I’m having trouble owning a desktop gaming PC these days. With the form factor of personal computers having gone from the traditional “mini-fridge” to a much nicer “deck of cards” or “thick envelope”, I don’t really like having to have a giant box and a mess of peripherals and wires that could fit right in a late 1980s computer den around just so that I can play graphics-intensive modern commercial games. I can do all actually useful stuff like reading, writing and coding on a laptop or a tablet, as well as do all the entertainment other than modern PC games. Ditching the desktop box would make the workstation setup a lot simpler.
ETA: Did just remember another reason for keeping it around. I occasionally try to write software, and I need a non-virtual Windows machine to test that it can be ported to Windows.
The loved one just got her other boyfriend’s cast-off laptop: a Dell XPS M170 gaming laptop from 2006. The key attraction is the 17″ 1920x1200 screen and the decent graphics card. Uses: art, gaming, movies. Weight: 4kg. Not quite convenient, but can in fact be used in one’s lap. I must say, I’ve found 11-inch gaming laptops a temptation (though I still think of laptops as things one’s employer pays for).
My laptop could run Fallout 3 pretty well with minimal settings back when I had Windows as the primary OS. I’m not going back after switching to Linux though, which leaves Wine and dual booting. I’ve been meaning to get a SSD drive, which would be pretty small for dual boot. There seems to be a general slightly higher annoyance level in getting a diverse set of games running on a laptop.
I have a friend / extended-family-member who converted to laptops exclusively around 8 years ago, but still buys big power-house gaming laptops with large screens. Some creative desktop arrangements allow him to put down the laptop to use as a screen+mainbox, while plugging in large external drives, keyboard and mouse using eSata and USB ports, for whenever he wants to do some “real gaming”.
Unplug all three and you’ve still got a laptop to carry around, though obviously it’s a bit larger than most laptops and the laptop itself costs a lot more than normal.
Unplug your gaming PC and put it in a closet for a week. See how your time use changes.
Investigate getting really long monitor / keyboard / mouse cables, so you can have the desktop PC somewhere besides your workstation, but still have low-ping access to it from your workstation. (Alternatively, remote into it from elsewhere, though this may run into graphics issues.)
Become at peace with the space it takes up around your workstation.
I’m having trouble owning a desktop gaming PC these days. With the form factor of personal computers having gone from the traditional “mini-fridge” to a much nicer “deck of cards” or “thick envelope”, I don’t really like having to have a giant box and a mess of peripherals and wires that could fit right in a late 1980s computer den around just so that I can play graphics-intensive modern commercial games. I can do all actually useful stuff like reading, writing and coding on a laptop or a tablet, as well as do all the entertainment other than modern PC games. Ditching the desktop box would make the workstation setup a lot simpler.
ETA: Did just remember another reason for keeping it around. I occasionally try to write software, and I need a non-virtual Windows machine to test that it can be ported to Windows.
The loved one just got her other boyfriend’s cast-off laptop: a Dell XPS M170 gaming laptop from 2006. The key attraction is the 17″ 1920x1200 screen and the decent graphics card. Uses: art, gaming, movies. Weight: 4kg. Not quite convenient, but can in fact be used in one’s lap. I must say, I’ve found 11-inch gaming laptops a temptation (though I still think of laptops as things one’s employer pays for).
This is all somewhat ironic, considering I just bought a desktop PC specifically to start gaming again.
I just bought a new laptop specifically with gaming in mind. Seems to work great, though I’ve only tried it with XCOM so far.
My laptop could run Fallout 3 pretty well with minimal settings back when I had Windows as the primary OS. I’m not going back after switching to Linux though, which leaves Wine and dual booting. I’ve been meaning to get a SSD drive, which would be pretty small for dual boot. There seems to be a general slightly higher annoyance level in getting a diverse set of games running on a laptop.
Yes, this is a good solution too.
I have a friend / extended-family-member who converted to laptops exclusively around 8 years ago, but still buys big power-house gaming laptops with large screens. Some creative desktop arrangements allow him to put down the laptop to use as a screen+mainbox, while plugging in large external drives, keyboard and mouse using eSata and USB ports, for whenever he wants to do some “real gaming”.
Unplug all three and you’ve still got a laptop to carry around, though obviously it’s a bit larger than most laptops and the laptop itself costs a lot more than normal.
Possible approaches:
Unplug your gaming PC and put it in a closet for a week. See how your time use changes.
Investigate getting really long monitor / keyboard / mouse cables, so you can have the desktop PC somewhere besides your workstation, but still have low-ping access to it from your workstation. (Alternatively, remote into it from elsewhere, though this may run into graphics issues.)
Become at peace with the space it takes up around your workstation.
I think I already often go weeks without turning the machine on. I have a lot of fun whenever I get into a game, but it doesn’t happen often.