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Gamers, Upgrade your Systems
jbischof writes "Looking to upgrade your aging PC? Ace's Hardware has a new upgrade guide tailored specifically to gamers. The data shows exactly which upgrades - processor, motherboard, gfx card, or combination of the three - will give the best performance boost on all the latest and most popular games (according to their recent poll)."
But with my mac all I have to do is throw it away and buy a new one! No kit for me! ;)
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
Cool now I know which order to get the components of my CowboyNeal(tm) doll updated!
I only upgrade my computer to increase benchmark scores.
The solution that has worked best for me...is to avoid public discussion. -- CmdrTaco
I can't help but question why they entireley jipped Linux from this gaming feature.
Theres more to gaming than just Windows-only games like Couterstrike or Quake III.
Many Linux people enjoy the same kind of fun on their platforms. Railroad Tycoon II and Quake II work just fine, thanks.
Linux can do eveything these days, it's not 1991 anymore. Its full fledged and can play games and use Office documents. What are you waiting for to change.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
well if car performace was ranked by the opinions of their drivers, the honda prelude would beat a ferrari and Neons everywhere would outdo porsche.
useless
..is that the guys who are willing to drop a metric buttload of coin for upgrading their gaming computer, are probably the same ones who were bitching about the $20 download of x86 Solaris.
Oh, no surprises in the poll results either. Pretty predictable.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I really don't like their guides. I find the best one is the sharky gamers guide to system building (at different budgets.) Check it out @ www.sharkyextreme.com
I played Unreal 2 for a few hours last night on my wont-work obsolete need-an-upgrade Radeon 7200. Guess what? My obsolete out-of-date SB Live! card - not even 5.1 sound, mind you, a paltry 4 channels - worked just fine too. I've recently upgraded my mobo and CPU and bought a new HD. And I didnt spring for the absolutely necessary 8meg cache version either.
How did the tech industry manage to convince everyone that they absolutely need the latest and greatest bullshit? The machine they were 'upgrading' from is perfectly adequate to play every game they benchmarked.
1600x1200 with FSAA and AF is nice, but it doesnt make the games any funner.
Here's my upgrade guide. I wait until I want to play a particular game, and if I absolutely cant, I upgrade. And I double my current specs.
Unreal 2 is a bore, BTW, for those looking for a review.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Windows is the gamers platform of choice. When I buy a new game, i sure as heck dont want to spend 8 hours configuring WineX to run it at a 25%-50% loss of power (my friend tried StarCraft on WineX on a 500 mhz with 256 ram, and it ran like ass... on windows, perfectly fine). I want to play my game. If you want to configure your system so that it runs Windows games, by all means, but dont bitch because "linux gamers are left out".
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
For a $119 system that's small and has a great library fo games ($20-30 each), I cant go wrong with the Cube.
Most PC's cost nearly $2x10^3 for a real gaming strenth system ---- plus the games cost $59 each and that's at a cheap place like circuit city.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
I know, I know, I'm a troll. Moderate away. But, geez, does tech really matter any more. You can't buy a system, console or PC, that doesn't draw millions of texture mapped triangles per second, doesn't have awesome sound, and so on. It's all so pointless. If money is not an issue, as it certainly wouldn't be to someone who constantly upgrades video cards and such, $160 will get you a nice Game Cube and Mario Sunshine. Or get an X-Box with Splinter Cell. Or whatever.
The bottom line is that the PC tech race has lost all purpose, except to stroke the ego of hardware fanboys. And, man, do those guys need the ego stroking.
Ah, I thought that read Ace hardware. That's where I get all my upgrades.
Could I interest anyone in some toast?
How is this really news? There are many many sites that have system guides updated once a month... is this site that much better of a system guide?
The first priority for a gamer, especially a FPS gamer, should be a good video card. However, their first suggestion listed is a Geforce 4 MX 440 over a TI 200, then they don't even provide benchmarks for the Geforce 4 MX? And for that matter, why would any self respecting FPS gamer buy a MX card of any type from Nvidia when the TIs are so much better?
...you see this screenshot:
3 ...and know not only what track you're on, but that the car is in a position (in the braking area leading up to the chicane, on the wrong side of the track, with a couple of degrees of steering lock in the wrong direction) to crash in the next heartbeat.
http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=5000036
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Because an MX card is about 50 bucks and plays games just fine. It was the one bit of common sense in the article.
You CAN play todays "cutting edge" FPS titles without a $300 video card.
I already posted that Unreal 2 is perfectly playable on my Radeon 7200. The game is a bore, and all the resolution and antialiasing in China wont fix that.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
New motherboard: CAN$119.
Athlon 2100+: CAN$206.
512MB RAM: CAN$115.
Realizing you have no cash left to replace your 16MB NVidia TNT2: Priceless.
OK, so I'm only vaguely impressed with Ace's gaming system... Seems to me like they're splitting hairs over upgrades of off-the-shelf equipment. Here's my question for all of you slashdotters:
Given the above article, and the premise that slashdotters have a wider range of experience than Ace, what would be the ideal configuration for a stereo-video enabled gaming system? Say I want something that can run Stereo-Quake or Stereo-Descent... Also assume that cost isn't really a factor (wish that were true, but I'm just pipe dreaming here...).
Besides the CPU and motherboard, there's also things like monitors (stereo projection monitors?), controllers (throttles, immersion gloves, goggles), stereo audio systems (THX?), and even room design. What would slashdotters put together with a beefy $50K to $100K budget, eh? Assume that the project is to put together the ultimate stereo-Quake VR simulator, and that you have access to the code of the game...
games and bitchin hardware are only useful until you get hooked on forums.
Seems like the console's a no brainer. When you need a new box for other reasons, you'll get one that's up-to-date for the latest titles... but why go through this cost and hassle when you can get a pop-it-in-it-plays system for $200 and no labor?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
We have great games like chess and doom and chess!
You can get a 2100XP, ECS K7S5A mobo with sound and LAN that can handle ddr/sdr, and a 440MX card for under $200. Sacrificing CPU or GFX card to improve the other will cost you too much performance, and having done this exact setup for some "cash flow impaired" friends I can tell you firsthand that it's plenty fast to game on, especially when you are upgrading from a P2 400 and a TNT 2 32mb card.
The 440MX has it's place, depending on what you are looking to do.
Murphy was an optimist.
tetris is what i play,
and with 1.2 GHz AMD Athlon, 512 MBRam and ATI A-I-W Ultra Pro AGP 32 MB RAM , it kicks some butt.
I play tetris in Vim, in xemacs, so there
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Except there never was any such card. To the best of my knowledge, anyway. This would be fine except they mention this imaginary product twice. Perhaps they mean a GTS, GTS Pro, MX, or Geforce 3 Ti 200?
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
I understand that most of todays games are playable, but Nvidia is misleading its customers with the MX brands. They have less graphical features then their TI cousins, and there is a reason they cost less.
For example, when I had a Geforce 3 TI200, and the Geforce 4 MX came out, a site like this might suggest to upgrade. However, from their own internal numbering system, the geforce 4mx is, I believe, a Nvidia 15, whereas the G3 ti200 was like a Nvidia 17. The Geforce 4 4200 TI is number 20 or some such.
The Geforce TIs also use DDR memory, whereas the Geforce MX use single rate memory. There is a signicificant difference between the TI and MX in frames per second, and this matters if you are in a FPS clan and in active leagues. The MX just doesn't cut it for 10 players on the screen in UT2003.
The paren post has a valid point. Like a lot of people I know, I am getting sick of the hell that is the constant Upgrade Cycle. I'm tired of upgrading my system to play the latest and greatest only to find that my favorite games no longer work. Upgraded your video card? Oops. All those old 3DFX-specific games no longer work. New processor? Too bad it's too fast and a whole batch of games (thanks a pantload, Origin) run too damned fast. Opps! Looks like that new soundcard killed off a few games. New version of Windows? Guess what? Yep. More games died.
Three years worth of upgrades (and often less) seems to kill most of the games I have. (Save Quake and it's kin.)
Compare that to the consoles. All of my old Playstation games still work (save the one I ran over with my chair, but that's my fault). Some of those games were made in 1996/1997. Most games for the PC from those days no longer work.
Is that a "So what? Thems is old games!" I hear? Bite me. I spent money on those games and it annoys the hell out of me that this sad state of affairs has come to pass.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
http://www.3dlabs.com/product/wildcat4/index.htm
3dlabs 384mb wildcat 4 video card
180 degree panoramic stereoscopic VR goggles
just those and I'd be happy
I think you are misusing the term stereo a bit here. If you want a simple solution for 3d with stereo glassess, get a deceantly fast nVidia card, like a GF 3 200 or better and get the stereo glassess for it. You also need a monitor that can pull a deceant refresh rate. The card will the work with the shutters on the glassess to do 3d. Works well for the price.
As for sound I haven't seen a non-stereo Pc in years. In sound terminology stereo means 2-channel, left and right. You are thinking surround sound. Also, THX isn't a surround sound spec, Doubly Pro Logic, Doubly Digital, Digital Theatre System, and Sound Dynamic Digital Sound are. THX is a spec that involves listener experneice and deals with noise and distortion levels, volume calibration, crossovers and a whole bunch of other things. the idea is if you buy a THX system and calibrate it right, you'll get a movie theatre sound experience form DVD.
However, it really won't do much good as Quake doesn't support 3d positional sound. It just does normal stereo sound.
Get an Athlon 1700+ Tbred B (the really new ones)... and overclock it. It runs at about 1466mhz stock, but it's VERY easy to get these things up near 2000mhz and beyond. A 500mhz OC is really incredible, and these chips are cheap, selling for $50 or so.
in my MAMEs per second playing 1977's sub hunt full screen comparing my 366mhz celeron to the 2.4ghz p4.
I've scrimped up engouh money for one of the now cheapish 23" HD Cinema displays (1920x1200 of rock-steady pixel lovin') from Apple. Unfortunately, I'll have to upgrade my ATI AIW Radeon because it puts out a max of 1280x1024 to DVI. I'll need a DVI->ADC converter to drive the monitor, which runs about $100. I now have VERY cach little left for the video card.
Can anyone suggest a video card with good Linux support, able to put out DVI at the above res, and able to scale DVD video to that size? I don't ever use 3d, so performance is less of an issue. Price and linux support are tho. I notice apple's website suggests that the HD display hates matrox, loves ATI or nvidia. Any idea why?
Best of all woudl be if you actually have such a setup running, and can confirm it works
"Specifically, many games now feature several levels of detail, enabling those with faster video cards to enable extra shadowing, higher levels of geometry, higher resolution textures, and so forth."
I thought Ace were normally pretty knowledgeable. This has been going on for years. I remember playing F19 Stealth Fighter and MSFT Flight Sim back in the 80's (CGA graphics - yeah!), and they had these options then. I'm sure they weren't the first either.
Yes, that got my attention too.
"We upgrade the Geforce 2 Ti 200 to more trendy video cards, such as the Geforce 4 MX 440"
"Trendy"...? wtf?
Yes, it's newer but that's about it. Isn't the GF2 Ti 200 faster? I thought the GF4 MX 400 was just slightly faster than a GF2 MX 400?
I guess the GF4 has hardware support for some more fancy features, but not all games use the latest cutting edge features (I think it's actually pretty rare), and pure speed is usually more rewarding.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I'm enjoying my digital camera a lot and getting ready to get a bigger/better/geekier one. What components should I get to maximize Photoshop and such? Any sites that offer such advice?
Actually, the article has a suprising (at least for me) conclusion: strategy / RPG games may benifit by upgrading your video card (they're really starting to take advantage of that stuff) whereas first person shooters require more CPU (due to increased AI). The FPS games used were Battlefield 1942 and Ghost Recon.
This is fairly contrary to what I've heard in the past, which was always the opposite.
I think you're missing the point. This guide is not about building a new system, but upgrading piecemeal. If you just need a bit of a boost and have enough $$$ to spend on a video card or a CPU (but not both), which is the best to upgrade?
"Because an MX card is about 50 bucks and plays games just fine. It was the one bit of common sense in the article.
You CAN play todays "cutting edge" FPS titles without a $300 video card."
Yes, but it's an upgrade guide and they were talking about *upgrades*, and not about equipping a brand new system.
They thought that the GF2 Ti 200 they assume is in a gaming computer should be "upgraded" to a GF4 MX 400.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Because they're cheap and work great maybe?
I thought my GeForce 2 MX couldn't handle UT2 at better than 640x480. Then I upgraded my CPU from 700Mhz to 1.2Ghz. That was $75 vs a couple hundred for a TI which wouldn't have benefited me any more than the processor upgrade.
Price vs Performance with the current batch of games makes a TI very much overkill still. I'll buy a nice TI when the price drops and I have the extra money.
And, as others have mentioned, consoles now beat the pants off of a PC in the graphics area for the price.
GeForce 2 MX or N64? Graphics card wins. GeForce TI vs GameCube, PS2, or X-Box? Console wins.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Here's my little rule for upgrading my system.
Replace every three generations, or when things are three times as fast as your current device.
Simple, isn't it? For the past 10 (or so) I've worked on that little rule and it's lead me exactly where I want to go.
My 486 became a Pentium II 266 became a Pentium III 800 became an Athlon 2400+.
My something rather (I think it was an S3 Virge, but this was in the days when no one cared anyway) became a Voodoo 2 became a Geforce 256 became a Radeon 8500 (Which I bought budget at $100 canadian).
My Gravis Ultrasound became a Sound blaster Live became a Hercules Game Theater XP became Nforce2 Dolby Digital output.
It's strange how well this system worked out. Just as my machine became almost unbearable for games (About a 30FPS average for most games) I've upgraded because of this 3x rule. Sure, it means that you won't be at the bleeding edge for very long but the edge is too easy to fall off anyway. Only idiots would skip from a Radeon 8500 to a 9700, just as it would be stupid to ditch a 2400+ Athlon for a 2.8ghz P4. At the same time, people who tell that a 500mhz and a Voodoo 3 is enough for anyone are obviously not playing any modern games. The trick is to get caught in between the two extremes.
GF4 MX is good as long as you don't mind upgrading again when the next generation of games are released (which won't be long now)...
John Carmack: "Don't Buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom 3"
Regardless, if I'm not in the mood to build a box I think I'd trust Alienware for a gaming machine over anyone else out there.
"From of old, there are not lacking things that have attained Oneness." - Lao Tzu
There seems to be a lot of concern from the writer about how the AI uses like 25% of your CPU and stuff but seriously, how many people buy BF1942 and play it single player? The whole point of this game is that everyone you're playing against is a person. Playing it single player is like watching porn when there's a naked girl in your bed.
Is it me or is RAM not important to PC gaming? I like to think increasing the amounts of RAM helps all-around performance.
WHy did this come out the DAY AFTER i blow 150 bucks on a video card? I mean, im happy with it and all, but the comparison would have been nice. ;)
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
What i would really be interested in is "How does Doom3 do on what system?" I've seen it suck heavily (way more than UT2k3) on gaming power, so, afaik it is the "killer-app" (Please excuse the buzzword, just couldn't resist :-) at the moment, isnt't it? So where's the review on that? Anyone knows something about its performance?
apt-get upgrade
...you still got your ass fragged
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
STAY AWAY FROM nVIDIA!!!
Next to no support (as in Docs / FAQs / HOWTOs / Pixie Dust) on their site and because the drivers are proprietary the best Linux has is generic drivers that never allow the card to reach it's full potential out of the box.
Now, if going through the list to find the correct kernel driver and matching GLX driver doesn't bother you have at it, but an ATI card would probably be a better / easier bet.
"From of old, there are not lacking things that have attained Oneness." - Lao Tzu
Currently, I'm running an ancient 1GHz Thunderbird Athlon, with 768MB of PC-133 SDRAM, a GeForce4 TI4200, and 2 HDDs - 27GB Maxtor and 80GB Maxtor, 2MB cache. I've been running this rig for almost 2 years now, and it still runs strong & stable. Only upgrades I did were the 80GB HDD after a 20GB Maxtor that died a horrid, clicking & spinning death during an FDISK (after having it cause countless crashes & ATA failures), and the GeForce4 (which offered me a surprising performance increase in games over the GeForce2 GTS 32MB it replaced).
This rig still runs all my favorites plus some of the newer games (UT2K3 runs fine at my LCD flat panel's native res (1280x1024) with normal options turned on). The upgrade guide on Ace's (which I haven't read) simply wouldn't offer me any compelling reason to upgrade for today's games.
Doom 3, OTOH, would probably provide my system a major challenge (according to reports on its functionality, anyway). When Doom 3 comes out, that'll be my new benchmark & prompt me to upgrade. Not sooner.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
If Civ3, Moo3, Dark Age of Camelot, and the other games I play materialize on a console, I'll think about it. In the meantime, I will own a Windows PC anyway for productivity and household use. It'll run most of the games I want, and run them fairly well. My K7/550 still chugs along respectably. I may buy a new one this time next year if it's getting unbearable.
I do have a PS/2, but I play my 8-bit NES more often. The Legend of Zelda is still more fun than Rygar.
The console doesn't open and edit Word documents, it doesn't do graphics editting, email, or web browsing. It doesn't connect me to MUDs and FTP servers, I cannot administer my public web server or edit my HTML from it. It does not print off copies of my resume or my wife's chili recipes. My computers serves myriad purposes that consoles do not (yet) support. Perhaps they will, some day. Perhaps I'll be able to listen to streaming Internet radio on my console, do some programming on it, learn OpenGL on it, and all kinds of things. I'm willing to bet that, if consoles every reach the point where they can do everything my PC does, they'll cost about the same.
I have a PC anyway. It does things a console cannot. That's why I chose to upgrade and replace it periodically rather than buy every new console that comes out.
Q3 has run natively on Linux for quite some time now. Counterstrike runs just fine under wine. I might add to this that Return to Castle Wolfenstein runs natively on Linux, Medal of Honor is currently being ported, and Carmack plans on releasing Doom III for Linux at the same time he releases it for Windows and Macintosh. If we could throw Battlefield 1942 into that mix I would be hard-pressed to find a reason for a Windows partition. I doubt that last port will ever be done, but I think Linux has good future in store for it as a gaming platform. When D3 goes gold there's bound to a subsequent wave of games based on that engine. They will all be ripe for Linux binaries by nature. One might add to this the presence of the Mac platform. Developers who code "*nix-able", OpenGL games can leave no market unturned (I'm assuming here that it's easier to port to Win32/D3D rather than from it). On a slightly related note, XFree86-4.3 is almost here and with it will come a complete DRI implementation for Radeon 7500's -- very cool.
Now, I know many might respond to this whole notion of gaming on Linux with a shrug. For the record, I never played a (non-arcade) video game in my life until I tried out Q3 six months ago just for the sake of understanding the tech. Once again Linux has SHOWN ME THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's my little rule for upgrading my system.
Replace every three generations, or when things are three times as fast as your current device.
Simple, isn't it? For the past 10 (or so) I've worked on that little rule and it's lead me exactly where I want to go.
My 486 became a Pentium II 266 became a Pentium III 800 became an Athlon 2400+.
My something rather (I think it was an S3 Virge, but this was in the days when no one cared anyway) became a Voodoo 2 became a Geforce 256 became a Radeon 8500 (Which I bought budget at $100 canadian).
My Gravis Ultrasound became a Sound blaster Live became a Hercules Game Theater XP became Nforce2 Dolby Digital output.
It's strange how well this system worked out. Just as my machine became almost unbearable for games (About a 30FPS average for most games) I've upgraded because of this 3x rule. Sure, it means that you won't be at the bleeding edge for very long but the edge is too easy to fall off anyway. Only idiots would skip from a Radeon 8500 to a 9700, just as it would be stupid to ditch a 2400+ Athlon for a 2.8ghz P4. At the same time, people who tell that a 500mhz and a Voodoo 3 is enough for anyone are obviously not playing any modern games. The trick is to get caught in between the two extremes.
... I'm sorry no one building a gaming rig who is a serious gamer is going to consider a GF4 440. That's a bad joke. Most serious gamers never upgrade they build a new system yearly... eliminates the needs for upgrades... and leaves you lots of nice pc's floating around to use for linux machines ;)
AMD:
Motherboard - ASUS A7V8X 101.98
Processor - AMD ATHLON XP 3000/333 629.99
Common Pieces - Common PIeces 2812.29
Total AMD - $3544.26
Intel:
Motherboard - ASUS P4G8X DELUXE 216.90
Processor - Intel Pentium 4 HyperThread 3.06GHz 619.00
Common Pieces - Common PIeces 2812.29
Total Intel - $3648.19 (+103.93 over AMD)
Common Pieces:
Ram - 512MB DDR400 PC3200 CORSAIR DDR cL2 155.00
Ram - 512MB DDR400 PC3200 CORSAIR DDR cL2 155.00
Hard Disk 1 - EIDE 200.0GB 7200 RPM 8MB CACHE 255.00
Hard Disk 2 - EIDE 200.0GB 7200 RPM 8MB CACHE 255.00
Video Card - PNY GeForce FX 399.00
Sound Card - Creative Audigy2 Platinum 162.85
CD-RW - Lite On 52x24x52x CD-RW 52.00
DVD-R - Lite On 16x DVD, 48x CD-ROM 34.50
Ethernet - 3Com 3C905C-TX 23.00
Speakers - Creative Inspire 6.1 6600 110.00
Floppy - Teac 1.44 Floppy Drive 12.00
Keyboard/Mouse - Microsoft Wireless Optical KB/M 82.00
Case - Lian-Li PC-60 USB Alum Case 120.00
Power Supply - Antec TRUE550 Power Supply 105.95
Monitor - Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2060u 890.99
Total for Common - $2812.29
Course these prices are a couple days old.
Shadus
rotfl flame-bait my foot. It's the truth.
I don't think I've ever upgraded a PC, ever. When it comes to the point that I might be considering spec'ing up my PC a bit, I find that the motherboard was obseleted 2 years ago, they now use a completely different type of RAM, etc, etc, and I buy a completely new system.
Ive finally decided to upgrade my system after about 3 years.
Back in 2000 I got one of the first P3 500Mhz processors released. My motherboard is an ABIT BX6 ver 2.0 with a Hercules 64MB video card and 512MB ram. I had to update the BIOS to allow me to upgrade the speed to P3 700 and thats the highest it will go(not overclocked.)
I finally ordered a Gigabyte GA-8INXP and it will be arriving sometime next week. Ive been trying to get this motherboard for a full month now. I think the company shortshipped it not anticipating that it would be that popular.
I have 512MB DDR 266 memory, an ATI 9700 agp 8X, and a 2.53 Ghz processor waiting to go into it. I cant wait until that thing gets here. Hopefully it wont be a dud.
a GF3 Ti200 64MB wouldn't cost you much more than that 1.2Ghz cpu, so depending on the game you might have recieved a lot more bang for the buck out of the Ti200, or for a little more a 64MB Ti4200. Of course with a 700MHz cpu many games would be cpu limited so I guess the CPU could be a good upgrade too =) of course I would have done both.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Todays "cutting edge" games are designed to play on 3 or 4 year old hardware
I came to the opposite conclusion after reading the article. The GeForce2 Ti 200 is a capable, less than three-year old card that, in most of the benchmarks, is the bottleneck. For example, 1.4GHz / GF4 is twice as fast in NeverWinter Nights as 2.25 GHz / GF2. That tells me that it pays to have a current-generation video card. A DirectX 7 card like the GF2 doesn't cut it, any more.
The great thing about PC games is that they are scalable. You can set up a new game to play well on three-year old PC, usually by lowering the resolution and detail. When you upgrade, you can crank it up.
Nvidia Geforce 3 Ti 200 gainward golden sample is a very good choice for 100-120$ range which u can overclock it to more than Geforce 3 Ti 500. My friend and I got this card and its very cool for that price.Go to gainward site for the golden sample cards details.GoldenSample cards rocks,u can overclock them very much. http://www.gainward.com/c.html
Besides pricewatch.com, what other sites would you recommend for online shopping of computers?
Everybody has a purpose in life, maybe mine is to lurk in slashdot.
Quake III exists in Windoze and Linux flavours. Furthermore, some ppl reported that when using Linux gameplay is smoother and framerate is higher. FYI -)
Perhaps someone needs to make a Linux for Gamers distribution. Include all the free games, all the demo games, and make it stupid easy. Include a stupid easy email client and Mozilla ... and XMMS. It needs nothing else. Sell the idea to people like Blizzard, Sierra, and EA. It could be like console systems, with upgradable hardware. It could have software that checks for driver updates for their hardware, and has an overclocker app.
Shit, you could even do the hardware route. I bet AlienWare would pick it up if it were good enough. They're doing the MS Media Center thing as it is.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
"a good gaming rig runs 3.5-4k"
are you serious?
The original post even mentioned a "$2x10^3" cost point for "real gaming"
I just built a computer (19" monitor, case, hd, vidcard, mem, mobo, cpu, fans, sinks, etc), and spent around $600. I can play all the latest games at good framerates and resolutions. That would be the definition of "real gaming" to me. I could go get the newest/fastest mobo, cpu, and memory for another $400 and I'd still be at $1000. Adding the best vid card would add $300. $1.3k is a far cry from 2k, let alone 3.5-4k.
And if you already have a monitor (I did, but it died just after the upgrade after 7 years of service), that drops $200. A case already? $100. Hard drives? $100. One can easily upgrade their current machine to a top of the line gaming one for about $400.... or only $200 for middle of the line.
All you have to do is resist the urge to spend assloads for the new components that are 300% more expensive yet only give 30% more performance.
IANAL, but I play one on
With the possible exception of the last point, yes, all of this is possible with a PC.
controllers There are some great dual-shock clones available, such as the Thrustmaster FireStorm Dual Power, the Logitech RumblePad, and the Gravis Eliminator AfterShock. Plug in as many as you like, depending on game support.
living room A modest gaming system can fit in an attractive micro ATX case. Flex ATX is pushing it, unless you can find a motherboard with a decent 3D chip.
screen Get a video card with TV out. At 640x480, you'll be able to crank up the detail, anti aliasing, and anisotropic filtering. Of course, you always have the option of higher resolution with HDTV, monitor, LCD projector, etc.
noise You can build a quiet PC, so long as you don't use fire-breathing parts like a GeForce FX. If you don't want to build, it can be difficult to tell how loud a store-bought system will be.
no keyboard Well, I see the lack of keyboard as the biggest weakness of consoles. I suppose you could map some macros with the game-pad drivers to launch your favorite games.
Clearly, a console is a more efficient way to get couch-potato gaming. If you don't have a decent PC to start with, it's also cheaper. I just love the depth and breadth of PC games. Grand Theft Auto and Madden are great, but I can't give up WarCraft, NASCAR Racing, Falcon, and first-person shooters.
hey... you r wrong.I have nVidia Geforce 3 Ti 200 card and i have the drivers from nVdia for Linux not generic drivers.U can download the drivers for linux also from nVidia site.The drivers are very good.Im getting more FPS in Linux than in Windows now.
In fact, I spent most of last night making a Windows partition just so I could play Tux Racer.
KFG
Is it just me, or does the enemy in that last screenshot you linked from your post look conspicuously like another type of alien we all know and love.
Project Steve
I'm still disappointed to see a lack of comparisons between SDRAM and DDR. I have an XP1800 on KT133a and really don't want to have to change the motherboard, RAM etc. If I drop a faster video card on it (currently running a o/ced GF3 ti200), will it go to waste? If I drop a faster CPU on it, will it starve for bandwidth?
Really I guess it boils down to what Doom3 needs to go properly, and whether or not I give a shit about PC gaming once it finally comes out. The price/performance of my PS2 looks pretty good right now.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Granted, I know that most people on Slashdot don't like Intel processors that much (I certainly don't). However, it is only fair to show their speed comparisons as well so that the consumer has a true price/performance ratio. Intel will most likely fail in regards to the DIY computer geek who really wants their games to fly, but at least then nobody will wonder about Intel. They did nVidia and ATI, I don't see what the big deal is with Intel.
Trolls make great pets. Adopt one today!
I checked their site and didn't see they saying anything about their displays not working with Matrox cards. In fact, they didn't mention Matrox anywhere, just ATI and nVidia. Probably because Matrox doesn't make Mac-compatable video cards*, and ATI and nVidia do.
Anyways, if a Matrox card can do DVI at that resolution, I'm sure your display work just fine (if it doesn't, can you send it to me?). You'd need a PC to use the card, though.
*I'm 99% sure this is true. Even if it isn't, Apple doesn't sell Matrox cards, and I've never seen a Mac Matrox card advertised or mentioned anywhere, ever.
I will buy a console when I can use it to play a 16-player game of CounterStrike or Tribes using a mouse and keyboard the way god intended. I was really amazed at how good the controls were the first time I played Halo, until I realised that their innovation consisted of making a console game almost as playable as Quake I. And if I want to masturbate to *Hot* *Nude* *Plummers* I'll bring my NES out of retirement: I only play multiplayer games and although consoles are getting better they just aren't targetted at that market.
Despite how unhappy I am with the current state of consoles, I truly wish they could meet my needs. That way I could delete my Windows partition and put my hardware $ into SCSI RAID and other, more mature, penis enlargement purchases.
Any PC that I build has at least a gig of ram, it's so cheap and makes your computer fly. Never having to swap to disk really means a lot.
When I buy my next computer it'll be 64-bit so I can easily use a gig of ram for each process on my machine.
What hardware is supported 100% by the manufacturer for Linux. Building a gaming system is cool and all, but when you install Linux on it and find out you can't use TV-out or about half the features of your video card. It makes me feel like I've been ripped off.
I don't want to buy any more hardware unless I know I won't run into NDA/IP walls that restrict me from getting good drivers. My money is worth more than a useless hunk of silicon.
How do we build a Linux gaming system with analog video In and Out. Better yet I would like to build a small, possibly portable, video streaming box out of a cheap mini PC using Linux. I can totally customize the interface, but finding good quality supported hardware is a bitch and a half. The last thing I want to do is buy something, install Linux on it and find out the manufacturer is like Trident and doesn't want to release documentation for their ultra secret super technical dirt-cheap video card to the community.
You think he's joking, but like a lot of people, he's dead serious.
-- taking over the world, we are.
This might be a rant, but so be it....
I'm tired of hearing all this hype and fud about AMD cpu's being great for games - thats BS
My system is a P4 1.6ghz (pre-northwood) with 768mb PC133 SDRAM, and a gforce 2 mx400 64mb
My Friend has the AMD 1800+ with 768mb PC 133 SDRAM, and a gfroce 2 mx400 64mb
In short we have the exact same systems except for the cpu/motherboard (although both MBs are Soyo's) and yes we planned it that way because we network alot and its nice to have the same equipment if problems come up.
Anyway no matter what game we play eg: CS, Diablo 2, NWN, Sims Online, Quake 3, Dungeon Siege, etc.... my system gets significantly better performance. Significantly = Same frame rates even tho i'm playing at 1280x1024 on a 19" monitor and he is playing at 1024x768 on a 17" monitor.
Yes his system was cheeper (slightly) but being the impatient "gamer" that I am who also uses his machine to work on - I don't trade performance for price.
Ave Molech Setting
THE SUBJECT
Dont be concerned with pagefile size as much as with page faults. Run the performance monitor, select Process (and choose your game process), then select page faults/sec to look at the rate of page faults as you play.
"Page Faults/sec is the rate Page Faults occur in the threads executing in this process. A page fault occurs when a thread refers to a virtual memory page that is not in its working set in main memory. This will not cause the page to be fetched from disk if it is on the standby list and hence already in main memory, or if it is in use by another process with whom the page is shared."... these page faults are costly reads from disk
Oh well, the book will be outdated in another 15 seconds anyway.
new egg
Competitive pricing, great selection & fast, reliable service. What more could you ask for?
That system the parent posted (gf4mx440, k7s5a) came to $206 w/ an XP2100+, $188 w/ an XP2000+ and $174 for an XP1800+; all with free shipping.
Definately a good start for a nice, quick budget gaming machine. Being the owner of a K7S5a myself, the only qualms I have with the board is the onboard sound, but that's a minor issue and a cheap upgrade (newegg's got SB-Live5.1 digitals for $30 or so).
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
but all the goodness runs out after 5 bloody years
My 486 became a Pentium II 266 became a Pentium III 800 became an Athlon 2400+.
Just to elaborate I'll point out that when upgrading to a new motherboard/CPU a new power supply may be needed. Some folks wind up with unreliable systems when moving from PII/PIII to Athlon, they are not aware that the older ATX power supply may not be Athlon rated. I suspect a lot of the anecdotal "Athlons are flaky" stories involve such problems. P4's dodged this bullet by changing connectors. Just something to think about.
Neither of these are dual-CPU machines. You are therefore insufficiently l33t.
I don't see a brand name here. If you're buying IBM, you're hosed. If you're buying Western Digital, you're still probably hosed. Even if you're using IDE (a/k/a fake) RAID, you won't like it when one or both of the IBM drives goes toes-up. Get Maxtor or Quantum here.
Better still, ignore the IDE toys completely and go all LVD-SCSI. Faster, more sex appeal, and you can stick in more than a paltry four drives.
Well, um, okay, I'm among the first to proclaim frames-per-second-uber-alles. But the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro cranks out nearly as many frames, costs half as much, and it won't generate nearly as much waste heat.
Hercules Game Theater XP 7.1 is about as good, and doesn't come with Creative's fsckload of useless but required utilities. Also, Creative couldn't give a toss about SMP users.
I never understood this -- people getting tricked-out audio cards and then cheaping out on the speakers. Real users plug their sound cards into real stereo components with real Dolby/surround decoders and real speakers. With the money you'd save buying ATI instead of bleeding-edge NVidia, you could buy yourself a decent component amp with respectable speakers.
Hardcore gamers do not use wireless input peripherals. Wireless == dropouts. Dropouts == lost frags.
If you don't mind washing your mouse balls every so often, Karna still has Razer Boomslang 2000 mice for sale. If you're an optical kinda guy, any of the recent wired USB offerings from Logitech or Micros~1 will serve well.
As for the keyboard, you want something sturdy, since you're going to be beating fairly hard on it (even harder if you're losing :-) ). Go prowl around for offerings from IBM. If you want to be uber-l33t, scrounge up an old IBM PC-XT keyboard :-).
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Building software to Unix specifications (POSIX) offers the software to retain its portability, but the games you and many are talking about were designed not to be portable. Most games are built to be platform-specific with no ability for the end-user to migrate them to another platform. Gaming companies know they can make more money by letting the platform obsolete itself and then make the game new to sell on the next platform. Although companies that offer a platform that retains portability with previous platforms will have good profit and retain its end-users verry well.
Enter Unix; the platform is but an obscure puzzle peice that is omnipotent and fits every puzzle ever made.
Enter GPL; software *can* be made portable.
Thanks to the GPL, OpenOffice is platform independant.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
" Windows is the gamers platform of choice. When I buy a new game, i sure as heck dont want to spend 8 hours configuring WineX to run it at a 25%-50% loss of power"
Please. I'd much rather buy my console games and never have to worry about drivers period. Consoles are the gamers' platform of choice, because you can still plug your NES in and play it exactly the same way you did 20 years ago. How do you play Space Quest 2? How about Warcraft 1? I can't, none of my computers run DOS.
When I buy a new game, I sure as heck don't want to spend 8 hours downloading patches, new versions of DirectX, new nVidia drivers, and then find out things like online play mentioned in the manual aren't even in the damn game (Sim City 4..). If you disagree, it's probably because you're so used to doing it that you don't think anything of it until it's pointed out to you.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I can play my GCN games in 15 years (assuming the laser hasn't worn out). With Windows and drivers and DirectX, 2 years is the maximum I'd expect out of those games on computer.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I picked up this tip from the February 03 issues of Computer Power User (CPU) magazine:
Use msconfig to edit your System.ini file. "In the System.ini tab, highlight [386enh] and click New to add a new line beneath this branch. Type
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
in the empty box that appears, then click Apply and restart your PC. We found that this helped clean up game jerkiness because it reduces the background file swapping that causes video hiccups and pauses."
This tip was for XP, by the way. I tried this on my machine (512MB), and the swapping that started during UT2K3 sessions has stopped. Maybe it will work for you.
Happy Tweaking!
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
You're absolutely right. They had a little table, and I remembered that two out of three adapter kinds worked fine, while the third didn't with the HD. Turns out it wasn't Matrox, like I reconstructed in my memory, but the ATI rage and PCI boards that were pariah.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Slashdot wasn't broken? Nah, me either.
Here's a figure with a source: don't upgrade to more than 512 MB with Win98. support.microsoft.com
That is by far the most graphical intensive game out there. I have a radeon 9700 pro with 1 gig of ram and compared to 512 and a Gforce 4 Ti4200 was like being in the stone ages.
:)
Go ATI
OK, so my computer is a 700 MHz P3 with a GeForce DDR and, granted, 512 MB of RAM. I don't feel a burning urge to upgrade. Who offers less?
You lads also have Ambrosia Software, Spiderweb Software (which now usually does Windows versions as well). I have wonderful memories of both those companies from Mac OS Classic days.
Plus, a lot of the ports are better than the Windows original. Few reach the level of the Warcraft II port (where the Mac version had 3d sound and TCP/IP networking added by the porting company), but frequently people buying the Mac version get expansions for free and get all the bugfixes that Windows gamers have to find themselves and wait for the company to fix.
The Mac can run Fallout, Close Combat, and the Angband clones. That's enough to keep me happy on just about any system. I wish Linux could do that (to my great disappointment, WINE does not yet handle Close Combat, but with any luck, it will soon -- I've noticed that both the winex and wine trees have in the last few months had clipping code added to DirectX...)
May we never see th
Replace every three generations, or when things are three times as fast as your current device.
:-)
:-)
I've gotta disagree. That's much too frequent. Besides costing you more, it eliminates the "good feeling" you get from having something much, much better than you just did.
I can assure you that the andrenaline caused by moving from a 8Mhz Mac Plus with a 68000, single-tasking OS, 8.5 inch B/W (NOT grayscale) to a 60Mhz Power Mac with a PPC 601, multitasking OS, and 14 inch color screen was quite intense.
I tend to take the following approach (though I don't play the latest and greatest games).
Storage: Upgrade every 4x to 6x. I went 80MB->250MB->1GB->6GB->30GB.
CPU: I think upgrading less than 10x takes all the joy out of the upgrade.
Sound card: Why would anyone upgrade these? Old sound cards are great.
May we never see th
I agree, I'm a total convert. I haven't had this much fun gaming since I can't remember when. GameCube games = fun, innovative, a building library of great adult titles like Eternal Darkness, Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 0 onwards. And game like Pikmin and Animal crossing...abosorbing fun little games (ok, AC is a big game) Best controller I have ever used = wavebird wireless.
Better still no endless road of patches, great titles released every month, and I can play on my sofa on my large-screen tv. Joy. And games are invariably BETTER than I think they are going to be, no useless games like Unreal 2 that are hyped for five years and turn out to be a pure and utter waste of money and time.
No dodge, no run, linear maps, no female avatar, I finished it in one sitting. Seriously, the game is a big let-down
I don't know about anyone else but I am unimpressed with console games. I'm a RPG girl and there is a stifling scarcity of good games. Could I play Neverwinter Nights or Morrowind on PS2? Not really. Not without a great deal of pain :)
So I challenge you - show me a fantastic PS2 RPG and I'll shut up. *g*
Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative
I don't get the same support. I'd love to set up WINE and play games in Linux, but right now, my 550 P3 is too slow as it is to run UT2003 at above 25 fps. How do you think my luck would be emulating it, with a slightly bloated KDE3 (which I absolutely love =)) Not only that, but for some reason I can't get the same driver support that I get in Windows which for my GeForce 3 Ti 200 (128MB). I played the Linux and Windows versions of Armagetron. In windows 60fps, Linux 3fps. I hate Windows. Make gaming a real possibility on Linux, make games for Linux period, and gimme a week for my new computer to be built, and I'll be there. Until then, I have to use Windows.
Is anyone personally willing to help me out with getting stuff set up? That's what I thought.
Then you have Australia where the official line is we use metric buttloads but most people think in arse loads. Nobody really understands ass loads. Fortunately most construction projects involve beer and the ubiquitous "Bit more, bit more, whooo!" measuring system. And also fencing wire and more beer.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
You, sir, are clinically insane. What are you playing that needs that beast to run? I spent $900 in august on this config:
KT-400 Mobo w/RAID/5.1 Audio/Ethernet
Athlon XP2000+
Gainward "Golden Sample" (guaranteed overclock-- it hits very near 4600 speeds) GF4 Ti4200 128MB VIVO
Chieftec AL case
Antec 435W PSU
2xMaxtor 80GB 7200RPM HDD
512MB PC2700 RAM (could have used 2100, but wanted an upgrade path to the 333MHz FSB Athlons)
Lite-on 40X CD-RW
etc, etc...
Plays shit fine (Battlefield 1942, UT2003, etc...). If you have to have El Grande Monitor, I would have still only paid $1790. What on earth are you playing that needs $510 worth of hard drives? And $600 for a CPU? Man. Mine was $95, and it performs roughly 2/3 as well as yours. Meaning for yours to be a good deal, it ought to have cost about $150. $160 sound card? Mine was free. $400 video card?!?! This one's the worst. Buy a $150 video card now, wait, and buy another one. In short order, what $150 gets you will be faster than what $400 gets you now. You will spend less and have a better machine with a little planning ahead.
Large parts of your system have no real impact on gaming performance, too. Why those HDDs? Are you really running so many games you needed 400GB? Would fast drives at 40 or 80GB not do the trick? And why a $120 case? Aluminum cases with plenty of fans abound in the $60 range.
You entirely missed the point of the original post. You have done exactly as he said, and paid 4 or 5 times more for a 30% performance increase. Can you not wait 3 months for the prices to come down? I really, sincerely, hope that you are being paid to play games professionally. Otherwise, i cannot imagine how you justify this to yourself.
If you could reign in your need to have the "latest and greatest right now" when you build your system, you would have the money to build a whole new machine 4 times in the time period where you would normally only be building one. In 6 months, when you are still sitting on your $3600 boondoggle, I will be building a system better than it for 1/4 as much, and still have enough left (by your budget) to do it twice more.
You seem to "get it" when it comes to the game prices-- you wait until they're $20 to purchase. So why are you not waiting on the hardware? If you're not playing the very newest games, why are you buying bleeding-edge hardware?
OK, so I guess I wasn't clear... You CAN build a gaming machine for 3.5-4k, but you absolutely don't have to. Hell, even if you want to build the most ridiculously fast system that will be outdated in 2 years (instead of 1 year), the prices quoted by you are $50 higher on almost every component (and $100's higher on many components). Just check pricewatch and you can drop $1000 EASILY off your price.
Now, to specifically address some of your components. Do you really need 400 GB in hard drives for serious gaming? I mean, one of the newest games needs 2 GB at most (including the virtual memory to play it). So, if you are playing 10 different games at any given time on your pc, have 100 GB of music (that you can't listen to if you have 10 games to be playing... unless you don't have a job and don't go to school), and 10 GB of porn... you still only need at most 200 GB. I would say 100 GB is pretty good for gaming.
While I won't argue your opinion that 21" monitors are the minimum for gaming (definitely not my opinion), you can drop $400 off that price easily (while still having a 21" monitor).
You can also drop $300 by going AMD mobo and 2800+ proc. Another $100 by going from Audigy2 Platinum sound card to plain old Audigy (and $150 by going to generic 5.1 sound card). Yes, sound is important to serious gaming; but in GAMES (as opposed to sound editing and other audiophile uses) you don't need bleeding edge sound hardware.
The final point of my original post was that you can resist the urge to spend 300% more for 30% higher performance. You can easily drop $1300 from your system and only sacrifice 5% in performance.
The last point is that the system you configured won't make a difference in serious gaming NOW because the games aren't ready for the kind of system you designed. Yes, the games coming out in a year or two can take advantage of it (and will require it)... but why not save the $1000's of dollars and only buy when it is required?
As for the definition of serious gaming, that's up to the indidual. I think that serious gaming is how much you play and how well you play... and that depends more on the skill of the player. I have my patheticly useless gaming machine that cost $600, and I know that I regularly do better in online games than people with $1800 computers that play everyday and practice with clans. One person can do better at gaming (either online or local) than another person on the same computer.
If your definition of serious gaming is playing the bleeding edge games at 200 fps (which I'd say is indistinguishable from 60 fps), then go ahead and spend that money... it'll just drop the price on the low end I buy. Actually, I know that game developers and testers need that kind of system, but the gamer doesn't.
IANAL, but I play one on
Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL
character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their
hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices
are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some
BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it
to him.
So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path,
he met the traveling salesman.
"Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman
in high-level language.
"I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips
and Apples," commented Jack.
"I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue
there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now."
Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when
he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she
started thrashing.
"Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these
kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the
window...
-- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack"
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