Seeking advice on purchasing a new system for game development

#61 Sorry if I am a bit late in coming in on this. The original question was:

Quote:I need to know if I'm looking at the proper system to pursue as a solid game development workstation.

My advice is:

Sure, that will work. Just an FYI though. Right now I am using a Dell Dimension 4100 (1.0 gHz with 512MB of ram) and it works just fine for me. I decided on a Dell because that is what we used at Dynamix, and I didn't have any bad expereince. My system works just fine for me, and eventually I will upgrade to a newer 'middle of the road' system.

A proper system to pursue as a solid game development system is one that works. If the overly expensive alienware system works, it should be fine.

Other bit of advice I will give. I tend to get the biggest and nicest monitors I can afford. At the moment, I run dual 21" Hitachi Ultra Scan Elites, because they have super hight refresh rates (better on the eyes) and good color. I love having a dual monitor setup, and I think my productivity has increased becuse of it. In the future, when the flatsreens get a little better and cheaper, I will probably get two of those. This would be a total indulgence as it would allow me to put the monitors on my drawing table.


If you are going to do art, get a Wacom. I prefer the 6x8 size (the larger ones are too big). I also have a decent ergometic mouse and a Herman-Miller Aeron chair.

I have found that it is not the machine, but the amount of time that you spend in front of it that makes the difference, so a chair that you can sit in for 10-12 hours a day is , in my opinion, a much better investment than a new graphics card.

If someone else was 'buying the steak', the only thing I would do to my current setup is perhaps run a Gig of Ram, I'd get a BioMorph desk, I's get a nice non-glare full specturm light, and I'd try out a Wacon 18" Cintiq. I might ask for a brand spanking new video card that could run the latest and greatest shader stuff, but I'd leave it in the box until one of my current cards blew up.

I suppose I would actually build my own box, and I would get one of those nice server rackmounts so I could put the computer in my closet so I would not have to hear the annoying fans.

Hopefully this will help. I personally have found (for me) that the actual machine is not that big a deal, and that my productivity increases have come from the quality of the peripherals (including the nice ergo-mouse and the high tech chair).

#62 I cant sleep without the fan noise

#63 heh, surprised me when we had a blackout for a few hours last year how quiet the office was without the fans.

Oh, one other thing I would do if I had the money would be to buy a few extra harddrives lying around for when one goes bad. I usually just buy a new one when a drive fails, but if you are limited to a 'one time only' purchase, I'd get extras.

Another FYI. MY drive when bad a few months ago and Dell next-day-aired me a new one. Nevr had a problem with warranties, and for me, they are worth the money (because I am sick of working on things and would rather just pay the extra not to deal with teh hassle.)

#64

Quote:Another FYI. MY drive when bad a few months ago and Dell next-day-aired me a new one. Nevr had a problem with warranties, and for me, they are worth the money (because I am sick of working on things and would rather just pay the extra not to deal with teh hassle.)

Alienware crossshipped one of my contractors an entirely new machine when it refused to boot one day. They figured out that the drive was ok and it was the motherboard or powersupply or something else.

All he did was install the existing hard drive and back to work he went the next day! Time is money and especially for those of us on deadlines :)

I had SWORN that I was not going to build anymore machines myself and got sucked into upgrading my main development server piecemeal a couple of weeks ago. It is in a very nice 19" rackmount server case and I don't want to lose the convience of the case.

Anyway, long story short, almost two weeks later and the machine is still dead.

First thing, the motherboard shipped with a corrupt bios, then my existing video card won't work with the motherboard, something about the wrong voltage or something, then the BIOS would not recognize the CPU at the correct speed, hours of searching on the web as there are no comprehensible instructions ANYWHERE on what to set the thing to, an hour of trial and error later and we think we figured out what to set it to, then the OS would not install, kept complaining about not being able to find a file, tried 5 different CD's and two different optical drives on 4 different IDE controllers!!!!!!!.

So what should have been a simple hour motherboard/processor/memory swap turned into close to 10 hours of troubleshooting, I would have RMA'ed all the crap on the spot except for a friend is helping sort it out ( actually he is doing most of it ) because it is such a tremendous waste of time screwing around with BS like this.

I wasted an entire friday evening and saturday morning and the machine is still sitting there dead!

I ordered a Radeon 9500 that should be in on Thursday. I learned my lesson for the last time!

Just so everyone knows... this is what I upgraded to...

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
1 GB PC3200/DDR400 OC System RAM ( 512x2 )
Athlon 2500+ 333FSB ( Barton )

CompUSA had a memorial day sale.
Maxtor DiamondMax Ultra 160GB ATA/133 7200RPM 8MB cache for $99 ( I picked up 2 )
add those to my existing 3 x 60GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus ATA100 2MB cache drives I think I am set for storage for a while :)

I really can justify the 30GB Firewire Tape Drive I bought now :)

This is be my new "development" machine since my Laptop only has a Radeon 7500 32MB Mobility chip and kinda drags ass on most new software. The fillrate is horrible on it! Especially since the native resolution of the screen is 1600x1200 ;P

This upgrade fiasco reminds me why I swore I was goign to quit building machines, in the long run, it just is not worth it.
Every hour I waste futzing around with this crap, is an hour I could have been at the track on my motorcycle, or spent with my wife or making a buck or hell even spent sleeping or relaxing. Not to mention mid-development hardware death and the next-day-air replacements convience.

My next machine will be a pre-built!

#65 I'd just like to mention I do't completely trust pre-built at all, in fact the P3 1GHz I have was a $2k pre-built system. The 'support' was bull and the only reason it's working at all is because I've replaced and reconfigured half of the system. It still has it's bad quirks, many beyond any comprehension of mine, but on a good day I can get Warcraft 3 playing (not a chance in hell going online with the game though :P ). The integrated GPU sucks majorly, so bad in fact that there's absolutely no OpenGL support (ThinkTanks Demo looks worse than SNES 3DFX Chip Graphics!) and I can't even model using just Milkshape. The system also has some really bad bottlenecking somewhere because the 256 MB RAM seems more like 64 MB at most times. Before this I had an old Intel 200 MHz with only 32 MB RAM, I could even get Ultima Online running on it at times... the bad thing is when it ran just about the same framerate on the P3 :P

So, if I do end up getting any type of new system, even if it does have a few bugs (which I usually have no problem ironing out (the virus clad HP I had once was fun :)) it will be better, way better than what I've been stuck with these past few years.

Thanks Joe for the great advice! I was wondering if anyone was going to state their opinions on what helps to keep them feeling snug, relaxed, and focused in front of the monitor. I myself find it quite difficult to concentrate sitting here on a solid pinewood dining room chair so it was one of my foremost concerns, as well as a new desk ;)

As for the monitors, I believe the one that comes with the system mentioned is a sweet, 22" flat panel, wich is just perfect for the tight, compact conditions here at my home.

Also, although the system does come with a custom matching MS IntelliMouse Explorer, I may give it up for either my current or another optical mouse. It's pretty snug in my hand and I don't have to worry about getting it dirty and the rollers jamming it up, and I can use it anywhere! It's pretty cheap to buy too.

As forthe Hard Drives in the Alienware system, the setup the article describes contains 2, 120 GB fully SATA supported HDs, though I'm going to stick with one and install my old 40 gig. I'm not completely worried about the HDs because of the great cooling sytem that's included, one for the CPU, the GPU, the HDs, and 4 quiet case fans ;)

@Jarrod - I suggest you make sure you are clear what kind of support you get if it comes with the pre-built (and it most definitly should, even if it costs a small bit extra). My P3 was supposed to have 24/7 support with same-day-replacement, etc. It turned out that the 24/7 was only to help you play with the Windows ME that came with the system, all scripted help by the way, even down to the,"Place the Windows ME Restore CD into the CD-ROM and... ...Otherwise, please call the original manufacturer of the part that is...", crap! The replacement wasn't on the "unsupported" devices either so I canned WinME and reformated it with Win98, which fixed alot but still left me with tons of reconfiguring (nothing mre hateful than missing drivers :P ) and then I had to reset some of the BIOS settings just to get the integrated GPU to work.

Long story short, make sure you don't pay for a case full of tossed-together parts that comes with sketchy support.

(On a side not, the system was _not_ purchased by myself, but rather my parents. I would have been entirely against the P3, the MB and GPU combo, and especially the price for all of this which I could have (and told them) setup a sweet PC that works and has all the good stuff in for half the price! But who listens to their kids these days :P )

- Chris

#66 I'd like to send out a big thanks to all those who contributed to this discussion, it helped immensely!

This up and coming Wednesday I am putting the order through for the system, a fully loaded, $5k Alienware Area-51 System, complete with the new P4 3.2 GHz and all the bells and whistles! A week later, I'll be setting up to recieve 3DS Max, Photoshop, VS.NET, and most importantly, the TGE!

To me it seems like a dream come true already, and though I know I have plenty of work to do, I'll finaly have the tools I'll need to develop my dreams even farther than even I hope to imagine. I hope the GG Community enjoys the priveledge of watching me unleash my creativity and become a productive part of the development community here at GarageGames!

I will be posting updates to my plans as they develop. About 3 weeks from now I'll be posting a poll for the community to decide what path I should take, what two projects I will start from the three (or more ;) I will post. Expect those project descriptions to be posted and updated soon as well. These will indeed be very competitive titles developed strictly for profit, though many of the tools and enhancements created with the TGE in mind will be released to the community as open source (for TGE owners of course ;). A few of these projects (I'm hoping) may also become viable for Community Project status once we have solid development underway.

Again, I thank the community and Garagegames for their help and support!

Thank You,
- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus

#67 You know of course that the sad thing is, you payed top dollar for your OS chris, and I'm sitting here with a preconstruct Del, but the thing is, that this del has less quirks than your OS, and it has great tech support, so why don't you ask the Del company to sponser you? It would be an opportunity for them and you, and on the side with them as a sponsor you also have the rights to produce on their systems, it would help and benifit both of you.

#68 ATTENTION:

OK, I've gotten dizzy scrolling through all this... BOTTOM LINE, what's the BEST video card/CPU/Motherboard set up?

Here's my criteria:
- 3Ghz
- 1gig RAM
- Black Tower case (no fancy lights!)
- Dual monitors (19 inchers)
- Torque Shaders!
- Plan to play Half Life 2 till eyes dry up and fall out of my head like raisins.

Can it be done with $2,000? hope so, cause that's all i got to play with.

#69 www.pricewatch.com

Thats a real good site for really good prices on parts and stuff.

I'd maybe stay away from the dual monitors since they really effect games.

Also you may want to stick it out with your system for a couple of months since nvidia is releasing there SLI systems soon and that will give you the option of running 2 video cards togther.

I know on doom 3, they where able to push everything to the max at 1600*1200 and they never had framerate less then 60 fps and that was on a test motherboard with test drivers...
u can find out more about it here:
www.nvidia.com/sli

#70 Hmmm

This is going to be a system for game design and programming isn't it so I'd go for something like this.

P4 3ghz+ processor
1gb ram
2 * 150gb hard drive
duel layer dvd rw (cheap at around 60-100)
duel monitors
nvidia 6800 gt (supports duel boards at a later date).

This will keep you going for a few years and allow you to enjoy the latest games etc. You will also be able to use shader model 3.0 which ati will be supporting in their next generation of cards (again this means you not only don'y have to wait for ati to pull their fingers out but, don't need to upgrade when they do).

As you are looking to use max, the nvidia cards will also allow you to use the plug-in for shaders in max.

The above system config is similar to my own home office apart from the fact that I have a secondary system providing broadband access and acting as a file server for a cvs repository. If this site did developer workspace screenshots i'd post some of the ol' home office.

#71 WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK OF DOING BLENDER & TORQUE DEVELOPMENT WITH A LAPTOP? I HAVE AN ADDITIONAL MONITOR...

I was wondering, can you do "dual" monitors with a Laptop? Can I extend the monitor area to use the Laptop's AND an external?

Here's what I'm looking at getting:

Dell Latitude C840
Mobile Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz microprocessor
15.1" UXGA Active Matrix Display (1600 x 1200 maximum resolution)
40GB Hard Drive
Windows 2000 Professional
1024MB DDR PC2100 SDRAM Memory
64MB NVIDIA GeForce4Go
Internal CDRW-DVD Combo Optical Drive
Internal 3 1/2" 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Intergrated 56k V.92 Fax/Data Modem
Intergrated 10/100baseT fast Ethernet connection
Dell DualPoint pointing device (both Track Stick & Touch Pad)
Crystal SoundFusion stereo audio
Infrared sensor
IEEE1394 Firewire
Serial - Parallel - RJ-49 Ethernet - RJ-11 Telephone
PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard - S-Video TV-Out - Audio - USB - PC-


Now I'm also building a Power Tower Dual CPU Render Monster... but that's gonna be another year till I can complete it...

Figured I could get started (as I'm still a newbie) building models with Blender, and defining my game in torque.

Do you see any formidable challenges with using a Laptop? Any tips from those who are?

#72 If you get into serious shaders/graphics programming, a laptop would be annoying only because you couldn't easily swap different graphic cards in and out.

And I don't believe most (if any) laptops have dual VGA channels. Usually the external port has to show the same thing as the LCD screen. You'll have to look at some of the expensive models.

#73 I know this thread is old as the hills, but hey...

Check out Falcon Northwest Talon systems if you would rather someone else put together the rig, you would like to get a great system for a great price, and you want a "name". Falcon Northwest makes KILLER systems and the Talon is their budget model. I have a bunch of them, I buy new ones every now and then to add to our network\farm, and use whatever the newest one is I get for my personal system.

I bought an Alienware WAAAY back, a top of the line system, dual Voodoo2s (early SLI) and a TNT (heh); the works. A month or so later I pretty much regretted that decision for many reasons (some listed above) and I've never gone for the latest and greatest since then. Needless to say I gave the Alienware system to my sister in law last year since I never used it, but I still have Talons in use from 3 years ago and I have never had a problem with them. I love them. They're easily upgradable (I buy from New Egg) and they can sure as hell take a beating. Believe me with that last one... I have three kids, lol.

EDIT: Here's a link: http://www.falcon-nw.com/

#74 Actually Mark most if not all of the laptops with dual video out are true dual head if they have an ATI or nVidia card, ones with crappy Intel ( or SIS ) built in graphics usually don't, but the name brand ones are always true dual head.

My VAIO is about 3 years old and it is dual head ATI Radeon 7200. It works great for presentations, to have one program open on the screen and a different output to the projector on the external port.

#75 HEY ALL, I broke down and decided to buy an HP Pavilion 5320, it has a 1.6Ghz mobile processor, an Nvidia 32mb video card, 80gb HDand 512 (up to 1gig) RAM....

I'll be putting TGE on this thing ASAP, but I was wondering, is the GUI best on multimonitor. I use Blender on my G5 with dual monitors at work, and I've come to rely on them. Is Torque a screen hog too?

I must say that this things monitor rez is great! My first Laptop, so maybe I'm starryeyed. If anyone has any critical experience od advice, I would welcome it. I've got 14 days to evaluate it.

My big box will probably be a Falcon... but they're so damn expensive!