What games will run on the system for 3000 rubles? We buy and test with Playkey

Three thousand rubles. Dinner for two in a not too expensive restaurant or a tacky system officer?

The choice is obvious - we decided. And at the same time on it you can spend unique playtests of various games. And tell about it in this publication!

We were looking for Avito for the candidate systems for this article. And they quickly found such a handsome man:



Ho-ho! It looks great, and the filling for 3000 rubles is quite decent. Two levels of 2x1Gb DDR2-800 memory, integrated Intel GMA X4500 graphics card, 320Gb hard drive and Core2Duo E7400 2800MHz dual-core stone.

One call, and we are already moving forward to pick up this beautiful system unit, to test on it a variety of toys in the spectrum from TES: Skyrim to Wolf Among Us and Mass Effect. Plus a couple of hot new products: DOOM andQuantum Break . Ready, sistemnik?

Go!

Unpacking


For the purity of the experiment, it is worth noting that 3000 rubles is the price tag of the system unit together with the power cable (and in order to get the cable, we also had to bargain)! For ourselves, we decided to output a picture by connecting a computer via an HDMI cable to a FullHD TV. But in the case of selecting a sistemnik from scratch, it is worthwhile to lay at least a couple of thousand above on the simplest monitor.

Having taken the system unit in the far industrial zone on the Highway of Enthusiasts, we move to the test site. On the way, we remember that we also need to pick up a set of a wireless mouse and keyboard, which is about 1,500 rubles on top.

We get to the house, and see how the purchased iron looks from the outside and inside:





The coolers are dusty, the noise is quite sensitive, but on the whole the device looks cumbersome, but not so bad. Especially considering the price - just like a power supply for a Macbook:



As you can see from the more detailed specifications, the computer, although it obviously served as a “typewriter” in the office, still supports DirectX 11, hardware video decoding and even has an HDMI output and optical output . Beauty!



The issue with DirectX and hardware video decoding we were interested in before buying, and for a reason. DirectX support over version 9.0c and hardware decoding are the minimum requirements required to run Playkey. If that, here they are :

Minimum system requirements

OC: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10; Mac OS X 10.6 and higher;
Processor: 1.5 GHz and above
RAM: 2 GB and above
Video card: from 256 MB with support for hardware H.264
DirectX decoder : from version 9.0c and above
Free hard disk space: 0.04 GB
Internet connection speed: from 5 Mbit / s
Input devices: keyboard, mouse, up to 4 simultaneously connected gamepads

First start


The first thing we were lucky with was that we cleaned the computer and reinstalled the operating system before selling it. After a quick reinstallation of the drivers to the sound card (the sound was not transmitted via HDMI as before), we moved on to playtests.

We installed FRAPS and decided to start with Skyrim. The game was released in November 2011 and (as it seemed to us) could well go on the hardware we bought.

We decide not to risk it, we expose, as the developers propose, the minimum quality settings, and expose the negligible resolution of 800x600. With full confidence in the success of starting the campaign, and ...



Damn it! 7-8 FPS? Seriously?

Launching Skyrim is simply a hopeless undertaking. Alas, neither the minimum quality settings nor the negligible resolution make it possible to draw a computer 6 years ago. Sadness: (

Reduce the stakes and try Mass Effect. Not Andromeda, and not even the second or third, but the very first part - 2007 of release!
Set the "minimal salary ", see what happens. Well, baby, do not let us down.



We launch the campaign, and ...:



Again failure. 10 FPS in dynamic scenes, up to 20 FPS in simpler scenes. The minimum settings, and again we fly. Start the game and enjoy the gameplay - no chance. It's a pity :(

We are moving to the third title. This is The Wolf Among Us. The first episode of the series, though released in October 2013, was completely undemanding on the gaming hardware. Given that the game was ported even to smartphones, we had hopes of launching at least on the basic settings.

Starting with tin: we set almost everything to the maximum, and even in Full HD:



Run:



Overall, not so terrible, given the high resolution and level of detail. Worthy plus or minus 10 FPS. Loading directly during the fighting scenes, of course, depressing. But in general, it could be worse.

We descend from heaven to earth, expose minimal salary and low resolution.



Settings drive melancholy, but what to do, try so.

And we see the result - quite good:



Interestingly, the cartoon picture is not so fatally affected by the graphics settings, but the FPS even in the most expensive scenes does not fall below 30. It is quite playable! You can even tweak the resolution higher and find an even better balance of performance and picture quality.

Hardcore: launch a new DOOM and Quantum Break


Despite all the skepticism, we decided not to waste time on trifles and to launch a couple more “real” novelties. The choice fell on the new DOOM and Quantum Break.

Started by downloading distros. On a decent home channel of 30 Mbit, I had to wait about 4 hours for each game. Four hours, KARL! The whole day was killed for download. Well, no problem, go to the installation.

Each distribution weighed about 40GB and required even more space for installation. Our 320 GB HDD was cracking at the seams: after both games were installed, less than 8GB remained free.

Slightly exciting pause, move the cursor to the icon DOOM ... Damn.



We start Quantum Break - it gives a similar error.

We understand that we have a 32-bit operating system installed. And in the system requirements it is written in black and white: Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10 (64-bit). Yes, wrong.

Well, it's time to reinstall Windows, but there was an ambush waiting here too. Nobody forgot that our computer was connected to the TV and via HDMI? Naturally, you can enter the BIOS to select a boot volume only by connecting the computer via VGA. We go for the cable.

Connect, reinstall the system on Win 7 x64.



One more evening is killed, but we do not lose heart and again we install DOOM and Quantum Break.

Second attempt: run DOOM and Quantum Break


Okay, we think. Wrong with the choice of OSes, with whom it does not happen: you never know what the past owner was guided by when rolling the x32-bit system.

So, everything is reinstalled, and seems to be ready for a test run. Go!

Starting with DOOM:



Hi. Built-in video cards are not supported. This is a failure.

Go to Quantum Break. Oh please! Click:



No words :(

I'm tired, I'm leaving (in the playkey)


During the test, we are seriously depressed about the gaming capabilities of the purchased PC.

For a week of use, we checked the purchased sistemnik in a variety of situations. And despite the obvious limitations - including a built-in video card and only 2 gigabytes of RAM - it coped with most routine tasks. But not games.

Edit the text, watch a movie in Full HD video or play HOMM 3 - the computer handled any such task quite well. There were problems with multitasking, in the case of frequent change of tasks there were short-lived friezes, but the overall impression of the piece of iron is positive.

And at this stage we decided to run Playkey on the computer.

Download and launch the client, set up the HD image and start with DOOM.

That same DOOM, on which we previously spent two days to download, reinstall the system and never run.

With the Playkey, there was no need to download the game at all , it also does not take up space, and it seems ... It starts up. And how! See:



We made the recording directly from the screen, but the quality of the HD-picture was excellent, but we did not notice any subsidence.

Go to Quantum Break. The game looks, of course, just super:



Quantum Break, if anything, is one of the most demanding games of recent times. Here are its minimum system requirements:

CPU : Intel Core i5-4460, 2.70 GHz
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 with 2 GB of
RAM : 8 GB

There is one graphics card more expensive than 10 thousand rubles! And this is minimal salary. Consoles on the PS4 are also angry - their Quantum Break has bypassed and is available only on Xbox One and Windows.



We continue the playtest and try to run Resident Evil 7. A game that came out a couple of months ago is on a computer that doesn’t pull games a decade ago. Computer price of three thousand rubles !

I think it's better to look at the result with my own eyes :)





Instead of conclusion


I think with our test we proved that even a dusty computer from the nearest scientific research institute with a price tag of 3000 rubles is suitable for games. If the third “heroes” bearded man masters himself, then the new items will help launch Playkey.

Let there be a manifesto. Do not sell old computers. Better use them as typewriters, Internet browsers and audio-video players. And if you want to play on them in top toys, then instead of an upgrade for 60 thousand rubles, we see much more logical to use Playkey. The same Quantum Break on Steam cost us 600 rubles, against 3000-4000 rubles on the Xbox One, by the way. That is, from the very first game purchased, the price of the system unit (in comparison with the price of games on consoles) has already broken.

For the purity of the experiment, we say that in our videos with gameplay through Playkey we connected via the Ethernet cable (there is simply no wi-fi module in the computer) to the usual home Internet Onlime at 30 Mbps.  

And finally: DOOM and Resident Evil 7 demos are available (for free!) For any user to test. Right now.

Come in, install the Playkey client, and share the results: www.playkey.net

P.S. To make it more interesting to play, we offer our new promo code for 300 minutes of the game (24 hours from the moment of activation) - GeektimesBFG9000  ( do not forget the exclamation mark in the beginning! )

Activate time to 04/30/2017. Valid only for new Playkey users in the Russian Federation and the CIS.

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