Not-So Personal Computer
So, I’m pretty disappointed in my Laptop right now. I mean, I kind of knew that I wouldn’t be able to play many PC games on it, especially nothing new, but I didn’t expect to have problems running games that are 10 years old or so. Or, hell, even games that I could play on my crappy older desktop PC.
The problem here is that I’ve realized that I really enjoyed many games on the PC before and use to tinker around with them until 2004 or so. In 2004 I got my laptop so that I could run the magazine better and I got a few games that ran OK on it, but it just wasn’t worth the hassle of getting the games working. For example: I spent about 14 hours just getting Morrowind to run properly on my laptop. When it finally was running properly I was fairly happy with it, but I had already spent so much damn time with it on the Xbox I only played it for a couple dozen hours. I am constantly fiddling with my video drivers to make things work, and unfortunately the custom drivers that have made anything playable have stopped supporting my chipset: Omega Drivers.
So who would think that something like Quake 1 or Half-Life 1 would be an issue? These games were released in the 90’s before graphics cards even existed for the most part. I mean, sure there were some, but the games use software modeling even. So I should be able to run these games no problem, but I can’t. They constantly waver in frame rates between 30-60 FPS and then they occasionally drop down exceptionally low.
For Quake, my keyboard keys will occasionally get stuck forcing me to run off ledges. I’ve been told the reason for this, but it’s still silly. In Half-Life, my mouse will occasionally hit a fake “wall” of sorts where I have to move the mouse in frantic circles to make it break the invisible walls. Add to that the fact that when I tried to play online multiplayer games my frame rate is LUCKY to be in the 30fps region.
Argh, I need a new PC. At this point LCD monitors are pretty much the standard due to high resolutions, so that means I’ll have to also pick up a new monitor. I have no idea how I would be able to do this because I know it’s going to be about $1000 total with a monitor. I have to figure out where to get the money without selling a kidney.
Well… if you’re willing to do the get-in-line at 3am Black Friday thing, you can definitely get a halfway decent, can-install-a-new-video-card pc and 22 inch lcd for under $1000.
Otherwise, I have this advice to give - how often do you use your computer and what for? I bought a laptop over Christmas that I thought would be good enough for me, but mainly because it was a great deal and I was saving so much compared to similar spec’d other machines. Ended up that a great laptop with a crappy Intel integrated video card can’t really play anything post Quake 3 engine and is *not* a machine you want when doing game design. Also turned out that I used the laptop for multiple hours every day and it was my most valuable posession. I ended up selling that machine and getting something much better (still a great deal), even living in a much cheaper place to afford it. Its the first time I’ve bought a decent new computer, but its been totally worth it because I spend at least six or seven hours a day on it and can take my life with me to class and friends houses. Every time I fire it up I’m getting quality, and I’ve realized that that counts for something, when its something that you are in contact with constantly. So same thing for cell phones and cars, if you use them all the time.
Anyways - good luck on your PC hunt! As always, its cheaper to build your own, but its difficult to stop at midrange components when doing so, and it all adds up!
Well, I will _mainly_ be using this one for gaming. I do fully intend to get a new laptop to compensate for the huge power that this desktop will have.
See, I tried to balance my desktop and laptop needs by purchasing a laptop that seemed powerful (3.2Ghz, 80gb hdd, ATI Graphics “chip”), and I could use it in the living room so my wife wasn’t lonely while I spent hours on it working on the magazine. I figured at least I’d be able to run games released up through 2001 at really good speeds, but I was terribly wrong.
The thing is–after finding out that it doesn’t want to run most games, even stuff that’s older–I just kind of separated myself from PC gaming. The other part was that because of all the “power” the laptop weighed a lot and only had 1.5hr battery life. So it basically turned into a portable desktop because of this. It does everything I could want from it outside of gaming, but when I finally put together this PC I will need something that’s small, light, and has lots of battery life… so I’ll need a different laptop.
I talked with my father last night and he said he’d help me construct the PC (he’s pretty good at building them so I don’t have to worry about frying $300 parts), so I’m pretty sure I’m going to just jump in on this asap.
For the record, I put together a theoretical PC that could play most games (not sure on DX10 stuff) for $400 without monitor while doing this exercise last week.
What is “this exercise”?