any pc gaming system experts here?

[bruce9241]

I've been playing a lot of pc games lately. Most of the games I've played I can run fine on medium settings. Games such as farcry 2, fallout 3, resident evil 5 have all run good for me on medium.

Games like Cryostasis, Batman Arkham Assylum and others don't run so good. Especially Cryostasis.

Is it my system specs? My computer isn't old, but it isn't top of the lines. Bought it at the end of 2008.

It's a Lenovo desktop. Wasn't made for gaming although I did add a new video card and power unit.

Here are the specs. Intel dual core 2.2gigz, 4gigs of memory, nvidia gt 9500 1gig ddr2 ram. 500 watts Power Unit. Generic motherboard/soundcard.

What can I do to this system to make it run games better? I've asked around and people say it's not always a hardware issue,but sometimes can be software.

 

[bakemeacookie]

Welcome to the world of windows games!! lol

First off get quad core. Second get a kick ass video card. Which one, you'll get 10,000 answers - so I suggest gong to the forums of those video games. UNless uwant to spulrge for a quadro and be done with it lol. You can also overclock it if u wish if u know what ur dong.

c

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I've been playing a lot of pc games lately. Most of the games I've played I can run fine on medium settings. Games such as farcry 2, fallout 3, resident evil 5 have all run good for me on medium.

Games like Cryostasis, Batman Arkham Assylum and others don't run so good. Especially Cryostasis.

Is it my system specs? My computer isn't old, but it isn't top of the lines. Bought it at the end of 2008.

It's a Lenovo desktop. Wasn't made for gaming although I did add a new video card and power unit.

Here are the specs. Intel dual core 2.2gigz, 4gigs of memory, nvidia gt 9500 1gig ddr2 ram. 500 watts Power Unit. Generic motherboard/soundcard.

What can I do to this system to make it run games better? I've asked around and people say it's not always a hardware issue,but sometimes can be software.

Lenovo...not familiar with that brand but according to your specs, you won't be able to run many of the popular titles on high settings other than maybe some Valve games (Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, etc.)
Cryostasis is hell on most people's systems because it's poorly optimized; I don't even think it supports multithreading. It also needs a high end videocard, which is recommended in general anyways. That 9500 GT has very slow memory. A gig of GDDR5 is what to look for if you want to play stuff maxed out for a while, and if your motherboard doesn't have at least PCI-E interface, it's limiting your gaming potential from the getgo.


Here's your best bet if you're looking to get into PC gaming any more than casually-
Newegg.com - PC Components, Computer Parts, Computer Hardware & PC Accessories

If you already installed a videocard and PSU then putting together a whole new rig ain't much more complicated to be completely honest. If you ever do run into issues a google search or two will give you a solution 99.9% of the time.

Here's some good sites for:

PC discussions-
Tom's Hardware Forums

PC Gaming forum-
PC | Video Game Online Forums & Community | Game Platform Discussions for Video Games - GameTrailers.com


Have fun!












PS: or you could just get a console and avoid all of the above lol! It's what even Microsoft wants you to do...
Look at Xbox support vs. Games for Windows as proof.

 

[bruce9241]

Lenovo...not familiar with that brand but according to your specs, you won't be able to run many of the popular titles on high settings other than maybe some Valve games (Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, etc.)
Cryostasis is hell on most people's systems because it's poorly optimized; I don't even think it supports multithreading. It also needs a high end videocard, which is recommended in general anyways. That 9500 GT has very slow memory. A gig of GDDR5 is what to look for if you want to play stuff maxed out for a while, and if your motherboard doesn't have at least PCI-E interface, it's limiting your gaming potential from the getgo.


Here's your best bet if you're looking to get into PC gaming any more than casually-
Newegg.com - PC Components, Computer Parts, Computer Hardware & PC Accessories

If you already installed a videocard and PSU then putting together a whole new rig ain't much more complicated to be completely honest. If you ever do run into issues a google search or two will give you a solution 99.9% of the time.

Here's some good sites for:

PC discussions-
Tom's Hardware Forums

PC Gaming forum-
PC | Video Game Online Forums & Community | Game Platform Discussions for Video Games - GameTrailers.com


Have fun!












PS: or you could just get a console and avoid all of the above lol! It's what even Microsoft wants you to do...
Look at Xbox support vs. Games for Windows as proof.

Oh I can't play consoles. They bore me to death. I'm into playing online multi player type games that gives me the option to kill other players or grief them till they cry. I played world of warcraft for 2 years. It was fun for awhile, but got boring. I used to play ultima online, (which was the ultimate griefing game). That game was the best.

Lenovo is a branch that used to be owned by IBM, but was purchased by a Chinese company. They make good computers for good prices.

I know my motherboard can handle PCI express. My current video card uses pci express. I'm just not sure if it can handle the newer video cards or quad core processors.

God I hate this computer shit. I'm always one or two steps behind. Can never really run the current games at max spec.

 

[bruce9241]

Welcome to the world of windows games!! lol

First off get quad core. Second get a kick ass video card. Which one, you'll get 10,000 answers - so I suggest gong to the forums of those video games. UNless uwant to spulrge for a quadro and be done with it lol. You can also overclock it if u wish if u know what ur dong.

c

I just can't win. I just bought this dual core last year and thought I was a badass.
Now they have 4 cores?

I was bragging about my 1 gig of video memory, but I guess it isn't much since it's only ddr2 and everyone else is using ddr3.

How do you overclock motherboards nowadays? I remember I used to overclock my old computers from like 33Mhz to 66Mhz by adjusting the jumper on the motherboards.

 

[nangiggles]

what VC you got? compare ur specs to the recommended setting (not minimum settings) for the games, try a 260gtx vc, also make sure you have a 64 bit Os otherwise 4GB are useless...

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I just can't win. I just bought this dual core last year and thought I was a badass.
Now they have 4 cores?

I was bragging about my 1 gig of video memory, but I guess it isn't much since it's only ddr2 and everyone else is using ddr3.

How do you overclock motherboards nowadays? I remember I used to overclock my old computers from like 33Mhz to 66Mhz by adjusting the jumper on the motherboards.

4 cores will be good for a long time. Most PC developers are just now starting to utilize all of them. Hell, Crysis doesn't even utilize 4, after 3 there are almost no performance gains in CPU benchmarks.

Video memory, GDDR 5 is currently top dog and you can get relatively cheap cards that use it for the amount of performance they give you.

If you're looking to overclock, you have to consider what type of system memory you're using too. Most budget RAM is finicky when it comes to oc'ing, and half of it depends on your motherboard chipset as well. Gigabyte and Asus are about the two best board mfg's when it comes to features and oc'ing ability.

The 500 watt PSU should be enough for one high end video card with a single gpu, but the amperage on the 12v rail is the most important number. 35+ is sufficient.