Omnimaga

General Discussion => Technology and Development => Computer Usage and Setup Help => Topic started by: Spyro543 on April 30, 2012, 02:28:48 pm

Title: Making an old computer faster?
Post by: Spyro543 on April 30, 2012, 02:28:48 pm

I have a really, really old desktop computer (like it was made in 2000 or earlier x.x) and it's so slow there's lag on everything you do, even when using LXDE (it runs Ubuntu) (yes, even just moving the mouse is laggy). It has a 20 GB hard drive, half a gigabyte (or less) of RAM, and a really old Pentium processor. Don't even ask me about the graphics card. My question is, is there any way to make it run faster (at least fast enough to play Minecraft at normal render distance)? I know I can put more RAM in it, and putting in a new graphics card shouldn't be to difficult, but is there anything else I can do? (Any pointers would be helpful!)

Title: Re: Making an old computer faster?
Post by: ben_g on April 30, 2012, 02:35:03 pm

You could add some radium to make it faster. (http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/1/15/15975.html)

Usually for games, the graphics card should be really good to have a reasonable speed. It's much more important than the CPU. But if the computer is made in 2000, then you should also check if you can replace the CPU with a faster one. A lot of things change in technology in 12 years.

At last: The RAM: I think 0.5GB is enough for minecraft, but a bit more won't hurt.

Title: Re: Making an old computer faster?
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 30, 2012, 02:46:14 pm

I lol'ed at the ticalc link. I remember that article XD.

From experience, however, it seems for newer games it's often the video card that makes the difference for framerate. On my Pentium II 350 MHz, for example,  i ran XP with only 256 MB of RAM and we could run some 650 MHz games pretty fine because they were not too demanding on video RAM and stuff. However, if your mobo is very old, then not many video cards will fit in it. Eg my Intel Celeron had no PCI-Express nor AGP slots, so I was stuck with PCI cards.

Of course, however, if the CPU is really old, then maybe it might need to be replaced too, along with a few more RAM.

Title: Re: Making an old computer faster?
Post by: Juju on April 30, 2012, 02:47:09 pm

I would install the lightest window manager you can find, or even, no WM at all (only xterm) and stop pretty much all the useless background processes.

So yeah, bare-bones Linux where possible.

Title: Re: Making an old computer faster?
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 30, 2012, 02:49:29 pm

Would Wine be fast enough on such old computer, though? (To run his Windows programs like Minecrack for example)

Title: Re: Making an old computer faster?
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 30, 2012, 03:03:31 pm

A fresh format couldn't hurt, make sure you have an os to reinstall first though. Make sure to turn all graphic or extra settings as low as possible. Running a low spec operating system helps too (don't know what you're using). As you said ram and graphic card updates are doable, but it might be hard to find compatible hardware depending on how old it is. You could also update the harddrive to the fastest read/write speed it supports, but i'm not sure if that would help with mine craft so much as it would performance overall.

Edit:Lol as a 2000 pc being described as "really old". My first pc(that was used) had a 5.5 in floppy disk drive and Ran Dos. No windows. No internet. No mouse. CGA display (4 colors) :D It was probably ~20 years old and was the only pc we had in the house.

Title: Re: Making an old computer faster?
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 30, 2012, 03:32:15 pm

I'd do what Juju said, it's good advice. Maybe an IceWM like window manager, just the basics.
Or, you could use a tiling wm, they are fun if you know how to use them :)