First than nothing, it depends on the game you wanna play.

Secondly, you may want to OC your CPU to at least 3.0 ghz, since 2.4 is too slow even for a quad.

Otherwise, your PC is very much fit to PCSX2, but again, what plug-ins to use depends on the game.

 

My computer is pre-built and I've been told you shouldn't overclock it if it's in a pre-built. Is that right or is it completely safe to overclock?

 

He just said he's not very good with computers, and you advise him to OC his CPU? He'd most likely overvolt some component and FUBAR the CPU.

can you guys help me with what plug-ins would be best for my computer?

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
RAM: 3 GB (would be 4 GB, but because I have 32-bit right now...)
Windows Vista and my computer supports DirectX 10.

Also, should my computer be able to play most games at a decent speed?

Read the stickies, their easy to follow, plus there's absolutely no computer jargon in them, so there is no reason you should be asking others to configure everything for you when your too lazy to do it yourself. If you have a specific problem with one of the steps in the guide, then feel free to ask.

 

Well, I know, but at those clocks he won't get too good speeds. He may search for a guide on how to overclock.

 

He better not. To made a correct overclock person should be more than average comp. user. Most of overclockers made a dumb mistakes, and pcsx2 could made mistakes fatal.

Also, should my computer be able to play most games at a decent speed?

Some of them, around 50%. Mostly games on pcsx2.net compability list is o'k without sound and no-AA (for ZeroGS) or good picture for GSDX.

 

how can pcsx2 make a oc mistake fatal??

 

It simple: pcsx2 could load almost every floating point execution block at 100% for several hours. And if overclocked does not aware of correct ways to check CPU status, it could be easily overheated without control. And overheat lead to core degrade though several hours.

On normal win game CPU does not made such level FP of calculations direct on CPU. So there would no direct signs of problems on such "tests"

 

Well um, what happens when most cpus hit TJmax?? say it with me.......throttling.....

 

It's moreover the volts that will kill it. Phil is right about the throttling, although it would still be bad running a throttled CPU for long periods of time.

Way too many newbies set the CPU vcore perfectly, but leave the other volts at auto (most often the GTL reference volt, NB etc etc). Which is the problem since unless they have an enthusiast board, the motherboard will fry eventually due to heat or overvolting as the rest of the board tries to keep up with the CPU. Even enthusiast boards do it actually, if the bios is sloppy or the heatsinks are cheap/loose.

Besides, the OP has a prebuilt, so he definitely can't OC on it, with the Q6600 it would heat up a lot and stress the PSU way too much.

 

never mind then

 

what happen when voltage is not enough high to run cpu at full load?

 

Bluscreen

 

CPU mis-calculates, and either programs crash/lock up, or bluescreen.


Dam...phil beat me to it xD

 

:evil:

 

What programs can i use to test if voltage is enough?

 

Anything that uses the CPU a lot. Orthos/Prime95/Folding@home/superpi/terragen etc etc....you can even use pcsx2 if you want.

 

pcsx2 most of the times doesn't use full load in the 2 cores.

 

Neither do most commonly used apps. If it runs pcsx2 fine, chances are, it's stable for everyday use. How many people run Orthos/Prime95/Superpi on a daily basis for fun anyways?

Besides, just pop off the framelimiter if you want pcsx2 to use more CPU.