Name 5-10 games you would recommend for new gamer with 7600GT

[Edge1]

As the title says, I have a friend with a Core2Duo setup but he is severely limited in the graphics dept, having just a 7600GT. That said, there are plenty of games I think he could enjoy across genres. He is new to gaming, an older guy like myself, but that doesn't really matter. He's a soccer Dad like me and enjoys soccer/hockey/football.

I was thinking:
1) Far Cry
2) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 (I have this)
3) Call of Duty
4) Star Wars KOTOR
5) Company of Heroes (I think he'll be able to do 1280x1024, medium settings)
6) Rome: Total War
7) Pro Evolution Soccer 05 (I also have this, but haven't really played it much)

 

[Fenixgoon]

you can play any title, even something like crysis.. you just need to adjust the settings appropriately.

 

[MustangSVT]

winning 11 or fifa series but you WILL need a joypad.

 

[BassBomb]

Half Life 2 (including episodes)
Portal
F.E.A.R.
Burnout Paradise
GRID

 

[Sam25]

Half Life 1 and 2
Max Payne 1 and 2
Deus Ex
Deus Ex: Invisible War
SoF 2
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
F.E.A.R.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I wouldn't recommend Company of Heroes. That is a demanding game and in order to run it at anything other than bare minimum settings he'll need much better. The game will scale fairly well, performance-wise, but it's pretty ugly at the lowest settings. And even then I'm not sure how well it'd run on his machine. Maybe okay for single player (and believe me, SP in that game is pretty dang good), but not multiplayer.

KOTOR is awesome. Far Cry is decent if you can find it cheap and probably represents about the best eye candy he'll be able to get on his PC. The entire Call of Duty series is pretty good, especially on PC since the only bad installments of the game were console-only releases. The series tends to have a very cinematic feel to it. Fallout 1 and 2 are both good older games that'll run on anything.

Is he interested more in single player or multiplayer?

 

[Via]

I had a 7600 GT for about a year and I could even run Oblivion acceptably. Just no higher than 1024x768.

I would save FEAR for a better video card. I've played through it on a 7600 GT and on an 8800 Ultra and it's a different game with a better video card. It will run on a 7600 GT.

Half Life 2 ran well even at 1680x1050.

 

[Edge1]

Thanks for all the replies thus far. I think he's single player only, except if we could manage to play, say, the sports games head to head somehow. I'm admittedly a single player only dinosaur as well.

These look like good suggestions...I have several of these including the original Half Life and Max Payne. I also have Mafia which I particularly enjoyed.

I think Oblivion is out, I just don't think its his bag, plus it chokes a bit (modded) on my 8800GTS 512.

I like the ideas, and by all means keep'em comin.

What about Quake 4? Any good?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Edge1
What about Quake 4? Any good?

Haven't played it, but it should run perfectly on a 7600GT. I did a quick Google search and found a benchmark showing it getting 50+ fps even at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and AF. Far as I know, the id Tech 4 engine (aka the engine used for Doom 3 and Quake 4) highly favors nVidia cards. So Quake 4 and Doom 3 should both run really well. They're worth picking up - they should only cost $5-$10 each these days, and they're quite pretty given their age.

Another one to consider is Dead Space. That's a pretty recent game that runs very well even on old hardware. It's a fun and scary SP game. Best appreciated with the lights off and with good speakers or headphones.

 

[Edge1]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

Haven't played it, but it should run perfectly on a 7600GT. I did a quick Google search and found a benchmark showing it getting 50+ fps even at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and AF. Far as I know, the id Tech 4 engine (aka the engine used for Doom 3 and Quake 4) highly favors nVidia cards. So Quake 4 and Doom 3 should both run really well. They're worth picking up - they should only cost $5-$10 each these days, and they're quite pretty given their age.

Another one to consider is Dead Space. That's a pretty recent game that runs very well even on old hardware. It's a fun and scary SP game. Best appreciated with the lights off and with good speakers or headphones.

Okay, sounds good. I'm going to recommend headphones and probably an Xbox 360 wired controller, as well as some of these games. I have a few I can lend to him and, as you said, there are others which are so cheap now. I also saw some benchmarks on a few games with the 7600GT, but I wondered if in the real world they were true. You know, with a normal home computing PC and its many services running etc. I saw one bench where it looked like COH would be fine at medium settings...but I see someone above doesn't think so. Guess there's no harm in trying.

I think Warhammer 40K: DOW might be good, even though its more "Fantasy-ish". Its still great strategy gaming.

 

[Via]

Yeah Doom 3 runs very well (but you can't enable Ultra quality). Good pick up.

Another one to consider might be Alice. I recently played some of it and the acid-flashback quality of that game is still unmatched. If you rig the settings to force everything to max it still looks really good.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Edge1

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

Haven't played it, but it should run perfectly on a 7600GT. I did a quick Google search and found a benchmark showing it getting 50+ fps even at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and AF. Far as I know, the id Tech 4 engine (aka the engine used for Doom 3 and Quake 4) highly favors nVidia cards. So Quake 4 and Doom 3 should both run really well. They're worth picking up - they should only cost $5-$10 each these days, and they're quite pretty given their age.

Another one to consider is Dead Space. That's a pretty recent game that runs very well even on old hardware. It's a fun and scary SP game. Best appreciated with the lights off and with good speakers or headphones.

Okay, sounds good. I'm going to recommend headphones and probably an Xbox 360 wired controller, as well as some of these games. I have a few I can lend to him and, as you said, there are others which are so cheap now. I also saw some benchmarks on a few games with the 7600GT, but I wondered if in the real world they were true. You know, with a normal home computing PC and its many services running etc. I saw one bench where it looked like COH would be fine at medium settings...but I see someone above doesn't think so. Guess there's no harm in trying.

I think Warhammer 40K: DOW might be good, even though its more "Fantasy-ish". Its still great strategy gaming.

Sorry if I gave you that impression about COH. I shouldn't have said to avoid it. A couple things about it, though. First, there's a demo, so he may as well try that first and see how it runs. Second, it does scale well, and even though it looks significantly worse when the settings are low, it still looks pretty good. The base game and first expansion (Opposing Fronts) are available as a bundle pretty cheap now that the second expansion is out, so that might be worth picking up too. I'd definitely try the demo first, though.

Also, another vote for Half-Life 2. It'll run great on that PC.

 

[Barfo]

I used to play CoH with my Pentium 4 + 7900 GT at decent settings so I don't think he'd have much problem running it, just not maxed out.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: barfo
I used to play CoH with my Pentium 4 + 7900 GT at decent settings so I don't think he'd have much problem running it, just not maxed out.

It's just that my 4870 1GB still has occasional trouble with the game (granted, at maxed settings and a pretty high resolution) and averages only around 40-45 fps (vsync disabled) using the in-game benchmark. But I think the game may be CPU limited or maybe it just isn't coded very well for DX10. I was able to run the game at pretty decent settings with my 3850 and the 4870 shows an improvement, but not a huge one.

 

[imported_Imp]

I'm still using a 7600gt, it's still good for medium-ish settings at 1680x1050. I just need a new processor and more ram.

 

[Edge1]

Still not sure on COH - the demo is a good idea. He'll upgrade down the road and maybe that's when he should pull the trigger there (no pun intended).

Just thought of a few more after going through my collection: Hitman 2 - Silent Assassin and Splinter Cell/Pandora Tomorrow. I also have NOLF 2.

Of course I have the original Starcraft but I doubt graphics-wise that's going to cut it from a player enjoyment standpoint.

Thinking MOHAA also given the Omaha Beach thing - memorable.

Edit - ooh another one: Chronicles of Riddick.

 

[Atheus]

All the Valve games run great on old cards. I've played HL2 on a 9800 pro and it flew. Maybe you should get the orange box? It's on special on steam.

 

[Edge1]

Originally posted by: Atheus
All the Valve games run great on old cards. I've played HL2 on a 9800 pro and it flew. Maybe you should get the orange box? It's on special on steam.

I heard about the special and will heartily recommend it to him ASAP.

 

[gramboh]

Originally posted by: Edge1
Thanks for all the replies thus far. I think he's single player only, except if we could manage to play, say, the sports games head to head somehow. I'm admittedly a single player only dinosaur as well.

These look like good suggestions...I have several of these including the original Half Life and Max Payne. I also have Mafia which I particularly enjoyed.

I think Oblivion is out, I just don't think its his bag, plus it chokes a bit (modded) on my 8800GTS 512.

I like the ideas, and by all means keep'em comin.

What about Quake 4? Any good?

I thought Quake 4 was pretty fun, I also enjoyed Doom 3 even though many were disappointed by both titles. Fun shooters with a dark atmosphere, nice graphics and good sound/music. Pretty simple games, run through levels shooting bad guys, getting keycards to open stuff etc. I thought both had really nice graphics as well at the time.

 

[Barfo]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

Originally posted by: barfo
I used to play CoH with my Pentium 4 + 7900 GT at decent settings so I don't think he'd have much problem running it, just not maxed out.

It's just that my 4870 1GB still has occasional trouble with the game (granted, at maxed settings and a pretty high resolution) and averages only around 40-45 fps (vsync disabled) using the in-game benchmark. But I think the game may be CPU limited or maybe it just isn't coded very well for DX10. I was able to run the game at pretty decent settings with my 3850 and the 4870 shows an improvement, but not a huge one.

Maybe you're playing at a very high res or it's DX10 hogging the card, anyway I thought 30 fps was considered playable for CoH so 45 should be pretty sweet.

 

[RallyMaster]

Battlefield 2, my man.

 

[wrangler]

Anything Id or Valve engine.

Doom 3, Quake 4, Prey, ET:Quake Wars

HL2, CS:S, TF2, L4D

I saw somebody mention Chronicles of Riddick, thats a good one.
Deus Ex as well. New gamer should always play that. Or maybe not. Will ruin him forever.

COD 1&2

F.E.A.R.

BF2

Painkiller

Hmmm, all shooters. I know some of the other guys will mention some RPG's and RTS's that will run OK on a 7600GT.

Pretty much any sports game should be OK. I'll bet Grid runs OK if you don't crank the res too much.

 

[LumbergTech]

world of goo
left 4 dead (may have to tweak the settings a bit)
street fighter 4 is about to come out for PC.... probably be able to play that as well

 

[yepp]

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay

 

[SirFelixCat]

Empire: Total War, Company of Heroes, Titan Quest, Civ IV