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"$30 game cost me $800"

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zaphod (244 posts) Click to EMail zaphod Click to send private message to zaphod Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Mar-19-06, 09:03 PM (Pacific)
"$30 game cost me $800"
I'm not much into 1st person shooter games, but my ATI graphics card took a dump so I bought a BFG Nvidia GDDR3 card and thought what the hell!--I'll buy a newer game

Bought Halflife 2. I had --according to the specifications-- plenty of system for the game...512 mb RDram 2.6 ghz processor, 256 mb overclocked video card(newcard--old one was 128)---etc....

Installed new card and new game only to be frustrated with the glitchiness of certain "high-demand" scenes---the game would hang up for split seconds--and be kindof "jerkey"---

I ran dxdiag and noticed my SBLive card did not support hardware acceleration--so I bought a new sound card and of course a set of 7.1 speakers to replace my 4.1 speakers. While I was asking the salesman at Frys some Bios and hardware questions, an Uber-IT-Geek piped in with his helpful and enlightening advise---YOU NEED MORE RAM!---game specs blatantly low-ball what is needed---the pci busses can't dump the memory fast enough-----

That's when I discovered what RDRam ment---hard to find and $$$!
Oh, it's a more reliable and faster ram--but intel abandoned the technology because it was too costly to compete with the AMDs.

Found my pc1066 non-ecc ram at memory giant(Great service and delivery time---I reccomend them)---just under $500 for two 512s--while I was at it I also upgraded my wife's laptop to a gig of DDR1 ram for $50 and also my son's ddr2 ram to a gig for $80...

I digress----
now I have 1.536 gig of ram running at 533mgz per channel on 48 channels(RAMBUS) A 256 mb GDDR3 overclocked nvidia graphics card and the creative audiology 2zs gamer sound card----the supid game still froze on occasion

I should also note that these freezes only occured in the highest resolution and the highest graphics setting---but WTF---I had more than enough to handle the game.

I spent a good week and a half dicking around with uninstalling/re-installing drivers...playing with the registry---getting blue screen boot ups restoring system restore points etc

I got to the point where I decided to do what I should have done from the beginning--I reinstalled my O/S and voila----runs smooth as silk---no pauses, no glitches whatsoever

Too bad it cost me over $800 and 2 weeks time to finally get it right---on the bright side--I learned alot more about computers' hardware and software than I ever intended

Just one question?--Does this make me a "Gamer"---cause I'm not a "gamer"---I swear

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Blaupanzer (119 posts) Click to EMail Blaupanzer Click to send private message to Blaupanzer Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Mar-20-06, 12:56 PM (Pacific)
1. "RE: $30 game cost me $800"
Let's see, spent $800 to get a $30 game to run smoothly. Upgraded wife and child machine "while at it." Walks like a gamer. Writes in about it. Talks like a gamer. Must be a GAMER! It's okay, you are among friends.
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myrddin (202 posts) Click to EMail myrddin Click to send private message to myrddin Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Jul-27-06, 04:36 PM (Pacific)
2. "RE: $30 game cost me $800"
You might have been able to avoid a lot of that actually by just running a defrag on your HD.

Its amazing what can happen when you do that.. it really is. Solves lots of problems on users desktops at work.

And if you can afford it I recommend getting a REAL defrag program, like Diskkeeper lite (the built-in windows defrag is actually based on this product and MS pays licensing fees to the company that makes it - which is why it sux - they want you to buy the real thing).

p.s. Windows is the only operating system I know of where even with a clean install on a blank HD - the disk still needs to be defragged.

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