Tag Archive for 'windows 7'

Stuff Specs

At random intervals I have people ask me “hey whats your <some-item-here>?”. Not all the time, but it happens… anything from video card to mouse or whatever. I figured this could be a good place to sorta lay it all out and explain why I use what I use.

Keyboard


keyboard
My keyboard is a Logitech G11. At the time I purchased it, the G15 was already available but I didn’t see the need for the LCD display. I liked the idea but I felt it was a waste of money as I would rarely use it. I picked the G11 over other keyboards because after reading many consumer reviews, the back lit keys seems to be the most dependable and had the best visibility. I do most of my work on the computer in limited light situations and this was an ideal feature. Plus it had media keys and a toggle that disables the Windows Key, which always seems to get pressed during the most intense part of a gaming experience.

Mouse & Pad

mouse + mousepadSimple mouse is simple. Its a Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical USB. This was an easy pick. Wired = check. Scroll wheel = check. Mouse 4 & 5 = check. Optical = check. Cheap = check. Bingo.

As for the mouse pad (Rocketfish Gaming Mouse pad) I chose this because of the dual surfaces and the large size. I do not like material mouse pads, I strongly encourage metal pads and always have (well as long as they’ve existed). Material is so undependable and doesn’t have any continuity across several passes. I’ve always had more precise aim in games with metal pads.

Tablet

tabletI don’t have the biggest or the best tablet in the world, but it totally fits my requirements. Its a WACOM Bamboo Fun. Great price for a great starter tablet.

I use it pretty frequently and I very rarely run into occasions where I would need anything bigger. Sometimes for detailed areas the small tablet makes your hand cramp up because you’re trying to use such little movements.

Display

dual monitorsDual monitors… a fucking must. If you don’t run dual monitors you have no idea what you’re missing!

I have a 22″ widescreen as my primary and a 20″ 4:3 secondary. Not much more I can say about that, except I wish the Windows 7 Smartbar would extend across both of them! :(

Sound System

headset speakers amp bass speaker
My sound system is a bit tricky. I split the audio and feed one line to my speakers and the other line to my headset. The speakers are a 5.1 surround sound setup designed for a home theater running off a mini JBL amp. Having the center speaker close to me and the sub near my feet adds to a great gaming experience. Gunshots sound like their in my face and I can feel the rumble of bombs in the distance.

And speaking of feeling… my headset has force feedback too. The eDimensional Audio FX is not only a great sounded headset with a great mic… but it has rumble ability. So not only do you hear a gunshot from the left, but you feel it over there too.

System

computer towerI’m Running Windows 7 Ultimate on a ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard married with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz. I have 3 Gigs of OCZ Platinum DDR2 SDRAM and a EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB video card. My ATX case and all peripherals are black, except for tray of my DVD burner. I use the onboard ethernet and audio which work perfectly. I have 3 hard drives, one is a high performance Raptor drive which I run my OS off, the other 2 are SATA 3.0Gb/s for a grand total of 450 Gigs… which isn’t all that much but it works for now.

Misc Stuff

misc computer stuffI plug so much shit in I had to recently get a USB Hub, which is a Rosewill 7 Port Hub, it can be self powered but I’m using so much juice I had to use the wall adapter. I also have an adapter to use my wireless Xbox 360 controller on my PC which is mainly for adding support to our game engine.

Phone

G1 closed G1 open
I have a T-Mobile G1 Google phone running the Android OS. I love this phone! Its my computer away from my computer. With a full web browser, YouTube viewer and countless+endless applications to get from the Android Market; it does everything I need and more. I recently downloaded an application that allows me to control my music on my PC from my phone, and even stream the music from my PC to the phone. It even has the ability to use the touchscreen to move your mouse and the keyboard to type on screen. Sometimes I lay down on my bed and control my PC from there… lazy fucker aint I?

I use it to Twitter all day long, chat, send/read emails, play games on the shitter and even take pictures. All the pictures you see in this post were taken with it… even the pictures of the phone itself.

In closing…

I don’t have the best of the best of anything… I do that on purpose. You save a fortune if you find the top of the line and then buy one below that, which is what I tend to do. Some of my stuff needs an upgrade but right now it runs any app and plays any game I want at awesome settings so I have no real reason to upgrade… yet.

I think I covered just about everything… if you guys have any more questions ask in the comments and I’ll try to answer them.

Super excited

Working on the game engine has really got me pumped up lately. Yesterday I accomplished something I had previously thought I wouldn’t be able to do. When I finally did it I was so excited I couldn’t even sleep. I had to force myself to sleep before work but only ended up getting 3 hours of sleep.

I’ve always followed various Indie game developers, but lately reading their blogs and updates has meant a lot more to me. Instead of reading them and feeling like “I wish I could do that” I’m more inspired by it and excited to see what people manage to do.

Also, anyone know of a good antivirus that works well in Windows 7? My old one doesn’t want to update its virus definitions, seems jacked up by the new OS. Need something that doesn’t suck… willing to pay. (heh, most people are willing to pay for something that does suck… know what I mean? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge…? Termy’s mom? Ed’s mom… and dad)

Ze Upgrades!

I had to do some work on my computer lately. When I bought and built this computer I was retarded and bought a small but extremely fast hard drive… high data rate and 10,000RPM! What the fuck was I thinking?! Yes the performance is noticeable, but it really wasn’t worth the cost-to-gigabyte ratio. So most of my applications and games were on my older IDE hard drive from my last computer anyways… which was okay but it didn’t have the speed I was looking for. So I opened up Newegg and bought a newer, larger, SATA drive.

So it’s been a process but I’ve finally got my OS upgraded. I went with Windows 7… yea yea I know its only a beta, but I didn’t feel like sticking with XP, and didn’t feel like buying Vista because Windows 7 is around the corner. So far so good.

gadget1

As you can kinda see above, Gadget has been upgraded too. Chad did some slick stuff restructuring the layout and design of the engine, and this time we’re working on a lot of the low level utilities before we get ahead of ourselves. After a bit of debate, we moved to Multibyte Character Sets so that (if needed) we can support international languages. You can see our silly “TODO” list off to the side… which is piss poor but it works for now. We need a real project management system… any ideas?

Also added some new headers to the top of my blog, they are all pictures I’ve personally taken. Last time I kept the normal WordPress blog title text… which forced me to filter rape my images so it would show up against all the backgrounds. This time I just added the text to the header myself and avoided that problem all together.