[marcelprimed]

Good evening,

I'm looking to Upgrade my CPU and GPU to run PCSX games on my PC. More specifically FFX, FFXII

I currently have a slow emachine:

Operating System
Windows Vista Home Basic Service Pack 1 (build 6001)

Processor a
AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3600+ 2.0ghz (single core)
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Not hyper-threaded

Main Circuit Board b
Board: Gateway MCP61PM2MA FAB1.0
Bus Clock: 201 megahertz

Memory Modules c,d
896 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 512 MB
Slot 'A1' has 512 MB

Display
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430


I'm looking to get one of the bundled deals from newegg CPU + GPU.

What would be compatible for my PC? I'm looking for full performance.

For the GPU: Do I need AGP or PCI?
For the CPU: Would I be able to switch to Intel? If so, Should I switch to Intel?

I would appreciate some advice I'm not too tech savy anymore.

Thank you in advanced!

 

[marcelprimed]

Should I have posted this in a different section? or worded this differently?

 

[Phil]

With that build, best to start from scratch mate. Seriously. Its not wise to throw tons off money on an old system.

 

[marcelprimed]

With that build, best to start from scratch mate. Seriously. Its not wise to throw tons off money on an old system.

You're definitely right, but I really don't feel like I need a new system. I just want to run those 2 games, and maybe NBA2k10 60fps at decent resolution.

I was thinking:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Processor ADX6000CZBOX - 3.0GHz, 2MB Cache, 1000MHz (2000 MT/s), Windsor, Dual-Core, Socket AM2

and


Galaxy 95TGE8HUFEXX GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP

Will that be enough?

 

[runawayprisoner]

Nope. Put your money towards an ATI Radeon HD 4770. Then at least, you should be able to play some modern PC games at decent settings and frame rates.

To get PCSX2 to play FFX or FFXII even at their native resolutions will require you to change your entire system completely. FFXII being especially intensive on resources. It's not worth the investment right now... and to be honest, you might well spend $100 on a new PS2 if you want to play all 3 games so much.

 

[marcelprimed]

Nope. Put your money towards an ATI Radeon HD 4770. Then at least, you should be able to play some modern PC games at decent settings and frame rates.

To get PCSX2 to play FFX or FFXII even at their native resolutions will require you to change your entire system completely. FFXII being especially intensive on resources. It's not worth the investment right now... and to be honest, you might well spend $100 on a new PS2 if you want to play all 3 games so much.

That would be a really good idea, and I already own both FFX/12 games,.

But I specifically want to play them on my PC, via PCSX, not on a PS2.

I own a PS3, but its not backwards compatible, so I figured I might as well make the investment and upgrade my current PC while I'm at it. Therefore, buying a PS2 is out of the question.

Is there anything I can upgrade to that will allow me to play those games? I read pcsx is very processor dependent.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Ahem... you still need to own a PS2 to be able to use PCSX2, by the way. I'm telling you to buy a new PS2 because that's in case your old one's laser got killed or something... otherwise... :innocent:

This is not just a gray area, it's almost forbidden.

Anyway, to play FFXII at acceptable speed, you'd need a Core 2 Duo running at almost 3.6GHz and a fairly powerful graphics card (a GeForce 9600GT is about barely enough, I think). That was how it was the last time I tried it. If I have time, I'll dump my PS2 BIOS again and try it again with the latest build... but I'm fairly busy lately.

And by the way, a Core 2 Duo at almost 3.6GHz is much faster performance-wise to anything you can upgrade to from what I can see.

 

[makotech222]

loll its much better to just get a whole new system
You need a new mobo to upgrade the CPU and GPU, a new PSU to power those, and thats probably a small case, so you will probably need a new mid-tower case. No new CPU or GPUs will be compatible.

 

[bkwegoharder]

Maybe he does own a ps2, but it is broken.

 

[gamefreak94]

Specifying your budget range would be a good place to start.

 

[S.SubZero]

Anyway, to play FFXII at acceptable speed, you'd need a Core 2 Duo running at almost 3.6GHz and a fairly powerful graphics card (a GeForce 9600GT is about barely enough, I think).

I can play FFXII on my 3Ghz C2D with an 8800GT video card, 1920x1200 with things maxxed and it's fine.

The OP is asking a bit much from his hardware though.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I can play FFXII on my 3Ghz C2D with an 8800GT video card, 1920x1200 with things maxxed and it's fine.

The OP is asking a bit much from his hardware though.

Is it full speed absolutely anywhere? And is that without any speed hack or with some speed hacks on? Last I tried, the game was like bullet time unless I had my CPU over 3.6GHz...

 

[S.SubZero]

I have never applied any hacks to PCSX2. It runs smooth on my setup and doesn't really seem like it's even trying.

 

[Master_DX]

That's odd, When I tried it, I needed about 3.5-3.6GHz to run it at full speed all the time as well like rap said, but then again that was in version 0.9.6 and not the new svn which has fixed and improve a lot of the bugs and whatnots.

The factor that usually dropped my fps to 60 was my GPU (9600GT) not being able to handle the load.

 

[marcelprimed]

Thank you guys for the advice.

I realized now that it was unreasonable of me to think that that I would be able to play those games on my current machine, and as Mako pointed out a new setup may be the only option, considering all the issues.

But ftr I may have been asking for too much, but I'm really struggling to accept the notion that 3.6 C2D is the bare minimum for FFXII...

lol, To be honest S.SubZero's comment

I have never applied any hacks to PCSX2. It runs smooth on my setup and doesn't really seem like it's even trying.

kind of intrigued me.

 

[makotech222]

its pretty true. ff12 is one of the more demanding games for ps2.

 

[StriderVM]

FFX is not that demanding to PC systems I think. If you can get an Athlon64 X2 to 3.2Ghz with some speedhacks it can be running almost 100% of the time.

Now my suggestion is to first update that motherboard's BIOS, I'm 95% sure it's an AM2 mobo, which means the Athlon X2 240 would be the best thing you can put in there.

But then. I'm talking about the chipset, no the company, being it Dell, you may be out of luck regarding compability with that processor....