Old Budget PC for Games

[Lewis]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the best place to post for this question, but
here it is;
I have an old budget HP Pavillion PC that wasn't intended for gaming at all.
I'm just wondering if I could upgrade the hardware to make it suitable for
some (not too new) strategy games, such as Age of the Empirors III etc.
played at fairly low settings. The specs are currently:

2.6GHz Celeron (the kind with 128k cache, not the newer Celeron D)
256MB RAM
Hercules 3D Prophet Ti200 Geforce 3 (64MB RAM)
Windows XP

I was wondering if I could get away with sticking another 256/512MB RAM in
it for some strategy games (1024X768 is fine). Would it manage any eye
candy at all? Also what about upgrading the graphics card (some cheap one
from ebay probably)? What cards would allow some nice visuals on this
system? Please note I know nothing about graphics cards and can't tell
what's good and what's not!
Thanks,
Lewis

 

[jaster]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the best place to post for this question, but
here it is;
I have an old budget HP Pavillion PC that wasn't intended for gaming at
all. I'm just wondering if I could upgrade the hardware to make it
suitable for some (not too new) strategy games, such as Age of the
Empirors III etc. played at fairly low settings. The specs are currently:

2.6GHz Celeron (the kind with 128k cache, not the newer Celeron D) 256MB
RAM
Hercules 3D Prophet Ti200 Geforce 3 (64MB RAM) Windows XP

I was wondering if I could get away with sticking another 256/512MB RAM in
it for some strategy games (1024X768 is fine). Would it manage any eye
candy at all? Also what about upgrading the graphics card (some cheap one
from ebay probably)? What cards would allow some nice visuals on this
system? Please note I know nothing about graphics cards and can't tell
what's good and what's not!
Thanks,
Lewis

It should be able to handle most games at lower resolutions (800x600).
Probably not the cpu and graphics intensive 3D games like F.E.A.R but C&C
type games should run as long as you don't have really huge armies.

More ram helps big time and a better vga but you may
have trouble finding a suitable PCI vga upgrade.

Read the game box requirement labels before you buy.

 

[DaveW]

No 'cheap' video card will give you eye candy in any of the current games
out. Just read the Recommended Requirements for video hardware on the game
boxes at a store.

 

[philo]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the best place to post for this question, but
here it is;
I have an old budget HP Pavillion PC that wasn't intended for gaming at
all.
I'm just wondering if I could upgrade the hardware to make it suitable for
some (not too new) strategy games, such as Age of the Empirors III etc.
played at fairly low settings. The specs are currently:

2.6GHz Celeron (the kind with 128k cache, not the newer Celeron D)
256MB RAM

<snip>


Heck...my *newest* machine is a celeron 2.6 !!!!!!!