Magmavision2000 Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 (edited) I know my PC can't play new games, but i'm wondering if it's good enough to play games made before 2010 (specs below). Edited March 9, 2020 by Magmavision2000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 (edited) What do you have for graphics? Is this a desktop or laptop? You have a fast enough CPU and enough RAM to play any modern game... but if you have a weak graphics processor you might be limited to low or medium graphics settings. Download a utility like GPU-Z and you should be able to find out what you have for a GPU. Edited March 9, 2020 by DragonGrafx-16 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmavision2000 Posted March 9, 2020 Author Share Posted March 9, 2020 43 minutes ago, DragonGrafx-16 said: What do you have for graphics? Is this a desktop or laptop? You have a fast enough CPU and enough RAM to play any modern game... but if you have a weak graphics processor you might be limited to low or medium graphics settings. Download a utility like GPU-Z and you should be able to find out what you have for a GPU. Thanks for suggesting that program, I added my GPU Specs to the original post. Also, my computer is a desktop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 1 minute ago, Magmavision2000 said: Thanks for suggesting that program, I added my GPU Specs to the original post. Also, my computer is a desktop. Desktop? You're in luck then! Stick in a real GPU and you'll be gaming! The VRAM (which I'm sure is shared with system RAM and is why you don't have a full 8GB available) being DDR2 is very limiting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 His CPU is 12 years old. Adding a better GPU won't get him rocking modern games, but stuff from 2008 - 2012 will mostly be fine on it. Anything past that won't run great and the GPU will be heavily bottle necked by his CPU. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 13 minutes ago, Austin said: His CPU is 12 years old. Adding a better GPU won't get him rocking modern games, but stuff from 2008 - 2012 will mostly be fine on it. Anything past that won't run great and the GPU will be heavily bottle necked by his CPU. I was playing modern games on an old Athlon X4 (and I mean as late as 2019 releases)... I think a 3GHz Core Duo would work just fine on modern games... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 Just now, DragonGrafx-16 said: I was playing modern games on an old Athlon X4 (and I mean as late as 2019 releases)... I think a 3GHz Core Duo would work just fine on modern games... That's an X4, a quad core CPU. He is on a dual core. Modern games more and more are favoring at least a few extra cores/threads. He's not going to have that flexibility. Yes, his system will technically "run" anything up until now, but running those games well is another story all together. His best bet is to invest in a cheap GPU from around 2012/2013 and run games meant for his hardware, then save his money and buy or build a new rig when he's ready. Or consider buying a modern console if he doesn't already have one. A PS4 or Xbox One will provide a better modern game experience than his 2008 PC will. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamemoose Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 I ran a Core 2 Quad with a 1 GB Radeon 6870 for a while. With modest settings I could play the first Tomb Raider (remake), Batman:Arkham Asylum, Just Cause 2 and such well. I was pretty happy with it. However, games that are big on physics like Rocket League and Amazing Frog multiplayer chug the system and Skyrim...forget it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 46 minutes ago, Gamemoose said: I ran a Core 2 Quad with a 1 GB Radeon 6870 for a while. With modest settings I could play the first Tomb Raider (remake), Batman:Arkham Asylum, Just Cause 2 and such well. I was pretty happy with it. Yep, that's the era I am thinking of. With a decent enough GPU he will be able to run those games fine. Something like a Radeon 6970 (2GB) or Nvidia equivalent would be enough to get his current PC running those games quite well. Even a 1GB card from then would be a welcome change, and it won't cost much either. And actually, come to think of it, I might even have my old 1GB card from 2009 (Radeon 4000 series? I don't remember) that I could consider getting rid of if Magma is interested. Will have to dig around for it. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xenomorpher Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 A nice channel on YouTube is LowSpecGamer: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQkd05iAYed2-LOmhjzDG6g It's impressive just what he can get to run on under-powered hardware. You'll still be able to run a nice collection of older titles with what you have, and GOG has a very lenient refund policy if a game doesn't run as well as you'd like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 On 3/8/2020 at 10:51 PM, Gamemoose said: I ran a Core 2 Quad with a 1 GB Radeon 6870 for a while. With modest settings I could play the first Tomb Raider (remake), Batman:Arkham Asylum, Just Cause 2 and such well. I was pretty happy with it. However, games that are big on physics like Rocket League and Amazing Frog multiplayer chug the system and Skyrim...forget it. I played Skyrim just fine on my 2.6GHz Athlon X4 system with a 512MB GPU and it ran just fine... now this was the original release without HD textures, but it still looked better than the 360 version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agamon Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 On 3/10/2020 at 1:30 AM, xenomorpher said: It's impressive just what he can get to run on under-powered hardware. You'll still be able to run a nice collection of older titles with what you have, and GOG has a very lenient refund policy if a game doesn't run as well as you'd like. Has the policy changed in the past couple years? I remember getting Sea Dogs from them a couple years ago and I tried booting it up right away and it wouldn't even start. I contacted support and they were all <elmoshrug.gif> I love GOG, and buy from them when I can because DRM is the devil's tool, but I always make sure I'm either spending an amount that I don't care if it is basically thrown away, or that what I buy will definitely work... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamemoose Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said: I played Skyrim just fine on my 2.6GHz Athlon X4 system with a 512MB GPU and it ran just fine... now this was the original release without HD textures, but it still looked better than the 360 version. It was about two years ago I tried Syrim on this rig. I did fiddle with settings but it just didn't want to run right and I didn't dig into it much further like I know I could have. The updated release with those textures wouldn't even play-the game just closed. I never had the time then to really diagnose the issue as I didn't have a permanent spot for my tower. So it might have just been my rig with me figuring "it's an Elder Scrolls game...it wants more than I have". Edited March 11, 2020 by Gamemoose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 Older hardware can do alright. Before my upgrade with my new system this past summer, I had been using a 2nd gen i5-2500k that I had running at 3.8ghz. Paired it with 16gb DDR3 RAM and before getting the new system, I had a GTX 1070 in it. I was able to play Mad Mad at 4k in medium mode very well with that setup. So even that PC running on decade old tech (minus the GPU), was still a high graphics 1080P system and even 1440P in the case of the Borderlands GOTY versions. So yeah...with the right older tech you can still do alright. I would have kept using it but that older i5 was showing its age on video rendering tasks taking well over an hour for something my new i7 can do in half that time or faster in some cases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 1 hour ago, -^CrossBow^- said: Older hardware can do alright. Before my upgrade with my new system this past summer, I had been using a 2nd gen i5-2500k that I had running at 3.8ghz. Paired it with 16gb DDR3 RAM and before getting the new system, I had a GTX 1070 in it. I was able to play Mad Mad at 4k in medium mode very well with that setup. So even that PC running on decade old tech (minus the GPU), was still a high graphics 1080P system and even 1440P in the case of the Borderlands GOTY versions. So yeah...with the right older tech you can still do alright. I would have kept using it but that older i5 was showing its age on video rendering tasks taking well over an hour for something my new i7 can do in half that time or faster in some cases. Hyper-threading rendering is amazing! Not as CPU heavy as rendering video but my hex core 4.8GHz i7 8700k can render an entire song in 30 seconds or less... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 Actually...the 9th gen i7 processors do not have hyperthreading. My CPU only shows 8 cores period. But that is still better than the 4 cores my older i5 had. But yeah...only the 9th gen i9 series and extreme series have hyperthreading enabled this current generation. I knew that going in but that is why your 8th gen 8700k is able to likely beat out my 9700k in render heavy tasks. While my i7 is running at 5ghz currently, it drops down to 4.8 - 4.6ghz on heavy task loads and that is with my voltage at 1.35 already which is the max my MB will send to it. But that is still better than the 3.8 I was able to maintain with my older i5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 39 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said: Actually...the 9th gen i7 processors do not have hyperthreading. My CPU only shows 8 cores period. But that is still better than the 4 cores my older i5 had. But yeah...only the 9th gen i9 series and extreme series have hyperthreading enabled this current generation. I knew that going in but that is why your 8th gen 8700k is able to likely beat out my 9700k in render heavy tasks. While my i7 is running at 5ghz currently, it drops down to 4.8 - 4.6ghz on heavy task loads and that is with my voltage at 1.35 already which is the max my MB will send to it. But that is still better than the 3.8 I was able to maintain with my older i5. I had no idea the new i7 did not have hyper-threading... what a downgrade... lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 32 minutes ago, DragonGrafx-16 said: I had no idea the new i7 did not have hyper-threading... what a downgrade... lol Yeap...here is the comparison chart between the i7 8th gen vs current 9th gen. As you can see only the X series version using the 2066 socket has any HT on it. All i9 CPUs can do it but yeah. This gen Intel only allows the highest end CPUs to have HT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Pendleton Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 You can run StarCraft, and that's all you need. Best part is that it's now free! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xenomorpher Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 17 hours ago, Agamon said: Has the policy changed in the past couple years? I remember getting Sea Dogs from them a couple years ago and I tried booting it up right away and it wouldn't even start. I contacted support and they were all <elmoshrug.gif> I love GOG, and buy from them when I can because DRM is the devil's tool, but I always make sure I'm either spending an amount that I don't care if it is basically thrown away, or that what I buy will definitely work... They just recently changed it to 30 days even if you've downloaded the game. It might change since a number of people will obviously take advantage of this. If you're having issues, I recommend posting in their forums to see if something pops up that can help make your game run. I'm not familiar with that game, but I can scrounge online and see if I can find anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agamon Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 5 hours ago, xenomorpher said: They just recently changed it to 30 days even if you've downloaded the game. It might change since a number of people will obviously take advantage of this. If you're having issues, I recommend posting in their forums to see if something pops up that can help make your game run. I'm not familiar with that game, but I can scrounge online and see if I can find anything. Well, duh, how did I already forget their new policy, lol. I found out that it was a known issue, but it was one of the older games that I got on sale for a couple bucks, so not a big deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToddL Posted March 17, 2020 Share Posted March 17, 2020 I recently bought a Dell Optiplex mini tower with i5-3570, 500GB HD, 8GB RAM for $121 on eBay (with Windows 10 64bit activated). I upgraded the GPU to GTX 750 for $32. So I spent $153 (including tax & shipping). Haven't tested it on recently released games yet, but it seems to meet at least the minimum on most things I've looked up. Older games (early 2010s) play great on high settings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmavision2000 Posted May 12, 2020 Author Share Posted May 12, 2020 I going to give a quick update. I got into a WW2 shooter kick (probably my brain subconsciously celebrating D-Day) and downloaded Battlefield 1942, it runs almost perfectly with little to no lag (I know it's not a very demanding game, but I thought my PC was worse than a potato). I'm gonna try World at War even though I'm not very optimistic about it running good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 I'm looking at my copy of World at War right now... it can run on a 3GHz Pentium 4 with 512MB of RAM and a GPU with 256MB of VRAM you'll be fine... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 Actually there's a good chance World at War will be entirely unplayable. Over 5 years ago I was at the time using an i5 laptop with that sandybridge setup that used the Intel HD3000 graphics that could borrow up to 1.5GB of RAM for 2D/3D video and it was a mixed but mostly good bag situation. Most game engines ran great and the games ran at full/near full frame, and more intense for then stuff like Civ5 would run solid on MED settings. But, the custom engine that CoD used with WaW that was also the one MW1-2 used, something with how it did Hardware T&L would make the intel graphics grind to a single digit frame per second ticking stop and go mess and entirely unplayable. I doubt that set showing on that image from a few months back is going to have a chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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