I can't believe it's been 5 years already...

[aaatoysandmore]

I bought a new computer rig (IBUYPOWER i7920 64bit OS (Vista), 6gb ram, ati 5770hd 1gb gpu) was a screamer when I bought it 5 years ago. Where has all the time gone? It still runs well and plays everything decently, especially wargames. I don't see a reason to upgrade to play anything. I mostly only buy wargames anyways. I haven't seen any lag or problems out of it. Vista and the 5770hd card runs old games like Combat Mission and MTW1.

So, what's in your wallet? How old is your computer setup? How often do you upgrade. It's kind of funny, everytime I have upgraded I've been out of work and here I find myself out of work again. Spending money I shouldn't. I don't think so this time though, these are really tough times finding a job. Being older and having had a stroke that left me uncordinated doesn't help either. No more ladder climbing for me.

[Boomer78]

Times are tough all around these days, so it's good that computer hardware has leveled off and become more price efficient. I also have an IBuyPower, an Athlon X4 640 with 4 gigs of RAM and a Radeon HD 7700 that I got around 2010-2011. Runs everything I've thrown at it as well. The one before that was a Gateway that I had since around 2005.

Me and a friend used to get together and raid part stores to tinker around with computer building. Got quite good at assembling computers there for a while. Now everything is plug and play and has a much longer shelf life. I can't imagine having to go back to those early PC days again, and don't think I'll have upgrade for some time. Considering my gaming habits have trended more towards strategy and streamlined games, I doubt I'll ever spend another thousand bucks just so I can play Call of Duty 12.

[aaatoysandmore]

I remember when I had an Amiga 500 I bought it just to play Sword of Aragon because they weren't going to make it for the C-64. I was soo pissed Spent nearly $500 to play that game plus the game price itself. Of course I got other games I enjoyed later on like, Civilization, Master of Magic, Warlords (we played the chit out of that game over at friends house on weekends), some game named Waterloo, Wings one of my favorite airplane flying games of WWI. You could get so immersed in that game because it played out a journal of the guys service over the years. When the poor dog got shot had to be the lowest times of the game. Talk about revenge lol. Man such a slew of good games back during those times. They sure don't make them like they used to anymore.

[Josh]

I have a system much like yours Ross, about five years old. I buy a new system every 4-6 years, usually I skip an OS release so to speak. Luckily us wargamers don't need the fanciest stuff to play our games, but I must say that for Fall Out IV (no release date yet planned so... will be a while) I would be tempted to buy a new rig, just so I can play that with the highest resolution.

[Perturabo]

Paradigit Computers Intel Celeron 2,4 1GB ram, GeForce MX4000 128mb, Soundblaster Live!, Linux Mint 12 LXDE 32-bit.
Bought it used in 4 years ago (sound card is older, though, it's from 1998 and was in 2 other computers before.).

ORIGINAL: Boomer78

Considering my gaming habits have trended more towards strategy and streamlined games, I doubt I'll ever spend another thousand bucks just so I can play Call of Duty 12.

Same here. Though the upcoming BftB upgrade will probably force me to buy a "new" computer.

[Gilmer]

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore

I remember when I had an Amiga 500 I bought it just to play Sword of Aragon because they weren't going to make it for the C-64. I was soo pissed Spent nearly $500 to play that game plus the game price itself. Of course I got other games I enjoyed later on like, Civilization, Master of Magic, Warlords (we played the chit out of that game over at friends house on weekends), some game named Waterloo, Wings one of my favorite airplane flying games of WWI. You could get so immersed in that game because it played out a journal of the guys service over the years. When the poor dog got shot had to be the lowest times of the game. Talk about revenge lol. Man such a slew of good games back during those times. They sure don't make them like they used to anymore.

I remember having to upgrade from 286 to 386 and 486 for some games - I remember going with a friend and looking at 486s with Red Baron on it. Was mighty cool looking.

I have an HP right now with 8 gig ram and running at 2.8 ghz and an AMD Radeon 6570. Video card is kind of lower end, but it seems to do OK for now. I may upgrade the video card.

[histgamer]

2 years old almost to the day now.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

MB: MSI LGA 1155 Socket can't remember the specs has some USB 3.0s but mostly 2.0

CPU: Intel i5 2400 3.2 GHZ Sandy Bridge

RAM: 16 GB of Corsair 1600 mhz

GPU: Nvidia GTX 550 TI 1 GB (about a year old the original build had a GT 9600 512 MB Nvidia card my brother and law gave me free)

HD: 80 GB Intel SSD (I use this as a boot drive, Os is blazing fast, loads in 6 or 7 seconds), 500 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM HDD, 1 TB Western Digital 5400 RPM HDD

Power Supply: Some 1000w Bronze Certified thing my brother in law gave me free because he got a new one, has a squeeky ball baring so it's louder than most but not annoying to me really it's just louder than it needs to be.

I also have a Aver Media built in Capture Card that can take HDMI input but also captures the PC as well as the ability to input VGA so I can input an iPad or Android Tablet if I want and record without the hasle and hasy legality of a HDMI spliter to get rid of HDCP

[Boomer78]

Do you guys remember the video card wars of the mid-late 90s? I sure do. Now days you basically have two choices with GPUs... NVidia and ATI. But back in the earlier days there were literally dozens of video card manufacturers. I remember being at computer stores and having to choose from Diamond, Matrox, Creative Labs, 3DFX, and a bunch of other off market brands. That was back when OpenGL and Direct3D were still trying to become industry standards and various companies were still trying to catch up with the increase of power and decrease in size of circuitry.

Things might be a lot easier now when it comes to price and performance, but it's also become a bit stagnant and stifled. I sort of miss the days of industry anarchy when everyone was still looking to make an impact... and a few bucks.

[wodin]

I remember getting a 3dVoodoo card to go along my 8mb 2D card..thought it was the bets thing in the world!!

The video card is what I upgrade the most over the years..been looking at a ATI7870 for £121 supposed to be a damn fine card(have a 6850 which I wasn't to impressed with after my trusty 4870). My CPU was a duo core..but I had a Black Edition and found out you could unlock other cores..so had a ago and now have a Quad Core..this has extended the life of my CPU by a fair old bit. Have 8gig of memory bought cheap for about £30..2Gig was a nightmare with WIn7 64bit. Have two HDD one from the previous PC which has 80gig and the other is 150gig (both are divided into two)..so I do alot of deleting and HDD management, would love an SSD though as it seems they do wonder sin speeding up the PC.

[carnifex]

I use a crappy laptop - a Dell Latitude E6400, it has 4gb ram, an Intel P8600 dual core @ 2.4 GHz, whatever shitty onboard video card.

It's good enough to run all my wargames, and it works fine for other games I'm currently playing, like Kerbal Space Program, AI War, Warlock, stuff like that.

Most important of all, I can play World of Tanks at 30fps when I dial down the graphics, which is my main gaming fix for the past 2 years.

You truly don't need a good game machine to play most everything you want, unless you're looking for a multi-screen set up with crazy resolutions.

I used to try to keep up with the latest gaming rigs, but after the last one blew up on me I was short on funds and decided to wait to get another one. That wait has now turned into 4 years, since I realized for the gaming I do a regular laptop works just as fine. And since my employer will provide me with an endless procession of cheap laptops, I'm set

Good article here http://www.wired.com/reviews/2013/11/hi ... aming-pcs/

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore

I bought a new computer rig (IBUYPOWER i7920 64bit OS (Vista), 6gb ram, ati 5770hd 1gb gpu) was a screamer when I bought it 5 years ago. Where has all the time gone? It still runs well and plays everything decently, especially wargames. I don't see a reason to upgrade to play anything. I mostly only buy wargames anyways. I haven't seen any lag or problems out of it. Vista and the 5770hd card runs old games like Combat Mission and MTW1.

So, what's in your wallet? How old is your computer setup? How often do you upgrade. It's kind of funny, everytime I have upgraded I've been out of work and here I find myself out of work again. Spending money I shouldn't. I don't think so this time though, these are really tough times finding a job. Being older and having had a stroke that left me uncordinated doesn't help either. No more ladder climbing for me.

Warspite still uses an abacus.

[aaatoysandmore]

Heck I even have a netbook that runs all my dos game wargames and a few xp ones. It can even run Mad Minutes 2nd Manassas and I was surprised at that.

[Boomer78]

Speaking of netbooks and laptops, if anyone has a recommendation or two I'm all ears. I'm looking to get a cheap laptop as a gaming backup in case of power/net outages... nothing super powerful, just something I can run AGEOD and similar type games on.

[Perturabo]

I just accidentally my old computer.

My new computer is Pentium 2,9GHz dual core, 4GB ram, GT610 2GB ram, 500GB hdd.

[histgamer]

The thing I don't miss is back then sure you had tons of choices but even the highest end cards were obsolete in 6 months. Now you can get a high end card and it might last half a decade or more, and mid range cards last several years as well with at least midrange settings.

ORIGINAL: Boomer78

Do you guys remember the video card wars of the mid-late 90s? I sure do. Now days you basically have two choices with GPUs... NVidia and ATI. But back in the earlier days there were literally dozens of video card manufacturers. I remember being at computer stores and having to choose from Diamond, Matrox, Creative Labs, 3DFX, and a bunch of other off market brands. That was back when OpenGL and Direct3D were still trying to become industry standards and various companies were still trying to catch up with the increase of power and decrease in size of circuitry.

Things might be a lot easier now when it comes to price and performance, but it's also become a bit stagnant and stifled. I sort of miss the days of industry anarchy when everyone was still looking to make an impact... and a few bucks.

[radic202]

I remember my old XT computer whit that crummy ugly orange looking screen. I would turn it on and have time for the "3 S's (Sh*t, Shave and Shower)and the thing still was not fully booted when I got back to it.........boy, kids these day freak when a website doesn't instant load???

[aaatoysandmore]

ORIGINAL: radic202


I remember my old XT computer whit that crummy ugly orange looking screen. I would turn it on and have time for the "3 S's (Sh*t, Shave and Shower)and the thing still was not fully booted when I got back to it.........boy, kids these day freak when a website doesn't instant load???

They'd have a fit waiting on a 300 baud modem then wouldn't they?