Company of Heroes & StarCraft II - with AGP!

[developermct]

I built what I thought was a hefty computer system back in 2005. The company I bought the parts from asked me if I wanted PCI express and from my prior experience I knew AGP was superior to PCI, I said "no way" and went with the AGP. STUPID, STUPID!!

Anyhow, I don't have the funds to rebuild a new system and want to keep this system going for a while and maybe hand it off to the wife when I do rebuild a new one.

Here are the specs:

ASUS A8V Deluxe ACPI
AMD Athlon 64-Bit 3200+
2 Gigs of memory
2*200 GB SATA Hard Drives

Gaming was not important to me at the time. I did and still do software development, but I occasionally like to play a real-time strategy game. I don't know what my current video card is, but it works fine for business applications. The device manager says "NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420".

I have Vista Ultimate 64-Bit edition I just installed recently. My performance ratings are as follows:

Processor: 3.9
Memory: 4.1
Graphics: 1.9
Gaming graphics: 1.0
Primary hard disk: 5.5

My objective is to play my favorite RTS game Company of Heroes (I used to play on my former work's laptop) and my new to be favorite game, Starcraft 2!

I just came back from the local hardware shop. They told me I would not be able to play Starcraft 2 with AGP. They recommended the Sapphire HD 3650 Radeon with 512 MB and said that would get me the closest I could get.

Question #1: Can I play Company of Heroes and/or Starcraft 2 with any AGP recommendation, and
Question #2: If so, should I go with this Sapphire HD 3650 Radeon

They were selling the Sapphire for $129.95, but I've found it online for $50. I'd like to stay under $100 if possible.

Thanks guys! Sorry for such a long post.

 

[PCSoul]

I have a similar system using a 3850 Powercolor AGP and it can play Call of Duy: World at War (meduim setting), You meet the min specs for company of hereos, and Starcraft hasn't release specs yet but my guess would be yes to the min. Starcraft did not push the limits when it was release and I expect that will be the same for Starcraft 2.

My old sys
AMD 64 3400
2 GB DDR
Abit NF8

I think the 3650 would be the best bang for your buck, and if you want a little more GPU (it will be bottlenecked by the CPU) then the 3850 would be the best you could get.

3650
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102814
3850 needs a 450 watt powersupply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102730

 

[jyjjy]

Yes, definitely give up on your dreams of Star Craft 2 on that system.
As for Company of Heroes you can probably get it playable in low resolution with the settings turned down with the HD3650 IF you also upgrade the processor to dual core.
Honestly you shouldn't bother. Get a cheap AM2+ motherboard for $50, a 7750 Kuma for $60 and a HD4670 for $55 after rebate and it would be worlds better than upgrading with your current motherboard.

 

[royalcrown]

A 7600 gt plays company of heroes fine. Had one on my old athlon 2800+ xp system and played coh with settings on med to high at 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 1020.

 

[PCSoul]

3850 Agp plays Call of Duty: World at War on 1680 x 1050 at meduim ( with a low here and there) setting

 

[developermct]

Thanks for your response, guys!

 

[ellevisse]

Company of heroes is supposed to works with AMD Athlon 64 2800+, 2Go RAM, EVGA Geforce 7800 GS ??? I cant start the game with this config, it said : "Failed to a support hardware rendering device. Ensure that your system meets the minimum requirement for Company of heroes" ?!?!??!?!?!?!?




Thanks,

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Blizzard said Starcraft2 wouldn't be a system hog since they're trying to make it available to a wide market. OC your cpu a bit and you will probably be able to play SC2 just fine (not on max though)

 

[ellevisse]

Blizzard said Starcraft2 wouldn't be a system hog since they're trying to make it available to a wide market. OC your cpu a bit and you will probably be able to play SC2 just fine (not on max though)

Thanks for the infos on SC2, but what about Company of Heroes, do i'm supposed to be able to run it with my posted specs ?

Thanks

 

[cybergunkoo81]

Well I finished company of heroes with a nvidia 6200, pentium 4 2.4ghz and 512mb of ram, lowest resolution of course, but it runs fine.

 

[cybergunkoo81]

try www.vgrequirements.com to check the minimum requirements dude