It’s about freaking time for two things:
a) I’M OUT OF SCHOOOOOLLLOL!!! Everyone else (save for the Sophomores who go to MST, those who took Japanese 3, and probably a few select others) still has one more day left. Mwahahaha!
b) Dad got a new computer. It’s freaking awesome. I’m typing this up on his machine right now. The case is a VERY sleek, glossy, dark gray. It was made by Antec, which is a very good case manufacturer. The only problem with the case is that it has one of those door things that covers the drive bays. Personally, I don’t like that, but it looks damn nice when it’s closed. AND IT’S DAMN QUIET TOO! I turned it on, it kind of buzzed at me (must be the new beep?), and I swear I couldn’t hear a thing at first. Freaking awesome.
It boots in NO TIME. I didn’t clock it, but it was amazing how quickly it booted! It’s an Athlon 64 3800+, socket 939. 1GB of RAM (2 512 sticks, dual channel). Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 128mb PCI-X. It’s awesome. It has TWO onboard ethernet adapters (the in use is 100Mbps, the one not in use is 1Gbps; I should seriously switch them), and WinXP apparently recognizes the onboard firewire as ANOTHER network adapter! For that connection, it says it has a speed of 400Mbps. 
He has onboard 8.1 channel surround sound AND SPDIF and optical out! Damn! He can both output and INPUT video through the 6600GT. Composite, svideo, component (!), dvi, and vga. It’s got this nifty dongle thing. Of course, there’s SLI support incase he should ever want to buy another 6600GT for to play some games. 
He also has a DVD-Rom that supports not only DVD+R Dual Layer, but DVD+RW. NICE!
Two 80GB SATA harddrives set up in a RAID 0 config make for a FAST, 160GB harddrive! He’s also got another firewire port via an addon card as well as four USB ports on the back of the motherboard, two on an addon card (along with a gameport, what for though? Most joysticks and such are USB today), and two on the front of the tower. All chugging along nicely with a 350W power supply… 350W, exactly what mine is. If I had ordered this system, I probably would have gone up to a 500W power supply, but it’s not my system. The grand total was roughly $1,500. NOT BAD! When I got my machine in August, it cost me ~$1000 WITH a monitor (’twas around $900 without the monitor). He already had a monitor. All in all, VERY nice machine!
The graphics card came with a bunch of games. I opened up the motherboard box and it was almost bursting with CDs! Here’s all the CDs that came with the machine:
- MSI 3D Desktop
- WinDVD Creator Plus
- Photoshop Album 1.0 + some 3D-Album thing
- InterVideo WinDVD 5.1 Channel
- VirtualDrive Professional + RestoreIT! Professional
- Ability PC System Restore CD Disc 1
- Ability PC System Restore CD Disc 2
- NVIDIA nForce 4 Motherboard Drivers
- MSI Multimedia Beyond 3D
- NERO OEM Suite (”For DVD-ReWriters only” Odd. Plus it comes with DOS drivers ^_^)
- Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2
- PowerDVD 5
- WinDVD Suite featuring WinDVD, WinDVD Creator, DVD Copy 2, Disc Master 2
- MSI Games Collection DVD (the only real notable title was Splinter Cell, which I got with the GeForce FX 5200 in Brian’s machine)
- URU: Ages Beyond Myst
- XIII (yes!) CD 1
- XIII CD 2
- XIII CD 3
- XIII CD 4
- Prince of Persia The Sands of Time (already have it on Gamecube) CD 1
- Prince of Persia The Sands of Time CD 2
I took the games CDs <_<
Speaking of games... I downloaded Nexuiz and unzipped it (no install required, there’s also a linux client included and a Mac client in the works; it also runs on 64-bit Linux out of the box). Despite the fact that my machine exceeds the minimum requirements, the game doesn’t run too well on the default settings. I had to bump the resolution down and turn of the Dynamic Real World Lighting (not to be confused with the Dynamic Lighting :ugh:) and the Realtime Shadows (My experience with Doom3 has showed me that Realtime Shadows can be a bitch). I launch it up on Dad’s machine, it ran very well with the default settings. I turn off the Dynamic Real World Lighting, and it’s butter smooth. Awe-freaking-some. I also copied over PSOBB from Brian’s computer and played a bit on here 
Keep quiet though.. This isn’t a gaming machine <_<
I'm still amazed at how quiet this thing runs. Mine's a freaking lawn mower compared to this thing. (can't forget about that dude in Andrew and Paul's WoW guild who's machine sounds like an airport :lol:)
Note: Nexuiz is a free game licensed under the GPL. It runs on the Darkplaces engine, which is a heavily modified Quake1 engine. It is a fast and furious multiplayer game that harks back to the oldschool deathmatch style of Doom and Quake. None of this objective, vehicle-based, stealthy bullshit; FRAG FRAG FRAG!!! It’s freaking awesome. It can be bit a heavy on the graphics though, so one is advised to turn them down, especially if you know your machine can’t handle things like blooming, dynamic shadows, dynamic real world lighting, dynamic lighting, etc. I’d recommend everyone check this game out. Hopefully it can be added to the repertoire of games that we have available to us during the LAN Parties.
