hardware/upgrade advice needed for games
 

Hi
Ive got 2 PC's at home i need to upgrade to allow my kids to LAN play 1942:
Battlefield (a game they both love and all their friends play)

The games minimum requirements a
pentium3 500mhz. (My kids PC is an intel pentium3 450 mhz and Pentium 2 and
the game wont run)

Therefore i wish to upgrade 2 computers to be able to cope with the latest
games (but dont want to shell out for top end stuff)


Could someone please help me as I want to do it quite cheaply. I will
probably buy from somewhere like ebuyer or special-reserve.co.uk where
delivery is fast and prices are meant to be reasonable?

I need to know what processor + motherboard to buy for both PC's that would
make them pentium4/equivelent as there are so many to choose from.
Will i need new cases? and will their existing memory slot onto the new
pentium 4 (or equivelent) motherboard or will that have to be upgraded too?

What graphics card should i buy that can cope with these games? (something
good that will do the job but not THE very latest expensive ones)
I think the one in there pc is a voodoo 3 and voodoo 2 but not sure if those
would handle the game or not.

Please can someone recommend a processor + motherboard, and fairly good
graphics card and tell me if i'll need a new case and memory.
I just think that doing it this way instead of buying 2 complete new
systems, will save alot of expense. I just dont have a clue at what to buy
as their are so many different types of everything to choose from. I could
go into PC world for advice, but ive heard they are useless and expensive,
so I thought I'd ask around on the groups.

Many thanks
Chris

"sarahandchris" wrote in message
...
Therefore i wish to upgrade 2 computers to be able to cope with the latest
games (but dont want to shell out for top end stuff)

Could someone please help me as I want to do it quite cheaply. I will
probably buy from somewhere like ebuyer or special-reserve.co.uk where
delivery is fast and prices are meant to be reasonable?

Chris, on the one hand, it's really pretty easy to swap out motherboards to
upgrade (and then reinstall Windows), but on the other there are also a lot
of details that *could* snag you. You can do this relatively cheaply
though.

I need to know what processor + motherboard to buy for both PC's that
would
make them pentium4/equivelent as there are so many to choose from.
Will i need new cases? and will their existing memory slot onto the new
pentium 4 (or equivelent) motherboard or will that have to be upgraded
too?

You won't need new cases, assuming they are standard ATX. I would go with
an Athlon XP in the 2500-3000 range. Motherboards are either made for
Pentium or Athlon, so you'll want to get a motherboard to match. You will
probably want new memory (someone else chime in on memory types.)

What graphics card should i buy that can cope with these games? (something
good that will do the job but not THE very latest expensive ones)
I think the one in there pc is a voodoo 3 and voodoo 2 but not sure if
those
would handle the game or not.

No, those were great in their time, but it's time for an upgrade. I'd
recommend getting a couple GeForce 4 Ti4200. You would have to spend a lot
more to get faster graphics cards. I just bought a used one for $65 US. If
you're willing to buy used, this is great bang-for-the-buck. So let's say a
new Athlon XP, maybe 2600+, with a motherboard, let's say an Asus for the
Athlon CPU. Those 2 should cost about $200. Add 256M RAM plus a used Ti
4200 graphics card for another $125 = about $325 each. That should get you
started in your search :-)