[Polpolion]

Several people (okay, just ZMan) have been totally suprised when I say how much my computer stinks, and wanted to see my system specs, so here it is.

OS: Windows XP
Processer: Intel Celron Processer
897Mhz of something
Ram: 256mb
Graphics card: none; An Intel 82815 Graphics Controller is built into my mother board (gives me D3D,I think)
CD-ROM drive: Hypermedia, re-writeable burner, 52x24x52 seamless link thingy.
Hard Drive:71gb partitioned into 37/34gb, I can only use 37. (34 is incase I need to format)
Speakers: Big, old, chunky ones : HD-50 by Koss
Monitor: Philips 107S
Keyboard: regular 101/102 key; gateway
USB drives: 2 in back
Internet: DSL of some sort. I use the firefox browser.
Thingies you plug joysticks into: 1
Joystick: 1; don't know by who, 2 buttons, 2 axes gotta turn it before the game starts moving (I never use it)
Gamepad: 1; same company, 2 axes 4 buttons

umm.....I think thats it... let's see... I got a couple of PCI slots...yeah thats it.
You can start laughing at my horrible computer. I would buy stuff, but I'm saving my money.

  

[Fineus]

If it's any consolation, my dad still runs his business on a Pentium 2 350Mhz.

[Martinus]

If you're looking to run top end games then you're out of luck, if you're not then you have quite a substantial system. Your machine will run dos games and emulators for the 16 bit consoles quite well. You'll probably be able to run a lot of rather excellent games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2 etc. etc. and it will run 'productive' software as well.

As I mentioned in another thread I posted, I picked up a 450MHz P3 for nothing, my sister has it now and is making good use of it. It's not what you've got but how you use it afterall.

[vyper]

Your dad runs Nasa?

[Martinus]

Your dad runs Nasa?

What fictional superNASA have you read about?

They all run z80's wired into pocket calculators down at Huston.


BTW Sizzler, I'd start reading up on computer hardware. You don't seem to be familiar with some of the terminology and it's useful to know when you want to buy new parts.

[IPAndrews]

Your machine will run dos games and emulators for the 16 bit consoles quite well. You'll probably be able to run a lot of rather excellent games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2

Nah Deus Ex won't run well. I had a very similar (only slightly better) machine than that and it didn't run Dues Ex. Ironically it melted running System Shock 2. It wasn't a bad machine and as you say played emulators great. More than enough SNES and Genesis stuff out there to provide hours of fun. Even ran the Amiga emulaor (WinUAE) fairly well. In the end though my partner wanted to use the internet on it. Which meant upgrading the OS for security reasons. At that point a lot of run games that used to run under Windows 98 and 95 stopped working and my machine because a bit useless.

[CP5670]

Try to get a used 9200 PCI card for about $30 off ebay. It will still run older games well and will be 20x as fast as than the Intel thing. There aren't very many great modern games right now anyway.

Nah Deus Ex won't run well. I had a very similar (only slightly better) machine than that and it didn't run Dues Ex. Ironically it melted running System Shock 2. It wasn't a bad machine and as you say played emulators great. More than enough SNES and Genesis stuff out there to provide hours of fun. Even ran the Amiga emulaor (WinUAE) fairly well. In the end though my partner wanted to use the internet on it. Which meant upgrading the OS for security reasons. At that point a lot of run games that used to run under Windows 98 and 95 stopped working and my machine because a bit useless.

Deus Ex is surprisingly hardware intensive considering how old it is, making even newer systems struggle a little in some places. SS2 should work much better though and is available on HOTU. You actually have a better chance of getting that game to work properly on an older system. I can get it to run on my main machine but only in 640x480, in which it looks like crap, but it runs fine on my older computer.

[Martinus]

Nah Deus Ex won't run well. I had a very similar (only slightly better) machine than that and it didn't run Dues Ex. Ironically it melted running System Shock 2. It wasn't a bad machine and as you say played emulators great. More than enough SNES and Genesis stuff out there to provide hours of fun. Even ran the Amiga emulaor (WinUAE) fairly well. In the end though my partner wanted to use the internet on it. Which meant upgrading the OS for security reasons. At that point a lot of run games that used to run under Windows 98 and 95 stopped working and my machine because a bit useless.

I got Deus Ex to run on a 500MHz K6 with 256MB of RAM quite well, had a Geforce 2MX which my mate gave me, that replaced a Voodoo 3 2000. (I'm almost getting misty eyed, that was a great wee machine ).

[Ford Prefect]

Oh yeah?! *Spits*

Windows 2000
Pentium 3
RAM: 192 MB
Hard drive: 60 gigs

[Polpolion]

oh man... windows 2000...i wouldnt wish that on my worst enemy...

 
 

[Scuddie]

ORLY?

Emerson 386SX 16MHz
MS DOS 6.22
2MB RAM
40MB Hard drive
AdLib Sound Card

I don't think this one counts, though.

EDIT:
WTF?  Windows 2000 rocks!  Whatchatalkinbout sizzler?  Confusing Win2k with WinME?

[karajorma]

oh man... windows 2000...i wouldnt wish that on my worst enemy...

Sign of someone who doesn't know their MS OSs.

2k and XP are virtually the same OS. IF anything MS took a retrograde step with XP by trimming out lots of thngs 2k did well.

[Martinus]

Assuming you're not joking what do you use that machine for Scuddie?

I too can attest to win2K being rather great. I only grudgingly switched to WinXP when they refused to release a driver for some hardware I used and the games support was flakey.

[Scuddie]

Assuming you're not joking what do you use that machine for Scuddie?

I don't, but my nephew like to play Kings Quest games on it.  That machine does very old games quite well .

[Martinus]

It's good to see legacy gear still running and being of use. I'd probably have used it as a firewall or something, I bet it's really conservative on power compared to modern machines.

[Polpolion]

oh man... windows 2000...i wouldnt wish that on my worst enemy...

Sign of someone who doesn't know their MS OSs.









2k and XP are virtually the same OS. IF anything MS took a retrograde step with XP by trimming out lots of thngs 2k did well.

oh-well. I geuss I DO tend to hate things for no reason (macintosh, Ipod, gamecube, nintendo ds, Asian car companies, Bill Gates, Ohio...). But I still like (prefer) XP better.

P.S. I had 2k for couple years. Did NOT like it, but wasn't allowed to revert to 98, cuz my dad hid the CD while my hard drive was being formated.

[Flipside]

AMD 1400
256Mb Ram
Onboard Graphics
80Gig Drive

Admittedly, all that one does these days is sit there and be the Network server, but it IS actually possible to play EvE online with it

[Col. Fishguts]

Bah, all you kids with you modern fancy doodads. I gave my mom my old, old machine for Word and email purposes, still kicking to this day.

Cyrix PR200 (who remembers those?)
48 MB RAM
Matrox Mystique II
SoundBlaster 16
2 GB HDD

I have very fond memories of that machine, mainly from playing XvT and C&C Red Alert. But I also played FS1 on that thing, when I put a Voodoo2 in it.

[Rand al Thor]

Main computer now is an:

AthlonXP 2000+
WinXP
1GB Ram
nvidia GeCube Radeon 9200 128MB (Thats IS better than a Geforce Ti4200 64MB yeah? I just swapped em without really checking)
200GB & 60GB hard drives
Creative audio pci (I dont think Im even using that)

Its an alright machine for being a hunking mass produced piece of crap. And I ran Deus Ex on my old 300MHz P2 Dell with a voodoo2. Fairly low on the display settings but I played the entire game through comfortably enough.

I am Finally getting my OWN computer. No more family mucking it up.

[IceFire]

Main computer now is an:

AthlonXP 2000+
WinXP
1GB Ram
nvidia GeCube Radeon 9200 128MB (Thats IS better than a Geforce Ti4200 64MB yeah? I just swapped em without really checking)
200GB & 60GB hard drives
Creative audio pci (I dont think Im even using that)

Its an alright machine for being a hunking mass produced piece of crap. And I ran Deus Ex on my old 300MHz P2 Dell with a voodoo2. Fairly low on the display settings but I played the entire game through comfortably enough.

I am Finally getting my OWN computer. No more family mucking it up.

Ideally every member of the family should have their own computer.  In my family thats how it works...I have the top computer at the moment, my brother close behind (soon to be leapfrogging ahead), and my mom and dad each have their own that are fairly old handmedowns that still do everything they would ever need them to do.  We basically build old computers out of bits and pieces picked up here and there and that does a good job for basics like e-mail and basic web surfing.