Upgrade advice please. PC too slow for games

Morporkian

Just to let you know, I currently have a Dell Dimension 4700 which can run TS3 with World Adventures attached too. Also, it could run all (and I mean ALL) of TS2. The only real problem was my poor old graphics card (Radeon X300 SE ) and the fact I do not keep my PC as tidy etc as I could.

My computer is coming up for 6 years old and the HDD is now failing, so I am having a new one installed in the next few days and once that is done, I am sure my TS3+WA will run really well again. I could actually still play it while the HDD was failing on me, it was just a lot slower than a year ago. Now the PC is too slow to do anything so I obviously can't.

However, I must say, I have upgraded my memory to 3GB too, which helps. I had already upgraded from the original (512MB) to 1GB and the extra 2GB (set of two 1GB ones from Crucial) cost about £30.

So you never know, you might be able to just upgrade you current PC a bit to get it to run. It is always worth a quick look and I am sure if you posted it's specs here, then the very tech savvy lot could advise whether it would be better to upgrade, or buy a new (or old + upgrades?) computer

(Specs for mine. Just with 3GB RAM: http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4700/sm/specs.htm#wp1043338)

JasX

Morporkian wrote: »

Just to let you know, I currently have a Dell Dimension 4700 which can run TS3 with World Adventures attached too. Also, it could run all (and I mean ALL) of TS2. The only real problem was my poor old graphics card (Radeon X300 SE ) and the fact I do not keep my PC as tidy etc as I could.

thats what I was getting at, if its an old machine with a decent processor but obvious shortcomming (eg lack of graphics card) that can be rectified for <£25 on ebay than with that and a factory restore PC might be able to more than cope....

OP is keeping their current specs a secret tho so I guess we'll never know :cool:

Morporkian

JasX wrote: »

thats what I was getting at, if its an old machine with a decent processor but obvious shortcomming (eg lack of graphics card) that can be rectified for <£25 on ebay than with that and a factory restore PC might be able to more than cope....

OP is keeping their current specs a secret tho so I guess we'll never know :cool:

I was hoping that my ramblings of my poor old PC (which I did get 6 years ago for the purpose of playing The Sims 2. Quite sad really...lol!) would give them a little encouragement about their current one. I didn't think I would have a hope in hell of running TS3, to be honest. I was so glad when I knew I would be able to

It might not be worth it, as they have said, but it also doesn't hurt to have a look - or let someone with more knowledge have a look.
We just need more people with pitiful PCs to come and encourage them maybe? lol

The_Grandmaster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/32368063#Comment_32368063
this is a very good list of possible ways to speed up a computer.

I would run malwarebytes and hijackthis loog to make sure no malware etc. are causing your computer to slow. Also what antivirus are you using? Some do make your computer very slow and changing it may be a quick fix. The hijackthis log will tell us what programmes are running on your pc which can be removed etc.

Also the cleanup memory leaks I found very good.

(All free too :rotfl:)

JasX

The_Grandmaster wrote: »

I would run....

Depending on how many years its been loaded/unloaded with junk a factory restore then copy all data back on can be a much more productive way to go

The_Grandmaster

True - but if the antivirus is mcaffee or norton, reinstalling these after a factory restore will make the laptop a geriatric again... They do work in my opinion. Two laptops which would take so long to open programme are quite quick now.