workstation buildup + questions

[DaForce]

You could get a 8800GTS instead and save some money... but if games are a passion then only the best will do

Note about the memory thing, i will just quote myself, not sure if you saw it above.

If your going for 4GB you may want to get XP64 as well, as Windows XP doesnt handle more than 2GB per process without the /3GB switch.. FYI

So 8GB in windows XP 32bit is complete and utter waste, good thing you decided against it. 4GB is somewhat of a waste as the best you will get is 3GB usage and only if you use the /3GB switch.
Windows will show about 3GB or so even without the /3GB switch but max/vray will still crash just before the 2GB memory usage point unless you run it with the /3GB switch.

Drivers are not such a problem with XP64.. alot of people use it here. Just have a quick look around the net before you decide and see if there are drivers for all the things you will be installing.. printers..etc..etc..
I dont know how good cooler master power supplys are but I would recommend Antec, Enermax, silverstone.. for powersupplys.

[Guest]

Hey Daforce

I saw what you posted but i get rather scared by the ideaof having a pc with realy bad driver support. I do hear alot of people work with it but since i work at home atm this wil also kinda be my game machine when i feel like it.

since there will probably be alot of software going to be installed i cant even begin to check them all out. Or does the driver thing only apply on external hardware like tablets, printers etc? btw how does 64bits work with games on windows?

I know 4gb wil be kind of a waste on 32bits machine but since i want to go to vista 64bits sometime in the future i thought i could put in the extra memory already and i wil be trying out the 3gb switch i think.

About the video card i mentioned (wel any directx10 card anyways) wil it have any impact on a win32bits system? I heard directx wil only work wits vista?? do you guys know anything about this?

thanks,

Niels Sinke

[DaForce]

Hey Nelis

Well drivers for anything really.. they all have to support 64bit. Motherboard, video card, sound card, printers, wacom tablet..etc..etc.. the works.. most do now days. If not all.

Games on XP64 for teh most part are not a problem, there are a few limited releases that dont work at all or well on 64bit systems but most of the popular games are fine.

Yeah its certainly not a bad idea to plan ahead, I was just making sure you knew
Directx10 is only in windows Vista, but that is only for games really. The 8800 cards are great for games, and work perfeclty well under directx9.

[Blitterswitch]

I spotted this article today on custompc, its maybe not entirely indicative of the situation we will experiance using max on dx10 cards but it will certainly make gamers sit up and take notice.

It certainly made me feel happy knowing that I have 2 of the fastest dx9 cards which perform reallly well when dealing with dx9 game titles.

I know that companys are starting to push out the new nvidia dx10 mobility chips now stating that they are better and all of that but as I have been feeling for a while now they are just not going to hack it when running dx10 native games. They are grossely underpowered for their purpose desktop or laptop.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/custompc/feat...-10-patch.html

[DaForce]

Yeah I saw a big thread on the nvnews forums about it. People saw huge FPS drop. But then again vista is a huge FPS drop itself compared to XP.

COH... wicked game BTW