Recommend me a gaming desktop
- Thread starter evildmguy
- Start date
evildmguy
Explorer
It arrived!
But all I have been able to do is pull it out of the box (more later - this was interesting), install Batman and play a bit.
The packaging for it was very interesting. I think it was half of the shipping weight! They have a box inside a box and the computer inside that box. So, it's well protected for shipping!
It has a slick look to it. I did open it up and while I saw and recognized most things, I am mainly grateful it will be easy to put my 300G sata drive into it with little hassle. They had a total of four bays for hard drives with only one used.
It also has space for up to two more DVD-ROM devices. I am tempted to move one of my old ones from the old computer to here, as I only got one drive. But, I haven't decided what I am going to do with the old system yet.
I loaded up Batman but it didn't work. However, once I downloaded the patch (and that seemed fast but it could be a nice connection more than the computer as my router hardware didn't change) it ran but then I needed the latest nVidia drivers on it. That's okay. It was also a quick download and then I was running Batman.
Batman looks awesome! I did have one stutter, which surprised me, but otherwise it is playing well. I have to do graphic settings outside of the game, so haven't seen what it is running at but it's very smooth. I finished about half the stuff I had done on the other machine before I had to quit. Lots of fun! Very smooth and it looks great!
More updates as I try other games!
btw, is DirectX 10 still the latest? Is it a subset of DX9? I figured Batman would use DX10 but the files it updated were all with a 9. Of course, since .NET 3.5 is a subset of .NET 2.0, I wondered if that's what 10 is as well.
Thanks!
edg
But all I have been able to do is pull it out of the box (more later - this was interesting), install Batman and play a bit.
The packaging for it was very interesting. I think it was half of the shipping weight! They have a box inside a box and the computer inside that box. So, it's well protected for shipping!
It has a slick look to it. I did open it up and while I saw and recognized most things, I am mainly grateful it will be easy to put my 300G sata drive into it with little hassle. They had a total of four bays for hard drives with only one used.
It also has space for up to two more DVD-ROM devices. I am tempted to move one of my old ones from the old computer to here, as I only got one drive. But, I haven't decided what I am going to do with the old system yet.
I loaded up Batman but it didn't work. However, once I downloaded the patch (and that seemed fast but it could be a nice connection more than the computer as my router hardware didn't change) it ran but then I needed the latest nVidia drivers on it. That's okay. It was also a quick download and then I was running Batman.
Batman looks awesome! I did have one stutter, which surprised me, but otherwise it is playing well. I have to do graphic settings outside of the game, so haven't seen what it is running at but it's very smooth. I finished about half the stuff I had done on the other machine before I had to quit. Lots of fun! Very smooth and it looks great!
More updates as I try other games!
btw, is DirectX 10 still the latest? Is it a subset of DX9? I figured Batman would use DX10 but the files it updated were all with a 9. Of course, since .NET 3.5 is a subset of .NET 2.0, I wondered if that's what 10 is as well.
Thanks!
edg
If it's an IDE drive, I definitely wouldn't bother. I haven't seen any situations where I needed multiple disks in at a time in years.
The stutter could just have been the result of a limitation in the game engine and nothing to do with your hardware.
Direct X 11 is actually the "latest" version, but basically no games support it yet and neither does most of the graphics hardware, including your card. IIRC, only the very newest ATI cards support DX11. Not likely to be any sort of issue before you'd be upgrading your video card anyway.
Glad to hear you are pleased with your system.
Last edited:
evildmguy
Explorer
No, it's a sata drive. I do have an old 200G IDE that it is in the old system but won't be moving that forward. I am only doing it so I can move my data easily to the new system.
Ah. Good point. Thanks!
Um . . . So, is DX10 a subset of 9? Or should the files have said 10?
Not worried about 11 but I think the upgrade from 9 to 10 was a big deal?
In any case, the system is great and I am enjoying it so far!
Thanks!
edg
Just because there is a newer version of DX, does not mean that a game will use it. There are lots of cards that don't support even DX10 out there, never mind DX11. So Batman is probably just using DX9. It generally takes a couple of years for a new version of DX to become widely supported, as hardware tends to lag the software updates.
Typically how it works with standards like DX is that subsequent versions are "supersets" of older versions. Meaning that they contain the previous features/APIs and then extend or add to those. So that if you have a DX9 game it will work with a system that has DX10/11.
AFAIK neither DX10 or DX11 has any thing that is going to rock your world vs DX9. It's really only the programmers that your DX version matters to, since it affects how easy it is to take advantage of features and how much "custom" coding work they might have to do, in order to implement certain effects/performance.
John Crichton
First Post
Merkuri
Explorer
When I played a lot of video games I found it's useful to have more than one drive. I would keep the disk for my current game addiction in one drive and use the other drive for whatever (possibly another game). That way I never had to go looking for the game disk after I had done something else with the drive.
Even if it's a slow drive it won't slow down the game, since most games only check for the disk once at the beginning. All the files required for the game are usually installed to your PC, and it only checks for the disk to help ensure you haven't installed the game and then sold the CD.
Other than that, no, there's not a lot of use for multiple disk drives.
evildmguy
Explorer
Well, it's now been about three weeks and I am enjoying it. Wife and other things stop me from playing as much as I would like but that's okay.
I finished up Batman and really enjoyed it! So much so that I am almost ready to start it again to see if I can find everything. However, that did get tedious in the end. But, I think I will move onto other games, such as Dragon Age.
I did install a benchmark program and got a good fps rate on most of the items. I also ran a benchmark program in batman and got 50 fps average in there. When I run Crysis, though, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in my frame rate. I was hoping for in the 30s but am only in the 20s. It's still beautiful and much better than my 8500 card on my PIV system! For some reason, I was hoping it would be higher. I am still playing with the settings in Crysis to see what I can get it to do.
If there is any complaint it's that several games needing patches before they would run. Batman wouldn't run on Windows 7 until it was patched and Grand Theft Auto IV ran MUCH better after it was patched. (Some very obvious video glitches and stutters were gone after GTAIV was patched.) However, it's easy to find the patches, so it's a minor complaint at best.
I am still enjoying the heck out of it!
Happy Holidays!
edg
I finished up Batman and really enjoyed it! So much so that I am almost ready to start it again to see if I can find everything. However, that did get tedious in the end. But, I think I will move onto other games, such as Dragon Age.
I did install a benchmark program and got a good fps rate on most of the items. I also ran a benchmark program in batman and got 50 fps average in there. When I run Crysis, though, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in my frame rate. I was hoping for in the 30s but am only in the 20s. It's still beautiful and much better than my 8500 card on my PIV system! For some reason, I was hoping it would be higher. I am still playing with the settings in Crysis to see what I can get it to do.
If there is any complaint it's that several games needing patches before they would run. Batman wouldn't run on Windows 7 until it was patched and Grand Theft Auto IV ran MUCH better after it was patched. (Some very obvious video glitches and stutters were gone after GTAIV was patched.) However, it's easy to find the patches, so it's a minor complaint at best.
I am still enjoying the heck out of it!
Happy Holidays!
edg
Aus_Snow
First Post
I am. . . not surprised.
But don't worry - it's not your system that's 'at fault' there, it's the game itself. Some say it is very poorly coded, others that it's simply extremely demanding. Either way. . .
Also, did I see that it's an SLI setup? Well, if so, scaling isn't *consistently* what one might expect, or wish for, perhaps. 2 cards are usually better than 1 (whether in SLI or Crossfire), but not always much better, and sometimes barely if at all. However, if you have the latest driver for the cards, you'll - most of the time, anyway - be better off, in terms of perfomance in recent games, and occasionally with SLI or Crossfire in particular.
Nothing to be concerned about, all said and done.
Plenty of PC gamers do use a two (or more!) card setup, and get pretty good results from it, overall.
evildmguy
Explorer
I am. . . not surprised.
But don't worry - it's not your system that's 'at fault' there, it's the game itself. Some say it is very poorly coded, others that it's simply extremely demanding. Either way. . .
Also, did I see that it's an SLI setup? Well, if so, scaling isn't *consistently* what one might expect, or wish for, perhaps. 2 cards are usually better than 1 (whether in SLI or Crossfire), but not always much better, and sometimes barely if at all. However, if you have the latest driver for the cards, you'll - most of the time, anyway - be better off, in terms of perfomance in recent games, and occasionally with SLI or Crossfire in particular.
Nothing to be concerned about, all said and done.
Thanks for the reply!
Interesting about Crysis! Thanks! I did wonder why it was still pushing my system so much and that helps. I still realize it's playing a lot better than on my old system and am still happy with the new one!
Yes, they are SLI linked. I probably bought into the charts on Dell/Alienware's site that shows that dual cards are better than one but that at a certain point the single, newer card is better than older, dual cards. I think I wanted this so that I have a motherboard ready for dual cards to be able to upgrade in the future. I wasn't sure if every motherboard came with the option to have dual graphic cards otherwise.
Thanks for the information! I appreciate it!
edg
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