32-Bit Gameplay

Pffft! 32-bits! What is this, some magical space computer!? Let me know when the 8-bit version is done.

Now if you will excuse me , I have a lot of work to do before I can see the latest alpha build. Steam pressure isn't nearly high enough on the main boiler, and it takes several days to translate the new PA builds into punch-card format.

Pft, you kids and your fancy steam power... I have to go oil the gears on the hand crank and tighten the leather belts in my box!

I see. I've decided to get a new "kit" (I assume you mean a computer from the store). The Pavilion p7-1534 is looking real sweet for a low-ish price(minus not coming with Athlon FX), especially for someone whose computer prowess is shaky and a bit outdated . A couple more questions though (I'm really sorry about this): when they say "Up to 4055 MB VRAM(that's 4.055GB right?) as allocated by Windows 8" about how much can you estimate I'd actually be able to use for gaming? Also, does Windows 8 have an actual desktop instead of this weird menu stuff I see?

A lot of people build their own computers and do not buy them from a store. This is what "kit" usually means. The collection of parts that you use to assemble the system. Not that there is anything wrong with a pre built box. Think turbo kit for a car, its a box of parts that you put together.

It's certainly a low end system but it should be able to run PA. Although I feel that a home built budget box will out perform it in games if you can reuse the screen, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, speakers, and optical drive from your current PC.

Hard to say. It depends on what else you have running on the system. Shared system and video memory is really bad for performance though since it forces video and general tasks to fight for memory space and system bus capacity. Also general purpose DDR3 can't compete with the performance of GDDR5 in video tasks.

It does but it's probably not the desktop you are looking for really. I recommend installing Start 8 ($5) or Classic Shell (free).

Interesting. Problem is I don't have time or expertise to put a budget box together.

I'm probably gonna keep my old PC because its the family computer anyways so scrapping unfortunately isn't an option right now. I really don't know what is a "low-end" system vs. a "high end" system these days. Out of curiosity, what would you consider to be be a "high-end" system? Anyhow, thanks for the info and I will consider having someone build it if I can find time and its not too expenseive.

Its 8GB for the system and up to 4GB for the VRAM. It never said they were shared though during the last few hours of browsing I have seen where some computer specs specifiy that it is shared. I shouldn't have too much of a problem though I'm considering adding some RAM upon purchase. The new Pavilion has a max System RAM of 32 GB should I need it. I never knew computer models were as important as component specs but this mostly matches up with the specs numptyscrub gave on the last page. As for what else, PA would be my first game on this computer. As for DDR3 vs. GDDR5, what would be an example of a GDDR5 computer and can I change out RAM completely on a DDR3 Computer to make it a GDDR5 computer? Again thank you for helping me through this.

That's fine. There is nothing wrong with buying a pre made box. Having a tech support number that they can call is very important for most people.

I would consider something like this to be high end. You can build a much faster system but doing so is rather pointless given the state of current PC gaming graphics.

If it doesn't mention an AMD/ATI or Nvidia video card or if it mentions an AMD APU (A6/A8/A10, accelerated processor, accelerated processing unit) then its using shared video and system memory. Nearly all pre built budget PCs are made this way to save money.

Unfortunately not. GDDR5 is a special kind of RAM that is only used on dedicated video cards. It is designed with video tasks in mind and while this makes it blazing fast at those specific tasks it also makes it terrible for general purpose tasks. Unlike general purpose DDR3 which although not amazing at anything doesn't really suck at anything either.

Also if you want to complete either the budget PA box or the high end PA box that I linked without scrapping an old PC then you will need to spend about $200 for the other bits to make it a fully functional system.

So unless you are reusing parts a prebuilt PC is always going to be cheaper. There is just no way that a single person is going to compete with the economies of scale and mass production advantages that companies like Dell and HP have when it comes to making complete PCs cheaply.