I've been contemplating for awhile now whether or not to purchase a computer to play F:NV on it.
and if so which computer and why?
recommendations for mods to get?
Please and Thank You!
:user:
:tops: or :down:

Arwen's Realism Tweaks
Project Nevada
Realistic Gunshot Sounds
Badlands
New Vegas Bounties 1 & 2
Electro City
Project Reality
A World of Pain
Increased Wasteland Spawn

allright and also can you get it on apple computers or just windows?

I think it's PC only, so no Mac. You can custom build your pc on many brands online. What you want is a model that has the option to have a 1 GB graphics card, shouldn't cost more than about $200 dollars to add on, then you want something with a fast processor and large memory.

And then you are good to go. My gaming laptop is 2 years old, I paid $2400 for it and it was on sale from $3000, I added a whole bunch of stuff to it, like a blu ray player, enhanced sound card, etc. etc.
You could probably get a pc with the same specs as mine at a fraction of the price today.

Just so ya know you don't need a great PC to play New Vegas (or most other games) without lag. I've got a cheap laptop that I picked up for $350 a few months ago and can play FO:NV at med-high settings without any issues. However, if you plan on getting other titles (FPSs like CoD or BF that have a lot of particle effects) then if you can get something with a bit more CPU and a better graphics card. And if you happen to be rich, by all means spend as much as you want on

well im not rich. but i have a good job and no wife/family. Sooo i got some spendin money. id prefer a cheap one though, as long as it gets the job done.

If you want to play the game at high or ultra high graphics, you need a 1 GB graphics card. Do the math, you might pay $125 for a 250 MB graphics card, and you will end up paying $200 or less for a 1GB graphics card.

The difference between playing medium graphics (which is imo awful, no offense to anyone) to playing ultra high graphics with zero lag comes at a cost of an extra $50 - $75 dollars....

Edit - Big Iron on His Hip is off base on video card memory. The amount of video memory on a video card is primarily a marketing gimmick. The actual processing capabiltiy of a video card is all that matters. An easy example: a Geforce GT 430 with 2 GB of video memory is a pathetic piece of garbage compared to a Geforce GTX 460 with 768 MB (0.75 GB) of video memory.

Cost can largely depend on if you're comfortable building a computer yourself. Since you're asking about this on these forums, it's probably a safe assumption that you're not. It's not actually hard (downright easy compared to the days of IRQs and ISA slots), but it requires some knowledge and carefulness to not get catastrophic results (and generally experience to troubleshoot dud hardware).

Yes, you could get a Mac, but you'd need to install Windows on it to play New Vegas. It would also add a good $1000 to the cost of the computer for that pretty Apple logo.

My advice would be to buy a prebuilt computer in the $400 range, then a $100-$150 video card and a $50 power supply from newegg.com, frys.com or tigerdirect.com, and put the power supply and video card in the computer. Swapping out the power supply is tedious, putting in the video card in is easy, neither is difficult as long as you're not terribly clumsy. The computer needs to be a standard sized tower, and not have some screwball motherboard/case layout that rpevents you from putting a standard power supply and video card in it. Many prebuilts do have these problems, so some research would need to go into which prebuilt to buy.

If you look around a little and locate things you think look reasonable, I imagine you could post them here and get feedback on if they're worthwhile or a waste of money.

Queue

And since there is no way to determine effectively which video card has a faster processing capability, the size becomes the only dependable indicator. I have no idea if your claims are correct, if you can play New Vegas on ultra high graphics hypothetically with a "piece of garbage" card, how do you determine it is a piece of garbage card if it is doing what you expect?

thanks so much! when you said to get a tower i assume i can't get a laptop?

gaming laptops like mine are pretty expensive and have a short life span than a pc. But I hate how bulky PC's are, this computer used to be my work computer and my entertainment computer all rolled into one. I had to move my laptop from work to home constantly so I'm one of those few people who actually uses the mobility aspect of a laptop to its full potential.

For me, PC's are kind of archaic, but you will probably save some money going for a pc instead of a laptop. But nowadays, there are plenty of laptops that can outperform pc's.

If you are going to get a laptop, make sure you get a fan for underneath, playing New Vegas is very demanding.

thanks!

Yes its worth it :fallout:

I think so.
I could mod it so it plays the way i want it to play so that's great.

The internet knows all:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=644&card2=633
That's a side-by-side of the two cards I choose for my example. The 768 MB 460 has over 3 times the memory bandwidth, over 3 times the shader operations per second (this is an indicator of GPU processing power), 44% higher pixel fill rate, 6.75 times the texture fill rate, and over 3 times the vertex fill rate of the 430. But it has less than half the video memory and a lower core clock speed, which means... jack. Obviously not every 430 has 2 GB of video memory, most have 1 GB, but it doesn't matter; it could have 16 GB of video memory and still be a piece of garbage.

Queue

i'll admit i like playing it the pc better, but its not the mods. I just like playing games with my mouse and keyboard. I haven't found any mods that just blew me away. i've only used a few weapon packs and armor mods. There are two fun quest mods that i've tried...and a sideburn addition to the hair options lol.

ok. i dont understand all this tech talk. just give me specifics.

A.) what computer to buy. (preferably laptop)
B.) what graphic card thingy
C.) other accessories
D.) if i can get a controller like an XBOX's.

Help....

A,B) If you get a laptop, you won't be buying a video card separately. I generally only deal with desktops, so I can't give much insight into laptops, but it's likely going to cost over $1000 for a laptop that doesn't svck.

C) Meh, accessories aren't really an issue if you're going to pursue a laptop. Even on a desktop, there's rarely anything you need that doesn't come with a prebuilt.

D) You can just straight up use an Xbox controller with a computer. There are also a jillion other controller options for use with a computer.

Queue

It really depends on you. If you feel comfortable assembling your own from parts, then you can make a computer that will blow through every game on the market today for ~$1000 tops if you already have a monitor and mouse/keyboard.

If not, expect to pay two to three times that for the same computer.

Wait, you want a gaming laptop? Oh man. Two grand minimum for one that can play the game on high settings with a few more complex mods. Also expect the laptop to weigh upwards of ten pounds and have a really low battery life, so it's not something you want on your lap for any period of time. Not really worth it IMO unless you travel a lot.



Pardon? The stats for all graphics cards are easily available online. There's also a wealth of resources like benchmarking sites that compare them too.

i win this argument by default. :dance:

Being a noob that doesn't know a lot about video cards when I bought one, I can just agree that he is right (the guy you were replying to). I got a 1gb video card that was a nice, cheap price and thought I was getting an awesome card. It really isn't very good, and I play Fallout NV at medium settings, and still get a bit of frame rate lag and stuttering, especially indoors with rooms heavy in scenery. Size isn't a dependable indicator.

I should've done my homework on video cards, but it's so confusing. D:

With modern Nvidia cards it's actually easy, as they give you two indicators in the card's name to tell if it's garbage or not.

For the 200, 400 and 500 series, if its X50 or above, it's probably good, if it's below X50, it's definitely garbage. So, 460, the X60 part of it is above X50, so it's good, 430, the X30 part of it is below X50, so it's bad.

The other indicator is in the GT? naming. If it's GT, it's garbage. GTS is only the X50 model and is decent. GTX, it's good.

Queue

Well mine is an ATI Radeon HD 4300-4500 (dxdiag says; I can't remember which exactly). I had no idea what I was getting, just was sold by the 1gb memory.

My radeon 4870 1 GB GPU cost me $120 over 3 years ago. It can play all direct current games on high-ultra settings and you can find it for around $75 today I think. So doing a bit of research on parts can save you a ton of money.

The 4870 does not have Direct 11 capability so that should be a factor in choosing a card. Only a few games use Direct X 11 (thank consoles for that) and virtually none require it. Direct X 11 capable cards are quite a bit more expensive though.

For a Radeon card you want to look for ones with ?870 and up as they have the best processors. Nvidia is ?60 and up for the good processors. These cards are typically much better buys for the money and a lot more future-proof.

CPUs are a lot easier to choose from. You want to balance price with speed and cache size. Unless you plan on extreme multitasking more than 4 cores is not needed. Cache size is really handy with complex games like newer Fallout titles and it helps tremendously when a bunch of mods are installed.

For motherboards you want to buy one with the highest bus speed possible. The faster its stock clock speed for RAM is also good. Make sure the motherboard and CPU share the same socket type or else they can not be connected. High-end moboards are relatively inexpensive, have great on-board sound cards and make a big impact on performance. I would recommend getting one that supports DDR3 RAM at 1600Mhz or better.

Anything over 4 GB of ram is want you want... I would say 6GB or 8GB if you plan on using a ton of mods and/or multitasking. You want to buy the ram as a set of 2 sticks so 2x 2GB for 4 total or 2x 3GB for 6, etc. because moboards are more efficient accessing data that way. Make sure the bus speed of the RAM matches the supported speed of the moboard... getting faster RAM than the moboard supports doesn't hurt, but slower RAM will not run as well at speeds higher than its stock rating.
RAM at 1600Mhz or better is the best bang for the buck at the moment... I think. Make sure it is DDR3 if your moboard supports it.

SATA is the new standard for Optical (DVD, Blu-Ray) and Hard Drives. I would suggest getting any high capacity hard drive, although if you are annoyed by loading screens a faster speed of 10k RPM or Solid State Drive (SSD) would be more to your liking.

The power supply needed is determined by your chosen GPU, because that svcks the most power. Anything over 600W+ should be all you need and it is best to have one that is SLI ready since those are usually a bit better quality. Make sure to read the description of your chosen GPU just to be sure what you need.

Water cooling is typically much more quiet than air, but it is more expensive and requires more maintenance. Stock CPU fans tend to be much louder than aftermarket alternatives.

When looking at a Case you want one that has plenty of room because higher end GPUs are long. Other than that it should support liquid cooling if that is your desire. You will probably need to replace any stock fans included with the case within a year or 2 since they are generally lower quality and burn out fast.

I probably forgot details and stuff... but that is off the top of my head.