 DDR RAM
INTEL ORIGINAL 864G MoBo
SYNCMASTER MONITOR (15")

OS: Win 7 Ultimate (x86 version)
Any advice is really, really welcome !

Thanks

 

[IggyAZ]

My friend has got a PC that's considerably outdated, he wants to know what games he can play.

His config is:

P4 (2.4 Ghz)
512 DDR RAM
INTEL ORIGINAL 864G MoBo
SYNCMASTER MONITOR (15")

OS: Win 7 Ultimate (x86 version)
Any advice is really, really welcome !

Thanks

Is this a trick question?
I'm sure you have enough knowledge to tell him/her the truth.
What games are you talking about? Online multiplayer?
I don't think so with 512Meg of Ram with a P4 processor.
Give him.her some friendly advice and upgrade to the 21st century.
Good luck.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Minesweeper, Solitaire, Age of Empires.

I ran Age of Empires 2 on a Win98 machine with maybe 128MB RAM and a 4GB hard drive.

 

[Thorsen]

I was playing wow on a p4 2.4 with 512m ram and an 512 video card. if it is possible to get a video card put in it. This is doable. Note the game ran at 15 fps and at lowest settings. but it ran.... also, Minesweeper rocks.

 

[Thorsen]

If wanting to upgrade, I suggest looking at www.tigerdirect.com there are alot of mobo/chip combo's that are inexpensive. upgrading through this setup is a good start. This would be a low budget way of upgrading. (you will need new ram though to match the system and if it is old IDE hard drive, make sure it has a port for the IDE hard drive).

Edit: Weigh your options though when upgrading, it might be wise to save up and get a premade system if you are not familiar with building comps. upgrading to what you want for gaming can run you +$500 easily. buying a decent laptop that can play some games is about the same price, but building the comp will cost less than buying a new comp with comparible hardware.

 

[dorian hawkmoon]

Is this a trick question?
I'm sure you have enough knowledge to tell him/her the truth.
What games are you talking about? Online multiplayer?
I don't think so with 512Meg of Ram with a P4 processor.
Give him.her some friendly advice and upgrade to the 21st century.
Good luck.

LOL , no I know what games he can't play, I'm seriously at a loss to suggest what he can play !

I think he wants to play games like Max Payne/GTA Vice City/NFS types of games. I was so not into games when these games/his mobo were at their peak!

 

[FZ21Z]

They can always check first - Can You Run It

 

[Frostmourne]

Nothing. What is your WEI score? 1 or 2?

 

[pparks1]

If your friend wants to play any games at all, he should move immediately back to XP....as that would be his only chance.

And back in the day, when I had a P4, I had 2GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon X800-XT PCI-Express card with 256MB of RAM and it ran games like Half Life 2, Battlefield 1942, and such without any trouble.

But I recently gave that machine away to a coworker who was in need for a computer because it was simply too slow to even fool around with....and forget about running Windows 7 and current games on it.

 

[dorian hawkmoon]

I gave him NOLF to play! And advised him to upgrade to at least an entry level modern mobo with at least a gpu inbuilt.

 

[Thorsen]

I would suggest against the built in gpu option as it is usually lacking versus what can be obtained for pci-e or even agp graphics cards. i ran into this when searching for a laptop. The fps scores for the built in graphics chips were no where near as high as having a dedicated graphics card.

Another point on this is that the on-board graphics chip will use the Ram that you are using for graphics instead of having its own ram
ex. if you have 2g of ram, the chip will use 512 (?not sure on this), but that leaves you with 1.5g left for non-graphics processing.

 

[dorian hawkmoon]

Nothing. What is your WEI score? 1 or 2?

Ummm, it's not mine . It's my friend's . His WEI score is 1 if I remember correctly. It's a real surprise and a testament to 7's great performance that it's actually running without much problems

 

[dorian hawkmoon]

Yes, Thorsen you're right about the RAM thing. It does take up memory, until and unless one buys a dedicated gfx. I suggested an inbuilt gpu cause of his budget problems he's going thru right now. Eventually he'll buy a Gfx. For the moment though, I think an inbuilt gpu would at least run the latest FIFA games, NOLF 2, San Andreas, KOTOR etc? On a low level though :sarc:.

 

[Thorsen]

understood. but: I found some $50 graphics cards when I was looking previously. You would be suprised.

On-board graphics are not as gaming friendly and are mainly added to handle video. for the time being its ok, but any games that are graphic-intensive or 3d will not be as smooth or high fps.

Just check what the chip is and read reviews to see what it can handle. see what the board has for graphics ports. most new ones have pci-e (2x-16x are main types). AGP was the norm for a long time for dedicated cards. Pci-e is fast-line straight through. you will probably be able to find a card for it easily when your friend upgrades again.

 

[monkeys breath]

If wanting to upgrade, I suggest looking at www.tigerdirect.com there are alot of mobo/chip combo's that are inexpensive. upgrading through this setup is a good start. This would be a low budget way of upgrading. (you will need new ram though to match the system and if it is old IDE hard drive, make sure it has a port for the IDE hard drive).

Edit: Weigh your options though when upgrading, it might be wise to save up and get a premade system if you are not familiar with building comps. upgrading to what you want for gaming can run you +$500 easily. buying a decent laptop that can play some games is about the same price, but building the comp will cost less than buying a new comp with comparible hardware.

i would avoid tigerdirect, too pricey normally. go with newegg or zipzoomfly.

 

[Jonathan_King]

i would avoid tigerdirect, too pricey normally. go with newegg or zipzoomfly.

Why not check out the prices? I have caught a couple of good deals there, it can't hurt just to take a look.

 

[Thorsen]

I have seen Newegg, I have not seen zipzoomfly. I will check it out. thanks

 

[Jonathan_King]

I would caution against ZipZoomFly. I have fallen into their little scams, or the companies that they partner with.

Basically, I was charged $20 for a $10 rebate. Fortunately, they were easy to deal with when I called them, and they gave back the $20.

 

[Thorsen]

lol ok I will check it out cautiously. thanks King

 

[monkeys breath]

i would avoid tigerdirect, too pricey normally. go with newegg or zipzoomfly.

Why not check out the prices? I have caught a couple of good deals there, it can't hurt just to take a look.

agree. i usually at least look at tigerdirect before making a purchase.