So I finally got around to refurbishing my old PC. The main reason is simply that… well, Grand Theft Auto 4 just came out on PC, and it’s got that cool video editor mode where you can make your own action flicks with million dollar explosions just by recording footage from the game and switching camera angles around, but the thing is, the PC version of this game is designed for machines that haven’t even been built yet, so I knew that my PC would never be able to handle it at full speed (if at all, I can’t even run Half Life 2 at full quality, and that game is four years old!).
I’m not usually one to brag, but I think this is relevant simply because giving your PC a nice “pimping out” is a lot cheaper and a lot smarter than just going out and buying a new one every year or two. So let me give some quick “before and after” specs. Think of this like a late night infomercial for the new fad diet or something, “My computer got buff, and now yours can too!”
Before (don’t laugh, please)
Outdated EV700 Gateway monitor that turns itself off for a few seconds at a time in the middle of online play
Optical USB mouse and USB keyboard, and a crummy controller with an analog stick that makes my guy rotate to the left when I’m not holding it
I don’t even know what my graphics card was, but when my friend cracked my case open and looked at it, he just laughed
256 RAM, pretty much the bare minimum for running just about anything
And after
2 gigs of RAM (makes pretty much all the difference in the world)
Intel Pentium D Dual Core Processor
NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision graphics card
17 inch flatscreen monitor
Wireless keyboard and mouse, and a controller that doesn’t make my guy rotate to the left!
And most importantly, I finally upgraded from a beat up old cable modem to a high speed Bluetooth wireless, meaning I won’t be kicked from every game of Halo for ruining everyone else’s game with my lag!
So now, I can easily play, well, pretty much any game available, my older games run a lot more smoothly, and my video editor doesn’t crash every single time I add a special effect! I have been, as the kids say these days, officially pimped.
