Time to upgrade? Check this

[Mehen]

I dunno if this will be any help to any gamers out there, but here goes:

This is based on my current setup, its sort of what I can and cannot run, settings etc.

Pentium 4 HT 3.0E (Prescott) @ 3.45 (single core).
1GB DDR
AGP X1950PRO 256mb

Preferably I like to run things at 1280x1024, high quality/detail, AA if possible.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - 1280 high works fine, some slow down with high action. no AA.

Call of Duty 4 - runs quite well and looks awesome, 1280 high 2-4xAA

Unreal Tournament 3 - silky smooth at 1280 high quality with 5-8 bots. Slight slowdown with more bots added.

Crysis - can get frustrating at 1280 medium quality during firefights, and unfortunately doesn't look too great when you lower the detail and res.

Supreme Commander - can play at 1280 medium quality but only VERY SMALL maps with a couple AI, and the games must finish quick or they slow down to a completely unplayable pace.

Jericho - 1280 high no AA runs great. Game is so-so though.

Hellgate: London Demo - never a whole lot onscreen at a time in the demo, but runs perfect 1280 high quality

Bioshock - 1280 high, no AA, runs decent enough, slowdown at parts, but playable, looks great.

Quake Wars Enemy Terriotory - not that great of a game - don't bother unless you really like this type. Runs ok 1280 medium, more video and system memory would be nice. Looks like #$!@ with low settings which is the main concern, and I really like high framerates for multiplayer games.

Older games like Quake4/Doom3, Far Cry, FEAR, Half-life 2, UT2k4 all run and look fantastic, 1280, high, 2-4xAA

[Nowhere]

Obviously I'm in no position to give any advice (XP 1700+, 768MB, Radeon 8500 here after all...), but...could you tell me the adress of dumpster you're using?

OK, I'll give a bad (MURC-wise) one - what about forcing yourself to like lower res and details?

PS. Is it actually true that in more developed nations than PL people often just throw out such machines? :/ (and sometimes not because it's much too old, but "broken" by malware?)

edit: typos

[Mehen]

id rather just play a different game than lower the res. Some games just look TERRIBLE. Doom3/quake4 scale nicely to lower res, and HL2 is not bad, but games like battlefield, qwet, just look terrible.

I will be selling most of my current computer in May, first I will see if any of my friends here in Winnipeg want it, if not I'll offer it up here for cheap. Last resort is ebay. You can have first dibs on it if I sell it on the MURC - provided we can find a decent priced shipping method.
What I would be selling is: RAM Corsair 2x512mb PC3700, ASUS P4C 800 Deluxe, P4 3.0E, HIS X1950PRO, and possibly my PSU. But again, that won't be till May-ish.

[Nowhere]

...provided we can find a decent priced shipping method.
...

SImply put - impossible.

Anyway last upgrade for this machine will be sooner...it seems it should be possible to play Hellgate: London, after upgrading to gf7600gs / ati x1650 (I'm a bit lost as to which one too choose...or if to consider also HD2400/waiting for gf8500). Probably tha's pretty much everything I want before "discarding" the computer and getting, more mobile, laptop, better suited to mobile style of life.

(sorry about hijacking, I'll better shut up now )

[Mehen]

if you can get your budget up to a 7900gs/X1950pro you'd see a huge improvement.

[Umfriend]

Just finished NWN2 - MotB. When installing they mentioned that they'd done some optimisations and I think that is true: Gfx run quite a bit faster now on our latpop (T2200, 1 gig, Vista, GeForce 7400 Go). Game is nice BTW. Ran 1440x900.

[knirfie]

Supreme Commander - can play at 1280 medium quality but only VERY SMALL maps with a couple AI, and the games must finish quick or they slow down to a completely unplayable pace.

Supreme Commander really needs a multi-core processor for long play sessions in large maps. I can get up to 60-70% load on my quad core...

[Evildead666]

Yup, I agree.

Quite a lot of the new games have a massive hit on single core systems...
I can just about play any game in high , No AA with my config, but its getting to the point that I can't push it any further, and I have a 22in 16/10 TFt, which doesn't do any other resolution correctly...

Crysis, looks like when I first saw Farcry. I had a 9500Pro back then. and a 2500+.

If I were you, i'd hang on for as long as possible, but put some money aside every week. Makes it easier when you have to splodge out the cash if its already been alotted for it