An amusing anecdote if you build your own PC or are a PC gamer.

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Bat-mite

Rocketeer in MD
Joined
Dec 5, 2013
Messages
11,959
Reaction score
2,797
Location
Maryland
One of my favorite games of all time is Dishonored. So I was excited when they announced Dishonored 2 two years ago. My wife bought the game for me on prerelease for Christmas last year. It took it over a year to actual get released, and during that time they finally released the system specs.

Well, the specs are
Minimum:
  • Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit versions)
  • Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 60 GB free HDD space
  • NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB or better
  • Steam activation
Recommended:
  • Windows 10 (64-bit versions)
  • Intel Core i7-4770/AMD FX-8350 or better
  • 16 GB RAM
  • 60 GB free HDD space
  • NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB/AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB or better
  • Steam activation

Seriously? No 32-bit Windows version? Ay-ay-ay!

My specs were:
  • Windows 10 32-bit
  • Intel Core -3-2100
  • 4 GB RAM (the max allowed by 32-bit Windows)
  • Plenty of drive space (I have two SSD drives)
  • NVIDIA GTX 760 4 GB
  • Steam
So, what to do, what to do? I hadn't planned on a computer upgrade just to play this game.

But, I bought two more 4 GB DIMMs, giving me 12 GB total. Then I downloaded and installed Windows 10 64-bit (this is free if you have a valid Winodws 10 license -- no cost to change versions). Once I got that done, I (of course) had to reinstall all my applications, since it is a clean install, not an upgrade (per se).

And finally, I broke down and bought an Intel Core i5-3570 at Star Micro. $165.60 after shipping, which is way lower than Amazon, New Egg, or anybody else. (Usually retails for about $199.)

Even though Star Micro is on the opposite coast, and I selected First Class shipping instead of Priority Mail, I received it in three days! I love how the USPS speeds up its operations around Christmas time!

So, Monday night I removed the fan, popped out my old CPU, popped in the new CPU, grabbed my heat sink paste, and ... it was empty. Grrrrrr!!!! Due to family stuff, I did not have the opportunity to go get some Monday night. So I was computerless--and dying to try it out--all Monday night. :(

But yesterday, on the way home from work, I hit up Best Buy for a tube, and after an agonizing hour of putting the kids to bed and doing dishes, and helping my wife with a project of her own, I finally got the fan on and plugged everything back in.

With much anticipation, I pressed the power button, and ... no post.

Woops. I had forgotten one of the power connectors. Quick fix, and she booted right up!

I got to play a little of the game, and it is awesome. And there are no hiccups so far, even though I am somewhere between the minimum and recommended specs. Woo hoo!
 
Wow John,,
That sure is a lot to go through,, lol...
I hope you REALLY love the game,, lol..

Teddy
 
Wow John,,
That sure is a lot to go through,, lol...
I hope you REALLY love the game,, lol..

Teddy

I know, right? :lol: Well, in a few years, my computer would have been an antique, anyway. Here's hoping this lasts me for awhile.
 
Sounds cool! Wish I had the cash to upgrade from a laptop to a decent desktop.

So your mobo was already 64bit compatible?
 
That no post after the first power-on... that's scary. Done that before.

I was sooo tempted to upgrade my computer just to play Final Fantasy XIII on Steam. 3 to 10 fps just doesn't cut it. FF XIV was horrible as well. What to do??? As a side note, I've been playing Final Fantasy since 1989. Anyway, last year my wife decided she wanted a new computer and so I was all for it. I helped her pick one that I knew I'd be able to upgrade in a few years. My last one(2008-ish) had a mobo that was cheap but already maxed out with the Phenom 9600.

Amazing though thinking back to when I was a bachelor, dropping $2k in cash in parts back in '00 for a custom system to run Quake 3 Arena, which is most likely now slower than my phone.
 
There should be no more 32 bit operating systems. Should be retired.

A desktop is really the only way to get a good gaming system. You need serious budget. Heck, you can figure $500-$800 for a high end video card alone. I5 minimum with an i7 preferred. I would not build one with less than 16 GB ram, but likely not more for most things. SSD drive or drives. 750 watt supply or more. It adds up quickly.

Or you could do some looking at a refurbished workstation class machine with a 6 or 8 core Xeon.

I cannot believe companies are still writing 32 bit stuff- At some point they need to cut the cord and get current.

This is why I no longer game. For me it is a waste of time and money. Enjoy.
 
I am glad to see that it works well for you after your upgrade. I purchased Dishonored 2 during the black friday sales as a Christmas gift for my son and his system specs are close to yours after your upgrade. After i purchased it, I started reading all the bad reviews of the PC port. It looks like the latest patches are making the game playable now. It really seems to be an amazing game.
 
Last edited:
I have built most of my systems since the early 90s.
Then at previous job we would get Gateways or Dells, they worked fine.
Even a custome Dell would have fewer slots than nice motherboards you can buy.
In the last few years I built 3 desktops ,(1 fo home and 2 for my office)
Large, roomy cases, decent motherboards, 4G ram, now they have one or more 1 TB HDD.
I liked using XP Professional for a while , let Vista drive on by and waited till a good 64-bit OS was needed.
As a colleague said when I asked what OS he used, he said "I upgraded from Win 8 to Win 7!"
Well all of mine run well with Win 7 Professional and more RAM.

Windows 10
I waited a little bit and downloaded Win 10, it rolled everything over, awesome desktop, very little tweaking, I am one lucky son of a gun.
I am still running the 2 at work on Win 7, still work just fine.
I'm still running Office 2007, it does more than I need it to do, work-wise.

I wanted to let my wife have a faster machine at work (we work together in real estate.
Bought a basic but fast HP desktop, preloaded with Win 10.
It locks up about once every 10 days, 3 finger salute doesn't even work, press-hold pwr button to shutdown. Can't make this stuff up!

Others in the office downloaded Win 10 had some issues even a pre-loaded Dell was difficult to change the settings until he worked at it for a while.
 
Last edited:
A desktop is really the only way to get a good gaming system.

My HP Zbook (Xeon E3-1545/quad, 32GB DDR4, 1TB SSD, Nvidia M1000 4GB GPU) begs to differ.

Of course I get paid to use that beast.

I can spin up six VMs and play games while on a VOIP video conference call.

:cool:
 
Upon swapping out the CPU, did you have any trouble with Windows with respect to the license? Depending on what is going on, it may detect that it is being used on a new machine. Just curious to see if that happened to you and what you did to correct it. I'm contemplating a similar maneuver.

Marc
 
There should be no more 32 bit operating systems. Should be retired.

A desktop is really the only way to get a good gaming system. You need serious budget. Heck, you can figure $500-$800 for a high end video card alone. I5 minimum with an i7 preferred. I would not build one with less than 16 GB ram, but likely not more for most things. SSD drive or drives. 750 watt supply or more. It adds up quickly.

Or you could do some looking at a refurbished workstation class machine with a 6 or 8 core Xeon.

I cannot believe companies are still writing 32 bit stuff- At some point they need to cut the cord and get current.

This is why I no longer game. For me it is a waste of time and money. Enjoy.

1. The next operating system should have nothing to do with 32 bit vs. whatever. We finally need a decent, properly working OS with a decent security model. Microsoft has had over 20 years to fix it and they're still patching it daily.

2. There are hundreds, or thousands, of excellent PC games that will run on almost any computer you may have. The only reason to run something that requires latest specs is if you insist on it.
 
So, Monday night I removed the fan, popped out my old CPU, popped in the new CPU, grabbed my heat sink paste, and ... it was empty.

Boudreaux's Butt Paste (daiper Rash cream) works excellent as heat sink paste, nearly the same ingrediants too! My CPU used that for a good 6 months before I remembered to get some real stuff.
 
Boudreaux's Butt Paste (daiper Rash cream) works excellent as heat sink paste, nearly the same ingrediants too! My CPU used that for a good 6 months before I remembered to get some real stuff.

Definitely didn't have any of that lying around. :wink:
 
Ever since Steam prevented the playing of used games on PCs, I've moved to buying one-generation-behind used consoles and used games for them. Much cheaper.
 
Upon swapping out the CPU, did you have any trouble with Windows with respect to the license? Depending on what is going on, it may detect that it is being used on a new machine. Just curious to see if that happened to you and what you did to correct it. I'm contemplating a similar maneuver.

Marc

I was prepare for that, and I printed off some instructions for license recovery, but it actually never complained. I believe it is a bigger issue if you change your mobo.
 
I was prepare for that, and I printed off some instructions for license recovery, but it actually never complained. I believe it is a bigger issue if you change your mobo.
That's what triggers it, but from what I've heard, you just call and tell them your mobo fried and they give you a pass. After all, if you're building your own system and not using the same license on a second machine, you are basically meeting the intent of their EULA which is to prevent the use of the same OEM license on multiple machines. This is why they make the trigger point a mobo replacement since that would be the most likely indication of an OEM OS presence on second machine.

By the way, you'll find fairly common YouTube videos from otherwise very reputable PC builders/tech reviewers about how to buy very cheap Windows OS OEM keys on-line. Those reviewers truly believe this is OK with Microsoft and they wouldn't be promoting it in a YouTube video if they didn't. However, these are all almost certainly enterprise volume keys bought very cheaply in large groups which are not supposed to be sold individually according to the buyer's EULA and if their use otherwise is somehow detected by Microsoft, you will at the very least lose the ability to receive OS updates to a system based upon one.
 
My HP Zbook (Xeon E3-1545/quad, 32GB DDR4, 1TB SSD, Nvidia M1000 4GB GPU) begs to differ.

Of course I get paid to use that beast.

I can spin up six VMs and play games while on a VOIP video conference call.

:cool:

Al, you and I both know that your laptop is no where close to a typical laptop. What did that beast cost anyways?
 
1. The next operating system should have nothing to do with 32 bit vs. whatever. We finally need a decent, properly working OS with a decent security model. Microsoft has had over 20 years to fix it and they're still patching it daily.

2. There are hundreds, or thousands, of excellent PC games that will run on almost any computer you may have. The only reason to run something that requires latest specs is if you insist on it.

If you want to run current high end games my points are all correct. If you are content to play old games go ahead. Use the old hardware and a 32 bit OS.

Patching is correct observation is correct. This is an annoying issue for me being a Windows Admin for a living. Then again, some application providers cause many issues by writing horrible code.
 
Al, you and I both know that your laptop is no where close to a typical laptop. What did that beast cost anyways?

One of the few advantages to my job. The follow on is I can buy it in a year when I replace it for something better. It was originally intended as a potential portable PACs system and we also use it for our decision support & data analytic people. The Desktop Engineering team I am on uses them for VM work.

About $2600.
 
........................
Windows 10
I waited a little bit and downloaded Win 10, it rolled everything over, awesome desktop, very little tweaking, I am one lucky son of a gun.
I am still running the 2 at work on Win 7, still work just fine.
I'm still running Office 2007, it does more than I need it to do, work-wise.

I wanted to let my wife have a faster machine at work (we work together in real estate.
Bought a basic but fast HP desktop, preloaded with Win 10.
It locks up about once every 10 days, 3 finger salute doesn't even work, press-hold pwr button to shutdown. Can't make this stuff up!

Others in the office downloaded Win 10 had some issues even a pre-loaded Dell was difficult to change the settings until he worked at it for a while.

My wonderful, new HP Jokestation (with Can't WIN 10) not only hangs up occasionally but get this.
It has 2 USB ports and an SD slot on the front for which is perfect for my work in the office.
Today wife says, "hey plug in my phone and let it charge" knowing the charge time is slow through the port.
Wife is in the middle of using Quicken, plug phone in the USB, COMPUTER REBOOTS!!!!
When I unplug the phone later at the end of the day, THE COMPUTER GOES THROUGH SHUTDOWN!
What gives? Are there settings for the USB ports, WTH?
 
Should have focused on a new graphics card it would make more difference than a CPU.
The 970s and 980s are much cheaper now.
 
My wonderful, new HP Jokestation (with Can't WIN 10) not only hangs up occasionally but get this.
It has 2 USB ports and an SD slot on the front for which is perfect for my work in the office.
Today wife says, "hey plug in my phone and let it charge" knowing the charge time is slow through the port.
Wife is in the middle of using Quicken, plug phone in the USB, COMPUTER REBOOTS!!!!
When I unplug the phone later at the end of the day, THE COMPUTER GOES THROUGH SHUTDOWN!
What gives? Are there settings for the USB ports, WTH?

Dave, first thing is to make sure you have run Windows update.

Second thing is to hit HP website and make sure your drivers are up to date, BIOS is current etc.

What antivirus are you using?
 
My wonderful, new HP Jokestation (with Can't WIN 10) not only hangs up occasionally but get this.
It has 2 USB ports and an SD slot on the front for which is perfect for my work in the office.
Today wife says, "hey plug in my phone and let it charge" knowing the charge time is slow through the port.
Wife is in the middle of using Quicken, plug phone in the USB, COMPUTER REBOOTS!!!!
When I unplug the phone later at the end of the day, THE COMPUTER GOES THROUGH SHUTDOWN!
What gives? Are there settings for the USB ports, WTH?

May be a hardware problem with the USB port. We're these both the same port? See if it happens on the other port.
I bought some very expensive industrial machines from a small company in Texas once for used in a power plant. They had wired one of the USB ports completely wrong. I plugged in a thumb drive and the drive melted and caught fire. We sent the shipment of computers back and switched brands. I never would have thought that could happen.


Steve Shannon
 
May be a hardware problem with the USB port. We're these both the same port? See if it happens on the other port.
I bought some very expensive industrial machines from a small company in Texas once for used in a power plant. They had wired one of the USB ports completely wrong. I plugged in a thumb drive and the drive melted and caught fire. We sent the shipment of computers back and switched brands. I never would have thought that could happen.


Steve Shannon

Probably the power line that is used for charging devices got cross-wired to the data line or something.
 
Earlier this year I built a new PC...it had been a bit over 10 years since I built the last one (AMD 64 bit now running WinXP).

The new one runs on an i4590k, 16 gigs of memory, a 500gb SSD for the system disk, a 1tb WD Caviar for storage, and a 4tb Blue for backups. Windows 7 of course. The build cost was reasonable as I purchased sale-priced items over time and used a few hand me downs from my son (pair of SLI video cards and a Antec 900 power supply).

My failure to post anecdote is that without a monitor, I couldn't see the "no keyboard found" error message in POST. After hooking up the keyboard and mouse, everything was up and running without a hitch.
 
Back
Top