System Shock 2 on my old hardware

Games
#1

I don’t remember when my PC hardware got out of date. Last I remember, a 1GHz Athlon, 256MB of RAM and a GeForce 3 (the good one that’s faster than all GF4’s except the top 2 Ti’s) was a screamer of a system.

I’ve been gaming deprived ever since my girlfriend/wife/whatever* and I moved in together, discovered she was pregnant with our child, and we had to rush to make certain modifications to the new place before she got too big to move. Now that those mods are mostly done (the bathroom is lovely), it’s time to play.

But this thing won’t run Doom 3. After the six-figure down payment (which required a LOT of borrowing, needless to say) and remodeling costs (about a grand for the bathroom alone), I have no money to upgrade.

The last FPS I played was Return to Castle Wolfenstein, if that gives you an idea how long it’s been since I did a real, big-production PC game.

I’d played System Shock 2’s demo when it was new, but it wasn’t enough to make me go run out and buy the game. (At the time it came out, I didn’t have the time or money anyway.) But now I’ve seen enough rants and raves to make me reconsider, so I got it and put it in**.

I get chills just from the intro. The career choice wasn’t in the demo, and so far that’s the only new thing I’ve experienced. I think I’m going to enjoy this. (I hope it doesn’t spoil me.)

Still, I’m not sure this is a game that’s really taking advantage of my hardware. I never had one; I seem to have missed that period. Since I sort of missed the point where games would take advantage of my hardware, what good*** single-player games – RPG and FPS – would you recommend, for a machine of this age and these specs?

[size=2]*It’s a long story.[/size]

[size=2]**I also got Betrayal at Krondor working in a DOSbox on my old G3-based Mac laptop, which creeps along at the equivalent rate of a 386 at 10MHz. It’s nice, but it’s the wrong machine, and not exactly taking advantage of a GF3.[/size]

[size=2]***Unfortunately, this requirement rules out Unreal 2. It does a good job of involving my graphics card, but I want a GOOD game.[/size]

#2

You can slightly push System Shock 2’s graphics by installing this updated model pack: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/etienne.aubert/sshock/sshock_rebirth.htm

Most of those new monsters are really great, with the exception of the new Cyber Midwife, which really lacks a lot of the pure chill factor of the old one. Still worth installing though.

Also, System Shock 2 has this bizarre engine “bug” (or feature, depending on how you look at it) that the frame rate actually runs significantly higher the higher you pump the resolution. So you can try that.

With the new model pack, it’s still a great looking game.

#3

The Cyber Midwife terrifies the living shit out of me.

I had to quit playing a couple times - I’d be up on the second floor and one would be scurrying around the bottom floor muttering creepy things. I was actually shaking; probably the only game that’s ever actually scared me.

I wouldn’t lose any sleep over missing Doom. It’s mediocre.

#4

What terrifies me out of the original post is the six-figure down payment.

#5

I noticed that too. Rimbo, where do you live? A palace made of strippers?

#6

Man, I’m glad I never stuck around for a pregnancy.

#7

The original cyber-midwife had a much more skeletal/Soulblighter-esque look that the re-done version lacks.

As for the 6-digit down-payment, that seems about right for a single-family home.

  • Alan
#8

Because if so, I’ll happily rent a room in the palace, which should give you a little extra spending cash to juice up the old CPU.

The eye-candy title at the time of my last upgrade (similarly archaic by modern standards - a P3/933 with an original Radeon 64DDR card and 512 whopping megs of SDRAM) was the first Max Payne, and that system would also do a bangup job on some of the fancypants Unreal Tournament maps (I have yet to play any map in any game that was as much pure fun as AS-Bridge) that were released about that time, which were choking my poor old P3/450.

#9

Wow, I forgot how bad SS2 looked.

#10

As for the 6-digit down-payment, that seems about right for a single-family home.

Where at? I was able to buy mine without a down payment thanks to a VA Loan but even without that I know I wasn’t going to half to cough up anything remotely close to that.

#11

An 1111-sq-ft condominium, single floor.

But:

  1. It is 10 minutes’ drive from prime surfing
  2. It is 5 minutes’ drive from a major research university
  3. It is 25 minutes’ walk to my work.
  4. It is 20 minutes’ walk to the best mall in town
  5. It is in San Diego where the temperature never really gets colder than 60 or hotter than 78, and also has this really nice zoo.
#12

I haven’t played Max Payne very far yet, and that was on the PS2. I know one of the guys who worked on it, from my demoscene days, so that sounds interesting. How does the PC version look, compared to the PS/2 port?

#13

SS2 is definitely not the game to make the best use of your hardware. I believe it uses Thief’s Dark engine, which IIRC was designed to push Pentium 2 machines nicely but not much beyond that. And a GeForce 3 was, like, absolutely top-of-the-line when SS2 was released. In fact I wonder if it was even on the market yet.

Then again, I haven’t bothered to play SS2 with those new monsters. I probably should some time.

Anyway, I think there are at least several other good FPSs you can check out. All of these should run fine on your hardware with the details jacked up, and they should look anywhere from a little to MUCH better than SS2.

Note: most of these are far more action-packed and less story-driven than SS2, so you may not like them as much. I also don’t like FPS/RPG hybrids as much as games that focus on one or the other. So consider yourself warned about my taste in FPS games!

In order of my favorites to least favorites:

No One Lives Forever 2
No One Lives Forever 1
Unreal Tournament 2K3 (I’d also list 2K4 but I’m not sure it’ll play well on a 1ghz machine)
Unreal Tournament
Aliens Versus Predator 1
Aliens Versus Predator 2
Jedi Academy
Jedi Knight 2
Deus Ex 1
Serious Sam:1st Encounter
Serious Sam:2nd Encounter
Max Payne 2 (it plays like an FPS even if the camera is third-person, so I say it qualifies - OH YEAH and it looks so much better on the PC than the PS2 so as to prevent any real comparisons between the two versions)
Max Payne 1
Heavy Metal FAKK 2
Wheel Of Time
American McGee’s Alice
Quake 3 w/Team Arena (if you get this, the expansion pack adds a great deal since the original’s team play is pretty blah)
Soldier Of Fortune 2

RPGs are a different story. Only a few good RPGs really have good graphics that I think would still run fine on your machine, and even then I won’t make any guarantees that you’ll either A: like the graphics, B: get good framerates, or C: like the games.

From favorite to least favorite:

Gothic 2
Morrowind
Gothic
Neverwinter Nights

All the other RPGs I like are graphically blah. And the gameplay of some titles like Temple Of Elemental Evil and Enclave is pretty heavily debated - I like ToEE’s combat but nothing else, and I didn’t like Enclave too much. But they are rather pretty, I guess.

#14

Also, I am openly jealous about your house. Congrats!

#15

I’m torn. The midwife looks scarier in the original; in the new one, she’s got nice tits… and her face has a great “Horror at what I’ve become, please kill me” look:

I wouldn’t lose any sleep over missing Doom. It’s mediocre.

I’ll be the judge of that, five years from now when I can get a copy, a better machine and play it. ;)

#16

La Jolla? That’s my first guess. My second is Downtown. If it’s Mission Valley… Well, then I’m sure it’s a very nice condo.

(I’m in Hillcrest, myself.)

#17

Thanks. We not only had to take out equity on the girlfriend/wife/whatever’s old place, but we have to rent out 2 of its 3 bedrooms to help keep up with the payments, even with 2 jobs.

We’re going to be in massive debt for a long, long time.

Oh, I forgot to add: It’s also against the commuter traffic… in every direction. So if this job moves, or I have to work someplace else, I’ll still be well-located.

So in the end it’s good in all 3 respects (location, location, and location), even if it is a tiny, smelly, broken-down 32-year-old dump of a condo.

Which is why the neighboring condos are already starting to hit half a million each. :shock:

#18

An 1111-sq-ft condominium, single floor.

But:

  1. It is 10 minutes’ drive from prime surfing
  2. It is 5 minutes’ drive from a major research university
  3. It is 25 minutes’ walk to my work.
  4. It is 20 minutes’ walk to the best mall in town
  5. It is in San Diego where the temperature never really gets colder than 60 or hotter than 78, and also has this really nice zoo.[/quote]

Sounds nice, but cripes! what a cost!

Places that aren’t Spokane, where a down-payment on a 4,000 square foot Craftsman (7bd/2.25ba) in nice shape in a good neighborhood will run you about $7,000, sound like they suck.

And I’m in total agreement with your point about the new vs. old midwife. The voice definitely goes MUCH better with the old.

#19

La Jolla? That’s my first guess. My second is Downtown. If it’s Mission Valley… Well, then I’m sure it’s a very nice condo.

(I’m in Hillcrest, myself.)[/quote]

Hillcrest is a sweet location. It’s also approaching half a million for similar quarters to what we got.

I am here

Dead center of the Golden Triangle, and about 3 blocks away from a La Jolla zip code.

Now y’all know where I live. I’d better keep my troll nature in check from now on…

#20

Sorry to diverge this thread any further but while the San Diego talk is going on-

I’ll be living in San Diego for approx 7 months starting in January. What would you guys estimate a decent, 2 bedroom apartment will go for per month? I’m looking to live close to Point Loma but will obviously have to be flexible on that one.