The Ultimate Gaming Thread

[jung_adore_ALIZEE]

yes on the monitor but if you just got yours it is a slight step up if I recall

and I can run on full settings with a slight amount of lag on certain parts of certain maps and it takes a little longer than I would like to load other than that it runs it perfectly fine

I've only had problems with "Turning Point" as far as any games go and I don't know why that lags for some reason

[banshee]

Originally Posted by Ali

***My New Gaming Rig***

Here is the specs. of my new gaming rig that I built myself recently:

AMD X2 6000+ 3.0 GHZ 2 MB L2 Cache
SAPPHIRE 100259L Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 SDRAM
ASRock A780GXE/128M AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G ATX Crossfire/SLI Motherboard
Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Hard Drive
RAIDMAX SMILODON Black 1.0mm SECC Steel ATX Computer Case
PC Power & Cooling 610W Power Supply
Windows Vista Ultimate
Samsung HD Widescreen Monitor with 2ms Response time.



So, what are the specs of your guys gaming rig/computer (including the size of monitor/LCD)? Betcha can't top mines.

The custom-modded version of the Sapphire HD 4870? Ali you sick mofo!

[Tomtentp]

Originally Posted by Ali

***My New Gaming Rig***

Here is the specs. of my new gaming rig that I built myself recently:

AMD X2 6000+ 3.0 GHZ 2 MB L2 Cache
SAPPHIRE 100259L Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 SDRAM
ASRock A780GXE/128M AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G ATX Crossfire/SLI Motherboard
Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Hard Drive
RAIDMAX SMILODON Black 1.0mm SECC Steel ATX Computer Case
PC Power & Cooling 610W Power Supply
Windows Vista Ultimate
Samsung HD Widescreen Monitor with 2ms Response time.


So, what are the specs of your guys gaming rig/computer (including the size of monitor/LCD)? Betcha can't top mines.

Hey nice specs there mate!

And no I really can't top yours, but I'm actually just about to upgrade, mine is 2 years old and you know what that means

So I bought a GFX card just as yours a week ago in hopes it would improve my current rig ( since the GFX being the biggest bottleneck and all) but it didn't really work out the way I had hoped. Now I'm trying to catch up with the newest mumbo-jumbo lingo in order to buy something price efficient. I'm guessing you guys are more technical aware than I am at this point so I'm gonna fire away some questions.

I'm thinking of a DDR 3 + eSata mobo for the future assurance, not sure if it's worth it thou. Do you guys have any idea on the performance difference between, Let's say DDR 2 9600(1200hz) and DDR 3 1600hz?
And for the hz, do I need a mobo with a bus of equally or higher hz to be able to fully use the memory or is this another kind of hz?
And the timings of the memory, do they really make that big of a difference? Because I'm hopeless with timings

Since I got myself an Radeon GFX card I thinking of getting an AMD cpu/mobo, I have always bought Intel stuff so I'm completely lost here. What's the equivalent to a decent dual core Intel?

I'm gonna be studing some spec lore on the computer forums in the next couple of days and then try to make up my mind.
It's a damn jungle out there

Originally Posted by banshee

The custom-modded version of the Sapphire HD 4870? Ali you sick mofo!

Is it costom-modded? You mean the extra clockage and the silenced cooling?
I got this GFX card since a week back, it was really cheap for being a HD 4870.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5

Is it the same one?
I wonder if it works great in crossfire, it wasn't that expensive

[Youpidou1]

Pre Ordered and paid for already in full.
Any takers?
Nobody in the world hates Tom Clancy lol.
AND GO GO GO FUTURE RAPTOR ACE.

[Dark Engine]

Originally Posted by Ali

I used to have old DOS games from the 90's but I gave that computer away a while back but I still have some older DOS games like Duke Nukem II, Cybermage and old shareware games like Rise of the Triad, Hocus Pocus, Raptor, Wacky Wheels, Blake Stone. But these are all the games I could remember that I have off the top of my head, I am pretty sure I am missing some.

Wow those games really take me back. I miss the golden age of PC gaming. Some of my favs were the old Looking Glass Studios games like Ultima Underworld 1 & 2, system shock, and thief (hence the name "Dark Engine"). You can find a lot of those old DOS games for free on old abondonware websites. You just have to download a dos emulator and a special program so the audio works. I was playing some of the awhile back. Hmm...I think I need to find my old copy of one must fall 2097.

[Ali]

Originally Posted by banshee

The custom-modded version of the Sapphire HD 4870? Ali you sick mofo!

He he. Yeah it's the custom modded version of the Sapphire HD 4870. It doesn't use the reference cooler that came out with the original HD 4870 but uses a custom cooler that barely makes GPU temperature go above 60C. But this thing is a beast:



It has 1.2 Teraflops of power. That's more than the combined power of the PS3 + Xbox 360 + all the consoles ever made in the history of the world! It has 965 milion transistors and uses 55nm for the GPU which means I could overclock it well. Plus it uses GDDR5 memory. No other graphics card on the market uses GDDR5 except the HD 4870 series. With GDDR5 I could overclock the memory to like 4 GHZ+! This is a stunning piece of engineering! Possibly the best ATI card ATI/AMD ever made. What's more I only paid $200.0 for this card. If nVidia had their way they would have charged a ransom to get this much power at this price. I was always using nVidia but this is my first ATI card and I love it!

Originally Posted by Tomtentp

I'm thinking of a DDR 3 + eSata mobo for the future assurance, not sure if it's worth it thou. Do you guys have any idea on the performance difference between, Let's say DDR 2 9600(1200hz) and DDR 3 1600hz?
And for the hz, do I need a mobo with a bus of equally or higher hz to be able to fully use the memory or is this another kind of hz?
And the timings of the memory, do they really make that big of a difference? Because I'm hopeless with timings

You need a motherboard that supports DDR3 to get DDR3. Intel has been supporting DDR3 since last year after the debut of their Nehalem processors but they are significantly expensive. AMD recently started releasing chipsets with DDR3 support. Frankly I don't think the the minimal increase in performance does not justify getting a much more expensive chipset/MB that supports DDR3. But if you have the cash go for it. And you typically need a motherboard that supports your bus for your memory just look if your motherboard supports your RAM, for example, DDR2 800 RAM has to support DDR2 800 MB. As for the timings, don't pay much attention to those the performance you will get with the best timings is little or nothing.

Originally Posted by Tomtentp

Since I got myself an Radeon GFX card I thinking of getting an AMD cpu/mobo, I have always bought Intel stuff so I'm completely lost here. What's the equivalent to a decent dual core Intel?

I would go for a Intel E8400.

Originally Posted by Tomtentp

Is it costom-modded? You mean the extra clockage and the silenced cooling?
I got this GFX card since a week back, it was really cheap for being a HD 4870.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5

Is it the same one?
I wonder if it works great in crossfire, it wasn't that expensive

Yes, I think it may be the same one (is it similar to the pic. I posted), mines have the silenced cooling and it is much cooler than the reference ones. The website you posted doesn't give the picture or the part#. Anyways, sorry couldn't reply to you earlier I have been busy (and lazy) for the past month and a half and have not been coming here. Whatever you did get, rest assured, you will get an awesome amount of power at a great price.

Originally Posted by Dark Engine

Wow those games really take me back. I miss the golden age of PC gaming. Some of my favs were the old Looking Glass Studios games like Ultima Underworld 1 & 2, system shock, and thief (hence the name "Dark Engine"). You can find a lot of those old DOS games for free on old abondonware websites. You just have to download a dos emulator and a special program so the audio works. I was playing some of the awhile back. Hmm...I think I need to find my old copy of one must fall 2097.

Looking Glass Studios made awesome games. Too bad they folded. And Thief was without one of the best games from 1998. Great to see the reference "Dark Engine" And yes you could use DOS emulators (like DOS box) to play those great games. Too bad I no longer have my copy of One Must Fall 2097 it was on my old Pentium computer that I gave away years ago. Ahh the memories......

[Ali]

The sequel to one of my all time favorite games from my childhood may never come out now because the company that was making it 3D Realms closed it's door. I don't know how many of you know this game but it's Duke Nukem 3D, one of the best games on the PC from the 90's. Duke was a total American badass. I loved the things he used to say in the game like, "It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum and I am all out of bubble gum." "And hail to the king baby." And who could forget the strippers. The company had been working on the game for twelve long years and yes thats a twelve with 12!

I am gonna miss Duke.

[The Gate Keeper]

^
I could of told you Duke Nukem Forever was never going to come out awhile ago
But it is kinda sad it might not come out through but I ready somewhere it could just be a hoax to generate publicity of the game.


My gaming rig broke although it was a store bought Dell from 2 years ago it could still play some of my favorite games like TES: Oblivion

And the shelf my 360 was on collapsed and dented my 360 it was still working but the game that was inside (Fallout 3) was obliterated.

[Ali]

Originally Posted by The Gate Keeper

^
I could of told you Duke Nukem Forever was never going to come out awhile ago
But it is kinda sad it might not come out through but I ready somewhere it could just be a hoax to generate publicity of the game.

I am afraid not. Take Two sued 3D Realms for not finishing the game especially since they paid $12 million dollars to have the rights to publish the game. I don't blame them, how can you take freaking 12 f***ing years to make a computer game. Apparently they restarted like from scratch around 2002/2003 but that is still 6-7 years ago. You should still be done. I hope the game eventually comes out though in whatever form.

The game looked pretty good from the screenshots.

***Warning*** Pics may contain partial nudity.
http://www.shacknews.com/screenshots...4886#img134787

http://www.shacknews.com/screenshots...4886#img126410

http://www.shacknews.com/screenshots..._id=#img134716

^^ It wouldn't be Duke Game without Duke and his girls.

And here is in game video of someone playing the PC version of Duke Nukem, looked pretty good to me.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59118

[Ali]

Here is some in game video of Modern Warfare 2.

<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ZUmTdeaoiQ&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ZUmTdeaoiQ&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

^^ Hopefully they won't "dumb down" the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 like they do for the consoles because the consoles can't handle the advanced graphics that PC's can handle. The graphics chips in the consoles are like 3-4 years old, that's like ancient in the PC world. My graphics card alone on my Gaming rig, the HD 4870 512MB GDDR5, has 1.3 terflops of power, thats more that the combined power of the PS3, Xbox 360 + all the consoles ever made, according to AMD. Plus the controllers are much faster and better on the PC because of the keyboard and mouse. I am getting tired of getting games on the PC that are dumbed down graphically and control wise like F.E.A.R. 2 because of the graphical and control restrictions on the console. But Infinity Ward has been good at making the PC version superior than consoles graphically and control wise. Call of Duty 5, even though it was developed by different studio, I read in an interview from one of the developers that they took advantage of the advanced graphics on the PC to make the PC version of Call of Duty 5 better. We shall see.