Kaj_Sotala comments on How To Have Things Correctly - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Alicorn 17 October 2012 06:10AM

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Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 19 October 2012 01:56:27PM *  2 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 19 October 2012 04:53:06PM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 19 October 2012 06:19:38PM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: DaFranker 19 October 2012 05:09:39PM 0 points [-]

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.