Any good games I can play with these specs?

[Turbonium]

Browsers are ram pigs for sure. I'm just saying it will run fine when you're dealing with old games of that era. Anything else and he's pretty much screwed.

Back in the day, 2GB was considered the sweet spot for XP and gaming. It's a 32-bit OS so you can't use more than 4GB. I'm assuming it's a Prescott core, best case scenario, which makes it circa 2005. Since it has a DVD writer, that's likely. Fortunately, DDR doesn't seem to be as expensive as used to be. Newegg has a pair of 2GB G.Skill sticks for $40. They've got the lower latency ones for $50 but I don't think it's worth it for this rig.

For graphics, I think the best GPU you can get would be the Radeon HD 3870, which IIRC were the last batch of cards for AGP. For some reason they're going for a lot of money on eBay. They're long arse cards though and I suspect this is some crappy HP desktop. Might not fit in the case.

In terms of CPU upgrades, it might be able to support up to a Prescott HT 550, which is a 3.4ghz hyperthreading model. No guarantees though. OP, could you download CPU-Z and tell us what it says?

The real question is whether it's worth it to upgrade this rig at all. It definitely needs more RAM and a better GPU. You're looking at about $100 right there. Might as well just buy a referb console at that point, or start saving for a new rig. Even the cheapest Dells will mop the floor with this thing.

It's S478, so Northwood afaik; mobo won't take that more modern P4 you suggested. Even Willamettes had DVD writers.

Honestly, he should take my RAM offer, and maybe put a cheap AGP4X card in there for no more than 25 bucks off eBay.

 

[IEC]

That system must be at least a DECADE old.

Look for games 2004 and prior...

 

[Red Hawk]

Trying to games to run on that PC with its current hardware will be an exercise in futility; I know, I tried getting games to work on a Intel 82845G back when it was still fairly current. You can forget about playing anything released in the last 10 years. The best thing would really be a new system altogether, but if that's not an option, you need to at least get a couple 1 GB sticks of DDR RAM and a half decent graphics card like a 3870 that mmntech mentioned.

You really should just save your money for a new system though; even a cheap current generation Pentium system would be better.

 

[Paladin3]

Until about a year ago I used to game on a similar system with the exact same P4 2.66 cpu. I ran windows 7 and had 2gb of memory in it, along with a Radeon x1600 pro video card @ 1440x900.

I played a lot of Counter Strike:Source & Day of Defeat:Source on that system.

I'd grab the memory Turbonium is kindly offering. Then go lurk in freebies thread in the for Free Stuff forum and see if someone has an old APG video card they no longer need.

There are a ton of great games that will play on that system. GoG.com is your friend.

 

[Turbonium]

Trying to games to run on that PC with its current hardware will be an exercise in futility; I know, I tried getting games to work on a Intel 82845G back when it was still fairly current. You can forget about playing anything released in the last 10 years. The best thing would really be a new system altogether, but if that's not an option, you need to at least get a couple 1 GB sticks of DDR RAM and a half decent graphics card like a 3870 that mmntech mentioned.

You really should just save your money for a new system though; even a cheap current generation Pentium system would be better.

A 3870 would be so badly bottlenecked by that CPU though. That's why I recommended a cheap 25 dollar (or cheaper) card off eBay. Spending any more than that amount on such a system makes little sense imho, and is better spent towards a new system, like you said.

You can find things like a Radeon 9500/9600/9700 Pro for 20 bucks or less after shipping on eBay (card performance is: 9700 > 9500 > 9600).

That would make for a balanced legacy system. You may even be able to play some CS:Source on low settings.

 

[Revolution 11]

Turbo is right. Grab his RAM, pair that system with a Radeon 9700, and profit. My Pentium 4 has a Radeon 9800 Pro and most games before late 2005 / early 2006 will work well.

 

[mmntech]

It's S478, so Northwood afaik; mobo won't take that more modern P4 you suggested. Even Willamettes had DVD writers.

Honestly, he should take my RAM offer, and maybe put a cheap AGP4X card in there for no more than 25 bucks off eBay.

Eww, yuk. I'm not as familiar with the Intel stuff of that era as I am with AMD. They did make a few Prescotts for 478 though. Depends whether the BIOS supports them. I do recommend the OP take up your offer though. Free parts are never a bad thing.

In this situation, I still say it's better off to buy a console. With the next gen systems coming out next month, you'll be able to score cheap PS3s and 360s cheap from the usual places. Military games are a dime a dozen on those platforms. Any game you buy is going to look and play substantially better on those systems, unless the OP is only interested in old games. Though we are members of the PC gaming master race, you have to admit some people are just better off with consoles. They're low maintenance, there's no questions over whether a game will run, and they tend to age gracefully.

Really, that computer belongs in a dumpster or grandma's basement. You could probably slap together a basic modern gaming PC without spending too much. I'd go with a cheap Hudson D3 mobo with an A6 Trinity processor. 8GB of RAM. Walk out of there with all the parts, plus Windows 8, for under $500. It's doable. People spend more on tablets and smartphones.

 

[Turbonium]

Eww, yuk. I'm not as familiar with the Intel stuff of that era as I am with AMD. They did make a few Prescotts for 478 though. Depends whether the BIOS supports them. I do recommend the OP take up your offer though. Free parts are never a bad thing.

In this situation, I still say it's better off to buy a console. With the next gen systems coming out next month, you'll be able to score cheap PS3s and 360s cheap from the usual places. Military games are a dime a dozen on those platforms. Any game you buy is going to look and play substantially better on those systems, unless the OP is only interested in old games. Though we are members of the PC gaming master race, you have to admit some people are just better off with consoles. They're low maintenance, there's no questions over whether a game will run, and they tend to age gracefully.

Really, that computer belongs in a dumpster or grandma's basement. You could probably slap together a basic modern gaming PC without spending too much. I'd go with a cheap Hudson D3 mobo with an A6 Trinity processor. 8GB of RAM. Walk out of there with all the parts, plus Windows 8, for under $500. It's doable. People spend more on tablets and smartphones.

Socket 478 Prescotts are 800FSB afaik. His chip is 533FSB iirc, so no way the mobo supports it; it's not just the BIOS that needs to, but the power specs of the board also. Even the first Intel board that was supposed to support Prescott as well as Northwood (D875PBZ) ended up not doing so in early revisions for this very reason (power requirements).

I used a P4 system for about 8 years, hence this archaic knowledge.

Anyway, there's a Radeon 9500 Pro for literally a dollar on eBay right now, with free shipping. He should jump on it.

 

[robvp]

zork :awe:

in all seriousness, i remember running a p4 1.7ghz with 384mb of ram and putting a 9800pro on it, i think i didnt even run xp back then, kinda dumb in retrospective, eventually i upgraded to an athlon 64 and 1gb of ram, good times

 

[jeffr0]

With those specs go old school. Unreal Tournament. BF 1942. Half Life.

Exactly what I did. Thanks!

 

[mjd]

Nethack on the nethack server (via telnet/putty): http://alt.org/nethack/

 

[FalseChristian]

There's no way you'll be able to play RTCW or any other Quake III-engined game. You might be able to play GLQuake and Quake II. Also, Half-life and Soldier of Fortune. The original Unreal was way ahead of its time and, no, you're 'computer' will not play this game well, either.