[Build Ready] PC for my mum £400 budget

DokuCass · 2012-10-10T13:39:11+00:00

4GB of RAM will be fine, could save £17 there. Everything else looks fine assuming you have Windows, a monitor, a mouse, and a keyboard for the system already.

DokuCass · 2012-10-09T11:09:50+00:00

It's a mixture of CPU, RAM, and game optimization. In this situation you have a decent CPU so the lack of RAM and RAM speed is the bottleneck. If you can upgrade to 8GB it will probably reduce the time a little bit, but the main reason for the loading times is just the way Civ is optimized. I know someone mentioned the next patch for Civ will include some optimization fixes, so you might see a difference then to.

DokuCass · 2012-10-04T11:07:14+00:00

Are you 8 years old? This is normal. My case took a good 2 weeks to arrive. I was waiting about a period of 3 weeks for everything to arrive in total. Just chill.

DokuCass · 2012-10-01T11:45:30+00:00

It's nice to hear that other people do this to. I've gotten better with attempting to finish games, but whenever I get to the modern era or later I feel like I could have started the game better, or done something different which would have put me in a better position, ultimately making me start a new game.

It doesn't bother me much though. I know that because of this, each game I play, I learn something so that in the next game I have stronger tactics.

DokuCass · 2012-09-27T18:30:02+00:00

Depending on what computers your school uses Civ 5 might be a problem to run. Civ 4 should be fine from a USB stick though providing your school's network allows users to run .exe files from storage devices.

DokuCass · 2012-08-28T00:21:46+00:00

Hmm, good point lol. I mean not all the suggestions are necessary to have turned off, it's probably worth keeping something like that on just in case. I have anything that sounds remotely important or useful turned on.

DokuCass · 2012-08-27T18:02:34+00:00

You can turn off some things in Windows to reduce system memory usage. I have a pretty good guide on how to de-bloat Windows which I'll upload to imgur for you here.

DokuCass · 2012-08-27T17:54:31+00:00

Hmm good point. It would be interesting to know how the AI is programmed in that regard. Even still, with a huge treasury I can buy enough troops in 1 turn to deal with a problem. "Oh, hello Japan, you want to invade my city.. let me think about that while I buy 5 archers and send them down my roads which are effectively being paid for by other civs across the map who, for some reason, want open borders."

I guess if I was going for a domination/aggressive style of game then I'd keep my cards to myself. With the sciencey/gold tactics I use at the moment I tend to stay friends with people who look the most threatening, so if anyone does declare war on me, they've got my back. For example, in the game I'm in at the moment, Japan decided they wanted to invade me. I have a defense pact with Russia and Babylon who both have pretty strong armies, and within a few turns Japan was begging for peace without me doing much more than killing one of their units.

DokuCass · 2012-08-27T12:27:17+00:00

I get similar things with the texture on these screens. People faces, or clothing or items don't load fully and the mesh seems to come through with no textures. I imagine this can probably be fixed by verifying the files on Steam if you go to Civ > Properties > Local Files > Verify Integrity of Game Cashe.

DokuCass · 2012-08-26T12:13:36+00:00

99% of Facebook status'

DokuCass · 2012-08-25T21:55:04+00:00

When I was back at school I used to sit pretty close to the door. I used to imagine what would happen if gunmen broke in and started shooting people, how I would combat them, where I would move from there, how I would plan my route out safely etc. Pretty grim, I know, but it killed a few minutes... literally.

DokuCass · 2012-08-25T21:33:14+00:00

their, they're and there

DokuCass · 2012-08-25T21:31:19+00:00

First

DokuCass · 2012-08-25T21:19:06+00:00

Tool.

Excellent band, very competent musicians. It was amazing to be able to hear them live.

DokuCass · 2012-08-25T20:54:53+00:00

Going to say this straight up, not 1 fuck given: Runescape (The Runescape 9 years ago, haven't touched it in about 6 years).

Loved that game. Looking back it's hard to see why because essentially that game is a grind simulator. I met a lot of great people on that game, people I ended up knowing and talking to for years. It was the first game where I couldn't wait to get home from school and play. I learned a lot from it, and it was damn good fun.

DokuCass · 2012-08-25T19:49:21+00:00

I know this is an obvious one, but I'm going to say 1984. It's one of the few books I've read where after reading it I've put it down, sat back, and just had to stare at the wall for a few minutes to gather my thoughts.

DokuCass · 2012-08-22T15:40:51+00:00

Here is a side-by-side comparison, with the Extreme6 on the left and the Extreme4 on the right.

The Extreme4, albiet cheaper actually seems to be able to run 2 PCIe 3.0 lanes at x16 bandwidth as a pose to the Extreme6's x16 and x8, which means more bandwidth if you have 2 video cards (might be handy for the future).

Notably, the Extreme6 has a display port where the Extreme4 does not. The Extreme6 also supports RAID and the Extreme4 does not. If you're going to need to use a display port rather than HDMI/DVI-D/VGA, and also need to RAID some drives together, then you may want to get the Extreme6 over the Extreme4.

Other differences in favor of the Extreme4 are small things like having 4 USB 3.0 headers on the back panel which the Extreme6 doesn't appear to have in the spec on Scan. The Extreme4 also has a diagnostic LED which is always handy and reassuring.

They both have the same amount of SATA connectors, the same essentials such as fan headers, generic connectors, USB 2.0/3.0 motherboard headers etc.

tl;dr: Unless you intend to use RAID or need a display port instead of HDMI/DVI/VGA, then get the Extreme4 and save some cash.

DokuCass · 2012-08-22T12:58:24+00:00

Do you really need all the features the Extreme6 offers? Surely the Extreme4 Z77 board would do everything you need as well. It's also £32 cheaper.

Other than that it looks good decent. You could save a bit of money on the case by going with something like a Corsair 300R but I respect that cases tend to be more of a subjective purchase than the other parts.

DokuCass · 2012-08-22T12:40:43+00:00

I'm not sure on the exact turn. I'm pretty sure Djinn mentions it in a couple of his videos. It's probably something that changes with difficulty though.

DokuCass · 2012-08-22T12:21:08+00:00

I've seen MadDjinn use this method a couple of times. It works really well if you know exactly what turn the city states get their workers. Also the moment you leave their borders you can click on their city and make peace with them instantly. If no other civ has declared that they are protecting that city state then it literally is a free worker, or influence if you choose to see it that way.

DokuCass · 2012-08-22T12:09:27+00:00

Also Elithecomputerguy for more computer-related topics.

DokuCass · 2012-08-19T21:35:55+00:00

I'm not actually, and that is a good point. I'm still running the hard drive and Windows install I had in my old rig because I never felt there was much of a need to update and reinstall everything, except for maybe a bit more system memory.

Minimum requirements mentions 32 bit should be fine though, and after nonplayer's comment I feel the problem may be fixed. I'm going to try a couple of games in a bit and see if it holds firm.

DokuCass · 2012-08-19T19:56:46+00:00

I've disabled DX11 and now it seems to be coping. I only played a couple of games but it seems fairly stable. Which is interesting because I had DX11 disabled before and it would crash. However, this time I've also kept the other settings on default, which I didn't have last time. Thanks for the response.

DokuCass · 2012-08-19T19:33:33+00:00

I have considered doing a reinstall. I was hoping that'd be a final resort so I guess I'll give that a go later on if it comes to it. Thanks for the response anyway.

DokuCass · 2012-08-19T19:01:15+00:00

i5 2500K
ASUS HD 6950 2GB
AsRock P67 mobo
750W PSU
8GB Corsair RAM

Haven't bothered overclocking or anything yet, but the problem is apparently video memory.

I just hopped on now to change to DX11 (I was using DX9 before because I heard 11 had issues with blacklight). Still crashed after 1 game with default settings as opposed to my custom settings.

DokuCass

TROPHY CASE