The Brain Fart

Well, I got the new computer built back in August. I don’t have any benchmarks or anything like that, but this thing is blazing fast. It runs Battlefield 2, World War II Online: Battleground Europe, Company of Heroes, and Civ IV all without stutters or problems of any sort. Frame rates are amazing, compared to what they were before. On the old computer running a XFX 6800GT/256m on a PIV 2.53GHz CPU with 1GB of ram I would get maybe 20 – 30 FPS in Battleground Europe. Now I get anywhere from 35 to 205 FPS. Major improvement, though it’s not as stable as I would like. That has more to do with the game than my rig, though, I think. The lowest FPS is usually in highly populated battles, and usually when I’m also running Fraps or both accounts at the same time. And I can finally play Civ IV on a huge map with all 16 Civs at once. It does have a tendancy to pause for a few minutes after I click end turn after I’ve run the map for a few hours and have contacted all the other civs, but nothing like it used to be.

Now all I need to do is save up for the 30″ LCD monitor and my rig will be complete.

Posted in Computers, Hardware, Rants and Ravings | | No Comments »

In my job I talk to a lot of people who would be a lot happier if they had just read and understood their warranty. If you know ahead of time that your warranty does not cover shipping, then you avoid the heartache of calling us up and being told no when you ask us to pay for the shipping. Companies provide warranties for a reason, to protect themselves and the consumer by listing exactly what rights each party to the warranty has and what is expected of each in turn. (more…)

Posted in Computers, Rants and Ravings, Tech Support | | No Comments »

“Soon”. In game-dev speak the word “soon” means “maybe in your lifetime, but not necessarily”. In relation to my new computer that I’m building, it means “by the end of the summer”. Just in time for Intel’s quad-core prices to be cut. Yay! Too bad I’ve already purchased a CPU… (more…)

Posted in Computers, Hardware | | No Comments »

Unfortunately, finances don’t always work out the way they should. I have been dumping a lot of money into my car the last few months. Gas going to damned near $3.00 a gallon is only the start. The car has been going through a lot of oil lately, about 2 quarts every 2 weeks. I had to get my transmission fixed because the front seal was, well, not sealed. It was leaking like a sieve…kind of like my Oil pan is now. I still need to get the air conditioner fixed — it’s got a leak somewhere near the evaporator which is in a big box on the firewall that also contains the blower motor and heater core and you have to disassemble the entire passenger side of the car to get to. I’m also helping a family member cover bills while she’s down on her luck, Needless to say, the ol’ paycheck is getting stretched a bit thin lately. On the bright side, with the NVidia 8800 GS 320MB cards at around $300 and Intel dropping prices this coming week I may still be able to get the new system finished by June.

Posted in Computers, Hardware, Rants and Ravings | | No Comments »

Ok, so I actually got the case on November 30th. I’ve just been too lazy to post about it. My first impressions of this case is that it is huge. I may have a hard time fitting this under my current desk. But, as you can see from the pictures below I won’t have any problems getting inside to tinker with the components.  (more…)

Posted in Computers, Hardware | | 1 Comment »