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PC Upgrade

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:29 pm
by Collin922
Hey guys, my PC is horrible, and i can bearly run Guild Wars, I look forward in the future buying games like Guil Wars 2 and future battlefield's, but i worry and know for a fact my PC will not work at all on them, can you give me some tips or list of computers that are at a cheap price, good for gaming, and have the memory to hold games like battlefeild 2142 r guild wars 2, if oyu do i much appreciate your help, TY. :)

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:39 pm
by .Yunoko
Laptop or Desktop?

Also price range?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:40 pm
by civilchaos
Well you shouldn't have too much worries about memory if you PC has a decent enough processor and/or graphics card to support cutting edge games.

I'm not too sure of cheap gaming PC's, I have a 3.2 GHz CPU but I can't run Bioshock as I can't even run 3.0 shaders or whatever they are, where the up-to-date ones are at 4.0 now or something..

ATI used to be the leading graphics too but nowadays it seems nVidea is in the lead, tbh either one is good enough as long as you have a reasonably recent model, the best way to check this is by visiting their websites. (Just google their names)

The third factor you want to keep in mind is RAM, this is your virtual memory and these days anything less than a Gig I think is low-end.

I hope that helps, and if I'm chatting sh*t could someone please correct me :D

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:43 pm
by Collin922
.Yunoko wrote:Laptop or Desktop?

Also price range?

well since were talking about gaming i would perfer a desktop just wiht better control of aiming wiht the mouse than finger, and price range 1500 to 1000

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:43 pm
by .Yunoko
Anything with vista needs at least 2gigs.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:47 pm
by civilchaos
.Yunoko wrote:Anything with vista needs at least 2gigs.


I have to say this because I have had so many problems whenever I have used Vista, but please be wary of it, check it out a bit first and if you can, get XP.
The reason? Vista has already the worst history of bugs and hacks. It is the least safe for using as an OS and for going online. XP is far safer and is becoming less widely used so it should even start becoming even safer, yet still supported by most online communities like this one.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:59 pm
by .Yunoko
Vista is great I thought at first it sucked to but its a lot better then XP, just download things you shouldn't and what not and you are safe. I have had vista on my laptop and on one of my computers and no problems what so ever.

Anyways I'm guessing you want a computer not a laptop so I will look at some websites. But I still need a price range.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:03 pm
by civilchaos
fair enough, maybe i'm just being pessimistic, but the same thing happened with ME, most people including myself waited with 98 before making the upgrade to XP (which was pretty weird, and hard to get used to i'll admit).
and Collin992 said between 1000-1500..

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:04 pm
by Jar3tt
Build your own, there WAY cheaper that way:) Or just upgrade the one ur on now.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:02 pm
by farquezy
Jar3tt wrote:Build your own, there WAY cheaper that way:) Or just upgrade the one ur on now.
thats what everyone says
but its to hard..
i already tried and failed :(

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:23 am
by ace
Building a pc is pretty easy. We actually had sorta a small competition type thing in my CET I class last year, whoever disassembled and reassembled there old 233mhz IBM computer we all got from IBM (aren't they generous? /sarcasm) would pretty much not get ragged on all year long. Not much, but we all tried to real fast. And your looking at the winner right here 8). But you just need to take your time on your first one, research the parts, and read a lot of information on them. They have articles in pc magazines all the time on like "How to build your own gaming machine" and such.

And I noticed civilchoas said "RAM, this is your virtual memory". Nice one, lol. RAM is the actual little cards you stick into the RAM slots on your mobo. It's similar to virtual memory, but it isn't virtual. Virtual memory or paging file, is some space on your hard drive used as virtual RAM.

And correct me if I'm wrong but the shader version doesn't have anything to do with your processor speed. Has more to do with your video adapter.


But finding a gaming computer for 1000-1500 shouldn't be hard.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 5:22 am
by Darksleem
I built my pc without any previous experiance and i didnt even research. I just read they instructions that came wit the parts and my pc works fine. So it isnt that hard to build.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 2:16 pm
by Mr_Samsa
With that price range you should have no problem building a nice gaming rig. I would suggest the nvidia 8800 GT and at least 2GB of RAM. I would also suggest that while you're upgrading you step up to a 64-bit OS. I'm running 64-bit Vista Ultimate and I couldn't be happier with the performance I'm getting.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 2:24 pm
by Collin922
hey guys thanx for all your help, but is it possible i could buy parts and add them to my hardware and my pc and still make it bteer, while saving alot of money?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 2:35 pm
by Mr_Samsa
Collin922 wrote:hey guys thanx for all your help, but is it possible i could buy parts and add them to my hardware and my pc and still make it bteer, while saving alot of money?


Definitely. RAM is the easiest thing to upgrade so that would be the first thing I would do. You just pop them in and go, no drivers, nothing. Just instant performance boost. The other must is a graphics card. You just install it in an open slot (make sure you have the correct slot. Some older computers do not have PCI-e slots and must use AGP cards, so that's something you might want to check.) but once that's installed all that you have to do is install the latest driver and you should be set to go.

Do you think you could post your current specs so we could get an idea of where you need the biggest improvements?