Trying To Game On A 20-Year-Old Office PC...

I impulse bought a 20 year old office PC, and then realised it really doesn't like gaming very much.

-Follow me on whichever Social media you don't hate-

[Graphics_Card]

“On the inside, it looks like a PC”

*—Dawid 2021*

[MrJobocan]

PC almost literally catching fire from playing Half-Life... that's some nostalgia right there.

[WouterVerbruggen]

That 01 next to "Intel" does not mean it's made in 2001 LOL, that's something to do with trademarks. The production date can be read on the long code in the line under the s-spec and production country. This particular chip was made in plant 7 (= in the Philippines) in 2003, week 30.

[BuildingDR]

now replace the power supply and put a 3090 in it!

[Famas]

I'd recommend getting Battlefield 2 for testing these older PC's. I had that exact pc back then and it played BF2 very well if I remember correctly.

[maaaars]

Aka: trying to run games on literally anyones father's pc

[nikoszatcarnyi]

It can run Half Life, therefore a 1000$ gaming pc.

[bulutcagdas]

Steam version of Half Life has a different OpenGL renderer that is different than the 1998 WON version of the game. The old WON version had support for Software rendering as well as older Dx and OpenGL version, which probably would have ran a lot better on this machine. The Steam version's renderer is built more for modern computer GPU's.

Edit: Also the version of Half Life 2 that you ran has been updated multiple times by Valve to the 2007 Orange Box version of the Source engine, which is significantly more demanding than the older 2004 version of the game. Not that it would have handled the old version any better, but a Pentium 4 would have been well within specs of playing Half Life 2 when it came out.

[dingdongbells]

I remember LITERALLY CRYING while trying to play Half-Life 2 on my dad's PC at 10FPS during Christmas morning of 2004.

Not because it was running badly, but because it was Half-Life 2, and picking up the can and throwing it at the combine guard was the most amazing freaking thing I'd ever seen.

[Nakna_ankaN]

Something to keep in mind is that the current version of Half-Life 2 available on Steam has higher minimum system requirements than the original release.

Current minimum:
OS: Windows 7, Vista, XP
Processor: 1.7 Ghz
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 8.1 level Graphics Card (requires support for SSE)
Storage: 6500 MB available space

The original printed on the back of the case on my copy of the original release:
OS: Windows 2000, XP, Me, 98
Processor: 1.2 Ghz
Memory: 256 MB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 7 level Graphics Card
Storage: 4, 5 GB

[yecreeper]

Next video: "Putting a 3080 TI in a 20-year-old office pc..."

[BarryTGash]

Q: How's the airflow?
Dell: Oh, silly! Computers don't breathe!

[MattBeardless]

It's a crazy coincidence that my Grandad had a PC just like this when we were growing up. One of the only times I ever shared a PC gaming experience with him playing the old classic 'Outlaws', the other being him giving me driving advice on Test Drive Unlimited...

Bless him. He passed on Easter Sunday this year, never forget his words every time I overtake in that game.

[TechU]

Actually good cable management because that was a challenge back in the day lol I love how people say cable management is hard in certain newer cases, they should try any case pre-2000 lol

[DoomGuy-MK]

The fact that a GT710 on a PCI-E to PCI adapter was a massive improvement says it all.

[MrDilldock]

I just dumped that same case at my local e-waste centre yesterday.

[napostrioufvods]

Hi! These performances with the PCI card at the end, give me the impression that the inboard graphic drivers weren't totally uninstalled, which in Windows XP is mandatory due to the way it manage memory, which will not only provoke slow down and over-process but also leads to some management drivers conflict, leading obviously to a blue screen.

[scorg]

When this game came out, it was pretty much designed to run on the Radeon 97/800 series and really was an fps killer. If I remember rightly I had an Athlon 3000+ running on an NF2 mobo combined with said Radeon 9800 and it was a pretty fun experience. Although admittedly that was high end back in that day!

[Ernesto]

Imagine trying to run Crysis on that thing.
It would literally go bye bye.

[DougieBoy]

LOL, the screen looks like it was cleaned with spit and a t-shirt.