Although I had occasion four and a half months after writing this article to suggest that a new member would be better served to purchase a classroom text for reference to the most simple facts about PCs, I have never intended anything I've written to be a replacement for a beginning Computer Literacy class. I do, however keep on seeing questions come into the forums that are very incomplete, particularly the bad habit of trying to ignore video cards.
Basics
For game-playing purposes, four hardware components are all-important inside of the PC system. In order of importance, they are the (1) Video Card ( real card, since onboard chips don't count ), also referred to as a GPU, or VPU, the (2) Central Processor, known as the CPU, the (3) Power Supply, known as the PSU, and the (4) Main System Memory, made up from RAM. Everything else has comparatively far less effect on how well the PC plays games.
Be certain to clear away any assumptions you may harbor regarding the "newness" of any computer or part for computers. Lower quality parts and machines remain available to satisfy the requirements of budget-restrained small businesses, and are not intended for use as gaming platforms. This is particularly true for laptop PCs.
PCs are hugely variable, and they evolve rapidly. Old PCs fall behind the technology development standards and eventually must be retired from use with games. Modern 3D game releases all have a warning label on the box when you purchase the hard copy, and the digital download sellers include that same warning label on the purchasing pages. It is up to the buyer to have enough familiarity with his / her own PC, and the names of parts inside the PC to make the needed comparisons. This article may help you develop that familiarity.
There are two internal compilation pages in the Windows OS that is the standard for PCs. The least detailed of the two is the "System" summary in the Control Panel, in the "Device Manager", which omits the amount of RAM that is included on the video card. Video card memory is becoming more important as the quality of images and of display devices improve, but so far, the SPEED of the memory, and the BANDWIDTH are vastly more important than the mere amount of VRAM attached.
The other component summary is found in the "System Information" Tool, where you can finally see your storage subsystems' descriptions. To view the details on the video card, you need the "Display Properties" Tool, where "adapter" is the tab you want to access. You can test your audio processor, video processor, and Direct3D itself, using the DxDiag program, which generates a report in such detail that it will overwhelm almost anyone with the sheer bulk of all the data.
Far more important than any other part of a gaming system is the video card, and a separate circuit board with the GPU chip attached to it is the only acceptable variety of video device. Onboard chips are simply inadequate. The VGA (Video Graphics Adapter) represents half and more of the readily perceived performance of current games, and the minimum card carries an identifying performance code of "n600" in its name. The "n" part is the generation, and has limited value for evaluating overall performance.
There is always more difference between a Mainline Gaming Card and the same generation's High End Gaming card (n800, n900) than there is between subsequent generations of Mainline Gaming Cards. There is always a very large drop down from the Mainline Card to the ordinary Business Graphics Cards (n300, n400, n500). As already noted above, the physical count of the RAM attached to a video card isn't very important compared to the GPU core speed, RAM speed, memory bandwidth, and count of shader units.
A business graphics card with an n400 performance code may very well be loaded down with a full GB of VRAM to attract the ignorant purchaser who doesn't realize that all but 128 MBs of that is totally wasted if the card is used in games!
That type RAM happens to be very inexpensive right now.
One of the great differences between full-power CPUs and various low end bargain chips is how much cache RAM they include. Cache RAM is literally microscopic and more expensive than ordinary RAM. The Core Two Duo and its descendents have a huge amount of cache RAM, as do the various AMD full-power CPUs. Celerons, Pentium P4s, Pentium Duals, and Semprons are all weaker CPUs than modern ones, mostly because the cache RAM was removed to make them less expensive (the P4s are merely old, and from a failed "netburst" development line).
If the CPU is the brain of a PC, then the video card is its heart and circulatory system. The third-most important part amounts to the digestive system of the PC, and is its power supply. A cheap power supply is merely a major failure waiting to happen. Gaming PCs should have high quality PSUs in them, with no less than "420 watts" of total power output as the advertised key. Despite the emphasis on the "watts", it is actually the current, in AMPS that is critical, particularly the 12 Volt circuits' amperage amount. For High End GPUs, a 500 to 700 watt PSU is mandatory (and adding graphics SLI, multiple drives, and other high end parts may call for as much as 900).
There are literally hundreds of semi-generic power supply brands, far too many of which are of very poor quality. A recognized high quality brand name is even more important than the number of "Watts" it claims to offer, and some names to look for include Enermax, Fortron, OCZ, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, and Sparkle.
Fourth, after the PSU, is the main memory in the PC, and the total required has jumped upward in recent years, as the games have become more complex, but RAM pricing has become a bargain. As I write this, 3 or 4 GBs of RAM is currently standard. The older Windows OS was a 32 Bit software, limited to 3.2 GBs' worth of addressing space, and the new Windows OS offers 64 Bits, which can handle multiple TeraBytes of RAM.
There are not many games right now that "need" the 3 or 4 GBs, and get along fine with 2 GBs, and given the low cost, it's generally a worthwhile investment, but it's just not going to affect game performance much going from 2 GBs to 3 (on the other hand, a PC with only a single GB of RAM is at a major disadvantage right now for gaming).
If the various components named already are likened to mammalian organs, then the mainboard would fill the role of a skeleton, with the BIOS and Chipset as glandular appendages.
The least important components in gaming PCs (remember, this is a performance comparison) are the storage subsystems, which consist of a Hard Disk drive, and an Optical Disk drive. The current technology for Optical disks is DVD, with old style CD optical drives no longer being adequate. A variety of advances have changed the Hard Drives considerably, but the only aspect that easily shows up in game performance is the step up from 5400 RPMs to 7200 RPMs that also includes a much larger onboard cache system.
Incrementally, IMO, a 10,000 RPM disk just doesn't justify the additional cost in improved gaming speed.
An old urban myth has persisted for several years about the "RAID" technology for multiple drives, which is helpful for video editing, and some other large scale file handling (where really huge files are handled), but proved to be only a chimera for gaming use (much smaller file sizes). This was covered in detail in several benchmarked studies, the best of which was on AnandTech. And this post was made as a reference, not to provoke debate.
Regarding the several component identification tools inluded in Windows, the following Microsoft Knowldge Base articles give more details (they are in the order in which I've refertenced each of them above). The last item is a shopping guide for gaming graphics purchases.
The Device manager is in the Control Panel: support.microsoft.com/kb/283658
The System Information Tool is in the Start Menu: support.microsoft.com/kb/308549
The Displlay properties dialog shows GPU details: support.microsoft.com/kb/272193
The DxDiag Report is activated through the Start / RUN option: support.microsoft.com/kb/190900
Shopping for an upgrade: www.ehow.com/how_5743276_choose-gaming-graphics-card.html
Many games contain some technology filtering mechanisms to be assured of running atop the correct hardware. I'm writing this while Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins is still new, and it does have such a filter that eliminates various older model video cards that lack the requisite pixel shader functionality, such as the Radeon 9n00 generation, and the low end Xn00 cards (X1050, X300, X550, X600). Interestingly enough, there is no filter, as such, to single out nVIDIA's really awful Geforce FX 5n00 generation, which was concurrent with the Radeon Xn00s.
They do fail to run the game, but somehow slip past any filtering mechanism.
Gorath
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Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 22 mai 2010 - 01:28 .
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