PC game reccommendations

[gamecube6]

Hey guys, I was wondering if you guys had any recommendations for PC games. I came into some money and frankly I get bored a lot, so an online PC game would be nice. I'm wondering if I should just cave in to the rest of my family and just play world of warcraft, but the leveling process is just way too slow for me.

And how difficult is Steam to use?

[bicostp]

The. Orange. Box.

Steam's really easy to use.

[vskid]

And how difficult is Steam to use?

If you can't figure out Steam, GTFO.
Steam is sweet, I love not having to keep track of CDs.

[Twilight Wolf]

Yeah, Steam is pretty simple; you just need a credit card. Find the game you want, click "purchase," enter information, and you're done! Just let it download and you're gaming.

Also, I will echo bic's recommendation. Actually, I'll go beyond that:

IF YOU DO NOT OWN "THE ORANGE BOX" YOU ARE SERIOUSLY MISSING OUT ON SOME OF THE BEST GAMES EVER MADE

I think I've made my point. If your PC can run it, give thanks. Valve screwed the PS3 owners over by having EA port it and then refusing to do anything to fix the bugs, and for that, I am eternally bitter.

[gamecube6]

Hmm, I wonder what they're trying to tell me...

Does it take more to run the orange box than it does spore? Because our video card apparently wasn't powerful enough to run spore.

[Twilight Wolf]

The Source engine isn't terribly system-intensive. If you can run "Spore," I'd imagine you can run "The Orange Box." What are your PC's specs?

[gamecube6]

Come to think of it, I don't really know

Let me check

[gamecube6]

My computer's being used right now, but it can run world of warcraft fairly well, so it has at least

- Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
- 512 MB or more of RAM
- 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better
- DirectX® 9.0c (included) and latest video drivers

May be more, but I can't tell right now.

[jleemero]

Valve is excellent when it comes to compatibility.
The Source engine can squeeze out decent framerates from even the lowest hardware.

You could run TF2 or Left4Dead on a P4 2.4Ghz with an Nvidia 7200 128mb graphics card.

[gamecube6]

Valve is excellent when it comes to compatibility.
The Source engine can squeeze out decent framerates from even the lowest hardware.

You could run TF2 or Left4Dead on a P4 2.4Ghz with an Nvidia 7200 128mb graphics card.

That's good to know, I may be able to run this.

Edit: Damn, this is inexpensive! only $30? I was expecting something like $90!

[bicostp]

Post CPUz and GPUz screenshots, please.

Just as fair warning, if you're running integrated graphics there's a 75% chance you can't run any recent PC games and will have to get a dedicated video card. (Something relatively cheap like a 9800 GTX+ or HD 3000 series will do for now as long as your CPU is up to snuff.)

The Source engine relies more heavily on the CPU than the GPU. I run them on a 2.0 ghz Turion / Radeon X200m based laptop no problem.

HL2, Ep. 1, Gmod 9, HL2:DM: All run okay because they use an old version of the Source engine, which came out in 2004.
Counter-Strike: Source has a weird issue where it adds a half-second delay to button presses.
Portal, Episode 2, Lost Coast, Gmod 10 all work well enough.
TF2 has a custom config file with most of the visuals bottomed out because the lappy doesn't have much for a GPU. Still, on a 24 player server I get about 15-20 FPS average. 32 players = <10 FPS when things get busy. Alone in 2Fort's spawn I get almost 30.

Of course there are dozens of free mods out there based off Source (Garry's Mod, SourceForts, Team Fortress Classic, Zombie Panic, the upcoming Half-Life 1 fan remake...), adding to the value.

[nightwheel]

I don't have the Orange Box yet. But I do want to get it.

[Kurt_]

Valve = Best Company Ever.

A great free online game is Cultris. Look into it, it's tetris. Plain old Tetris. At 1-3 blocks per second. And multiplayer. (Their server is currently down, they're working on fixing it though).

It's powerful fun.

[gamecube6]

Okay, Specs.

Intel (R)
Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.00 GHz
1.99 GHz, 768 MB of RAM

Not entirely sure of what this means, but it seems to me like my computer sucks.

EDIT: Kurt, you scare me. I can't pass level 8 of the NES version of tetris, let alone that.

[bicostp]

I assume this is a pre-built, off the shelf comp. What make and model is it? Do you even have discrete graphics? If not, don't even think about buying any games made past 2005. I wouldn't spend more than $150 on a video card for it, since your processor will be a bottleneck for anything much newer. (Plus you can get a barebones PC kit that will tear circles around your P4 for less than $400. I've put together a Q9550 / GTX 260 based build for under $750, minus a hard drive and case.)

Unfortunately, it's impossible to recommend upgrades without knowing what you're working with. Please post the make and model. (For example, Dell Dimension XXXX or Compaq DeskPro EN.)

Assuming it's only got AGP slots:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102814
$80, and probably the top end for AGP.

While you're ordering stuff, get some more RAM. Not only for games, but it will help everyday stuff too. Today, 1 gig is a minimum. Luckily, DDR2 is dirt cheap these days.

But like i said, that 2.0 ghz P4 is gonna chug like hell in 32 player matches, but that's about the same as my lappy so it should be playable.

If you want to explore that option, we can throw together some sample parts builds for you.