Fallout 4 Offical Trailer

[cdrazic93]

Fairly sure that was upscaled. I havent heard of anyone writing in 4k yet.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by cdrazic93

I would suggest if you have some lots of spare money laying around to upgrade that graphics card to the GTX980. you can thank me later when, graphics > real life.

Ya I debated, but so far the 760 has exceeded my expectations so I am happy. Video cards/cpu set ups are like car mods. No matter what you have or do there will be a dozen people that will recommend something different.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Pkush

What kind of computers you guys running? (Especially you old gents Tcoat and Dadhawk)?

Current gaming computer is a Dell XPS8300 i7-2600 with 16GB RAM and ATI R9 video card driving 3 23" monitors. This is when XPS was the Dell less expensive version of Alienware.

The computer is about 5 years old but I've upgraded the video card twice since new. Video really is the bottleneck these days so you can really stretch a computer for mid-level gaming. I'm about due for an upgrade this year.


If I used the three monitor setup for gaming more often I'd need more horsepower but there are only one or two games that handle three monitors properly in my opinion. The only one I've ever really been fully happy with is Flight Simulator. The problem with most games is they use a single camera view (straight ahead) and try to compensate by distorting the peripheral view. They do this because they expect you to always look straight ahead and "turn" your character to look left or right, moving the items in focus to the middle monitor. This causes exteme distortion on the left and right.


What should really be done is that each monitor should be a camera view so the player can turn left or right without moving the character or the scene.


MS Flight Simulator allows this. Basically it does a first person view where the actual player (not the virtual pilot) is sitting in a virtual cockpit. If you look left or right it expects you to turn your head not the computer field of view (although you can do this to accommodate one monitor). Its a much more natural experience.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Really? My video card cost $450 alone.
To build what I wanted was going to be almost $1,000.
An Alienware to match my setup is over$1,000 (without shopping around)
Maybe I should have shopped in the US.

I go back and forth between build and buy depending on the deal I can find at the time. Between 1985 and about 2000 the results were almost always better "build" in my experience, although I tended to buy for other family members.

My typical cycle during those years was Build new, upgrade components twice, build new again about every 5 years. Lately it has been more buy about every 4 years, upgrading video card mid-cycle.

These days if you shop right its really hard to build and match prices you can get if you shop carefully, particularly if you don't mind shopping the "outlet" market and you know when to look.

For example, the family (grandparents/parents) recently bought my son an Alienware 17 laptop for high school graduation. By buying it through the outlet we were able to get it for right around 40% off the "new build" price for the same configuration with the same warranty.

I'm a bit of a hoarder though, we have at last count 6 desktops, 2 laptops, and a Surface Pro in the house fleet. 5 of desktops were all at one time my "gaming" PC that have been moved to other purposes (media servers, other family member PCs, workshop PCs, etc). The oldest PC is a Pentium 4 that is getting retired this year. I use it in my woodshop primarily to surf the Internet and check email when in there and I need to look something up.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Moral of the story is: We ain't all like your parents.
(Edit) That looks way more stern then it was intended.

Hah! I often remind my younger gamer family and friends that it's us "old guys" that invented all this stuff in the first place and drove the innovation to get us here.
To put it in prospective, I'm mid 50's and have worked with personal computers my whole career, starting with IBM in 1981 as an Intern writing code for a local HR department on a 2 diskette drive IBM PC using MS-Basic and Assembler. That pretty much means that in the next 10 years or so folks that are reaching retirement age will have had computers in the workplace their entire adult life.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

I go back and forth between build and buy depending on the deal I can find at the time. Between 1985 and about 2000 the results were almost always better "build" in my experience, although I tended to buy for other family members.

My typical cycle during those years was Build new, upgrade components twice, build new again about every 5 years. Lately it has been more buy about every 4 years, upgrading video card mid-cycle.

These days if you shop right its really hard to build and match prices you can get if you shop carefully, particularly if you don't mind shopping the "outlet" market and you know when to look.

For example, the family (grandparents/parents) recently bought my son an Alienware 17 laptop for high school graduation. By buying it through the outlet we were able to get it for right around 40% off the "new build" price for the same configuration with the same warranty.

I'm a bit of a hoarder though, we have at last count 6 desktops, 2 laptops, and a Surface Pro in the house fleet. 5 of desktops were all at one time my "gaming" PC that have been moved to other purposes (media servers, other family member PCs, workshop PCs, etc). The oldest PC is a Pentium 4 that is getting retired this year. I use it in my woodshop primarily to surf the Internet and check email when in there and I need to look something up.

I have my last two desktops sitting in the basement and use them as donors for friends and relatives when they need work done. Seems weird when I use parts from two units back to "upgrade" my sister's computer.

Still have the box from my massive upgrade in 1995. It is used for Christmas decorations and every year I get a chuckle when get them out and read the specs that impressed me so much when I got it.
As far as I can remember (have read the box 20 times):
33 MHz, 8 meg ram (I upgraded to 12), 500 meg HD and a super powerful 24 bit video card.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Hah! I often remind my younger gamer family and friends that it's us "old guys" that invented all this stuff in the first place and drove the innovation to get us here.
To put it in prospective, I'm mid 50's and have worked with personal computers my whole career, starting with IBM in 1981 as an Intern writing code for a local HR department on a 2 diskette drive IBM PC using MS-Basic and Assembler. That pretty much means that in the next 10 years or so folks that are reaching retirement age will have had computers in the workplace their entire adult life.

The age bias shows up a lot with car tech as well. I don't know how many times young guys on here or at a meet flat out said "you are old so you don't understand the new tech/driving methods/whatever". They seem to think we went in a cave 30 years ago and just now popped out with eyes wide in wonder at all the new marvels. The fact of the matter is that many of us "old" guys helped build the tech to the level it is today and actually understand it way more then some young'uns.

[rlpaul]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

These days if you shop right its really hard to build and match prices you can get if you shop carefully, particularly if you don't mind shopping the "outlet" market and you know when to look.

Agreed. Only reason I still build is to get precisely the components I want. Which most of the time means "Upgrade these 2/3/whatever items, keep the rest." The GF's gaming PC is parts left over from previous upgrades of my system.

I'm glad hardware is so good now. Having to upgrade constantly in the 90s and early 00s to be able to play modern games was getting tiresome. Nowadays, it's 2-5 years before I replace a part. Instead of building an entirely new machine every 1-2 years. And the only part typically in that '2 year' cycle is vid cards.

[2016 Camaro SS]

Better question is, why are people buying i7's for gaming? Enjoy wasting money on unused virtual cores?

Trade the dollar amount from the i7 to an i5 and put it towards a beefy graphics card.

Enjoy.

[f0rge]

Lol you guys are nerds, am I the only one who's going to play this on a console?

[2016 Camaro SS]

Originally Posted by f0rge

Lol you guys are nerds, am I the only one who's going to play this on a console?

Probably not. The PS4 and Xbox One hardware is actually pretty decent graphics wise so the graphics disparity between PC and console is not really there anymore.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by 2016 Camaro SS

Better question is, why are people buying i7's for gaming? Enjoy wasting money on unused virtual cores?

Trade the dollar amount from the i7 to an i5 and put it towards a beefy graphics card.

Enjoy.

I use my computer for a pile of things other than just gaming so the i7 works for me. When doing work at home (yes I work) I can have several different apps open and find the i7 is far superior in that type of task.

[2016 Camaro SS]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I use my computer for a pile of things other than just gaming so the i7 works for me. When doing work at home (yes I work) I can have several different apps open and find the i7 is far superior in that type of task.

That has a valid use then, so thank you for understanding!

You wouldn't believe how many people ask me to build a computer then put an i7 on their list and I ask them what they are going to use it for.

"Gaming"

In this day and age, I don't even find a need to overclock the processors anymore and I run an i5-3570k and a GTX 680.

Granted the graphics card was $500 new from EVGA, it still runs games at max settings full 1080p for several years now. Anyone who cheaps out on the video card will quickly find out how fast it will get dated. The top end models last a long long time.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by f0rge

Lol you guys are nerds, am I the only one who's going to play this on a console?

No. We are Geeks.
Know your stereotype: