Computer for 'good' Istarian experience

[Hrough]

Now, although I'm a bit of a hardware/tech geek myself, I'm not that experienced with what causes Horizons/Istaria to run well.

My boyfriend lacks a decent computer. His good one broke down, and what he has right now runs on 128mb of RAM and Windows 2000. (I know, poor guy).

He needs a new box, but we need something cheap - so, what would you all suggest as a BARE MINIMUM to be able to enjoy Istaria? I'm thinking of giving him something equivalent to my sucky machine, and of course it would be running XP professional.

I'm thinking about 1 GB of RAM, but any recommendations for a cheap video card/processor/motherboard that'd do the trick? I might just give him my spares when I upgrade. (But I'm sure he doesn't want a Celeron! XD)

On the flip side... we're also thinking maybe a laptop would be more convinient. So any suggestions there?

So... floor's open! Sooner we can get him an Istaria-capable PC, the sooner I can buy him a subscription and we'll have another Istarian.

[tramsan]

1 GB really is the bare minimum to play HZ. Preferably you should put twice as much in there. Apart from that, what HZ needs the most is a fast CPU (since it relies relatively little on the 3d hardware), and a good, fast harddrive. Preferably two harddrives - one for Windows and swapfile, and another for Horizons.

[Steelclaw]

What cpu does he have now?

(BTW, I've run HZ on win2k quite nicely, it actually ran better than xp on the low-end system I had.)

[Kerech]

I played for several years with the following machine:

P4 2.8, 1G ram, GeForce 5500 video card (hardly top of the line). Could play at high settings with no problems, but turning off a couple settings like ground clutter, etc certainly made it better.

As others said, ram is your best bet to run Horizons... oops, Istaria... well.

[Hrough]

Okay, sounds good to me. I'm actually using only 1gb of RAM myself and Ho-Istaria runs relatively well for me. (on medium-ish settings, I can do high when my internet co-operates, but I don't care to)

I think he's running a Pentium III or something right now. I'm not entirely sure.

I think I'll just find something with 2gb of ram or so. I never thought of putting the game on a seperate hard drive, does that really speed things up? (if so, I have a secondary harddrive I should get to installing...)

So I should be able to get by relatively well with a cheap/possible onboard graphics card initially? I'm going to test this out on my current laptop when I get home to get a better idea of what I need.

Thanks for all the replies so far! It's nearing finals week, and as much as I WANT to be able to come up with all this stuff, the mixture of HTML, Access database, Java, Networking and everything is pushing the leisure hardware to the back of my brain. XD;;

[Steelclaw]

P3 eh? Wow. First, don't bother buying ram for it. It probably runs PC133 SDRAM, which isn't much cheaper than DDR2. That means you'll have to buy ram twice. (once now, once when you upgrade)

If you can, bum a few sticks off someone, run memtest86 and make sure they actually work.

Failing that, start looking at another PC. There are some cheap core2 duo packages out there, with a motherboard and boxed cpu for about $160 +/- 40. Fry's is notorious for bundling the cpu with an ECS motherboard. It's basically a free motherboard with the CPU, and performs about the same. I tend to buy those and then get a 'real' motherboard later.

As a word of caution, you'll probably have to buy a new power supply too. The ones of that era put a lot of emphasis on the 3.3v rail, since the CPU was wired to it. Nowadays, the CPU runs off the 12v rail, and your existing power supply, unless it 's rated for 350W or more and has a 2x2 pin p4 power connector, will probably not work for you.

So... new motherboard, new cpu, new ram, maybe new power supply, new video card... oy, that's like a whole new system -- which you might be better off doing. Get a new one for yourself and give him your old one.

[Hrough]

Yes, I'm currently looking at a better computer for him right now! XD There's no point in fixing the piece of junk he has right now - the motherboard doesn't even support PCI.

And I certainly am thinking of a new one for myself and giving him the old! XD Easier for me. I think for now I'll send him my old laptop after I fix it up. It's a P4 with 1gb of ram. I think if I strip down XP properly and perform the correct settings, it'll tide him over until I can afford a new machine.

[Steelclaw]

That will probably work. You'll have to drop the texture, graphic detail and view distance *way* down. Things will look muddy and foggy, but it'll be Istaria.

Good luck!

(tip: try win2k on the laptop)

[Kerech]

Oops, my original Horizons computer was a P3, not a P4, sorry.

P3, 2.8 ghz, 1G ram. I played HZ up until a month ago on that machine and it did just fine. Whatever you get, if you can go 2G ram, you'll help yourself immensely. Keep your hard drive defragged and with 2G ram you'll be good to go