StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Guys, my system is quite obsolete as for today's standards. I got an OC'd Athlon 2000XP+, 1Gb Ram, GeForce 7600GS and XP. It doesn't even come close to minimum system requirements for most games and I do realize it... but still some of them work and some of them don't.

It really pissess me off, because I can't find a key to the problem. For example, Call of Duty 4 ran really fine on medium settings. But Quantum of Solace, which is said to be based on the same engine, doesn't (crash during startup).

The same goes for GTA IV. Or Mirror's Edge, which is based on UT3 engine... while Gears of War ran fine without ANY problems.

I know a system upgrade is long overdue, but still many of recently released games ran on my old system without any problems. The question is, is something wrong with my comp (drivers, settings) or is the engine leap so big that I can't physically run any of the games? I heard something about the SSE2 instructions, which my processor obviously doesn't have.

And please don't point me to the systemrequrimentslab.com. I know that page and it's pretty much useless, since in the past it said I cant run some of the games that did.

-EDIT: Just to clarify, we are talking about the Thorton 1,667 Ghz processor.

I'm not even sure what your asking... but just because two games are using the same engine doesn't necessarily mean they will both run, ESPECIALLY UE3, which can be set up a bunch of different ways. Mirror's Edge in particular uses a custom lighting solution, which is probably why you can't even get it to start. GTAIV on that machine is absolutely futile, it's a beast of a game and needs a really powerful machine, with a lot of memory.

The "key to your problem" is definitely the CPU, your so many generations behind now that I wouldn't be surprised if some of the newer games do refuse to run without sse2, posting one of the crash messages would probably help. There is a discussion about it Here, apparently games are just now starting to require sse2. So I'd expect to see a lot more in the "not working" category in the future if an upgrade is out of the question.

Thanks, that kinda explains it all.

I am planning an upgrade in the near future. A low budget one (I hate spending cash one something that in the next months will lose most of it's value) - most probably an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and all that comes with it: a new mobo, graphic card and RAM. Still thinking about it and gathering funds.

Still, I was surprised because I ran Crysis (1024x768, medium settings) and apart from some occasional stuttering there wasn't much happening in the slowdown department.