Don't laugh

I have a guildie who acquired a computer for his wife. They both play GW and he wants to know if it's possible to run GW on this machine.

The specs are:
AMD K6-400mhz
64MB RAM
on-board graphics

I've already advised him on upgrading the CPU, the ram and getting a PCI (no not PCI-X) graphics card. What I want to know is, is there a tweak guide, or any nitty gritty hacks to boost performance (like forcing DirectX 7 mode).

Thanks for your help in advance.

Quick answer - No.

Long answer - Have you checked the minimum system requirements on the box? It's on the bottom. It says, Win 98 and up, Pentium III 800mhz, 256 MB of ram, 2GB of free HD space, ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 or 4 MX Series Video Card with 32 MB of VRAM. But you will want something a little better than that. It runs, but barely. The experience will not be good.

Don't bother really.

I have found out that the minimum specs are irrelevant. I have another guildy that runs the game on a laptop that is 600mhz, 256mb ram, onboard grapihcs. Plus how many people run BF2 under sys req?

Yah, my computer with 256mb of ram, GeForce 2 MX 400, and a P4 1.7ghz ran it on max, yet that is the MINIMUM requirement...
Try running it, but I wouldn't count on it running well. Upgrading that machine is a waste, because it is all so outdated - motherboard socket, ram slots, etc.

Is new computer an option?

yeah you can run it under min req.. give it a try- I had a amd 700 slot a that used to run fine.. expect to lose frames though and probably have to stay pve- the 8v8 will def req too much cpu for that rig

I guess I'm just anal about my game quality. I don't like to have any software I don't have at least double the recommended specs for (except for BF2).

A another computer isnt an option. But looking at upgrade options he could get it to an AMD K6-2 533mhz, 256 MB RAM and a Geforce 4 MX PCI for under $100.

Well since no one seems to know a software way to make it run better then I'll go poking around my own config files and see what I can find.

here you go.

futuremark is a long trusted site for benchmarkers and this is the new game tester.

let it scan your system
use the search for the game you want (GW) and it will tell you if it will work or not.

also gives a nice graph to show how close you are to hit or miss

http://gameadvisor.futuremark.com/ga.../game_scan.jsp

Post a screenshot of the graph please.

No, because he asked us not to laugh, remember?

But your post just made me laugh

Go to www.halfpricepc.com. I have dealt with a ton of different places over the years and this guy rocks. Free shipping etc...

That being said, you can build a computer that runs guildwars just fine for under 300 bucks. I just got an AMD Athlon 2800+ MB combo for like 110 dollars, just add ram/video and you can use your old case/hd etc...might have to upgrade the power supply (cases + ps are super cheap).

Its really not worth playing a game if all you get is a slideshow, and its not like buying a 300 dollar computer is a waste, thats like the cost of going out to eat 5 or so times for a couple, or around here, to the movies once.

Computers as entertainment is like, the cheapest fun you can have...plus all the practical reasons to not have a Fred Flintstone model cpu...seriously, is there a little bird that pecks the 1's and 0's onto the hard drive on that thing?

Of course those cheap power supplies that come with your cases suck. Mine died after 2 years, and my friend's died in less than a year. Resorted to spending 60 dollars on antecs and thermaltakes. One day i smelled some burning in my pc in the middle of thunderhead keep, and it died, i was almost done too. So mad!!! I've given up on thunderhead now.

If it's any consellation prize, at least that rig can run Runescape.

I don't think that system would be running Guild Wars anytime soon.

And talk about needing a high-end compute to play, oblivion is a beast. I'm at the top of the graph for BF2, FFXI, WoW, etc and still under the recomended for oblivion...holy mother of g...

if you do the upgrade you will stand a good chance of being able to play GW on it. dont expect too much of it tho

as for tweaking i suggest you run msconfig and see what startup services and app you can disable. if its only going to be a dedicated GW box then dont worry too much about firewalls and anti virii as they will suck cpu power that you will miss. bascially get rid of anything that isnt essential for a basic system with internet access.

oh yes and do a clean install of the operating system if you havent done so already and then defrag it in safe mode