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Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
Just wanted to give my support and say this is an awesome idea for a thread and should be kept up with. PC 4 lyfe.

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Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

RagnarokAngel posted:

Recommendation to the op:

Do NOT buy a "Gaming laptop"
This is covered under the umbrella of "Don't buy prebuilts" but I think it requires special mention because people are easily swindled by them.
1. Gaming laptops are expensive. Seriously expensive. Because building one yourself is basically out of the question you're at the mercy of Dell, Alienware, etc. to make it for you and they will absolutely gouge you. You'll spend twice as much on a laptop of the same power as a desktop, possibly more.
2. They are not any more convenient than a desktop. Because you're compressing all those parts into little space they heat up extremely quickly. In the short term this means you can only play games for brief periods of time compared to desktops, in the long term it can actually damage the parts. You also have to remain plugged in at all times because the battery life is going to be absolute poo poo when you play games so the portability goes out the window.
3. Lack of support. Most of the time, portable versions of hardware (Graphics cards, processor, et al)are the same as their desktop counterparts. There are times this doesn't apply though and it can seriously suck in those cases. Best example is that drivers for desktop graphics cards do not work on the laptop versions without some jury rigging. This means if a driver comes out for the desktop version of your graphics card that fixes some game issues you're poo poo out of luck till its made available for your laptop version.

Seriously I repeat, do not buy gaming laptops there is almost no good reason for it. Even if you're a student who needs a laptop for school. Get a kick rear end desktop and a cheap notebook, you'll spend less for 2 items than you will for 1. This is from personal experience.

It's interesting you bring this up because I'm in the process of giving my desktop to my mom and buying a laptop as my main PC in mid-2011.

To counter your points, I'm looking at this laptop, which has almost the same specs as a tricked out +$2000 Alienware laptop, save for the screen and the 5400rpm hard disk. It's just about as much as you would pay for a high-end desktop with 8GB of DDR3 RAM. I priced out the parts I'd want for a new desktop at NewEgg and the total prices were almost exact minus a new desktop monitor.

ASUS is also a great brand (they're the ONLY motherboards I've put in my desktop PCs for the last 12+ years and they've all been rock solid), and laptops generally come with a Windows license, which saves you about a hundred bucks.

I agree with you with the parts in a more confined space heating up quickly, but portability is still there. Since building a new desktop and getting that laptop would be about the same price, I'd like the added bonus of walking around my house while surfing the web or reading an article on the couch while watching TV, and besides, if I were up for a round of Crysis, I'd want to stay in one space at home anyway. Not to mention a laptop takes up a LOT less space. Going to a slightly smaller screen is a drag, but I figured for some games, I can hook an HDMI cable to my TV for a better screen (especially for emulators and such).

I didn't know about there being separate drivers for desktop hardware and laptop hardware. You gave an example of video card drivers...is it more prominent in Nvidia or ATI cards, or both?

I'm not trying to be snobby or anything. I've actually been going back and forth between a desktop and laptop, and since I'm enjoying the portability and features of my girlfriend's Toshiba here, I'm leaning towards one of my own, but with an exceptional dedicated graphics card.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

ShinAli posted:

Not to be all chicken little but it feels kind of bad to see a thread on PC gaming as if it were some sort of niche.

Anyways, as a kind of person that needs some form of mobility with his PC and power along with it, I've opted for the Asus G73JH. It has pretty much the same specs as the G73JW, except the video card being a Mobility 5870, which faired better in benchmarks than the nVidia 460M.

Despite being a bulky, heavy and ugly looking son of a bitch, it's a great laptop. It plays all games I thrown at it in highest settings so far (didn't try Crysis but I don't really care to) quite well, and the temperature has always been a little lukewarm. I'm quite blown away at how well this thing cools, but that's maybe because my previous laptop was a MacBook Pro which would sooner melt your dick off than play an HD movie for 30 minutes without setting your pants on fire.

On NewEgg, they've had a reconditioned G73JH that would occasionally go on sale for about 870 dollars, which is an amazing price for this kind of hardware. Now I can't really find it as it seems to be discontinued for good this time. The 460M version is probably just as good, if slightly slower on frames. I know the G73JH is also being sold in BestBuy with a WiMax modem installed for about 1,200, that might be a decent enough deal.

It's absence might also mean Asus is going to come out with a newer 17 inch powerhouse soon, too.

Thank you for making this post as I'm looking at that exact same laptop unless something else comes out in the next few months. Good to know it performs well and has adequate cooling. The only thing I didn't care for was the touchpad buttons, but I'm taking my MX518 with me.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

quote:

ATI Mobility Drivers!! :argh:

That's really sad to hear, since I wanted a laptop with ATI since they tend to behave better with older Windows games. Anyone here with a high-end GeForce card in their laptop that has tried to play any Windows games circa 1999-2003 no problem?

Charles Martel fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Dec 25, 2010

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Fil5000 posted:

Hey guys - I was having a clearout of all my stuff and went through my PC games. Take a look at this lot:

*picture of awesome games*

I swear, late 90s/early 00s was some kind of halcyon period for me and PC gaming. gently caress, now I have to try and get Privateer 2 working...

The good old days. Well...actually the early 90s were the good old days. Those games are part of the twilight of PC gaming before just about every PC release became a buggy console port.

Bonus points for having the best Command & Conquer though. I want to play Homeworld now too.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Kashwashwa posted:

The best command and conquer? Man, I was a huge c&c fanboy, and even I thought Tiberian Sun was bad.

It's probably nostalgia talking since I received it as a gift back then and it's the first one I played. Still, I didn't think any game in the series was bad, though there are some better than others.

I need to dust off my copy of The First Decade here and play them again, but :effort:

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
I ordered a new, shiny GeForce GTX 460 yesterday in an effort to try and help me get through my enormous backlog of games. I can't wait for it to get here.

PC Gaming! :pcgaming:

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
As others have said, unless you won the lottery and have an extra couple hundred bucks to wipe your rear end with, just go with one fast card. In my experience from everything I've read and heard about them, it's not worth the mediocre performance boost in the amount of games that actually support it. Buying a new/better monitor, more RAM, new games, or even a new keyboard would be more beneficial if you just had to put that money into your PC, in my opinion.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

spasticColon posted:

I got one of these in February and its great so far plus its a great overclocker to boot. :pcgaming:

That's the word on the street from what I've read. I went for a less expensive EVGA "reference clock" model instead of a gimmicky Superclocked one and have EVGA Precision and Driver Sweeper at the ready (switching from an ATI card I'll probably sell off).

Also, I cleaned off my desk to give it it's regular dusting and I decided that my Fellowes gel mouse pad has run it's course. I just ordered one of these in it's place.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
Wow, I didn't know Razer was so goon-disapproved. And as far as Saitek goes I had an original Eclipse for about 3 years before it started freaking out and now have a "stripped-down" Cyborg that works great. I can never go without illuminated keys ever again.

Also, echoing the MX518 being the best wired mouse ever sentiment. Mine is going 4 years strong.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Rekkit posted:

Seriously. Why is anyone looking at their keyboards during any computer usage?

Because some of us weirdos type that way and enjoy the aesthetics of illuminated keys?

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
Edit: Nothing to see here.

Charles Martel fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jun 21, 2011

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
Cross-posting this from the Steam thread since this would be a better place for it:

I started playing Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden a few days ago and it's downright amazing. If you love the 16-bit RPGs of yesteryear, but with an over-the-top story, you must play this.

Are there any other exceptionally good freeware games out there? It's too bad we don't have a freeware thread.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
Just got my sweet rear end mouse pad today.



It has a grainy surface for more control on one side and a smooth surface for speed on the other. Plus, it's a lot more comfortable than I thought it would be. Money well spent.

Now my new GeForce card need to get here! :pcgaming:

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Edoraz posted:

So, which girlfriend did you piss off to ding up your mouse like that?

Dunno, bro. Which one? I've lost count of 'em. :smug:

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
It's all about personal preference. I LOVE the surface on this pad as I glide my mouse on it, I like the gel cushion as it's the perfect size for my wrist (which is sensitive thanks to all of those 6-8 hour Age of Empires matches years and years ago), and I just like the overall look of it.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Positronic Spleen posted:

Speaking of mousepads, does anyone have a recommendation? All I can find around here are overpriced cloth ones that peel in under a month, so preferably something I can get online.

Also, I was going to get that G400, but then I saw the R.A.T. 7. In numerical terms it has more/better features, but I worry about reliability and if it's worth the extra cost. And I'm open to other suggestions, too, just nothing wireless.

This is the one I just got in case you missed it. I highly recommend it.

And might I remind my fellow PC gamers that a can of compressed air is your best friend. I just went to town on my PC for the first time in awhile and JAYSIS there was a lot of dust in there. Especially the CPU heatsink and PSU.

Charles Martel fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jun 25, 2011

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
I got my EVGA GTX 460 SE card in earlier and I'm very pleased. I didn't know it was a more streamlined edition with 48 fewer CUDA cores when I first ordered it, but over clocked benchmarks on it that I've read quickly put my fears to rest. Basically a standard overclock can make the card surpass the performance of a "normal" 460 GTX.

I popped it in, installed the latest drivers from EVGA (275.33), loaded up MSI Afterburner and immediately overclocked the Core/Shader clocks from the default (read: gimped) 648/1296 all the way up to 850/1700, leaving the memory clock alone since I read that messing with that brings instability and very little performance gain.

I did a few cycles of Crysis's GPU Benchmark. Got a few small artifacts here and there, yet the tempature stayed at a constant and cool 65 degrees Celsius. The fan hardly budged staying at it's auto 40%. Eventually brought it back down to 830/1660 and the artifacts are gone. I could probably go higher, but I don't want to gently caress with voltages or anything.

All in all, saved $30 by doing my first real moderate overclock on a video card that makes it even better than a regular 460 GTX.

Charles Martel fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jun 25, 2011

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

notZaar posted:

I find it kind of funny that the first thing you did was start tweaking settings and running benchmarks, instead of loading up a game.

Heh, I have plenty of time for that when I attempt to get through my enormous backlog here.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

lynch_69 posted:

I just realized right now that there are entire generations of kids who haven't grown up playing a NES or even a SNES like me and I suddenly feel old and sad :(

Nuh-uh, man. Right there with you. :hfive:

Someone in the Retro Gaming thread mentioned the Bliss-Box and I want one in the worst way.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

4 Day Weekend posted:

For psuchat; there's a pretty good summary of PSUs and their manufacturers here:

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/psu_manufacturers

Nice link. I usually swear by Corsair power supplies anymore. They're almost always in the same price ranges as other units and are whisper quiet as well as extremely efficient. They look nice, too.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
I just made a GameRanger account and, wow, 45,000 people online right now. I didn't know it was this popular. Pretty sweet.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

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.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

The Gunslinger posted:

I swear I can hear the difference!



Hahaha what kind of bullshit is this

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

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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* :smug:

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

notZaar posted:

I did it! I spent 200 bux on a Radeon 6870 to replace my GTX 275 even though the current console generation isn't going to end for at least 2 years :pcgaming:

Have fun with ATI's lovely drivers that will give you blue screens randomly in games.

GTX 460 supremacy. Latest drivers and I have the loving thing overclocked and gaming constantly. Not one blue screen.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Rakthar posted:

You are several years out of date with this opinion. As Copper vein posted out, ATI's multi monitor support is excellent, as is their PC - TV support (better than Nvidia's). I have not had a single bluescreen in a game in over a year of having a 5770.

Since the AMD acquisition their drivers seem to have gotten much more stable and reliable.

I had a 4890 for the past year and a half before I upgraded to my GTX 460. I installed new drivers a month or so ago, and sometimes while playing Counter-Strike: Source (practicing with bots offline), my PC would blue screen randomly. Could be 10 minutes in, could be 20 minutes in. Eventually, I got fed up, uninstalled the new drivers, and rolled back to the next older version. Same thing. Nothing else changed on my PC and I never overclocked that card at all. I verified CS:S's file integrity, and clean my PC on a regular basis. When I finally bit the bullet on a new card, this problem went away completely, so I don't know what else it could be.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

notZaar posted:

It was probably a bad card.

Since I could run every other game under the sun for an extended period of time before I bothered upgrading my drivers for newer games, I'd say that's highly unlikely.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Node posted:

Oh nice, we're bringing in video card fanboy wars now. Thanks, Charles Martel.

ATI cards crash no more or less on average than nvidia cards.

Yeah, I know. I forgot how personally some people take things here, and how I have to make satirical posts more obvious.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Argyle posted:

After years of console gaming, I built my first gaming PC a couple weeks ago and raided the Steam sale. Last game I played on a PC was Deus Ex in 2000.

I fired up all the games I've missed out on over the past few years. Borderlands, Mass Effect, Fallout 3. All on max settings. The finesse of moving around with WASD + mouse came back to me instantly. I played all weekend.

Then, I did something I've been wanting to do my whole life, but never had the hardware to do: I ran Half-Life 1 on max settings. :unsmith:

Never going back to consoles, barring the occasional exclusive title. My PS3 is now just a blu-ray player, my xbox just a Madden machine.

Welcome back, my friend. Welcome back.

I bought a PS3 last year thinking I would play the hell out of it, and I've put maybe a couple hours into it total. It always happens; I'll see everyone enjoying a new console, get wowed by the games, buy it, play it for a week or so, ...and go right back to my PC. Nothing can beat the versatility of it in my opinion.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

SpaceDrake posted:

I should be in bed but I absolutely need to crosspost this here from the industry thread, especially since it's a RockPaperShotgun story and thus deeply entwined with the PC:

Doctor Tim Langdell's issued a rebuttal to RockPaperShotgun concerning their earlier articles concerning his patent lawsuits and activities in the PC gaming sector.

Find time to read it. It is epic. And not in the way Langdell meant it to be.

So, is this basically about a crazy guy trying to sue everyone he can for the rights to use the word "Edge" as he pleases? I've never heard of Tim Langdell before.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Chinaman7000 posted:

The only thing I consider whe I buy hardware is the quantity of green plastic and neon lights attached. Also the box better be bitchin, with a robot and some explosions.

Bonus e-gamer cred for stupid :krad: corporate gimmicks like an X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card and Mountain Dew Game Fuel stickers all over the case.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
I still have an E8400 too with 4GB of RAM and I can still run every game just fine, even though the CPU is overclocked slightly (3.6ghz).

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
As far as building a brand-new-from-scratch desktop system goes, if you're spending over a grand on a gaming PC, you're doing it wrong (give or take about an extra $100 if you need a new monitor as well). It blows my mind how people can afford to drop $400-$600 on video cards that are going to radically depreciate in value and performance in a year's time, but whatever. My general rule of picking one video card around the $200 mark has served me well. If I can't run a gave at my monitor's native resolution with most things turned all the way up, it's going to bother me, so I guess I'm sort of a graphics fag.

The AMD discussion is interesting too as I pretty much turned a blind eye to them after upgrading my last computer, a single-core Athlon 939 system, since everyone spooged in their pants over the Core 2 Duo chips a few years ago.

I want my next PC to be a gaming laptop and from what I've seen, virtually all of the laptops I've looked at are predominately Intel/Nvidia. I figured AMD would be interested in powering gaming-capable laptops too.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages
Question: Are there any free alternatives to XPadder out there so I can play lazy PC ports with my 360 gamepad? The last free version of it (5.3) won't work on Windows 7, and Pinnacle Game Profiler looks good, but it only has a 30-day trial.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

lohli posted:

XPadder is working fine for me on windows 7, have you tried compatibility mode?

Derp, I didn't think of that. It works now, but I can't seem to find a game profile for what I'm trying to play (Psi-Ops) and trying to make one from scratch was a mess. Gonna try out PGP.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

lohli posted:

Making one from scratch is only terrible while you setup the key layout for the device you're using, otherwise it's only as awkward as I could expect any other similar program to be.

It's a mess meaning that I tried to map the PC controls in Xpadder and make a profile to make the game work as if I was playing the version on the original XBox. Only, it didn't work quite as well since some buttons did several things at once and I couldn't get it to work right.

Pinnacle, on the other hand, works quite well if I run it in administrator mode since one of the guys from the program made a profile for it himself and it works a lot better.

Now if I could just get rid of the choppy mouse aim, I'd be in business.

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

NihilCredo posted:

PC gaming is like an RPG in reverse: the later you buy an upgrade the better.

Haha, this is awesome and so true.


A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

Yeah, it's the only big name game in my "poo poo" category on Steam.

I still wish Steam would make some kind of "get rid of your lovely games for a minuscule amount of store credit" option. I don't know why and I don't know how they would make money off of it, but I just don't want Speedball 2 on my list anymore OKAY? :cry: /ocd

Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Amrosorma posted:

If you're not playing at 2560x1600, you will not be part of the Ascension :crossarms:

Good lord, I figured this resolution was the result of an Eyefinity or multi-monitor setup, but there are single Dell monitors that can achieve this? :aaa:

How many games even support that resolution, and even more importantly, how many legacy games would support that resolution without everything looking like a stretched-out blurry mess.

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Charles Martel
Mar 7, 2007

"The Hero of the Age..."

The hero of all ages

Amrosorma posted:

It's not just the resolution that sets the experience apart; the sheer size really makes gaming (or even just regular ol' computer usin) a totally different story. Dan's Data said it best: you don't even notice the display anymore.

Anyway, quick screenshot from Just Cause 2 maxed out at 2560x1600: http://i.imgur.com/wal8S.jpg

No really, fuckin' maxed out: http://i.imgur.com/t7eZ9.jpg

Frames hovered around 30-40 with dips to 22-24 :staredog:


That's quite impressive, but what would the disadvantages be to hooking your desktop/laptop to a 32"-60" LCD TV screen with an HDMI cable instead (other than the fact that most LCD TVs are only 1080p i.e. 1920x1080)? That way, you could put that money toward a really nice TV and have the best of both worlds. Do PC games and text scale well in that situation?

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