DesertKnight is tinkering in his broken airship as he steps outside chatting with you as if you've been with me the whole time.Video Games
![Smiley :)](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/smiley.gif)
and the PC used to play them.
I had an old 486 66Mhz computer that played a lot of good DOS games. Until I had to figure out ow to tinker/tweak/tune the computer in DOS.
My family didn't have the money to buy a new computer/let alone more ram.
So I've had the habit to find ways to get the instruments I did have on hand to play the games I wanted.
I remember in high school how I took an old Pentium II and 4x CD rom, and it struggled to play MystIII: Exile - it stuttered and lagged like crazy. And this was a single player game!
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I have 3 main computers:
1. An Acer Aspire one netbook (1st generation) ZG5 built in 2009.
http://www.engadget.com/products/acer/aspire/one/zg5/specs/A tiny 8.9 screen, portable. Was the real road/school/college warrior that helped me get through Physics, Biology, and other monotonous classes.
Small & weak, it was never truly meant for playing video games. But really for work.
I've gone on 3 tournaments with this netbook and still think it has been a good choice for meThis laptop ran Fedora and XP. But I soon switched to crunchbang, distrohopping towards Linux Mint .
the fan annoyed the living hell out of everyone in the library.
2. A nettop (small desktop / but with the specs of a netbook ) : Asus EEE Box B202
http://gizmodo.com/394563/asus-eee-box-b202-our-first-look-plus-official-specs-only-300Just a beautiful white box, about the size of the netbook.
This was the classic desktop using machine. - mostly for work/banking/and serious stuff, a good backup
Very weak but could fit more memory than the netbook , still it was a joy to have.
took only 5W to power up
![Cheesy :D](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/cheesy.gif)
3. A true laptop (my main "gaming machine") - Acer 5735 what I played skyrim on to kongregate games, and visit website and do more fun stuff like sing onto vocaroo. write poetry, and tinker. Running windows 7 and Linux Mint.
http://www.cnet.com/products/acer-aspire-5735-4774-15-6-pentium-t3200-vista-home-premium-2-gb-ram-160-gb-hdd/specs/at the time (before Oct 21) it was the strongest machine I had.
This was donated to me by my EX from Australia
....
Well , with my new job at the hospital - it has been everyone's wonder why I don't 'get a new laptop/a tablet/a new NUC i7?!'
My intention was to upgrade all 3 systems.
and I've done the first one, which I'm very happy and pleased to do :
eeebox b202 -- > IPC2 (Intense PC 2 ) by Compulab.
http://www.fit-pc.com/web/about/news/ipc2-press-release/So I went from a 1.1Ghz N270 Atom processor , 4 GB memory 80GB hard drive
to
An i7 2.1Ghz processor , 16 GB memory, 1 TB SSD...
"aye times have changed"
It has no fan!... It's just a solid piece of metal.. and... it's smaller than the eeboxb202
it does take more Watts to run.. 5W vs 15 W but it's a small price to pay..
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The final thoughts was that I got into kongregate and games like elements because I didn't have a PC with good specs on it.
Skyrim was on very low graphics..and modded to death to remove grass/trees/effects and get everything to run at very low specs.
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So.. two more topics here and I'll get your opinion and help here
![Cheesy :D](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/cheesy.gif)
1st: Old tech stuff doesn't work with New tech stuff - a crash course on HDMI and Displayport
Ahh.. back in 1995 I bought a small 15 inch screen VGA, works beautifully . I got it on a whim - 40% store closing discount - and paying the cash up front STILL made me broke for a week.
I've since then played with 'switching boxes' that would link a laptop and the eeebox together with a few clicks of my keyboard.
Once I got everything installed for the IPC2
I noticed some strange ports on the back and no where to connect my VGA monitor...
http://www.tinygreenpc.com/media/wysiwyg/Diagrams/IPC2_Port_Diagram.jpg;_; So I can't use this monitor anymore, and I've bought and tried different adapters.. but nothing works, my monitor is simply too old..
I did eventually buy a new TV/PC screen that would handle VGA, HDMI.
I lose the ability to quickly switch with my 'switch box' but at least I got it to work...
It was frustrating as I thought I had a broken IPC2 computer...
It was also frustrating as I felt I didn't need to buy a new computer monitor...
More frustrating to buy more cables to connect HDMI
I didn't even use the display port...(I don't see a connector to my monitor for that)
I do have an adapter for it ... might play with that later on (if you feel that I should use the display port instead of the HDMI port.. let me know)
Displayport -> HDMI adapter
"aye times have changed"
...
2nd topic:
so the netbook,
and
"the gaming laptop"
My thoughts was to get a netbook with the similar specs as the IPC2...
or.. go in deep and get a tablet :O
...
I feel that the gaming laptop will be purchased last.. as it will be an expensive investment...
But sadly no, I won't be playing games on the IPC2, I strictly want to use that for my work now
![Smiley :)](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/smiley.gif)
![Cheesy :D](https://elementscommunity.org/forum/Smileys/solosmileys/cheesy.gif)
so my friends, do you have any suggestions for my desk?
You ideals and thoughts on tablets? Should I just go for a netbook instead?
Any suggestions on a future 'gaming laptop' ?