Okay so final answer from someone. Is this a good computer worth 100$? I am extremely poor and my current computer sucks major ass. (It lags when I have AIM + Winamp on, WTF!)

SC2... well...

It's hard to tell by videos but iirc someone said blizzcon machines were running something like 8800GTX with 2 gigs of ram and probably core 2 duos. Judging by the gameplay performance seen in blizzcon videos involving largescale battles and the history of blizzard engines and the general knowledge that it was an unoptimized alpha, I would guess you'd probably be safe with 2 gigs of ram, a ~2.2ghz or equivelent core2/AMD, and something like a 2600XT or a 8600GT... I don't know much about nvidia cards so I can't really guess about those. But if SC2's AI is anywhere near as cpu intensive as wc3's you can expect the cpu requirements to be pretty steep for skirmish and larger user-made campaign maps. This vastly depends on if they've improved memory management since wc3. Wc3 really did not handle memory well at all and a lot of the triggers and jass functions had leaks that could destroy performance over time.

The thing with sc2 is, is that even if you can run it at max settings flawlessly in melee, UMS maps can still kill your computer just like wc3. SC2 will probably scale very well with settings though. It's really hard to guess but I can't see it needing the kind of hardware supreme commander needs by a long shot. Only time will really tell.

However, if you watched the zerg videos you notice that their fps drops quite considerably in some of the fights, especially the beginning with the lings and tanks. I don't know what kind of hardware those were recorded on but it's clear that sc2's optimization still has a long way to go.

edit -

Echo> Well if you can't make any money and you are seriously in a bind for something a little more powerful, I'd say go for it, but don't expect built-in video to be that great in anything released in the past 5 years. Even a very old, cheap video card is superior to built-in simply because built-in puts overhead on the cpu.

If you're that desperate to get the best computer for your money, you're probably best off getting the parts off newegg and building it yourself.

Also, if cost is that much of an issue, why the hell are you getting two 40GB hard drives? 40GB is completely sufficient - I've had my computer for a little over 2 years and I'm only using 39.6GB, and that's with absolutely no attention to the space I use.

It's coming like that from someone on craigslist. Everything for 100$.

Wow DT, I remember space-managing 4 gigs between diablo 2 and wc3 and starcraft and modding apps. Yeah, that was fun. I can't imagine being stuck on 40 gigs now, though. Video processing alone demands one of my large drives.

I'm using 136 gigs in my C drive alone. Well, I barely have anything anywhere else .

No offense, but that's a bit of a ripoff. This is a little more than $100 (Newegg doesn't seem to sell socket-939 mobos anymore, along with the cheapest, oldest crap), but it completely destroys what you're planning on buying:

$19.98 - Case - cheap and a bit fragile, but you're on a budget
$39.99 - Motherboard - onboard GeForce 6100 and onboard audio, socket AM2 mobo
$44.99 - CPU - 2.2GHz Athlon 64 single-core socket AM2 proc
$19.99 - RAM - 1GB of DDR2-800 RAM; much faster than whatever that other hunk of junk has
$22.99 - Media Drive - 52/32/16x CD +/- RW and DVD-ROM combo drive
$35.99 - Hard Drive - 80GB SATA hard drive

Total: $183.93, plus tax/shipping.

Oh, I suppose if you need a floppy drive you can add one too - they're only about $5.

Quote

Video processing alone demands one of my large drives.

Well, I don't keep pirated movies or huge archives of porn on my HD

I mean, I actually MAKE videos. I have cameras set up and everything! You know, frapsing 1280x1024 video footage takes up a MASSIVE amount of HD space.

He keeps them on a flash drive so it doesn't get damaged.

It would have to be one hella large flash drive

lol @ floppy drive. No one uses them anymore

Is that a good set up to play high graphic games with?

My budget if I was to build my own computer would be able 250$ if i saved up. Can you improve it a bit? The parts looked a little bad.

Echo your not touching good for less than 400-500$.
Ill go on newegg right now, but stop taking suggestions from people who have no idea what theyre talking about. Wait until I, ducky, or deathawk post something.

lol, well first off, you can reuse things like a media drive, and potentially case.

second, dtbks build is not going to play high graphic games, nor is anything at the price point, really.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103214
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161028
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138077
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127300R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136195
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147095
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371013
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186010

I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but you need more money.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 30 2008, 11:32 pm by ~:Deathawk:~.

What DTBK posted could probably play WoW.

Edit: I gave up. Hawk's got your best bets.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 30 2008, 11:23 pm by Excalibur.

Would you be wiling to reuse parts from your current computer?

This computer is a piece of trash, so no.