StarDestroyer.Net BBS

...is an upcoming SF FPS MMORPG (yay acronyms!); I've seen the beta version at a friend's house and it looks pretty bad ass.

Of course, I need to get a huuuge upgrade for my computer before I'll be able to play. I'm looking at ~$350 for processor, motherboard and RAM. My questions are: will the speed of my hard drive really matter much? I know I need a new one or else some off-computer storage space, but I'm already going to be kissing a pretty good hunk of cash goodbye. Second question: How 'bout those graphics cards, eh? I'm thinking I'll get either an "ATI Radeon 9000 AGP 4X 128MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out Retail by PowerColor ***(Free 2nd Day)***" for ~$90.00 or spring an extra $50 and get a "MSI G4Ti4200-TD8X GeForce4 Ti4200 AGP 8X 128MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out & DVI Retail ***(Free 2nd Day)***" for $138. Thoughts? Pricewatch.com isn't talking to me at the moment; these are prices from googlegear.com which seems to be a pretty good site.

these are the system reqs I'm looking at:
http://sonyonline.com/retailassets/index.jsp#pside
and here's a homepage for the game:
http://www.planetside.com

Oh, and any discussion of Planetside on this thread is cool too.

Post your current specifications.

Hard drive speed is not too great of an issue - it's nice to have a faster one, but not totally neccessary. That said, you won't get that much for $350.

Planetfall? Wasn't that name already taken by an Infocom title? Is it related at all? How did they manage to reuse the same name?

Slartibartfast wrote:Planetfall? Wasn't that name already taken by an Infocom title? Is it related at all? How did they manage to reuse the same name?

I don't think you can license names of stuff like that.

Hence the two movies called Gladiator.

If you create a deodorant and call it "Ecstasy", I'm pretty sure I can't come 2 years later and create another deodorant called "Ecstasy".

I'm pretty sure I can't make a movie called "Star Wars", even if it's just two words that mean there are some wars between some stars.

So I don't think you can simply duplicate the name of another older game.

phongn wrote:Post your current specifications.

Hard drive speed is not too great of an issue - it's nice to have a faster one, but not totally neccessary. That said, you won't get that much for $350.

Current system was bad ass four years ago, if that gives you any idea. I'm looking at buying a new processor, motherboard, ram, ($350 is what I'm looking to spend on these, depending on where I decide the diminishing returns cutoff should be. It looks like I could get a pretty good Pentium 4, motherboard, and a hunk of RAM for that.), video card (another $80-$150) and new hard drive, since the old 40 GB one is getting pretty cramped. So really I'm looking at a total budget of up to $600.
Current system= processor of 450ish mhz, 128 MB ram, VooDoo3 3000 video card.

The website for www.planetside.com seems more or less official, and the beta is very real; I don't know about any copyright stuff with the name.

Infocom is pretty old, and I dont know if the trademark on Planetfall is still valid, so a new game probably can have that name.

I wonder what poor ole Floyd is up too these days.

Try to get an "older" system in the 1,4 - 1,8 Ghz range. it is possible to
get these systems for EUR 300-500 here.

Planetside looks good, shame about the monthly costs...

Here's an example from NewEgg.

$097.00 Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM 8MB HD
$067.00 Kingston 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
$099.00 Epox EP-8RDA+ nForce 2 Motherboard
$162.00 AMD Athlon XP 2600 Retail
$109.99 Asus V9520TD GeForceFX 5200 128MB

$534.99 Sub-Total

The GeForceFX outperforms the R9000 when you enable ansiotropic filtering and/or antialiasing. The WD hard drive is fast, large and has a three year warranty. The Epox motherboard is decent as is the RAM. The processor is a retail Athlon XP, which has a heatsink/fan included and should be fast enough for you.

Woohoo, I can use pricewatch.com again! Probably I'll search out deals through them, but thanks for the info phongn, it was encouraging.

Dress thy links properly - Kev

phongn wrote:$162.00 AMD Athlon XP 2600 Retail
$109.99 Asus V9520TD GeForceFX 5200 128MB

IMO, the Athlon XP 2600 is a waste of money right now. I'd get either the Athlon XP 1700 for $50 or the Athlon XP 2200 for ~$90. I'd probably also get a SK-7 + fan to go with it. (~$30)

GF FX 5200 = MX = shit. A GF4 4200 128MB would be better.

RedWizard wrote:

phongn wrote:$162.00 AMD Athlon XP 2600 Retail
$109.99 Asus V9520TD GeForceFX 5200 128MB

IMO, the Athlon XP 2600 is a waste of money right now. I'd get either the Athlon XP 1700 for $50 or the Athlon XP 2200 for ~$90. I'd probably also get a SK-7 + fan to go with it. (~$30)

SK7 is good, but there's something to be said for having a good warranty on your processor. He seemed to want fairly high performance, so I chose the Barton 2600, though it's price:performance ratio isn't so hot.

GF FX 5200 = MX = shit. A GF4 4200 128MB would be better.

GFFX5200 outperforms the GF4 Ti 4200 when ansiotropic filtering and/or antialiasing is enabled. It is also a DX9 card, unlike the GF4. Just be sure to get the 128MB versions, as some 64MB versions have a 64-bit memory interface.

Sriad wrote:Woohoo, I can use pricewatch.com again! Probably I'll search out deals through them, but thanks for the info phongn, it was encouraging.

Dress thy links properly - Kev

If you're going to use PriceWatch, hit Reseller Ratings to make sure that you don't get burned. It is worth paying a price premium to get decent service.

phongn wrote:

Sriad wrote:Woohoo, I can use pricewatch.com again! Probably I'll search out deals through them, but thanks for the info phongn, it was encouraging.

Dress thy links properly - Kev

If you're going to use PriceWatch, hit Reseller Ratings to make sure that you don't get burned. It is worth paying a price premium to get decent service.

Yea, a lot of the lowest prices on there look a little shady. I'm in the habit of going down the list until I start seeing warantees and that sort of thing. What's your opinion on AMD vs. Pentium? (I seem to remember hearing about some kind of integrated spyware thing a while back; if Pentium is doing that I definatly won't be using them)

There is no integrated spyware, at least not right now.

Intel gets you the best performance for gaming at the moment - but it'll cost you a pretty penny. They tend to run cooler and handle heat better than their AMD counterparts. It's design also does not run very well on some FPU-intensive code (prefering SMID code)

AMD chips are generally cheaper, run hotter and are a better value for the money. They are superior in performance with classic x87 FPU code, but inferior with SMID (e.g. SSE/SSE2) code.

Both AMD and Intel are set to come out with new processors within a few months: the Prescott revision of the P4 and the Athlon64 from AMD.

EDIT: I would seriously recommend going to a vendor that's rated highly. Newegg, Directron and MWave tend to be good. A vendor in my area, TCWO can be good but sometimes has mixed reviews.

Here's an example of a P4-based system.

$164.00 Intel P4 2.4GHz (Northwood-B) Retail CPU
$119.00 Intel D845PEBT2 i845PE Motherboard
$097.00 Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM 8MB HD
$067.00 Kingston 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
$109.99 Asus V9520TD GeForceFX 5200 128MB

$556.99 Subtotal