Gaming Below the Recommended Requirements

Kilroy

So here's the deal: I want to play Bioshock. A lot. Unfortunately, my poor laptop's RAM and video card RAM fall short of the recommended requirements. It meets all of the minimums, but who wants to play Bioshock on the lowest graphic setting? That's like drinking perfectly aged whiskey out of a sippy cup.

So I ask you, my dear H/A lurkers, what should I do? I can't afford a new computer or new hardware. Should I buy the game and let my computer do its best, or should I wait until I hit the lottery and get a new compy?

Xenocide Geek

it depends on how much the game means to ya

if you want it to look good, and run good, i'd say wait.

but if you just really want to play it, don't care about graphics, etc

then you might as well go for it, right?

the game is beautiful tho

amateurhour

Not exactly the answer you want to hear, but refurb (rox0rz) xbox 360's are going for like $299..... You can already afford the game, and it would be cheaper than getting a new PC.

brandotheninjamaster

lol, I'm sorry this thread just reminds me of a LAN party that I went to. This guy had a Dell and from what I could gather it was stock or had really poor hardware. The game being played that night was Call of Duty 2, my friends and I ran alongside him and threw all the smoke bombs in our inventory. He would get like 1 frame every 4 seconds. Classic...

Alright, for the H/A I would wait until you get some dough to get Bio-Shock. If you bought it in your current state you would miss out on the full experience.

EggyToast

Yeah, that's one of the reasons that a lot of gamers have dropped their PC gaming habits -- cheaper to buy a console that lasts 4-5 years than upgrade a vid. card every 2-3. As the game has no multiplayer, PC gaming's biggest advantage (free multiplayer and mods) aren't even a factor.

amateurhour

brandotheninjamaster wrote: »

lol, I'm sorry this thread just reminds me of a LAN party that I went to. This guy had a Dell and from what I could gather it was stock or had really poor hardware. The game being played that night was Call of Duty 2, my friends and I ran alongside him and threw all the smoke bombs in our inventory. He would get like 1 frame every 4 seconds. Classic...

Alright, for the H/A I would wait until you get some dough to get Bio-Shock. If you bought it in your current state you would miss out on the full experience.

I remember those days. For us it was counterstrike classic. We'd have machines thrown together out of spare parts, overclock them as much as possible, remove the outer case and stick a desk fan beside them so they wouldn't crash..... It was like having a lan party in a pc repair shop parts storage room...

Scosglen

I don't really understand how anyone here can help you. Your computer is old. There is no magical elixir or trick to fixing that. Your choice is to play bioshock with all the bells and whistles off or to not play at all. By waiting for the stars to align until you get a new computer that will run the game at it's best, UE3 will probably be passe by then anyhow and your wait will have been pointless.

Maybe you should invest in an Xbox when you get some money.

Kilroy

Scosglen wrote: »

I don't really understand how anyone here can help you. Your computer is old. There is no magical elixir or trick to fixing that. Your choice is to play bioshock with all the bells and whistles off or to not play at all.

My computer isn't old. It just doesn't have shiny amazing specs. I'm not asking for a solution to that; I was merely wondering what some of you would do if you were in my situation.

So the general consensus it to wait or buy an Xbox. That was pretty much what I leaning towards. Thanks H/A!

amateurhour

Kilroy wrote: »

Scosglen wrote: »

I don't really understand how anyone here can help you. Your computer is old. There is no magical elixir or trick to fixing that. Your choice is to play bioshock with all the bells and whistles off or to not play at all.

My computer isn't old. It just doesn't have shiny amazing specs. I'm not asking for a solution to that; I was merely wondering what some of you would do if you were in my situation.

So the general consensus it to wait or buy an Xbox. That was pretty much what I leaning towards. Thanks H/A!

So you want to wait, or you want to buy an xbox, which is it? Now we're curious DAMMIT!

Kilroy

amateurhour wrote: »

So you want to wait, or you want to buy an xbox, which is it? Now we're curious DAMMIT!

I'll never tell...

corcorigan

Buy a console and a nice big panel. Top-end, expensive PC parts are for people with either far too much money or no social life nowadays...

Daedalus

If you do not have a Shader Model 3 graphics card (the ones on the Bioshock system reqs: radeon X1k or better or Geforce 6-series or better) the game will not even start, nor would anything be visible if you somehow managed to make it start.

Sorry.

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Feral

mcdermott wrote: »

I thought this thread was worth bumping just to post a little additional advice (even though it seems to be solved) for anybody else who might be in a similar situation and read it.

Keep this in mind: "minimum" specs generally mean the minimum specifications under which the game will run (that is, so much as "start"). Less than that nowadays, and often you'll simply get an error screen. This means that you will be able to start the game, navigate the menus, and see video and hear audio with these specs (possibly at minimum settings)...nothing more. What it does not mean is that you will get, even at the lowest possible detail settings, a playable framerate.

Yeah. Bioshock for instance requires pixel shader 3.0 and a lot of older laptop video chipsets don't support that. Which means it won't run at all - you'll see the menus but you'll get in-game and all you'll see is black and the occasional glitch. It won't run on my three-year-old Dell Latitude for exactly this reason.

Unknown

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