Ham Radio Forum

It has a celeron processor 2.7 ghz ,512 ram, 64mb graphics card, windows xp home edition, its a compaq, um... thats all i know. i wanted to know if i should buy it. its the only one within my price range. will it do? i dont need extreemly awesome proformance i just want it to be good enough to play at a speed that wont give me a handicap.

I have had no personal computer gaming experience and am therefore not qualified to answer as to how that computer will perform with specific games. However, I have built state-of-the-art gaming computers for friends and know generally about typical requirements, so I can answer from that perspective.

Video graphics card performance tends to be one of the most important aspects of a gaming computer. There is a lot more to know about a graphics card beyond the fact that it is 64mb card. However, that card probably will be the biggest performance "bottleneck" if you buy that computer. Serious gamers often spend more than $500 for a video card. However, if the computer has a plug-in video card you can upgrade to a better card sometime in the future.

512 MB of RAM is less memory than most gamers use. You probably will want to upgrade to 1GB or more of RAM (if the computer supports it) sometime in the future.

Game software companies nearly always specify minimum computer requirements to run their games. I suggest you check the requirements of games you are interested in before buying a computer. However, keep in mind that a computer that meets only specified minimum requirements generally will not run a game very well. A higher performance computer will be needed for good results.

-Bob

I agree with Bob. Although I havn't been into gaming for a few years, I do know that the main requirement for games nowadays is a good video card. The reason is, the video card is basically a computer in itself. 3D graphics take alot of memory and processing power, although a good 3D video card can only proccess the data that is fed to it by your PC's main proccessor. This boils down to a few simple facts; 1) If you have a new high speed high memory video card, you better have a high speed computer that can feed it the data at the same speed. 2) If you own an older computer, a new expensive video card will be only as good as your PC can feed it. and that usually wont be any better than the cheap card that came with the PC.

To have a system that is good for gaming you need to be constantly upgading your system...the games get better and harder to run so computers need to be made faster...Its kinda a visious cycle. If you buy top end stuff now then your system should last a few years as fars are graphics....

with such low graphics card you cant play games that need higher graphics card like most of the actions , and racing games need..but that does'nt mean that you cant play games with such configuration..many games will run comfertably in that configuration...but if you need high grafics and 3d games to play then you need to upgrade your system...

That's one reason: heat. And no, a laptop cooler will in no way draw off enough heat to make any real difference when we're talking about gaming.
Other reasons include high latency displays -- you'll see ghosting effects -- small screen sizes with limited resolution options, cramped keyboards, underpowered CPUs and GPUs compared to desktop versions, lack of RAM and RAM capacity, and the inability to upgrade the hardware.
If you want to play PC games, get a desktop. If you want to play games on the road, get a DS and/or PSP. If you want to get the most gaming bang for your buck, get a console. Leave laptops for being portable word processors, web browsers, and even DVD players, NOT gaming systems.