Gaming help

[Dena]

You have just stepped into the great Apple/IBM debate which I admit is off topic. My Apple system can run 8 thread with each thread being the same as a single processor before the days of multi threading process chips. I also have two graphic processor and each graphic processor is able to do the same amount of work as the 8 threads combined. Graphic processors are simple computers and not able to do all the functions of a normal processor chip but what they do, they do well and fast. Sometime games and (in my case) others software is designed to take advantage of the calculation power of more than one graphic processor. If you are a real power user, it may pay to put more money into a faster graphics processor and not worry about the computer as much.

You need to look at your budget and decide what your desires and needs are. Often a less expensive computer becomes obsolete pretty fast for power stuff but will be fine for a long time viewing sites like Susan's. When I purchased my Apple computer, I could have bought one with more processor cores but 4 giving me 8 threads was enough for my needs. The graphics processor also came in a more powerful flavor but the software I wanted it for didn't take advantage of the features of the more powerful  graphic processor. As the result, I saved money and still found a system that matched my needs.

I suggest you make a list of what you wish to run now and in the future so the others can suggest a prepackaged system or one you can easily modify that would meet your needs. If you have budget considerations, mention those as well.

[Cin]

As far as I can tell, Internet browsing and movies are handled well by most systems, including mine, that tells me they don't need much.

I guess my requirements would be to play skyrim or gta 5 cause I hear a lot of good stuff about them. Also I would like them to play huge videos well like they do now, for 5 more years.

I think I'm completely out of my depth here, It's pretty complicated stuff to me, but it's been fun, and I need to know if my pc is really too old and I should get a new one altogether.

So if someone's graphics card is 1080, that makes mine seem really weak since there is such a big difference in number.

[Kitty June]

Just to weigh in. 
I have a 2001 MacBook Pro with the duel core processor and I forgot what graphics card. I use that for music recording and it still works great for what I do.
For gaming however it is useless unless you don't mind everything set to low and a lot of lag.
For gaming I have a tower with an i7 and only a single graphics card. I don't play heavily so it suits my needs just fine.
If I were to purchase a computer now, I'd just check the recommended system requirements for the game you want to play and then shop for something equal to or a little better. That should keep you going for a few years.
Oh, I also use my iPhone as a preamp on my live stage rig. I'd love an iPad for that but Apple Just costs too much [emoji20]

[Cin]

Just to weigh in. 
If I were to purchase a computer now, I'd just check the recommended system requirements for the game you want to play and then shop for something equal to or a little better. That should keep you going for a few years.
Oh, I also use my iPhone as a preamp on my live stage rig. I'd love an iPad for that but Apple Just costs too much [emoji20]

Thank you. That seems like a very good practical solution.

[Raye]

A while back ago I bought a very used Dell D630 great for listening to music and browsing the web, but not good for gaming. I upgraded RAM to 4GB DDR2, replaced the heat sink, cooling fan, + upgraded The CPU. I'm looking to increases that to 8GB which I can utilize with reinstalling Windows 7 32 Bit to 64 Bit. And replace the Mechanical to a Solid State Drive it'll smoother then at that point. I've already upgraded the BIOS so it can handle W7 64 well. The reason why I went with an older model was for schooling in my engineering courses and to keep track of my chemical measurement data. So I didn't mind that it was an old machine, but it can play OSRS + Morrowind very well.

As for the term GeForce GTX it's just Nvidia's product brand of GPU's. The 660 System only cost me 500 to build extremely cheap and a decent system. Like I said my ASUS GeForce GTX 660 can play Skyrim on High settings very decently. As for my 980 I got it for free from someone who owed me money. At the time she bought it brand new it cost her 650. I think right now on EBAY they go for a few 100 bucks.

[Angelyng357]

I'm still confused, it says geforce 210 in some places and Intel graphics in other places. I don't know which is better either. It appears some of you have multiple graphics cards and they're as expensive as my pc?  my whole pc os cheaper than a 980 or whatever.

That is referring to your CPU, since Intel has built in graphics on their processors.  however, it can not measure up to a graphics card, as a GPU is used to take the strain off the CPU for graphics.

[Cin]

A while back ago I bought a very used Dell D630 great for listening to music and browsing the web, but not good for gaming. I upgraded RAM to 4GB DDR2, replaced the heat sink, cooling fan, + upgraded The CPU. I'm looking to increases that to 8GB which I can utilize with reinstalling Windows 7 32 Bit to 64 Bit. And replace the Mechanical to a Solid State Drive it'll smoother then at that point. I've already upgraded the BIOS so it can handle W7 64 well. The reason why I went with an older model was for schooling in my engineering courses and to keep track of my chemical measurement data. So I didn't mind that it was an old machine, but it can play OSRS + Morrowind very well.

As for the term GeForce GTX it's just Nvidia's product brand of GPU's. The 660 System only cost me 500 to build extremely cheap and a decent system. Like I said my ASUS GeForce GTX 660 can play Skyrim on High settings very decently. As for my 980 I got it for free from someone who owed me money. At the time she bought it brand new it cost her 650. I think right now on EBAY they go for a few 100 bucks.

That 660 sounds pretty good,

I found a friend's laptop that meets my requirements, it has i5 and 940m. I think it's good enough for me.

[Cin]

That is referring to your CPU, since Intel has built in graphics on their processors.  however, it can not measure up to a graphics card, as a GPU is used to take the strain off the CPU for graphics.

Thank you, it seems games run on 210 automatically.

[Raye]

You can get one off EBAY for about 75-90 dollar range, but I wouldn't go as far to purchasing one till you decided if you wanted to go with a console or just build a PC. I actually love my PS4, but it seems to be out of commission currently. I managed to solder of the poor HDMI Port (off), but without a better Lead-Free Solder Iron I won't be able to solder the new one on yet. So right now I've placed it on the back burner (in storage). I actually got mine new for 300 bucks after I got my 25% Discount working the Black Friday Sales hehe ^^ I made a fort + I called it! FORT BOXMOUTH!


I know I haz 'issues', but Fort Boxmouth would not survive the battle for long for it to be sacked too easily to the rabid barbarians sacking the village square of the Meat District it would seem.

[EmilyMK03]

Cin,

I've been reading over your responses in this thread.  You've mentioned a number of games that you enjoyed playing and/or wish to play in the future:

Grand Theft Auto series
Saints Row series
Fable
Far Cry 2
Skyrim

These are all games that were released on both PC and console platforms.  If these are the types of games that you'll continue to want to play, you're probably better off abandoning the PC gaming platform and playing them on a console instead.  Just buy a PS4 or Xbox One, and you'll be set for a long time, for a fraction of the cost of a gaming PC.

Usually people who buy and build gaming PCs do so for games that are exclusive to the PC... games such as World of Warcraft (and other popular Blizzard games), the Civilization games, and the upcoming Star Citizen, to name a few.  There are also some edge cases where some games look better on the PC than the console (but you need to really spend big bucks to do that).  Or some people may prefer to play a game on the PC instead of a console so they can modify the game with user-created mods (this was common in Skyrim)... but given your background I doubt you will want to do this.  Or in some cases people will play a game on the PC instead of a console so they can play the game in 3D (also very rare).

But for you, your needs are simple, and the games you want to play are cross-platform.  Just buy a PS4 or Xbox One and forget about PC gaming for now.  You can play all your favorite games without the need for a gaming PC (it makes me sad to say that, because I've always preferred PC gaming, but I can't deny the reality of the gaming industry these days).

[Cin]

It seems console gaming Is best for me, as installing / playing games is simple and straightforward. I tried looking into upgrades but my knowledge is extremely limited.

[Raye]

It seems console gaming Is best for me, as installing / playing games is simple and straightforward. I tried looking into upgrades but my knowledge is extremely limited.

Like I said I love my PS4 if I got it running I would have played that over my PC. I have some really nice games for it that aren't available on XOne OR PC/Mac/Linux. Like SAO LOL.

[Madison (kiara jamie)]

I guess my requirements would be to play skyrim or gta 5 cause I hear a lot of good stuff about them. Also I would like them to play huge videos well like they do now, for 5 more years.

ok so i checked for you and it seems you should be able to play skyrim in the minimum requirements situation, but only by the skin of your teeth

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/11231

as for gta 5 the only places that you fail to meet the minimum requirements is definetly the ram requires at least 4gb, so you could just buy some larger ram sticks and replace them, but the cpu is a bit short also

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/grand-theft-auto-v/12455

I'm still confused, it says geforce 210 in some places and Intel graphics in other places. I don't know which is better either. It appears some of you have multiple graphics cards and they're as expensive as my pc?  my whole pc os cheaper than a 980 or whatever.

one thing that seems worrying about what you said about your graphics being intel graphics or geforce 210 makes me wonder if you have your graphics drivers installed correctly, i believe this is the link for your graphics drivers

32 bit os
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/99992/en-us

64 bit os
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/99994/en-us


updating your drivers is the best option to help your pc and it doesn't cost much, hope i helped



Madison

[Madison (kiara jamie)]

oh and by the way......consoles......ewww, spits on the ground in disgust

jk lol


Madison

[Cin]

ok so i checked for you and it seems you should be able to play skyrim in the minimum requirements situation, but only by the skin of your teeth

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/11231

as for gta 5 the only places that you fail to meet the minimum requirements is definetly the ram requires at least 4gb, so you could just buy some larger ram sticks and replace them, but the cpu is a bit short also

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/grand-theft-auto-v/12455


one thing that seems worrying about what you said about your graphics being intel graphics or geforce 210 makes me wonder if you have your graphics drivers installed correctly, i believe this is the link for your graphics drivers

32 bit os
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/99992/en-us

64 bit os
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/99994/en-us


updating your drivers is the best option to help your pc and it doesn't cost much, hope i helped



Madison

Thank you, my old driver was a hundred version less than this new one...?? Like it went from 143 to 264 or something. I don't remember updating drivers at all, I don't know why.

That link is cool too, it seems like reading that minimum requirements gives a good idea of where my pc is lacking.

[Cin]

Like I said I love my PS4 if I got it running I would have played that over my PC. I have some really nice games for it that aren't available on XOne OR PC/Mac/Linux. Like SAO LOL.

You had getting trouble getting Ps4 to run on your TV? Lol sorry, I don't understand what gaming terms mean. What is Sao? 

[Cin]

My driver went from 200 to 300+ and I'm seeing better performance on far cry 2, but it still didn't run the new tomb raider, which I got for free, lol.

[Raye]

You had getting trouble getting Ps4 to run on your TV? Lol sorry, I don't understand what gaming terms mean. What is Sao? 

OH LOL nothing of the sorts it always ran on the TV, but taking it for trips and placing an HDMI Cable in and out doesn't help. SAO is Sword Art Online, they've made a 'decently' fun game from the series that correlates with the show + the previous game on the PSP into the PS4. If you look at the image you'll see what I'm talking about.




Honestly this is some nice circuitry that I've not seen in a long time from Sony.

My driver went from 200 to 300+ and I'm seeing better performance on far cry 2, but it still didn't run the new tomb raider, which I got for free, lol.

For the later, you sure that wasn't a firmware update? I mean you download + update drivers, which handle the hardware in your system. If they are out of date the game won't play as well due to the work + technology put into developing the game. On top of other things 'not' game related every driver will have bugs so the next driver download may or may not be a patch fix or optimization of the hardware that is being handled by the 'current' driver. So basically... Same hardware, different handler.

[Cin]

Raye, My desktop is 4-5 years old I think and this is the first time I've updated graphics drivers. Lol. I Don't know what firmware means lol, and I hope I'm not making everyone scratch their heads.  updating drivers is something that never came to my mind for some reasons

Updating my driver seems to have made games that can run, run even better but it can't help with games that require more ram or better graphics I think. Some games are helpful cause they tell you your computer is not good enough.

I'm thankful for all the replies and help, I definitely know more than I did before starting this thread.

[Raye]

Raye, My desktop is 4-5 years old I think and this is the first time I've updated graphics drivers. Lol. I Don't know what firmware means lol, and I hope I'm not making everyone scratch their heads.

Firmware is basically free software for download. You gotta be careful where you get your FW Updates from. Because some of them may be bug-ridden with viruses if not taken directly from the source of your product. Or worse and not fully completed by the company - missing some important data. That's why I always download Updates from Windows, ASUS, Nvidia, + Corsair for the 'official' FW Downloads to my hardware.

updating drivers is something that never came to my mind for some reasons
Updating my driver seems to have made games that can run, run even better but it can't help with games that require more ram or better graphics I think. Some games are helpful cause they tell you your computer is not good enough.

And that's the case with 'most' FW Updates to fix the pre-existing issues. Issues that weren't properly addressed or ran out of time and the update needed to be put out. It's fairly common for FWU's to not be fully bug free upon release because of time constraints and the demand for the update. Which may or not critically affect the device or system being handled. Seriously I'm still new to computers... I never had a computer to myself until 2012 when I got my first laptop! It was either using a machine with Windows ME or Windows XP at the time to surf the web when growing up.

I was taking a look at New Egg for ya earlier, they're not the best PC's by any means, but albeit it'll be much better than what your running right now. Now they're not too fancy or pretty, but they're workable. IF you do decide to go the PC Route. Now because they are pre-built and your limited to customization/optimization when it comes to certain parts of hardware, but they should run your games much better than what your using right now.


AMD System [DDR3] ($429.99):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229285

AMD System [DDR3] ($459.99):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229362

INTEL System [DDR4] ($499.99):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883230097

I picked these two mostly because of budget range and most reviews written on them. Now I didn't read the reviews, but usually when I pick parts to build my systems I look at that. It tells me numerous of things that may or may not be important to me. There's a whole lot of explanations on that, but I'm sure Dena could give a better answer on the complexity of that statement. Simply I'm really poor with my communication skills when explaining stuff that I'm still fairly new to. When I build a PC it's using my Electro-Mechanical VS. Computer Engineering Skills, which I lack more of in. So I typically look for functionality and/or flexibility of minimization of unneeded electricity.

I'm thankful for all the replies and help, I definitely know more than I did before starting this thread.

Your very welcome! Don't be afraid to ask these types of questions I feel as if it's a fresh breeze coming through these forums, which is sometimes rare. And I'm quite sure many of us don't mind giving help on those types of issues from time to time.