Expert: Bobbert - 11/4/2009

Question
I just bought a new computer which is apparently a gaming computer, please look at the spec - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220500666091&ssPageName=ADM...
i have then gone and tried installing a few games, World of warcraft and star war empire at war, which then fail to work. When i try to play world of warcraft a message appears saying -"World of warcraft was unable to start up 3D accelaration. Please make sure Directx 9.0c is installed and your video drivers are up-to-date."

I have now installed directx 9 and the problems still seem to happen. I am unsure what to do? can you help me? Thanks


Answer
Looks like a fairly dated workstation computer from the mid 2000's. The Matrox graphics adapter installed won't support DirectX 9 (likely won't support DirectX 8 even), and the system only has an AGP slot which means upgrades are likely very limited (as AGP is quite outdated, modern systems use PCI Express (which is different from PCI)).

As far as decent modern gaming system, I wouldn't suggest a Pentium 4 era Xeon, or an SMP/DP box, instead I would suggest a Core 2 Duo/Quad or Core i5/i7 (or AMD equivalent, Phenom II) and modern PCIe based graphics adapter (from nVidia or ATi, as Matrox doesn't provide gaming/consumer geared 3D accelerators).

If you have any further, feel free to ask.

-bob