Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Toys

Full Powered, Compact, Gaming Rigs? 247

Posted by Cliff from the hard-core-gamer dept.
Michael Buffington asks: "I frequently go to LAN gaming parties, and because I'm not all that interested in toting my higher power mid tower machine around, I bring my lower powered notebook. I want to build a full powered machine complete with a fast, 3.5" HD, CD-ROM, Pentium III or similar in speed CPU, at least 1 AGP slot, and at least 2 PCI slots (or integrated sound, or network, or both), as small as possible. I've considered going the PC 104 route, but don't know of any vendors who sell complete systems (which I'd be more comfortable with, on the PC 104 route), and honestly don't know the pricing on PC 104. I've also considered finding the smallest motherboard I can, and hand building a machine as small as possible with normal equipment (duct tape being part of the 'normal' equipment). Does anyone have any ideas, examples, or stories to help with my new obsession?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Full Powered, Compact, Gaming Rigs? More

Full Powered, Compact, Gaming Rigs?

Comments Filter:

  • Greetings from Kyoto (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wouldn't recommend getting a laptop, as it might end up getting too expensive.

    But maybe you could get a carrying case designed for DJs (to hold their mixer and SL1200s (or whatever) in). There should be plenty of room to fit a motherboard and other stuff, also you should be able to do some slight modifications. You'll probably have to drill a few holes too and so on. The point is that you get a suitably large container with a handle (and/or wheels) and install your computer inside that. Then get a small LCD screen which fits in your backpack and you're set to go!

    PS. Bush blows goats

  • Re:why don't you go out and play a sport (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First pompous ass?

  • Small Lan Computer! I have one! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have a little computer that I made for Lan parties...here is the specs. PIII 866 Mobo is Aopen Mx3s (one of the smallest boards made with the 815e chipset) + it has onboard sound and LAN (getting rid of two PCI slots) video geforce 2 Pro 64 meg, overclocked to near Ultra speeds. IBM deskstar 45 gig 75000 rpm drive I use onboard LAN, and Sound from Mobo I use a tiny case found here: http://www.caseoutlet.com/case/microatx/newcase.ht ml Check out the specs...it is roughly 12.5 inches long, 7.5 inches wide and 13 inches tall...VERY TINY! + you have the whole penguin thing for Linux!!! I modified the case by cutting small holes in the side of it and putting in a case-fan in the side to help with the cooling (adding a geforce 2 overclocked to the mix was simply too hot!) I also had to modify the inside a little moving the internal front fan to behind the bezel to make room for the mobo (the case is actually designed for flex-atx, not micro-atx..but the Mx3s fits if you move the internal front fan. I also added a vortex fan to one of the PCI slots on the bottom to increase air-flow from the video card. The Mobo came with 4 usb ports which is very useful for gaming (I use usb mouse, keyboard, joystick, driving wheel and game-commander). I have people standing around at every LAN party I go to because of the size...I show up with "just a monitor" (this case along with keyboard and etc all fits into a normal backpack.) and proceed to hook everything up. People are amazed. I love watching people Lug around their big cases making two or three trips to their cars. Now I am saving up for a 17 inch LCD and I will really be set!
  • about one year ago. i set two limitations to the design of my "lan party computer"

    1. it must use standard components (to make it easier to find parts to buy)
    2. it must be cheap (at least cheaper than a comparable laptop)

    this is a list of components that i used to build the system.
    i updated parts of the list to reflect what components i would buy if i was going to build it today.

    case mini tower [enlightcorp.com] $60
    monitor 14" lcd [viewsonic.com] $600
    motherboard micro atx [yimg.com] $100
    processor P3 800Mhz 100FSB $160
    ram 256MBpc100SDRAM $100
    video Geforce2GTS64MB [newegg.com] $195
    keyboard mini-keyboard [worklink.net] $40
    mouse cordless optical [logitech.com] $70
    hard drive 40GB ide $100
    cd-rom drive Plextor16/10/40A [plextor.com] $250
    floppy 1.44MB Generic $10
    sound card SB Live Value [soundblaster.com] $40
    network card netgear FA310TX [netgear.com] $20
    cat5 cable 14 feet $20
    headphones koss td61 [koss.com] $20
    carry strap GearGrip Pro [thinkgeek.com] $35

    other stuff:
    cable bag a small, strong bag to attach to the side of the case to hold all the cables
    power cable with 3 outlets that have 3 prongs each to accommodate the power cables for your system and monitor

    i attached the lcd monitor to one side of the case and the cable bag to the other side. i put all the cables attached to the computer inside the bag to get them out of the way. then, when i went to a lan party i would only have to take one power cable, one network cable, the mini-keyboard, cordless mouse, and headphones out of the cable bag. everything was already connected at the back of the computer so there was no onsite setup involved.

    i also screwed a piece of plexiglass onto the lcd monitor to protect the screen. (yes it was stupid to drill holes into a monitor that i just spent $900 on at that time, but it worked)

    i had a lot of fun with that computer. i even dropped it down a flight of stairs once and the case was bent and all the pci cards popped out of their sockets. i put it back together and it worked fine.
    the only downside to building this system was that it weighed about 30lbs. although if you spent more money on a lunchbox case with integrated lcd it would still weigh a lot.

    unfortunately i never took any pictures of it for posterity and i ended up dismantling it for parts about 6 months ago, but i'm sure you get the idea.

    -stan

  • Compact system (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Look for an NLX system. The NLX form factor uses a back plane so that it can be mad very small, compact, and easy to cool because the MB is mounted parallel to the PCI slots. These systems have an AGP slot but ususally the card has to be made to fit the NLX form factor, there is a suprising number of these parts around as they never really took off and you can find varieties that use both socket 370 and slot 1. Some of the systems built on this form factor are called book systems because of their small size but it is also used in large rack-mount systems as well, however, you can make a much smaller system with NLX than ATX.
  • You're still going to have to carry a monitor around, which is usually considerably bulkier and heavier than a PC...

    - A.P.

    --
    Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

  • If he's gonna be using this as a gaming box, he'll probably want something with considerably more 3d power than the 810 is able to deliver. Unfortunately, laptops with that kind of grunt usually cost $2700 or so...

    --
    Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

  • Posted by Kewlhandtek:

    I have used the bsi fieldgo portables http://www.fieldgo.com they are great but very pricey, a laptop may be cheaper than these things. I've had one apart, they seem to have very standard pc stuff in them. The military bought lots of these things to run linux out in the field on. So maybe with luck we can pick these things up at surplus sales or on ebay in a few years.
  • Not since 2000 have we seen a new PC processor come out and current hard drives date back to 1999. The fact is no-one's making components for PC's anymore. You really have to think more about lower clockspeed CPU's for embedded systems, embedded storage devices, and doing more graphics in hardware. This of course is what a console does.
  • It was probably a fluke, but the last time I played Q3 Arena I kicked some major ass with my PBFW with just the trackpad... I even changed my screen name to "I'm using a TRACKPAD!"
  • Yes, I actually lug around a system in a rackmount case for presentations. Rackmount cases are designed to take a lot of abuse. They usually come with some nice handles on the front, making them easy to carry. I'd recommend a 2U system. Personally, I have a 4U system, which allows for a full ATX system, but it is pretty heavy.
  • Get a P3 1Ghz, 256 Meg, 32 meg Geforce2Go (should be available rsn), 15" lcd.

  • MicroATX (Score:1)

    by rwa2 ( 4391 )
    it's going to be a lot more expensive than you expect if you try to go with non-commodity hardware. I'd recommend building something around a micro-ATX motherboard (Gigabyte sells some good ones, and probably one of the only ones that support AMD chips). Couple that with one of those mini-tower cases and you should have a decent COTS system that's mostly portable (but more importantly, uses standard hardware).

    If you wanted to make your own chassis, you might thin it down by using riser cards so you can mount the video/PCI cards sideways, but you'll still be stuck trying to find a way to mount the power supply, so it'll still be somewhat bulky.

    I think would be difficult to build a system smaller than that for less than the price of an equivalent laptop, mostly because you'd have to find a kick-ass power supply and get other expensive components (SBC motherboards, etc.)

  • Well, it is like goatse.cx, but instead of a look at some internals of a human being, its a look at some internals of a computer.

    Sure is more palatable to look at a motherboard at lunchtime instead of, well, I just won't go there...

    Chris Cothrun
    Curator of Chaos

  • I love my TiBook, but it is not gaming machine. The Rage 128 is slow, slow, slow no matter if Steve Jobs gets up on stage and says its faster than any video card available for PCs.
  • the problem I have w/gaming on laptops is the small keyboard. Yeah I guess you could tote around your KB w/you (you really wouldn't have a choice otherwise) but it is still a serious problem w/gaming on laptops..

  • I'm looking at making my computer easier to haul around as well. I leave a 19" monitor, mouse and keyboard at the gaming site so I don't have to lug any of them around, but still grab my main case and take it to play games on a weekly basis. I find that the weight is much more annoying than the size of a mid-tower case.

    The guys here at work just got in some aluminum cases and I think it may just be about time for me to upgrade to one. They run about $200, which is a little high for a quality case but they are very light. My current case is 45 lbs, the aluminum ones here are like 12 (both empty). Bolt a handle on and your set.

    If you're intersted, details on the cases are available [lian-li.com].

  • PC104 (Score:2)

    by GoRK ( 10018 )
    OOOOh yeah pc104 = ISA bus. Perfect for all that high powered gaming!

    Look I get 8fps in Q3A, but my box is smaller than my head!
  • I'm currently putting together an old Gameboy 4-player network. I'm trying to get four copies of F1-race (I've already picked up one four player adapter and original gameboy to suit). I'm going to be setting up a little portable retro corner in the next local LAN party to show people that multiplayer fun doesn't start and end with FPS.

    After I get four F1-races, I'm going to start on 16 Faceball 2000s and a few more four player adapters.

    Does anyone remember when two player PC games connected with a simple null modem connection? I played so much Populous this way...

    --

  • You can wait 'till July when OS X will be bundled or install it yourself.

    The selection of games should be better by then too.

  • Re:Easy... (Score:3)

    by Raptor CK ( 10482 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @11:07AM (#310881) Journal
    Zuh?

    Mouse?

    Trackpad is *the* ultimate killing device. Back in my Q1 days, I was the absolute master of the triple rocket frag. That was on a trackpad. I tried going back to a mouse, and while I'm not bad, I'm nowhere near as good as I was on the pad.

    See, the wonderful feature is that my accuracy was through the roof. Rocket just under the feet to send him up, a second just as he starts to fall (and thereby still in the blast radius), and then a third as he's falling back down, but this one to the actual body. Bled off most of the armor and health, and then...

    SPLUT. Shower of gibs just before he hits the ground.

    Fear the trackpad.

    Raptor
  • Why does the front page have a picture of the guts of a Compaq Contura 410 series notebook on it? The fastest of those was a dx2-50, if i recall correctly.

  • All your Dell 5000e are belong to us.
  • Thanks for the info, i've been out of the loop and not keeping up ever since i stopped my website.

    I would probably agree with pcgamer - hell, video in laptops has been crap for years.

    is it available yet? do you know what line it's going in?

  • You might want to wait... (Score:3)

    by Amnesiak ( 12487 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:26AM (#310885) Homepage
    I know that nvidia has the geforce2go [nvidia.com] mobile chip. Ati will probably come out with a new laptop chip as well. Those two are probably your best bet.

    However, it does take a while to get a new video chip in a laptop because each individual model has to get certified (this is what nvidia told me). So, even though the nvidia chip is out now, it might still be another four months or so until you see it in action.

    Now, if you have money, i would suggest this route - microatx. You can get some pretty sweet [caseoutlet.com] plastic cases that are very small, and decent motherboards [asus.com.tw] from good manufacturers like Asus. Pair this up with a flatpanel and you'd have a trick gaming machine for sure.... if you're really into hacking you can mount the flatpanel in the side of the case, but you might need to get a slightly bigger case for that.

    So, if you don't want to wait, go microatx. if you do, just keep your eyes open until a laptop with the gf2go comes out.
  • Of course I can't think of many games that would know how to take advantage of the 2nd monitor.

    I can. Multiheaded gaming is not all that uncommon. [planetquake.com] It's quite neat, but to be honest I would prefer it over THREE monitors as opposed to two. The reason I say this is that in Quake 3 the crosshair is divided evenly between monitors, and that is a pain for railgun use.

  • I just became the owner of a Toshiba 2805-S402 with a GeForce2 Go (16MB)...
    It's a 850MHz PIII with a 15" LCD...
    Firewire, integrated ethernet, integrated modem, integrated smartmedia reader, integrated 8x DVD/4x CDR/RW burner, two free PCMCIA slots, etc.

    Came with 128MB ram, add another 128 for ~$50 after a quick search on PriceWatch.com...

    This laptop cost me ~ $2500 (retails for $2599) and probably offers better gaming performance than any currently available laptop.

    The Geforce2 Go performance is more or less like a under clocked (143MHz) Geforce2 MX. It plays Q3, Black and White, etc. very well.

    Sometime around the end of this month Dell will also have a laptop (Inspiron 8000) with a Geforce2 Go priced roughly at $2650 for the base model.

    I recommend going with one of these two laptops if you're going for compact gaming.

    My only gripe about this laptop, and all other laptops, is that laptop hard drive performance is nowhere near as good as a cheap 7,200 RPM Desktop harddrive...
  • I swear I didn't click submit twice. Oh well, serves me right for using all caps on an off-topic post anyway.

  • Only having 25 games to chose from, instead of 100, doesn't really disqualify a platform from being use for "serious gaming" (whatever that is). On a Linux box or a Mac, you can still piss your life away, playing brand new games all around the clock until you get fired, and your wife moves out, and your mistress stops emailing you to set up quickie rendezvous, and your dog runs away, and your cat gets scared of the rats living in the empty pizza boxes piled up next to your computer, and your computer's fans all clog up with dust (unless you have a Mac) and overheats, and then you finally just can't read the letters on the keys anymore, because they're all covered with an opaque cake consisting of dust cemented by pizza grease, Mountain Dew, sweat, and possibly other bodily fluids. And by the time you get everything cleaned off so you can see again, there will be another few dozen games to choose from.

    Saying that Linux or MacOS isn't suitable for "serious gaming" is like saying China can't do "serious nuking" because they don't have as many warheads as USSR. If you think you need Windoze to play games, it's probably because you're addicted to some very specific title.


    ---
  • Might I suggest http://www.emjembedded.com/ [emjembedded.com] as a source for all things embedded. They seem to have a helpfull staff and show prices online. They also have a WIDE range of small computing devices and accessories.

  • Toshiba laptops w/ GeForce2 Go (Score:3)

    by raygundan ( 16760 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:20AM (#310892) Homepage
    Toshiba is now selling laptops [toshiba.com] with NVidia's GeForce2 Go chipset (basically a GeForce2 MX squeezed into a laptop). Sounds like the easiest route to me! It's got built-in ethernet and sound, too. And a built-in subwoofer? (I'm skeptical on this piece, but who knows?)
  • The problem is that that particular model of Graphics Card is *NOT* a 3d graphics card. Oh it's toted as such, sure. But deep down it isn't one.
    I think the tests I ran on it said it didn't even support all the DirectX functions that most (if not all) the rest of the graphics cards in the world support.

    The newer Dells can ship with a 32meg ATI Rage3dish card, which I hear is a thousand times better.

  • I *severely* don't reccommend Compaq Laptops.

    Why?

    I was shopping around for a laptop last year. My main two choices (retail) were Compaq and Toshiba.
    Now part of the requirements for this particular purchase were that it run Linux. BSD would be a plus, but Linux was a requirement. Not only that it run Linux, however, but also that it run X on Linux.
    I'd read up on Linux on laptops and had narrowed it down basically to one of three machines: A Compaq, an IBM and a Toshiba. I tried them all out at various stores and discovered that for the most part, they were all the same. The Compaq was really cool (I like the placement of the speakers and such) and the Toshiba seemed reliable. I was replacing a Toshiba Satellite Pro that finally went dead on me--or rather, the onboard memory did, and you can't replace that without a new board, which would run about as much as a used laptop.
    But I digress.
    I was about to buy it when a burst of something hit me. I asked if I could try installing some software on the test machine and they said "Ok." I popped in my Debian install CD, rebooted and just stared. The visible screen was reduced to about 1/5 normal. Mind you I got all 80x25 characters, but they were TINY!
    In awe of this, I popped out the CD and booted back into Windows, opened a command prompt, hit CTRL-ENTER (turns it fullscreen) and got the exact same display.
    As it turns out, even switching the resolution made it use less of the screen, and thus the icons were smaller.
    Tried the same thing on the Toshiba and got the same results.
    Tried the same thing on the IBM, and it worked just like it should--fullscreen 80x25, etc.

    Needless to say, I went with the IBM.

    Now I eventually took it back (the manager was REALLY cool about this) because running X required using the Framebuffer X server, which frankly sucks. Ended up with a Dell Inspiron 7500 and couldn't be happier.
    Oh, and it *does* change resolutions correctly :)

  • Re:Just buy a dell.... (Score:3)

    by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @10:17AM (#310895) Homepage
    I find this hard to believe. The only explanation could be tweakability. I've used OEM systems (and Dells) and never found them to be lacking from the ones I build myself. I also only use the highest quality parts in my own systems.
    And actually, I have a GeForce 400mhz system at home and I work with Dell 700mhz Celerons with Ati 4meg graphics cards. The Dell actually beats my system in a few cases. Of course not in all, but it does in some.
    My guess is he got a bad system or you tweaked the hell out of yours. Plus you DO have an ultra version of the card. That is a huge plus when it comes to 3d benchmarks.

    And aside from *all* of that, the original poster wanted a machine he could carry with him. The Inspiron 8000 series is, flat out, a powerhouse. Up to 1ghz processor, up to 512megs ram, up to 32meg graphics card (Ati Rage == good, GeForce == better and coming soon), with DVD and CDRW. I was pricing them just last night and came up with a slightly reduced version of what I just said for around $2400. Not bad, and my current dell laptop rules my world except for the graphics card :)
  • I don't know about you, but my EN SFF is a P3 733 with an onboard TNT2. it works fine for games :)
  • A fairly inexpensive way to go is to use an "everything-on-board" microATX MB, such as the ASUS CUSL2-M (PIII + i815 video + LAN + audio) and put it into a ultra mini case such as the YY A101 Tiny Tower. (The audio on the CUSL2-M is not well supported under Linux, so you may need to cough up an extra $20 for a SB16 sound card if you are using Linux, as I did).

    Look here [esc-tech.com] for some info on the case.

    If you're running Linux or UNIX and not using hardware accelerated 3D, you can use your laptop as the "monitor", by using it as an X terminal (or using VNC if you like that better). If you need HW accelerated 3D or are using windows, you will still need to drag a monitor around :(.

  • I've got a similar problem - I need a piece of kit that can take a soundblaster live pci card (or similar with soundfont support), has a hard disk, keyboard,mouse and a display (probably lcd) - this is so that I don't have to carry a desktop pc to practise just so I can record and playback stuff with decent sound quality. any ideas?
  • I saw a guy at QuakeCon [quakecon.org] last year who had built an entire PC into a hard suitcase.

    It was nice, but he did say he had a problem with cooling the thing... but then again, I figure you can always do liquid cooling. I was thinking about doing one like that myself. It's the one and main reason I don't go to more LAN parties, other than the distance and sleep deprivation and bad food thing ;-)

    Good Luck.

  • Look for a decent flex atx case and mb.

    They usually have two pci slots, and if you look hard enough you can find one with a decent embedded video card. I have seen one with the ati rage -whatever- in it. (they are all rage "something".) Ok, so embedded video isn't great, but it is the form factor that matters, not the power right?

    Cuchullain
  • You could try this [www.jump.de] one (PIII, Rage Mobility)
  • If you can crunch the system down small enough, it'll fit, along with the various cables & accessories, into a reasonably-sized backpack. Then you can carry it while carrying your monitor, and only have to lug around two things (backpack & monitor).
  • hardly...
    in portland, oregon its 9:40 and im already drunk!
  • Yikes, I hadn't looked at their pricing, we have one of their systems for work. I know you can find just the bare cases for around $3000 and then build the PC yourself. This will get a kick butt system for <$5k. I can't stand laptops because of the lack of upgrade path.
  • <a href="http://www.acmeportable.com">Acme Portable</a>
  • Another site forensic-computers [forensic-computers.com] has lunchbox stuff as well. There are many others. The advantage of a lunch box over a laptop is that it will be upgradeable with new chip, graphics, etc. The price should be about the same as a mid-high laptop. They aren't as portable as a laptop but give better performance for gaming and are more portable than a standard PC. I have one at work and can vouch for the performance capabilities.
  • I was reading hardocp.com, and noticed this link, which looks to be exactly the kind of info you're after.

    The Making of a Portable Athlon
    http://myhome.netsgo.com/wesleycrushr/Hardware/gui 010405a-1.htm [netsgo.com]

    chris
  • Here are some urls for you if you wanna build a nice gaming box...

    The urls explain themselves sorta.

    These two are buyers guides for computers...

    http://www.sharkyextreme.com/theguide/value_game_p c [sharkyextreme.com]

    http://www.sharkyextreme.com/theguide/high_game_pc [sharkyextreme.com]

    Now I suggest you look at these next ones for video cards since 3d cards are very essential to gamers. My card is a Hercules 3d Prophet2 GeForce2 GTS 64mb. If you plan on getting an NVdia card I suggeset getting any of the Hercules 3d Prophet Series. They are the best for gaming in my opinion. If you want TV out/in, dvd playback, and some decent 3d, you can go with the ATI Radeon, but I can't endorse it since I've never used it, I've only heard other people's stories.

    Anyways here are the urls.

    http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/articles/val ue_3dcard_roundup_10-00/ [sharkyextreme.com]

    http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/articles/sup er_he_video_shootout_10-00/ [sharkyextreme.com]

    That's about it...

    Disclaimer: I don't feel like running a spell check or grammer check on myself. I'll leave it up to the Anonymous Cowards to point out my mistakes or broken urls or whatever.

    -PovRayMan

    ----------
  • So did he keep the keyboard and accessories in the slide out drawers visible in the second picture?

  • "At least one AGP slot"? (Score:3)

    by DarkMan ( 32280 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:37AM (#310910) Journal
    I know of no commercial motherboards, or chip sets for that matter, that have more than one AGP slot. For two good reasons..

    1: Why would you want to have more than one graphics card?
    Bearing in mind AGP is designed to optimise 3D texture transfer, the argument of a 2d and 3d card is irrelevnt, and pointless with modern cards.
    If the system was to switch between work and games, then, and only then, can I see an argument for two cards. But for a games specific machine, nope.

    2: To quote the AGP 2.0 specification [intel.com] (footnote 3, page 27)

    This means that active communication can only occur between two AGP agents that reside on the interface ... Attaching more then two devices to the interface is not precluded, as long as there is only one active master and one active target


    In other words, one AGP card (the target is the motherboard, master is the card) has to be switched off during AGP transfers.

    There is a reason AGP is a Port, not a Bus.


    --
  • a G4/500 cube!
  • There is this company that used to advertise in Byte magazine: Dolch [dolch.com].

    Their focus is on industrial, ruggedized systems -- ones that you could install an oscilloscope PCI card in, for example. Some have 5 1/4" internal bays, and these are usually the ones sporting the ISA/PCI expansion capability, too.

    • The "FlexPAC [dolch.com]" offers PIII processors
    • The "TransPAC [dolch.com]" is their PC-104 offering
    • And the "MegaPAC [dolch.com]" reminds me of the old Osborne lugable (just with modern innards).

      All of these sport (of course) integrated keyboards , trackpoint mice, and LCD panels.

      Of course, you could just look at their

    • Portables product page [dolch.com].
    The only thing that stopped me when I used to look at these was the price -- they were twice what other computers of the day were. But that was 6 to 8 years ago.

    Happy hunting!

  • Oddly enough, "Running With Scissors" is in my CD drive right now here at work... though the Truck Drivin' song is playing... what a great disc.
    --
  • If the system is to be used as a gaming system - as most are for LAN parties, then the i815 and integrated audio are *really* bad choices, performance-wise. Running the video through a network would be even more painful...

    --
  • Might it be that you have a TNT2 Ultra, and he only a regular TNT2? That would certainly account for a big difference.

    I build my own systems, but I haven't seen an 800MHz PIII get beat by a 450MHZ PIII yet (assuming they are identical graphics cards).
    --
  • Ah, but it's well worth the pennies per month more to get the Monsoon audio 8^) (for the car... though I'm told they do computer speakers now, too)
    --
  • Ewwwwwwwww...... I had forgotten about those [shudder].
    --
  • PC/104 is cool for wearble computers, or embedded applications. But it is *damn* expensive, and the base hardware is always a bit behind the times. For what you would pay for a half-way decent PC/104 system, you could build a full-blown gaming PC *and* have money left over to hire someone to carry it around for you.

  • Yup, that's the only way to go. It's MUCH better than lugging around even a small tower becuase you still need a monitor, keyboard, etc... and that gets bulky. Personally, i've resigned myself to renting a uhaul and taking my 19" monitor and full tower case with me. With the size (and raw unrestrained power) of that thing, the intimidation factor makes up for the transport hassle.
    ----------------------

  • My project (Score:3)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @07:36PM (#310922)
    I recently designed a system with a similar goal in mind. It didn't come out precisely how I'd wanted, namely due to time restraints and lack of supplies, but here's what I'd do were I to start over and do it again:

    First, the processor has to be taken into consideration. I picked a Duron 700 at the time, and grabbed a micro-ATX (or whatever the smallest form factor is, I don't recall) board for this. It had integrated audio and ethernet.

    I grabbed a decent 30$ power supply. Anything decent should suffice.

    I grabbed a geforce2mx, for economical reasons in part, but also because it's relatively 'short' and was only 85$ at the time.

    All I put in this thing was a CDROM drive, since floppy drives are virtually useless nowadays.

    I took an old compaq presario case, and cut it up a bit, and slapped the board in it. Not exactly what I was looking for, but next time I'll do things differently...

    Next time, I'll get moderately thick plexiglass and use that for the entire frame, while using metal L braces to connect the 4 sides. cutting the metal to fit for the ATX form factor board was a pain in the ass, and plexiglass is quite sturdy, not to mention a heck of a lot easier to work with. Provided you don't want a high level of complexity in case shape and design, you can rip out the normal bay mounting points from a normal case, and connect them in relatively easily to the plexiglass. I'd probably recomment 1/4th inch plexiglass, provided you support everything well. (putting metal strips along the the side that has the motherboard might be advisable).

    This way, it not only looks awesome, but it's small and portable. You could even throw a black light into it, get some clear fish aquarium tubing, and make a closed-circuit tube full of antifreeze and put it around the seams of the case - you'd have a very nice glowing system. (I plan to do something similar.) Ideally, you can also make one of the sides easily removable or on a hinge, so hardware upgrades are feasable.

    Something I've got in my design template is a small compartment near the bottom where all the system cables are easily retracted and extracted without too much mess and table. You might want to design something like that for yourself. (mouse and headphones fit nicely as well.)

    -------
    CAIMLAS


  • Regardless of the specs you mentioned the largest componet is going to be your monitor.

    A normal, everyday mini case with more than what you requested is half the size of a decent gaming monitor.

    How about getting a good quality lap top from Dell or another brand name with the new Nvidia or ATI mobile graphics chips and a good compatible sound card?
  • If motion blurring became a standard feature on graphics cards, we would only need a MAXIMUM of maybe 40-60 fps, drastically reducing the currently huge data-transfer rates required for smooth gameplay. (The reason people like having ~150 fps is because their eyes are doing all the motion-blurring work, and things start to look choppy. Movies are only 25-50 fps (can't remember) and nobody complains that movies don't look smooth)).
    --------
    Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
  • PIII 800MHZ, Geforce 2 go card 128MB ram , subwoofer (i'll believe it when i hear it) DVD/CDR firewire port, 2 usb

    2799

  • Concurrent AGP would be a great idea for several purposes:

    As a faster way to do Ultra-320 SCSI [adaptec.com] (maybe) than 66MHz 64bit PCI [adaptec.com].

    As a way to run 2 AGP video cards, each with two digital monitor outputs, combining the 4 resulting flat screens for a truly useful 3D workstation / desktop (see the SGI reality stations, etc. [sgi.com]).
  • 64 bit PCI has advantages, and 64 bit support on all PCI slots would be wonderful. However, AGP has faster-than-dma advantages that should be acknowledged. You pointed out that its fast but not used. It should be used, as another poster pointed out, as reference memory and the internal video, scsi, sound, etc.memory can be used as a higher-speed cache of system ram (like CPUs' L1 and L2). Being able to quickly access the wealth of system ram on modern machines (especially at the low price compared to higher speed video memories, etc.) is a good thing. A good gaming PC in the future could contain several 64 bit PCI slots and 2 or 3 AGP slots for video, scsi and sound cards. The difficulties are in sharing the memory across multiple slots efficiently without involving (excessively) the CPU.

  • Here's a starter gaming Rig (Score:3)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @09:02AM (#310939)
    You want a Happy Hacker Keyboard [pfuca.com] ... this thing is portable ! Two people at the month lan party I go to, use it, and do very well with it.

    And you can't go wrong with a flat panel LCD [compusa.com] if you can afford it. You may want to check your local computer fair and see if you can buy a refurbished one.
  • A large group of friends of mine have an informal gaming club. It's basically where one person's house is designated the "clubhouse", and everybody that plays regularly purchases an extra monitor, keyboard, and mouse to store permanently in that house. Then they bring a mini tower (which is pretty easy to lug around) on game days. Since a used monitor only costs like $80, you're talking $100 over-head.. That's NOTHING compared to the overhead of a laptop.

    -Michael
  • How hard would it be to use one of those metal suitcases and fit it out to have a real desktop motherboard, a couple AGP/PCI cards, a flat screen monitor in the lid (with hopefully enough room for air-circulation), a power supply, a couple drives, etc? I mean, you could have a couple holes in the side for external ports/power cord/etc, and to leave, just unplug and close, and go.

    The strength here is that you have all of the functionality (not to mention upgradeability) of a real computer with all of the mobility of an old 80s luggable PC.

    This just a thought that I have been kicking around.
  • I do rather well with my Laptop, thank you very much. Maybe the one you've been playing on just isn't powerful enough.

    Yes, the hard drives tend to be slow. A big enough laptop hard drive helps defeat some of this, and lots of memory always helps.

    I'd rather SPEND more than CARRY more. Call me spoiled.

    I can't wait to get ahold of a GeForce2Go based laptop.

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • That's my only concern with the GeForce2Go. If it supports RatioMetric, I'm sooooooooo there with my next laptop. If it does not, forget it.

    BTW - The ATI doesn't seem to take a performance hit as the scaling appears to be done in hardware somewhere between the Video Chipset and the LCD, or perhaps in the LCD display it's self. If that's the case, I think there is probably no reason that NVidia based Laptops can't have this feature.

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • I paid $5000 several months ago. It doesn't bother me, but it might bother some people.

    Dell now offers the 8000, which is some degree cheaper. It's not nearly as light as the 5000e, but in most respects it is a superior system minus the extreme compact nature of the 5000e.

    It's easy to say that if I were buying the system today I would rather have the 8000, for $2000 less.

    Incidently, you are very wrong. I have a Pentium III based desktop system graced with 256 megabytes of ram and a GeForce 2 GTS and I can honestly say from personal experience that my desktop doesn't game THAT MUCH better than my laptop.

    Yes, there is a performance difference. And in some things you can REALLY tell. But no, it's not "half as fast" as you put it. I can EASILY say without a doubt that my Laptop was outperforming many desktops I saw present at Lanwar.

    I speak as an owner of both. If my 5000e gets to the point where the latest, greatest game isn't going to play well, I'll buy a new laptop.

    As for the question of my Laptop getting stolen, I've known of few items* turn up missing at Lanwars in general. Maybe it's the mentality of gamers that the only thing it's okay to steal is copyrighted material. Besides, at Lanwar 9 [lanwar.com], I think I was the only person out of 380+ that showed up with a Laptop. I looked for others, but didn't see any.

    *(As I recall, someone's stuffed animal turned up missing at Lanwar 9. It was announced over the PA, but this doesn't mean it was stolen, it could have just been misplaced.)

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

  • I normally take... (Score:4)

    by Jace of Fuse! ( 72042 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:45AM (#310947) Homepage
    Yup. A Notbook. A fully loaded Dell 5000e.

    128 megabytes of ram (ready for the other 128 megs any day now...) 30 gig HD, 850mhz Pentium III, Rage Mobility 128, 1600x1200 15+ inch display with RatioMetric Scaling, a DVD, and a 3Com CardBus 10/100+56k double height dongle-free Nic/Modem.

    I've found that for almost any game I want to play, this groovy little gig is light, powerful, and a whole lot less trouble than "dragging along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel" (well, hey, at least THAT'S what it feels like to drag your whole computer to LANWAR [lanwar.com].

    Anyway, I normally get a lot of ooohs and aaahs from the people sitting next to me. Their first reactions are "You aren't seriously going to play on a Laptop are you?"

    But by the time they see me pulling off acceptable frame-rates in Quake 3 they soon realize maybe it's not so bad for games after all. (Just bring along a good mouse, touch-pads blow for games.)

    Incidently, it even plays Black And White fairly well, and of course it plays Diablo II like a dream.

    One thing to note about portables that anybody looking to buy one should keep in mine is the RatioMetric Displays.

    Some LCDs only look good in their native resolution, requiring lower screen sizes to be scaled up into a blocky mess or to be reduced down and not viewed fullscreen.

    ATI's later offerings have used a method where somewhere between the video output and the LCD, any display that isn't full screen is blown up to fill the full LCD with a natural Anti-Aliasing effect. This form of "Mode Promotion" works really well for almost any display mode, though anything less than 640x480 does seem to suffer from a slight blurr, but who uses anything lower than that for games?

    Anyway, the point of this message is that you shouldn't discount very high end Laptops as Lanparty material. Just get over the $5000 price tag of one with good performance and you'll be fine.

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • Because some people are either too lazy to do that, or others are putting in _'s after a url and then doing the usual login style obfuscation of the goatse.cx url, like below:

    http://www.cnn.com_____________________:________ __ ____________________@goatse.cx

    Nicely hidden, while looking at mouseover like a legit url.

  • Is this what you were looking for? (Score:5)

    by aidoneus ( 74503 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:21AM (#310950) Journal
    Here [netsgo.com] may be just what you're looking for. It's a step by step guide to building a compact Athlon system, small enough that the entire system can be carried in a backpack. For the goatse.cx weary, the link is at http://myhome.netsgo.com/wesleycrushr/Hardware/gui 010405a-1.htm

    Hope this helps.

    -Jason

  • SBC (Score:2)

    by Gr8wyrm ( 84004 )
    I made something similar to what you want for an automation project. I got ahold of a half size SBC (Single Board Computer): http://www.aristaipc.com/image/h7200vl_h7200p-vl.h tml and fabricated a small plexi-glass enclosure around it. There are U-shaped PCI riser cards available that allowed me to stack a PCI Voodoo3 on top of it too. Complete with a an 20GB Laptop IDE HD and micro 180 watt PS, and a 1GHz Coppermine, the whole thing measures about 6x8x8". -- Suddenly, I realized, everything had gone terribly wrong. - Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in LV

  • BTW: this laptop was reviewed in the last Computer Gaming World, and the staff there had a very high opinion of it as a gaming machine. The first gaming laptop worthy of a gamers notice was how I think they put it.

    So grab a copy of last months CGW if you can still find it.

  • nvidia has the geforce2go mobile chip. Ati will probably come out with a new laptop chip as well

    Umm...ATI already has a comparable laptop chip [ati.com].

    So you want integrated 100bT, stereo sound, etc? If the PowerBook Titanium [apple.com] had Radeon instead of Rage 128, I'd recommend that in a heartbeat. Apple will probably upgrade the graphics chip this summer.

  • sadly no, the drawers don't actually slide out.. all the room inside there is pretty well used

    ---

  • AGP is a lousy system.

    AGP is a cheap hack. It was created because it is slightly cheaper than 66 MHz 64-bit PCI (actually, quite a bit cheaper).

    The 3dfx cards used AGP AS 66 MHz, 64-bit PCI (not using the AGP part).

    We're NOT using AGP the way it was intended. The goal of AGP was to let you eliminate graphics memory by creating a direct link to system memory. Intel's goal it to make everything dependant on the primary system (CPU), and as a result, putting it to memory requirements is second best.

    Intel wants to take the money AWAY from component makes and move it into CPUs, mobos, chipsets, and other core features that they dominate.

    AGP isn't faster than 66MHZ 64-bit PCI, it just a less complicated approach.

    The spec for server PCI has been on the Alphas for about 4 or 5 years now? That should have been the solution for new graphics cards. Instead of the ugly AGP hack (and REAL cards don't take advantage of the AGP part of the equation, because they will use the local memory, they only use the system memory so they can create 16MB and 32MB versions of their 64MB card AND so game creators can create games that would like a 256MB video card and it will fake it... real coders target a platform, but I digress), we'd have REAL system IO. Instead was now have PCI Modems and Sound Cards (yeah, so important that we got them off the PCI bus...), PCI sound cards that use the PCI bus like vid. cards use the AGP bus to avoid putting RAM there, etc.

    With RAM price this cheap, all my components should have some. Instead, All my devices want to graph system RAM (which is fine at 384MB), but that is sucking my my PCI bus from my SCSI card.

    Next mobo will support the 64-bit, 66MHz PCI spec for my SCSI card, then I'll feel better.

    Alex
  • Mostly first-person shooters (which I don't like). But when we did a 1 weeks party for Baldur's Gate, that was cool. (I was home on Winter Break, and we set up a room in my house for the LAN party. We had four computers going round the clock, and people would come and go, create a character, and join the mayhem. People would even NPC their chars to take a nap.

    I also like wargame LAN parties, but those are harder to come by.

    I have seen girls at them... but it's rare.

    Alex

  • heat (Score:3)

    by mmmmbeer ( 107215 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:27AM (#310974)
    I don't really have an answer for your question, but I would warn you about one thing. Trying to custom build a powerful system as small as possible, you will likely have trouble with the heat generated. I would suggest that you at least base your system on a pre-built model, so that you can be reasonably sure there are adequate heatsinks and cooling fans, and reasonable airflow through the case.

  • Except that PC/104 only has an ISA bus and PC/104+ has ISA and PCI busses - No AGP. And I've never seen a PC/104+ 3d video card either.

  • Films are typically 24 FPS, and they are choppy for fast moving scenes. Rapid panning or motion sequences often end up looking very choppy. We all have just accepted this because it's the way it's always been, and may very well always be. Then again, the average person only has to compare it to the 525-scanline 60Hz interlaced television they have and suddenly the lower framerate at the movie theatre doesn't seem so bad.
  • You might want to check out Toronto Microelectronics at www.tme-inc.com [tme-inc.com]. They make a lot of PC-104 and other alternative form factor stuff. The full version of their 5811 product has built in ethernet(10/100), scsi(80 pin), vga(and a couple others I'm not familiar with), ide(44 pin, so you'd have to use a notebook harddrive, unless you went scsi), 2 pc100 dimm slots(which I know will support 128MB each), and a socket-7 cpu up to 500MHz/100MHz FSB at a cost of around $1500. You would still need to get a sound module, which I would guess to be around $150. You could fit the whole thing inside a hollowed-out hardcover book, which would be pretty cool. Keyboard, mouse and display would be extra. i think i'd probably go for an lcd, i've seen some for about $1000. You might also look at their PC-in-a-box, which I think is about $3000 and is kinda like an industrial x86 version of the G4 cube. It would end up costing you about the same as a high end laptop. You'd get better performance spending that on a laptop, but there is always the coolness factor that has to be considered...

  • Re:what about the x-box? (Score:3)

    by mr_gerbik ( 122036 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @12:12PM (#310986)
    "I also wanted to know if these LAN thingies are mostly "sausage fests" or if women actually pretended to be impressed by virtual feats of destruction."

    No way dude.. total babe fests. Hot chicks too.. all wearing "All your base belong to us" shirts. Those shirts turn me on.

    -gerbik

  • Lunchbox style portable (Score:3)

    by atathert ( 127489 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:21AM (#310989)
    There are lunchbox sized computers, with an ATX style motherboard, and slots to add cards. There is a drop down keyboard on the front, with an LCD screen mounted behind of it. Something like that would have the power of a desktop, and still be somewhat portable. This site is one possible vendor. Check it out. BSI Computers [bsicomputer.com]
  • Check out the review on Tech Report [tech-report.com] -- this is basically a multimedia box, but AFAIK ComputerNerd can customize one for your purposes.

    Nice and small, but plenty powerful, and extremely well-built -- of course you'd have to add a monitor...

    ---

  • It seems a lot of people are saying "Use a high-powered laptop", but the thing is, for what you'd pay for a tricked out Dell that would be capable of keeping up with a decent desktop, you could probably hire sherpa's to tote your desktop around for you.

    My advice would be to stick with a desktop for gaming. Not only do they generally offer better performance overall (HD speed anyone?), but they're much easier to upgrade. A GeForce2 in a laptop might sound good now, but what about in a couple years, when Quake 4 or whatever wants a GeForce3, or you want to throw in a SBLive Titanium-Platnium-Gold-Silver-Bronze?

    There's a lot of companies making specialized carrying straps for gaming rigs. Usually something like velcro straps with a handle on the top, perhaps some pockets for keyboard, mice, power cords, etc. Check out ThinkGeek, there's a couple listed there.

  • Ooops. Sorry for the formatting error...

    You'll also want to spring for a 15" LCD screen, I think.

    Dell's GX150 SF can be seen here . [dell.com]

    Compaq's EN SFF can be seen here. [compaq.com]

  • Buy a high-end laptop if you can afford it. (Score:3)

    by toybuilder ( 161045 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:26AM (#311005)
    Get a high-end multimedia laptop. A refurbished Dell Inspiron 7500 does me wonders. It's better than anything else I owned until two days ago... If you insist on "desktop components" (3.5" ATA100 drives at 7200 rpm, for example), then your box size is not limited by the motherboard -- instead, it'll be the power supply, hard-drive, and the cd-rom drive that'll dominate the form factor. You can try buying a small-form-factor computer like the Dell Optiplex GX150 SF, or a Compaq EN SFF. They pack the components about as tight as you can possibly get. The only drawback is the lack of an AGP slot (at least in the Compaq EN SFF that I just bought two days ago). But there's 3 (count 'em) PCI slots, and networking and sound's already built in! BTW, these SFF machines are QUIET! Much better than any low-cost homebrew's. (I could get just as quiet machines if I paid for quiet fans, and power supplies, but the end result costs just about the same as the branded machines... Oh well.)
  • ...like an X-Box.
  • Have you looked at this option? I know it is an i810E chipset, but if you can live with 640x480, it is the ultimate in portability. iBuyPower.com [ibuypower.com] has them for sale, and a search on Google can find reviews for you. Might just be what you are after. LAN, sound, and everything is already included in a SMALL for factor.
  • You're still going to have to carry a monitor around

    That, of course, will be the topic of next week's Ask Slashdot: "How can I build a smaller monitor? I've heard I can get a nasty shock even when it's unplugged. What parts should I avoid touching?"

    Seriously, it's easier to carry one bulky monitor and one small case (even if it's still separate trips) than it is to carry one bulky monitor and one large case, especially if you're dragging them somewhere like a 3rd floor apartment.

    Hell, maybe his friend even has some extra monitors lying around. A cheap monitor is still significantly cheaper than a "cheap" PC with enough oomph to keep up with contemporary FPSes.

  • Get a Gear Grip Pro from ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] to carry around your full-size tower. Tuck a small monitor under the other arm and you're set.

    -Leperflesh.

  • I haven't paid much attention to the whole x-box thang. But I wonder if (as I assume) they have ethernet capability- and if that will allow them to be used at LAN dig-shins.

    Having never been to one, I wonder what games are played. Half-Life, Quake, Unreal, I assume. Not Dr. Mario or Dig-Dug. I'm just curious.

    I also wanted to know if these LAN thingies are mostly "sausage fests" or if women actually pretended to be impressed by virtual feats of destruction.

    Check me out, ladies. I just rolled over this PacPan machine! [ridiculopathy.com]

  • Re:Smallest PC (Score:3)

    by canning ( 228134 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @09:08AM (#311054) Homepage
    2001-04-06 14:12:05 PC shrinks into Palm Territory (articles,tech) (rejected)

  • Check this out... (Score:4)

    by cavemanf16 ( 303184 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:18AM (#311082) Homepage Journal
    Check out the Virtual Hideout Cool Case gallery [virtualhideout.net]. I've linked to a page that has some pretty good internal pics of a case that someone built as a 'LAN party case' out of one of those metallic briefcases (look at the bottom of the page). There's quite a few more pics of similar mods people have done to accomadate LAN gaming, if you have time to look through the 1000+ pics they have in the gallery.
  • ...you're better off buying a good second monitor and boxing and shipping it days ahead to your friend's house.

    You can eat up a lot of shipments of a brighter, clearer picture for the price of one $2800 flatscreen.

    As long as the lan parties aren't last-minute, you have plenty of lead time. You don't even have to unpack the monitor at home. Just call for an evening pickup and do ground, 2nd day, or overnight as the case is required.

  • Re:Ever heard (Score:3)

    by UltraBot2K1 ( 320256 ) on Friday April 06, 2001 @08:23AM (#311094) Homepage Journal
    That's the stupidest most unimformed post I've ever read.

    Laptops are MUCH slower than their desktop counterparts and unacceptable for any modern LAN gaming. The new Geforce MX at least makes it POSSIBLE to use a laptop for hardcore gaming, but the major limiting factor is going to be the screen. Laptop screens are small, and LCD screens have a tendency to blur at high framerates/fast motion usage, making them totally unacceptable for any kind of serious gaming. In addition, laptop keyboards tend to be a bit cramped, so you would need to bring an external keyboard and mouse to maintain accurate control.

    Laptop hard drives are notoriously slow, and the poster specifically asked for a fast IDE drive.

Slashdot Top Deals

Only God can make random selections.

Close