An Overview of my "retro gaming" machine (Dell Dimension 8300)

First off, Happy 4th of July to my american viewers! this is just an overview of an old machine I got from a nice family friend. I do hope to significantly upgrade this machine as much as possible. Also, as stated in the video, if anyone knows how to get older early 2000s games from steam to work on old machines running on unsupported operating system, Please leave a comment down below! Thanks and Enjoy! (Update: after doing some research, apparently I basically have the fastest cpu that I can put in it as the early versions of the 8300 like mine are limited to 2.8ghz :/)

[@Theutmostgeek]

Please excuse me if my expectations were too high for this machine. Still learning and messing about with this early 2000s stuff. I probably should have used a square monitor instead... :/

[@BanditBandito-db8tp]

why would you bother upgrading this pc?

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@BanditBandito-db8tp well, I got a soft spot for these older machines as they were part of my childhood and I like giving them a new lease of life. Even though I have a modern-day decent spec machine that could run circles around these.

[@MafiaTunis]

​@@BanditBandito-db8tpwhy not?

[@JapantunersRedlineGaming]

@Theutmostgeek : turn off 'Frame Limiter' on grand therft auto san andreas setting.

[@PatchTM983]

pretty sure I had this same pc. i remember it weighing a ton. lol

[@patg108]

CRT monitor was the standard but LCDs are fine with XP. Wouldn't try 1920x1080p though as you'd have to build with far better parts for that to really be viable for most games

[@kekistanifreedomfighter4197]

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may feel laggy or slow because it's limited by default to run at 24 FPS due to in game physics and timers being tied to the frame rate. The limiter can be disabled in advanced graphics options but introduces some bugs, especially around water.

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@kekistanifreedomfighter4197 Ah. Thanks for letting me know man. I definitely gotta figure out how to setup FRAPS on these machines so that we can accurately tell if there it is running slow.

[@Foddley]

I've been looking for one of these for a sleeper build, but they're proving to be quite rare in the UK now. 😥

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@Foddley Yeah its a shame really. Now there are plenty of idiots around who think these are worth paying £50+ for a pentium 4 machine...

[@Foddley]

@@Theutmostgeek Tell me about it. I offered £80 to someone on eBay listing one for £160 and they declined 😅

[@goqwertygo]

It's not pirating if you own the game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I love The Sims 2 still semiregularly play my 15 year continuous game save currently running it on a Dell precision 5810 Windows 7 32GB quad channel DDR4 and a GTX660 until i get the special 8+6pin GPU power cable. Then it'll have my old Titan Black

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@goqwertygo Fair enough. It seems that quite a few people still enjoy the older sim games. You definitely got quite a neat setup. It'll run real nice with the titan!

[@patg108]

and a Pentium D is better than a equivalent pentium 4, its one of the couple successors (literally, that and some Pentium M) Its a socket 775 processor (best is a Pentium D extreme (2 core 4 thread for the best Pentium D, otherwise 1 to 2 cores). There's a small IPC gain there (though i doubt the onboard gpu is better than many gpus of the time but its possible) GPU is one of the most important upgrades to a PC (and you probably aren't even close to what it can handle). There's also OS optimization tweaking (taking things off start menu and disabling unneeded services etc) But really what you should be looking at is Custom builds or pcs with a lot of parts added in. 720p high isn't bad for that system considering it a 2004 game and the OG xbox is the best version (*though most played the ps2 version before the fudged up remakes of modern times. You could go even higher with a modern system though. This system may be able to handle higher but a ATX standard is better. Dell and HP are known for being OEM proprietary parts only in many (but not all machines). Meaning you would need a adapter for a more modern PSU to work without it literally being a fire hazard risk (literally the atx 24 pin power connector is wired differently so if and when it fails you'd have to buy from them) They do sell converters though to allow a standard to work on machines like this though. (Depending upon GPu found it may well be needed)

[@patg108]

if you want 1080p monitors on the cheap 23 inch+ monitors are pretty much guaranteed to do 60 hz Catch is you'd have to watch the brightness on them as they can be worn out, they'd have a date code on the back (can get them for $10-50 usd (the ones at 50 or 60 should have more features like usb 2.0 or 3.0+ ports or be 120 hz or better) Safer bet is to go with the more recent year for the same price

[@Theutmostgeek]

I do actually have a far nicer HP 16:10 24 inch monitor that I could probably use for these videos. Just dont really use it as it doesnt have VGA which a few of my machines require.

[@patg108]

@@Theutmostgeek there is converters but except for VGA to DVI they may not all work.

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@patg108 thats right. I do have a vga to hdmi converter but unfortunetly, it doesnt show the bios when booting up which is pretty much due to how most of these machines send power to the USB ports later on.

[@patg108]

@@Theutmostgeek if the monitor has DVI-D that would work

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@patg108 yeah it does. Guess I just gotta fish around for my vga to dvi converter

[@joe241able]

i used to have one its trash i built my own retro pc lol

[@rubiigen]

around 5:20: you talking about RD-RAM?

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@rubiigen Yep thats the one!

[@donaldnemesis393]

but can it run windows 7 without lag?

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@donaldnemesis393 when I got the machine, it was actually running windows 7 professional 32 bit. Apart from the lack of the drivers, it was running pretty well!

[@easymoney480]

Dual boot Linux to run the steam games?

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@easymoney480 not sure why I didnt consider this!

[@JapantunersRedlineGaming]

Turn off 'Frame Limiter' on setting grand Theft Auto san Andreas.

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@JapantunersRedlineGaming did this later on. It still felt the same unfortunetly.

[@arnoldthegreat4138]

just install linux and change the memory to ssd and that thing will run brand new i did the same on my old laptop.

[@Theutmostgeek]

yeah I think Ill do just that. What distro are you running on your laptop?

[@arnoldthegreat4138]

@@Theutmostgeek linuxmint its looks like windows so u wont have a hardtime adapting.

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@arnoldthegreat4138 ah yes. Im familiar with mint. Definitely one of the better distros out there.

[@patg108]

memory isn't SSD, that's storage. The sata is likely 150 mb/sec (sata 1.0. pr sata 2.0 at best. Would improve it but would be far from maxing out the ssd's potential DDR1 is the memory it has. max of 400 mhz. No changing that but the best a pentium 4 can ever have is DDR3 (if you had a 775 board which probably had a core2duo/quad in it that was downgraded to a pentium 4 at some point. Or if that's the best you had for the motherboard. And look up the motherboard's support, if you can find one that is better go for it, pentium 4s (esp dells) are cheap. 478 can support Hyperthreading (and 64 bit too given the right board and processor), Can technically run win 10 with the right combination (but its not recommended, XP or 2k or 98 SE would be the best choices)

[@Theutmostgeek]

@@patg108 did some research after doing that video and from what I can tell. This has the earlier revision motherboard that can only support p4s up to 2.8 ghz and 4gb of ddr 400 max. I probably wont bother getting an ssd as you mentioned how slow the sata is on this thing.

[@MartinParkes]

What?