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Has anyone noticed how PC games, say in the past 5 years, have completely become so increasingly advanced, that keeping your computer up to date with the hardward required to play them has become very frustrating. I have a moderately adequate computer, that around the time of the original Half-life could easily cope with the RAM, video card, and sound card required for it. But now there's no way that I could go out and buy Half-life 2 today, because its minimum system requirements are insanely too high for my computer. I would pretty much have to buy a whole new slate of parts, and spend hundreds of dollars all over again, just for the luxury of playing this and some other few games. Anyone else feel the same way about the state of today's PC games?

It's not that bad, you just have to know when to upgrade.

I upgraded right before Doom 3 and Half Life 2 came out, and I don't plan on making anymore major upgrades for a while.

I got mine upgraded before Doom III...

That should keep me set for a good year or so probably

My family bought this computer (Sony VAIO, 1.7 GHz P4, 256 MB ram) in 2001. We immediately upgraded the ram to 512 before we left the store. Since then, this is the main computer I've used, and now in 2005, its age is starting to show. I've begun to build my own system, and the projected cost is roughly $795 for the parts. I already have the case, which was about $50, and using an old monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers for the time being. 3.2 GHz P4, 1 GB of RAM, 256 MB PCI x16 vid card, DVD burner, etc... and I'm spending the money now so I won't need to upgrade in the future, at least for a couple years. Shouldn't be too painful to upgrade a video card or RAM in the future.

Hmmm. So which situation would be better, spending about $200 to $300 to buy a great AGP card and some extra RAM for my computer, or instead using that money to buy, say, either a PSP2 or XBox? I'm starting to find that a lot of games are now being made first for these two consoles, and then later for the PC.

Well then stop complaining.

Thats why compute games are less popular than console, but which is better? Nither, but if your a huge RTS or FPS fan, PC is always the way to go.

JKozzy I think I might go your route. I read your other post concerning building your own computer, and reading it reminded me of how fun it was the first time around. So even though it'll cost me more money this time around, I think I'll slowly add a PCI or AGP card here, a DRAM there and so on. Would those still be the most important parts in making sure a game of today's requirements could easily be played?