Re: Computer Help/Discussion Thread

[Elabajaba]

i got a windows dos game i want to play on windows 7 whats everyone suggest on a way to install/play it? dosbox or what?

Dosbox is probably your best bet. If you google around, you might be able to find a guide specifically for that game.

So i'm off to college next year, and looking for a good gaming laptop.  On top of that, my friend highly recommended getting a Solid-State Drive (SSD), which has much lower loading times and a myriad of other advantages.

So i'm currently looking at this computer, which has an 128 GB SSD and 1 TB HDD on top of a lot of other things.  I was wondering if you guys could offer any suggestions on whether this is a good buy?

That's a pretty good buy, but I think SSDs are a bit overhyped. You'll get faster load times in the few games you install onto it and Windows will start faster, but managing hard drive space and what to prioritize to put on your SSD is a bit annoying. In terms of gaming, you'll see the biggest difference in getting a better GPU, so something like this, this, or this. (Differences in order: +better gpu, +cheaper, -no bluray, -no ssd; +better gpu, +better cpu, +more ram (8 vs 12GB doesn't really matter for gaming at this point though), -smaller harddrive, -no ssd; +better gpu, +better cpu, +-smaller screen, -smaller hard drive, -no bluray, -no ssd). Shop around and you might find even better deals.

[TNine]

[b style="font-size: 1em; font-weight: 700;"]Elabajaba[/b]

i got a windows dos game i want to play on windows 7 whats everyone suggest on a way to install/play it? dosbox or what?

Dosbox is probably your best bet. If you google around, you might be able to find a guide specifically for that game.

So i'm off to college next year, and looking for a good gaming laptop.  On top of that, my friend highly recommended getting a Solid-State Drive (SSD), which has much lower loading times and a myriad of other advantages.

So i'm currently looking at this computer, which has an 128 GB SSD and 1 TB HDD on top of a lot of other things.  I was wondering if you guys could offer any suggestions on whether this is a good buy?

That's a pretty good buy, but I think SSDs are a bit overhyped. You'll get faster load times in the few games you install onto it and Windows will start faster, but managing hard drive space and what to prioritize to put on your SSD is a bit annoying. In terms of gaming, you'll see the biggest difference in getting a better GPU, so something like this, this, or this. (Differences in order: +better gpu, +cheaper, -no bluray, -no ssd; +better gpu, +better cpu, +more ram (8 vs 12GB doesn't really matter for gaming at this point though), -smaller harddrive, -no ssd; +better gpu, +better cpu, +-smaller screen, -smaller hard drive, -no bluray, -no ssd). Shop around and you might find even better deals.

 The reason i want an SSD is mostly for starting up the OS much more quickly, so that the computer just turns on quicker--i don't want to sit around waiting for the computer to start.  Although, i don't know just how big of a difference that would make.

As for the GPU, i found this guy, with a much better GPU (NVida GeForce GTX 770M).  It's got a smaller screen size (which i don't mind), but it also seems to have a slightly worse CPU...

[Elabajaba]

Spoiler:

 The reason i want an SSD is mostly for starting up the OS much more quickly, so that the computer just turns on quicker--i don't want to sit around waiting for the computer to start.  Although, i don't know just how big of a difference that would make.

As for the GPU, i found this guy, with a much better GPU (NVida GeForce GTX 770M).  It's got a smaller screen size (which i don't mind), but it also seems to have a slightly worse CPU...

Fair enough for the SSD. It is nice to have one, and I'd say go for one if its in your budget. Also, when you buy any of these, you should probably reinstall windows to get rid of the bloatware that comes with most prebuilt computers as it can slow down your computer quite a bit. (there's usually a sticker with your windows product key on the bottom of your laptop).

The CPU is better in that one, not worse, and has double the RAM (not really worth anything for gaming though). The screen is smaller, but it's still 1080p which is nice.

[TNine]

Fair enough for the SSD. It is nice to have one, and I'd say go for one if its in your budget. Also, when you buy any of these, you should probably reinstall windows to get rid of the bloatware that comes with most prebuilt computers as it can slow down your computer quite a bit. (there's usually a sticker with your windows product key on the bottom of your laptop).

Alright, i'll keep that in mind.

The CPU is better in that one, not worse,

Haha, got the two backwards for some reason.

The screen is smaller, but it's still 1080p which is nice.

Yeah, and smaller screen means smaller computer, which is nice for lugging around campus.


Thanks a ton, Elabajaba!

[Lord Pheonix]

I have an SSD drive for my computer and it takes fromthe press of the on button to the log on screen 8 seconds.

I love that shit.

Have a HHD drive in there as well to put other things on of couse.

[CivBase]

After putting an SSD in my computer, I honestly would not every buy a computer without one again. Windows 8 boots in 6 seconds. In modern gaming PCs, hard drives actually account for a huge amount of the lag, so an SSD is a must if you're worried about that.

As far as good gaming laptops go, my roommate from last semester got an ASUS G75, and it was pretty nice. It did not come with an SSD, but there was an extra slot for you to add your own, so I would definitely grab a 120 GB drive an do that.

http://promos.asus.com/US/G750/#.UfJ6Qo3OvAY
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231089

It might not be the best you can find, but it's worth looking at.

There's also a slightly more advanced version if you're willing to drop and extra $500. It comes with a 250 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM (apposed to 12), and an Nvidea GTX 770M (apposed to a 765M).

[TNine]

Well the computer was already ordered and in fact arrive yesterday, but thanks anyway civ.

The SSD is awesome, comp boots in like 10-12 seconds...but it's the default drive.  It's already half full, which is a pain in the ass, i'm trying to make sure every program default saves to my HDD harddrive, which is now my /D/ drive.

[Nocbl2]

So, my screen is derping out.

All of the settings claimed it was still at 1920x1080 in terms of its resolution, but it was far too wide for that to be true. I've temporarily lowered it to 1600x1200 (which, oddly enough, is perfect in width and length), but this has lowered the quality of the monitor a ton.

How can I return my settings to normal?

EDIT: Turns out my display is somehow 1200, not 1080. wat

[Rotaretilbo]

1920x1200 was a resolution that sort of competed with 1920x1080 for the standard high definition resolution, in the same manner that HD DVD competed with Blu Ray for the standard high definition media device. 1920x1200 and HD DVD lost their respective bids for dominance and have fallen out of use. That said, there are still devices floating around which use the uncommon resolution or read HD DVD.

[Elabajaba]

It's a 16:10 scale instead of 16:9...
I prefer 16:10 since you get more screenspace for about the same amount of space, it's just harder to find 16:10 monitors now.

[Nocbl2]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284

Thinking about replacing my Phenom II with this. Thoughts?

[Rotaretilbo]

Have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on?

[Elabajaba]

Go for it if you want to upgrade your cpu, but that probably won't give you much of an fps boost in games compared to upgrading your gpu for a similar cost.

[Nocbl2]

In that case, would my Phenom II be able to handle this?

[Rotaretilbo]

I don't know why you would ever buy something like that. The GTX 680 is one of the very top-end cards of the GeForce GTX 600 series. It's nearly two years old, and horrendously overpriced for what you're getting. For $600, you could buy two GTX 670s, which are individually only barely outperformed by the GTX 680, and run them in SLI. Frankly, you could probably settle for two GTX 660s in SLI and not notice the difference, other than $200 off the final price tag.

And I can say with some confidence that a Phenom II can handle two GTX 660s in SLI. I ran a Phenom II with two HD 7850s (the equivalent Radeon card) in Crossfire with no trouble at all. I did pick up an FX-8350s earlier this year, because upgrading my GPU beyond two HD 7850s was not financially viable due to how ridiculously GPU prices scale towards the high-end of the chipset families.

[Elabajaba]

I don't know why you would ever buy something like that. The GTX 680 is one of the very top-end cards of the GeForce GTX 600 series. It's nearly two years old, and horrendously overpriced for what you're getting. For $600, you could buy two GTX 670s, which are individually only barely outperformed by the GTX 680, and run them in SLI. Frankly, you could probably settle for two GTX 660s in SLI and not notice the difference, other than $200 off the final price tag.

And I can say with some confidence that a Phenom II can handle two GTX 660s in SLI. I ran a Phenom II with two HD 7850s (the equivalent Radeon card) in Crossfire with no trouble at all. I did pick up an FX-8350s earlier this year, because upgrading my GPU beyond two HD 7850s was not financially viable due to how ridiculously GPU prices scale towards the high-end of the chipset families.

Its $600 because its the Mac edition of the card, so its clocked slower and has 2gb less ram then a normal 680, but costs over $100 more. If you really want to upgrade, I'd recommend staying away from xfire/sli due to it usually having problems (crossfire has issues with microstutter with 2 cards, goes away with 3 usually) (some games have problems with multi gpu setups, forcing you to disable so you only have 1 gpu running for it).

For now, I'd recommend getting an r9 280x (seems to be backordered everywhere though) as its pretty much a 7970 ghz and can be found for ~$315, or a 770 gtx which can be had for ~$330.

Its best to decide how much you want to spend, then look at some benchmarks to decide what you want. Sites like this can help you get a good deal on a card.

[Rotaretilbo]

Its $600 because its the Mac edition of the card, so its clocked slower and has 2gb less ram then a normal 680, but costs over $100 more.

The normal card from the same manufacturer has 2GB more RAM, but still costs $600. The cheapest I can find a new GTX 680 on Newegg is $500, and that's still ridiculously expensive for a single card, considering the relative gain you get for the $100 to $200 extra you spend over buying one step down from that.

If you really want to upgrade, I'd recommend staying away from xfire/sli due to it usually having problems (crossfire has issues with microstutter with 2 cards, goes away with 3 usually) (some games have problems with multi gpu setups, forcing you to disable so you only have 1 gpu running for it).

I've heard that there are problems with Crossfire and SLI, but it's my understanding that these issues are normally resolved with drivers fairly early in a card's life, meaning that if you're running two cards from mid-2012 or even early-2013, you shouldn't have the issue, or should be able to easily resolve the issue. The main concern with running cards in Crossfire or SLI in my opinion would be whether your PSU can handle it, because if your PSU is choking the cards, you'll get worse performance. But generally speaking, you get roughly 80% of the raw GPU power of the second card, which is going to utterly smoke any single card for the same cost as the two.

For example, the GTX 680 has no noticeable difference in raw memory bandwidth as compared to the GTX 670. Thus, simple math would indicate that two GTX 670s in SLI will have about 80% better raw memory bandwidth as compared to the GTX 680, for the same cost. The main concern is that you'll need to be able to dedicate at least 340W to your GPU, rather than 195W.

Similarly, the GTX 680 has about 33% better raw memory bandwidth as compared to the GTX 660. Thus, simple math would indicate that two GTX 660s in SLI will have about 35% better raw memory bandwidth as compared to the GTX 680, but for at least $100 less. The main concern is that you'll need to be able to dedicate at least 280W to your GPU, rather than 195W.

For now, I'd recommend getting an r9 280x (seems to be backordered everywhere though) as its pretty much a 7970 ghz and can be found for ~$315, or a 770 gtx which can be had for ~$330.

I'll admit that I was not aware how cheap the R7/R9 series was. I expected the new series to be really expensive at release, so I hadn't looked at them much yet. However, it's my understanding that the AMD GPUs are pretty much all sold out right now, so the prices on the remaining cards are fairly inflated. It may take a couple months for everything to balance out. So if you're intent on buying a GPU or GPUs right now, you may want to go with nVidia.

[Nocbl2]

I'd prefer not to use SLI, but my m4a78lt-m can do it IIRC (I might need a better PSU tho).

So, Rot, something like this?

[Tylertlat]

While you guys are talking about GPUs, I've been considering upgrading my 4 year old Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit for awhile now. I never have a budget of more than $100 (about what I spent on the card originally), so I haven't really found a card at that price that's so much better than what I have that it's worth buying. I may just be looking at wrong stats though, do you guys know of a good replacement option here, and can explain why?

[Elabajaba]

While you guys are talking about GPUs, I've been considering upgrading my 4 year old Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit for awhile now. I never have a budget of more than $100 (about what I spent on the card originally), so I haven't really found a card at that price that's so much better than what I have that it's worth buying. I may just be looking at wrong stats though, do you guys know of a good replacement option here, and can explain why?

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/MSI-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-560-Ti-N560GTX-Ti-Twin-Frozr-II-1-GB-GDDR5-SDRAM-PCI-/181278250618?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2a3506967a&_uhb=1

460 1gb seems to give about double the fps of a 4850 in most games, and a 560TI seems to be about 30-40% fps more then a 460 1gb.

Might be able to get one cheaper by bidding.

[Nocbl2]

I have a 460 currently. Not exactly cutting edge, but I can hit medium/high at 60 FPS the grand majority of the time.

[Rotaretilbo]

I'd prefer not to use SLI, but my m4a78lt-m can do it IIRC (I might need a better PSU tho).

So, Rot, something like this?

Yes, a GTX 670 (or even a GTX 660) would be a preferable upgrade over the GTX 680, given how much you're paying vs what you're getting.

[Tylertlat]

Two questions

1. Since I'm not in that big of a hurry, when would be the best time of the year to buy a graphics card

2. Could/should I keep the card I already have in use after I get a better one? Like to run a second monitor with a different program than the first, or one of those "dedicated Physx card" all the kids are talking about or something?

[Elabajaba]

Two questions

1. Since I'm not in that big of a hurry, when would be the best time of the year to buy a graphics card

2. Could/should I keep the card I already have in use after I get a better one? Like to run a second monitor with a different program than the first, or one of those "dedicated Physx card" all the kids are talking about or something?

1 Either after christmas or around black friday when everything is on sale.

2 Unless you get another 4850, you won't be able to run multiple cards (they have to be the same model, with some exceptions, and even then its better to run the same model). You can't run a card as a dedicated PhysX card unless its Nvidia, and you don't have one.

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