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Heyya! Im finally starting to get tired to drag my computer from the computer-room to the living room to play games with my wife and friends on the tv, so im planning to buy another computer to have in the living room solely to play old games.

So fellow gog'ers what computer speccs would be idealy to just play games that i buy from gog (and point & click games i bought on steam) ? I have no other plans that to enjoy old games on it so nothing fancy.
I'd probably get 4gb of RAM even though it's definitely overkill for any game here other than TW2. I personally have an AMD e-350 which is clocked at 1.6ghz with two cores and a AMD HD 6310 video card.

Ultimately, you'll probably get good results with a dual core 2ghz processor and pretty much and relatively recent AMD card. I'm having good luck in terms of compatibility with an AMD HD 4670.

A suitable computer shouldn't cost too much, my previous rig in total only cost me $400 and that was a couple years back.
Which GOG games (or types of GOG games) do you want to play?
Do you want to build PC specifically for old game only? Because once you built it, there's no turning back and probably can't be upgraded too.

Then you might want to get:
Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz or any equivalent processor
4GB DDR2 Ram
Any GeForce 8, 9 or 200 series
Windows 7 x32 / x64

The reason is you need a decent CPU and RAM to run Dosbox emulated game without / minimize stuttering issue. And from my personal view, there's no point to get Windows XP anymore since Microsoft already ended the product support.
How much are you willing to spend?
Here's my two cents:

get at least 2 gb of RAM. More is probably best. This is mostly for running DOSbox, since it can be quite a memory hog depending on the game.

Any basic videocard with around 512 mb of video memory should do you, although if you want to be able to max everything out you might want to go higher (games like Far Cry and Painkiller will need a little bit more to run at absolute max, although they should run perfectly well on high with 512 mb. The Witcher, Two Worlds, and The Witcher 2 are more taxing). Make sure to get one that will support things like Pixel Shader 2.0 and Hardware T&L, though, if you plan on playing games from the early-mid 2000s. DO NOT USE AN INTEGRATED GRAPHICS CARD IF YOU CAN HELP IT!!!!! O_o

Although some games run into issues with duel core processors, it's really not worth it to get anything else, at least as far as I know.

I personally like XP, especially considering some of the issues some GOG games have with 7, but that's up to you.


Err... that's about all the advice I have. I'm nowhere near an expert on these sorts of things, so if someone wants to contradict me, please feel free.

EDIT: also, I'm targeting this toward spending the least amount of money necessary to be able to have a smooth GOG experience.
Post edited December 14, 2011 by jefequeso
Hey, wow alot of input already here.

Well lets see, since i got a pretty descent stationary computer that I play all the MMOS and FPS and RTS thats demanding, so my goal is to play old games, most 2D-games and perhaps one or two 3D ones.

My goal with this computer is to be able to play games with friends, sitting in the couch and playing adventure-games with friends Gabriel Knight, Police Quest or RPG's like Baldurs Gate, Ultima Underworld, dungeon crawlers, space-sims like the Wing Commander-series perhaps Freelancer and some strategy-games like Masters of Orion and even newer adventure games as Back to the Future, Whispered World.

I dont have a budget set, but I dont want anything fancy I just want to be able to sit down and play without having to move around my stationary computer all the time.
Post edited December 14, 2011 by Vargavinter
Can't you play on the PC you already use?
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kavazovangel: Can't you play on the PC you already use?
Yes i can, but i dont want to move my computer to back and forth between the living room and the computer-room. I just want to be able to sit down and play when I feel for it without hassle. :)
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Vargavinter: Hey, wow alot of input already here.

Well lets see, since i got a pretty descent stationary computer that I play all the MMOS and FPS and RTS thats demanding, so my goal is to play old games, most 2D-games and perhaps one or two 3D ones.

My goal with this computer is to be able to play games with friends, sitting in the couch and playing adventure-games with friends Gabriel Knight, Police Quest or RPG's like Baldurs Gate, Ultima Underworld, dungeon crawlers, space-sims like the Wing Commander-series perhaps Freelancer and some strategy-games like Masters of Orion and even newer adventure games as Back to the Future, Whispered World.

I dont have a budget set, but I dont want anything fancy I just want to be able to sit down and play without having to move around my stationary computer all the time.
In this case, there's no reason you can't get by with 2 gb ram and a 256 mb video card. Really, the only 2 major things to watch out for (that I know of) are making sure you have enough RAM to comfortably run DOSbox games (and I can get by perfectly fine with 1 gb for most games, such as Ultima Underworld), and if you're going to be playing any non-DOSbox 3d games, making sure you have a videocard that will support basic things like pixel shader 2.0, hardware t&l, and DirectX 9.
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kavazovangel: Can't you play on the PC you already use?
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Vargavinter: Yes i can, but i dont want to move my computer to back and forth between the living room and the computer-room. I just want to be able to sit down and play when I feel for it without hassle. :)
In that case, get a laptop. One with an i3 or i5 Sandy Bridge processor would do just fine. No need for a dedicated GPU.
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Vargavinter: Yes i can, but i dont want to move my computer to back and forth between the living room and the computer-room. I just want to be able to sit down and play when I feel for it without hassle. :)
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kavazovangel: In that case, get a laptop. One with an i3 or i5 Sandy Bridge processor would do just fine. No need for a dedicated GPU.
Eh, ninja'd. Pretty much this, just get a cheap laptop - it won't run ALL gogs like beyond good and evil, but it'll be able to handle pretty much anything nevertheless.
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Fenixp: Eh, ninja'd. Pretty much this, just get a cheap laptop - it won't run ALL gogs like beyond good and evil, but it'll be able to handle pretty much anything nevertheless.
Actually, it will. My dad's playing COD:MW / WaW on his i5 Sandy Bridge laptop. No problems with keeping steady fps.
Post edited December 14, 2011 by kavazovangel
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Fenixp: Eh, ninja'd. Pretty much this, just get a cheap laptop - it won't run ALL gogs like beyond good and evil, but it'll be able to handle pretty much anything nevertheless.
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kavazovangel: Actually, it will. My dad's playing COD:MW / WaW on his i5 Sandy Bridge laptop. No problems with keeping steady fps.
That gonna cost a bomb, no?
Post edited December 14, 2011 by wormholewizards
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wormholewizards: That gonna cost a bomb, no?
http://www.amazon.com/K53E-DH91-15-6-Inch-Versatile-Entertainment-Laptop/dp/tech-data/B005PAJVGE/ref=de_a_smtd

Something like this. Definitely the K53E series, but not really sure what exact model it is.