Finally, after 7 years, I have kissed my old P4 2 GHZ with 1 gig of ram and a 9600XT goodbye. It served me well but now it is time to upgrade....to THE MACHINE.

 

Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 2.4 Ghz, FSB 1066Mhz, 2x4 mb

ASUS Striker Extreme MBoard

4gb PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) 5-5-5-15 Dual Channel RAM

2 Dual Layer DVD Burners (don't know why but what the hell)

Sound Blaster X-Fi ExtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro 7.1 Sound Card with on board RAM (since when did sound cards come with their own ram?!?!)

GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit DDR3

Thermaltake Armor Case with Liquid Cooling

750 Watt PSU

Logitech G7 Mouse and Keyboard

22" Monitor with 2ms delay

Windows Vista (64-bit....I think vista blows)

 

I get it next week (I'm letting the shop build it cos I'm lazy). I can't wait to put Warlords through its paces...and Half Life 2, and Battlefield 2142, and Medieval 2, and Doom 3, and FEAR....god I've missed a lot of gaming.

 

Is she powerful enough? If you don't think so, please follow the dotted line to the room that has 'firing squad' on the door

Nice specs.

Why 64-bit Vista though? It doesn't gain you anything except using the 4 GB memory.. and you're not likely to even use that much memory.

I like to plan ahead

 

4gb will come around as a spec sooner or later. I imagine it's not that far away.

The 'Machine' is up and running now....my god. It's a very quiet system. I recommend liquid cooling to all and sundry.

 

I've spent the last two evenings playing F.E.A.R, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander and Medieval 2 and to say the very least I am blown away.

 

Then I decided to give Warlords a whirl. Then I had to go and change my pants .

 

With two AI, normal ship limits, and everything graphically cranked I had virtually no lag. It was so damn beautiful, I just left it playing like a screen saver for a half hour. Unbelievable.

 

I gave the Endor scenario a whirl two and had no lag there either. I can't wait for this next version to be completed.

It's a killer machine! Did you get to installing 64-bit Vista? How did that go with drivers and everything?

Thats a really nice machine you have, how is vista 64 going, have you found many programs that wont run on it, do you actually need the 64bit vista to use use 4 gigs of ram? (personally i thought with vista it supported 4gig fine)

 

Do you find the quad core actually worth the money then?

You need 64-bit to really use more than 3 GB of memory. In 32-bit Windows, the addresses above 3 GB are reserved for hardware use. So if you have 64-bit XP, go for it. But Vista Ultimate comes with 64-bit and 32-bit version, so you can easily reinstall if you want to try things out.

 

Here's a good article on the 3 GB limit

http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

Ok i only asked cos i thought they had increased the amount of RAM that vista 32bit could support, btw you do know that vista disc inludes all versions of vista however the cd key will only work for version of vista you purchased.

It's a killer machine! Did you get to installing 64-bit Vista? How did that go with drivers and everything?

 

64-bit Vista hasn't given me any major dramas as yet. All the games I have installed haven't given me any grief. Homeworld 2 asks for updated video drivers at the opening menu but that it doesn't effect the game.

 

Thats a really nice machine you have, how is vista 64 going, have you found many programs that wont run on it, do you actually need the 64bit vista to use use 4 gigs of ram? (personally i thought with vista it supported 4gig fine)

 

Do you find the quad core actually worth the money then?

 

I'm told that the 64-bit version is required to use 4gig of ram. So far (it's only been a week), I haven't experienced any difficulty or noticeable difference between the 32 and 64 bit versions. The only thing Vista doesn't like is old versions of virus protection software, and the added software for the G7 mouse.

 

I'm still using my old system for the net and other basic stuff as I haven't got around to getting new virus software etc.

Well im currently using Vista 32bit and have had the same problem with bullguard antivirus, i found before they released a vista version it still worked with compatibility mode however i have heard that is wont work as well with the 64bit version. I am just asking this as im planning on getting a new system assuming a get cheque through as i was wondering really if it worth getting a the 64bit version installed or the 32bit version installed.

 

I get the same problem with Vista 32bit when playing hw2, it also says my graphics card is running in PCI mode and i should change it to AGP mode, slightly confused by this myself. I do think that some of this is due to the age of my card, i cant wait till i can get a PCI-e card

so let me just ask you HIGH END people a few things since i am gona build a new comp for myself

 

any visual difference in the mod.

 

like lods not appearing as much if at all. and what settings you got the mod running at (mod and card settings)

 

 

just wondering

I've got the vis cranked up to full. I couldn't tell you what settings the card is set to run at other than as hard as I can make it (at my work computer at the mo).

 

In comparison to what I had before, the game looks stunning - The glow and reflections off starship hulls, the glow of turbolasers, the all round general improvement in graphics.

 

The ISD II's still lose their sensor domes if you're looking at them from a long, long way off, and other capital ships also lose detail at distance. I'm not sure (so don't quote me) but I think that is a changeable point if you go in and edit the ships with notepad.

 

If I had the time, I'd experiment to see.

turn off dynamic lod in the options, it should keep ships at full detail (though I might be mistaken you may have to edit the ship files)

No turning off dynamic lod helps, at least on my PC.

 

And damn that's a nice machine.