Just a bit of CS

[Zootoxin]

Hi Guys,

bit of advise needed if you please.

My 2 brothers are casual gamers that absolutely love CSS and DODS but have very little interest in anything else PC wise.

Brother 1 - got that PC of boffer the other month (same as blunt) and is happily blasting away on CSS whenever he feels like it, which is too much if you as Brother 2.

Whats the best way to get brother 2 a unit just for playing CSS and DODS on for about £100?

I see these 3ghz + 1gb RAM refurbished DELLS on Ebay for like £80 but obviously they would need a GFX card if one could be fitted.

Example - DELL

Is this a good way to go about the problem?

Any advice would be great

[Jabbs]

You will need a gfx card too.  My 'old' pc has a Geforce 6800 in it and while I had to run CSS with an optimise script it worked for me.  I'm sure you can pick up a half decent graphics card like that for £30?

[Zootoxin]

So, would that Dell be a good starting point?

[delanvital]

I guess you could go really low. My old Athlon 3000+ when equipped with an old 9600XT 128MB ran it playable and with my 7800GS it worked perfectly. I had 1GB of RAM back then, later 1.5. Your approach with an old, but brand-type PC is good I think. I am sure you can dig up an old gfx card around here somewhere for a good price.

The value for money varies a lot with those used PCs though, and they are not exactly full of specs. For example what CPU-socket and chipset it has can vary a lot, and thus also upgrade options... hope that helps mate, otherwise catch me on MSN.

[Sn00ks]

My AMD XP2500 Barton, 2GB RAM and NVidia 6800GT played CSS perfectly well at high resolutions with no problems.

[GhostMjr]

My old geforce 2 even plays css still so anything will pretty much play that game except for older variants of the intel onboard graphics card.

[Zootoxin]

So are we saying. If I can find a cheap refurb with a pci slot and get a half decent gfx card we are on a winner?

[Sn00ks]

Yup.
 1.8gHz CPU, 2GM RAM, a GT6800 or equivalent or better and then you can play CSS.

[DuVeL]

Yes, even my twinbro da_Ricci can play CSS on his current setup.
 
He has;
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.9GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
 
Wouldn't recommend it but just to show that it plays CSS

[Zootoxin]

How about this one £70

Intel Pentium4 2.8Ghz CPU
 
MSI 865GM2 Motherboard
 
1Gb  Memory
 
40Gb Hard Drive
 
DVD-CDRW COMBO Drive
 
Floppy Drive
 
6 x USB Ports
 
 10/100 Ethernet Network Port
 
Sound , SVGA , Serial , Parallel , PS/2 Ports
 
Windows XP Professional COA License Sticker

Plus - A GFX Card
for a bit of cs?

or possibly this one
Ebay