PC Gaming

[Sharkgirl]

I have a Dell Dimension E310 PC. 

It came with Windows Media Center Edition (service pack 3)

It  has a 2.80 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4proccessor

50.62 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

1016 mb of memory

.99 GB of RAM

Intel Internal video graphics 82915G/GV/ 910 GL

These are the specs. I need in order to play the new Sims 3 game:

FOR WINDOWS XP

• Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
• 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
• 1 GB RAM
• At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
• 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

Can you tell me if there is any upgrades I can do in order for the game to work on my several years old PC?  From what I have read my PC only has a 230 watt power supply, and can only support PCI video cards.  Not sure if I really used the right wording here, I am more of a web design gal than a hardware one.

Any help is helpful, thanks!

[RealGeorgeW Valued Expert]

Well the only PCI card we carry in stores is the 8400GS which isn't a "bad" card, but you will(if I remember what the box said) have to upgrade your power supply also. I'm not certain on that though. Other than that. Upgrade your RAM.

Beyond that you're really up for a new computer. Yours is.... 5-6 years old right? You're sitting right on the bare bottom of what they recommend for the game and even with the 8400GS, you still would probably not be able to play the game on anything but the lowest video quality settings.

[hockeycanuckjc Trusted Contributor]

The 66mhz on the PCI bus will severely cripple the real capability of the 8400 GS card.