My gamer aspect wins me with cost advantages of Desktops

I’ve decided to trade my slightly used laptop for a new desktop PC because that’s where the high end hardware is. A dual core 64-bit processor will let me play games without drops in frame rate while compressing video/downloading files, but that’s only possible in a PC price for an asking price of $2000 so I am picking out this SystemMax Hellcat (assembled in the USA…. I feel so patriotic). I spend 75% using 2D applications (IE: Firefox, Opera Browser, Winamp 5, MS-Word 2003, Trillian, Irfanview), but don’t wish to compensate the GB/s on my GPU. Athlon 64 x2 4400 excels at desktop performance over 3D performance. I expect first person shooters to run high definition. My PC must run Unreal Tournament 2007 (or games using Unreal Engine 3.0 technology) The Unreal Tournament franchise is one of my favorite PC franchises cos I remember having fun playing all of them. My former friend Bob got me into it. I rediscovered first person shooters for PC two weeks ago.

I decided it was important to have a BFG Geforce 7800 GTX more than an Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT. The difference with texture bandwidth is a staggering 18 GB/sec difference. My PC will get great frame rates with the BFG Geforce 7800 GTX on modern games. Right now I am playing First Encounter Assault Recon after I bought it for $50 at Target 4 hrs ago. Target had 4 copies left. This game came out in October so I am not playing it when it was immensely popular. I am having a hard time running F.E.A.R. on my two year old PC at 1200x960. The only way F.E.A.R. runs at a decent frame rate is by setting the “ATI Display Preferences” to application preference.



Submitted Specs to dad.

Full Size Tower
450 Watt power supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400
- clock speed 2.2 GHz
- HyperTransport technology
Microsoft Windows Pro SP2
Kingston Hyper X 1 GB Memory (512 x 2)
250GB Serial ATA 7200RPM
16X DVD+R/RW-R/RW Dual Layer Drive
BFG 7800 GTX OC 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express
- 41.6 GB/s texture bandwidth
- 460 MHz
- RAMDAC Dual 400 MHz
- 920 million vertices/sec
Integrated motherboard soundchip
Integrated Gigabit Network Adapter

What I can put to good use from my other computers (X86 Clones)

Sparing 1 GB of RAM dual channel PC3200 (Dell Dimension XPS)
108 Mbit WiFi PCI (custom-assembled PC)
Extra drive: DVD/CDRW-ROM (custom-assembled PC)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 24-bit EAX Surround Sound (Dell Dimension XPS)
Inexpensive, but rock solid CA 5.1 surround flat speakers
Generic keyboard
19” Dell 75 Hz CRT computer monitor

On a further note, the X2 4400 has come down in price, but so has the X2 4800. This means I can add such luxuries as a Soundblaster Xtreme 24-bit 192 kbps soundcard and another 250 GB 7200 RPM hard drive. The question is do those advantages outbalance 200 MHz extra that an X2 4800 CPU will give me?

I already have an answer to this question. It’s smarter to go with the X2 4800 because heck, I can afford 250 GB hard drive ($100) myself and can install a fully functional Sound Blaster Audigy 2 out of my Dimension XPS. I imagine the extra HDD would show up as a “D Drive” like my USB 80 GB external HDD. I know in the real world money is a problem and I can’t throw $250 at my PC.

Here are videogames I chosen in the last 25 days excluding Mario Kart DS and Mario and Luigi 2. Spent $300 on software this month. Software is expensive, but I am a serious software collector.

I don't like Cowboy Troy's singing

Listening too: Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying

First of all there has never been a black country singer until Cowboy Troy got on K102. He hick-hops his country songs. It’s not country, it’s “hick-hop.” Who likes hick-hop? I heard in Big and Rich Ballet. Think of hip hop mixed with southern rock. No, his songs aren’t on all the time. No, he’s not as offensive as Black Sabbath’s songs. We need to keep songs like Garth Brooks – Dance, Confederate Railroad – Queen of Memphis, Alabama - Cheap Seats, Dwight Yoakam - Guitars, Cadillacs, and Brooks and Dunn – My Maria. Black people got their HipHop and Rap!

What’s your opinion? Has anyone heard his “Our America”? "Our America" combines "The Star-Spangled Banner" with a rap version of parts of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of independence, Pledge of Allegiance and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

I got a HP LiveStrong and Dual Core Turion 64 for Xmas....

I got a HP Live Strong Special Edition laptop for Xmas with an AMD Turion 64 (that's what HP operator said) for mobile clocked at 2.2 GHz in it with 2 Benjamin Franklins ($200). The Turion is suppose to have 40% more battery life than an Athlon 64 X2 which is why he bought it. It’s been a year since I seen one. It wasn’t from Santa Clause. I typed ‘msconfig’ into Run terminal and unchecked half the stuff in the taskbar (which made the computer slower than it needed to be). It only weighs 5.3 lbs with the detachable lithium ion battery and is 3 inches thick. I’ve been playing around with the Windows GUI which is very fast.




First PC game screenshot





Other specs

1. 14” 32-bit color LCD technology
2. 986 MB of SDRAM
3. 256 MB Radeon Xpress 200 XT
4. 1280x768 resolution
5. Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Mobile
6. Floppy (of course)
7. Altec Lansing speakers
8. 4 USB 2.0
9. 5.3 LBS
10. 8x/4x DL-DVD-RW
11. 100 GB HDD
12. 802.11G integrated
13. WinXP Service Pack 2
14. Microsoft Works Office Suite (deleted)
15. iTunes 4
16. Windows Media Player 10
17. Sonic DVD Burner Software

Software I added

1. Mozilla Firefox 1.5 (open source)
2. Limewire 1.9 (open source)
3. 7ZIP file manager 4.32 (open source)
4. WinRAR 3.51 (free)
5. Microsoft Office 2003 Professional
6. VideoLAN 0.84a (open source)
7. Irfanview (free)
8. CCleaner 1.2 (free)
9. Winamp 5.12 (free)
10. An updated video driver
11. Xchat 2.6.0.2 (open source IRC client)
12. Corel Paint Shop Pro X (shareware)
13. Nero 7 Ultra Edition [7.0.2.4] (shareware)

1984

1984 should not be remembered as a George Orwell book, but as a popular moderate Bible version and last Lutheran edition.



Concordia Study Bible

The NIV Study Bible is the #1 bestselling study Bible in the world's most popular modern English Bible translation---the New International Version. This best-loved NIV Study Bible features a stunning four-color interior with full-color photographs, maps, charts, and illustrations. This Concordia Study Bible has a 5 out of 5 on Goodreads while 1984 has a score of 4.1 on the same site.

Da Geforce 7800 GTX is in the specs of next PC! | playing Lunar Silver Star Story | really bored this week

I asked for an Xbox 360 for Xmas, but I could have a PC instead. If I opened an Xbox 360, that would help my financial situation (I’m planning to buy it at first chance anyways). I want Condemned: Criminal Origins (horror survival game) soon after. I asked a XFX Geforce 7800 GTX or BFG Geforce 7800 GTX (which are clocked at 450 MHz with 256 MB GDDR3) Really frickin good graphics! Better than what a Radeon 9800 XT can muster (I learned that the latest video driver from ATI improves FPS count by 10 - 20 FPS since I bought it). The tested games I did was Guild Wars (45 – 59 FPS at 1600x1200 2x anti-analyzing) & UT2004 (35 – 50 FPS at 1600x1200 2x anti-analyzing with all the GFX settings very high quality). I expect a 30 – 40 FPS increase in my games if I got a next generation Geforce 7800 GTX. PC Games don’t take advantage of the next generation Geforce 7800 GTX 512 (512 MB GDDR3 at 1.7 MHz, core clock speed: 513 MHz) therefore so expensive it’s not worth the extra doe. With Geforce 7800 GTX 512 it is completely possible to play/run Quake 4 at the highest resolution with the ultra settings with 6x anti analyzing, with Geforce 7800 GTX, you’ll experience the same game at everything a level lower at 7800 GTX with 4x anti analyzing with the same results. The difference is $150 spent on the card. Now the sweet thing about this is if your motherboard has two PCI-Expresses. Two Geforce 7800 GTXs running parallel would outperform a single Geforce 7800 GTX 512! Realistically the best video card in my parents’ budget is the $250 Geforce 7800 GT. I just hope I don’t get a Radeon X800 XT instead because that would lower my frame rate in game!

Moving right along. I’ve been playing Lunar – Silver Star Story (16-bit era Role playing game for Sega CD) on the PSX so I got as far as the Tempest Boss after Myight’s Tower on Disc 1. I didn’t die, Alex would keep attacking the enemy indefinitely with his sword (must be some kind of PS2 glitch). RESET! I might as well play Half-life 2 (the greatest PC game to some gamers) for Xbox instead. This game looks better than Phantasy Star 4 (technically used same hardware as Sega Genesis). To think I almost bought a Multi-Mega for $90 cos it is very rare was stupid thinking on my part and I am glad I forgot about it. Nobody wants it when there weren’t any killer apps for it!

The Blu-Ray forum sayz consumer Blu-Ray IDE drives are coming out November – December 2006 along with BDR (24.4 GB burnable) 25 pack spindles on the shelves of major retailers! It’d be interesting if DVD will be enough space for videogames near the end of Xbox 360 and Revolution’s lifespan! I have doubts about PS3 using 25 GB for videogames thou. PS3 does 1.8 Teraflops while Xbox 360 does 1 teraflop with CPU and GPU combined.

Tomorrow, AMC is airing “Christmas with the Duke” showing 24 of his shows back by back beginning at 5 AM for 2 days. Is anyone going to watch it? I plan on watching 5 movies including Flying Tigers, Sands of Iwo Jima, Hellfighters, True Grit, Rio Grande, The Comancheros, and Hellfighters. It's old so i might watch half-way and go play somethin'