This is the story..
I got a PC from Dell about 3 - 4 years ago, and it was pretty good and worth it's money.
It had a P4 2.80gz as a processor and 512kb of DDR memory, plus I opted for an nVidia fx5200 instead of the integrated one.
After a little while, DOOM 3 came out !
Now I had to play that game, but another good game I had at the time was Far Cry, and it was running a little crappy on my system too.
Anyway I already was inclined to get a new , more powerful video card, and what do you know, when I was shopping I found a nice boundle of DOOM 3 and nVidia Geforce 6800 GT for about $ 400, and the box stated that the game was designed to take advantage of that particular card and it was recommended by the developers, so I went for it !
I mean it was a good deal, and I expected to have a graphical boost in other games as well.
And I was right, I was able to turn the details in Far Cry to high and see its famous word fully animated, which made the experience even more immersing, not too mention that DOOM 3 run really good as advertised.
So all in all it was money well spent.
But after that I realized that my PC needed more memory, because I like emulation in general and some emulators openly stated that more memory would benefit the emulation, not to mention that I had some problem at the time because while switching between application XP was taking longer and longer, so I knew I needed more memory.
But it was expensive ! I mean I paid about $ 170 for a 1GB module directly from the Dell website ( I knew there were slightly cheaper dealers on line, but I wanted to make sure the memory was really compatible with my MOBO ).
It was a good purchase never the less, in fact I noticed a real improvement on the overall speed of my computer while running some emulators or multiple applications.
It had already been like 2 years, and I felt I didn't want to buy a new computer because anyway for my everyday need my system was certainly up to the task, plus I wasn't interested in playing newer PC games because anyway I was actively playing on several consoles at the time ( DC and GC being the primary ) but I thought about upgrading the CPU, and even though I saw that newer, faster processor were available from Dell, the price was really non nonsensical, because for $ 700- $800 I might have as well bought another brand new PC !
I didn't upgrade any more after that, thinking that I would have gotten a new PC in a year or so anyway.
But recently I came across a few web sites selling memory, and with the help of a the gurus at the dell forums I was able to find the right one for my system.
And guess what ? I found out that a 1 GB module now is merely $25 + $5 for shipment. It makes it $ 30 !! Just $ 30 for almost doubling my memory and meet that XP "sweet spot" of 2.50 GB of ram.
I'm sure more memory will benefit the whole system, expecially when some newer emulators.
I've red several times that some emulators don't really rely on the video card, but need more memory and more processing power to perform better.
So I searched a little more and I found out that I could buy a P4 3.2Ghz on a web site for about $ 60 !!!
That is incredible, how much the price came down in just a couple of years!
So I ordered that too, the new processor, and while a know that new PCs today came really cheap and are much more powerful than mines will ever be, I decided that for under $100 , it was well worth it, and since I play console games mostly anyway, I'm only worried about emulating older system or play older games on my PC, and my set up wouldn't be bad at that.
Now I am only on doubt whether to buy a new power supply as well, it seems that bigger processor and more memory usually tend to be more power hungry.
And there is the chance that I will bust my computer as well, as I never changed a processor before, and I will have to make sure that my MOBO bios will recognize that !
As for the memory I'm sure it will be easy, it's just a matter of sliding in the socket the little module.
Wat really worries me is the power supply, I still use the one that came with my original configuration ( and I'm sure it was barely supporting enough power for what was there even before the graphic card upgrade ).
So wish me good luck, and I will let you know if everything goes smooth.
In case I decide to get a new power supply as well, does anybody know were to get a really cheap one ?
I got a PC from Dell about 3 - 4 years ago, and it was pretty good and worth it's money.
It had a P4 2.80gz as a processor and 512kb of DDR memory, plus I opted for an nVidia fx5200 instead of the integrated one.
After a little while, DOOM 3 came out !
Now I had to play that game, but another good game I had at the time was Far Cry, and it was running a little crappy on my system too.
Anyway I already was inclined to get a new , more powerful video card, and what do you know, when I was shopping I found a nice boundle of DOOM 3 and nVidia Geforce 6800 GT for about $ 400, and the box stated that the game was designed to take advantage of that particular card and it was recommended by the developers, so I went for it !
I mean it was a good deal, and I expected to have a graphical boost in other games as well.
And I was right, I was able to turn the details in Far Cry to high and see its famous word fully animated, which made the experience even more immersing, not too mention that DOOM 3 run really good as advertised.
So all in all it was money well spent.
But after that I realized that my PC needed more memory, because I like emulation in general and some emulators openly stated that more memory would benefit the emulation, not to mention that I had some problem at the time because while switching between application XP was taking longer and longer, so I knew I needed more memory.
But it was expensive ! I mean I paid about $ 170 for a 1GB module directly from the Dell website ( I knew there were slightly cheaper dealers on line, but I wanted to make sure the memory was really compatible with my MOBO ).
It was a good purchase never the less, in fact I noticed a real improvement on the overall speed of my computer while running some emulators or multiple applications.
It had already been like 2 years, and I felt I didn't want to buy a new computer because anyway for my everyday need my system was certainly up to the task, plus I wasn't interested in playing newer PC games because anyway I was actively playing on several consoles at the time ( DC and GC being the primary ) but I thought about upgrading the CPU, and even though I saw that newer, faster processor were available from Dell, the price was really non nonsensical, because for $ 700- $800 I might have as well bought another brand new PC !
I didn't upgrade any more after that, thinking that I would have gotten a new PC in a year or so anyway.
But recently I came across a few web sites selling memory, and with the help of a the gurus at the dell forums I was able to find the right one for my system.
And guess what ? I found out that a 1 GB module now is merely $25 + $5 for shipment. It makes it $ 30 !! Just $ 30 for almost doubling my memory and meet that XP "sweet spot" of 2.50 GB of ram.
I'm sure more memory will benefit the whole system, expecially when some newer emulators.
I've red several times that some emulators don't really rely on the video card, but need more memory and more processing power to perform better.
So I searched a little more and I found out that I could buy a P4 3.2Ghz on a web site for about $ 60 !!!
That is incredible, how much the price came down in just a couple of years!
So I ordered that too, the new processor, and while a know that new PCs today came really cheap and are much more powerful than mines will ever be, I decided that for under $100 , it was well worth it, and since I play console games mostly anyway, I'm only worried about emulating older system or play older games on my PC, and my set up wouldn't be bad at that.
Now I am only on doubt whether to buy a new power supply as well, it seems that bigger processor and more memory usually tend to be more power hungry.
And there is the chance that I will bust my computer as well, as I never changed a processor before, and I will have to make sure that my MOBO bios will recognize that !
As for the memory I'm sure it will be easy, it's just a matter of sliding in the socket the little module.
Wat really worries me is the power supply, I still use the one that came with my original configuration ( and I'm sure it was barely supporting enough power for what was there even before the graphic card upgrade ).
So wish me good luck, and I will let you know if everything goes smooth.
In case I decide to get a new power supply as well, does anybody know were to get a really cheap one ?
