Best OS - Components for Gaming System

[Anjie]

Okay Guys,
My son has asked everyone to get together and buy components to build his own system for his birthday and Christmas. His birthday is in a couple weeks. Need some imput here. He is wanting it primarily for gaming. I am not much of a gamer and I am not sure what works best. Could you guys give us some ideas what to get. I have XP Home Edition on my current PC and he does not like it. It does seem to have several compatiblity issues with alot of his games. What is the best OS for a gaming system.

[Kubie]

Hi Anjie,
How have you been?
What I have heard about gaming systems is that the video card is one of the most important items. You can't skimp there. You do not have to have the fastest of cpus' but lots of ram won't hurt.
I've heard also that Win98 and then up to XP are the best but not W2K. I'm surprised that there have been compatibility issues with yours.
Lotsa gamers here so a more indepth answer will be on its way shortly.
Carl

[MonkeyBlitch]

Try to get at least a 2GHz cpu and 512 memory. I think Win XP Pro is excellent for gaming and all my games new and old run very well. Also get a good video card.

[imbest123]

win 98 is probably the best for gaming since it uses the least ram and is compatible with almost every game. make sure the memory is ddr and for better performance u might want to try ram that is pc 2700. the video card is the main coponent when playin games so a make sure to get a good one if u can.

[Anjie]

Cool Thanks guys...I know he should get a good graphics card. Should we go AMD or Pentium in the processor? I have always had AMD. I have never had any problems. But I know gaming is a different story than my simple data and image editing usage. That will help us decide on the mobo which will then help us to get the graphics card. As far as the XP compatibilty thing goes I am not sure which games he can or can not play. Just know that he likes to do some of the on line gaming and he says that he can not get some of the downloads because they are not XP compatible. Actually have 98SE anyway so may start him out on that for a while and then we can get him XP Pro or something later. Haven't done much study on the graphics card these days. Built my system a year or so ago and lost track after that. So any imput you guys want to give us is greatly appreciated.

[imbest123]

for gaming a geforce ti (any one of them, they are all great) or radeon 9200 or better video card would be good

[Alaron]

What kind of budget are you working with? That makes it much easier to configure the best bang for the buck system. Intel or AMD is fine, it doesn't matter.

Along the AMD line, a Soltek SL-75FRN2-L or an Asus A7N8X motherboard, a Barton 2500+ and 512megs of PC3200 DDR ram.

With Intel, check out the Asus P4P800, a 2.4C processor and 512megs of PC3200 ram.

I recommend ATI for video cards. The 9500Pro/9600Pro or the 9700Pro/9800Pro. Get the best you can afford for maximum power and longevity.

Hope this helps :)

[MonkeyBlitch]

The TI cards are excellent for gaming also.

[RayH]

The whole question comes down to much do you want to spend? Mo' money; mo' betta!

If he's got compatibility issues, then he's not playing the latest. It sounds like he needs a dual boot machine, Windows 98SE and XP. When I built my son's computer, he specifically wanted both because some of his older games won't run on XP!

You don't have to buy the latest video card. But don't get one too old. But you'd be surprised how much a faster processor and a lot of RAM will step up old graphics.

[coolcps]

On XP you can do a cool little trick that may help out. Just rightclick on any .exe and do properties then go to compatibility and you can change it to windows 95, 98 and so on. That will make some games work.

[RayH]

Coolcps, I learn something new every day.

[coolcps]

Me too, I was just fooling around when I found that out, and it helped on some stuff.

[Anjie]

Gotta love this place huh? Will definitely try the compatibility trick. As far as the budget goes, sort of depends. He has just let everyone know, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on what he wants to do. Gift giving on my husbands side is a little odd...they ask everyone to make a list of things they want and they pick what they want to buy, givin' a price range of course. So he can just add some of the less expensive things on that list. Of course the larger things will come down to his savings and Mom and Dad. He plans to accumulate the items to build his own system between his birthday in August and Christmas. We have decided on AMD simply because of the cost difference. I had already recommended the Abit and ASUS boards to him, ASUS being the less pricey of the two. I thought about getting him a barebones system for his birthday and then letting him add to that as he goes. Where are some good reliable places to shop on here for components and such? Have read many articles in the ComputerShoppers mag. about graphics cards and pc comparison. Seems to me that the Geforce cards rate a little better in the gaming systems there. I have a Radeon 8500 in my system and I know he doesn't have any trouble with it. Some games are current, some are his old favs.

[MonkeyBlitch]

Check out www.mwave.com, www.newegg.com, www.directron.com and www.allstarshop.com

[Anjie]

Cool Monkey...just thought to mention again that he wants to build this thing by himself. He is 15 and this will be his first venture to the inside of a computer. Wondering if we should not go to totally all out just in case he fries it or something. ;). Just curious, does the Asus A7N8X have intergrated audio and video?

[MonkeyBlitch]

It should say in the specs, I do know it has onboard sound.

[Floppyman]

Originally posted by coolcps
On XP you can do a cool little trick that may help out. Just rightclick on any .exe and do properties then go to compatibility and you can change it to windows 95, 98 and so on. That will make some games work.

You can enable this in windows 2000 as well, btw.

[coolcps]

If you are thinking of accumulating the parts over that length of time I would say try not too. Just wait all until Christmas and buy it all then, I bet hundreds of dollars will be saved.

[TimPoet]

Well, when it comes to buying computer parts over a period of time this is how you do it. Buy RAM right NOW, the prices are the lowest they have ever been. You can buy the rest of the parts soon except for the cpu, motherboard and video card. Those prices drop so fast if you are buying over a 3-6 month time frame you will hate yourself when you see how much money you could have saved by simply waiting until you were ready to build.
Nvidia GEForce Ti 4200 by Gainward or Asus would be good video cards as well as the Radeon 9500 Pro (or regular) by Powercolor or Sapphire.
I agree with your thoughts on the Win98 OS you already have. I have also heard that XP is not so stable for games.

[imbest123]

i have xp and 98 the only thing is that since xp uses more resources i tend to lag more on it than on 98se. xp has great options though so i would recomend anyone but for gaming i say go with 98se and the geforce 4 ti 4200 has got to be the best card out there for wut its worth.

[Anjie]

Well, have done lots of research, most agree with what I am being told here. So here is a list of things we are thinking of orderig from newegg.com.

Antec Solution Series Case with 300W Power Supply
(Have noticed much bigger power supplies in other systems any input here?)
Asus A7N8X Deluxe Mobo (Thanks Alaron56, has great reviews)
AMD Barton 2500+ (Again, all great reviews)
ATI 9500 Pro 128 MB DDR (Many say it works better than 9600 any bigger than 9600 is much to expensive with everything else.)
CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series 512MB 32MX8 PC-3200C2 With Heat Spreader
(Boy, is there a lot of stuff going on with RAM since I put my system together a year and a half ago.)
Western Digital Special Edition 80GB 7200RPM Cache 8MB Hard-Drive
Pioneer DVD Model 120
Plus all the other little things,floppy, keyboard, mouse, case fans, etc.

So let me know if anyone has had any problems with this stuff or if there are compatibility issues or anything I should know. Would like to order by Friday. I will be checking in frequently. Thanks guys.

[TimPoet]

Nope, no incompatibilities there. Great choices. 300W is plenty of power coming from a quality PSU like Antec. Actually, that may not be an Antec PSU. See if you can find out which brand PSU that case comes with.
You may want to order two 256 sticks of RAM cuz in case you have to troubleshoot for a RAM problem you can pull one stick to see if the other is bad or good.
Excellent choice in HDD. Might want to consider getting a cdrw burner. Lite On is an excellent brand for the best price.

[Anjie]

Cool. Thanks! Thought a CD-RW would be a good X-mas gift. Needs DVD for some games so thought we would start with that. Yes it is an Antec PS. Smart Power ATX12V to be exact. Again, great comments in all of the reviews. Opted to get an Antec Performance II Case instead as it has two front USB ports with firewire and is supposedly much roomier for very little more money. Thought about the two sticks of RAM. May still do it. But it is cheaper to buy the one.

[Alaron]

Check out the Corsair Value Select ram. It is much cheaper then the XMS series. That is more for extreme performance and overclocking.

2 sticks of CORSAIR 256MB PC3200 VALUE SELECT. DDR RAM - OEM is $106.

CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series 512MB 32MX8 PC-3200C2 With Heat Spreader is $118

Be sure to get 2 sticks for troubleshooting and so you can use Dual Channel for a performance increase.

Looks like a nice system. The 9500Pro is indeed a better choice then the 9600Pro. Good luck with the build! :)

[Anjie]

It is all ordered. Went with two sticks 256MB XMS Memory instead of the one 512. It was only $10 more. But everything else is the same. Couldn't get the graphics card. Sold out. Will wait until the 29th (ETA) and if it is not in by then may order the 9600 Pro. Would like to thank you all. And I am sure we will be back in the Hardware section soon. His birthday is the 6th and we hope to be working on it after that.

[RayH]

You did well to order all the parts at once. Hopefully, you did so from a place that backs their products, such as New Egg.

My opinion is that it's really pretty hard to mess up a build as long as you plug things in right and don't bend pins.

[Hi Ho]

XP is a must. It is 1000 times more stable than 98 and I haven't had any problems with compatibility.

[Anjie]

I am so pumped. Don't know who is more excited, me or him. Got the 9500 Pro in stock today and I ordered it within hours of it being posted in stock so it should all go as planned. And I did order everything from New Egg. Can't wait to let you all know how it goes for us.

[TimPoet]

Computer building is a good thing.
Go Angie, go!

[morriswindgate]

The best thing is to make a Dual Boot system with XP being the Default OS as it is better for playing the newer games. And then install 98SE as an alternate boot to get the ability to play the 1995 thru 1999 games.
I would also look at getting at least an 60GIG Hard drive or better also.

[sdkfz]

to answer your PS question - the really big power supplies are needed by those who are into the lights and other items that are part of the pc modiffication crowd. 300-35- watts are fine especially with a good quality PS

[Anjie]

Okay Guys, got everything in today except the graphics card. I have decided to go ahead and order Windows XP for this system. We have a 120GB HD so dual booting is not a problem. In fact, formatting the hard drive is what I am going to need the most help with. I think everything else is pretty basic. Should I get the XP Professional or Home version? And actually the little booger wanted all the lights and stuff, but talked him out of it. Thought it best to spend the money on quality components to make a sound machine rather than a pretty one. He can beef it up his way later. Will make sure to mention he will need a bigger power supply to do it. Actually he will need a whole new case as it is just a plain beige one. But lets see how exciting it is to him when he has to spend HIS money...

[TimPoet]

Originally posted by Anjie
But lets see how exciting it is to him when he has to spend HIS money... hehe

[tyoung]

Let him buy a window kit, cut his own hole and custom paint the case himself.

Can be done fairly inexpensively, lights are easy, would be a good experience for him.

[Anjie]

Hey, actually that sounds really cool. Might mention that to him too.

[Cacstus]

Better yet, send him here.

No doubt he'll have some questions as he puts the system together and configures everything, and doing his own research puts control of the project in his hands. Should be very rewarding for him if you can resist the temptation to just put it all together while he's at school:D .

[Anjie]

He has already been out here reading and doing research and stuff though. Resisting is tough....but promise to let him do it....I get to help by watching and guiding. He said so...might have to tie my hands behind my back before it is all said and done, though.