Thinking of getting into some PC gaming

...But Im not sure how powerful my Video Card is. (It came with my PC)

I was thinking of getting into RTSs and stuff, and according to most RTS games it says about 32 Megabytes next to the video card section.

I imagine my Video Card is rather weak, but how do I find out how many Megabytes its pushing?


Also, I WONT be getting into FPS gaming on my PC since thats just too expensive.

 

To find the video RAM, run "dxdiag.exe" (DirectX Diagnostics) from the command line and go to the Display tab.

As far as RTS's, pick up the Command & Conquer: First Decade that just came out. Those games (minus Generals in my opinion) are some of the best there are and have been updated to run on XP. All of them (minus Generals, too new) should run on "older" graphics hardware without a problem. Don't forget Starcraft too, though I do not know how compatible it is with Windows nowadays.

 

Starcraft works fine with all versions of Windows i've used (including XP sp2), though in some instances you'l have to slow down the scrolling to the minimum for it to playable.

 

Starcraft works great with WinXP. Warcraft 3, IMO the very best installment in the series, should also run reasonably well on a 32MB graphics card. And don't forget Vantage Master Online, the tactical strategy game released free (and in English!) by Falcom. Also, Sacrifice is really, really cool.

 

I kind of want to get Warhammer 40K and Star Wars Galaxies. I know my PC could run the older RTSs like Warcraft and Starcraft already.

Im also probably not going to get any online games either. Im probably not going to get anything that requires a monthly fee.

EDIT: If Im right, my memory is 64 megs. Kickass, I dont need to buy anything! (Besides games, as Im not a pirate. Well I used to be a ROM kiddy but not anymore.)

:dance: :dance: :dance:

 

Nothing beats the C&C series, the first (and best) rts series ever. Shame EA had to buy westwood and destroy it. We should kill them all.

 

Assembler is about right. I have warhammer 40k and its great but dont think that a 64meg card is good.

There are other things that matter.

For instance I have a 6800 Ultra 256meg card. They have FX 5200's with 256 meg of ram that suck nuts. my 6800 Ultra will run circles around it.

Clock speed and ram speed matter greatly among other things.

I would say for what you want at the very least get a 6600 vinillia (spelling???)


Theres currently no game on the market right now that I cant run maxed and that includes FEAR. Heres my current setup.

AMD Athlon 64bit 3400+ @ 2.8GHz
1024 Megs DDR 400
eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256 meg


My friend has a 128 Meg Geforce 4 card and it dosent do well at all with warhammer 40k.

Sorry if that was really long. Just wanted to tell you before you buy the games. Me friend was in the same boat thinking that his card was ample for what he wanted. Hope you get it sorted out and enjoy the games. :nod:

 

One important factor is if it is integrated graphics or not. To tell, easiest way is to see where the monitor plugs into the computer - if it is along with the keyboard, mouse, printer etc. then it is integrated, but if it is on a horizontal card then its not integrated.

In general, integrated graphics = no games, integrated graphics by ATI or Nvidia being exceptions, but not too common on store bought PC's

 

6800GT, now with the 7800's out and the 7900's coming out very soon it should be DIRT cheap. Make sure you get AGP though (I doubt your board is PCI-E).

 

MR Casual, if you are interested in old pc games, then this thread could help you out a little

http://assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1629

 

Dune 2 is the one that started it all and is a classic, not sure if it's public domain yet but any PC today should run it perfectly. Also Master of Orion series was a lot of fun. I doubt a 32mb card can handle age of empires III but you may want to check out the older ones.

 

Age of empires 2 has very low system requirements. So does Star Craft and Warcraft 3. Kohan is also a great fantasy style RTS game. It's a cult classic. Check that out too. Also, don't neglect the Command and Conquer series.

Chances are that your videocard is onboard, which means it will suck at anything 3D. Open up your PC, look for a brown slot (chances are your PC is at least a year old, so it won't have PCI xpress) that is above a whole bunch of white slots, and its about the same length of the white slots. If you have one, and if you can afford it, then look into getting a nVidia 6800. that will play all games, especially AoE3, but hopefully you'll have at least 1gig RAM if you want to play taht game well and at least a 3.0ghz CPU. If you can't afford the video card, then look into getting at least a 9600 Pro. It can handle a game such as AoE3, but AoE3 is a RAM hog, so you might have to upgrade your RAM if you have 512mb.

All RTS games released before 2004 will run fine/fast on 512mb RAM and even as low as a TNT2 video card. RTS games aren't graphics hogs, they are RAM hogs for the most part.

 

Well, the Warhammer 40K demo works pretty good, but its not at the highest settings. Its about on medium for some parts and high for others. It has no shadows and stuff, too.

Since my computer is about 1.5 years old, and not upgraded, the graphics card makes the game look "Ok" as far as graphics go for me but my CPU is a little slow for some games.

I might buy a new card or something one of these days, but I am going to wait.

 

I wouldn't sweat the graphics cards unless there is a game you just have to play. you can find some older cards cheaply on EBAY that will have 64-128mb and fit a PCI or AGP slot. Unless thats a computer you built yourself I wouldn't invest any money into upgrading it, you can buy one of those flavor of the month e-machines with whatever graphics cards they come with now for the price of 1 top tier enthusiast graphic card these days. At least all the SLI madness is helping to drop the prices a little bit since they are buying 2 of them at one time now heh.

 

A 6600GT AGP, brand new, is less than $200. Most games out there now will run pretty well with that video card.

 

i try to stay away from w3: frozen trone, because i became adict. :redface:

REALLY good RTS. Easy enough to pick and play, but deep enough to make you stay and discover new things (such as strategies) each time you play.

The only big black point is that battle net is loaded with darm little bastards.

 

warcraft 3 will run on a p3 1 ghz with 8meg videocard..or at least it did on the schools computers...if your into racing, get the nascar heat mod launcher, free download and lets you play the 80 or so different stule racing mods and tracks for it.....


Ryan

 

I'll go one step further - I had WCIII running on my old laptop, a 500Mhz Celeron with 128MB RAM and 4MB onboard graphics. It was pretty hilarious - there was a spot in every level where I would have to save, exit the game and reload my data because something screwy would always happen where the game refused to texture any of the game models or environments after 45 minutes. Must have had something to do with the ridiculously small amount of video memory on the system.

 

What do I do to check how fast my CPU is?

I'll start looking around for a better Video Card and stuff, but Im probably wait on buying. I dont know, being new to PC gaming and all. All the different cards and other factors that come into play when playing pc games.

Its really confusing.