Upgrading Your System for MxO

[Anonymous]

i need a laptop for college, will any of them be ok for running MxO?  Or in other words, is there any differences I should note between a laptop and a desktop?  I'm not a computer whiz by any stretch, and I'd appreciate the help!  Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Laptops are typically more expensive, and not as far along as PCs because the mobile parts are more difficult to make.  While not cheap, Alienware makes some pretty loco laptops.

[Tbone]

Do you NEED a laptop? If you're looking to play MxO, I would highly recommend looking into desktops. I had a laptop the first two years of college. I have just recently upgraded to a desktop and find it much more suitable for what I need. I got mine through Dell, and it cost $1800:

3.2ghz
1gig RAM
256MB Radeon 9800 XT
120GB Hard Drive
17" monitor

Obviously this would be overkill for the average user. If you're looking for something cheap, find a desktop with decent specs. Desktops are easily upgradable, so if you need to upgrade something, you can.

[Anonymous]

I'll look into it, I think 'Cuse wants us having laptops.  But I'm only going to be using it for MxO and Microsoft Word pretty much, so i'll talk to people about it.  Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Oh lucky me, have made some progress in figuring out what makes my computer freeze while playing most games..

Killing the 15-16 000K svchost process fixes the problem..

BUT, I understand there are mostly needed things in that one..(one is that it disables my sound..)

So can any geniuses figure out what svchost runs that causes problems, so i can fix or remove it?

Here is what svchost runs of services (26 of 40 started services):

Automatic Updates
COM+ Event System
Computer Browser
Cryptographic Services
DHCP Client
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Logical Disk Manager
Messenger
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Secondary Logon
Server
Shell Hardware Detection
System Event Notification
System Restore Service
Task Scheduler
Terminal Services
Themes
TrueVector Internet Monitor
Windows Audio
Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration
Workstation

[Anonymous]

Ok, I have narrowed it down..


It's the Window Audio which is causing problems..

If I turn off sound while playing, everything works..

Do someone know something that might cause this?

[Anonymous]

I'm spending about £1k on a new PC with some cool modding, Inside it will have, AMD Barton 3200XP, 1 gig DDR Ram,  160 gig 7200rpm space,  Asus ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256.  A cool case and some other stuff.  Only roblem is I don't have a grand to spend...

[Anonymous]

Haha, nevermind my problem ..

Me solved it have .

Finally i get to play my games for more than 15 minutes a time  ..

[likwidtek]

what was the solution?

[Anonymous]

Using my Sblive card.

I never got it working until today, so I've been using onboard VIA wav audio. I didn't have any problems with it until recently, so it's a bit strange that i suddenly started crashing.

Suddenly I got my Sblive working, and the games with it.

[Anonymous]

Asha and everybody tis is really helpful. Idk man I just feel compltely useless when it comes to comps, I'm resolving myself to learn ALOT more about it. I'm very good at business and economics and other things, it's just the very technical things of comps get to me - I had a comp class last year learned DOS and all and can't remember jack sh**. Sheesh man I hate feeling this dumb it gets under your skin.

[Anonymous]

If your still curious about the services that are running in XP and 2K check out this site www.blackviper.com He has a really great guide to help you figure out what you need running and what is wasting your resources.

[Anonymous]

I don't agree on your choice of video card.  The game will be a direct x 9 game.  And your card choice is not direct x 9.  It's 8.  I think getting them a ATI RADEON 9600PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP that only costs $139.00 from newegg.com would be much better.  The step up from that would be  ATI RADEON 9800 PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP.  This card sells for $210 bucks.

This is much more forward thinking and you will see a DRAMATIC improvement with these cards as opposed to the older TI card.

I am not a big fan of ATI personally so here are some NVIDIA equivalents:

Newegg has :
ASUS nVIDIA GeForce FX5900 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/VIVO, 8X AGP for $210
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce FX5900SE, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP for $189
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce FX5700 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP  $138

Hope these help.

I do have to agree with the nVIDIA cards... I love mine

[Anonymous]

hey thankx im upgrading to the best stuff i can get anyway cuz i want my comp running smooth while im playing the game and besides i wanted to upgrade

[Anonymous]

All im saying is that this game is being built with ATI cards in mind. Now that the 9800 series is whooping everything nVidia is putting out(I used to love nVidia, until they started to lessen on their greatness), more games are gonna switch to focusing on ATI. Then when the new nVidia card comes out(which, I read, is supposed to be amazing, and most likely I will be switching from my 9800PRO which I just got to that), developers will most likely start to program with nVidia in mind again. Remember when Vodoo was the best card maker....scary thoughts....