DELL 2014 ..help please!

[Beowulf Zessinthal]

this is my old desktop .. it has served me well for 7yrs use in SL but i think since an Nvidia update a week or two ago, the display is all broken (i did try restore s and driver roll backs.. but it seems to be a losing battle).

--------------------
FYI .. This was a 'gaming' setup in its day:

Dell Inspiron 530 (32-bit Operating System / X86-based PC)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz, 2664 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
3.00 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
24" monitor (was cheap but worked great!)

Normal for me:
I use a router and sit near to it.
The SL viewer has me automatically set to a quality & speed setting of 'mid'.
On an empty inworld work platform i generally get about 22fps.
--------------------

 

Anyway 7 years is reasonable.. so i figure i need to look at whats out there.

at DELL i see:

XPS.. http://www.dell.com/nz/p/desktops?c=nz&cp=12&cs=nzdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn#!dlpgid=xps-desktops
..but doesnt even mention graphics/ video cards.. so maybe not?

or:

Alienware.. http://www.dell.com/nz/p/desktops?c=nz&cp=12&cs=nzdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn#!dlpgid=alienware-desktops 

..but those also dont even mention (dedicated) graphics cards?!

 

All i think i know generally is NVIDEA is still best for SL, that SL is OpenGL based ... aside from that ..pfft!

Should i avoid any of the above? ... is there one that is positively recommended for any reason? Is it a case of 'any one of those will do fine'?

 

Thanks for any help!!!

[dd Temin]

Both of those PC you showed  with links are terrible...overpriced and/or  poor  video graphics.

Here is  example of a nice gaming PC for  $999  ,,,,you can find many more like this at this price range or even a bit lower.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9085260&CatId=1886

Try to get a 4th generation Intel processor...I5 or I7  either will work fine for SL.

Be sure to get Nvidia graphics  with 2nd number of model number 5 or greater...  650 ,660,670...or 750 ,760 or 770

The 2nd number  indicates performance level.

If you like it to turn on fast and  do everything faster....buy a desktop with Solid state drive SSD. Expect to pay a few hundered more if you get a high capacity  SSD drive.

If you have the option and dont need touch screen ....windows 7....in place of  win 8.1

All of these are my Opinion only....Your results may vary

[Beowulf Zessinthal]

dd.. youve inspired me to learn how to assemble my own computer .. i will start by buying a new graphics card for this one.. atm i think it may be the problem.. the current graphics card is simply dead. so ill grab a new good one.. see if i can put it in... and thus will begin my computer building career ))^^

[dd Temin]

One word of caution...Be sure to check the power supply requiriments of any new video card . look to see How many Watts and amps  your current pc power supply can supply can handle.. Many times when you want to put a higher performance graphics card...you  also need to replace the PC power supply with a higher output power version. The PC makers generally tend to put  the lowest possible power output  power supply that they can get away with.

Good luck with your upgrade
dd

[SaraCarena]

Building your own isn`t too hard, even I managed to do it :matte-motes-agape: plus you get reward on first boot up of knowing that YOU did it. For the price of those dells I think you could build something way better and I`d second dd`s advice especially that about using a quality power supply. Toms hardware website has some good guides on whats important in what hardware but there`s lots of other guides around the net. I did a bit of research on what each component is/does before I went out and bought just so that I was a bit more confident about getting the right things.

Good luck :smileyhappy:

[Orca Flotta]

Ya, building the machine yourself is deffo the way to go. All those manufactured machiens from Dell, HP and others big name brands are too much compromised. Anyway, whatever you do, upgrade your old one or start with a new up-to-date build, please forget software products from Redmond and/or Cupertino and go for a nice and nifty, uncomplicated Linux distro. :matte-motes-nerdy: 

[Beowulf Zessinthal]

Thanks for the advice! .. heres what happened:

To at least fix my old desktop (replace graphics card), I went to the shop where the guy from my photo could just make out that my power supply could only handle a GE730 ... but he assured me it would still be more powerful than whatever 7 yr old thing was in there. It was only $100 and so i bought it.... as i need a replacement graphics card just to establish if the other one was indeed physically kaput!

... so i got home... put it in ... i was so excited ... ... turned on the machine and immediately saw that the 4bit display was now fixed... !!! ... so i altered the display setting to the max and voila! ... looks great as per normal! ... plus having done a factory reset.. theres so much space! .. i feel like i have a 'new computer' as it is!.

OK.. so I dl the SL viewer.. and inworld i saw improved performance too! .. easy 30fps instead of 20! ))

 

Also im totally convinced that i will build/assemble my own stuff from here on.. it was such fun and the guy in the shop was really helpful^^.. Thanks to you all too!

[Orca Flotta]

---

Beowulf Zessinthal wrote:... plus having done a factory reset.. theres so much space! .. i feel like i have a 'new computer' as it is!.

---

What?? :smileysurprised: Hang on, I didn't get that. 

Are you telling me that you never did any maintenance on your PC since 7 years and just watched as your harddrive was getting filled up with crap? :smileysad: Oh jeez, no wonder the poor compi became sluggish and sloooow. Particularly Windoze is kinda famous for being very wasteful on resources, running much too many unnecessary programs in the background, polluting your RAM as soon as you switch it on. When I was stil on Win7 I cleaned the registry daily and the whole HD weekly. :matte-motes-nerdy:  Also one can get rid of at least 50% of all the crappola Win puts in autostart by default.  Of course it's all much easier and less harmful on Linux but with a bit of hard work and TLC you can turn your Win into a decent OS as well. Oh well, not necessarily your Vista since that was a dud. 

So if you really wanna be lazy I recommed switching to Linux. No need to clean out your HD, no need for antivirus program, I don't even run a firewall other than the one in my router/modem, no need for any maintenance. I never had that little maintenance work on any computer before and my productive time went way up. :smileyhappy: