28 replies to this topic

[Vulpesveritas]

As we're all here, I figure I'd ask what you think is acceptable for a gaming computer. To each their own I say, but some people might have different opinions. So that's open for people to discuss.


And personally, while I like graphics, I've found I can learn almost any control scheme, and graphics aren't too important, though when I see something near photorealistic like Crysis 2 or Battlefield 3, I must say my jaw drops a bit first looking at it. But personally, I like being that guy around the corner listening to hear the footsteps coming, I enjoy the chorus of gunfire and the sounds of each rifle and rocket. That's just me.

What about everyone else?

[Cargo]

You just had to ask something that actually has many good answers.

First question:

Well I'm middle of the road somewhere. If I had the money, I would buy the best of everything and upgrade whenever a new tech was fully proven. But since I'm always on a budget, I upgrade only when I can afford to and I'm running a couple of gens back on most of my hardware right now.

Second question:

Why didn't you have an all the above choice? **smiles**

Everything is important for serious suspension of disbelief. But if nothing else, a solid control scheme can make even the most complex simulation fun and interesting.


Cargo

[SilentWolff]

When referring to money, spend it if ya got it!

Sensory options, well, I would almost always choose graphics first. But because we are talking about MWO, I have to give the nod to controls. Gotta have great controls for a MW game and I want to be able to control everything. If the game is utter frustration trying to move your mech around, control your weapons, or now, add the info warfare options, then who's gonna want to play? These options need to be intuitive. So yes, controls by a wide margin imo.

[Bernardo Sinibaldi]

I'm with SilentWolff on this, despite his words elsewhere on the Urbanmech...

On a game like this I'd want to see depth of control / experience more than eye-candy. If I wanted eye-candy there's a whole range of games I could play.

[Adridos]

You should have added more choices for the needed qualities. It has to have good gameplay.

[SilentWolff]

Bernardo Sinibaldi, on 08 January 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

I'm with SilentWolff on this, despite his words elsewhere on the Urbanmech...

lol

[Kaemon]

I choose to spend other people's money.

and I game like this


/flailing

[Egomane]

I'm somewhere in between. My system cost me a total of somewhere around 1000 € nearly two years ago and today I can still play everything out there on ultra settings at 1920x1200 resolution. And I'm pretty sure it will be enough for MW:O. I will probably not upgrade my system for the next two years as can live with a little less eyecandy if need be.

Controls are important to me, but as no game in the last four years needed a serious joystick I currently have none. What type of joystick I will buy when MW:O comes out depends on my budget and the hardware available at that time. Maybe it will be a thrustmaster HoTaS system or maybe some cheap stick that will stay with me only for as long as I need to afford me something better, maybe something in between. Only the future will tell.

Edited by Egomane, 08 January 2012 - 01:05 PM.

[Orzorn]

About 1000 dollars is just fine. You can build a computer that can play just about any game on the market for that much, but you have to find some deals here and there to get all the parts you might want.

Controls are THE most important part of any game. Why? You can't PLAY THE GAME without good controls!

[Dragon Lady]

When building a new computer, I tend to think "upgradability," as opposed to power, but either way I usually plan to spend money in the $1500-$2000 range... eventually. I usually do things piecemeal: a high-end Motherboard, but mid-range processor, memory, hard-drive, and OS are first, while importing the graphics and sound cards from my old rig. Then the graphic and sound cards. Depending upon monitor costs, I may get a larger one. By going with the high-end motherboard, I can endure a second round of upgrading the same way.

[T0RC4ED]

Ok, first, im a computer tech/modder/overclocker so my rig is generally in the 5k range. Also do CAD and other stuff wile gaming so I can actually use a good portion of the power I have. Now that thats out of the way, A game's handeling is by far the most important thing to me. Fluid motions, no studdering and absolutely no hesitation. The best example of this I would say is the Witcher 2, great story, breath taking visuals but the game handles like a 12 year old made it. Movement and combat controls were slugish and often ignored commands all together and that was the game breaker for me. Being able to see something in high def and hear something in 7.1 or better surround sound with enviornmental effests and the whole ball of wax does no good if you cant do anything about it because your toon or in our case mech is stuck on a rock that you told it to walk around or aim assist is jacked up trying to target something thats not even a threat at the moment.

PS. Ive built everything from frankenstein bargin bin machines that had box fans blowing on the components too high end exotic rigs. Tweaks are more important then dollars spent.

Edited by T0RC4ED, 08 January 2012 - 01:53 PM.

[T0RC4ED]

Egomane, on 08 January 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

Controls are important to me, but as no game in the last four years needed a serious joystick I currently have none. What type of joystick I will buy when MW:O comes out depends on my budget and the hardware available at that time. Maybe it will be a thrustmaster HoTaS system or maybe some cheap stick that will stay with me only for as long as I need to afford me something better, maybe something in between. Only the future will tell.

Hey Egomane,
If you decide to go hardcore stick jockey mode I would suggest you look into the X-65F Force sensing stick.... I read an amazing review on it during my travels.

[Egomane]

Well, Saitek is the last thing I will buy. while their sticks my be good for most, for me they just feel wobbly. I need a stick that will resist a lot of force and give a lot of resistance, without force feedback, at the same time. Every Saitek stick I had in my hands failed on the last part. So I will choose carefully and take my time. I will try to get my hands on a X-65F to see how it handles itself, because I do like the dual throttle. But if it behaves like its brothers and sisters I will look for something else.

[Tifalia]

I like to feel I am 'in the game' whenever I play something, that is, the sensation of being there in person and experiencing everything, but I am not the type of person who throws around vast sums of money on a new computer just to play a computer game. $1,000 is more than enough for me.

As for your second question, I suppose that can also be answered with what I said above, about wanting to 'be in the game' so quality graphics are important to me, but not a must. I prefer sound over all. There is nothing like hearing the cackling of autocannon shells fill your ears or the sound of mortars landing among your infantry division as they let out a blood curdling scream in their death throes... or even the sudden curses of your lancemates as they are jumped from an enemy ambush and have no choice but to punch out of their 'mechs whilst yelling "Stravag! Ejecting! Ejec--!!!" before static falls over the comms.

[Raeven]

You can spend less than a grand as long as you recycle the interface components (mouse, keyboard, box, monitor) and still get High to Ultra High settings.

[ArchSight]

I orginally spent about 1,000$ to get a new computer tower with a video card and powersupply to run the game crysis. Just hooked up my two old speakers and old monitor with the new computer. Later down the road of 4 years of gaming I upgraded the RAM 4gbytes (actoully 3.3gb with 32bit OS), my powersupply's fan broke and my video card got ruined. I've upgraded my video card and just added a new fan to my pc to cool off the powersupply. Before it handle crysis on med setting's but now it can handle higher settings and for certain it can handle the new cryengine because I know that engine is less of a resource hog as the prevouse cryengine's on crysis and played the crysis 2 demo.

Computer system specs: OS Vista 32bit, intel 2.0 duo prossessors, RAM 4gb, Cooler master 650w powersupply, Video card Nvidia geforce pny GTS 450 1024mb GDDR5 DirectX 11, a split fan wire to power the rear fan and new fan to cool off the powersupply, Monitor highest resolution 1152x864 pixels.

Edited by ArchSight, 08 January 2012 - 03:26 PM.

[Durant Carlyle]

My computer is about three weeks away from being a year old (Intel 2500K @ 4.2GHz, 12GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 570 1280MB, 96GB SSD, 1TB data HD, 23" LCD). Normally I upgrade every year around this time, but this year I'm choosing to spend most of my income tax refund on a trip to Iceland at the end of March for EVE Online's Fanfest. This machine will easily last me another year of gaming at 1920x1080 resolution using the highest graphics settings.

[Volume]

I built my computer and I'm not sure how much money I've put in it in total, but I've never spent more than $150 at once, and when I did, it was for a board/chip/ram combo. I tend to use what I have lying around but upgrade when a good deal comes along, and I think I put together a gaming capable machine for ~$500 total. I have a cheap but effective and relatively spacious case that was on sale + free shipping, a nice modular power supply I've been using for years now which a friend of mine who works at Best Buy purchased for me with a large discount, my main storage HDD was a Christmas gift from two years ago (1TB) and I just recently upgraded to a 6850HD from a 9800GT. I'd say I might have had ~600 or 700 worth of parts total in my build but I've only paid 300 or 400 for them, and most of that was just the Graphics card and the quad core chip. Most anything runs "fine" at 1680x1050, various levels of AA and AF involved, and some games I end up putting on lower graphics settings for it to be optimal to play, like SC2 (guaranteed no framerate drops even with 200+ units on the screen) or Quake Live (I don't r_picmip, but I do forceenemymodel=tankjr and cl_rocketsmoke 0, etc.)

Anyway, point is, you can be a serious gamer on a budget, even though my family/friends got me some equipment, everything goes on sale, and GPUs will be even cheaper once the 7000 series comes out. newegg shell shockers and tigerdirect deals of the day are pretty sweet. Recently built a friend a 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM, 1TB HDD, decent case/psu, quad core phenom II running at 2.8 stock, 95W, some AM3+ board (for upgrading later if bulldozer gets better or something), dvd burner, etc all for $299 after rebates. With shipping + video card + rebates it came to roughly $380. This machine will run 95% of games on playable settings in a HD resolution. Maybe not 2560x1600 but easily 720p and maybe 1080p, and definitely the classic 4:3 resolutions that we all know and love (oh wait, that's just me ). So you can find the deal, if you stick with it, the deal that will make you feel good for years to come, or you can just blow a ton of money on items that you don't really need for most gaming. MWO will be CryEngine3 so it actually COULD use your 8 cores, but most other games are plenty happy with 4 (and some things like LoL and WoT are still single-threaded apps, lmao)

TL;DR:

- I can put together a machine that will run things on high for ~500, and I have something that runs some things on ultra worth maybe ~700 when the parts were bought, but I only paid ~400 total. I play Serious Sam 3 at like ~60-70FPS at 1680x1050 on High and that's good enough for me.

Edited by Volume, 08 January 2012 - 03:45 PM.

[Stahlseele]

Voted 2000+ and audiophile.
Not because i AM an audiophile but because too much eye-candy usually means too much distractions for me to like.
And i DO play with head-phones from time to time to listen for movement/shots in the distance to locate action/enemy.
Also, the Computer i am sitting on right now?
2 or 3 years back i spent 2500€(3180,75U$) on this rig. And this does NOT include 300€ Audio and 600€ for Screens and another 200€ for Periphery like mouse and keyboard. Oh, right, forgot the 600€ new GraphicsCard last summer too . .

Also, June 15th 2011 i spent 2200€(2800U$) on a new Gaming LAPTOP.

And if i decide AGAINST getting myself a Beamer and silver screen setup, i will upgrade this here computer for another 1000 to 1500€ i think.

Right NOW, i have in Arms Reach Computer Tech worth more than 10.000€ Plus TV-Set and Networking Infrastructure.

[Vulpesveritas]

Well quick tidbit of those of you who are looking for a new rig and have the money:

: CryENGINE 3 run- Crysis 2: Maximum settings at 2560x1600 pixels:
http://techreport.co...cles.x/22192/12
= 1080p at ~ twice as many frames per second.
Radeon HD 7970 now launched.