Question is, is he even interested in running "modern" operating systems? For all I know Windows XP still tends to have better compatibility with many older games, and from the sound of it, he's mostly interested in playing older games.

That said, I'd recommend 4GB, too. Seems like a solid amount for older, as well as most fairly recent games.

But I'm not sure just how tight OPs budget for this is. Perhaps it would be worth considering a second-hand system, instead.

He may be referring to the days when Intel's integrated solutions were woefully insufficient. These days integrated isn't near as bad, and even something I might (gasp!) recommend depending on the person. If someone isn't going to be spending at least a 100$ on a video card then chances are they may be better off just using an integrated solution and save the cash.

It's easy for someone to say that integrated or sub 100$ cards aren't really worth considering if they are a serious gamer, but if the goal isn't to play Crysis 3 then they my be surprised at what they can play. Especially give the context the OP has given us which is to play a good chunk of GOG's catalog which is a much less demanding catalog than Steam's.

My laptop has an Intel 4000HD, and when I saw that I thought whatever. Integrated Intel sucks! But I've been pretty blown away by what I can get away with. Witcher 1 runs pretty well, and I've been known to hook it up to my TV and play Streetfighter X Tekken without it skipping a beat. SF4 runs great too out preforming my Xbox Version, and when you start talking about older games like UT2004 there aren't going to be any problems. I will say MK9 and Injustice don't fair so well, and I haven't even bothered trying Witcher 2 on it, but I did play through Tomb Raider just fine even if I couldn't turn on AA and that fancy hair business.

Keep in mind I'm running an i7 to help keep it moving. Someone with a more modest CPU may not get quite as much out of it.

Uh, what exactly is your budget? And are you trying to add on to your old/not-so-old rig or build/buy a new one?

The worst thing you can do is to add new parts to an old machine.

Driver issues are another matter; as far as I know (which isn't very far, I admit), both NVidia and AMD balls up their drivers on a fairly regular basis and so there's no particular reason to go for one or the other. With an integrated GPU, though, tech support seems to mostly go along the lines of "HD 4000/AMD APU? There's your problem", as happened with FEZ (IIRC). Drivers or digital firepower aren't going to help much if the game in question wasn't made with integrated graphics processing in mind, so I would still rather recommend getting a dedicated card. Nothing's stopping the OP from having both, of course.

A valid question, and again one that's hard to answer because the opening post is too unspecific to tell one way or the other. I would recommend not getting XP anyway, or at least keep the machine isolated from the Internet since support will be dropped in the very near future.

Part of the problem is that I don't really have a frame of reference on what the price range should be for what I'm looking for. A few years ago, I paid $300 for a laptop with dual 2.2 Ghz processors. It mostly got the job done for GOG games, but I couldn't tell you if I got a great deal or if I overpaid.

I want a bit more processing power than that so that I could play the same games more comfotably, and I want a desktop so I have the option to throw a graphics card in there. What's "a bit more"? Dual 2.2 Ghz processors plus a little bit. Maybe 2.4 Ghz, or even better 3 Ghz. Is that going to be powerful enough for me? Or too expensive? I dunno. Really, if it's too expensive, I'll just save up for longer. In terms of power, I'll be happy if it runs 95% of my GOG library without chugging.

The main idea is that I'm out of my element both in terms of exactly what I need and what it might cost, and I need advice. If you have to err because I'm being vague, err on the side of more expensive/more powerful, because I'd rather overpay a bit and have a better rig than underpay and have a big, useless chunk of plastic.

Also, I'm trying to buy a new computer. Pre-built, like a dirty casual.

For the lowest possible budget, I'd go with an AMD APU, preferably an A8 or A10. These are best with fast memory and Windows 8.1 (even though I hate Windows 8, it supports the APUs really well).

For a step up from that, get an entry-level graphics card. AMD has the better of nVidia at this level. You can get the HD 7750 as low as $70 and the HD 7870 as low as $120 by shopping around.

The next way to get bang for your bucks is to go with a hybrid hard disk (Seagate SSHD, they don't call them Momentus anymore). These are much faster at running resource-heavy applications.

An Intel CPU that can outperform the APUs and a motherboard to go with it will raise the price $150 or so.

Newegg prices:

A8-5600K $90, A10-5800K $130. If you're getting a discrete graphics card, save money by getting the A8; if you will be using the on-chip graphics, get the A10.

8GB of DDR3-1866 $65 to $80, depending on brand. AMD APUs like the faster memory, and there is little difference in price over DDR3-1333 or DDR3-1600.

MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 $60. There are many motherboards in this price range. MSI is my preferred manufacturer.

MSI R7770-PMD1GD5 $110. If you don't get the A10, you'll be wanting a discrete graphics card. Newegg has a $15 rebate on this currently, but I don't figure rebates into pricing.

Seagate ST1000DX001 $110. This is their lowest-priced hybrid drive. You can spend another $20 for the 2TB model.

LITE-ON iHAS124-04 $15. DVD burners are "jellybean" parts; don't overpay for them.

Rosewill FBM-01 $30. This is about as inexpensive as a case gets. I've used it, and it's surprisingly roomy.

Corsair CX430 $45. This is as low as you can go and still get a respectable power supply. Don't get cheaper.

Windows 8.1 Home Premium $100. Frequently on sale for as little as $80. You need this if you do not have a transferable license for Windows.

Total $625 for everything that goes in the tower. You can reduce that if you have a transferable Windows license, or you don't get a discrete graphics card, or you get a conventional hard disk instead of the hybrid.

Specifically what games are in your GOG inventory that you are playing? What game would be a deal breaker if it did not work? What game does your system have the most trouble with, but you put up with it?

The biggest deal breakers are pretty easy on the hardware.: FTL, fallout 2, planescape: torment, alpha centauri, etc.

The ones that gave me trouble were the relatively newer games: farcry 1 did ok, but it would chug after a bit. Painkiller was unplayably chuggy. Hotline miami ran too slow. Tiny & big and unmechanical wouldn't run at all (probably because there was no graphics card).

Farcry 1 in particular is the answer to your last question. I played it all the time on that poor little laptop. If that game ran smoothly, I'd be pretty happy with my rig.

That all depends on your budget, but the Ghz are not the issue. If you want the "works out of the box" type, you'll go with a dedicated processor and graphics card. Something like an i3 + 7770 would run you about $200, with the other components being squeezed in at a budget rate. You don't have too much choice with prebuilts on what the other things will be, but you'll want the processor cooling to not be the default fan/heatsink. A builder can get a budget one going better than a store can.

Prebuilts also pay for the labor costs of the company you get them from and usually charge more for the parts than it would cost at a retail (online/local) outlet. I checked out cyberpowerpc and ibuypower, and they seem to charge $100 for an r7 240 graphics card. Basically it's worse than the onboard graphics on the i3 at $100. So you'll want to confirm anything interesting you find here. Do you know which store you'll be using?

An i3? 7770?

yeah, I was going to buy from amazon.

i-have-no-idea-what-im-doing.jpg

Others have suggested getting an AMD APU (which is a proc and a graphic card in one). I am certain that with any of them, you can play Far Cry 1 perfectly. I played the game on my nearly 3 years old netbook equipped with one of the first (and weakest) AMD APU. No problem with that.

I'm going to suggest that there is no need for you to buy an actual, physical video card and that a good integrated solution like AMD's APUs will probably more than cut it for what you are looking to do. Look for a system with this chip as a minumum.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113282
And this one as a max
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113288

I would suggest the latter as the CPU is much better even though the video isn't, but it will give you many more options and room to grow. Both should be 1.5-2x as fast as my Intel HD 4000 which I said plays more taxing games than you are playing. The part you want to take to the store is the "AMD APU" and "Radeon 75xx +"

Since you don't really need a video card (unless you do plan on growing into higher end stuff, or just want the best deal on parts) then think about if you really want a desktop at all. I'm not knocking it, but if all you want is to play farcry 1 then you don't need a DT to do it. This spoken from the perspective of what you have, you wanting something modest and affordable. This isn't a gamer's dream rig, but it should smoke a lot of classics. It's possible you could be happy with a little less, but too much less and you would be right back where you started.

I will also mention you aren't going to find many if any prefab systems with only 1-2 gigs of RAM unless its something like a Chromebook, which certainly won't contain any real graphic power. It will have 4-6GB, and probably a 500GB HD. They tend to be more generous on that stuff, giving people more than they need long before they hand out real vid power.

BTW I'm recommending against Intel on the grounds that I think you would end up with the HD 4000 which I have enjoyed for low spec gaming, but the AMD ones should give a 50-90% boost in the graphics department.

Oh and I am being somewhat in contradiction in that non-desktops won't necessarily have my suggestions as options.

Yeah, the AMD APUs have it over Intel in value for graphics performance. But I would go with a better APU than those.

The A6 is dual-core with a 192-shader GPU. The A8 is quad-core but the GPU is still 256 shaders.

The A10, which can be had on sale for $100 if you shop patiently, has the top of the line 384-shader GPU. It will give you about 10% better performance than the A8. The A6 isn't competitive at all with either.

Intel core i3 4xxx (any 4000 series), AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics card. :P

The reason I suggested them over an integrated solution like the one that comes with intel processors (called intel hd) or amd's APU (the processors with an A in front of them, like A4 4000k, or A10 6800k, which have better graphics than an intel processor's) is because GOG is mostly old games and those may have incompatibilities with integrated/mobile graphics.

That's why you would get a processor and a graphics card, dedicated solutions. However, the APU/Integrated option is cheap, and the higher processor name (A10 > A6 > A4, or i3 4000k > i3 3210 > i3 2130) will have the better graphics in it as well as processing ability. So you have to decide if the risk there is worth it or not.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113331 - This could run Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider on medium/low depending on your resolution (low on 1080p, med on smaller), so add in another $20-$40 for a heatsink like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103057 and that's cheaper than an i3 + 7770.

You could still drop it to what goober suggested, an a8 would be decent. But you have to calculate how much you want to spend vs how much of an experience you'd like to have with your games. 'Just' running them isn't so great when a few more $ could run them as they were meant to be.

So what games you want to be able to run? As much as possible for the money, or games from a certain year and below? That will be the main factor in deciding what's best for you. :)