Before I built my current rig, I was not too concerned about having nice PC hardware and only upgraded my video card every two to three generations. I would sometimes have to play games at low settings and/or spend hours tweaking them to get the perfect balance of image quality and performance. Once I forgot about the graphics, though, I would always have a blast with the gameplay.
I'm curious to see examples of times when other members also played games with a crappy graphics cards/systems. I'm also curious to hear about times when a video card handled a game much better than expected.
I played through Halo on a 1GHz Pentium III with 256MB of RAM and a 32MB GeForce2 MX video card at medium settings, 640x480. Yup, I played Halo with a Pentium III and a GeForce2 MX. I actually got pretty good frames (consistent 30+) because my video card didn't even bother trying to render all the fancy lighting effects.
I used the same system to play Battlefield 1942, No One Lives Forever 2, America's Army, and Rainbow Six: 3 when they first came out. Settings were medium @ 640x480 for all four. Loading times were a PITA for all four as well. I alternated the GeForce2 MX for a 32MB Radeon VE and they both performed somewhat identically.
I tried GTA:III on that system and it did okay in the first part of Liberty City. When I got to the second part, though, the frame rate was so poor (even at 640x480) that I stopped playing. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that Vice City was completely smooth on that system at 640x480.
I later upgraded to an Athlon XP 2600+ w/ 512MB of RAM and could immediately turn up the resolution to 800x600 for the four aforementioned games. If you've gamed at low resolutions before, you'll know that going from 640x480 to 800x600 seems like a HUGE increase. 800x600 to 1024x768...not so much.
Finally, I played Doom 3 with a Radeon 9600 at High Quality, 800x600, on an Athlon XP.
Am I boring you guys yet?
I actually do want to hear your stories, so please share if you have any!
I'm curious to see examples of times when other members also played games with a crappy graphics cards/systems. I'm also curious to hear about times when a video card handled a game much better than expected.
I played through Halo on a 1GHz Pentium III with 256MB of RAM and a 32MB GeForce2 MX video card at medium settings, 640x480. Yup, I played Halo with a Pentium III and a GeForce2 MX. I actually got pretty good frames (consistent 30+) because my video card didn't even bother trying to render all the fancy lighting effects.
I used the same system to play Battlefield 1942, No One Lives Forever 2, America's Army, and Rainbow Six: 3 when they first came out. Settings were medium @ 640x480 for all four. Loading times were a PITA for all four as well. I alternated the GeForce2 MX for a 32MB Radeon VE and they both performed somewhat identically.
I tried GTA:III on that system and it did okay in the first part of Liberty City. When I got to the second part, though, the frame rate was so poor (even at 640x480) that I stopped playing. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that Vice City was completely smooth on that system at 640x480.
I later upgraded to an Athlon XP 2600+ w/ 512MB of RAM and could immediately turn up the resolution to 800x600 for the four aforementioned games. If you've gamed at low resolutions before, you'll know that going from 640x480 to 800x600 seems like a HUGE increase. 800x600 to 1024x768...not so much.
Finally, I played Doom 3 with a Radeon 9600 at High Quality, 800x600, on an Athlon XP.
Am I boring you guys yet?
I actually do want to hear your stories, so please share if you have any!
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