Stage 17: Fall Makeover
Well my Maximus Arcade activation code has finally arrived! This means I can unlock the program and set about sorting and prepping the cabinet for real gameplay via the Front End! Wahoo!
But this gave me pause for thought - my current MAME PC was kind of a hunk of trash, and there are lingering doubts about its performance once I juice the crap out of it with 25GB of games and programs. Plus the HDD is only about 30GB total - if I ever wanted to expand this bastard, it'd be a pain in the arse.
Solution: Upgrade now! Muah ha ha!
I scoured various Halifax computer store websites, including Greenlyph, Century Computers, MysteryByte and PC Medic, and found a few snippets of what I actually needed. Most "upgrade kits" as they called them would set me back around $400, but would give me the new motherboard, processor, RAM increase and larger HDD that I clearly needed.
On a lark, I sent an email to some of my more tech-savvy friends to see if they might have an extra motherboard or something, and once again my nefarious poker connections have paid off.
Mike "Mental" Ward chimed in with the serendipitous news that he was about to upgrade his already fairly decent PC into something capable of destroying small cities with mere keystrokes, and was happy to broker a sale with me for exactly the components I needed.
After some terse negotiations during which the words "blowjob", "clown mask" and "magic beans" were uttered, we struck a deal for about the same $425 I was going to spend elsewhere. Yay!
Here's a Before & After breakdown:
But this gave me pause for thought - my current MAME PC was kind of a hunk of trash, and there are lingering doubts about its performance once I juice the crap out of it with 25GB of games and programs. Plus the HDD is only about 30GB total - if I ever wanted to expand this bastard, it'd be a pain in the arse.
Solution: Upgrade now! Muah ha ha!
I scoured various Halifax computer store websites, including Greenlyph, Century Computers, MysteryByte and PC Medic, and found a few snippets of what I actually needed. Most "upgrade kits" as they called them would set me back around $400, but would give me the new motherboard, processor, RAM increase and larger HDD that I clearly needed.
On a lark, I sent an email to some of my more tech-savvy friends to see if they might have an extra motherboard or something, and once again my nefarious poker connections have paid off.
Mike "Mental" Ward chimed in with the serendipitous news that he was about to upgrade his already fairly decent PC into something capable of destroying small cities with mere keystrokes, and was happy to broker a sale with me for exactly the components I needed.After some terse negotiations during which the words "blowjob", "clown mask" and "magic beans" were uttered, we struck a deal for about the same $425 I was going to spend elsewhere. Yay!
Here's a Before & After breakdown:
MotherboardIt will be a few weeks before I get a hold of the new gear, as Ward is waiting for his new Dell to be delivered. Once I do get them, I might pull a switcheroo and swap some parts in my main PC as well. Who knows what crazed, perverse Frankencomputer I will end up with?!
Current: ECS K7S5A Pro (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 AMR, 2 SDR DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio)
New: ASUS A8N-E ATX S939 (NFORCE4 Ultra DDR PCI-E16 PCI-E4 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA RAID Sound GBLAN)
Processor
Current: AMD Duron, 1.3 GHz
New: AMD 64 3200 processor, 2.01 GHz
RAM
Current: 1 x 256 MB PC133 SDRAM
New: 4 X 512 MB PC3200 DDR400 ram
HDD
Current: Maxtor 6E030L0 (30 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
New: Western Digital WD2000JB SE (200GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Buffer Serial ATA)
Other Odds & Ends
New case & power supply, a 16 X DVD drive and some kind of "universal card reader of dubious functionality" which sounds interesting.
posted by Neil at 2:53 PM
1 Comments:
hey im looking for maximus arcade registration and i wasnt sure if it could only be used with one cabinet but i could trade a good registration for every snes, nes, genesis, master system, 32x, atari lynx and jaguar and game gear. if you also wanted i can send all the n64 games if you eventually get the space but my email is xiaoxiaoboy101@yahoo.com email me if your interested in the trade.
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