Upgrading my PC into something that can actually play games again

[Lezta]

It's not like I'm running a four year old peice of ****, you know? This baby is less than a year old and until recently I thought upgrading wouldn't be something I'd have to do for at least another year....

But then I tried to play the Farcry demo. Even with the graphic settings at their lowest I was still getting stutters. This has lead me to believe that games like Half Life 2 etc are going to completely **** me over. The time has come to upgrade while I still have a job.

My current specs:

Pentium 4 2.6gig.
Geforce 4 MX420 64mb.
256Meg RAM.

I mean, it's not ****, is it?

What possibilities have I got as far as upgrading it go? My budget is only around £150 and I know that probably isn't going to get me far; especially if I have to get both a videocard and some more RAM.

Help?

(Misses the days when he was younger and he would have known absolutly everything he needed to...)

[Yoh Asakura]

I'm running a P3 500mhz, 192 SDRAM, Voodoo3 and my runs pretty okay with games.

You're best getting an AMD since they run a lot faster, also are you running anything in the background that may effect gameplay? I know msn can stutter a game when somebody opens a chat or signs in.

If it's an online game you'll have to check your connection, if it's a 56k dial up then it'll probably be stuttery, I know I only ever connect at 44,000bps ((56k my ass!)) so it might be a lil laggy.

You're best bet was posting this is misc where Chris will see it, he's more up to scratch on PC's then me.

[Lezta]

Meh, I thought about putting it in misc but I kinda just stick everything tech related here. If Raz agree's with you I'm happy for him to move it.

It's not an online game and I had nothing running in the background. If it's an old game, I'm sorted and I can play it but I like to think this PC has the ability to play games on pretty high detail levels.

It always used to...

It's not just Farcry though: Neverwinter Nights hated me for having lighting and shadows on as well as decent textures.

Basically I'm fed up of having to make compramises and would like to know if I can afford to upgrade or not. I know my processor is fine and I'm fairly certain I need more RAM and a better video card. The thing is, I'm clueless about video-cards and I don't know how much RAM I'm going to need. I doubt I could afford both anyway.

[Yoh Asakura]

256 DDR should be more then enough to run any game.

Radeon & GeForce FX are the only ones I know of, as I said though, Chris knows more then me, so your best bet is with him.

[Razola]

Radeon 9600
512MB RAM
Pentium 4 2.0 GHz

I need to upgrade.

Anyway, 512MB of RAM is quickly becoming the minimum, and it probably will be when the DirectX 9 games start coming out (like Half-Life 2). So you'll want at least a gig of RAM.

Go ahead an your processor to 3 gig as well, to avoid having to upgrade earlier.

Finally, I reccomend the Radeon 9600 XT as the best value in video cards.

[Red Angel]

Hey, I'm still running a P3 600 with a Matrox 400 card and 256MB of RAM (although I'm likely to get another 256MB soon for free). It runs Warcraft just fine, so I'm happy.

If I were you, I'd upgrade RAM first. You want 512MB, maybe more.

[The Muffin Man]

I don't care what any of you say, I'm not upgrading till I see what the Doom 3 and Halflife Recommended crap is. Then doubling it.

You know, if computers are even that powerful...I might just resort to making one computer out of components of 10 others to form one Omnicomputer.

[Razola]

They will only go so high, and if Doom 3 is running on an X-Box (which is basically a three-year-old computer), then it shouldn't be too demanding for PCs.

And PC games already sell worse than their console counterparts, so developers (and publishers) want to make sure that a wide range of machines can play it.

[HavoX]

I agree with you, Raz. Although the graphics from future PC games such as Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 look absolutely gorgeous, they need to be tweaked and optimized in a way in which the games can be played on most (if not all) machines.

Although I might go a bit off-topic, here's my specs:
Processor: AMD Athlon XP +2500 (my older brother overclocked it up to +3200)
Heatsink: Thermaltake (http://www.thermaltake.com/index.htm) Extreme Volcano 12 (My brother gave me that for Christmas)
Video Card: PowerColor (http://www.power-color.com/) RADEON 9800 Pro
Memory: 1GB RAM (I previously had 512MB RAM, then I got another stick of 512MB for Christmas)I'm sure this PC can run Doom3 (and maybe Half-Life 2; I haven't tried out the HL demo out yet)

[Razola]

Originally posted by Red Angel
If I were you, I'd upgrade RAM first. You want 512MB, maybe more.
512MB is currently the standard, but I predict it'll be the minimum by the end of the year. Best to go to a gig and save yourself the time.

[Lezta]

The problem here is budget. One stick of 512 = £60. That would give me 768 meg. To replace my old 256 stick AS well would cost another £60. That gives me about £30 to spend on a video card... (ain't gonna happen)

So I'd have the one gig. But I know for a fact my video card is getting worryingly out of date fast, and I also know that video cards are responsible for a good deal of performance when it concerns games.

I also know that to get anything that will last me a long time will cost me alot more than I have.

And Raz, Upgrading my processor is completly out of my budget; and unnessesary. Processors really don't count for much as long as you've got the RAM and video card to back it up.

[Razola]

You don't need to upgrade your processor. RAM and Video Card need it more anyways.

[Lezta]

Originally posted by Raz
Go ahead an your processor to 3 gig as well, to avoid having to upgrade earlier. .

:P

[Razola]

That was assuming you had the money. 2.6 will suffice if you don't.

[MetalScyther]

I'm not an expert on computers, but I wouldn't change your processor at all. I think at this point for most people, upgrading videocards/ram is more important, because 2.6Ghz is pretty damn fast. Shit, I'm running on an XP 2000+ which is like 1.67Ghz and that's doing fine for me.

I'd say that if you are willing to not have to play all the games with everything turned up, that buying an additional 256 stick of RAM(although 512MB works just as well - if your buying something, why not splurge a little more and get something great?) would be just fine. Whether your total is 512 or 768 RAM, you should be set. On a side note though - this may not be applicable anymore, but why the hell didn't you get rambus ram when you got your puter? IIIRC, rambus runs at like 533mhz with that P4 processor, making your stuff synchronized and running fast.

For a videocard, if you have to cheap out go for a 128MB Radeon 9200 - this is a lot better than the GF MX, especially since that GF doesn't even have DX8 support. If you have money leftover, which you should, what Raz said sounds good.

Keep note the above post is from a person who got all of his info from anandtech/tomshardware a year ago and hasn't been keeping up with the PC scene, so yeah. "]