Interesting trend noted with Civ4 (artificial obsolete computer syndrome)

[dearmad]

Originally posted by Brizey
I plan to build my own computer this time, just for the heck of it.

By the way, for me, it will NOT be cost effective. It will just be for fun.

I work about 60 hours per week and have a baby on the way. And my main hobby is cars (I have a "medium" modified WRX), not computers. My free time is worth at least US$100/hr to me. I don't make quite that much, but you would have to pay me that much to work any more than I currently do. So if I take three to five hours to build a computer, I calculate it will cost me $300 to $500 bucks. So while I may save a little bit on hardware, I lose the free time.

Remember that most people are just users, and have no real affection for computers. I want to do it because I enjoy tinkering. Most people would be better served just buying a premade package and being done with it and spend those three hours with their kids, chasing girls, playing Civ4, etc. etc.

To be frank, I thought he was boasting a bit, too, and was trying to be gentle about it.

Ok, fine call it boasting, but really my point was that I don't like how there is nothing the current os's offer that is truly apart from the previous ones that civ iv would demand this underlying service.

And if you're going to build your rig, one of the MAIN sources you should look to for components (but not the only one) is newegg.com. I get about 75% of the stuff I need from them. VERY dependable, and decent prices, plus a wide selection of parts!

Have FUN making your rig!

[inca911]

Quick note regarding all the DVD talk. Latest news is that the US will be a 2 CD release, not a DVD.

[wrylachlan]

Its not rocket science. The more operating systems a developer supports, the higher the QA costs. And newer operating systems have better APIs that let developers write the same program using less time and effort = money. So for Firaxis, the money saved by using the advanced APIs in Win2000 and XP and the money saved by not running QA on WinME,Win98,95,etc. outweighed the potential money earned by selling the game to people still running those systems. As more and more people upgrade to XP and Vista, eventually it won't be cost effective to support 2000 any more. That's just the way the ball bounces.

If there were a ****load of gamers out there with Win98 boxes willing to spend a ton of money on games, you better believe that developers would still be writing games for them. The very fact that developers are not should give you an idea of how much demand there is for it.

[Mace]

Originally posted by dearmad
Usually the rig I put together when I "upgrade" isn't even cutting edge by the time I turn it on... and nowadays that matters less and less, hardware-wise.

I agree...and yes when I build a new monster it is not "cutting-edge", I build right behind the price-performance curve. I *used* to build cutting-edge, back in the mid 1990's, but it wasn't worth it, I was spending $500 for a 486DX/100 and it cost $150 10 months later. Today, it's not like that...thankfully.

My 3-yr old box will smoke thru Civ4, because I built it right. And that is bragging, man!!

Originally posted by dearmad
Damned M$ OS is the core problem, as I see it.

Yeah, I am the last one to favor the MSMonopoly *but* I will say that Windows XP is hands-down the best (best = most stable, best performance with appropriate hardware) OS that company has produced...although I did like Dos 5.x...but that's apples and oranges.

[sophist]

Building a computer is easy if you're starting from a position of knowledge like many of the people here. If you know off the top of your head that Hypertransport and Hyperthreading are completely different things; that AMD chips go in sockets A, 754, 939, and 940; what DDR stands for; and so forth, you are not normal.

Even if you rely on someone else to pick all your components for you and just do the assembly yourself, there are a lot of things that can trip you up. You could set the master/slave/cs jumper wrong (assuming IDE). You could put the DIMMs in slots 1 and 2 when the motherboard manual says that 2 DIMMs go in slots 1 and 3. You could mess up which cable connects to which pins so your power button connects to the HDD light. There are all kinds of things that could go wrong. If everything goes right, sure, anyone can assemble a computer. But few people know what to do when things go wrong.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Brizey
Most people would be better served just buying a premade package and being done with it and spend those three hours with their kids, chasing girls, playing Civ4, etc. etc.

Actually my three boys (7, 6 and 3) "helped" me build the two computers I've built recently. They thought it was fascinating, probably moreso because one was for them. They like when I upgrade stuff, too. So I probably spent more time with them than I would have otherwise when I was building computers - it's a win-win situation!

As for the OS requirements - yeah, it sucks to see W98 ignored more and more. I already had upgraded to XP though because of Silent Hunter III. That's what we do for gaming.