Advice needed: Buying a CivIV Computer

[Unimatrix11]

to be more exact: overheating due to overclocking, if i understand it right ?

[Baldyr]

Blaupanzer: If these clowns actually have mocked around with my hardware they're bound to be able to fix it. (It's matter of simple down-clocking it, right?) So i kinda hope they did and than they do. I would however take my money back and go for pre-used (tried and tested) instead. I would be able to save a buck, also.

[Blaupanzer]

If they overclocked it without telling you, the customer, they must have done that for some reason. Usually, it is to get flashy immediate performance out of a system while betting that system demand will not land on that processor. So, yes, they can "down clock" it, that is return the system to performance speeds in line with the processor. But performance overall would suffer.

I don't even know where you are, let alone who you are dealing with, Baldyr. It's entirely possible they are honest folk and overclocking is not the issue. In that case, they most likely can diagnose what is wrong and fix it. Or that they are at least honorable people and will make good on your original purchase by giving you the boards and connections necessary to achieve what was promised. But the problems, as Dale noted, do match the symptoms of an overclocked system when the processor is called on for sustained performance. Again, good luck. This is certainly the most researched and discussed system acquisition on this board that I recall.

[Baldyr]

I consider this thread a cautionary tale for anyone planning on getting into . It seem the biggest prerequisite for this game is good luck and/or in-depth knowledge of computer science.

ps: The time is 7:30 pm where I am so I'm not counting on the vendor getting back to me with a diagnosis. It's another waiting game with this PC and I really should just go and buy the first best machine available and test it out. (I'd have to get back my BTS disc from the vendor, though...)

[Blaupanzer]

Does the vendor know the disc is in the machine? Just curious, since moving the machine with the disc in the drive can cause damage.

[Baldyr]

Yeah, the guy who handles the issue requested the disc, so I went back home and gathered up everything (boxes, discs, and so forth) and hended it all over. If they come back to me without being able to get the game to work, or if it takes forever, they can keep all the stuff. Minus my copy of BTS, of course.

[Blaupanzer]

Don't be too down on all this. We know for sure that there are machines that will run BTS. Maybe the one you bought is one once it has been tweaked.

[TriMiro]

Originally posted by Baldyr
They've been very helpful this far and taken care of severeal other minor issues (like a fan that was vibrating a bit, a DVD-player that acted up and such). It could, of course, all be because they're selling me sub-standard equipment from the get-go...

I don't want to put those guys in bad light, but they are supposed to sell you a computer without any minor issues. If you are getting a Dell machine for example, it was build on an assembly line and it is possible that not everything was tested beforehand. When you are getting a custom build machine, they should have checked everything before they gave it to you.

This is the first time I hear about the over-clock scam and I am mad. I have seen companies overcharge customers (put generic RAM and charge as if it was brand name, just advertize an nVidia SLI motherboard and charge for and AsRock as if it were Asus and so on), however, I have never seen selling over-clocked hardware without saying so. This is a scam and I would think one can sue a company for this. (not that we are sure Baldyr's guys did this, just in general)

[Dale]

There's been reported cases of the overclock-scam in Australia. Don't know how prevalent it is outside of Oz, but us Aussies seem to enjoy scamming each other.

[Baldyr]

Man, I don't know what to think. The vendor got back to me today and it turns out it was the processor that wasn't working right. It was "peaking during CPU intense games". The guy tells my that is working as it should now, but here's the part that scares me:

They don't have a replacement AMD 6000+ in stock – only 5000+ - so they have ordered one in. This makes me think that they over-clocked a 5000+ from the start, and since that isn't working out with my needs, they'll just have to pay up and get me the stuff they actually sold me. They did however deny any over-clocking issues when I remarked. Nor do they know exactly how it effected the GPU (which was shutting down and peaking in intervals during gameplay).

I don't know if I trust these people anymore... At any rate I won't be having my new PC back any earlier than tomorrow evening. So much for me spending vacation-time playing . (Come Monday I'm gonna work for 12 days straight and will be pretty exhausted when I get home after work.) I'll just have to apply for some more vacation time, if I can afford to not work.

On a happier note, though, I was reading up on here on Apolyton yesterday. So I stumbled upon my old Fantastic Worlds scenario Trakoria: the Rise of the Clavian Empire, which was added to the Scenario League page about a year ago (without my knowledge). Check it out:

http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.php?title=Trakoria

My old webpage is also still online (to my amazement):

http://come.to/trakoria

I actually installed on my old laptop and downloaded my scenario, so now I actually can play Civ. I also realized that the 10th anniversary of the scenario is approaching so I thought I'd write something about it on the SL forum.

[Nikomakkos]

When I think about it, it must be very easy to scam your customers in this trade. By far the most of them won't be able to tell if you did. I bet it happens a lot.

[Unimatrix11]

I´d tell the guys ´so much about costumer return, then´ and that they can be a lot glader not to hear from your lawyer than they will be about other people hearing of you about this, when they ask you where to get a new comp. Oh, and i think you might wanna apogolize for blaming it all on Civ, eh ?

[Blaupanzer]

Personally, I would waive any apologies to Civ. His choices were to believe he'd been scammed or to believe that the came had understated its actual hardware requirements. We all know which of those is the most common, so that was his first choice.

Baldyr, hopefully the computer guys are not going to charge you for this "upgrade?" I wonder once in a while if Civ II wasn't the best Civ of all. But I'd just as soon not go back there, unless, like Baldyr, I was left with no other choice but to go frantic waiting for my game machine to be fixed.

[Baldyr]

Unimatrix11: I'll just wait with any apologies untill I have actually verified that the blasted game actually works. Sure, they might (or might not) have fixed one issue, there might be others. There always seem to be.

I will tell these guys about your over-clocking theory and see how they react to the accusation. I'd almost rather have my money back by now anyway, or perhaps my time, if it were possible...

Oh, well. New update on the situation when I eventually get back the PC.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11


And i am one of those. Now, of course i totally see your point. But for the next time, i´d like to have an option for a 2D interface. It´s really just the user interface, and a quite simple one at that (civ1 style for all i care), so the effort would be minimal (well, though thats the part i´d hate doing the most - drawing little icons... ugh) and each player could choose what he/she prefered individually even in MP (with 3D of course being the standard option).

Sorry to quote myself, but i reading in a totally different forum in a thread that is actually about downfall of the genre of adventure games, i stumbled over this statement and just couldnt resist posting it here:

´Actually, 3D graphics in turn-based strategies can be quite distracting. You wouldn't believe how many times I tried to create a new city with my warrior in Civ IV... ´

Funny AND true...