I’ve been asked a couple of times recently for some recommendations on what display hardware to buy for a high end gaming PC, and I thought that my response might be useful to other people out there with the same question. And no, I’m not on commission!
It is assumed that you’ve got the fastest PC that you can afford with the most memory and the largest hard drive. If not, you’ll need one of those, and try not to compromise on the motherboard or the memory as these are essentials. You don’t need a floppy drive, or a blueray player, or a see through case, or LED lighting, you just need something that works very, very quickly. I’m running an augmented Dell Studio XPS system which works for me. Also, one thing everyone forgets is the power pack – if it’s underpowered, everything will slow down, so it’s worth taking a little longer to make sure you’ve got a good one with the right power output. You’d be surprised what difference this can make.
Even if you’re not a hardcore gamer, the software within the games market today is amongst the most demanding software on the market, so unless you’re into video editing in a big way, you’ll be well served by these recommendations for pretty much anything else for some time to come.
[NB - While cloud based gaming as a service is with us, so technically you shouldn't need that massive hard drive for all your gaming software, in most places (in the UK certainly) the broadband consistency and speed aren't here yet. In my opinion this makes cloud services like OnLive a little too ahead of their time, although things are changing. You should be aware that today it's a serious etiquette failing when you're on a US server and you're the one ruining the game for everyone else because your ping is too high. That, and you won't last two seconds when the rest of the opposing team appear to be playing from within their ISPs building. To avoid you being pwned, subjected to flaming, and at worst being kicked, in short you'll need the big hard drive to install the software so that only the smallest data packets need to pass between you and the game server, which even if you've got 'Internet from Africa' as I was accused of having recently - thanks Eclipse - means that you should have a reasonable ping for a reasonable amount of the time. Anyway, I digress...]
There’s loads of advice and guidance on the Internet, so everyone will have a different take on this, but for my money you can’t beat NVidia when it comes to graphics performance for games. Many of the top games are actually optimised for use with the NVidia chipset and without spending a king’s ransom on it, there are a few pretty good cards which are available for less than £200. The GeForce 560Ti is pretty good value, it supports DirectX11 and has been optimised specifically for several top games including Skyrim and Battlefield 3 which should mean that it can run almost anything else on today’s games wish list and it should last for at least the next 6 months before the next Crysis is released which will no doubt require liquid cooled madness to run in safe mode.
From a monitor perspective, they all do much the same thing, unlike graphics cards which are actually worth spending the money on. I didn’t bother upgrading my monitor when I upgraded my gaming rig, so I’m still using a fairly old 19″ Iiyama ProLite which works for me. That said, if you want something awesome then there’s a load of newer ones on the market, although from a brand perspective I’ve stuck with Iiyama who I think make some really good kit.
There’s a good article at Tripwire Magazine about which monitor is the right one for you which is worth a read, and this contains some recommendations if you desperately feel the need to upgrade your monitor. You can read this here – Gaming Monitor Guide.
I don’t really care about viewing angles as it’s only me that uses my machine, meaning that I’m generally directly in front of the monitor as you are most likely to be. If you’re anything like me, watching someone else repeatedly being killed when fighting back the zombie hordes on the hardest difficulty level rapidly becomes a non-spectator sport once the first 24 hour marathon session concludes (what do you mean after the first five minutes? – Ed), so viewing angles really won’t be a problem.
What is important to spend the money on is getting the biggest screen with the highest refresh rate at the highest resolution that you can a) afford, and b) have space to put on your desk!
As they point out in the TripWire Magazine article, response times are critical – if you’re up against a hardcore gamer you’ve got to be fast and accurate and the higher the screen resolution and refresh rate combination the better. A high screen resolution is mandatory so you can see them from a distance and you can target almost at a pixel based level, and the second so you can fire the instant they pop their heads around a corner before they duck back into cover – it’s quite satisfying being able to take your opponent’s head off at a distance with a non-scoped rifle. A few rounds of something like Day of Defeat:Source will demonstrate this point adequately, and also show you how hardcore your skills actually are! Decent kit will definitely help. Decent kit and skills will dominate most other non-clan players. Clan level skills need to be earned.
I would suggest avoiding monitors with built in speakers – they’re all rubbish and they just end up compromising on the monitor quality. You need to be able to hear the enemy sneaking up behind you, or the just thrown grenade fizzing quietly at your feet, so I’d suggest getting a decent sound setup, particularly if you’re into FPS games where things explode. This also helps to double your PC as a home cinema system if you invest in a projector later on and have a blank wall to project your movies onto. [This works really well, and with the lights off it's like you're actually in the cinema. Popcorn and shadow hand puppets are optional.]
Going back to the topic – if you are a gamer, a sub-woofer is a must. There’s nothing like the first time you play a familiar game and you blow up the petrol station on that level and you’ve got the bass setting too high on your new sub-woofer and you’re teeth nearly fall out. You’ll never, ever use those tinny plastic desktop speakers again, I promise you. You’ll also need some really tolerant neighbours.
Alternatively, if you’re really minted, a decent set of headphones will do the trick. It might sound odd, but there’s more money involved with good headphones than there is in getting a reasonable 4.1 sound system so that needs to be considered.
Also, a good microphone is essential. Hardcore gamers taunt their enemies before killing them…
Finally, if you’re unsure what all the fuss is about, and you haven’t seen the graphics quality of some of the latest games, here’s the trailer for The Elders Scrolls – Skyrim. It’s borderline cinematic quality when full screen in high definition and is an example of graphic design at its finest. If you’ve got any questions, our Marketing Manager, Alan Law, is battling his way through this at the moment!
