Hey there. After some discussion on this board, I ordered an Alienware last month. It arrived a couple of daze ago.
2ghz P4 w/ geforce 3 ti 500
512 RAM / 60+40 SCSI hard drives
soundblaster live / Altec 4.1 speakers
Spent $2800 (US).
I have a saitek x36... the new beta drivers work fine with XP.
I got a new monitor too (NEC 19" multisync).
Windows XP is more stable, easier to setup than 98 - which aint sayin much i know.
The game simply hauls ass. I had to run a patch for the game refresh rate bug in XP, after that I'm just driving around at 80fps.
Lowest rate after couple days play was over a crowded, burning field at 57 fps.
WHAT a difference! Old machine was 15 fps, useless for fighters
I setup new rig, launched AH real quick, took off at a porked field, landed a kill and an assist.
Funniest thing is how the propeller disappeared. Wuz an epileptic nightmare on old machine (big flashing gray blob). On this machine it is a faintly perceptible waver.
Also amazed how much difference good sound has made. I can be sitting in a GV and hear a plane comin half mile away. Can even tell from which direction.
Alienware has a great idea, but I found them kinda squirrely to deal with, and the neat (individually customized archives) web support stuff isn't implemented. The machine itself is very nice. The HUGE metal dragon case has 3 fans (2 rear plus one over vid card) and removable drive bays. I'm satisfied, but part of the goal here was to spend down last-minute company profits. I love America.
In the rest of the (virtual world), biggest difference is solid multi-tasking (downloading window patches as I type this) and REAL fast drive access. The difference fast drives made surprised me.
I'll run benchmarks in the relevant threads.
See y'all up.
russell
