Final Checkout!

[Scorpiоn]

So, I'm pretty much ordering/buying now (the store and the website have wildly different prices) and need y'alls opinions.

[Delta_]

Floppy drive, speakers, OS.

Also don't forget to get the latest drivers for your system, and make sure it is not connected to the net when you install the os and then enable the firewall before going on the net.

[Scorpiоn]

I really despise floppy drives, so it's one of the ways I'm cutting corners. I plan to use a ZIP drive later on.  I'm not connecting this future computer to the internet, instead everything shall be connected from the office PC (my dad's) to my PC via ZIP disks.  At the very most, I'll set up a LAN between the two.

And I'm using Microsoft XP Home. And I'm reverting my dad's PC back to Windows 98, since he really hates Windows XP's interface, even after these several months (He says it's too mickey mouse.).

And, I'm using my stereo's auxiliary channel for speaker.  Oh yeah, 4-way surround sound.

[Daz]

if your reverting back to windows 98 then loose half the ram as win 98 only makes use of 512 mb's worth. if you change the xp interface to the classic mode it almost looks like windows 98 and overall performance will be better with xp

as for the rest of the system its very nice although next option would be to upgrade the graphics card but the ti4200 are still great cards and as long as your happy with it then thats ok

[Daz]

EDIT: missread sorry thought u said u was reverting back to win98.. i need glasses i swear

[congo]

Consider an nForce3 150 chipset for your mainboard, they are out now.

Up the Power supply to at least a 450watt one.

Some gamers are complaining about "ghosting" effects on LCD monitors due to a lag in pixel refresh.

Do you need a 250mb hard disk? All your eggs in one basket with that.... consider a second drive instead. The formatting, disk checking, and defrag times will be quite long on a 250gig drive.

Realise in advance that you won't see any fantastic  performance increase with the same video card

good luck and have fun!

[Scorpiоn]

Well, it's all set in stone now.  Which could be a good thing or a bad thing...

I'll look into 450 watts.

I think I will go with a CRT monitor, because I've become spoiled with CFS3 running at 1600x1200! LCDs and expensive, buggy as far as I can tell (dead pixels) and now this ghosting! Better go with the CRTs...

I really want to go with a master/slave configuration, but the price tag was already big enough, but I'm going to see what I can do in the coming days to get a 50GB master.

The Ti4200 isn't top of the line, but it's pretty good.  As I see it, I'll be paying $200-300 for 5 extra FPS judging from benchmark scores.

[Daz]

yeah get 2 40 gig hard drives to speed up formatting etc and defrag

thats what i got in my current machine i use the 40 gig for backup

[Gixer]

Congo me ole mate its up to nForce3 250 now!! though I am sure it was just a finger slip  ;)    Fast Fast Fast  ;D  

That is a huge old HDD  ;D I would definately partition it if you plan on keeping it, this will make it easier to keep tidier etc and reduce de-frag times on each partition.  Also format NTFS, its not meant to be quite as fast as FAT32 for gaming but the difference is negligable and NTFS is so much tidier and de-frags are sooooo much quicker.

Good choice sticking with the CRT for a while. I just reverted back to one from a TFT as I cannot afford a TFT that does high res  :( Only gripe with the CRT is their size my IQ is better than on the TFT  ;D