How to make your 4 year-old pc...

MonsieurEvilMonsieurEvil Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">5 times faster for low cost</div>After seeing the heated thread about people wanting to run old hardware with more modern games, I hunted down an article I saw some time ago (again from Tom's Hardware):

<a href="http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/01q4/011005/index.html" target="_blank">How to make your 4-year old PC 5 times faster</a>

Not to be confused with the topic of Readyroom.org's Windows tuning guide (which deals more with the OS), this article is a step-by-step way to cheaply make your old hardware much much faster. In fact, the prices ranged from $137 to $247, which is really quite reasonable compared to a thousand dollar PC that your new rig will be equivalent to (and this was in 2001). Worth a look for all the luddites, cheapskates, and the genuinely broke.
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Comments

  • MonsieurEvilMonsieurEvil Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    Well, where are you guys with old PC's? Anyone bother to read this, or does it suit you to complain, but not act?
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  • KilltoyKilltoy Join Date: 2002-03-28 Member: 358Members
    Wow! Reminds me of the tech for turning a 386 into a 486sx. Cool stuff! I honestly didn't know they still pulled stunts like that, but I really think I have my heart set on upgrading to a true P4. Until then, my old P2 still holds up nicely.
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  • Ghetto_RiceGhetto_Rice Join Date: 2002-07-01 Member: 854Members
    Well i bought my pc around 3 years ago and when I did it wuz the bleeding edge of tech so I paid a pretty ripe price of $2200 Canadian.

    It's what im still using and its :

    Asus A7V Kt133 mobo
    17" NEC 75F Flat Monitor
    AMD Althlon 900@1100
    25" 400 watt tower
    Geforece 2 GTS 32 meg card @ 220/355
    SB live sound card OEM
    15gig HD
    52x cd drive
    and really crap pair of speakers

    Since then I have done a bit more with my comp, Ive added another 80 gig HD a 24x burner, and the Logitech Z-560 4.1 speakers at 400 watts of gaming goodness.

    Now ive spent a crap load of money on my comp and think that anything over 800 mhz and a geforce 2 mx + is reasonable for the next year at least. I see no reason for people to go out there and buy a Gf4 4600 for like 399 US (even tho ATI Radeon 9700 now OWNZ Nvidia). I didnt write this to do anything but state that if u have close or better to what I have then NEVER and I mean NEVER think of upgrading ur comp 4 another half year at least because u will not get any benefits of new game technology with ur new hardware because the games will have yet to come out. To make a long story short "Dont upgrade if u can run half life at 60fps because down the road u will kick urself"


    BTW thx MonsE for the link, everyone should be trying to strech their comp for as long as possible without spending much more than a dew hundred.
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  • TraneTrane Join Date: 2002-02-01 Member: 148Members
    i just did a crazy upgrade a couple months ago, so this article is um... a couple months late? lol , no im just kidding, but upgrading is definetly the way to go, way less expensive and you get to choose what exactly you want to upgrade.
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  • KidzeldaKidzelda Join Date: 2002-06-25 Member: 819Members
    I agree for the most part Rice, but the thing is, a lot of games run like crap on my comp without turning ALL features off and setting my res to 800x600 (and sometimes 640x480! ).Take, for example, the Army game. It has a map called Bridge. It's exactly what it sounds like: a bigass bridge. My draw distance is so bad that I have to get halfway across the bridge before I can see the enemy side.Getting to the halfway point often equals death if your the assaulting team. But otherwise, I can't see my enemy! Really all I need is a new video card, but it's still a problem. And furthermore, if anyone throws a smoke grenade, I'm screwed.
    Althon 1 ghz
    512 mb SDRAM
    GF2 MX 32mb (I know I need a new one)
    30 gb HD
    12 gb HD

    [edit] my fraw distance. Oh Yeah.
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  • Ghetto_RiceGhetto_Rice Join Date: 2002-07-01 Member: 854Members
    Yes true some new game wil push the edge of some older cards but thats the points im trying to get across upgrade one thing when u can or put it off for a little longer till the top of the line items now or at bargin bin prices.
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  • Silver_FoxSilver_Fox Spammer Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 34Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
    well, just to be fair, bridge has a thick lair of fog that limits your view.

    I'm pretty sure that the draw distance is intentional.

    I have a 1.5 ghz, 512 DDR Ram and a gf4 4600 ... and I still have the same limited view ...
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