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View Full Version : Why should I upgrade my hardware?



Handssolow
December 12th, 2006, 09:00 PM
If you use your PC to play games or run things like flight simulators, most of the software seems to have been written to run on a PC running *******. My son uses his PC to play games and upload music to his iPod, whilst my wife has just shown me the Christmas address labels she's just printed off using her Ubuntu machine, fantastic!

Back to the point. Why should I upgrade my Ubuntu PC's hardware? It's fast enough on my 2 Ghz system here but do I have to keep my son's PC running on XP so he can play his games etc.

Game players out there, are most games for the PC written to run under XP? How do you cope if you want to run them under Ubuntu?

I have already bought a high end spec motherboard so I could upgrade any of our PCs but which one? An XP machine or an Ubuntu one?

maxamillion
December 12th, 2006, 09:07 PM
If your son is serious about gaming, there really isn't any way to get around upgrading hardware atleast every 2 or 3 years. The only known way to run windows games under ubuntu (or linux in general) is wine (www.winehq.org) and cedega (http://www.transgaming.com/cedega) but neither will support an extremely wide variety of games.

The reality of it is that majority of games are written for Windows and newer games require faster hardware because new graphics engines, physics engines, and shaders put more stress on your processor and graphics card. In some cases you can get away with just adding ram and upgrading your graphics card, but ultimately it will require a complete system overhaul.

Thats my two cents, that them for what they are worth.

/me

Derek Djons
December 12th, 2006, 09:21 PM
In my opinion a Console leads to less costs when it comes to die-hard gaming. The games are more as often adapted to the hardware and such a console can be used for several years without replacing one part. Downside is ofcoure that after those several years another has made it's entry and the current becomes obselete.

mips
December 12th, 2006, 10:07 PM
Downside is ofcoure that after those several years another has made it's entry and the current becomes obselete.

At $250-500 a pop a console is a lot cheaper than a high end pc gaming rig. So replacing it every 3-4 years is not that bad. And the games could be backward compatible so you don't lose that investment either.

I don't play games on my pc. I don't have a new console eith but i would rather have a console for games than a pc. Some genres dont translate well to consoles though.

beercz
December 12th, 2006, 11:10 PM
To answer the question:

Because Microsoft and Intel tell you (and almost everyone else) that you have to!

That's how they continue to make money - everyone needs to upgrade.

zgornel
December 13th, 2006, 05:51 PM
To answer the question:

Because Microsoft and Intel tell you (and almost everyone else) that you have to!

That's how they continue to make money - everyone needs to upgrade.
Unfortunately so. Intel at least make good processors.