Hey gang! Sorry that I havent been posting lately. I got addicted to Los Santos Roleplaying and after the I got over it, I kinda forgot about this place.

About a year ago, I posted a topic where I bragged about the new computer my family got. Then later, on summer, I complained that my parents dont allow me to use it as much as I would want to. And then I complained that Im not allowed to have extra time to do my school work.

And week ago, my step-father got very angry because of an argument we had about the computer. With all these combined (plus a little less-thinking), I went and bought myself a very own computer. End of arguments. End of complaiments. End of discussions and rules.

I bought the computer from an online auction site for only 151€. I had the money from the ad-delivery job I took and some education funding which is over 60€/month. Its not the greatest computer ever, but the important thing is that its mine. I can use it whenever I want. I can now do my homework in peace and quiet and I can still play some Vice City after that. Another good thing was that the computer was delivered to me in two days! Talk about a great service.

Here's the stats of the equipment:
-Intel Pentium 4 2,4 ghz processor
-512 SDRAM (It was 256 when I bought it, but luckily I had some memory of my own)
-40 Gt harddrive (This will be fixed in future. I'f Im planning to install all the games I got, I need an extra hard-drive)
-CD/DVD drive and diskdrive
-MSI 645 motherboard
-Integrated Sound Card
-Matrox G400 16mt graphic card

Yeah. The graphic card isnt the best in the world. Since I have over 20 games which require better card, I went and bought a GeForce 6600 256mt card.

It doesnt have an internet connection....yet. I just need a lots of cables and Im connected.

After having trouble to get it work (It didnt had Windows installed on it nor the package had any kind of installation cd's.) and getting the sounds work, I relaxed and started downloading and playing some games that I havent been playing for a while or I havent had time to play those. It was really fun to play games like Deus Ex and Secret of Mana (SNES emulator) in my own bedroom.

sounds like a good one (especially for that price...).

Don't overdo it with the games now... :D

Sounds like my previous computer which was a tower (got a Dell Latitude D600 laptop now), also P4 2.4Ghz and also 40GB hard drive, it was a Gigabyte mainboard with some crappy onboard souncard and just a GForce 440 MX or something like that, in a card slot, then I replaced it with GForce FX 5700 with 256 MB RAM which was a lot more and better.
Glad you got your own computer now, it's always good thing to have a little bit more of own freedom. If I was you, though, I would upgrade the computer to at least 1GB RAM (that's a much as my had in the end, too), 512 is just too little on a long run and 1GB is the today's standard with more being a good choice.

Anyway, enjoy :ok:

Congrats, TC! It's a pretty nice combo - and more important, all yours! :ok:

Gongratulations on your first own computer!

You can now do all those shady activities that you couldn't before :sneaky: ...

Better than using others' stuff for free, better than being usufructuary: owning own property! :devil: pwned!

Congratulation Chosen! Does this mean we will see you around here more? :)
It's a big step for your independence :ok:

Get on MSN you jerk!

Kidding
Congrats.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scatty @ Nov 13 2007, 01:48 PM) [snapback]319098[/snapback]</div>Im not going for the todays standarts. When I had that 90mhz computer for about 6 years, all the games I played where created in 1985-1999. Now that I have this, Im off to play the games from the years 2000-2005. After that, I might set my sights on the 2006 and beyond.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David86 @ Nov 13 2007, 11:11 PM) [snapback]319133[/snapback]</div>Possibly. It depends on If I can drill a hole in my floor so I can get the internet cables to the modem. Otherwise Im going to have to by a new modem for myself and activate the phonelines on my bedroom, which is gonna cost a lot.

or you can buy a wireless router. they have them for arround 60 EUR.

they have here some sets like Router+card for 78,60 €

There's no reason why your parents should deny you permission to make the hole. Just make it pretty, make it small and just above the wall baseboard and and keep the wire horizontal along that height with nails.

Hey congrats man, enjoy your PC. Nothing like own PC

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheChosen @ Nov 13 2007, 12:50 PM) [snapback]319086[/snapback]</div>Nice, and paid for it yourself, that's the way to go.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheChosen @ Nov 13 2007, 12:50 PM) [snapback]319086[/snapback]</div>As you state you're only interested in pre 2005 games it will do fine, really.

You also could eventually -*a big eventually*- consider a dual boot with W98SE, fine to run all those W95/98 games (HL ....) . As your onboard soundchip and Vidcard won't be the newest ones the neccesary drivers will be findable.
Just a thought .... ( I still have a W98SE boot HD on my AMD64-3500+ ;) , it's pretty handy to have around)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dosraider @ Nov 14 2007, 02:59 PM) [snapback]319193[/snapback]</div>I'd suggest simply another - not neccesarily large - HDD with W98SE installed on it. Worked wonders for me, and W98 is pretty darn fast on modern hardware.

Now Im mad. I got the Geforce 6600 card today and after five minutes of struggling, I found out that IT DOESNT FIT. I cant plug it to the motherboard!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheChosen @ Nov 15 2007, 01:46 PM) [snapback]319282[/snapback]</div>Don't be a pussy.
MAKE it fit.
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2853/sawuf4.png
RAWrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.


Ahem.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheChosen @ Nov 15 2007, 01:46 PM) [snapback]319282[/snapback]</div>4x AGP, right?

it does pay off to propperly diagnose motherboard and all it's I/O ports before deciding on what upgrade to buy.

as has already been said, it's important to consider before buying pc parts as there are several types of memory and add on card slots as well as two main hard drive types and that is without trying to work out how many different processor sizes and shapes there are

when buying a graphics card there are 3 main types listed below in order of age ( newset first )

PCI-E
PCI
AGP

And for the really old :) ISA slots

LOL, this reminds me when i bought my first agp geeforce in to a pci slot

Hahahah, your gfx card doesn't fit. Always make sure you have the right slots for the right card...

That's not enough. There are several variations of AGP, which are not always cross-compatibile.

Easy for you to say. I know nothing about these cards since I have never bought any.

Can anyone recommend any good help sites?

Wikipedia is a place to start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGP#Compatibility especially.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The Fifth Horseman @ Nov 19 2007, 08:16 AM) [snapback]319548[/snapback]</div>Thanks. That picture totally made things clearer.