DELL DIMENSION 5150 -NEED ATI radeon 1600xt

pirelli

Hi i have a dimension 5150 and it has the 2006 ATI Radeon. I bought it in 2006 and has a pentium 4 3.6ghz with 500 ram .

I wish to play modernwarfare2 so i will require a new video card the minimum requirement is the ATI Radeon 1600XT.

As this is now quite old and out dated what video card is the next step up, i would be happy to buy this if its cheap and easy to install.

If i install do i need the recovery disk to install a new driver and will it be easy to fit into the computer.

Thanks

Anybody with some experience of doing this would be a great help.

Solitaire

Most modern cards would be far superior; even a cheapie HD4650 or GT220 would be far better. Take those as a minimum upgrade. Sadly, there won't be much point getting anything bigger... Your CPU is barely above the minimum spec. So don't expect a smooth experience playing MW2 regardless of what graphics card you stuff in there

leninbenjamin

you'll need to upgrade RAM also, the minimum req. is 1GB but I think you'll find you need 2GB really. That'll be around €25 a DIMM, like this stuff (I think it's compatible but not 100%).

In terms of the card I'm not sure. You're limited by the 305w PSU in that thing, maybe something like the HD4350 for €30?

jonny72

Even if you go and buy a viable card - e.g. an ATI 4670 (65 euros-ish, around 50 euros second hand and runs with old low powered PSU's such as yours) the game will run incredibly slow on your computer, in fact it will almost be unplayable.

Even if you upgrade your ram from 512mb to 1024mb (a gig of ram) the game will still be quite unplayable.

The game will also require a large amount of space on your harddrive.

If you do not know much about computers then it will prove to be quite difficult to even get the game running on your PC without replacing the graphics card, doing the drivers, upgrading the ram, making enough hdd space, etc.

If you are willing to put in the time and some money then you will still get a fairly unplayable game.

If you want to invest in a new PC then we can help you, alternatively for less money you could probably buy the game and get a console.

Solitaire

Yep. Console is your best bet, thanks to those arsemonkeys in Dell you'd have to get a new CPU as well as a new graphics card for any kind of playability. Unfortunately those cunning arsemonkeys used dodgy BIOSes to prevent you upgrading your CPU any further (945G should be able to run older, slower C2Ds but Dell nixed that ) and those utter retards use a proprietary standard so if you wanted to upgrade the graphics and the CPU and the mobo and the RAM you'd also have to replace the power supply and even the case! :eek:

Flippin' ARSEMONKEYS!!! :mad:

*ahem*

Leman_Russ

MW2 is a gigantic pile anyway.

You are better off saving the money and puting it towards a new DIY pc

pirelli

Solitaire wrote: »

Most modern cards would be far superior; even a cheapie HD4650 or GT220 would be far better. Take those as a minimum upgrade. Sadly, there won't be much point getting anything bigger... Your CPU is barely above the minimum spec. So don't expect a smooth experience playing MW2 regardless of what graphics card you stuff in there

Thank you solatire and eveyones else for your help.

Thats what i was looking for HD4650.I will at least have something to ask for in petes elec.

pirelli

Leman_Russ wrote: »

MW2 is a gigantic pile anyway.

You are better off saving the money and puting it towards a new DIY pc

The fastest selling game in the guiness book of world records

Leman_Russ

pirelli wrote: »

The fastest selling game in the guiness book of world records

And? It's still a crap game.

pirelli

Leman_Russ wrote: »

And? It's still a crap game.

Whats your point Leman_Russ,
Do YOU play games ? which ones do you like.


I played cod4 online and i loved it.Some great fun playing that game.

pirelli

jonny72 wrote: »

Even if you go and buy a viable card - e.g. an ATI 4670 (65 euros-ish, around 50 euros second hand and runs with old low powered PSU's such as yours) the game will run incredibly slow on your computer, in fact it will almost be unplayable.

Even if you upgrade your ram from 512mb to 1024mb (a gig of ram) the game will still be quite unplayable.

The game will also require a large amount of space on your harddrive.

If you do not know much about computers then it will prove to be quite difficult to even get the game running on your PC without replacing the graphics card, doing the drivers, upgrading the ram, making enough hdd space, etc.

If you are willing to put in the time and some money then you will still get a fairly unplayable game.

If you want to invest in a new PC then we can help you, alternatively for less money you could probably buy the game and get a console.

I know it will bud but i am not doing this to play the solo game, i just play multiplayer. The last cod4 didnt work on my computer but multiplayer did. You can MOD2 very cheap on the web i got it for $28 so i am happy to load this up and once i have my steam acccount i can play multiplayer on any computer anywhere.


Ok thanks everyone for all your input.

jonny72

I dont think the game is supporting dedicated servers for multiplayer so the online experience will not be as good as the other CODs

Also try to go for the 4670.. its better than the 4650 and not much more expensive

Perhaps get at least 512 or 1 gb of ram too

If you turn the graphics right down, it might run okay then

If it still doesnt run with that setup.. then perhaps go checkout other games like Battlefield 2, and day of defeat 2, very similar games but will run much smoother and have very good multiplayer servers etc.

good luck

Anti

Leman_Russ wrote: »

And? It's still a crap game.

LOL hihi.


**** game indeed. The lack of dedicated servers cant even suckle on my testicles !

See what i did thar?

pirelli

jonny72 wrote: »

Even if you go and buy a viable card - e.g. an ATI 4670 (65 euros-ish, around 50 euros second hand and runs with old low powered PSU's such as yours) the game will run incredibly slow on your computer, in fact it will almost be unplayable.

Even if you upgrade your ram from 512mb to 1024mb (a gig of ram) the game will still be quite unplayable.

The game will also require a large amount of space on your harddrive.

If you do not know much about computers then it will prove to be quite difficult to even get the game running on your PC without replacing the graphics card, doing the drivers, upgrading the ram, making enough hdd space, etc.

If you are willing to put in the time and some money then you will still get a fairly unplayable game.

If you want to invest in a new PC then we can help you, alternatively for less money you could probably buy the game and get a console.

I have a half gig (500 mb) of ram on my del dimension 5150 and a (PSU ) power supply unit of 305 watts and a old pentium 4 chip 3.2 Ghz chip.

IMO The 3.2 gz is faster than your avergae dual core or duo.

I can easily get more memory of required and i have just upgraded teh video media card.


I got the Nvidia 8400GS for $39.99. From petes electronics parnell street.
It basicaly installed itself. Very simple.

As for the game it plays perfectly now on this new video card. It is smooth and I can play the entire campaign & solo missions seemlessly and that is on 500 mb ram.

pirelli

Anti wrote: »

LOL hihi.


**** game indeed. The lack of dedicated servers cant even suckle on my testicles !

See what i did thar?

LOL that Avatar sucks testicles.

Solitaire

pirelli wrote: »

As for the game it plays perfectly now on this new video card. It is smooth and I can play the entire campaign & solo missions seemlessly and that is on 500 mb ram.

Er... its not supposed to be a slideshow. Just so you know

Or have you set the resolution to 320*240? :P

pirelli

Solitaire wrote: »

Er... its not supposed to be a slideshow. Just so you know

Or have you set the resolution to 320*240? :P

Solitaire, There is a good 30 minutes of cgi movie. The only thing dull and boring is....

Thanks again for the help folks , very much appreciated.


My computer would be like a GOLF GTI , its old and out dated but still works just as well.

jonny72

pirelli wrote: »

IMO The 3.2 gz is faster than your avergae dual core or duo.

I can easily get more memory of required and i have just upgraded teh video media card.


I got the Nvidia 8400GS for $39.99. From petes electronics parnell street.
It basicaly installed itself. Very simple.

As for the game it plays perfectly now on this new video card. It is smooth and I can play the entire campaign & solo missions seemlessly and that is on 500 mb ram.

Ghz unfortunately does not account for much, e.g. a 1.86ghz core2duo (the slowest one I can think of) will be much faster than a 3.2 pentium 4 chip for gaming. Its the architechture of the chip amongst many other things.

Having 512 mb of ram is the barest minimum for games. Most people here wouldn't attempt playing a modern game without a minimum of 2 gigs of ram.

The 8400GS is a very budget card.

Download 3DMark2006 and see what score you get (its a benchmarking process to test the speed of your PC)

Porkie Pies going on here I think.

pirelli

Can your PC run 3DMark06? Click here to find out!


Sorry, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will not run on your computer.
•The Game-o-Meter detects that you have 512 MB of system memory. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 requires at least 1,024 MB to play on Microsoft Windows XP. Depending on your system configuration, you would have to install additional memory or upgrade your entire computer.

Your System
SpecificationsNVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS Unknown model 512 MB

This is the result I got.


So on paper it does seem unlikely that call of duty would play on my computer. However it appears to play perfectly. The reson for that is on the specifications on the back of the game that allow 500 mb ram (xp).

My computer cannot play the last call of duty and I am sure most other games it just kept stalling ( i have returned games before ) but modern warfare 2 appears to be different. I can play this game perfectly.

pirelli

pirelli wrote: »

IMO The 3.2 gz is faster than your avergae dual core or duo.

Not exactly. The Pentium 4 is an extremely inefficient processor. It needs to run at that high a clock speed to deliver the same performance as other processors operating at even half the speed.