Buy a Used Laptop From High School For Sister To Play Overwatch?

[Thedudely1]

Okay, so let me explain the whole situation. Recently, my little sister started getting into Overwatch. She uses my desktop and my Battle.Net account all the time to play it. This would be fine, but she is constantly nagging me to be able to use my computer. She's ten by the way. Yes, I know some of you may say she's young to be playing Overwatch or to have her own computer, but I'm not here asking about ethics. Anyway, I was thinking she could get her own computer. So my first thought was to buy some real cheapo, old desktop for like $10 USD and put in either something like an RX 460 or an older card that can play games decently. That would be fine, but currently she doesn't have a desk or any room for a desk, because we're selling our house. Besides the desk too, she would need a monitor. Then, at some point she'd probably need to get a microphone and a web cam and all this other stuff, that although I don't care about having some of it, she's used to using iMacs and would expect to have some of that stuff. So one day I was at school and I started thinking about the laptops they have. They technically have a dedicated GPU, have a first gen i5, and run Windows. They come packed with a webcam, microphone, WIFI, Bluetooth, speakers, and a Windows 7 license that I assume I could use. So it would be the whole package. They're Lenovo Thinkpad T410s. They have an Intel Core i5 m560, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and an Nvidia NVS 3100M. So the specs aren't anything great, but in terms of everything but the GPU, it's considerably better than any new laptop you could buy for <$150 and, for the price I would offer for it, is way cheaper. The GPU is the only part that worries me. It's kind of shit. It's slow and it only supports up to DirectX 10.1. But all she needs to run, at least for now, is Overwatch, which requires at least DirectX 10.1. So this is getting long, but I'll make a TL;DR at the end. My High School uses a lot of Chromebooks, however a few classes still have some 2010-ish era Windows laptops, these Thinkpads included. So, from what I can tell, they're trying to phase out the Windows laptops and the classes that have them hardly use them, because the teachers just request a Chromebook cart when they need them. So I was thinking that I could ask my teacher if I could purchase one of the laptops for something like $20 from the school. I really don't know what she'd say. I can see it going either way. I'm sure they're trying to get rid of them anyway and they have so many of them, so I'm betting I could get one for a good deal one way or another. No matter the GPU, for $20, that would be a steal, but it needs to be able to play Overwatch at some level. One more thing about the GPU is that the Nvidia NVS 3100M that's in there, is still getting driver updates for Windows 10 and will continue getting them for another year or two, I believe. I think it would be a good idea to atleast try and get one of these laptops, but I also am worried that I'm trying to convince myself that I should, because I'm curios. Should I attempt to buy one of these Thinkpads from my High School for my little sister to play Overwatch and hopefully have it be her foray into using computers other than her iPad? Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know it's long as hell.

 

TL;DR: My ten year old sister needs a cheap computer to play Overwatch. A desktop could be the way to go, but currently isn't optimal. My school has 2010-ish laptops that I could attempt to buy for ~$20. Should I attempt to buy one for her to play Overwatch? It's fine if it runs at the lowest settings, it just can't be trash. Thanks!

 

School laptop specs:

Lenovo Thinkpad T410

CPU: Intel Core i5 M560

GPU: Nvidia NVS 3100M

RAM: 8GB of DDR3 (Not sure of speed)

Hard Drive is 140Gb or something. Not that great, but sufficient for our use.

I attached a picture of the Windows Experience Index score, because it's the only performance measure I had easy access to.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

[shadowbyte]

you'll definitely be severely limited by the NVS card

it's about a GT 210, which is a pretty shit card tbh

http://www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-2675900/games-played-nvidia-nvs-3100m.html

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

While in a situation like yours I'd typically advocate for a laptop, but that laptop is poop. I'd say build the uber cheap PC.

[Thedudely1]

9 minutes ago, shadowbyte said:

you'll definitely be severely limited by the NVS card

it's about a GT 210, which is a pretty shit card tbh

http://www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-2675900/games-played-nvidia-nvs-3100m.html

Yeah that's what it seems like. Really though, it just need to be able to hold a frame rate of over 20 at the lowest settings. From what I can tell, it can do that.

[Thedudely1]

2 minutes ago, Jacktastic-Mofo said:

While in a situation like yours I'd typically advocate for a laptop, but that laptop is poop. I'd say build the uber cheap PC.

I'm not sure it is as bad as you think. Yes, the GPU is shit, but, at least from what I can tell, the other specs are at least somewhat viable today. It doesn't have any RAM limitations really, and the CPU is still decent I'd say.

[RileyTheFox]

3 minutes ago, Thedudely1 said:

Yeah that's what it seems like. Really though, it just need to be able to hold a frame rate of over 20 at the lowest settings. From what I can tell, it can do that.

You sure you'd settle for just over 20? I'd say at least 60+ fps on lowest settings before I even considered buying it 

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

Just now, Thedudely1 said:

I'm not sure it is as bad as you think. Yes, the GPU is shit, but, at least from what I can tell, the other specs are at least somewhat viable today. It doesn't have any RAM limitations really, and the CPU is still decent I'd say.

If you want your sister to be an even remotely pro-genji this is not the machine. The rest of the specs are perfectly fine for a super basic gaming machine- but the limitation that GPU imposes is astonishing. I own a GT 710 (as a testing GPU) and I get around 20-25FPS at 720p on the lowest settings in OW. A GT 210 equivalent GPU will have a much worse time.

[Thedudely1]

1 minute ago, EvilCat70 said:

You sure you'd settle for just over 20? I'd say at least 60+ fps on lowest settings before I even considered buying it 

I wouldn't play at that. It's my ten year old sister it has to please. If the lows were around 20FPS and I caped it at 30, then I doubt she'd notice the difference. I'd see what I could do once I had it.

[RileyTheFox]

2 minutes ago, Thedudely1 said:

I wouldn't play at that. It's my ten year old sister it has to please. If the lows were around 20FPS and I caped it at 30, then I doubt she'd notice the difference. I'd see what I could do once I had it.

Maybe so. But I myself am a person who plays Overwatch just about everyday, and when my frames drop to even about 40 - 50 I find it hard to play the game. Also, Overwatch is GPU intensive. That card is utter crap, no matter what the other specs are, the game will not perform well at all