Determining/Purchasing a BF2 Capable Computer

[swfwebmaster]

To conduct a comprehensive test and provide a detailed report of your existing computer on its ability to play Battlefield 2 (BF2). Go to:

www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

Purchasing a computer or components
You can probably get a good gaming computer for $1,000 to $2,000.

Requirements:
P4 2.2 Ghz
512 RAM
30 GB Hard Drive
128 MB Video card**

Recommend:
P4 equivalent Dual core with 2.4 Ghz
2 GB RAM
150 GB HD
256 MB Video Card**

You will still need the case, keyboard, mouse, operating system, and other software. Recommend XP before Vista as an operating system, if you have a choice.

**Make sure the graphics card is "dedicated' and absolutely avoid "integrated." Integrated graphics memory will likely NOT run the better video games like BF2. Here are some common words used to describe it: video, graphics, accelerator, and card. They are usually used in combination with each other, but there is no standard title.

Look for the trademarks Nvida and ATI. They are the leading "dedicated" video card developers.

[angrytomass]

If you have Vista this set up would be inadaquate, you will need 2GB of memory and a 256MB Graphics card to play BF2 with anything like decent graphics.
This is why
'Recommend XP before Vista as an operating system, if you have a choice.'
Also If you build your own PC you could easily bring the cost of your purchase down by a considerable amount, or spend the same amount and build a kick ass PC.
Its easy to do and once you have done it once you will ask yourslef why your every went out and bought one from the shops!
SWF=Angry

[Milkrunner]

To follow up on the "Build your own PC" thing, I think I'll elaborate. If you've never done it before and don't feel comfortable trying it out plug-n-play style, read this guide as you do it: www.pcmech.com/byopc/

For purchasing equipment, don't go through shops. They want to make money off of you, that's all. If they sell you that DDR4 ram for a gillion dollars, they make tons of money. You can easily get 4 gigs of quality DDR2 ram for 160$. Check out www.mysuperpc.com and www.mysuperpc.com/ram.shtml. (I mention RAM specifically because it's the easiest thing to upgrade)

Here's a sample PC for under 1000$ (the links to sites with these prices are available through the mysuperpc site, which I found fairly helpful... and stole most of my info from:

142.50$ Power Supply(500W)+Case
144.99$ AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ AM2 with Fan
51.99$ Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 Heat Sink and Fan (The AMD X2 6400 runs fairly hot, but with any non-generic heat sink/fan you'll get amazing speeds).
169.99$ ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition (Motherboard) (AM2 Sockets)
39.99$*4 Crucial Ballistix 1G PC2-8500 DDR2 Ram
169.99$ eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB DDR3 Graphics Card
69.99$ Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200rpm SATA 300 MB/s
29.99$ Lite-On LightScribe Dual Formal Double Layer DVD RW/CDRW

Total: 939.40$

The audio from the motherboard isn't bad, so you don't really need a sound card. I'm not sure if you'll require a network card or wireless card, but that really has to do with your specific setup. Some accessories..

49.99$ Cambridge Soundworks PCWorks Multimedia Speaker System
18.99$ Plantronics Audio .90 Headset

You should be able to scrounge a monitor, keyboard and mouse from somewhere, otherwise a monitor could set you back as much as you'd like to spend on it, really. A cheap, used monitor from a thrift store really isn't going to give you a terrible gaming experience for the 10$ you throw at it, and a 400$ enhance premium super ultra excellent monitor isn't going to make your experience worth 390$ more. A good 100$ monitor would be fine:

Anyway, the specs for this PC are as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ AM2 3.2 Ghz
320 GB hard drive, 300mb/s with a 16mb cache (huge)
eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB DDR3
4GB Ram -- 4 Crucial Ballistix 1G PC2-8500 DDR2 sticks
Probably running XP or Vista
Lite-On LightScribe Dual Format Double Layer DVD RW/CDRW (20x speed DVD writer)
Motherboard sound
Cambridge Soundworks PCWorks Multimedia Speaker System
Right now I have a ViewSonic 20" rapid response monitor that I got as a gift (I think they paid 100$ for it last year) and it works great.

My PC is nowhere near as cool as this, but for 1000$ (minus the parts that I have already) it's a great system, especially compared to Dell's 720$ system which doesn't even have a graphics card:

Inspiron™ Desktop 530

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8200 (6MB L2 Cache,2.66GHz,1333FSB) (<3.2)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1 (160$ value)
3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs (<4G, though to be fair XP/Vista often limits your max RAM to 3.0-3.5GB)
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ (<320, not as big a cache)
16X DVD+/-RW Drive (<20)
No Monitor
No Speaker System
--------Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3100-----------
1 Year Next Business Day Onsite/In Home Service and Tech Support


My 2cents,
Milk

[angrytomass]

The only issue with this is that if you are going to upgrade your PC you will likly want a new monitor, especially as thats the componant you will use all the time, and that will add alot extra to the cost.
Also there is a massive difference between cheap monitors and expensive ones, for example the refresh rate and resolution alone can be the difference between a game looking crap and incredable! Also my wife uses photoshop alot and we only have a cheap monitor at the moment and the colours are extreamly bad on it!