Tides of War

I know this is a little off topic but I feel it is directly related to this and other game sites I am in. I am building a new gaming system but I am not sure what to put in it. I see so many problems people are having even with the latest hardware it scares me to commit to anything. I have about $1200 to spend on a whole new system but don't know what I should get or where to start. This system is going to be for recreational only, ie..gaming on and offline, web surfing, CD burning-audio and info, etc....

Does anybody know what the best way would be to keep from setting up a system that may not be compatible with some of the games out there.

I plan to have windowsXP home edition put in. The games I play now are:

Call to Duty

Medal of Honor

Silent Hunter II

Destroyer Command

Sub Command

Enigma:Rising Tide (Hopefully once the system is built)

All Starfleet Command games

Ghost Recon: Island Thunder

Rainbow Six:Raven Shield

Grand Prix Legends

Nascar:2003 Season

Mechwarrior series

Well you get the idea. What should be my best course of action???

Hey Hunter from GROWL? It's Jima!

And what exactly is that supposed to mean????

Here are some suggestions:

1. Buy Win XP Pro - not the Home edition.

2. If you can, buy a system with custom selected quality components.

My rig:

P4 2.8C Ghz

Asus P4P800 motherboard

512MB Samsung 3200 RAM memory

Seagate 120GB 7200RPM 8MB buffer serial ATA hard disk

Sony DRU510A CD/DVD/RW

Logitec Cordless Desktop MX keyboard and mouse

Antec Sonata Piano case with 380W PSU

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB grahics adapter

SB Audigy 2 audio adapter

This is the first PC I've ordered with components I've selected and this is the first time I've had no hassles from a PC I've owned.

I don't know what your budget is but there are quality components for less. PC Magazine ran an article a few months ago about building your own luxury or budget PC.

I got a buddy who owns his own business in which he builds and distributes computers. He can build you an EXCELLENT rig (better than anything you'll find at the store, for half price. Thats his guarentee.) If you want just PM we and ill respond to you with his Work Phone, Email etc.

If you dont want to go that route, Ill share with you the knowledge of graphics cards I have.

1) When you are running a P4, your motherboard will be "more" compatible with a ATI card rather than a Nvidia. On the flip side, if your running a AMD Athalon your going to want to buy a Nvidia card. Differance being the FPS you'll get in games. A ATI Radeon 9800 runs for about.. $280 CDN when I checked at Xmas time but it very well could have dropped some since.

2) Incase you are going to buy a Gforce FX card, ive heard some mixed results about the card.

3) To ensure you have excellent FPS during games I would recommend having 1 GB of DDR RAM (512 MB sticks run for about... $200 CDN)

Its all basically personal preferance from there, picking your sound card etc.

I wouldn't dish out alot of cash for a sound card though.

Hope this helps!

S~

And what exactly is that supposed to mean????

Probably means he thought he Knew you from another place

What are your current specs. im sure something can be skipped ?

Here is a very good config.

Left side of the slash is budget and right side is big spender

CPU: Intel Pentium4 ~2.0Ghz / ~2.6Ghz (not Intel Celeron)

Motherboard: Any compatible with 3 or 4 Ramsocks and atleast 4 PCI slots, AGPx8 and sATA support

RAM: 512MB DDR PC2100 / 1024MB DDR PC2700 (2 sticks)

Videocard: nVIDIA GFforce FX5200 128MB RAM/ FX5600Ultra 128MB RAM

Soundcard: Creative SB Live / SB Audigy 2

Harddisk: 60GB 7200 ATA100 / 2x 80GB 7200RPM ATA100

From own experience games runs better when not on the same drive as Windows.

If you have a lot of money, then aim for Maxtors 10000 RPM sATA Harddisks.

They are AFAIK still only 36 GB tho. but with 2 of them youre set

OS: Windows XP Home / Windows XP Pro

Mouse, Keyboard, Floppy, Networkcard, CD/DVD drives, Case, Fans, pSU etc just get what you like / need

If you live in the States, use http://www.tomshardware.com to find the cheap places.

Soundcard: Creative SB Live

This is the one piece of hardware I would stay far away from - budget or no budget.

The SB Live is one of the most bug-ridden cards, that cause all sorts of sound hiccups in numeorus games.

Anything else would be preferable.

And what exactly is that supposed to mean????

Sorry, I jumped the gun. There was a guy named Hunter in a GPL racing league GROWL (GPL racing online Warbirds League) The world is not so small after all.

Soundcard: Creative SB Live

This is the one piece of hardware I would stay far away from - budget or no budget.

The SB Live is one of the most bug-ridden cards, that cause all sorts of sound hiccups in numeorus games.

Anything else would be preferable.

Eh? I use a SBLive 5.1 Player and i dont have any 'hiccups' as you call them, can you name a few games?