Buying a new PC (Primarily for SFIV so could use some guidance)

Ramza

I know I should probably post this in the tech forum but it's hard to dictate where it really belongs so here goes anyway

So I was thinking of buying a new PC out of my xmas spoils + plus whatever I have ssaved so far. I was thinking of getting a PS3 but had a change of heart recently. I know a bit about computers but no nowt when it comes to PC gaming. I was just browsing and found this on Adverts.ie

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=172757&cpage=2#poststart

Any opinions?

Cunny-Funt

Its a weak pc but sure its only 150 euro.... however no mention of exactly what graphics card it has. Which is a big issue. You need to know the graphics card.

FoamyMushroom

As i've heard SF doesnt need a top of the range graphics card to run perfectly..

With your computer you can just update the RAM, and get a Nvidia graphics card... the cards arnt that expensive.. unless you wana run Crisis, but that's another story.. and the ram well. I wouldnt know prices.

There no point in looking for a new computer just to run SFIV, just update the one you have tis what I did.. saved meself a good bit too

K.O.Kiki

1 thing to keep in mind for that PC is that it's a microATX tower, so you can only fit smaller graphics cards (ie none of the dual-GPU monsters etc.) Should probably fit any sub-€150 card though, which is grand.

RAM is probably still cheap as chips; check the Building/Upgrading board for e-tailers.
You'll probably want to get a second internal HDD for your games & media though.

Doctor DooM

I might be doing this soon too. The temptation of getting some regular Ropedrink/Atrak etc games to up my game is too much

ayjayirl

I have built many pc's in my day, some for work related dn some for game related. My advice would be to ensure a couple of points when considering which one to buy.

1) Graphics card - although SF4 might not be too intensive on the graphics,alot of other games are and its usually a case that you'd want to play that pretty new game........

2) The more RAM the better. If you are looking at pc's then you have to use windows and the more RAM you have the less likely you are to have issues with it.

3) The Front bus speeds on the motherboard - The older the board the slower the bus speed (this is mostly related to keeping windows working properly than games but unfortunately they all run on windows)


A little bit of research on getting the best of those individual parts woud go a long way to having a really good PC.

*As you can prob tell, I loathe windows*

ayjayirl

Ramza wrote: »

I know I should probably post this in the tech forum but it's hard to dictate where it really belongs so here goes anyway

So I was thinking of buying a new PC out of my xmas spoils + plus whatever I have ssaved so far. I was thinking of getting a PS3 but had a change of heart recently. I know a bit about computers but no nowt when it comes to PC gaming. I was just browsing and found this on Adverts.ie

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=172757&cpage=2#poststart

Any opinions?

looks ok but i would always go Intel chip -> Plus their motheroards are usually better - you pay a bit more, but as always, you get what you pay for.

L31mr0d

Here are the PC requirements for Street Fighter 4

Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: Pentium 4 @ 2 GHz
Memory: 1 GB
Hard Drive: 10 GB Free
Video Memory: 256 MB (nVidia GeForce 6600/ATI Radeon X1600)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c

Recommended System Requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2 GHz
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 10 GB Free
Video Memory: 512 MB (nVidia GeForce 8600/ATI Radeon X1900)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c or 10

Personally, I'd completely ignore the minimum settings if you don't want any headaches and go with the recommended settings.

What is your budget? If you can budget about the same as you would of paid for a PS3 you should be able to get a PC for that price capable of playing SFIV. Do you already have a screen or will you need that also?

Doctor DooM

ayjayirl wrote: »

looks ok but i would always go Intel chip -> Plus their motheroards are usually better - you pay a bit more, but as always, you get what you pay for.

Isn't there issues with non intel chipsets and some of the sticks?

L31mr0d

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Isn't there issues with non intel chipsets and some of the sticks?

Yeah I don't know how true that is. I think it may only impact on the Madcatz wireless Fightpads and not the fightsticks.

EDIT: Ok, the Madcatz compatibility issue seems to be tied only to the PS3 sticks. If you have a PS3 fightstick you will need an Intel mobo with support for USB 1.1

In regards to Intel chips being better than AMD... raging fanboy alert :pac: For gaming it doesn't really matter which chipset you get, the mobo manufacturer will determine how stable it is and how well you can overclock... etc.

That being said, AMD's propensity for randomly changing their socket design completely put me off them. They'd pretty much cut any possible upgrade tree off at the trunk by making you buy a new motherboard to support a new CPU. Intel tend to sit on a socket design for a lot longer, allowing you to upgrade individual components while leaving the mobo (and, more importantly, the OS) alone.

Ramza

L31mr0d wrote: »

What is your budget? If you can budget about the same as you would of paid for a PS3 you should be able to get a PC for that price capable of playing SFIV. Do you already have a screen or will you need that also?

I'm not entirely sure yet, I have about 170 or so to my name as of now, but after xmas I'm not sure how much I'll pick up. It's pretty hard to predict. I have a monitor already and Kb and stuff. Just want the tower. Like Kiki said I spose I could just upgrade the Graphics or what ever else over time. Just I think that particular one suits my price range and prolly wont be around for long.

As far as usage is concerned, the only actual PC game I really want to play on it is SFIV. Only other thing else I'll be doing is usual internet browsing, playing emulators like PSX etc, and thinking of getting a decent cap card to capture decent looking videos. I wouldn't be doing anything too heavy on it, only SFIV (If I can)

L31mr0d

do you have the specs for your current PC? It may only need a new graphics card to make it capable of running SFIV.

Ramza

My main PC is currently in need of repair and I'm on my crappy laptop now, but here are the spec of my desktop

Celeron 2.6GHZ
1.5GB RAM
Some onboard graphics (rly sucks)

It's an oldish machine so yeah. Been meaning to get a new one for a while now

Cunny-Funt

@ ramza , seriously FIND OUT WHAT GRAPHICS CARD THAT IS. The guy saying its a 256mb ATI card means nothing. Do not spend money with out knowing what card it is.

Chances are it will probably run SF4 on low-medium.


For 230-300 euro you could probably build a brand new PC that'd run it on high.

Slap the parts in your old tower. Its not hard to build a PC its like lego http://www.komplett.ie/k/cart.aspx

@Foamy so do you have the PC version now?

@Doom, YES get the PC version, its where all the cool people are

Dreddybajs

Honestly dude seems like for 200-250 quid you could get a much, much better machine than that - and not just in the "running SF4" range, but the "running most games that came out in the last couple of years" range.

Ramza

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

@ ramza , seriously FIND OUT WHAT GRAPHICS CARD THAT IS. The guy saying its a 256mb ATI card means nothing. Do not spend money with out knowing what card it is.

It's 512 mb but I get your point

Dreddybajs wrote: »

Honestly dude seems like for 200-250 quid you could get a much, much better machine than that - and not just in the "running SF4" range, but the "running most games that came out in the last couple of years" range.

Like Cunny said before, do you mean build, yeah? In a few days I'll know for sure how much I'll have to spend so I think I just need to wait it out and look at my options then

Cunny-Funt

Its always cheaper to build, komplett are a good site btw. I recommend them.

PC gear is very cheap these days I find.

chopperbyrne

My laptop is almost six years old and is starting to rapidly degrade in performance.

Going to be replacing it with something cheap and most of the ones I'm looking at come with an Intel GMA 4500M graphics card.

Would there be any issues playing SFIV with that?

A bit of googling leads me to believe that it'd be crap.

fake_roogle

Anything with an Intel GMA is utter garbage for games, avoid heavily at all costs for SFIV.

K.O.Kiki

Intel GMA is great for Flash, possibly 1080p video. That's it.

I think there's a list of laptop GPUs on Tom's Hardware.

chopperbyrne

Just copped my telly (which sits on an old PC table/unit thing) has a second HDMI port so might just get a desktop instead.

This should do everything I need it to I'd assume.

chopperbyrne

Got that PC that I linked to above and downloaded the SF IV benchmark tool.

Can't get it to go above 39fps without lowering the resolution a lot.

D4RK ONION

JUst ordered my spanking new XPS studio 16 laptop. Can't wait to get a few games in against the like of Ropey

4GB ram
1.6 Quad processor
1GB ATi graphics card.

Gonna be good!

K.O.Kiki

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Got that PC that I linked to above and downloaded the SF IV benchmark tool.

Can't get it to go above 39fps without lowering the resolution a lot.

I'm assuming since it's connected to your telly you're running at 1080p, i.e. 1920x1080?
You'd need a pretty decent card to run at native res then.
Your CPU & RAM are good though, so I'd recommend just waiting a bit and upgrading the graphics card later (get one 2nd-hand?)

chopperbyrne

It's 1280 x 720.

I couldn't read a thing if I tried using a 1920 x 1080 resolution.

Placebo

aldi have a decent rig at the moment check it out

aldi.ie

K.O.Kiki

Doing a quick check online, you can get an ATi 4670 for ≤€65 which doesn't need extra power & should run all games at your resolutions on high.

Also the GT220 is a cheating card - it's really bad for gaming it seems.

chopperbyrne

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Also the GT220 is a cheating card - it's really bad for gaming it seems.

And mine is a GT210.

What do you mean by cheating anyway? It's definitely got its own onboard memory.

K.O.Kiki

Bad wording, it's a card manufacturers put in to make it seem slightly more powerful & give an extra bulletin point for the ads.

Ramza

Hey lads sjust got my new PC up and running smoothly. It's a 2.0 GHZ amd dual core with 3gb ram, and a 512mb ati card. Don't know the exact model but will find out. I think it's an old one though so I'll probably pop in a new card and processor and be playing on GFWL in no time

Only set me back 110