Tech Paladin

I bought my current laptop, a now two-year-old 17″ MacBook Pro, for 3D animation and gaming. I figured I’d need its capacious screen for Maya’s enormous and bloated user interface, and that the extra size would allow the machine to squeeze out more power from its X1600 graphics card, which was pretty good in November of 2006.

As usually happens in life, things didn’t work out quite the way I’d planned. First of all, I became more and more frustrated with Maya and eventually ditched it for the far more space-efficient modo, substantially reducing the necessity of not only the machine’s 17″ built-in screen, but also the 24″ Dell display I had purchased for more space in hopes of satiating the screen real-estate monster that is Maya. Not only did I never manage to do so, but when I tossed Maya, I discovered that such an enormous palette really wasn’t necessary for modo, so I sold the screen when cash was tight. The size of the built-in screen had repercussions, too: though at 6.8 pounds, my computer is exceptionally light for a 17″ laptop, that’s cold comfort when I have to carry it around all day, and I must admit that I long for a pound or two shaved off. Even my bag is complaining, as the shoulder strap has begun to tear under the weight.

Second of all, I neglected to understand the rapidity of graphics-related innovation. A decade of Mac fanaticism and a decidedly software-centric focus had left me relatively sheltered from the hardware innovation on the PC side of things, and while I considered my laptop’s midrange X1600 relatively sufficient, the rest of the world was just waiting to laugh at me. In six months, I discovered that I could no longer run games on their highest settings. Within the year, I was down to medium settings for the new ones. A month ago, my fiancée bought me S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky — the sequel to one of my favorite games ever. Unhappily enough, the thing wouldn’t even run on the lowest settings without looking like junk and playing like it derived some perverse pleasure from viewing blue screens of death.

I begged a friend to let me play on his computer, and he generously agreed, but something felt not right about imposing on him. Eventually enough was enough. I started hitting Newegg and shopping for parts, more out of fantasy than any sort of plan, but my jaw dropped when I saw how much prices have fallen in the last year. The time seemed right; I resolved to build my own gaming PC. T’was a night of online shopping.

Stay tuned for more. Next up: plans!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Mac OS X, Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.