Which upgrades for my PC?

spakkker

e3300 or e5300 -£37 - 50 , g31mo/bo eg g31m-es2l -£34 , 2GB ram(ddr2800) £35-36 , psu £15
Most prices ebuyer ,shop around for mem. Total £120-133. This will be far better than any 4yr old system but you most likely will need graphics card as well , don't know.

JasX

spakkker wrote: »

e3300 or e5300 -£37 - 50 , g31mo/bo eg g31m-es2l -£34 , 2GB ram(ddr2800) £35-36 , psu £15
Most prices ebuyer ,shop around for mem. Total £120-133. This will be far better than any 4yr old system but you most likely will need graphics card as well , don't know.

well noticably better but not 'far' better the 4400+ x2 benchmarks about 70% of the speed of the E3300 and on my earlier link you can get an E5400 bundle for £150.

In any case the OPs graphics card should be more than capable of running sims2 so perhaps they can put off that upgrade for a while

weegie.geek

spakkker wrote: »

e3300 or e5300 -£37 - 50 , g31mo/bo eg g31m-es2l -£34 , 2GB ram(ddr2800) £35-36 , psu £15
Most prices ebuyer ,shop around for mem. Total £120-133. This will be far better than any 4yr old system but you most likely will need graphics card as well , don't know.

a 15 quid PSU is a ludicrous idea.

There were no Socket A pci-e boards so the OP will definitely need a new video card.

I'd recommend the OP to sign up to avforums and hexus, and buy parts someone's selling in the classifieds section. It's generally cheaper than ebay, but I wouldn't discount ebay as an option.

I'd go for either socket 775 or AM2, but spend 30 quid on a half decent PSU.

JasX

weegie.geek wrote: »

There were no Socket A pci-e boards so the OP will definitely need a new video card.

ack yes it'll be an old AGP card more than likely, agree on the PSU front, £15 is a little too cheap even for mid/low end components

spakkker

Maybe someone can say for sure if sims 2 will or won't play with intel g33/31 onboard graphics ?? I don't know.
Was going to put £20 for psu , but my £10 psu isn't doing too bad.
Maybe with a twenty quid one I could get to 4.5 - http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9792/12421.png
Av forums is reasonable ,only used it twice to buy- first purchase not working ,had to get refund. Not all warranties are transferrable tho' .

weegie.geek

Intel onboard video is almost always useless for games. I know the Sims isn't the most demanding of games, but still.

Richie-from-the-Boro

weegie.geek wrote: »

Intel onboard video is almost always useless for games. I know the Sims isn't the most demanding of games, but still.

- no idea, but google reveals :

It'll come down to T&L, someone here says it will not

lookie

and

turbobob

The Sims 2 has fairly low requirements (it was released 6 years ago) but it will work better with a videocard with hardware T&L. The graphics processor on Intels G31 chipset is a GMA X3100 which does have hardware T&L, and supports Direct X to version 10, so it should work. The GMA X4500 (used in Intel's G41 chipsets, just very slightly more expensive than the G31) looks to have a much higher spec so given a choice between the two that's what I would go for.

Realistically any of them are going to be killed by almost any low end video card in 3D though - comparison with some video cards in the £30-40 price range here.

triggerhappyuk

mhollins83 wrote: »

Hi,

I really need some help here please?
I can't afford to buy a new PC, so have decided to make some upgrades on my current system.
I currently have:
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.79 GHz processor
512MB DDR RAM
Radeon 9600 graphics card
Gigabyte GA-7N400 motherboard

I have just installed the Sims 2 successfully but it won't get past the loading screen, it just freezes up and I have to restart the computer. I've tried all the solutions that the booklet says to try but nothing helps, so I thought a few upgrades might do the trick.
I had a look on ebay at memory and motherboards but I haven't got a clue what I'm looking for - there's so many!
Any help on this would be much appreciated

Much more likely to be a software issue, have you downloaded the latest updates?

triggerhappyuk

weegie.geek wrote: »

Intel onboard video is almost always useless for games. I know the Sims isn't the most demanding of games, but still.

It should still work though, just would be slow (not freeze) therefore more likely to be software or a driver conflict of some sort