What games can run on a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4?

[Josh likens]

Hi, I have a old pc for my little brother, and it has no graphics card, a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 and 1GB of RAM. AssaultCube works fine, Sims 2 works at 20 FPS, Any GOLDSRC engine game runs smoothly, GTA 3, Vice city work at 20 FPS, Minecraft runs at 10 fps. All games have been set to the lowest settings possible. He wants to play Garry's Mod but the game closes on startup. I've tried swiftshader but it just makes the window all green. If I open task manager it's borderless, has no title, can't close, needs a logoff to close. Can games like Call Of Duty 1 work? The OS is Windows XP.

 

[hunter315]

Games from its era might work, but with no graphics card you are going to be extremely limited. If its the Intel IGP its not going to do well, if its got an nVidia chipset it may do better, but really you are going to be restricted to games from ~1998-2003... There comes a point where its time to just get a cheapo $300 HP, it'll do better and not be a gaping security hole in your network.

 

[Mac266]

Ahh, The Pentium 4's... So many memories...

Yeah, anyway, basically only games from 2005 and under will work properly. You could try delidding it 😀

 

[Josh likens]

Games from its era might work, but with no graphics card you are going to be extremely limited. If its the Intel IGP its not going to do well, if its got an nVidia chipset it may do better, but really you are going to be restricted to games from ~1998-2003... There comes a point where its time to just get a cheapo $300 HP, it'll do better and not be a gaping security hole in your network.

We got the pc with 512mb ram. it's from a garage sale. we got it with a tv, a safe and a modern printer for 30$. I put win7 then win xp on it (i removed win7).

 

[Josh likens]

Ahh, The Pentium 4's... So many memories...

Yeah, anyway, basically only games from 2005 and under will work properly. You could try delidding it 😀

How do you do that?

 

[sla70r]

I have had 3 new computers since my old Pentium 4. But try like duke nukem 3d, deus ex.

 

[Mac266]

How do you do that?

Don't do it, it just makes it run cooler Sometimes. But there is a high chance you'll break it.

 

[Josh likens]

How do you do that?

Don't do it, it just makes it run cooler Sometimes. But there is a high chance you'll break it.

ok. i pressed "pick as solution" by accident >.<

 

[smeezekitty]

Games from its era might work, but with no graphics card you are going to be extremely limited. If its the Intel IGP its not going to do well, if its got an nVidia chipset it may do better, but really you are going to be restricted to games from ~1998-2003... There comes a point where its time to just get a cheapo $300 HP, it'll do better and not be a gaping security hole in your network.

We got the pc with 512mb ram. it's from a garage sale. we got it with a tv, a safe and a modern printer for 30$. I put win7 then win xp on it (i removed win7).

That is going to be truely unpleasant. 512MB of RAM is just enough for XP but 7 needs 1 GB minimum
Really P4 sucked when they were new. Unless its a 775 system where you can put a C2D in it, it is worthless


Only REALLY old games will run on it.

BTW to fix the task manager missing title bar, just double click any gray part of the window

 

[Josh likens]

Games from its era might work, but with no graphics card you are going to be extremely limited. If its the Intel IGP its not going to do well, if its got an nVidia chipset it may do better, but really you are going to be restricted to games from ~1998-2003... There comes a point where its time to just get a cheapo $300 HP, it'll do better and not be a gaping security hole in your network.

We got the pc with 512mb ram. it's from a garage sale. we got it with a tv, a safe and a modern printer for 30$. I put win7 then win xp on it (i removed win7).

That is going to be truely unpleasant. 512MB of RAM is just enough for XP but 7 needs 1 GB minimum
Really P4 sucked when they were new. Unless its a 775 system where you can put a C2D in it, it is worthless


Only REALLY old games will run on it.

BTW to fix the task manager missing title bar, just double click any gray part of the window

Games like Counter Strike: Source crash at startup, probably because the older games allow Software mode and the Source engine based games don't. I saw a old picture of a older version of Steam running on Reddit. http://i.imgur.com/nRTmEv8.png . Would getting that OS speed the computer up?

 

[smeezekitty]

I can't tell if that is 2000 or 98. Windows 2000 is very light so it would run decently on it.

Keep in mind you won't be able to run the newest version of most software with W2K

 

[Josh likens]

I can't tell if that is 2000 or 98. Windows 2000 is very light so it would run decently on it.

Keep in mind you won't be able to run the newest version of most software with W2K

yeah, it's windows 98. the recycle bins are identical. 98 or 95 or whatever had that weird recycle bin.

Steam automatically updates, and contacting their support is like talking to a tree. Do you know if Call of Duty 1 would work?

 

[smeezekitty]

If you have a reasonable video card (quite possibly AGP) CoD 1 should work.

I still suggest looking into 2000 for a few reasons. Its more stable and doesn't choke with too much RAM

 

[Josh likens]

If you have a reasonable video card (quite possibly AGP) CoD 1 should work.

I still suggest looking into 2000 for a few reasons. Its more stable and doesn't choke with too much RAM

COD 1 works good, 30~ fps on everything lowest. It takes PCI cards. I have like 6 AGP cards but they aren't compatible. 🙁.

So, would Windows 2000 be compatible with games like COD 1, Half-Life 1, assaultcube, gta 3 work?

 

[Karadjgne]

Can find decent pci gpus on eBay for less than $20 that will work much better than the igpu.

 

[smeezekitty]

Most Windows games from 1996-2006 work on Windows 2000

 

[Josh likens]

I don't think my brother would like me to replace Windows XP with something older, he'll complain.

I looked on ebay, all I found were ATI 8MB cards, 200$ pci-e cards (I chose PCI in search), 200$ PCI cards, etc. I saw some good cards on Newegg but their expensive...

 

[Karadjgne]

If you re-search eBay for 'pci gpu' then refine and use 'by socket' , pick pci, not pcie.

 

[Josh likens]

Yeah, I searched "graphics card" and "video card" and chose PCI for the slot.

 

[smeezekitty]

And you certain that it doesn't have AGP or PCI-E?

PCI is very slow which will reduce performance even further

 

[Josh likens]

pretty sure, none of my old PCI-E or AGP cards would fit.

 

[Josh likens]

Alright, we're trying Call Of Duty 4, but it keeps on saying "UBYTE4N" error or something. Swiftshader makes things worse, forces me to reboot the PC manually. Any suggestions? .-.

 

[smeezekitty]

CoD4 not gonna happen. It requires at least a decent graphics card and a P4 will not cut it

You might pull off CoD 2 if you graphics card is at least a Geforce 3 or Radeon 8500

If you just want to do it for proof of concept like when I ran Simcity 3000 on a 486,
then you will need a socket 478 motherboard with AGP and you would need to buy a decent AGP card
(I think there are some AGP radeon 3xxx available)

But if you just want to play it and are not a vintage enthusiast then there isn't any point in trying.

 

[Josh likens]

It was like a Intel 82845G or something. Are there games similar to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare? (that aren't TOO outdated)

 

[smeezekitty]

If you want to play something that isn't too outdated you need to run it on a system that isn't too outdated
Minimum for playing newer games now is probably a Core 2 Duo