Hi there, I have recently discovered gaming on the PC ( i have traditionally been a console man). The first PC game I tried was the first Halo. I did'nt like that as much as I thought I would, or as much as the hype. I then found Farcry. I really like Farcy (the graphics are amazing) butI am already looking for the next game. You can see the kind of action/adventure stuff im steering towards but with my PC specs I cant make the leap to next gen stuff coming out now like Crytek or perhaps Farcry 2 & Bioshock. So Im looking for inspiration to try and catch up on some of the great PC games that I might have missed out on. My specs are as follows: XP pro AMD 3000+ (standard 1.8Mhz) 1.5 Gig of RAM Nvidia 7600GT 256MB 120 gig HDD
You're right in saying that your PC can't handle Crysis very well (It could manage it on low settings), though it should be able to play Bioshock (Even if on medium/low). Some great games that i can play on a laptop that's a bit worse than your PC (XP, Intel 1.8GHz x2, 1GB RAM, Nvidia 7600 go) are Call of Duty: 4 (Medium/Low settings), Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (Medium settings), Half Life 2: Orange Box (Max settings w/o AA) and it can just about run Crysis on low settings (Manages about 20fps). The picture OmriSama posted has some great games Gears of War might not run well on your PC, though i havn't tried it on mine, the same with S.T.A.L.K.E.R though it should run fine at lowish settings. Doom 3 is good and it should run fine with at least medium settings. You don't have to look at very new games though, older games with a little worse graphics can still have great stories (FarCry springs to mind)...
I'm talking about both. Actually, ALL of Valve's games are great. He (the thread opener) should get Steam.
thanks for the advice, I couldn't open the image on work PC but will have a look at your suggestions at home. Meanwhile I've been doing some more searching and might give F.E.A.R a go and thanks for the COD 4 suggestion too. In fact i was'nt sure if I could run COD 4 well enough but i'll give it a go on lower settings. What settings would you recommend I kick off with on COD4 then? Sounds like it's quite short but could be good for xmas holidays.
To start with, i'd suggest setting everything to "Low" or "Off", but resolution on full, unless you don't mind a low resolution whilst gaming. Then, when you get an idea of how fluid the game is playing, you can slowly change the individual settings to "Medium" or "On", up to the point where your eyes can distinguish the game running slightly slower, or you can "see" each frame, then drop the settings back a slight bit.