[QUOTE=Sanfam;164351]Also, if you're going with any of these core 2 duo units, you'll be perfectly fine with the OEM cpu cooler. The systems idle just fine and dandy with it. My roommate's e6600 is idling mid to high 30's, loading in the 40's. I imagine the e6550 would run slightly cooler and the e6750 just a tad warmer. Save $35 and skip it. Or better yet, put it into a good quality power supply. Name brand, preferrably. [URL="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371005"]Such as this example.[/URL] It's not 550 watts, but your system doesn't sound like it is going to require more than 400 in the worst possible situation, so this seems like a safe bet.[/QUOTE]
I have a 400w power supply right now. You think it would be enough?
It would be enough depending on how good the 12V rail is and if it got all the connectors that are needed.
From Anandtech "The problem is that there is a huge performance gap between the 8600 GTS and the 8800 GTS 320MB. We also have multiple cases where NVIDIA's new offerings perform lower than similarly priced hardware from their own previous generation hardware. In almost every case, AMD's X1900 XT 256MB beats out the 8600 GTS. While this hardware is certainly being phased out, it is still available and offers much better price/performance."
[QUOTE=shadow boxer;164260] provided they didn't adopt what ammounts to a newer supposedly sexier codec... fucking window dressing on a 'Buy Vista Bitches' drive...[/QUOTE]
As wrong as it sounds I think I'm all for MS taking any steps it wants in Vista support to promote its sales. PC game pickings keep getting slimmer every year and I have no doubt if it wasn't for MS pressuring developers or paying them off to support Vista in order to promote it we'd simply have a lot of titles being released as console only. Some of my favorite titles are simply making it back to the PC because MS paid lots of cash for exclusivity. So be it.
Having finished the game. Definatly worth every cent I paid for it. When you can play it, play it. It rocks. If you get bored half way through, make yourself go further, because it ROCKS.
@ Space Ghost - If you were closer to me right now, I would be hurting you. Please, for the love of your dear and fluffy lord, do NOT put a $20 power supply in a computer. I can't tell you how many people bring me computers they have bought or built with problems, and the problems relate to a cheap POS power supply. If it doesn't say Antec, PC Power & Cooling or Enermax, won't touch it. Yes, they are significantly more expensive, however you be damn sure your 12V rails are 12V EXACTLY, and the signals will be clean, not noisy.
A good thing to do with power supplies is the weight test. Find a store where you pick it up (don't buy it there, just browse, Newegg rocks), feel how heavy it is. The heavier the better. My power supply weighs more than my case.
As far as wattage. 400-480W should be fine for that setup. Your motherboard doesn't support SLI. So there is no reason to go up into the 500W range.
The only other thing I can say is, drop the bargain basement RAM too. Cruicial, Corsair, Kingston, OCZ all good brands. Again yes, it costs more. But bad RAM is another big problem.
@everyone else...
Don't waste your money on DX10 video cards. Even the fastest DX10 video cards today (like the 8800 series nVidea) chug when it comes to running true DX10 features. Bargain DX10 cards (8500 series) only really run it on paper. Wait a generation or two. Besides, there just isn't a need to go run out and get DX10 unless your running Vista, and why are you running Vista yet and trying to game? Its not exactly ready. The software selection of DX10 games is also very small, and I would say a good 80% of them suck anyways.
Bioshock is a neat looking game. However as A# has already pointed out, its dreadfully short also the zones are small, the loading times long, the AI slightly buggy, and the whole game suffers from being a resource hog on even the pimpinest systems. As a beta tester, Im ashamed to say they did nothing to what I suggested.
AMD X2 4200 (because I am an AMD fanboy)
2GB Corsair XMS DDR2
[url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131011]This freaking awesome Motherboard[/url] The MB is the core of your system, try to future proof it as best you can. I can upgrade my system without touching the MB for at least 2 years.
1/2 Terrabyte of Storage in 2 HDD
2x Geforce 7800GTX not running in SLI mode, because you can't run dual monitors from two cards in SLI. Why? I don't know, it sounds stupid to me too.
Thermaltake [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106061]Big Typhoon[/url] Your processor can never be too cool. For being gaudy huge, its actually pretty quiet.
PC Power & Cooling 510W SLI Power supply
Lian Li All anodized aluminum all black case.
I plan on upgrading the processor here soon. But before I do that, I need to get my wife a new motherboard that has the AM2 socket. That way I can upgrade her AMD64 3000 up to my X2 4200. Then we just play round robin with the computer parts. The kids computer uses the same socket as the wifes so they go up to the 3000.
You're quite picky about your PSUs :D There are quite alot of good ones out there, but I can agree at not getting some dirt cheap PSU, there got to be a reason why it's cheap.
Just because I'm bored and waiting for blech to download:
Intel Core 2 Duo e4300 (OCed to 3GHz)
3GB Corsair XMS DDR2
Intel P5B-Deluxe motherboard
2x250GB Wester Digital Caviar in RAID0
Geforce 8800gts 640MB
FSP BlueStorm PSU
Zalman cnps-9500 CPU heatsink
Some crap 30€ computer case.
G.Skill ram has proven itself to be of fairly good quality. I used to consider it a budget brand, but after using it in a number of projects with fantastic results, I can't disapprove. But never, ever skimp on power. Ever. It will bite you in the ass later.
And who said anything about running DX10? The suggestions are all bang-per-buck DX9 performance.
yep, I am insanely picky about power. I am serious when I say that 9 times out of 10, someone comes to me with a hardware related problem its power. The 10th time, its cheap ram 8).
If its not hardware related, its because they clicked on the email from Titty McSyphilis informing them of provocative pictures involving her and several other individuals. In those cases, I just take their hard drive to work with me and run it through the magnet a few times.
RubberEagleWhat's a rubber eagle used for, anyway?
slightly back on topic:
[IMG]http://members.inode.at/clemens.gritsch/IGP1081.jpg[/IMG]
Random ChaosActually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
Seems to me that 90% of the hardware failures are caused by Ram or PSU. The rest are mostly the result of power surges or stupid human tricks.
I run an Enermax power supply right now, though I was considering a Corsair PSU for my next custom built case because of their very smart design from a company with a good reputation in the memory sector.
i actually had a problem with my 2 gigs of OCZ memory and my Asus Mobo, the machine won't boot with it in alone, thats why i have 2.5 gigs, i ha d to buy a 512 meg stick to get the thing to boot,
Perhaps they've come out witha bios fix for that, but i've been too lazy to check
Well, the guy who wrote the article didn't seem to have a clue about the "minor" technical issues. Sure it's well enough to install the game on 2 (now 5) different computers but the whole point is that there were no warning about the activation limit and people who had technical issues to get the game going installed it on one computer, when it didn't work maybe on another, and when they wanted to install again on the first computer it didn't allow it. There are alot of other technical issues better explained here. [url]http://www.twitchguru.com/2007/08/27/bioshock_drm/[/url]
I do think that the developers do have the best intetions but this kind of copy protection is crap when it's the consumers who legaly buy the game that are screwed.
Whats this about an activation limit and what happens when you go over it? Do you have to rebuy the game? Do you just call them up like MS and have them reset it? I have installed games a lot more than 5 times for a multitude of reasons before.
This whole hoobla about copy protection has got way out of hand. People will always priate stuff no matter what, they will always find a way around it in some way. People are too desperate for money now. If older games would come out open source more, then maybe pirating wouldn't be such a problem. People want to save money, companies want to take it all. I support free software, and that's they way it should be. Like the begining of the Every OS sucks song, "If you downloaded this song from napster, screw you! Free isn't good enough for you, you have to rip us off or something?" Putting limits on how much you can reinstall a game.. my god. Online authentication.... when they go... your screwed. There is no real solution for the companies from pirating because they want money. Data is copyable, no matter what way you put it. If it was programmed, someone can unprogram it. Things are only going to get worse.... I feel it in me bones.
[QUOTE=Vorlons in my Head;164522]Whats this about an activation limit and what happens when you go over it? Do you have to rebuy the game? Do you just call them up like MS and have them reset it? I have installed games a lot more than 5 times for a multitude of reasons before.[/QUOTE]
You can call SecuRom, it's their copy protection, and tell them to reset it, but from some comments I read you seem to need to send in a copy of the receipt and a photo of the game disk. But the developers of Bioshock are working on a remover that if you uninstall the game with that one you will get the activation back so to say.
So now what happens if you happen to *not* have a digital camera or scanner, as with many gamers that I know? Hell, what if someone wants to play it in ten years when the game is long since forgotten about?
RubberEagleWhat's a rubber eagle used for, anyway?
[QUOTE=Sanfam;164535]Hell, what if someone wants to play it in ten years when the game is long since forgotten about?[/QUOTE]
2K has promised to remove the activation in due time, when the interest in pirating it has ebbed.
If I remember correctly from installing it, the activation occurs when first starting the game, so in theory it should be possible to apply an anti-activation-patch directly after installing the game.
As was discussed on IRC, what happens if someone tries to install it, down the road, in an environment where 2kgames no longer exists or a suitable connection isn't available to download this patch? It's just long-term trouble.
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
Who has defined "due time"? Perhaps for them "due time" will be "when our copyright expires" but they also decide that they're not going to sell the game anymore and so don't want to keep paying for the activation service. What happens if 2K gets bought out, and the new owners decide that such a patch is not in their best interest, then decide they also don't want to continue the activation service and deactivate it? You're trusting an unknowable, nebulous entity (which is essentially what a company is in this modern business world) to keep their word, even if the people behind that word completely change or otherwise get removed from the decision process. They might keep their word and release such a patch. Or they might not.
Basically it all comes down to the chance that you'll lost access to a product you legally bought, except via illegal methods for which you can be jailed in many countries, including the USA and Australia. That's not a situation that's good for gamers, long term. Hell, it's not good for anyone who wants to be able to use their legally-purchased product when and where they want.
Had to post this here now when I found this. It's how two different videocards perform with different CPUs. These are high end videocards so with low end videocards the CPU won't help any better. [url]http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2007/08/30/bioshock_gameplay_graphics_and_performance/10[/url]
Comments
[QUOTE=Sanfam;164351]Also, if you're going with any of these core 2 duo units, you'll be perfectly fine with the OEM cpu cooler. The systems idle just fine and dandy with it. My roommate's e6600 is idling mid to high 30's, loading in the 40's. I imagine the e6550 would run slightly cooler and the e6750 just a tad warmer. Save $35 and skip it. Or better yet, put it into a good quality power supply. Name brand, preferrably. [URL="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371005"]Such as this example.[/URL] It's not 550 watts, but your system doesn't sound like it is going to require more than 400 in the worst possible situation, so this seems like a safe bet.[/QUOTE]
I have a 400w power supply right now. You think it would be enough?
From Anandtech "The problem is that there is a huge performance gap between the 8600 GTS and the 8800 GTS 320MB. We also have multiple cases where NVIDIA's new offerings perform lower than similarly priced hardware from their own previous generation hardware. In almost every case, AMD's X1900 XT 256MB beats out the 8600 GTS. While this hardware is certainly being phased out, it is still available and offers much better price/performance."
As wrong as it sounds I think I'm all for MS taking any steps it wants in Vista support to promote its sales. PC game pickings keep getting slimmer every year and I have no doubt if it wasn't for MS pressuring developers or paying them off to support Vista in order to promote it we'd simply have a lot of titles being released as console only. Some of my favorite titles are simply making it back to the PC because MS paid lots of cash for exclusivity. So be it.
Having finished the game. Definatly worth every cent I paid for it. When you can play it, play it. It rocks. If you get bored half way through, make yourself go further, because it ROCKS.
A good thing to do with power supplies is the weight test. Find a store where you pick it up (don't buy it there, just browse, Newegg rocks), feel how heavy it is. The heavier the better. My power supply weighs more than my case.
As far as wattage. 400-480W should be fine for that setup. Your motherboard doesn't support SLI. So there is no reason to go up into the 500W range.
The only other thing I can say is, drop the bargain basement RAM too. Cruicial, Corsair, Kingston, OCZ all good brands. Again yes, it costs more. But bad RAM is another big problem.
@everyone else...
Don't waste your money on DX10 video cards. Even the fastest DX10 video cards today (like the 8800 series nVidea) chug when it comes to running true DX10 features. Bargain DX10 cards (8500 series) only really run it on paper. Wait a generation or two. Besides, there just isn't a need to go run out and get DX10 unless your running Vista, and why are you running Vista yet and trying to game? Its not exactly ready. The software selection of DX10 games is also very small, and I would say a good 80% of them suck anyways.
Bioshock is a neat looking game. However as A# has already pointed out, its dreadfully short also the zones are small, the loading times long, the AI slightly buggy, and the whole game suffers from being a resource hog on even the pimpinest systems. As a beta tester, Im ashamed to say they did nothing to what I suggested.
AMD X2 4200 (because I am an AMD fanboy)
2GB Corsair XMS DDR2
[url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131011]This freaking awesome Motherboard[/url] The MB is the core of your system, try to future proof it as best you can. I can upgrade my system without touching the MB for at least 2 years.
1/2 Terrabyte of Storage in 2 HDD
2x Geforce 7800GTX not running in SLI mode, because you can't run dual monitors from two cards in SLI. Why? I don't know, it sounds stupid to me too.
Thermaltake [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106061]Big Typhoon[/url] Your processor can never be too cool. For being gaudy huge, its actually pretty quiet.
PC Power & Cooling 510W SLI Power supply
Lian Li All anodized aluminum all black case.
I plan on upgrading the processor here soon. But before I do that, I need to get my wife a new motherboard that has the AM2 socket. That way I can upgrade her AMD64 3000 up to my X2 4200. Then we just play round robin with the computer parts. The kids computer uses the same socket as the wifes so they go up to the 3000.
Just because I'm bored and waiting for blech to download:
Intel Core 2 Duo e4300 (OCed to 3GHz)
3GB Corsair XMS DDR2
Intel P5B-Deluxe motherboard
2x250GB Wester Digital Caviar in RAID0
Geforce 8800gts 640MB
FSP BlueStorm PSU
Zalman cnps-9500 CPU heatsink
Some crap 30€ computer case.
I've got an E6600,
the same EVGA 7600GT
2.5 gigs of ram.
Bioshock runs very nicely on it.
I prefer the Asus motherboards to the GB's, and i'd definatly spend the extra cash on an 8800 rather than the 7600, but it looks good otherwise.
And who said anything about running DX10? The suggestions are all bang-per-buck DX9 performance.
If its not hardware related, its because they clicked on the email from Titty McSyphilis informing them of provocative pictures involving her and several other individuals. In those cases, I just take their hard drive to work with me and run it through the magnet a few times.
[IMG]http://members.inode.at/clemens.gritsch/IGP1081.jpg[/IMG]
I run an Enermax power supply right now, though I was considering a Corsair PSU for my next custom built case because of their very smart design from a company with a good reputation in the memory sector.
Perhaps they've come out witha bios fix for that, but i've been too lazy to check
I do think that the developers do have the best intetions but this kind of copy protection is crap when it's the consumers who legaly buy the game that are screwed.
You can call SecuRom, it's their copy protection, and tell them to reset it, but from some comments I read you seem to need to send in a copy of the receipt and a photo of the game disk. But the developers of Bioshock are working on a remover that if you uninstall the game with that one you will get the activation back so to say.
2K has promised to remove the activation in due time, when the interest in pirating it has ebbed.
If I remember correctly from installing it, the activation occurs when first starting the game, so in theory it should be possible to apply an anti-activation-patch directly after installing the game.
Basically it all comes down to the chance that you'll lost access to a product you legally bought, except via illegal methods for which you can be jailed in many countries, including the USA and Australia. That's not a situation that's good for gamers, long term. Hell, it's not good for anyone who wants to be able to use their legally-purchased product when and where they want.