PC specs good enough for Steam?

[Spawn of Sephiroth]

Ok, so I've been wanting to play some games on Steam, I miss pc gaming from years and years ago. My question is before I waste money, will my pc be good enough to run games on steam without issues? I don't know computer language so all the system requirements are a little over my head.


65443

[escobert]

what games? not every game on steam requires the same PC to run.

[Spawn of Sephiroth]

Probably some final fantasy, maybe fallout or elder scrolls

[escobert]

I doubt you'd have much issues with FF games but I dunno about TES and Fallout. I'm not familiar with the specs of your components.

[Bolivar]

Quick google, those specs are a little old, it looks like a general purpose machine from 2010. Perfect for web browsing and playing videos but not really a dedicated gaming machine. These benchmarks suggest it's going to have trouble getting satisfying performance, even out of older titles:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/82160-intel-dg45id-motherboard-review/5

Fortunately, building a solid rig is relatively affordable and intuitive these days, there's a lot of knowledgeable people around here who can help you get started. If you're just looking for a dependable prebuilt, you might want to look at something like the Alienware Alpha. Slightly more expensive than a console but will get you good performance out of more or less any game:

http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-ASM100-1580-Console-i3-4130T-Processor/dp/B00MA7AMKY/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439590067&sr=1-1&keywords=alienware+alpha

[Spawn of Sephiroth]

Quick google, those specs are a little old, it looks like a general purpose machine from 2010. Perfect for web browsing and playing videos but not really a dedicated gaming machine. These benchmarks suggest it's going to have trouble getting satisfying performance, even out of older titles:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/82160-intel-dg45id-motherboard-review/5

Fortunately, building a solid rig is relatively affordable and intuitive these days, there's a lot of knowledgeable people around here who can help you get started. If you're just looking for a dependable prebuilt, you might want to look at something like the Alienware Alpha. Slightly more expensive than a console but will get you good performance out of more or less any game:

http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-ASM100-1580-Console-i3-4130T-Processor/dp/B00MA7AMKY/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439590067&sr=1-1&keywords=alienware+alpha

yea thats about when i got it. I will check the benchmarks thanks for that. And upgrading my pc or a new one is a no go. Barely talked my wife into letting me use some of our income tax money for my ps4 lol

[escobert]

you could build a pretty decent PC for the price of a console. You don't need the absolute state of the art stuff for FF TES and Fallout. I play on pretty much a budget PC and I exclusively use a PC for gaming.

[Bolivar]

Quick google, those specs are a little old, it looks like a general purpose machine from 2010. Perfect for web browsing and playing videos but not really a dedicated gaming machine. These benchmarks suggest it's going to have trouble getting satisfying performance, even out of older titles:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/82160-intel-dg45id-motherboard-review/5

Fortunately, building a solid rig is relatively affordable and intuitive these days, there's a lot of knowledgeable people around here who can help you get started. If you're just looking for a dependable prebuilt, you might want to look at something like the Alienware Alpha. Slightly more expensive than a console but will get you good performance out of more or less any game:

http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-ASM100-1580-Console-i3-4130T-Processor/dp/B00MA7AMKY/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439590067&sr=1-1&keywords=alienware+alpha

yea thats about when i got it. I will check the benchmarks thanks for that. And upgrading my pc or a new one is a no go. Barely talked my wife into letting me use some of our income tax money for my ps4 lol

You'll probably be set with a PS4 then. You won't get the pure PC experiences like Civ, Dota, and Counter-Strike but it seems like every notable PC developer has the goal of getting their games on PS4 these days. That goes from the marquee indie developers to even mid-tier stuff like the CRPG renaissance (Divinity, Banner Saga, Wasteland) and Paradox Entertainment. Even Blizzard and MMOs are starting to have a bigger presence on console, and keyboard & mouse support is getting more integration as well.

[Mirage]

Each steam game has their own system requirements list. You can sign up for steam without buying anything and check these requirements prior to purchase.

Your particular system probably won't run recent 3D games very well. 2D "indie" games should be fine though. Is it a laptop or a desktop computer?

If it's a desktop, a recent budget-level graphics card upgrade will probably allow you to play things with graphics settings resembling something in between PS3 and PS4.

[Spawn of Sephiroth]

Each steam game has their own system requirements list. You can sign up for steam without buying anything and check these requirements prior to purchase.

Your particular system probably won't run recent 3D games very well. 2D "indie" games should be fine though. Is it a laptop or a desktop computer?

If it's a desktop, a recent budget-level graphics card upgrade will probably allow you to play things with graphics settings resembling something in between PS3 and PS4.

Desktop.

[Mirage]

Ok. Your CPU is a dual core without hyperthreading, so the very latest and most CPU intensive games will probably not run very great on it, but if you don't play games with very fast paced action where you want 60fps, you can probably get pretty far with a new video card for as little as 100 bucks. Settling for 720p will open up for quite a few more games too.

With a 100 bucks video card upgrade, I expect that you will be able to play for example FO New Vegas, Portal 2, Mass effect, and Skyrim at least better than PS3 or Xb360 can do, but you probably won't see the same level of image quality as you would get on a PS4. Not for all games at least. It will vary a bit.

It'll most likely play many PC-centric games like DOTA2, LoL, Civilization 5 and Starcraft 2 without a hitch as well.

Your CPU will probably show its limitations in games with lots of NPCs or other movable objects first. In some games, like Skyrim, you can decrease the amount of on-screen characters and objects, and that would probably help.

You should probably try to go for a video card that doesn't use an enormous amount of power, unless you know you have a decent PSU in that machine.

Something like a GTX 750Ti should be pretty well matched in performance compared to the rest of your parts, and doesn't use a lot of power. It's not hard to install, but make sure you have enough space for it before buying, if you decide you want one.

[Spawn of Sephiroth]

Thanks. Yea im not really looking for something for perfect visuals Id be happy with what maybe 360 or ps3 looks like. I mainly just want it to run smooth. The only game Ive tried to play on it is Minecraft and even having everything set low it lagged and I couldnt really do anything. Thats mainly my concern is getting smooth gameplay that would allow me to enjoy it.

[escobert]

Minecraft falls into the DayZ category, where it's very CPU intensive because of all the stuff going on and things that can be done. You'd have a better time with single player games I'd think.

[Mirage]

minecraft also suffers from being a java game.