Just curious, but what kind of computer do you all have? Mines not even worth posting it sucks so bad.

... which ONE?

... you know, I don't even *know* how many machines we have in this place. In regular use, two desktops (ours) running 2000, one server (ours) running 2000 server or something, one desktop (family member's) running 98, and two Macs (family member's) running I don't know what because I don't know much about Macs. Less regular use, my other half recently bought a laptop (running XP? or 2000, I'm not sure) and I'm pretty sure we've got two other machines lying around here somewhere that are 98 but haven't been used in a long time. Possibly more.

And the internal network for all this *usually* works. Usually. :)

Originally posted by Dragon Keeper
Just curious, but what kind of computer do you all have? Mines not even worth posting it sucks so bad.

It's not about the computer can do, it's about what one can do with it.

pat.

My two dev machines are:

Dual Athlon 1800+, 512MB ECC, lots of hard drives, Radion 9000 Pro, Audigy, TV tuner card, and more USB devices attached to it than you can shake a stick at.

Dual PIII 400's, 512MB RAM, lots of hard drives, TNT2, internal CSound (great for hearing my games at thier worst! ;-)

There's also the Mac Powerbook 866Mhz, 256MB RAM - however, it's about to get an upgrade.

Then there's the rest of the 'farm' - various machines in various configurations to test out the games on. Mostly older low-power machines, but not all of 'em.

Patrox: That sounds like processor envy speaking! ;-)

Originally posted by patrox
It's not about the computer can do, it's about what one can do with it.

pat.

to prove my point, my computer can't play or do anything even remotely related to 3d gaming. I'm sure you guys know those really bad school computers right? My computer is like that, but it can actually play games, and run more then one program at a time.

how many of you guys use notebooks? I'm going to hand build one soon, I don't need anything that amazing, just enough to create shogun style war games (with graphics like it) and other stuff.

An Amiga.

An Amiga doesn't cover it (ie, what specs), since there's so many models and specs for 'em anymore. ;-) (I've also got a couple o' 1000's setting in the closet, a 2000, and a 1200 with an '030 in it. And that's not even diggin' deep into the past to pull out the C64 SX or the other computers. ;-)

(Edit: realized my original comment came out sounding wrong!)

Right now, I've got a 2.4ghz frankenstein system, w/1gig RAM, a huge amount of hard drive space, and a GF4/128mb video card as my main box, a Sony VAIO GR-370 as my obsolete laptop, and a warm & cuddly Acer Travelmate C110 convertible tablet PC. As I'm hip deep in a freelance 3D gig, I'm using the frankenstein system more than anything else, and using the Acer as recreation while Frank does his multipass radiosity renders.

Dev machine is an Athlon 850MHz with 512MB of RAM and a GeForce 2 GTI or whatever the good version was called. Ironically running the hog known as VS .NET causes more strain on the system (I'm typically running 4 copies) than games like GTA 3. Go figure.

You might find this thread (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=715) useful, which LordKronos graciously reposted after the crash.

Originally posted by Dragon Keeper
to prove my point, my computer can't play or do anything even remotely related to 3d gaming. I'm sure you guys know those really bad school computers right? My computer is like that, but it can actually play games, and run more then one program at a time.


I wrote Doulber (http://www.phelios.com/pc/doulber.html) on a Winchip 150 mhz with a S3 Trio 64v+.


pat.

There's something wrong with me psychologically because I hate to upgrade. My pattern is get the latest top-of-the-line machine and then run it into the ground until I'm at the bottom rung of the current compatibility ladder again.

I'm just at the point now where my computer won't run the new software coming out so I'm about to buy a brand new system around Christmas. Currently, I have:

Dell, PIII 866
256MB RAM
64MB Geforce 2
20 Gig HD
DX 7

I also have a dinosaur of a laptop that I can write code on but I can't compile or run anything:

Dell, Pentium 133
24MB RAM
No accelerator that I'm aware of
2 GB HD
DX 7

Am I the only person who's brand loyal? It seems many developers like to build franken-computers by hand. I absolutely love Dell computers, although I'm looking at picking up an Alienware (their laptops are sweet!).

People generally build their own computers because:

1) It's cheaper.
2) We can pick brand/type of every part that goes in.
3) We can do a better job of it than Dell.
4) It's fun! :)

When you sit at a machine for 8+ hours a day it's much more rewarding to build your own custom monster. Nothing wrong with buying pre-built computers if they meet your needs though.

Regarding brand loyalty, I do my best to avoid it whenever possible. The quality of a company's products can change very quickly. An example that sticks out in my mind is 3d accelerators. Fans of 3dFx bought the poor Voodoo 3 and 5 accelerators while everyone else was enjoying the advancements of the unknown nVidia. Now the previously inferior ATI is producing the best hardware. Things change too quickly in techology for brand loyalty to work very well.

Am I the only person who's brand loyal? It seems many developers like to build franken-computers by hand. I absolutely love Dell computers, although I'm looking at picking up an Alienware (their laptops are sweet!).



I like Dell. My main dev machine is a Precision M50 mobile workstation (fancy talk for a laptop). 2Ghz P4, 1 Gig RAM, nVidia Quadro4, it's sweet. I got another docking station for at home, and pretty much retired my Athlon machine (which is too bad, because it's pretty good).

I'm getting a dell notebook, I want to get an inspirion 5100

I'm also the type who will buy one of the fastest PCs available and then run it into the ground. It's truly sad how long I'll go before upgrading. My current system is a Dell Pentium III 700mhz with 128MB RAM, but somehow this still runs most of the apps I need at a decent speed, with the main exception being Photoshop (which I don't use very often anyway). I also have a 1.0ghz Dell laptop.

I've bought new Dell systems for years, but I've since reconsidered that approach in favor of upgrading the components. It really doesn't take that long to perform an upgrade, and there are plenty of free web sites with detailed step-by-step instructions on how to do everything. Check out www.mysuperpc.com for an example (everything you need to know to build a PC from scratch and to perform various upgrades). I've always hated the idea of tinkering with my hardware for fear I'd mess something up by mistake (I'm a software guy, not a hardware guy), but with such detailed tutorials I feel much more confident doing these upgrades myself.

If you buy all the components online and use sites like www.cnet.com or www.copernic.com to comparison shop, you can get great deals. For instance, I can upgrade my system to an AMD 2800 CPU with 1GB RAM for under $450 (new motherboard, new CPU, new memory). And a 160GB hard drive (7200 RPM, 8MB cache) can be had for under $150. Many motherboards now include decent built-in audio, and the video card can be upgraded separately as needed. For a slightly higher price, you can use sites like www.accessmicro.com and get a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM with the CPU and RAM already plugged in.

Anyway, I figured out that I can do one of these $400-500 upgrades once or twice a year and have a fairly fast system all the time instead of having a blazingly fast system one year with declining results for the next 3-4 years. And it would still cost less in the long run.

Originally posted by Midnight Ryder
An Amiga doesn't cover it (ie, what specs), since there's so many models and specs for 'em anymore. ;-) (I've also got a couple o' 1000's setting in the closet, a 2000, and a 1200 with an '030 in it. And that's not even diggin' deep into the past to pull out the C64 SX or the other computers. ;-)

(Edit: realized my original comment came out sounding wrong!)

Oh, looks like you had a good idea to edit your post, coz' I hadn't noticed someone had replied to mine :-}
My Amiga is an A1200, with a PPC at 210 MHz (and a lousy 68040 at 25MHz), and a BVision graphic board (Permedia2 based).
Also got 3 hard drives totalling 44 GB and a SCSI CDRW burner.

It's not particularly fast, but it's enough to program 3D games and do stuff on internet.

Of course I'm not gonna make any money in the Amiga market; I also have access to a PC to port my game onto (soon(tm)...).

I have many systems, and I have used the approach Steve is talking about for few years. It does work well.

But I have decided to get rid of my best two systems (A celeron 2.0 ghz oc'd to 2800 mhz and an AMD 2800+, both loaded) because I feel it makes me a lazy programmer. All I really need is a 700 mhz box with a geforce and lots of ram.

If you're looking for a notebook and live in the usa, check this one out: http://www.vprmatrix.com/products_notebook_220A5.asp

I have a vpr matrix notebook and I love it. The one in the link above has gf4mx420 video, which I would prefer to mine, which has radeon mobility 7500, becase nvidia cards run blender and wings faster :)

by far the best place to shop for components is www.pricewatch.com :)

I've got an Athlon 2800+ xp in an Asus A7N8X board. A gig of Crucial pc2700 DDR ram, 80gb HD with 8mb cache, audigy 2 sound card, and an ati 9700 pro video card. This is the machine I use for developing, but I have an older Gateway 800Mhz with 128Mb of Ram for some testing purposes. I also use the computers at the University to test, because they have a nice range of system specs.

Chalk up another one who likes to get a high-end system and not upgrade it until it's an embarassment. Currently for me, that's a p4 1.4ghz with 256megs of ram and a 64meg geforce2. Still quite a lot higher than my target specs so I keep a close eye on my timers to make sure I'm not pushing it too hard.

I'm definitely in the build-em yourself camp too. I couldn't imagine doing it any other way really.

I've got an athlon 1700, 512mb ram, geforce 4 ti here. I've constantly upgraded it over the past 5-6 years so that the only original part is the case. The old leftover parts I use to upgrade my family members pcs.

I really don't recommend buying parts online though as it's such a hassle returning bad parts or incorrect parts that they ship you. Instead, find a local computer hobby shop. They're generally just a little bit more than online prices but a lot cheaper than the big chain stores such as compusa or best buy (barring sales). No hassles with returns and no paying for shipping. The only time you should consider buying online is if you can't get the part locally or it's a rather expensive item.

Do not build PCs for other people though, as the support required afterwards just isn't worth it.

I develop on a 750Mhz Duron with a GeForce2. I Browse the web/play games etc. on a 1.8GHz Athlon with Radeon9000.

I like the idea of having one nVidia and one ATI card in as standard because that way I'm liable to catch problems early for the bulk of people out there.

Generally I upgrade in bits. Replace the motherboard, replace the HardDrive etc. I used to have a policy of paying $300NZ (~$180US at the moment) for a new Hard Drive whan my existing one fills. But on the most recent step prices had dropped so much I spent less than $200NZ to get a drive that was 3 times the size of the one it was replacing. (I don't need 160Gig yet).

My DevPC: 600Mhz Pentium III, MicronPC. 512Mb. Ati/Nvidia. Dual monitor setup. It's about 4 years old, and I won't upgrade until I finish my current game. One thing I'm worried about is the hard drive crashing so I've stopped shutting down my PC. I've heard that turning off and rebooting stresses the HD. Just to be safe though, I've been backing up my code/art files every week on a zip drive.

Quite frankly, I don't think a programmer needs anything faster than 600Mhz unless 3d rendering is involved. It just gets better and better for the consumers, so it is quite tempting to upgrade.

My TestPC is a Pentium 200mhz with PCI graphics card that I bought for 40 dollars. However, sadly, it died a few weeks ago when I tried to upgrade the memory. I figured if my game worked well on this PC, it'd work on any machine. Oh well.

i used to do my development on my HP Laptop Athlon1.0gig 256RAM, 8MEG Video, 15.0" Screen, 30gig HD,DVD-CDRW, heh which im selling now btw ($1000CAD for anyone in the london ontario canada area;))

but recenly ive turned my gaming machine into my dev machine

1.4ath, 512DDR-RAM, 100gigHD, gForce3 (which im gunna replace with a RADEON 9800 + 2 17 lcd monitors heh)

As far as I'm concerned, the faster you're dev machine, the better. I hate wating for compiles and the faster the machine, the less time I have to wait. My dev machine is an athlon 2100+ with a gig of ram, the fastest hard drives I could afford, and a GeForce 4, but I do all of my testing on machines that are significantly slower (Athlon 1.2Ghz, Athlon 950, Athlon 700, Duron 700, pII 400).