So for 5 years at work, I was comfortably able to split my time between two computers. At home was the desktop I built, which was powerful enough and with a big enough screen, and could handle the games I needed it to. At work, I had a series of 14" Lenovo laptops - always with a discrete Nvidia card so I could take it to LAN parties and still get by on low detail. The system worked well, especially since the laptop was free.

Then The Big Move happened, and I had to get a laptop to take with me overseas. Since it was going to be all I had for gaming, web dev, work, media, and everything else, I figured I'd get something decent. What I ended up with was a Dell XPS 15. Yes, yes, I got a Dell. I'd been forewarned, but my experience buying a Dell monitor had been awesome (both in service and product), so I was willing to give it a go. I was basically looking for a laptop which:

• Was 14", or if 15", was smaller than most (by forgoing the numpad)
• Was thin. Not like those chunky Alienware or Asus gaming notebooks.
• Would not be embarrassing to sit near clients with for work... like an Alienware or Asus
• Was actually available before I moved to Germany (which ruled out a Gigabyte I was interested in)
• Would perform well in games, and get the job done reasonably well for everything else

The XPS 15 was surprisingly the only candidate available in Australia which ticked all those boxes aside from the MacBook Pro Retina. The MacBook I eventually ruled out because of issues running the discrete graphics card in Boot Camp, which still aren't sorted. There was also a similar HP, but it had screen colour issues... reds looking orange... something bad. You know, the sort of thing that should never pass quality control.

So this thing has:

• A quad core processor (supposedly runs at 2.1GHz normally and can boost to around 3GHz if fewer cores are used)
• 8GB RAM
• A pretty nice 512GB Samsung SSD
• A GeForce 640M GPU

While I always used to keep myself well versed on the current desktop hardware market, the mobile market was something I never paid much attention to. The number of considerations that go in to buying a good laptop these days are crazy. The specs above looked good on paper and the benchmarks for some similar laptops (spec-wise) showed it should be good for gaming. Then I got it. And found this thread. Yes, that is 350 pages of problems ranging from bad Wi-Fi performance (as in, unusably bad for some), constant BIOS updates from Dell that make it worse, GPU and CPU throttling to make games unplayable, overheating, and surprisingly terrible colour reproduction on the screen.

I didn't take it back, since I didn't have time to get something else before moving overseas. But damn, Dell botched this good. I don't have it as bad as many of the other people, as I sit so close to the wireless at home that I don't see the Wi-Fi issue. The throttling though took some trial and error. The GPU and CPU on this thing share a heat sink (which is never a good idea). Different BIOS versions throttle either the CPU or the GPU as things get hot, so how screwy your game gets will depend on which one it needs more.

I managed to get things into a workable state by buying an aluminium laptop stand to take away some of the heat, use the oldest available BIOS which only throttled the CPU, and then installed a program that stops the CPU from throttling. It's generally fine now, though the screen colours still miff me a bit. So now it plays my games OK, but dammit, this is not what you're supposed to go through to get your laptop working as advertised.

So that's my gaming rig. I hate laptops right now.

I also have a Google Nexus One but I haven't played Angry Birds on that in a long time. This one was a winner - a friend just gave it to me a week before I left the country. He had something newer and just didn't want it anymore.

What do you game on, and why did you get (or build) that particular device? PCs, Macs, tablets, phones, handhelds, the lot.

In Reply To #1

Moving and travelling quite frequently for a while meant that there was no chance that I could get anything other than a portable. Depending on my parent's go-to guy also meant that the ones he could get were the crappy ones gaming-wise. I did manage to get some games to run. When I moved to the US I put together a half decent desktop computer, but since I knew I was going to move again, I went with a SFF computer. I skimped on the monitor because I had an old crappy one left from a roommate. I went back home and purchased a decent monitor.

Then, I got married. The time spent gaming on the computer took a huge dent. Actually, the time I spent gaming at all took a dent. Eventually the SFF started showing it's age. I bought a crappy, crappy VAIO that couldn't run anything. After a while, and with Starcraft II approaching, I decided to get a new computer. It had to be a laptop because I would also be using it for work. I ended getting a Toshiba with an nvidia card. And now, it's HD is dead. It did last me two good years of moving around and running games like Starcraft II, The Witcher, HL2, Far Cry, Dead Space 2, Dragon Age 1 and 2.

Most of my gaming moved to consoles. iOS are just to pass time, although some like eufloria, Infinity Blade and Robocalypse did get me hooked.

First system that was actually mine.

6x86 266 MHz
3DFX Voodoo 1 Graphics Accelerator
256 MB RAM
10GB HD(...I think)
Win98
14" 640x480 then 17" 1024x768 monitor.
It originally was supposed to go to my sister but my parents were bad about actually sending gifts out(My father still has the stereo system he was going to send to another sister). Was a decent machine for the time, was the first computer I played Alpha Centauri on and Fallout 2.

PIII 800MHz
Diamond 3D Video Card, then GeForce 2 MX200 64MB
512 RAM
60 GB HD
Same 17" Monitor
Win98

Friend sold it to me(for way too much but it was difficult to get parts where I lived at the time, the internets were new). Did a lot of LAN gaming on this machine, it was also the machine I had when I first came to 3DAP, still had to do forum browsing on my father's machine as we were on dial-up and his was the only one hooked up. Plus it was a pay-per-minute fee at the time. It's also the machine which got me into level editing for Half-Life, Quake 3 and UT.

The next computer was yet another sister(I have 3), I used in between coming back to the US and going to school down in Florida. Here was my introduction to the wonderful world of broadband cable modems, which was glorious...except between 7pm and 9pm when everyone got on due to it being a shared connection through the neighborhood. This is when I got to actually play games with you all.

Compaq EvoN800v Laptop
P4-2GHz
512 MB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 64MB
50GB HD
WinXP Pro
15" display

This was the laptop I received from Full Sail for Game Development. It was a suprisingly peppy machine, not able to run then modern stuff at full detail but enough to get by. Had to get 3rd Party video drivers(Omega Drivers) for it to play decently with OpenGL applications. When I took our OpenGL class I was the only one with this model who's machine didn't go to hell when we worked with Display Lists. Sadly the hard drive met a tragic end due to Lineage II bastardized streaming code when they jury rigged it into the Unreal 2 engine. I resurrected it a few years ago but it came down to a race between which would fail first, the power supply or the processor fan. The fan won, taking the processor down with it.

P4 2.5GHz
1GB RAM
Original Video card-Can't remember, GeForce Fx 5200 128MB
80GB HD
Win XP Home
17" Monitor

A computer my father 'intended' to use, but was too in love with his Win98 machine, plus his Toshiba laptop. It's just as well, it met a quick death due to a faulty motherboard the burned IDE controller out. Literally smoke streamed from this thing. Several attempts to resurrect were made but TigerDirect apparently can't ship parts that actually work. Taking up space in the garage atm.

AMD Athlon 64 3000
1GB RAM upgraded to 2GB
GeForce 6150 128MB upgraded to GeForce 6800 GS 256MB
100 GB HD
WinXP
17" CRT upgraded to 17" Flatpanel upgraded to 36" TV

This was true first born as I bought it all with my own money, after failing to resurrect the previously mentioned machine. This machine had a serious life time. Not only did it make just just released stuff more awesome, but the 6800 could keep pace with releases well after they retired the 6000 line. Interestingly enough it met a similar fate to the previous machine, dying to the game that killed my laptop. The south bridge burned out on the motherboard and trying to find another mb that would fit the processor was next to impossible by the time it happened. Still, it held out really damn long and had a really cool case. It truly will be recognized among the honored dead.


PS3 with Linux(YellowDog)
3.2GHZ PPC 64 + 8(7 actually, 6 I could actually use)3.2GHZ 128 bit SPEs
256 MB RAM
RSX Graphics Chip 256MB
60GB HD

Played around with Linux on it(before they removed the OtherOS option) just to check it. Was planning on learning some basic Cell Processor programming but never got around to it. I did however get it to run Quake 2 which even with the software renderer, looked good at higher resolutions. Sadly the machine met it's end as the heat of the machine caused the processor to slightly expand out of it socket. Took it apart to see about fixing it but I could never bring myself to actually doing so.

Toshiba Laptop Satellite P305-S8842
Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 / 2.0 GHz, Dual-Core
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 256MB
4GB RAM
Dual 200GB HD
Windows Vista

Borrowed from my father while trying to get another machine. Like my previous laptop, it was rather peppy as well, even got it to play Borderlands at a decent frame rate albeit at 800x600. A bit hefty but the widescreen display was nice(eventually hooked it up to a 21" widescreen monitor). It still lives today and is back in the custody of my father. Surprisingly I didn't get all up and pissy about it having Vista, it did what I wanted it to do. Never quite saw the reason for all the hate, even after all the performance updates. I think people put way too much stock in an OS.


Current Machine
AMD Phenom II X4 965
Radeon HD 6670 1GB
4GB RAM
1 TB HD
Windows 7
36" Widescreen TV + 17" 4:3 Monitor

The system was on sale, under $600. When I looked for the parts individually I came at about the same cost so I decided to buy it to save me the trouble of putting one together. For the price of the hardware at the time it's actually quite a decent machine. I can't run new stuff at max detail at 1920x1080 but most things I can run at mid to high detail at around 1440x900. The 6670 is definitely is a really great budget card. Multi-monitor setups help immensely when working with Unity(have the main editor up on the main screen and MonoDevelop/Visual Studio on the other monitor). I may upgrade the video card at some point but I'd also have to upgrade the power supply as well...and probably add a better cooling system. All in all I'm rather happy with the machine.

Used family computers while I was still living at home. When I moved out I had a laptop which was capable of running Fallout and Baldur's Gate and not much else.

When I was travelling I spent an awful lot of time in Melbourne internet cafes where I managed to get through a shit-ton of games. I also got a little Acer netbook, on which I managed a bit of light gaming. The only game I can remember playing is Republic Commando. Which was awesome, why is there no sequel?

Came back to England, decided to get a new desktop. Completely ignorant of modern desktops - vaguely aware of the existence of multi-core CPUs but I was half convinced it was sorcery. Got a pre-built computer early this year from Overclockers because I remembered it being mentioned by a few people at GSF, about seven years before.
Now I can play lots of games! And thanks to the Steam summer sale, I have done.

Also my monitor is fucking ENORMOUS. I can't remember the exact size, but this shit is still awesome even after months of using it. I remember when a 17" monitor was big.

At the moment my gaming rig is the same core 2 duo machine that I've been running for the last five years. I've upgraded the HDD's and video card, but that's about it. It still runs pretty well for an older PC.

My laptop is a 2011 MacBook Pro, which is a great little machine. It'll run the few games that work on OSX quite happily.

TBH, I do most of my gaming these days on my Xbox. My home office where the PC is located is fairly isolated from the rest of the house (and, by extension all the heating and cooling), and I prefer to stay in the living area where the TV and Xbox are located unless I need to get some serious work done in an uninterrupted session.

In Reply To #5

That's about how long my desktop lasted as well. It's far cry from the previous 24 month upgrade cycle I used to stick to. I don't really have an excuse since I haven't owned a console since the Super Nintendo (still got it tucked away somewhere).

If I hadn't moved overseas, I expect I would have a new desktop by now.

Broken, because it was old. When I rebuild it there will be the same case and the Geforce 560 that I bought just before the motherboard went kaputnick. Everything else will be replaced.

So let's see I've got a white Macbook docked running Win 7 and OS X 10.8.
4 gigs of ram
Nvidia 320m (actually plays games in Windows fairly well)
250 gigabyte internal drive (split into Windows & OS X partitions)
2 1 tb external drive (1 NTFS and one OS X Journaled) split into a backup and storage partition.

Accessories:
2 Amazon Basics usb hubs.
Microsoft wireless mouse & keyboard

Why a Mac?
Well for one thing because I had such awful experiences with Dell, HP and Lenovo machines.
They were horrible, each and every one of them more horrible than the next.

The Mac really has shown itself to be exceptionally usable as a portable computer. The quality of the trackpad, the life of the battery, the quality of the construction really are top rate and if something goes wrong and you've bought Apple care the fix it experience is pretty solid.

Also I don't really play a lot of extremely graphically intese games but the Mac in Windows gets a pretty solid framerate at a reasonable resolution in the games I do play. (mostly Blizzard stuff)

Chris:
Shouuuuulda bought the Pro Retina :P I play CS:GO, Endless Space and Civ V on my freaken MacBook Air. Runs like a champ.

"computers" in my house:
Pile of Apple:
An 8 year old MacBook Pro (Core Duo, first intel), still runs fine.
2 old iPhones (original, 3G)
1 iPhone 4 (in my pants)
iPad
Brand new MacBook Air

Main desktop:
I built this about 4 years ago. It ran everything so solid that I stopped thinking of computers from an 'enthusiast' perspective and never felt the need for anything else. I built it when working at my previous company had a deal where they would pay 50% of home computer purchases for employees every 2 years. So I went a little nuts.

Intel Core i7 (8 cores?)
6 GB triple DDR Ram
Windows 7 (+ a bunch of linux VMs)
2 HDs (one 15,000 rpm) another a few TB I think
GeForce 660Ti

It used to have a GeForce GTX 285 as of a week or two ago. I just bought the 660Ti on a whim when I actually saw it in a store. It had been so long since I thought about upgrading and hadn't really noticed any problems in games I didn't think I needed anything. It has definitely sped some of the more demanding games up (The Witcher 2 notably). I don't noticed any huge quality differences though.

I think am just getting far less particular. It was a lot of fun to go run all my semi-old games and push them up a bit more and see them move smoother though.

In Reply To #9

Yeah Civ5 ran like butter on my old Lenovo as well, which had better graphics than the MB Air does.

But I don't like having my detail settings lower than Coyote's pants on a Friday night.

In Reply To #10

You assume he even wears pants at any point.

Just on a PC I assempled fairly cheap. Newest intel processor wasnt all that expensive. Budget motherboard that has everything it should have. Budget grafic card that has and will still run newest games for years. Other parts reused for long time.

A good addition I got early this year is a 46" LED TV as my main PC screen.

The reason for PC is so I can play the games I want but cheaply.

The TV is for the experience.

In Reply To #12

So how far back do you sit from that screen?

In Reply To #13

Less than a meter

Its great. Fills my vision. Fills it with goodness.

Pants are evil. Cast off the fabric chains of the oppressors!