The 'Perfect' Gaming Setup

1up is running a fun piece looking at how to take your gaming setup from merely functional to truly outstanding. From the article: "So you already took the plunge on a hot new HDTV. You've got an Xbox 360, but you're hungering for more HD gaming goodness, and you don't care how much it costs to get there. If that's the case, you're ready to enter the extremely hardcore domain of rolling your own home theatre gaming PC. This is not a project for the light-hearted. If you've never built a computer before, you're better off experimenting on the one you already have first with simpler exercises, like RAM and video card upgrades. Get comfortable, expect mistakes, and don't be afraid to see your own blood - computers can be pointy on the inside."

Comments

computers can be pointy on the inside

[kickedfortrolling]

.. wise words.. i nearly ripped my finger off on the inside of a drive bay. sod bird flu.. coolermaster- the slient killer

Re:computers can be pointy on the inside

[Hannah E. Davis]

I still have my ex-boyfriends blood inside my old computer... he was helping me put in a graphics card, as I recall, and cut himself on one of the many many sharp and pointy bits inside the case.

Re:computers can be pointy on the inside

[kickedfortrolling]

I hadn't realised this was so common. we should start an awareness group :)

I notice u say 'ex'.. perhaps it wasnt so accidental?

Re:computers can be pointy on the inside

[CrazyJim1]

And when fans are makin noise, don't put your finger in to stop the fan.

Re:computers can be pointy on the inside

[Dunbal]

And when fans are makin noise, don't put your finger in to stop the fan.

      Yeah why use a finger when a gerbil works just as well.

Re:computers can be pointy on the inside

[Meetch]

Doesn't need to be running... every single time I've done assembly or reassembly involving a new motherboard, the case has drawn blood. A little matter of needing to use a little force to get something to snap into place... and it gives more suddenly than expected. About half the time has required a band-aid to prevent getting blood everywhere. I guess that's the main downside of many cheaper cases - sharper edges!

Re:computers can be pointy on the inside

[sigmaseven]

Yeah why use a finger when a gerbil works just as well.

I hope you don't have to say this very often.

Re:computers can be pointy on the inside

[edunbar93]

I hadn't realised this was so common.

The denizens of alt.sysadmin.recovery have made frequent references to the need for blood sacrifices (typically, your own, although sometimes a chicken or a goat would do) in order to get hardware to work properly for the past, oh 10 years or so.

But my guess is that you're too young to know what alt.sysadmin.recovery is, in which case that's a good thing.

Alternatively

[nbannerman]

You can wait 6 months, and pick up the required parts for half the cost, or even just buy an off the shelf system. I guess it depends which you value more; an immediate payback for the time you spent, or money in the bank and time saved.

Only if you buy a cheap case...

[(H)elix1]

Most of the nicer chassis don't have razor sharp edges on the inside. Spend $35 on a case and PS, and you may need a Band-Aid or two - but most folks who are building even mid range gaming rigs will spend money on a case.

By component, avoid mid-range parts if possible

[sethstorm]

I guess it depends which you value more; an immediate payback for the time you spent, or money in the bank and time saved.
  Dont be so quick to consider just saving in the short term will do fine. If you want to be constantly bleeding cash for parts, fine. Just dont be disappointed by the low quality.

  Start with a very highend setup(proven components that are built solidly) and keep the configuration relatively unchanged until you cannot go further with that setup. Only add components infrequently as needed(should be about 1-2 cycles/2-3 years after) and in the largest possible increments and/or highest quality as possible.

Repeat as necessary given that you have a system that will last a long while with parts that were made to last a long time, and that things just wont break 15s after the short warranty's up.

For gaming, that should keep you going for a good while.

Re:By component, avoid mid-range parts if possible

[montyzooooma]

Things that last and are worth buying top quality - motherboards, hard disks, memory (especially memory)

Things that aren't worth buying top quality - CPUs and grafix cards. The upgrade cycle is too intense and the price/performance doesn't scale linearly. Buy one step below top of the range because you're going to be upgrading both long before 2-3 years.

From the article's title...

[Rapter09]

...I was expecting a nice PC setup and hardware tips, but I see its unfortunately aimed heavily towards superfluous things to add to your console.

Widescreen Gaming Rig built around a 37" Westy

[grumpygrodyguy]

Here's my current gaming rig, I need SLI to drive the very high resolution 37"(1920X1080) display (anti-aliasing etc.)

CPU: AMD 3700+ SD Overclocked to 2530mhz (230X11 Aircooled 80mm @ 5,500RPM w/ 4 Heatpipes 1.456V 36C/44C) (very loud, my PC is in a seperate sound isolated room...I have been considering water cooling but have yet to take the plunge)
Board: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
RAM: 4 X 512 OCZ Platinum EL Rev. 2 TCCD (230mhz 2,3,3,5 Aircooled NB 2.8V 37C/41C)
Video: 2 X eVGA 7800GT SLI (stock)
Drive: 74GB WD Raptor
Sound: Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic + PA2v2 Headphone Amp + Sennheiser HD595 Headphones
PSU: Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 550W Power Supply (not recommended, poor quality control on these...some are fine others are not...I got a not)
Case: CM Stacker
Display: Westinghouse 37" 1920X1080 LCD (best purchase of my life)

37" may seem too large for a PC display, but I sit back in a reclining chair with a viewing distance of about 6 feet. It's so comfortable I can game for 16 hours straight(which I do on occasion).

It's a sweet setup...I'm CPU and fsb limited but I can play almost all games at max settings 1920X1080. Low resolution emulated games (Dos, MAME, Atari ST, NES, commodore, amiga, apple IIgs) etc. all look great on this screen.

Re:Widescreen Gaming Rig built around a 37" Westy

[nick_davison]

I have been considering water cooling but have yet to take the plunge

Having just installed it, I can really recommend the Zalman Reserator 1 Plus kit. It has everything you need, everything is designed to fit together without leaks, and it goes together really easily. You literally unscrew a bunch of mount points for the old heatsinks, put on your new ones, add your new heatsinks and gunk, push the tubes on, drop the clamps in to position, fill with distilled water and its supplied coolant, then go. It's maybe a half hour job at the outside and keeps a 4200+ X2 running at about 5000+ equivalent speeds at 45C under load. It's also effectively silent.

If you really need to cool an N-Force motherboard's overheating and thus overfanned north bridge, an extra $25 part does that too.

Granted, for SLI, you'll need an extra VGA block (also about $25) and I'm not sure how that works out heatwise. The one problem with water is you get a long time before the water reaches its final temp so it's really hard to tell what it actually runs at under load and whether there's headroom for a second card on a single radiator.

Pg 2 - Buy Rechargable batteries

[MerlynEmrys67]

Wow - what insiteful reporting. Get rechargable batteries and have one set in the charger and one set in the controller. How did this get posted to slashdot anyway - TFA certainly didn't mention anything that would involve openning a case - just "Let me use my 7eet skilz to use a wireless controller". How lame. Let me get back to my prototype Conroe rig and I'll get back to you with an ultimate system in a month.

Easier setup...

[Anonymous Coward]

1 Copy Super Smash Bros. Melee
1 Bigass Couch
4 Wavebirds
1 Gamecube
1 Decent-Sized Television

I'm not sure what other equipment anyone could EVER need.

Re:Easier setup...

[tduff]

1 Copy Super Smash Bros. Melee
1 Bigass Couch
4 Wavebirds
1 Gamecube
1 Decent-Sized Television
I'm not sure what other equipment anyone could EVER need.

Friends. You need friends. Something the typical slashdotter does not have.

Recently Upgraded...

[ewhac]

Ooo! Is this where we get to compare the sizes of our dic^H^H^Hgaming rigs?

I just bought myself a completely new gaming rig -- my first such rig in about seven years. Prior to that I'd been upgrading various components in my old box. But the newest games were starting to far outstrip my machine's ability to play them (Doom 3/Quake 4 were the earliest offenders). Thanks to a pleasant year-end bonus from my employer (and rather serious prodding from my partner), I got a completely new box:

• ABIT AN8-32X SLI (nForce 4) motherboard,
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ CPU,
• eVGA geForce 7900GT CO SC graphics card,
• Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card,
• 2 Western Digital WD2500KS SATA drives, 7200RPM, 250G each,
• LiteOn SHM-165P6S DVD-RAM/DVD+-RW/DVD+-R/CD-R/CD-RW drive,
• 2G (1Gx2) Crucial CT2KIT12864Z40B PC3200 RAM,
• Enermax Liberty 500W power supply (12V @ 22A for the gfx card),
• ASYS CK-1022-5 "Eiffel Tower" case, complete with chasing blue-LED rice

Sadly, the graphics card has turned out to be the biggest problem in the new rig. It seems that everyone is having trouble with the new NVidia 7900-based boards. My first card would display "exploding" geometry once it warmed up a bit. Happily, eVGA have been very good to deal with, and performed a free cross-ship RMA. The new card still exhibits a few glitches, but only when I expressly go looking for them. When actually playing games, it's been very well behaved. It's only done the exploding geometry thing once since then, during a game of Oblivion. I'll keep leaning on eVGA to perfect this card.

I have very mixed feelings about the Creative sound card. Creative has a very spotty reputation for drivers, especially when multiple CPUs are involved. However, virtually all the competing sound card vendors have gone away, or have chosen instead to go for a race to the bottom in terms of price (and, sadly, quality). So I got the Creative X-Fi. It makes the games sound pretty good (it's breathed new life into QuakeWorld), but I would have much preferred something that works with Linux. I have my eye on the upcoming Razer Barracuda sound card, though...

I'd have to say that I'm probably happiest with the case. I was very paranoid that I wouldn't have enough space for all the cruft I planned on putting in it, or that it would be very difficult to work with, but it's turned out to be just lovely. It weighs a ton, but no more than the old Antec tower it's replacing. It's very accessible, has a large interior, very well ventilated, very sturdy, has a clean appearance, and the blue LEDs don't hurt, either.

As I said, this is the first new rig I've put together in seven years (the last machine I built was a dual-Pentium III on a PC-100 motherboard). I'd appreciate commentary from a more experienced eye. Could I have selected better RAM? Better drives?

Schwab

Re:VT100 + PDP11/70 + Adventure!

[Vo0k]

Ever tried "UNIX DOOM"?

4 serial terminals plugged into a SGI Challenge running IRIX. 4 guys with root access. The task: Stay logged on and kill (-9) the others. The most ultimate deathmatch.
Log in.
Use 'ps', try to figure out which login is yours. Kill -9 the other processes kicking the others. Watch "ps" list for new logons. More than once you'll kill -9 yourself. More than once they will kill your logon process before you do. Spawn extra shells as decoys. Attempt to append another line to your "ultimate weapon" script. Try to read manpage to find what option on IRIX version of 'ps' displays terminal you're connected from. Remember login process number of the opponent who kicked you before you managed to finish typing the PID and use it immediately after the last login.

That was about the most fun multiplayer game I ever played :D