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Fag Boy Jim posted:You will not get a good gaming laptop at practically any price. I hate gaming laptops. While it's true that a $1,000 desktop could beat the pants off of a $1,000 laptop in terms of gaming performance, laptops are getting increasingly better as time goes on. My next PC is going to be a mid-size laptop (14"-15") with a really good graphics chipset and an HDMI port. This way, I can hook up my PC to a big-screen TV and have a nice setup for gaming, but when I want to take it with me, I just unplug a few cables and go. Best of both worlds. As it is with computers though, the longer you hold out, the better one you'll get. My desktop here has another good year left in it at least.
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Jul 15, 2011 19:56
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You people have terrible hearing if you think on-board sound is anywhere close to a dedicated sound card.
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Jul 15, 2011 19:56
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Amrosorma posted:What are some good sticks that are above $50 but below $150? That is kind of a weird range for flight sticks. The 3D Extreme Pro I would actually put above most sticks in that price range, honestly... but if you don't mind a stick with a really big throw and fairly loose springs, the Saitek x52 and x52 Pro are around that price range, depending on where you find them. However, quality on those HOTAS systems is hit and miss. You may encounter spikey inputs on some of the axes and such, which is annoying as hell. I have a Pro, and while I like the design, I have to account for spiking around the center of the twist, different areas of the throttle, and ALL of the dials. Above the $150 is where you can get some quality devices like Logitech's G940 which is force feedback, but I wasn't all that thrilled with it (and it's a big chunk of change). And of course, Thrustmaster makes the Warthog which is supposed to be awesome but is EXTREMELY expensive. So yeah... if you don't have anything, spend $30 on a 3D Extreme Pro, unless you absolutely need a throttle and/or foot pedals. And if you can find a deal on them, get an x52 or a pro... just make sure they have a return policy.
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Jul 15, 2011 20:14
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Essobie posted:That is kind of a weird range for flight sticks. The 3D Extreme Pro I would actually put above most sticks in that price range, honestly... but if you don't mind a stick with a really big throw and fairly loose springs, the Saitek x52 and x52 Pro are around that price range, depending on where you find them. However, quality on those HOTAS systems is hit and miss. You may encounter spikey inputs on some of the axes and such, which is annoying as hell. I have a Pro, and while I like the design, I have to account for spiking around the center of the twist, different areas of the throttle, and ALL of the dials. Thanks; that just saved me a whole bunch of money! Is your title from Discworld? 
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Jul 15, 2011 20:15
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Charles Martel posted:While it's true that a $1,000 desktop could beat the pants off of a $1,000 laptop in terms of gaming performance, laptops are getting increasingly better as time goes on. While laptop hardware is increasingly getting better over time, you're still paying quite a premium over desktop hardware. The minimum you want for 1080p gaming is a Radeon 6850M/NVidia GTX 560M, and laptops with either of those and a 1080p screen start at around $1500. Compare that to maybe $800 for a similarly specced desktop + 1080p monitor, and $900-$1000 for a desktop that could run circles around that hardware + monitor. (Those mobile GPUs are just mobile versions of the Radeon 5770 and GTX 550 TI, respectively, which are "bare-bones" 1080p desktop GPUs at best.) And then you have the other inherent problems of a laptop to deal with: Excessive heat, a lack of upgradability, noise, and the fact that if one component fails, you need to send the entire shebang in to be fixed. In short: Gaming laptops are great if you travel around a lot, but a poor value otherwise. kuddles posted:You people have terrible hearing if you think on-board sound is anywhere close to a dedicated sound card. Point is, onboard audio is enough for most people. Just like, say, SLI'd GTX 580s are objectively better than a GTX 560 TI, but the latter is enough for most people.
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Jul 15, 2011 20:16
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Devil Wears Wings posted:While laptop hardware is increasingly getting better over time, you're still paying quite a premium over desktop hardware. The minimum you want for 1080p gaming is a Radeon 6850M/NVidia GTX 560M, and laptops with either of those and a 1080p screen start at around $1500. Compare that to maybe $800 for a similarly specced desktop + 1080p monitor, and $900-$1000 for a desktop that could run circles around that hardware + monitor. (Those mobile GPUs are just mobile versions of the Radeon 5770 and GTX 550 TI, respectively, which are "bare-bones" 1080p desktop GPUs at best.) I really can't wait until they start putting really beefy GPUs in these things: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4474/sony-updates-vaio-z-thinner-lighter-light-peak-and-external-gpu That's like my dream machine; a thin/light laptop with a powerful CPU/tons of RAM and awesome battery life that I can use while traveling and then I pop out an XGPU thinger to play Battlefield 5 in my hotel room 
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Jul 15, 2011 20:20
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Devil Wears Wings posted:Point is, onboard audio is enough for most people. Just like, say, SLI'd GTX 580s are objectively better than a GTX 560 TI, but the latter is enough for most people. Bingo. Are dedicated sound cards and the like better? Yeah. Are they a good quality increase for the money spent for most people? Not at all.
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Jul 15, 2011 20:29
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For the price of a gaming laptop you can buy a better gaming desktop and get a cheap laptop for school/travelling/whatever. I bought an open box HP 4420s for $400 from eBay and it's awesome for everything except the latest games, for which I have an awesome desktop that cost me less than $900
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Jul 15, 2011 20:32
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Amrosorma posted:Thanks; that just saved me a whole bunch of money! No problem. For other reviews of flight sticks, check out our Flight Sim Thread and I am pretty sure there are a few in the IL2 Thread. And the titles is just made up. Friends and coworkers like to joke that I'm very loud when I talk. It isn't that I'm loud, it's that I "project" better than most people. They are just jealous.
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Jul 15, 2011 20:40
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Blackula69 posted:For the price of a gaming laptop you can buy a better gaming desktop and get a cheap laptop for school/travelling/whatever. I bought an open box HP 4420s for $400 from eBay and it's awesome for everything except the latest games, for which I have an awesome desktop that cost me less than $900 This is usually what I recommend to people looking for a gaming laptop who aren't traveling around a lot/in the military. A netbook with AMD's E-350 "APU" ($400 if you get a good deal) and a $800 desktop will set you back less than one of those $1500 gaming laptops, and you get basically the best of both worlds: A nice big beefy desktop for gaming and a slim, light, quiet, low-power notebook for taking notes in class or whatever. And that netbook can actually handle games up to circa-2007 on low settings, and maybe 2003 on high, if you still want to get your gaming jollies a bit on the go.
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Jul 15, 2011 20:41
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kuddles posted:You people have terrible hearing if you think on-board sound is anywhere close to a dedicated sound card. That's not really true, and I've been switching between the two for years. Onboard sound has gotten a lot better, and dedicated sound cards have only gotten worse in terms of driver support and compatibility. The only reason I use one sometimes is because onboard chips still can't handle low-latency inputs very well.
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Jul 15, 2011 20:45
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Devil Wears Wings posted:Point is, onboard audio is enough for most people. Just like, say, SLI'd GTX 580s are objectively better than a GTX 560 TI, but the latter is enough for most people.
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Jul 15, 2011 20:56
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kuddles posted:No, it's more like 30 FPS is enough for most people. Seriously, sites like HardOCP and Techreport do blind tests all the time and on-board audio always is chosen as the worst even by random people who don't consider themselves audiophiles at all. Could you please link a recent one? A cursory Google search just brings up an old TechReport article from 2003.
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Jul 15, 2011 21:30
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Blackula69 posted:For the price of a gaming laptop you can buy a better gaming desktop and get a cheap laptop for school/travelling/whatever. I bought an open box HP 4420s for $400 from eBay and it's awesome for everything except the latest games, for which I have an awesome desktop that cost me less than $900 This has been the correct combo for a couple years now. Desktop + Netbook. Soon it will probably be desktop + tablet, at least for me.
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Jul 15, 2011 21:31
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kuddles posted:No, it's more like 30 FPS is enough for most people. Seriously, sites like HardOCP and Techreport do blind tests all the time and on-board audio always is chosen as the worst even by random people who don't consider themselves audiophiles at all. But for most people, the limiting factor on audio quality is the speaker system. In a blind test, they're not gonna be using the $12 speakers that you got out of clearance at Best Buy that one time. I understand that a sound card may enhance the experience, but you're gonna get a lot more improvement with a solid pair of speakers. Maybe then you can think about a sound card, if you're still unsatisfied. And the ultimate truth is: most people couldn't give two fucks. I can hear gunfire and yelling. Good enough.
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Jul 15, 2011 21:31
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For when Garshasp just isn't enough. http://kotaku.com/5820768/this-historical-first+person-shooter-is-an-iranian-national-treasure It's an Iranian-historical-FPS, made by a team of twenty. There's a youtube video if you follow the link. Manac0r fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Jul 15, 2011 |
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Jul 15, 2011 21:55
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kuddles posted:No, it's more like 30 FPS is enough for most people. Seriously, sites like HardOCP and Techreport do blind tests all the time and on-board audio always is chosen as the worst even by random people who don't consider themselves audiophiles at all. The average consumer isn't going to care whether they get an onboard or external card. Personally, I think that they're a waste like those "Killer NIC" things.
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Jul 15, 2011 22:03
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Charles Martel posted:As it is with computers though, the longer you hold out, the better one you'll get. My desktop here has another good year left in it at least. Isn't it the case that if your PC can handle games right now, you're fine until the next generation of consoles come out? I mean obviously you can't expect to max out every new games visuals, but you'll be able to play them. I'm hoping my quad core, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 will last me until then at least. 
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Jul 15, 2011 22:17
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Mr Right posted:Isn't it the case that if your PC can handle games right now, you're fine until the next generation of consoles come out? I mean obviously you can't expect to max out every new games visuals, but you'll be able to play them. For the most part, yeah. Games like Assassin's Creed 2 will pretty much look and run the same on an $800 PC as they will on a $2,000 PC right now, but when you start getting into games like The Witcher 2 or Metro 2033 having a nice PC makes a big difference. Then you have poorly optimized games like GTA 4, resource-intensive PS2/Gamecube/Wii emulation, and games like Battlefield 3 on the horizon. There's plenty of great reasons to upgrade your PC if those things interest you, but there isn't any real urgency to it.
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Jul 15, 2011 22:25
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Has anyone heard tried to tape mod to overclock a locked mobo from a big name company? How easy was it?
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Jul 15, 2011 22:30
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The.GreyWolf posted:The average consumer isn't going to care whether they get an onboard or external card. Personally, I think that they're a waste like those "Killer NIC" things. Just because it's not been posted in a while:
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Jul 15, 2011 23:17
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I kinda don't get all this "audiophiles are spergs lol" when people routinely recommend $150-200+ headphones in this thread that probably cost more than a basic sound card and this is from someone who doesn't even think sound cards are that necessary
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Jul 15, 2011 23:19
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Fag Boy Jim posted:I kinda don't get all this "audiophiles are spergs lol" when people routinely recommend $150-200+ headphones in this thread that probably cost more than a basic sound card While the $150-200 range is excessive IMO, it's much easier to tell the difference between good and bad headphones and no matter how good your output is, it doesn't matter if your speakers/headphones can't play that output well. Bad headphones will literally not play certain sound ranges, specifically the upper and lower ends. I borrowed a friends iPod earbuds once, and bass drums that sounded full and thumpy on my ~$25 Sennheiser earbuds barely sounded like someone smacking the ground on the iPod ones. A Fancy 400 lbs fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jul 15, 2011 |
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Jul 15, 2011 23:21
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:While the $150-200 range is excessive IMO, it's much easier to tell the difference between good and bad headphones and no matter how good your output is, it doesn't matter if your speakers headphones can't play that output well. Yeah, I think a $100-$150 sound card makes every bit as much sense as a $200 set of headphones. And by that I mean that you don't need either of them, but they're nice.
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Jul 15, 2011 23:25
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A good pair of floor speakers will cost about 250 €, minimum. Since building a good-sounding big-rear end speaker is a lot easier than building a good-sounding set of itty-bitty little headphones, it's a wonder they don't cost a lot more.
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Jul 15, 2011 23:37
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Fag Boy Jim posted:I kinda don't get all this "audiophiles are spergs lol" when people routinely recommend $150-200+ headphones in this thread that probably cost more than a basic sound card
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Jul 15, 2011 23:39
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If you're going to buy a sound card you might as well go all out and buy nice studio monitors, because (almost) nothing else will be able to output what this expensive sound card can. Also, arguing about this is analogous to flac debate.
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Jul 16, 2011 00:14
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Fil5000 posted:Just because it's not been posted in a while: Now someone post the creative bar graph picture.
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Jul 16, 2011 00:32
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kri kri posted:Now someone post the creative bar graph picture. I swear I can hear the difference! 
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Jul 16, 2011 03:07
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The Gunslinger posted:I swear I can hear the difference! Hahaha what kind of bullshit is this
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Jul 16, 2011 03:34
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What, you guys don't measure your *experience* levels and plot them on a bar graph?
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Jul 16, 2011 03:37
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With my new sound card, the audio is higher resolution than it was in the studio thanks to bits
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Jul 16, 2011 03:50
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Your sound card isn't able to also routinely give you fidelity greater to that than actually being in the studio? Even after the source has been compressed in a lossy format? What is the gaming thoughts on USB headsets? A long while back I couldn't stand them, but they really started growing on me. Is there a drawback I am not aware of?
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Jul 16, 2011 03:52
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Fergus Mac Roich posted:With my new sound card, the audio is higher resolution than it was in the studio thanks to bits Heh, new music studio huh? Doesn't sound too bad. You know what else is too bad? That your eardrums won't dance to the blissful harmony that is THE X-FI EXPERIENCE. *points to bar graph* 
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Jul 16, 2011 03:56
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Devil Wears Wings posted:I hope you're posting this ironically because it's some of the more ridiculously spergy poo poo I've seen come from the audiophile crowd. Seriously some of those cost more than an entire gaming PC. Whenever I see people from other PC tech forums building gaming PCs with Asus ROG motherboards, ultra-high end DDR2133 and 650W+ PSUs only to pair up with a midrange video card I die a bit inside. And these are probably the same people that complain about why PC gaming is so expensive.
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Jul 16, 2011 04:03
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Regarding onboard audio, it is fine for non-gaming casual use, because that's when Realtek's feces isn't crashing, killing performance or simply bluescreening with games. Which happens to be what Creative Labs cards have done since forever because they really have a monopoly on gaming add-in sound-cards and can afford to be lazy. Ask someone who was lucky enough to have a real Nvidia Soundstorm board about the difference between that one and Realtek/Creative Labs hardware. Even if you're not an audiofag I recommend a cheap non-poo poo card that works with games, cheapest solution is a used M-Audio Delta PCI, from 40€ and up, the only drawback is that it has RCA and coax digital input and outputs only, but it runs everything, even old ancient poo poo, and doesn't ask that much of a price for the kind of converter circuits and amps that Creative Labs hypes to high heaven and even higher prices. Got stability issues with games? Everything about your computer seems fine, even the PSU and Windows install? Got Realtek audio? Well there's your problem! e: Wow, forgot VIA hardware was still used in PCs. Ghosts n Gopniks fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jul 16, 2011 |
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Jul 16, 2011 04:25
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My integrated audio is VIA, not RealTek. Problem solved.
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Jul 16, 2011 04:32
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Lockback posted:What is the gaming thoughts on USB headsets? A long while back I couldn't stand them, but they really started growing on me. Is there a drawback I am not aware of? e: and yeah, I wouldn't say a sound card is a terrible idea just based on the fact that realtek drivers can be really awful. The lowest-end Xonar is what, like $25? I use mine to drive a sub and headphones at the same time too, which is kinda neat.
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Jul 16, 2011 05:08
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I got this soundcard as a gift awhile back and half the poo poo that they say I get in their instruction booklet and control panel doesn't make any loving sense. Seriously, why do they need all this jargon?
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Jul 16, 2011 05:17
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My kb has USB audio, definately sounds way better than onboard.
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