Gaming Rigs and Mods Galore

Work blows. Not really. I like my job, but I've been busy with work and such, so I haven't had much time on my hands to write about anything more important than Capt. Croton and his dashing adventures (I'll explain later). However, there have been a lot of recent changes in my gaming structure recently and I figured, what the hell, why not go back to my blog, fire it up again, and see what happens!

Man, I'm such a tool.

From the Depths of Hell...

Not really, but I'm dramatic like that. So, last month I decided that I would not let Star Wars: The Old Republic pass me by. Given the game will only be available for the PC, I decided it was high time that I put my money where my mouth is and actually knuckle down and build my gaming rig. It was an adventure unto itself, and required that I kick myself in the ass on more than one occasion for not thinking ahead.

These are the lessons we learn.

Anyway, from the get-go I wanted an AMD rig, so my first major purchase was, of course, the case. Still with me? Good. An Antec 300 to be exact. Now, when Antec says that their case is a "mini-tower" I thought to myself, "Ok, won't be too big, certainly not nearly as big as my brother's Antec 900." So, lo-and-behold the case and power supply arrived on the same day and I eagerly opened them both: "Mini-tower" not so much. Well, I'll qualify that: for a gaming rig, yes, it is mini. For any other purpose, this bastard is substantial. No cramped places you have to weedle around in, there was plenty of space for everything. Which is good, because the motherboard I purchased was a full ATX size board.

Speaking of, I purchased the first motherboard (that's right, I said "first") through Newegg. Now, I've generally had good luck buying the open box stuff they've got. Most of the time the open box stuff works just as well as the new stuff. Not this time, apparently. I get the motherboard out its box and get it installed in the case. I connect all the cables and get everything good to go. I installed the first processor (again, yes, the first processor, and no, it only had one processor slot), RAM, HDD, everything. It was good to go.

I press the power button and... nothing. I go through the standard troubleshooting. After several hours of frustration (over the course of several days), I figure out that the problem isn't a bad processor, bad RAM, or even a bad video card (yup, bought two of those little fuckers as well). It was a bad set of RAM slots on the motherboard! Yay! So, much to my chagrin, I head over to the only MicroCenter in the state and purchased a much better motherboard (ASUS Crosshair IV - I love you so much). Pop that baby into the case, reconnect everything, and... Works like a fucking charm! Hooray!

"Wait a minute, what about the processor?" I hear you ask. That, was another piece of stupidity on my part. You see, the power supply I purchased was a 650watt Rosewill. Haven't had a problem with it. However, the amperage was set wrong and I didn't even think to check it until after I had purchased a better processor. D'oh!

Like I said, sometimes these are the lessons we learn after not having built a home rig for several years. So, in the end I now have a much more powerful computer. The stats are as follows:

AMD Phenom II x4 965 ~3.4Ghz
A-Data Gaming 8GB RAM
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB
2x 250GB SATA Hard Drives
ASUS Crosshair IV Motherboard
On-board HD audio
Antec 300 case with full compliment of case fans
Rosewill 650-watt power supply
DVD -RW

Not everything is a chore, right?

So, after getting my computer up and running, I wanted to test out a few games that I really, really wanted to. Namely two games with massive modding communities: TES: Oblivion and Fallout 3. I have to say, when you install one of these games and it autodetects your hardware to run everything on Ultra-high, you feel pretty good about yourself.

Anyway, I get the games installed and straightaway head over to http://www.tesnexus.com/ and http://www.fallout3nexus.com/ and start browsing. Several days later, after having snapped back to my senses from the haze of awesome, I began to realize several things about mods.
1) Not all mod creators are equal, particularly with clipping issues.
2) So-called "God mods" will never touch my computer.
3) Even some rebalancing mods are a pain in the ass and make me feel like I'm cheating.
4) I really wish idiots would stop. We don't need flamboyant retextures of existing armor.*
5) No, I really don't feel like I should be able to take down a Deathclaw with a combat knife.**

*Not all retexture mods are bad. There are some beautiful retextures out there. This is against the idiots who just recolor the armor without thought to the health of the human eye.
**This really is just more of my issue with God-mods. I hate them so.

Anyway, as much of an issue I have with a lot of mods, there are some that are so far-and-away cool that I can't help but highly recommend them (the only one I will mention here, namely because I want people to contact the author and have him move his ass on finishing it, is Terminator: Cybernetic Dawn. It's all kinds of awesome).

I think that's probably enough from me for now. Catch you all on the flip side.