CharlesLentz CharlesLentz

New Video Card

▼

New Video Card

and whole new PC

from Stardock Forums

So for those of you that don't know, I work at Stardock, on the game team.  On July 19th, I will have been here for 2 years.  So far, I've worked on GC2 Dark Avatar, GC2 Twilight of the Arnor, Political Machine 2008, and our unannounced fantasy TBS game. 

Our team is pretty small, but I'm neither the newest game developer, nor one of the more senior ones.  I guess I'm somewhat of the middle child.

Anyway, while working on PM2008, I had complained that my video card sucked.  I don't know how much it sucked in comparison to other team members, I just knew that I wanted to get a better one.

I mentioned it to the right person, and 3 weeks later, I was presented with a completely new work PC - not just a new video card.  Needless to say, I was quite surprised, and very thankful.

Here's the stats:
--------------------
-PROCESSOR: Intel Core 2 Quad (Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz - 4 CPUs)
-RAM: 3 GB
-OS: 32 bit Vista
-VIDEO CARD: NVidia GeForce 9600 GT

:CONGRAT:

gc2 galciv2 dark avatar twilight nvidia geforce pm2008 quad-core game development
103,495 views 28 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top

I work as a software engineer and let me just say that i fell in love with my employers when they purchased me an 8 gig ram Quad core beast the other month! I usually have about 5 to 8 instances of visual studio open so it is sorta neccisary, although at times i still feel as though it's a tad overkill! Whom am i to complain however?!

I recently built my own new toy, as lets face it at home thats all they are!  Here's the specs for it:

Q9450 - 2.66 Ghz Overclocked to 3.4 GHZ

4 GIG DDR2 Ram (my mobo supports DDR3, but it's too expensive at the momment.

Nvidia 8800GTX 768MB GFX Card OEM (Only £180 or $360).

Thermaltake Kandalf Aluminium Case

The whole thing cost me roughly £550, but the performance is intense. I run Windows-XP 64bit (to accomodate the 4 gig of ram). I managed to overlclock the processor by simply changing the FSB speed and upping the voltage slightly to 1.325v. I did a lot of checking on the internet to see what was achievable without getting too bogged down in settings and this seemed the most popular. The Q9450 has 12mb Cache, so even though you can't overclock it to anything silly, it will still outperform an overlcocked Q6600.

Overall the thing is highly stable, surving a 24 hour stress test and runs at a cool 35 Degrees Celcius on idle, 45 on load, and i think that is mostly down the 8800 GTX, which is a monster by the way. So if anyone is looking for amazing performance and not having to spend £600+ ($1,200+) on the processor alone, take a good look at the Q9450.

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Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
I used to belong to the crowd of "the developers should have lower end machines so that they will make the game perform better on crappy machines." 
That's all well and good, but we spend a lot more time actually working on the game as opposed to testing, and particularly during crunch time, you don't want your machine to be chugging.


qft.

Game Devs should (and sometimes do) have top of the line systems to use. The systems really pay for themselves in the time-saved department, thinking in the long-term.

I myself, have:

Q6600 G0 - 3ghz oc - $300
8800gtx - $500
8gb ddr2 800 ram - $180
2x500gb hdds (no raid) - $100
vista 64-bit ultimate - Free
antec 900 (keeps it all cool) - $80
antec 650w psu - $60
22" Acer LCD - $180

and i'm gonna get a new rig within 6 months, consisting of:

2 x 4ghz Xenon Quad (Skull Trail)
2 x 9800gx2 [Quad SLI] (or 2x280gtx if i'm lucky)
16gb ddr3 1333
300gb VelociRaptor 1000rpm (OS install)
2 x 1tb hdds (no raid)
vista 64-bit ultimate and server 08 dual boot
thermaltake armor+ lcs
Dual 24" LCDs

*note, both of these builds are budget builds, costing less than $2000 at time of purchase (gaming rig 1 cost $1700 a year ago (after tax, and other minor things); gaming rig 2 is estimated to cost around $1800 at time of purchase)*

and if i can have all that, i'm sure game companies can afford systems like that.