Win 7, 16 gigs of ram, 40gigs on HDD, Radeon 7000 series or equilavent...

The graphics would look the same if not worse despite being some sort of ultra HD experience! The game would be unstable, and the controls would suck.
Based on past ports at least.

timma25

I highly doubt it would need 16gbs RAM. Crysis doesn't even use over 2gbs. Of course You'd need at least 4gb total when accounting for the OS.. but that's the max. It would stream most content from the HDD just like any other PC game.

The textures are quite sharp for a console game, but the geometry isn't too demanding. If anything it's the shader effects which will hit performance. I think a 9800GT should be able to handle it though.

CPU-wise, at least a dual core 2.5+ghz.

I expect these specs would get a smooth framerate maxed out @ 1080p on a fairly optimized engine. If it's like GTA4, go ahead and add couple GBs, GHz, and cores to the aforementioned.

When it comes to those no-brand ebay items, you should ALWAYS look at the youtube reviews before purchasing.

Considering the price, I'd say it's not a bad deal. Just be realistic with your expectations though. It's certainly no iPad replacement. I once bought one of those "MID" tablets and they aren't very quick at all. The touch screen interface isn't that responsive and it's a hit or miss whether you'll be able to use the Android Market, which is a pretty important component. Also, I had a funny incident where I plugged in the tablet to the PC via USB and that was the end of me having a functional tablet.. I'm guessing the internals got fried or someting.

Just remember, you get what you pay for. Having had the experience I did, I would never get one in that price range because it doesn't meet my standards. 800x640 isn't too shabby considering the size, and 1.2ghz is decent for a tablet. Weak CPU = lack of responsiveness. Make sure it's dual core though. I can tell that this one isn't because any seller would be flambouyantly mentioning it.

If it has the latest flash, that's good, so you'll hopefully be able to browse most of the web. Android is a flexible OS so you don't have to worry about software capabilities much, but hopefuly the hardware enables you to play games decently and watch video and flash content smoothly.

Just about any laptop off the shelf can do those things. If that's his price range, I recommend a Lenovo laptop. They're slim, have the best quality around and have tons of features. Even my outdated x61t has a finger scanner.

They're perfect if you're trying to get serious work done.

A couple years ago I remember the GTX 280 being the king of video cards. I thought "holy smokes, we've finally passed the 9th generation! That's crazy! I'll never be able to afford that!"

At the time it was around 600 bones. Today I looked on ebay for the GTX 280 and I saw one for $80 (buy it now price)! Those of you who keep track of these things are thinking "duh" but it was a big surprise to me.

Boy do I love consumerism. Keep pumpin' out those new video cards so I can swipe an obsolete one for cheaps!

God damn.. I might sell my xbox 360 to raise some money and get a beast like that.. At the same time, I don't think that's a good idea.. If I'm able to play any game at my disposal in HD at a liquid smooth FPS, I'll NEVER be productive..

Honestly it seems like uber overkill in a way, for just one monitor at least. It's definately future-proof.

I wonder how many thousands of FPS that thing can get in Quake 3 :)

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/29145419/games-with-low-requirements

Like I said in the above topic, you'll want to go to the PC section of gamespot and use the filters to limit the list to games produced before, say.. 2005, or maybe before 2003. Generally, the year a game was released will give you an idea of the requirements for the game.

Anything before 2000, you'll probably be fine, under the condition that you're at least using Windows 98.

In 2000 and shortly after, you had games based on the q3 engine. Those can pretty much run on a calculator depending on your settings. They run decently on older integrated graphics chips. There were also games based on DirectX 8 and 8.1. These worked on older graphics chips.

In 2003 and forward, you start to see games based on DirectX 9, which require a compatible graphics chip (or else you won't see textures!) with slightly more GPU power equal to a modern integrated graphics chip or a dedicated GPU of that time. Games like Doom 3 (actually used OpenGL) stepped it up a notch. The increase of shaders and more complex lighting in games meant the need for more GPU power.

Around 2006, you'll start to need more memory and CPU power. At LEAST 512mb RAM to run, 1gb to run smoothly. Dual core for comfort. at least 2ghz CPU to reduce stutters. Graphics memory? IDK, around 256mb at least. Double that for higher quality settings.

Then you have those monstrous games like Crysis and GTA4 which we still have trouble maxing out.. They're the exception, though admittedly, Crysis runs decent on older systems with lower settings.

You kinda get the idea. I had to be careful which games I got before ~2006. I had a machine with 128mb RAM, 128mb VRAM, and a 500mhz Celeron. Luckily there was a good selection of games to fit those specs.

Edit: The info is geared more universally, rather than just your case.

Not even 500, just a couple peeps at my favorite servers. In Q3, there was a small community of less than 100 peeps in version 1.30 that I cared about. Same goes for the RA3 mod in 1.32. When you get into the really tight-knitt niche mods like InstaUnlagged CTF with railjumps, you start to really rely on networking to set up games rather than expecting someone to already be there. Clans provided an incentive (clan battles) for setting up matches. When that community collapses, I consider the game dead.

Of course in modern games, it depends on the genre. What I described above somewhat applies to an FPS like COD4, but for an "MMOFPS," as I like to call it- like Battlefield BC2, I expect a much larger number of players because.. well you're supposed to get the full war experience.

The current gen has been around so long that I'm pretty sure the next gen will sell good even at a $500 price point. Many people complain a bit, but they'll be desperate enough to dish out the needed dough to get the next-gen experience. Look at BLOPS2, setting a pre-order record. Personally I thought that nearly every aspect of the game was unoriginal and crappy- that people were tired of COD already. Boy was was I wrong.. they eat COD for breakfast and COD is nowhere near dying. My point is that it doesn't matter whether it's overpriced or not- as long as it's not like $700 and it has good marketing.

Historically, the price of a given spec has decreased almost exponentially each year, but I'm noticing a sort of plataeu in power. I think we're reaching the limit of what sylicone-based technology can do. Back to the topic though- the next-gen consoles will obviously be quite powerful and cheap to develop due to more efficient manufactoring techniques since last gen. The final sale price, on the other hand, could be cheap or rediculously expensive, but I don't think cheap production costs necessarily mean the retail price will be cheap.

The bottom line is that people choose what benifits them. If I was rich and involved with a coorporation, I'd probably be a republican. If I was a game dev, I'd probably despise the idea of used games.. If I were a software dev, I'd be totally for licensing. As a consumer, I feel that used games should be acceptable because we've bartered our posessions since the dawn of civilization. Not until recently did we embrace the individualistic idea of "I'll just buy a fresh one."

At the same time, I understand that a game dev wants profit. We can't really complain because we have no say in what they do. They're perfectly within their rights to ATTEMPT TO limit the playability of a game to only the original customer. They can do whatever they want and charge whatever they want, but I don't believe that they can LEGALLY try to propose this sort of contract with a physical disk. It violates our concept of a free market IMO.

They can attempt all they want to implement methods of eliminating game trade, but it should be legally acceptable to bypass this as long as the original owner clearly loses the ownership/experience of the game while the new owner claims it.

Laws only affect those who abide by them. "Banning guns" is only banning guns from those who abide.

I think the legalization of guns would be a win/lose situation. Everyone could carry a gun, thus have a somewhat equal advantage over eachother and the ability to prevent crime, but there will definitely be an increase in the number of deaths via firearm IMO.. Or will the would-be criminal realize "hey, my ass might get shot if I try something stupid?" Who knows? I think we can only try it out and see.

Sure, a homeless person might be tempted to rob a bank, but he'd risk getting shot by pretty much anyone else carrying a gun, aside from the gaurds. It's the fear of retaliation that would serve as an equilibrium.

The only downside is if someone doesn't have that fear and they just decide to take someone out point-blank, which I'm sure would happen every now and then.