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Ask Slashdot: Making a 'Wife Friendly' Gaming PC?
shadeshope writes Having just gotten married, I find that for some inexplicable reason my wife doesn't like my huge, noisy, 'ugly' gaming PC being in the living room. I have tried hiding it in a TV cabinet: still too noisy. I have placed it in another room and run HDMI and USB cables, but the propagation delay caused horrible tearing and lag when playing games. Have any other slashdotters encountered this problem? I don't want to buy a console (Steam sales let me game so cheaply), or mess with water cooling. Ideally I would just hide it in the attic, is there some wireless technology that would be fast enough for gaming use? I have become quite attached to 'behemoth.' I have been upgrading him for years and he is the centre of my digital life. I run plex home theatre, media centre, steam, iTunes and air server. Will I have to do my gaming in the spare room? Once I have sorted this small problem going to try and make a case for the efficacy of a projector to replace the television..... it takes up less space, motorized screen could be hidden when not in use, etc.
Your wife just wants to make the house more kiddie friendly. Get a laptop.
Why UNIX?
Get a less noisy system. How hard is that to figure out?
Get a case that has one or two 120mm or larger fans for airflow. They generate much MUCH less noise than 80mm fans and still push enough air to keep the thing chilled.
Switch CPU/GPU fans to ones that only turn on when needed, and are off while the system is at a cool idle temp.
Switch your HDD out for an SSD, and use network storage for your bulk storage. Gigabit Ethernet is ~100MB/sec and so is a rotational disk, so you're not gonna see much different in performance here (assuming your network doesn't suck)
you have a good prenup
What are you doing "gaming" in the living room? Dude, you are now MARRIED. Turn the spare bedroom into your "man cave". The living room is your wife's domain.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I have placed it in another room and run HDMI and USB cables, but the propagation delay caused horrible tearing and lag when playing games
Eh? This sounds more like crappy cables, than anything else. Propagation delay on an extra 10-feet of cables is hardly measurable much less noticeable.
Find another wife.
You have a wife learn to read the signals its not the noisy machine but the fact your spending too much time gaming. Or like a former friend of mine you will have the best gaming machine but No wife or kids and quite likely no real friends
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Just do your gaming in the spare room. Put a small quiet/silent PC in the living room for media centre stuff if you cannot live without a living room PC.
Also, I'd have to advise against replacing the TV with a projector. They're hellishly expensive if you get one with decent resolution, require a pitch black room to look any good, effectively prevent rearranging the living room, etc.
Yes, make his wife wear headphones around the house whenever the PC is running. Brilliant idea.
... not the PC itself, but the fact that you still seem to want to live the same life as a married man that you lived as a single man. You said your vows, now show that they mean something. Spend time with your wife. Talk with her about the new lives you are starting together.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If you assume someone who wears a kilt (or other masculine skirted garment) hasn't grown a pair, perhaps you need to grow a pair.
I don't like noisy PCs either and there a couple of solutions:
a) Use a low-RPM, huge, CPU fan like Zalman along with a fanless power supply and video card. There should be very little noise from such a PC.
b) Go all the way and buy a water-cooled PC. No fans, no noise.
c) Buy an Apple laptop/desktop. These are noiseless except under heavy load.
propagation delay? Really? What country is that other room where you moved the PC to? Or perhaps you had some other problem that you don't really understand and just decided to call it propagation delay.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If you expect a marriage to be 50/50, you'll probably be disappointed. Because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, two people who are equally giving will probably feel that they're doing 80%. I do a lot for my wife, and she does for me. Mostly, we do for us. We want time together, so we make time for that, etc.
Look, nobody normal respects gamers, and for very good reason. The best we can hope for is tolerance unless we're prepared to marry a waifu.
Personally, I found the best solution was to quit my job so I could game while my wife as at work. No muss, no fuss. The only problem comes at times like this weekend, when I played so much Far Cry 4 that I accidentally called my wife Amita.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Get a less noisy system. How hard is that to figure out?
Married 15 years. After I had spent the money on quieter fans, it turned out she just didn't like the look of the computer in the living room, with its wires and peripherals and stuff.
Go the man cave route with an extra room (or even a closet). You get to spend the money on bigger speakers instead of quieter fans. She gets to decorate the living room to her liking, and you get major points for being so accommodating. It will come in handy later when you have kids, so you can lock out all your little ones from the Dangerous Stuff, and it's even more handy later when you can let your bigger kids play in them while you and the Mrs. enjoy some sanity time in the nice living room.
The moral of the story is: don't be poor.
Source: Divorced due to Eve-online.
To be fair that's not 'gaming' eve is essentially a second career but without any of the real life rewards for your efforts.