Greeting to all you lovely trek game fans,

I hope you all liked the pictures of the 12 inch tall resin of sexy 7 of 9
I posted awhile back?

Now I know that I asked about the new star trek game LEGACY before in my 1st ever post on this great site!

But I am now in a bit of a fix about the right type of computer set up to buy in order to not only play this game at last?

But also be able to run other high end 3D games in the near future with out spending even more money upgrading again in a few years time just because my new computer system when brought is too under powered for the task?

Here is the game infomation:

Star Trek Legacy Game Specs for playing the game:

ï￾® Windows XP (Home, Media Center or Pro Editions) with Service Pack 2

ï￾® DirectX Version 9.0c


ï￾® Intel Pentium 4 (2.66ghz or higher) or AMD Athlon XP 2800+ or higher

ï￾® DX9 compatible AGP 8X or PCI Express video card, 128 MB VRAM, Pixel Shader 1.4


ï￾® 16-bit Direct Sound compatible sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio

ï￾® 512 MB RAM


ï￾® 5 GB free space

ï￾® LAN or Broadband connection (DSL or Cable Modem) for Multiplayer


ï￾® Windows compatible Keyboard & Mouse


So if any of you good gamers out there can please tell me what exactly
I will need to buy to play it well with out spending huge amounts of money since I am on a tight budget?

I would be very pleased to know?

I am looking for a UK spec AMD based list of the right low priced computer parts to let me buy and build a good system needed for this type of 3D graphics game?

Of course many of you luckily gamers have already been playing star trek Legacy for awhile now and have the knowage of what is the lowest needed computer set up to play it well?

So if you can list the type of AMD Processor, the Right type of Motherboard, the Right Level of Graphics Card, and Memory etc. I would need to buy to start enjoying this game well, I be very thankful?

My old system just is not even near the specs needed to play Legacy and it is better that I buy the parts and build a new high powered but lowest cost system than wast time trying to some how update my old computer?

I know how to buy good but low cost computer parts needed!
But still need advice on what to buy?

I have looked around for some help on this problem but what with this all new dual core stuff and PCI-E graphics cards and such I just do not know even what is the best AMD processor type to buy?

Since they all seem to be have so many types of refence numbers and types, None of which seem to make any sense?

Some have high refence numbers like a: AMD 3800+ or AMD 4200+

But some lower numbered AMD processors seem to have better speed in Mhz than the higher numbered AMD Processors?
All very confusing.

Plus I need the right mix of parts to even get it all working well, Before I even play this great game I hear so much about?

So any help in knowing what is best for the least cost would be great?

Thanks all.

Astrostar.

Well, I could cherry-pick parts for you, or give you homework; I think you'll make a better choice and be happier if I just give you homework.

Anandtech.com; there, you can easily look up processor reviews, and they recently did a 'Midrange Menagerie' of several different types of mid-range computer setups. Anandtech will have you covered on picking your hard-drive, processor, motherboard, & graphics card. Monitors they're just starting to do again after a slow couple years.

Bit-tech.net, a UK site, has less of a selection but since your video card will be your key choice they have plenty of great video card reviews.

Dual-core is more or less the defacto standard at this point; you mentioned you want it to be a good build for a while, so not buying dual-core parts (Athlon64 X2 or Core 2 Duo) at this point wouldn't be effective in that regard.

It's important to do some research particularly on the video card purchase itself, but allow me to guide you to the lower-end Core 2 Duo's and a Gigabyte GA-965P DS3 motherboard. Except for the extreme low-end, Intel currently has AMD under water in the performance/price ratio until later this year when AMD updates its lineup. I've got that motherboard, had it for a week now, and it was less expensive than the full-featured ones and has served me well, with one minor problem. Any time you build a computer yourself you might have to tinker a bit, and I ended up needing to add .2 volts to the memory in BIOS. Anandtech shows the E4300 to a solid win, and the E6600 has no competition.

Video cards your main choice will be the last DirectX9 generation or the DirectX10 generation now out. 8800GTS 320mb version is the lowest-end of the DX10 parts but budget/mainstream parts will come out later this month or early April. The Dx9 generation parts are cheaper, perform well enough, etc, and are still being reviewed.

Plenty of reviews out there; just look for what level of performance you want (IE, no less than 30fps at whatever resolution you like) and find a card that'll match it, or exceed it for future-proofing. No DX10 games are out (yet, soon though), so hard to tell how ANY card will perform in them.

Oh, and if you end up wanting a third or 4th good opinion:
Hardocp.com (more a hard-core site), Bjorn3d, TweakNews.net, Hexus, PCPer, Silentpcreview.com (don't skimp on PSU too badly), TechReport are all good. Once you've got some parts in mind, not a bad idea to browse HardOCP's forums, Hardforum.com, and see what the pro's are saying amongst themselves.

As for just playing Legacy, well, I think I had a Voodoo card back in the day that could push Legacy along at 480x360...

Shew. Long enough post. Lunch time!

AMD is out of the race currently, I'd say a -

Core 2 Duo E6300 (many people say better than E4300)
ATI X1950 XT Graphics Card (fantastic for the money)
2GB RAM - almost the new standard now
And the Gigabyte GA-965P DS3 board is very good, as is the lower 945 version. I'm also a fan of the Abit DB9 if you can get that far.


lots of what I've looked at comes from magazines such as http://www.custompc.co.uk though I check out http://www.tomsgardwareguide.com a lot and http://www.guru3d.com

I just bought the parts for an AMD X2 6000+ (dual cores at 3.0ghz) which was noticeably cheaper than Intel equivilents where I was shopping. I'm also putting in 2gb of RAM and a nVIDIA 8800 GTX. I have plans to buy a second set of RAM and another 8800 GTX before the end of 2007.

I also snagged a 24" widescreen monitor from Dell and a 5.1 surround sound system with a 10" subwoofer. I'll let you guys know how everything gels together.

By the way, living in New Hampshire is great. I paid 0 tax on all of this stuff, which is probably going to total somewhere around 3200 for everything.

New Hampshire, the libertarian dream state. Lucky.

If gaming is the main concern, I'd almost say even a X2 3800+, as old as it is, would be plenty; games are GPU-bound, so thats the focus. With a 8800GTS for me, an 8800GTX for Azh, and a X1950XT for Chris, I'd say we're setting a good example.

I've personally got 3.6ghz stable on my E6600, and could go higher, but the voltage/temps made me uncomfortable given I have to keep it a while, so settled at 3.2ghz with almost-stock temps/voltage.

I hate it when people talk specs! They make me feel like my ever-reliable leviathian of a computer is a pile of junk!

Pentium 4 Processor 540 @ 3.207 Ghz (Hyperthreaded but not dual core)
1Gb RAM (Upgraded from 512Mb)
250Gb Hard Drive (Replaced, old one died a month ago, and the brand new one may also be dying coz i'm getting blue screens of death)
2x 128Mb Radeon 9250 Graphics cards
1x DVD-ROM Drive
1x DVD-RW Drive (Replaced about 5 months ago)
1x Floppy Drive (Amazingly it still gets used)
6x USB Ports (Enough is never enough )
2x Firewire Ports (Never used these, not actually sure what they are)
17" Medion Monitor
9-in-1 Card Reader
1x Lovely Blue Light (:lol:)

It does indeed..

I had a $5000 original Peter Max painting shipped to me a few weeks ago, and their default shipper was FedEx. Came to my door with a dirty, punctured box; whatever punctured it went through the double-walled box, a thinner box and foam surrounding the actual painting, and put a hair-line scratch on the glass right above the painting. FedEx almost had to pay me some serious dough, but I let it go, can't see the scratch without having the light hit it just the right way. Close call, though.

UPS, on the other hand, well, my local driver's a cool enough guy, never happened to have problems there.

Both of which, of course, are light-years ahead of the local government despotic postal workers. I almost got arrested last year at a post office, but alas, wont go there.

Umm, don't bother with Windows 98 or 95. You will only enter a depression and commit suicide. And I'm not just saying that they suck as OS's (because they do) but because you will simply find yourself unable to easily set them up unless you have access to a LOT of old equipment. New hardware won't fly on 98 or 95 because drivers for that hardware do not exist in Win95 or 98 versions. At this point, I'd recommend going to Dell and speccing out a PC to play the high-end games you want and find a way to get the older games to run on XP or Vista.

On a sidenote, my computer is all together. I've yet to find a graphic setting in WoW, EVE, or Supreme Commander that I haven't liked. Maxed anti-aliasing, maxed environment details, max resolution. I'll let you guys know if the computer does a double-take when I finally manage to get a 2000 unit battle in Supreme Commander at 1920x1200 with maxed details and AA. I still have quite a bit to learn about that game.

I think I'll try to get Privateer and Wing Commander Armada running in Vista x64 just for giggles with something like Dosbox. They worked on XP, without sound, but.. I never got sound to work on the damn games even under pure DOS back in the day, so no big loss.

Hey, speaking of Privateer, Vega Strike, an open-source game, has a Privateer mod that pretty faithfully reproduces the classic original.