sorry to bug y'all by briging this back up but i still have the same machine and actually haven't started using it yet (serious chronic illness: lyme disease)
......anyway, wanted to see if anyone else has an opinion:
1. is it true that my vid card is NOT my weakest link with games? i.e. i shouldn't bother upgrading the vid card without upgrading the rest of the system?
2. should i upgrade now or wait? any thoughts on upcoming hardware advances? seems quad-cores are getting common: are they really better than duals? i used to hear that quads are no better than duals in games
3. what levels can i play games at? can i play new games at medium quality levels? really that's all i'm asking this system to do; when i upgrade i'll want bleeding edge, but now all i want is games to run smoothly, at a decent clip (with no clipping
) on medium settings for the newest games, and high settings for slightly older ones, and i'll be using two monitors: my 42" 1080p olevia tv (and god bless them for putting in a "1:1" mode; i swear it kills me when you don't see this in lots of tv's; that 1:1 mode makes using it as a monitor a lovely posibility; running at 1080p in 1:1, it's just a wonderful monitor to use lying in my bed, looking at the tv; i can't wait to get it running
ps: my tv (the 1080p olevia) is actually broken. for awhile i would turn it on and it would only turn on some of the time; like i'd turn it on, it wouldn't turn on, then i'd unplug it, turn it on, and it would come on (not dim, just looks normal).......then it would turn on less often, then now it doesn't turn on at all. when the tv is off, there's a blue led that is on, and when it is on, the led it turns off (unusual, but if you think about it, it is actually makes more sense this way)..........and that still does what it does, so i hope it's not a major problem: i'm thinking maybe a power supply capacitor blew or something; i'll take it apart and check it, and take it in somewhere (like mike's tv in orange county, CA)...........if i can't fix it myself; if y'all have ANY ideas what might be wrong with it, if this sort of failure is indicative of a specific problem or something, or if you have a suggestion of how to fix it, or WHO to call to fix it, i'd greatly appreciate it
