Starting about a month ago I’ve been hearing about nothing but gaming computers. One of my employees is hooked on the video game Doom and has been anticipating the release of the that title’s fourth version. As with most new game releases, Doom 4 has ridiculous requirements that require more than a budget computer.
When the game’s system requirements were released I was astonished by the list. An eight core processor and a $300.00 video card were the two items needed to play the game at the publisher’s recommended settings. Who knows what might happen with a lesser system?
Game publishers and creators build their games with so many details that higher end equipment is necessary. Doom 4, which came out this past Friday, does play on lower end systems but the quality falls drastically which could make the game less enjoyable. Publishing higher system requirements allows gamers to enjoy uninterrupted game play without frustration.
At the heart of all computers is the processor. Until about a year ago most games were 32 bit which meant they only utilized one core of a multi-core processor. In other words, even with the best processor on the market, games were only using a small portion of the total. Modern games are 64 bit and can use the total of a processor’s power for gaming.
Video cards are necessary for gaming systems. Due to large amounts of detail game designers build into games, a good graphics card is essential to render the detail. Smoke and hair consume the most graphics card resources followed by three dimensional animations. Even cards built last year may not be a good choice for today’s video games.
Memory is crucial to game performance. An antiquated way of thinking about memory is the more the merrier; however, today we not only look at the amount of memory but the speed. Slow or mismatched memory can create a bottleneck making a game freeze or become choppy. Picking a reasonable amount of high quality memory can be as important as a good processor.
Reading and writing game data is done throughout game play. Games today consume gigabytes of hard drive space that are referenced whenever the game is in use. Having a fast and large capacity solid state drive is the best choice to relieve the largest bottleneck in any computer. Too small a drive and games simply won’t fit, too slow a drive and game play will be terrible.
Even as short ago as five years ago gamers wanted the best sound card. Most computer systems today are equipped with HDMI which couples sound and video in one cable. Unlike old sound cards, modern connections allow purely digital signals from the computer to the output device. In my world this is an awesome move forward because it leaves sound processing to the amplifier in the speakers.
Gaming is definitely not a cheap hobby. A good system with an eight core processor and upper-level graphics card that will last a few years is somewhere around $1,600.00. Certainly more expensive computers can be built, but for most people this is a reasonable number. Many consumers will build their gaming rig piece by piece, upgrading parts when it fits their budget.
All computers use processors, memory, hard drives and video cards of some kind or another. Gaming is an important facet of the computer world because of the extreme nature and requirements of gaming PC’s. The gaming segment will continue to be the predominant market for desktop computer sales and will be the catalyst for most new technology.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)