Gaming Computers: Best value for your money

When it comes to gaming computers, there is really something to decide upon, whether to buy a computer gaming rig or just simply opt for a console-based gaming. Here are some of the highlights of where you can decide if it will suit your needs.

Gaming computers are worth buying if:

• You have lots of money. It will cost you; this can be higher compared to the cost of a console. There is really a point where all your pc components must be equal or higher to that of games' ideal requirements.
• You want to maximize having a desktop for surfing and gaming
• You are a hardcore gamer. Whether any format, if you can't still get enough, you might want to try to build your own gaming computer.

Here is some of the computer component that is just above the desired requirements of any games to date. Keep in mind, don't fantasize yet on doing 60fps on Crysis, you will likely need to get a quad 9800gx2 for that.

Video Card

A video card will get you off to $200 for an 8800gt of any brand. This card has the best price to performance ratio. This has proved to be the best seller of late 2007; I give this card merit for opening gaming for mainstream gaming with great performance. The baby will get you nice frame rates on your 19' or 22' monitors. Here are some of the most basic or mainstream components needed for a good gaming machine.

Monitor

The monitor you will need can also be crucial. With most games are only enjoyable through a wide aspect ratio LCD Monitor such as 16:9 or 16:10. You can always use a 19 inch wide monitor. It will set you back for $250-$300

Processor

Upon the release of the 45nanometer processors; you can easily get a value processor. You can get an e4500 above to get some gaming going. The aforementioned processor is not yet of a 45nm fabrication process. I only recommended this for mainstream computing.

DDR or Ram Sticks

the industry standards for today's computing is focused on DDR2. By far, this can have the best price to performance ratio pc parts to date. Compared to a DDR1 module, DDR2 is significantly faster and cheaper. You can get 2 gigs of ddr800 ram for as low $50 on most retail shops.

Motherboard

basically, if you are just gaming in the mainstream market, you can go for the basic requirements; a PCI-Express Graphics Card slot, DDR2 800 MHz ram slots and the rest is up to your preference.

Hard Disk Drive

You don't need to buy expensive gears for this. A Sata-2 HDD will take care of your gaming. I would recommend 160gb to be the minimum for archiving your games. this will cost your $50 on average brands.

Power Supply Unit

Although this is one of the most unimportant part on your gaming computer, you can get a great PSU for as low as $50. Rule of the thumb is you need to make sure it is heavy. Next do you need only 450 watts for this recommended setup? As you may know, higher wattages don’t mean they need more power to run it. A power supply gets only the needed current and won't eat up your electricity. With that said, you can opt to a 550 or 600 watter PSU's of your choice.

Also, power supplies are rated not on their wattage. Keep attention to the amperage ratings on the side of the PSU. With the aforementioned setup, you need at least 24 amps on the 12v rails. Amps are the method of knowing how much power is supplied thru the line and having less of this can lead to restarts and Blue screens of death.

Other than that, I would just recommend buying an Intel Dual core processor. This is important because as of now, they have significantly better performances compared to their AMD counterparts. All you need now is a CPU case. Whatever your cheapest choices may be, you will need $30-$50 for this. With all the cost of the parts, it is clearly more expensive than console gaming. But there are some great advantages to it as well.

Article Source: http://articleeater.blogspot.com/2008/06/gaming-computers-best-value-for-your.html

A take on today’s PC gaming

From most part of my life, I have been gaming. I just started playing super Mario when I was just 3 years old. It was great and then on, I always had a passion for gaming.

3 years ago, the PC gaming scene I knew was great, everything is all balanced out from console to pc gaming. Lately there has been a decline on most games that are out on the market. Triple A titles are nowhere to be seen. Here is my take on maybe how pc gaming went sour lately.

Vista

• The OS made by Microsoft was really a leap ahead of technology; give away great eye candies and making a more secure environment. All these great stuff choked systems, especially machines built for XP. But still, even if you have Uber great hardware, Vista is still a problem.
  My take on this is hardware that are optimized for vista will be there in a year for casual gaming rigs. It may take a while but everybody will move along the same way as windows98 to XP transition.

Graphics Cards

• For the past year, video cards have been churning out day in day out. Most of the time, usually when you buy a next generation of cards would let you enjoy more than 2 times its predecessors’ power. But in this case, it doesn't deliver. The 8800gt is hands down the best bang for the buck gaming card. But look at the 9 series of video cards can't even double its performance. Nvidia now resorted back to using dual chips on a single PCB and yet came short. These cards are way pricey mind you.
• The next line of graphics cards on the horizon is still suffering as the GTX 280 is still rumored to have bad price to performance ratio. It will have improvements but i still doubt a casual gamer can afford to buy a video card that can run Crysis at a solid 60 frames per second.

Game Devs

• Lately, Crysis has been one of the cheesiest titles that hit the pc. It had a game engine that grinds the newest video cards to its already bleeding knees. Ubisoft has done a great job but they forgot one thing, it was only a tech demo. Let me explain first, it is a complete game but nothing can run it well on the day it was released. Only rich kids can play it great. I have seen tests that even quad 9800gx2 can't even play 60 well on the highest resolution, that’s 800 bucks times four, equaling 3.2 grand of solid waste of money.
  
  The future of PC gaming is still great. But lately, it has been just nothing. As hardware getting only fabrication process changes like 65 to 45 nanometer chips, yet nothing was revolutionary up to this point. I'm looking forward to new technology for hardware that can revive the murky waters of pc gaming.

For now, the best alternative is to play on consoles. They currently have almost all the latest hits that came from the pc from Half-life 2 episodic content, Bioshock, Command and Conquer 3, Call of Duty series, Battlefield series and so on...

The pc may have been sick as of now; it can also be rescued eventually. But with the way developers are going multiplatform, the pc will get stuck with no exclusives and nobody seems to mind.

Need for speed most wanted

Need for speed most wanted

This is the latest installment of EA game’s street arcade driving style Need for speed. As far as I want to tell you, this is the best of the bunch, it combines the thrill of being chased by cops and modding your ride to your heart’s content. Let’s get down to business. You are yourself, along with Mia (Josie Maran), Rog and Razor (the cheating bastard that made his way through the ranks sabotaging cars with his pals.

Graphics:

In a weird way, the game runs on a sepia colored environment, I don’t know what the hell are they thinking but it looks great IMO. I have been playing thing game since last year and all I can say is this game rules as of the moment. EA never gone to use High Dynamic Range in this game (HDR SM 3.0), but they made something up called overbright (SM 2.0) which mimics the HDR effect. The framerate is usually 30 when measured thru fraps but feels more like 60 fps.

The cars are are ok here, ranging from European and Asian imports and a hefty lineup of American cars. This includes of course the BMW GTR which is being used as its model car and the coveted car in the game itself.

Gameplay:

This time around the word is blacklist; this is status quo of the most notorious racers in Rockport. There are 15 blacklist racers, you start in the last of course, and you can make your way through each by completing certain amount of chosen races and some notorious points, and these points are measured in bounties and milestone events. Once having enough won races, and both these notorious points you can race a certain blacklist racer and take him on.

Sound

This is by far the best lineup with all the underground series to date. From Styles of beyond to Avenged Sevenfold, Prodigy, Static-x and compositions from Paul Linford in the soundtrack while racing and on bounty mode where you are being chased by police cops all over.

After running them over literally, you can choose some nice rewards but you can only get them randomly, there are 3 question mark icons for getting out of jail, money, impound strikes and a pink slip (opponents ride is yours) and 3 for unique body parts, performance parts, and visual upgrades.

Rants:

The thing is, there is a noticeable pause on certain areas, much like loading something and ruins the game, I have a 6600gt and a 2 gigs AMD processor, it’s more than the desired system requirements but It wont deliver, there are a lot of people complaining about this stuff, although some older systems with a Geforce 4 card seems to run ok. Even at the lowest settings or safe mode, the game still have some hiccups here and there, till now, with the latest patch, I don’t see anything improved yet. And guess what, EA officially announced that they had stopped any improvements since the 1.3 patch so this game is stuck on its knees begging to be improved.

Technical Details

Genre: Racing

Production date: November 2005

Platform: PC (also available in PS2, XBOX and 360, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS)

Cars:

• Aston Martin DB9
• Audi A3 3.2 quattro
• Audi A4 3.2 FSI quattro
• Audi TT 3.2 quattro
• BMW M3 GTR (E46)
• Cadillac CTS
• Chevrolet Camaro SS (1967 model)
• Chevrolet Corvette C6
• Chevrolet Corvette C6R
• Chevrolet Cobalt SS
• Dodge Viper SRT-10
• Fiat Punto (Mark 3)
• Ford GT
• Ford Mustang GT (S-197)
• Lamborghini Gallardo
• Lamborghini Murciélago
• Lexus IS 300
• Lotus Elise (Series 2)
• Mazda RX-7
• Mazda RX-8
• Mercedes-Benz CLK 500
• Mercedes-Benz SL 500
• Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG
• Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
• Mitsubishi Eclipse GT (2006/fourth generation model)
• Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII
• Pontiac GTO (2004 revived model)
• Porsche 911 Carrera S (Type 997)
• Porsche 911 GT2
• Porsche 911 Turbo S (Type 996)
• Porsche Carrera GT
• Porsche Cayman S
• Renault Clio V6 (Clio III)
• Subaru Impreza WRX STi (GD)
• Toyota Supra (Mk IV)
• Vauxhall Monaro VXR
• Volkswagen Golf GTI (Mk V)]

Links:

Most wanted Blog:

http://need-for-speed-most-wanted.blogspot.com/

Check everything first (common pc troubleshooting)

image taken from dansdata.com








We all know that pc's get broken from time to time, infinite ways to annoy you and up to the point that the system is inoperable. Here are some tips before you call the pc mechanic and save a lot time and money...

When you are having problems with your pc, ther are things that you might end up checking out first before reaching for help...

If it has something to do about hardware, you should always check if there are loose connections, i had experienced this several times, even with my friends computers.

They just simply have loose ends, the best way to fix it is turn off your computer and manually check them all.. if you think a certain device is the culprit, double check and see if you can resolve it.

When it comes to software problems, there are ways to check this out first

Blue screens galore? hmmm, try checking them out first.

• Video card

Here is the most common problem occuring within a common pc these days, this is the result of malfunctioning hardware,

A video card that has been overheated tends to show artifacts, i see this as green spots on my screen while gaming, check if there is a good ventilation of your card, these happen especially with cards that have big fans and starts to clog, dust them if you want, if you see the fans moving slower than usual, put some machine oil on them.

A rule of the thumb is, if you touch the heatsink ( the plate that attaches to the video card , usually made of aluminum or copper) you'd get a burning sensation, if not, its not the problem.

• Ram

You might as well check if the installed ram modules are clean and in good condition, there are a few programs that can check if this is a problem. You can try memtest (search it on google.com) and follow the instructions there to check.

Clean the metal ends that connect the modules to your pc, some might have dust on them and just a false alarm of impending hardware failure.

• Hard disks /softwares...
  

You can notice them when there is a significant rise in the loading times of your programs. This is another common problem with a pc.

Use scandisk first to check the file system and other things that concerns them. if the problem is solved, just run them from time to time as this problem occurs frequently along with power failures and fluctuations.

A way to prevent these voltage irregularities is use a UPS ( uninterruptible power supply) .

When you can't even get to the windows environment,

You can boot to safe mode and check for problems there (press f8 after the bios screen [first thing that opens up after you turn on your pc])

If you think you have installed a wrong driver, you can uninstall them with a good chance of repair is thru safe mode. Alternatively, you can use system restore to bring back the system to its installation state.

This is the best way to get your OS (operating system) back to normal. You can always use the original xp cd and try to recover your files back. Set your bios settings on the first boot device to CD-ROM, put the cd in, and restart, it should ask for instructions, just press any button after the bios screen. There are two choices, either reformat or repair..

We will with the repain on this situation, press the "r" button to get it onto the MS-DOS screen and type these things,,,,, this usually helps..

chkdsk

Also, you can type help if you want to see the full commands. after you have finished, just type exit and this helps sometimes if it relates to the hard disk problems.

• Other pc parts...

If youur pc shuts down after a while, the problem lies within the processor being hot or the PSU ( power supply unit) . pc's have a fail-safe features in them, when it reaches a threshold of its heat limitations, it suddenly shuts itself down.

Check if the fan is working properly, the pc fan can accumulate a lot of dusk including its heatsink (aluminum part ,usually between the fan and the processor)

A power supply with no exhaust or broken fan seems to have this problem too, you can also use any machine oil to get it working in proper condition.

Remember to use your common sense in repairing your computer, there are a lot of people that can fix their pc's inexpensively by just learning something about the machine every now and then.


You can always ask techimo.com about your pc problems, i am not part of their website but this is by experience the best site to ask for pc related things.

Inkjet Printers

Inkjet Printers

Printers have certainly come a long way. Since the creation of the character and dot matrix printers, the inkjet version is yet the best and economical way to suite your common printing needs.

Dot matrix printers are equipped with tiny wires touched to an inked ribbon to form characters. Character printers on the other hand used a bar or ball of which surfaces are embossed with all the characters you now see on any keyboard. These characters made contact with the ribbon, which also makes contact with the paper.
Today, innovative technology has changed the way images and texts are placed on paper and other media. Inkjet printers have seen the most significant technological advancement. They produce wide-format output, from architectural drawings and blueprints to banners, posters, point-of-sale displays, transit shelter ads, and billboards.
Inkjet printers are an inexpensive choice for all but the hardcore graphic arts requirements. They are also inexpensive and produce good color output.

Normally, inkjet printing forms images by spraying tiny droplets of liquid ink onto paper. Small size and precision placement of the dots of ink produce very near photo-quality images.

Inkjet printers, mainly those with six or more ink colors, lead the pack for photographic image quality. Inkjet printers fall into two categories: dye and pigment-based.

- Dyes are chemicals that come dissolved, usually in water. Inks that are Dye-based can be less expensive than pigment inks and tend to have larger color gamut’s, but they are chemically stable and less lightfast.

Dyes can interact chemically with the coatings on papers; you need to make sure the paper you are using is compatible with your inks. Most dye-based inkjet prints are prone to rapid, erratic chemical fading caused by oxidation from the air being polluted. It tends to be most horrible in standard glossy or semi gloss papers but lasts longer in gloss and pearl surfaces.

- Pigments are tiny particles that are suspended in the solvent, they mostly not dissolved. Pigment inks are more expensive than dye inks, but are much more lightfast and chemically stable.

Early pigment inks had poorer color gamuts than dye inks but recent pigment inks are competitive. As early pigment inks tend to clog printer nozzles, but with newer pigment ink, there is definitely an improvement.

Inkjet Printer Cartridge

Printers come along with computer use. For you to lessen your costs in using printer try buying ink printer cartridge.

There are two types of ink cartridge: an ink reservoir inkjet cartridge type and; an inkjet cartridge that has the printer head integrated into the cartridge. It usually contains print head and circuitry. At the bottom are nozzles or what is commonly referred to as jets.

Today, there can be from 50 to hundred of nozzles or “jets” on a print head located at the bottom inkjet cartridge. These are connected to a resistor that heats or cools the printer ink within the ink cartridge. When the ink is heated it forms bubbles and when it cools the bubble shoots dots of inks through nozzles to your printer paper.

Your ink cartridge will eventually wear out. It starts when you see areas where ink fails to print. If this happen, you still have the choice of buying a compatible ink cartridge or refill them up because you still have ink in the cartridge. This will cost you less than the brand name cartridge and you can still replace the printer ink to your compatible cartridge until it wears out.

There are different replacement options for your inkjet cartridge. Below are some choices:
- OEM (original equipment manufacturer) cartridges
- compatible ink cartridges
- remanufactured ink cartridges
- printer ink refill kit, laser toner refill
The inkjet cartridge type you have and the replacement option you choose for your inkjet cartridge ultimately dictates your cost savings. Always ensure that you’re buying a compatible ink cartridge, if not it may cause damage to your printer and the quality of printing. To avoid this here are some tips in replacing your ink cartridge:

- Avoid generic cartridges. The ink used in these cartridges may damage your printer’s nozzles.

- Figure out the printing quality you need. Ink cartridges made by the same manufacturer as the printer will produce the best results. These cartridges are also the priciest.

- Take a look at the printer warranty. Some manufacturer's warranties are void if an ink cartridge is used that is made by a different manufacturer.
- Look at the page yield of the ink cartridge you are buying. This will tell you how much printing the cartridge will do.

Always consider the quality and the safety of your printer. It is useless if you buy a low cost cartridge that is not compatible to your printer. It will just cost you a lot.

Inkjet Printer Ink

Having an inkjet printer is inexpensive, but replacing the ink of inkjet printers is very expensive when it runs out. And it is even more expensive if you have a color laser printer.

Inkjet Printer ink is made of triple distilled, de-ionized water, dye or pigment color of a known particle size, humectants such as glycol to lessen evaporation and clogging of the head surfactants to stabilize surface tension and paper wetting, resins to get good paper adhesion, fungicides and biocides and buffering agents for the correct pH.

Here are some tips to save an ink:

- Only print in color when you need to. Color ink is more expensive than black ink and often you don’t need to use it.

- Buy ink from somebody other than the printer's manufacturer. This is where you have to be careful: cheap, badly made ink cartridges can result in poor-quality text. However, if you can get a good recommendation to a reputable firm, it could save you a considerable amount of money.

- Read your printer manual and find out if it has a "draft" mode. While not good enough for sending out, documents that are for your eyes only can probably be printed in draft, which will save at least some of our ink.

Ordering online is one of the best options in case you run out of inkjet printer ink. But you should keep in mind some pointers to be sure you’ll get the best service, the best products available, for all your printing needs and not to mention…the huge savings!

You should only deal with the best online printer companies.

At a minimum, you should expect 1) superior quality ink and toner products that meet or exceed your printer manufacturer's recommendation, 2) significantly lower prices with no hidden charges, 3) a simple "no nonsense" money-back guarantee and 4) rapid shipment
of all your orders.

Buy ink in bulk

Buying inkjet ink in bulk is a great way to save money. Inkjet ink cartridges' shelf life is at least 12 months. Keeping some in stock will always save you from running out of printer ink at unexpected moment. After all, it is something your inkjet printer could not do without.

CD Inkjet Printers

Inkjet printers have the reputation for good quality printouts. Like with all CD inkjet printers, you can always acquire the ones with quality so you won’t go wrong with purchasing. Printers can come with both color and black printing options.
You can try to see what the features of the printer itself are. The Dpi quality is the thing you need to keep an eye on, the higher dpi, the better the printouts will be. Also you need to see if what type of cartridge it will be using, look for its availability so you won’t have to scour online just to get some replacements when they have emptied.
As almost all recent models of printers support windows XP, you don’t need to worry about other features that might or might not have been there.
In the personal and small business computer market, inkjet printers currently predominate. Inkjets are usually inexpensive, quiet, reasonably fast, and many models can produce high quality output. Printer that are exclusively for printing CD’s and CD covers are almost the native features if inkjet printers.
Inkjet printers are the most common type of computer printer for the general consumer. While some people think that industry and commerce have switched from dot-matrix printers to inkjet printers for special-purpose applications such as ATMs and cash registers, they are more likely to be using thermal printers.
CD printers are the ideal way to provide a professional look to your CD-R media. Today’s leading brands of CD printers have exceptional prices. You can select from thermal transfer and inkjet based solutions, but in this case, if you are looking for a cheap way to get your CD’s printer at low cost, you can easily go with inkjet printers.
When selecting a printer, be sure to check out all of its features. You can find out its real usability with the comments of other people who have already tried the product, this can sometimes get in the way to selecting the right one. One thing you need to keep in mind that if you want quality printouts, always go for the ones that have been rated as durable and good to last a lot of printing.

Inkjet Printer Cartridge

Printers come along with computer use. For you to lessen your costs in using printer try buying ink printer cartridge.

There are two types of ink cartridge: an ink reservoir inkjet cartridge type and; an inkjet cartridge that has the printer head integrated into the cartridge. It usually contains print head and circuitry. At the bottom are nozzles or what is commonly referred to as jets.

Today, there can be from 50 to hundred of nozzles or “jets” on a print head located at the bottom inkjet cartridge. These are connected to a resistor that heats or cools the printer ink within the ink cartridge. When the ink is heated it forms bubbles and when it cools the bubble shoots dots of inks through nozzles to your printer paper.

Your ink cartridge will eventually wear out. It starts when you see areas where ink fails to print. If this happen, you still have the choice of buying a compatible ink cartridge or refill them up because you still have ink in the cartridge. This will cost you less than the brand name cartridge and you can still replace the printer ink to your compatible cartridge until it wears out.

There are different replacement options for your inkjet cartridge. Below are some choices:
• OEM (original equipment manufacturer) cartridges
• compatible ink cartridges
• remanufactured ink cartridges
• printer ink refill kit, laser toner refill
The inkjet cartridge type you have and the replacement option you choose for your inkjet cartridge ultimately dictates your cost savings. Always ensure that you’re buying a compatible ink cartridge, if not it may cause damage to your printer and the quality of printing. To avoid this here are some tips in replacing your ink cartridge:

1. Avoid generic cartridges. The ink used in these cartridges may damage your printer’s nozzles.
2. Figure out the printing quality you need. Ink cartridges made by the same manufacturer as the printer will produce the best results. These cartridges are also the priciest.
3. Take a look at the printer warranty. Some manufacturer's warranties are void if an ink cartridge is used that is made by a different manufacturer.
4. Look at the page yield of the ink cartridge you are buying. This will tell you how much printing the cartridge will do.

Always consider the quality and the safety of your printer. It is useless if you buy a low cost cartridge that is not compatible to your printer. It will just cost you a lot.