Full Powered, Compact, Gaming Rigs?

Michael Buffington asks: "I frequently go to LAN gaming parties, and because I'm not all that interested in toting my higher power mid tower machine around, I bring my lower powered notebook. I want to build a full powered machine complete with a fast, 3.5" HD, CD-ROM, Pentium III or similar in speed CPU, at least 1 AGP slot, and at least 2 PCI slots (or integrated sound, or network, or both), as small as possible. I've considered going the PC 104 route, but don't know of any vendors who sell complete systems (which I'd be more comfortable with, on the PC 104 route), and honestly don't know the pricing on PC 104. I've also considered finding the smallest motherboard I can, and hand building a machine as small as possible with normal equipment (duct tape being part of the 'normal' equipment). Does anyone have any ideas, examples, or stories to help with my new obsession?"

Comments

Re:Easy...

[Raptor CK]

Zuh?

Mouse?

Trackpad is *the* ultimate killing device. Back in my Q1 days, I was the absolute master of the triple rocket frag. That was on a trackpad. I tried going back to a mouse, and while I'm not bad, I'm nowhere near as good as I was on the pad.

See, the wonderful feature is that my accuracy was through the roof. Rocket just under the feet to send him up, a second just as he starts to fall (and thereby still in the blast radius), and then a third as he's falling back down, but this one to the actual body. Bled off most of the armor and health, and then...

SPLUT. Shower of gibs just before he hits the ground.

Fear the trackpad.

Raptor

You might want to wait...

[Amnesiak]

I know that nvidia has the geforce2go mobile chip. Ati will probably come out with a new laptop chip as well. Those two are probably your best bet.

However, it does take a while to get a new video chip in a laptop because each individual model has to get certified (this is what nvidia told me). So, even though the nvidia chip is out now, it might still be another four months or so until you see it in action.

Now, if you have money, i would suggest this route - microatx. You can get some pretty sweet plastic cases that are very small, and decent motherboards from good manufacturers like Asus. Pair this up with a flatpanel and you'd have a trick gaming machine for sure.... if you're really into hacking you can mount the flatpanel in the side of the case, but you might need to get a slightly bigger case for that.

So, if you don't want to wait, go microatx. if you do, just keep your eyes open until a laptop with the gf2go comes out.

Toshiba laptops w/ GeForce2 Go

[raygundan]

Toshiba is now selling laptops with NVidia's GeForce2 Go chipset (basically a GeForce2 MX squeezed into a laptop). Sounds like the easiest route to me! It's got built-in ethernet and sound, too. And a built-in subwoofer? (I'm skeptical on this piece, but who knows?)

Re:Just buy a dell....

[Sancho]

I find this hard to believe. The only explanation could be tweakability. I've used OEM systems (and Dells) and never found them to be lacking from the ones I build myself. I also only use the highest quality parts in my own systems.
And actually, I have a GeForce 400mhz system at home and I work with Dell 700mhz Celerons with Ati 4meg graphics cards. The Dell actually beats my system in a few cases. Of course not in all, but it does in some.
My guess is he got a bad system or you tweaked the hell out of yours. Plus you DO have an ultra version of the card. That is a huge plus when it comes to 3d benchmarks.

And aside from *all* of that, the original poster wanted a machine he could carry with him. The Inspiron 8000 series is, flat out, a powerhouse. Up to 1ghz processor, up to 512megs ram, up to 32meg graphics card (Ati Rage == good, GeForce == better and coming soon), with DVD and CDRW. I was pricing them just last night and came up with a slightly reduced version of what I just said for around $2400. Not bad, and my current dell laptop rules my world except for the graphics card :)

"At least one AGP slot"?

[DarkMan]

I know of no commercial motherboards, or chip sets for that matter, that have more than one AGP slot. For two good reasons..

1: Why would you want to have more than one graphics card?
Bearing in mind AGP is designed to optimise 3D texture transfer, the argument of a 2d and 3d card is irrelevnt, and pointless with modern cards.
If the system was to switch between work and games, then, and only then, can I see an argument for two cards. But for a games specific machine, nope.

2: To quote the AGP 2.0 specification (footnote 3, page 27)

This means that active communication can only occur between two AGP agents that reside on the interface ... Attaching more then two devices to the interface is not precluded, as long as there is only one active master and one active target

In other words, one AGP card (the target is the motherboard, master is the card) has to be switched off during AGP transfers.

There is a reason AGP is a Port, not a Bus.


--

My project

[CAIMLAS]

I recently designed a system with a similar goal in mind. It didn't come out precisely how I'd wanted, namely due to time restraints and lack of supplies, but here's what I'd do were I to start over and do it again:

First, the processor has to be taken into consideration. I picked a Duron 700 at the time, and grabbed a micro-ATX (or whatever the smallest form factor is, I don't recall) board for this. It had integrated audio and ethernet.

I grabbed a decent 30$ power supply. Anything decent should suffice.

I grabbed a geforce2mx, for economical reasons in part, but also because it's relatively 'short' and was only 85$ at the time.

All I put in this thing was a CDROM drive, since floppy drives are virtually useless nowadays.

I took an old compaq presario case, and cut it up a bit, and slapped the board in it. Not exactly what I was looking for, but next time I'll do things differently...

Next time, I'll get moderately thick plexiglass and use that for the entire frame, while using metal L braces to connect the 4 sides. cutting the metal to fit for the ATX form factor board was a pain in the ass, and plexiglass is quite sturdy, not to mention a heck of a lot easier to work with. Provided you don't want a high level of complexity in case shape and design, you can rip out the normal bay mounting points from a normal case, and connect them in relatively easily to the plexiglass. I'd probably recomment 1/4th inch plexiglass, provided you support everything well. (putting metal strips along the the side that has the motherboard might be advisable).

This way, it not only looks awesome, but it's small and portable. You could even throw a black light into it, get some clear fish aquarium tubing, and make a closed-circuit tube full of antifreeze and put it around the seams of the case - you'd have a very nice glowing system. (I plan to do something similar.) Ideally, you can also make one of the sides easily removable or on a hinge, so hardware upgrades are feasable.

Something I've got in my design template is a small compartment near the bottom where all the system cables are easily retracted and extracted without too much mess and table. You might want to design something like that for yourself. (mouse and headphones fit nicely as well.)

-------
CAIMLAS

Here's a starter gaming Rig

[UnknownSoldier]

You want a Happy Hacker Keyboard ... this thing is portable ! Two people at the month lan party I go to, use it, and do very well with it.

And you can't go wrong with a flat panel LCD if you can afford it. You may want to check your local computer fair and see if you can buy a refurbished one.

spend more money

[maraist]

A large group of friends of mine have an informal gaming club. It's basically where one person's house is designated the "clubhouse", and everybody that plays regularly purchases an extra monitor, keyboard, and mouse to store permanently in that house. Then they bring a mini tower (which is pretty easy to lug around) on game days. Since a used monitor only costs like $80, you're talking $100 over-head.. That's NOTHING compared to the overhead of a laptop.

-Michael

I normally take...

[Jace of Fuse!]

Yup. A Notbook. A fully loaded Dell 5000e.

128 megabytes of ram (ready for the other 128 megs any day now...) 30 gig HD, 850mhz Pentium III, Rage Mobility 128, 1600x1200 15+ inch display with RatioMetric Scaling, a DVD, and a 3Com CardBus 10/100+56k double height dongle-free Nic/Modem.

I've found that for almost any game I want to play, this groovy little gig is light, powerful, and a whole lot less trouble than "dragging along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel" (well, hey, at least THAT'S what it feels like to drag your whole computer to LANWAR.

Anyway, I normally get a lot of ooohs and aaahs from the people sitting next to me. Their first reactions are "You aren't seriously going to play on a Laptop are you?"

But by the time they see me pulling off acceptable frame-rates in Quake 3 they soon realize maybe it's not so bad for games after all. (Just bring along a good mouse, touch-pads blow for games.)

Incidently, it even plays Black And White fairly well, and of course it plays Diablo II like a dream.

One thing to note about portables that anybody looking to buy one should keep in mine is the RatioMetric Displays.

Some LCDs only look good in their native resolution, requiring lower screen sizes to be scaled up into a blocky mess or to be reduced down and not viewed fullscreen.

ATI's later offerings have used a method where somewhere between the video output and the LCD, any display that isn't full screen is blown up to fill the full LCD with a natural Anti-Aliasing effect. This form of "Mode Promotion" works really well for almost any display mode, though anything less than 640x480 does seem to suffer from a slight blurr, but who uses anything lower than that for games?

Anyway, the point of this message is that you shouldn't discount very high end Laptops as Lanparty material. Just get over the $5000 price tag of one with good performance and you'll be fine.

"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

Is this what you were looking for?

[aidoneus]

Here may be just what you're looking for. It's a step by step guide to building a compact Athlon system, small enough that the entire system can be carried in a backpack. For the goatse.cx weary, the link is at http://myhome.netsgo.com/wesleycrushr/Hardware/gui 010405a-1.htm

Hope this helps.

-Jason

heat

[mmmmbeer]

I don't really have an answer for your question, but I would warn you about one thing. Trying to custom build a powerful system as small as possible, you will likely have trouble with the heat generated. I would suggest that you at least base your system on a pre-built model, so that you can be reasonably sure there are adequate heatsinks and cooling fans, and reasonable airflow through the case.

PC-104 stuff

[MrResistor]

You might want to check out Toronto Microelectronics at www.tme-inc.com. They make a lot of PC-104 and other alternative form factor stuff. The full version of their 5811 product has built in ethernet(10/100), scsi(80 pin), vga(and a couple others I'm not familiar with), ide(44 pin, so you'd have to use a notebook harddrive, unless you went scsi), 2 pc100 dimm slots(which I know will support 128MB each), and a socket-7 cpu up to 500MHz/100MHz FSB at a cost of around $1500. You would still need to get a sound module, which I would guess to be around $150. You could fit the whole thing inside a hollowed-out hardcover book, which would be pretty cool. Keyboard, mouse and display would be extra. i think i'd probably go for an lcd, i've seen some for about $1000. You might also look at their PC-in-a-box, which I think is about $3000 and is kinda like an industrial x86 version of the G4 cube. It would end up costing you about the same as a high end laptop. You'd get better performance spending that on a laptop, but there is always the coolness factor that has to be considered...

Re:what about the x-box?

[mr_gerbik]

"I also wanted to know if these LAN thingies are mostly "sausage fests" or if women actually pretended to be impressed by virtual feats of destruction."

No way dude.. total babe fests. Hot chicks too.. all wearing "All your base belong to us" shirts. Those shirts turn me on.

-gerbik

Lunchbox style portable

[atathert]

There are lunchbox sized computers, with an ATX style motherboard, and slots to add cards. There is a drop down keyboard on the front, with an LCD screen mounted behind of it. Something like that would have the power of a desktop, and still be somewhat portable. This site is one possible vendor. Check it out. BSI Computers

Buy a high-end laptop if you can afford it.

[toybuilder]

Get a high-end multimedia laptop. A refurbished Dell Inspiron 7500 does me wonders. It's better than anything else I owned until two days ago... If you insist on "desktop components" (3.5" ATA100 drives at 7200 rpm, for example), then your box size is not limited by the motherboard -- instead, it'll be the power supply, hard-drive, and the cd-rom drive that'll dominate the form factor. You can try buying a small-form-factor computer like the Dell Optiplex GX150 SF, or a Compaq EN SFF. They pack the components about as tight as you can possibly get. The only drawback is the lack of an AGP slot (at least in the Compaq EN SFF that I just bought two days ago). But there's 3 (count 'em) PCI slots, and networking and sound's already built in! BTW, these SFF machines are QUIET! Much better than any low-cost homebrew's. (I could get just as quiet machines if I paid for quiet fans, and power supplies, but the end result costs just about the same as the branded machines... Oh well.)

Re:Smallest PC

[canning]

2001-04-06 14:12:05 PC shrinks into Palm Territory (articles,tech) (rejected)

Check this out...

[cavemanf16]

Check out the Virtual Hideout Cool Case gallery. I've linked to a page that has some pretty good internal pics of a case that someone built as a 'LAN party case' out of one of those metallic briefcases (look at the bottom of the page). There's quite a few more pics of similar mods people have done to accomadate LAN gaming, if you have time to look through the 1000+ pics they have in the gallery.

Re:Ever heard

[UltraBot2K1]

That's the stupidest most unimformed post I've ever read.

Laptops are MUCH slower than their desktop counterparts and unacceptable for any modern LAN gaming. The new Geforce MX at least makes it POSSIBLE to use a laptop for hardcore gaming, but the major limiting factor is going to be the screen. Laptop screens are small, and LCD screens have a tendency to blur at high framerates/fast motion usage, making them totally unacceptable for any kind of serious gaming. In addition, laptop keyboards tend to be a bit cramped, so you would need to bring an external keyboard and mouse to maintain accurate control.

Laptop hard drives are notoriously slow, and the poster specifically asked for a fast IDE drive.