Larry Crosses the Rubicon

Some of you may be aware of the love-hate relationship I have with my gaming PC, Larry. Larry, for the un-technical, is an Alienware M-7700 Desktop Replacement class Windows/Intel Personal Computer. He weighs about 13 pounds, without the power supply, produces heat like a desktop, and is reasonably powerful for his vintage. Larry is also going on 3 years old. Which, in the PC world, translates into Ancient.

And last night, he crossed over into "inadequate". He is no longer adequate in his adequacity. The culprit is the demonstration version of Overlord. This game is an absolute blast of good times. At least it should be. Or would be. If Larry was up to the task. Which he is not. Unless I turn all of the fancy effects off and turn the screen resolution down to 1024x768. And even then, sometimes, not so much.

Upgrade? No dice. About the only bit I can upgrade in Larry is the processor, and I'm not 100% certain I can do that. I think what I bought might be the best that will fit on the mother board. And it's not really a processor issue. It's the ageing x800 graphics processor that's bringing him down. And that's a custom bit that Alienware has categorically stated will never have a replacement part.

Build New? Ya right. That's not even going to make it to committee. I was lucky to survive my last $4500 PC purchase.

Bioshock isn't even going to run.

LAN Fest '07.1

'07.1 because I hope it won't be the only one. I wouldn't mind hitting this quarterly. I consider it leverage against the insane amount of money I have spent on a portable computer rig.

If I were to do it again (and I may), I would not buy a 17". I would go with a 15", which appears to reduce the weight by half. And the price by half. I thought that the full size, compressed keyboard would be cool/good, but I drag a real keyboard around anyways, so that's a moot point. I also thought the 17" wide screen would be a good compromise size vs. portability. It isn't. I'm spoiled for big displays. But if I need a big display on my desk, I can always connect an external panel at what ever monstrous dimension I want (something 20"-ish next I think), and then still have portability.

The research spent has to be on what the video will actually support relative to the native display of said panels. The down side of LCD is that unless you have one with an impressively high native resolution (1600 x 1040 or better), when you run it at less than that, it looks B.A.D. Larry is right on the edge of that. One step higher would scale down well. Actually he does one step down fair to good. BUT the video card in the box isn't quite up to supporting that top resolution with bells and whistles in most games. I often think it would be better for me to throw on a 1280x1024 panel onto his external port, because the X800 would support that better.

Fortunately, my next purchase will be better informed.