Building/Upgrading a PC for TS2

[jolrei]

Thank you, Zazazu. So even if I order the 2.4 processor, I still would have problems then. I never really understood the dual vs. other core thing. I don't know if that would make a difference. I know that desk-top PC's have single and dual core processors, and someone told me that a single core processor, like the old celerons have, is completely useless for the newer games.

As far as I know, TS2 does not know what to do with dual core.  I have 3Gig dual and it runs fine, but I don't think it's using the full capacity of the processor.  I could be wrong - there's a thread around somewhere (in Podium?) on using dual core with the Sims and getting optimal performance.

Plus, it would come with Vista, which I heard is an enormous system hog all on its own. If it has problems with Oblivion, I guess I could kiss any plans for NWN2 goodbye. The sims, as big as it is, seems to have the least problems with lower end processors. 

If you have XP disks, you could wipe the laptop when you get it and reload with XP.  Probably a good idea to wipe and reload anyway, to avoid any pre-installed spyware that the store/manufacturer might load.  That way you get only what you want on the HD (and lurking in your registry).  Auf nimmermehr wiederschauen, Vista!

Why does this store have ATI video cards on all the AMD machines, but only NVIDIA on the Intel ones?  Why can't I choose, dammit?!  I'm with Zazazu on the processor - get bigger processor if you can, but I want to choose other components.  This store annoys me.

[veilchen]

Thanks, Jolrei. I'm guessing ATI cards are better than Nvidia then? Yeah I know, I'm a Dummkopf as far as techie-knowledge goes.

That store is the about the only one that has what I minimally need, at the price I can afford, unfortunately. I've searched quite a bit, but no one else came even close to those two essentials. I would so love to have a few extra thousands stashed in my change purse, but alas, I'm but a poor post-degree student who makes a wee bit of money as a TA. Post-degree students don't qualify for aid, so loans it is, damn it.

I have a friend with a $3500 laptop. Oh the envy.

[jolrei]

Thanks, Jolrei. I'm guessing ATI cards are better than Nvidia then? 

It just seems that, where TS2 is involved, especially since BV came out, that a lot more graphical problems seem to be associated with Nvidia cards than with the ATI Radeon ones.  I would check specs to make sure that whatever card you get is compatible with TS2 if you go with the Nvidia.  Chances are that the card included with this system would be fine, but you'd hate to just get it and find problems later, is my thought.

No "dummkopf-ness" implied. 

[veilchen]

Well, it's a good thought. Especially because a laptop video card can't be replaced easily. Or so I've heard from frustrated friends.

I guess the larger processor it is then. I have little choice with the card, the other laptops are just too expensive. Maybe I'll just nag, cajole, bribe, etc. my relative into installing Oblivion on hers and see if it runs. But I'll cruise around the net first to see if I can get the one I pin-pointed with an ATI card. The more choices, the better, I agree on that one.

Edited: because I forgot to ask what the difference between home xp (which I had) and professional xp is. Any huge differences there? The company will load up xp instead of vista, but professional costs about $50 more.

[jsalemi]

I tried Oblivion on my Dell laptop -- it has a 2.8Ghz processor, 1Gb RAM and an ATI Mobile Radeon X300.  It was pretty unplayable. (In fact, it's pretty much unplayable on my desktop with a 3Ghz processor and 2Gb RAM. I've given up on it.)

[veilchen]

That doesn't bode well. Those are some nice specs Joe, and it still didn't play it? Bummer. Maybe in that case the Mobile Nvidia 8600 geoforce would be a better idea then. I might have to forgo BV, but I'll still be able to play sims and my other games? I hope so, I truly do.

[Zazazu]

NWN2 actually ran almost perfectly for me. Maybe one area was slightly choppy...the battle at the very, very beginning. But Oblivion - blech. I forgot how much the FPS annoyed me when I reloaded it for a second playthrough. For some reason, rats and wolves really make it stutter. Finally decided I wasn't trying to finish it and the EP until my upgrade.

[jsalemi]

Yea, it got real annoying when the Oblivion FPS slowed to a crawl in the middle of a raging fight -- made it hard to actually win them sometimes, no matter how strong the character.  Just got too frustrating for me.

[Zazazu]

Try it as an mystic archer. (Custom class, marksman/destructive mage). As a swordsman it's not bad, you mainly position yourself in some approximation of where the enemy is and click a lot. Aiming during stuttering sucks.

[jolrei]

Try it as an mystic archer. (Custom class, marksman/destructive mage). As a swordsman it's not bad, you mainly position yourself in some approximation of where the enemy is and click a lot. Aiming during stuttering sucks.

Dear sweet Christ!  What sort of specs do you need to run it smoothly?  Not an Oblivion player myself, but I didn't think dual core 3Gig and 1-2Gig of RAM was that far behind the times.  It's fine for anything I've thrown at it.  Shows what I know about the current game options, I guess.

I'm exercising my inner OCD child with TS2 anyway, so I'm not in the market for new shinies - the implied resource needs you describe for this just surprise me.  I'll just bask in my ignorance of how far behind I actually am.

[veilchen]

Well you see, that's just it. My dead computer had only 782 RAM, a very old, 9 year old powersupply, and an ATI radeon 9700 video card with 256 RAM. However, it played Oblivion - and its EP's more or less alright. I had it on medium setting, but my Stealth fighter/mage had no problems. She kicked serious butt with her destruction/marksman/sneak skills.

So okay, it crashed a few times. Well ok it crashed everytime when I tried to load a different save in-game, but still. But if it plays NWN2, then I don't have to re-write my wish list, yay.

[neriana]

Well, my computer kicks Oblivion's ass, but it sometimes lags with TS2. Only on lots with tons of Sims, though.  I actually have a problem with it running NWN2 too fast . (Anyone know of a mod for NWN2 that slows camera rotation down, by the way?) My specs for reference are:

AMD X2 Gamer SLI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+, MMX (2CPUs)
2 Gigs RAM
NVidia GeForce 7900 GT/GTO video cards (2 of these)

It was about $2000, built for me by a local guy last year. He was all excited because it outperformed his friend's brand-new $10,000 Dell

NVidia and ATI cards both have driver issues with certain games. ATI was awful with KotOR, for instance. Also, you'll get more computer for less money in a desktop. I agree with putting money into the CPU and motherboard and save it on the video cards, since those are much easier to upgrade.

[Zazazu]

Try it as an mystic archer. (Custom class, marksman/destructive mage). As a swordsman it's not bad, you mainly position yourself in some approximation of where the enemy is and click a lot. Aiming during stuttering sucks.

Dear sweet Christ!  What sort of specs do you need to run it smoothly?  Not an Oblivion player myself, but I didn't think dual core 3Gig and 1-2Gig of RAM was that far behind the times.  It's fine for anything I've thrown at it.  Shows what I know about the current game options, I guess.

I'm exercising my inner OCD child with TS2 anyway, so I'm not in the market for new shinies - the implied resource needs you describe for this just surprise me.  I'll just bask in my ignorance of how far behind I actually am.

I kind of think it's more that Oblivion didn't get along well with the x600 card newer drivers, because I don't remember it being so bitchy before. I was getting 14-20 FPS with my now-old setup. Now, 3 hours of installing later (Dell really knows how to nest things) I'm getting 52-63 FPS on high settings in Oblivion with the 4gigs RAM and x1950Pro card. Off to play Sims!

[veilchen]

Yeah, I know, Neriana. For the $1000+ I'm shelling out for the laptop I could get a much better desktop.

The problem is that I'm not going to be here much longer, and shipping a PC over would be too much trouble. There's laws to consider, and the safety of the unit, and the high shipping cost.

A laptop I can bring on the plane, and I have the added bonus of being able to play on the flight over. It's a long flight, let me tell you. Last time I went over to visit, it took us 15 hours to get from here, to Charlotte, to the UK, to Frankfurt. I'm so very impatient, and that was an ordeal for me.

I hate that I have to buy one at any rate, but I can't make it through school without one, not easily, and the program is tough enough without me adding difficulties. Argh!

[neriana]

True, laptops are a lot more convenient. Finding one for a reasonable price that will play Sims 2 well shouldn't be too hard; I think Oblivion is where the problem lies. But that could be an opportunity to play some old games you never got a chance to try out before as well.

[veilchen]

Ohh, that's true. I forgot about that, I wrote them down somewhere. Thanks for reminding me, Neriana.

[KatEnigma]

You can't really compare duo's to non duo's by just looking at what frequency they run at (the Htz part) This never was a good way of denoting power, and even Intel has finally dropped it.  AMD's always had a lower frequency than their Intel "equivalents" for example, and most gaming companies acknowledged that (not for TS2, mind you... ) A modern processor is going to run as fast as a P4, most likely, despite the lower Ghz. The problem is, now that Intel has dropped that, there's no easy way to just know what is better than what. That it's a laptop makes it even harder. However, I found a Cnet Asia review of a very similarly spec'd out Dell, and it got an Excellent rating. The processor is one of the new Core 2 Extremes, even.  I don't know about Oblivion, but you should be able to play most other games. ATI, unfortunately, has all but gone out of the mobile processor business.    To play TS2 on any new laptop, you're going to have to try the workarounds.

[veilchen]

Thanks Kat. I wonder why ATI is doing that, what with notebooks becoming more and more popular. I guess a REAL gamer doesn't do laptops

Oh bother on the TS2 part. I already ordered it, because I was able to get most of the explanations I needed thanks to friends here, there, everywhere. Oblivion should have no problem (even though Bethesda says it's not mobile supported), as long as the T&S is present. Now I have to wonder if TS2 will play. Oh hell...

[KatEnigma]

Oh, TS2 will PLAY. You just won't be able to see the fish and might have some other graphical errors.  There are lots of posts here at Maty about the workarounds for that. EAxis isn't supporting laptops, either. 

[veilchen]

EAxis isn't even properly supporting their products, so that's not a surprise. After all, non-support is what they're best at.

I've been searching and reading on the laptop issue, luckily the search for "laptop" only brought up 3 pages, so it's not all that much. I'll be expanding it if necessary, but that's enough for now.

Meh, at least it will play it, that's good enough for now. The fine-tuning will just have to be done upon installing TS2 and its EP's.

[jsalemi]

I don't have too many problems playing TS2 on my Dell laptop.  It takes a little longer to load than on my desktop, and there's a bit more lag on occasion, but it's still playable.  Only thing I did was reduce the number of sims on a comm lot to something like 5 or 6 to cut the lag down.

(Oh, and I do see the fish. )

[veilchen]

LOL (and I did), when everyone started to mention fish, I had to look around to see what they meant. I've never seen any fish in the pond, I didn't even know they where supposed to be there.

So I'm guessing I'll not be missing them. The one thing that worries me is Oblivion. But as Neriana pointed out, there are older games. Now I'm getting ready to find Baldur's Gate again. I know I had both I and II. Where are they, rassafrassinconsarnit!

[jolrei]

LOL (and I did), when everyone started to mention fish, I had to look around to see what they meant. I've never seen any fish in the pond, I didn't even know they where supposed to be there...rassafrassinconsarnit! (edited for length, and to keep the fun words in)

Frankly, you never know until you try these things, I think.  From the posts on BV problems, it seems to me that the one consistent thing is that problems are inconsistent across computers that have the same general specs and the same video cards.  Your laptop sounds fine for TS2, considering my rig and its outdated video and paltry 1Gig of RAM.  I have had no problems.  A lot depends on the quality of components.  Best of luck, srsly.  (I went straight from UNI to BV with no intervening EPs - my sims don't even know what fish are.  Imagine graduating from university with that kind of a hole in your knowledge.  )

[veilchen]

Pffft. Today's education system... Why, when I was young, they made us go to school everyday, including Saturday and Sunday. Six miles, uphill both ways, through 6 feet of snow. Those young 'uns nowadays.. sad, sad, sad.

But I did threaten bribe my relative to install Oblivion on her computer - just to see, okay? I wasn't going to make her let me play it or nothing -. And it worked. It played at the highest resolution and no stuttering, hopping or skipping.

Unfortunately I failed to threaten bribe her into installing TS2. She claims that it would take too long (all EP's). Pfft. Today's youngsters have no idea about patience. Why, when I was young... (okay, okay, I'll shut up )

[neriana]

LOL (and I did), when everyone started to mention fish, I had to look around to see what they meant. I've never seen any fish in the pond, I didn't even know they where supposed to be there.

So I'm guessing I'll not be missing them. The one thing that worries me is Oblivion. But as Neriana pointed out, there are older games. Now I'm getting ready to find Baldur's Gate again. I know I had both I and II. Where are they, rassafrassinconsarnit!

I also recommend Planescape: Torment, and I bet both Star Wars: KotOR games will work as well. Also Morrowind if you haven't played it -- I find the setting far more interesting than Oblivion's.

When I was young, I had to switch BGII discs during nearly every loading screen! And the load times were so long I was able to finish my homework during them. Now I bitch about having to install a game from more than one DVD.