Help needed - just starting out...

[Smoggy1985]

Hi all,

Wondered if I could ask for some help? I am about to embark on my PC gaming life, not really played many PC games for a long time. Looking to get onto Skyrim and Morrowind to start with. However, not sure my PC would work, in fact, I know it won't. Wanted to ask though, do I just need a decent graphics card to get up and running or start with a new PC? Would be looking to get involved with mods etc too, enjoy the games as fully as I can.

My current specs are: (Please let me know if you need more info!)
RAM: 4gb
Processor: Intel Pentium CPU G360 @ 2.7ghz
64 bit operating system (Windows 7)
No decent graphics card in there - is it worth buying one or getting a new PC?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[SunnyD]

Morrowind will play okay. Skyrim... nope.

You'll want more ram and a dedicated video card at the very least.

 

[sweenish]

General hardware will be the better place to ask.

 

[Omar F1]

Get a Steam account and try to catch them on a good deal.

Morrorwind is very old game, you sure would start with it?
A lot would agree to better jump over Skyrim directly.

One advice, get a 27" IPS monitor, if the budget allows. (it translated my PC experience into another era)

 

[DigDog]

lol@ 27" IPS. thats a really great suggestion for someone on a G360 and no GPU. classic portrait of the multimillionaire.

OP, your system is ok for older games, it wont cut it with new ones. 4Gb of ram will do for now, it only excludes you from some of the more graphic-intensive titles.

if you are on a strict budget, buy a ATI 270, that should be enough to play Skyrim with some reduces settings (it will still loook great).

otherwise, we need to know:

1) your budget
2) monitor resolution
3) PSU wattage and if possible model.
while you're at it throw in as much info as possible about your PC - i.e what motherboard, case, hard disk, etc.

 

[CPA]

lol@ 27" IPS. thats a really great suggestion for someone on a G360 and no GPU. classic portrait of the multimillionaire.

OP, your system is ok for older games, it wont cut it with new ones. 4Gb of ram will do for now, it only excludes you from some of the more graphic-intensive titles.

if you are on a strict budget, buy a ATI 270, that should be enough to play Skyrim with some reduces settings (it will still loook great).

otherwise, we need to know:

1) your budget
2) monitor resolution
3) PSU wattage and if possible model.
while you're at it throw in as much info as possible about your PC - i.e what motherboard, case, hard disk, etc.

I'm wondering what kind of performance he's getting just with Win7 with 4GB of ram. That would be the first thing I would upgrade, then the GPU. Well, maybe both at the same time.

 

[DigDog]

W7 runs fine on 4gb. my ram usage count is 1Gb now with chrome and vlc running at the same time.

 

[Denithor]

Hmm. An Intel Pentium G630. Very likely this is a 2-3 year old prebuilt system. Meaning weak power supply. Meaning, don't install a high-powered video card.

You're in luck, however, as Skyrim seems to run fine on a decent dual-core processor (for reference, the Pentium G860 is the same as your G630 but running at 3GHz instead of 2.7GHz).
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427-6.html

Granted, you are going to need as much GPU horsepower as you can possible fit into your machine to make things look pretty and run smoothly. I'd suggest maybe a GTX 750 or 750 Ti as these will sip power and give decent performance.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/02/18/nvidia-geforce-gtx-750-ti-review/8

Morrowind should be absolutely no issue once you add a GTX 750/Ti.

EDIT: BTW, Windows 7 is completely fine with 4GB of RAM. I have no idea why people think they need more. Even when Windows says it is using a full 8/16GB, most of it is simply being used to cache frequently used apps so they open faster.

 

[rivethead]

W7 runs fine on 4gb. my ram usage count is 1Gb now with chrome and vlc running at the same time.

Yeah, until about a month ago I had been running on only 4GB of ram and never ran into any issues. Only reason I upgraded to 8GB was for Star Citizen....but to be honest I don't think it made any difference. I'm sure it will eventually.

 

[SunnyD]

Sure, Windows will even run fine with 2gb of ram in it.

If you've never ran with more than 4gb of ram, you're missing the single most important general purpose upgrade you can make to your machine ever. The second most important would be a SSD. Third is a faster clocked CPU followed by additional cores. Then you move to more specialized purpose upgrades (video cards, etc).

There's a multitude of reasons why more ram == better. Personally, I hate when I have to wait for the machine to take 6x longer to handle page faults and 600x longer to swap stuff out when there's no reason for it to just by added a bit of ram.

 

[Omar F1]

lol@ 27" IPS. thats a really great suggestion for someone on a G360 and no GPU. classic portrait of the multimillionaire.

Hahaha, but seriously 27" adds a lot to the PC gaming experience, and you could pick a 1080p monitor for a decent price with a VA or TN panel for example.

 

[DigDog]

my own monitor is a disgrace, its an hansspree 23" which was about £95 new (my viewsonic broke). to have decent colors i have the gamma nearly down to zero. and yet, i can enjoy games without any major issues.

sure, a £700 panel would be nice, but it's not *the* most important thing.

i'll be getting a something-sync monitor when they come down in price. for now, i'm just waiting for the AMD system to get reviewed.