Your gaming equipment

[Grutzvalt]

What do you use for computer gaming? This thread is directed at people who have equipment specifically made for gaming. If you want to, you can also post your review of the equipment. I personally do not game very much, but I absolutely love the look of gaming equipment.

I have a Razor DeathAdder infrared mouse and a Creative HS-1200 Wireless Gaming Headset. The Deathadder has worked perfectly for over a year. I recently got my headset, and the bass is freaking amazing on most songs. It works very well when I am 50 feet away with a wall and closet between me and my computer.

 

[Kraiden]

A basic logitech mouse, non descript keyboard, a pair of sony MDR-XD100 Headphones which I love, and a plain old Xbox 360 controller for windows.

Why pay a crapload of money for a gimmicky mouse (Oooh, weights and sensitivity and macro buttons) when any old lazer mouse will do? Then again, I don't dump a whole lot of time into FPS's, so I don't see the difference. Ah well.

 

[Walter]

I got the Logitech G15 for the macro buttons on the side and half the time they don't even work as windows sees them as F keys and if I press one during the game then windows does stuff. But other than that it has a nice blue back light and a LCD screen. I have 2 gaming mice one the MX510 and G7 from Logitech, I switch between them, I mostly prefer the MX510 as it is very light and very good for games like Counter Strike

 

[ArcticFluffy]

Cheep crap and an x box controller.

 

[dampatnight]

I absolutely love my Mx518 Mouse. Keyboard is a simple black Cherry and i have a Plantronics headset. Mostly play FPS.
I had a nice force feedback steering wheel once, but gameport devices arent supported anyore by MS. Maybe I'll get a new one some day, dont know. Takes up so much space :/

 

[EmmEmmThree]

My gaming rig -- who's name is "Orion" -- has a simple USB Microsoft Optical Mouse, and a Wireless Multimedia Keyboard. I want to replace the keyboard soon -- not that it's a bad keyboard, I love it! It's just that when you're gaming, it sucks when you have to change the batteries all the time >_<

My rig's insides [note to self: edit for photos] are pretty hefty. I ended up blowing all my money on it, leaving me without any for any external stuffs =P.

It's got;
- 4GB DDR2 RAM 800MHz OC'd --> 1007MHz | 2x 2GB sticks
- Pentium D Dual-Core 3GHz Processor - OC'd --> 3.64GHZ | 2MB L2 Cache | 800MHz (stock) FSB
- 200GB 7,200RPM SATAII Samsung Hard Drive - 16MB cache
- Windows XP Professional 64-bit (unfortunately =P)
- nVidia 9500GT 1024MB (Overclocked, too lazy to look up the clock values in the BIOS - OC'd about 40%)
- 300w PSU (surprisingly, it's enough)
- Gigabit Ethernet
- 5.1 Surround Sound (if I ever get a surround kit =P)
- 2 AC-powered fans (see pictures when I upload 'em), one 180mm; one 85mm, and 2 motherboard-powered fans, both 120mm (one on the CPU/Heatsink).

My monitor isn't anything special either (Hey, I can't honestly spend $380 on a gaming monitor! It just ain't gonna happen!), I just have a low-resolution 15" LCD @ [email protected] Nothing special yet, but once I finally have a steady paycheck that'll change.

 

[recovery]

Now for periphrials? Nothing special here, I still use a mouse I got in 2003/2004 it was one of the early Wireless optical mouses. Still holdign good. Probably on it's 50th set of batteries. I think it's something lame like 300dpi. But I can use it easily in CoD4.

My first PC in 2002 cam with a no frills keyboard. and used that until early 2008, as I was using a KVM that needed a USB keyboard. But I washed that keyboard about 4-5 times. Rip all the keys out and wash them indivually and everything . However the keys now wobble allot compared to the USb keyboard I mentioned above and am using now. Again, as long as all the keys are the same spacing and shape, I'm happy. I ripped out Caps lock and Right Windows key, as I had a habbit of accidentally pressing them out. I'm not going to splash out a money because they didn't fit those keys in for me. I'll rip them out myself thanks

 

[EmmEmmThree]

CoD4 Egh? Drop in on us sometime .

 

[babyemo]

i use a Qosmio x305-q701 laptop. a 2$ hp mouse, and stock keyboard

 

[Mr Alex]

Dell Keyboard, $20 cheapo Plantronics headset, it works, isn't uncomfortable, good enough for now, Microsoft Sidewinder, takes some getting used to, but after you do, feels weird to go back, not that I've tried.

 

[EmmEmmThree]

Eventually I want to get myself a USB headset. I need one >_<.

 

[Fire2box]

I just have a low-resolution 15" LCD @ [email protected] Nothing special yet, but once I finally have a steady paycheck that'll change.

Seams like getting the video card with 1 gig of ram seamed to be a waste then. I heard any extra ram on a video card more then 512 MB's is a waste unless you play at VERY high resolutions like 2500x 1600 or whatever.

 

[EmmEmmThree]

That's completely false. I have 1024MB of usable VRAM... twice what my rivals do. I load maps twice the speed they do. There's no "appearing lag" where things take a second or two to appear on your screen (like GTA on PS2, for example) because my card can store a vaster surrounding area of the map around me. Most cards with ~512-640MB give whatever they can't store to system's main RAM -- which my card does as well, but a lot less of the time because of the obvious more usable memory.

It's also easier for my card to handle features like Anti-Aliasing and Shading with enough "headroom" so to speak.

Not to mention I don't plan on having this monitor forever. I plan to buy a PSU, a case, and then a monitor as my next purchases for this machine.

 

[dampatnight]

True, but its a 9500GT It will be bottlenecked by its chip. 1gb gram makes more sense on a better card which can actually compute FSAA, some filter overlays and hires textures at lare resolutions.

 

[EmmEmmThree]

Egh. It's a $75 card, got enough overall RAM, and plays CoD4 and CoD5 with everyone on high/max. I happys.

 

[Lazy]

I honestly believe most "Gaming" geared stuff is a sham. I have a cheap Logitech Keyboard and Mouse (optical) which is wired so I don't have to worry about batteries sitting on to of my custom Big Boss mousepad. I use a 2.1 setup currently (550?) with these very popular Logitech Speakers.

My setup:

CPU: Q6600 @ 3.2GHz
RAM: 4GB of DDR2 G.Skill
MOBO: P5Q Pro
GPU: Visiontek 4870 X2
PSU: OCZ GameXStream 600W (Need a better PSU to overclock more)
Case: Lian Li

Ultra conservative design. Don't like the outrageous look of some PC's. My PC is a utilitarian gaming monster machine, but is a business man too :]

I just bought Call of Duty: World at War. I'm a sucker for WWII shooters, I hope it's decent. I love playing Crysis stoned, it's totally like playing in an action movie (predictable like one too) where most of the budget is spent on special effects and not top notch actors.

 

[EmmEmmThree]

I was able to get my CPU up to 4.02GHz -- on stock cooling. Bumping it up one more value makes the motherboard fail to POST. 4GHz is outstanding though on this stock cooling system. I've been working on my RAM clocking as well (unlinked), and I've gotten it to around 1063MHz (damn not 1066MHz!), and that is with only a heatsink on the DIMMs themselves.

My graphics card... hot damn. Without the crap I've loaded into this beast, the card would go to a blazing 72C. O_O. Thankfully, I've gotten 2 180mm AC-powered industrial (air conditioner) fans right on the card, and a 95mm AC powered behind it, keeping it at a steady 35C -- while sounding like a '83 Buick without a muffler. Anyway, overclocking-wise it's been stable as can be. I've gotten all the clocks but the RAMDAC up to around what an 8800GTS 640MB Superclocked (used it as a basis =P) stable, except for the Memory clock which is 1293MHz whereas the 8800GTS is 1600MHz. I average around 200fps on CoD4 with Max/High settings and 162fps on CoD5. Still haven't gotten to BFxx42 or Crysis (God I hate Crysis...) yet, so stay tuned.

 

[Lazy]

I was able to get my CPU up to 4.02GHz -- on stock cooling. Bumping it up one more value makes the motherboard fail to POST. 4GHz is outstanding though on this stock cooling system. I've been working on my RAM clocking as well (unlinked), and I've gotten it to around 1063MHz (damn not 1066MHz!), and that is with only a heatsink on the DIMMs themselves.

My graphics card... hot damn. Without the crap I've loaded into this beast, the card would go to a blazing 72C. O_O. Thankfully, I've gotten 2 180mm AC-powered industrial (air conditioner) fans right on the card, and a 95mm AC powered behind it, keeping it at a steady 35C -- while sounding like a '83 Buick without a muffler. Anyway, overclocking-wise it's been stable as can be. I've gotten all the clocks but the RAMDAC up to around what an 8800GTS 640MB Superclocked (used it as a basis =P) stable, except for the Memory clock which is 1293MHz whereas the 8800GTS is 1600MHz. I average around 200fps on CoD4 with Max/High settings and 162fps on CoD5. Still haven't gotten to BFxx42 or Crysis (God I hate Crysis...) yet, so stay tuned.

What do you use to stress test your overclocks? Did you try applying a better thermal paste such as Arctic Silver 5? In addition to overclocking your video card, you should consider some BIOS flashing and possibly a volt mod which is usually done via pencil trick. In 2004 I had an HIS 9800 Pro when it was all the rage and I was able to flash it with XT bios enabling some disabled shaders increasing my 3Dmark score.

 

[Chaz]

3GB DDR2 RAM

AMD Phenom 9500 2.2gHz Quad-Core Processor

nVidia GeForce 8500 GT

$30 USB headset from Wal-Mart

Laser mouse that came with the computer (I don't care much about mice, I find nothing different in this mouse than my $50 Razer mouse I had before it. If it's too slow I turn the sensitivity up /shrug)

Case the computer came with, minus the side, which I've made a tradition of taking off since my room is always about 69F


If someone could help me with the whole overclocking of video cards, i'd be grateful. I was looking at getting a new one, but I'd need a bigger power supply than I have. I think I have a 300w, or a 400, and a better card would require 100w more than my current one. Send me a PM if you could help me with the whole overclocking thing :thumbsup: