Upgrading my computer

[Mr.Frag]

In my humble opinion, more ram and a new card you would see a performance increase

Oh, he will certainly see an increase, just wanted to do my civic duty and make sure he understood the catch behind the increase ... If he doesn't turn any more video settings on then he uses now he'll be fine, but human nature says he'll pull them sliders cause he can ... and a video card like that will let a lot of sliders be pulled with a net result of the cpu being so overworked he'll be thinking he downgraded instead of upgraded. [;)]

[Trigger Happy]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Note the *programmable* part ... next generation of software is going to be scary ... they are just now starting to make the video driver software multithreaded in a manner to work better on multi-cpu machines. Even if the game doesn't support multi-cpu, your video will use it.

Yeah, directX 10 games will be something to see to be belived. I seen a video somewhere of the next-gen Crytek engine. Simply astounding!

[Zodiac]

I'm planning on buying a new computer since I don't think its worthwhile upgrading my present one. Does anyone know if there is a way to transfer programs between computers (old to new) without having to reinstall all the programs? I know how to transfer data but the programs I don't.

[ravinhood]

Or better yet, just stay away from FPSers. I have BF1942 that will last me forever, and if you've played one you've played them all really. Just different "grapics" is all you really get, maybe a few tricks and tweaks of interface, but, down to the bottom line a shooter is a shooter and they grow old and boring just like anything else.

Now when great wargames start to require top of the line graphics cards and hardware upgrades that's when you might start thinking about it. But, really do wargames really need to go that far? When they could be putting all those graphics resources into better gameplay and always always better challenging AI?

That's the problem with mainstream titles, they "touch" on the graphics capabilities of the most recent cards and hardware and then jump to the next new thing without really putting enough effort into the capabilities of older cards and hardware the majority of gamers already have. PC's need to take a lesson from consoles, FIVE year periods of quality games for the same systems.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

In my humble opinion, more ram and a new card you would see a performance increase

Oh, he will certainly see an increase, just wanted to do my civic duty and make sure he understood the catch behind the increase ... If he doesn't turn any more video settings on then he uses now he'll be fine, but human nature says he'll pull them sliders cause he can ... and a video card like that will let a lot of sliders be pulled with a net result of the cpu being so overworked he'll be thinking he downgraded instead of upgraded. [;)]

Agreed and can concur - been there done that!

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

Or better yet, just stay away from FPSers. I have BF1942 that will last me forever, and if you've played one you've played them all really. Just different "grapics" is all you really get, maybe a few tricks and tweaks of interface, but, down to the bottom line a shooter is a shooter and they grow old and boring just like anything else.

Now when great wargames start to require top of the line graphics cards and hardware upgrades that's when you might start thinking about it. But, really do wargames really need to go that far? When they could be putting all those graphics resources into better gameplay and always always better challenging AI?

That's the problem with mainstream titles, they "touch" on the graphics capabilities of the most recent cards and hardware and then jump to the next new thing without really putting enough effort into the capabilities of older cards and hardware the majority of gamers already have. PC's need to take a lesson from consoles, FIVE year periods of quality games for the same systems.

There isn't a very "clean" way to do it because all programs will write to the registry...which means you need the registry...which means you're copying your computer configuration - including hardware and software, drivers etc, etc...

Norton Ghost? It's takes a complete image of your system. I've never used it for moving between two different computers though - so you will come across driver problems when you boot...whether those problems can be fixed simply by installing the new drivers, I don't know. Even if it was fixed by installing new drivers, it could leave your registry in a bit of a state.

Why didn't Microsoft go with dual registries - one for hardware and one for software, to facilitate this problem?

[Herr Colonel]

I just parted ways with about $250 and upped my 256MB to 1.3GB and my GeForce 4 Ti 4200 128MB to a 256MB GeForce 6200. Nvidia only for me - the card, plus the boost in memory, makes my 2GHz Athlon system run just about anything.

So far. I can't wait for six months to elapse and have THIS system obsolete. [:'(]

[Mr.Frag]

So far. I can't wait for six months to elapse and have THIS system obsolete.

Why wait, install F.E.A.R. now and learn how obsolete it is already [:D]

Ray

[Texscripter]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Why wait, install F.E.A.R. now and learn how obsolete it is already [:D]

Ray

Just finished playing F.E.A.R., actually - first game on the system with the upgrades in place. Ran without a hitch or a hiccup.