What kind of computer/laptop should I get for myself?
Windows 7?
Windows Vista?
Nowadays the computer / laptop does not pre-installed with Vista
(Unless nettop, the ultra-portable, more portable than standard
laptop with better energy savings / about 4 ~ 5 inches smaller than
standard laptop screen and has a max of 1GB without fancy Graphics
card which might have XP pre-installed but yet unsuitable
for gaming). Your only and better choice is Windows 7. You
should ask:
1: How much RAM do I need? (Answer: As much as you can afford to
spend, but must be more than 1GB and best to disable the fancy UI
theme or having 2GB or more RAM.)
2: X86 or X64 Windows? If you have 4 GB RAM or above
and using X64 capable CPU (Pentium 4 with 6XX
series, Pentium D, Intel Core 2 Duo and above, AMD Athlon 64 and
above), use X64, as the next version of Windows is highly likely to
be only a X64 OS (Windows Server 2008 R2, a Sever OS, has already
no more standard 32bit OS, which is what most pre-installed OS
comes when you buy from your nearest electrical shop.). Well, if
you have a 4GB RAM and a Core 2 Duo but still using a X86 (32bit
OS), what happens is that you can still use, but no 64bit
advantage, and presumely the next Windows due by 2012 is a X64 only
OS, then you will have to REFORMAT your OS
partition (Usually C drive) as you cannot upgrade a 32 bit OS to
64bit OS and vice versa for various technical reasons. Well, that
DO NOT affect (open)BVE because you may put it in
ANYWHERE, including but not limited to your
external hard disk / thumb drive, D drive (If you have) etc, except
it is a time consuming process to reinstall your applications
again.
3: Graphics card (GPU). Please, use a PCI Express, PCI-E (Not
all motherboard with PCI-E are X64 capable / motherboard that can
run X64 capable CPU) or AGP (If you have really old PC, most likely
it wont be X64 though with several notable exceptions due to the
technology generation involved) GPU. Well, PCI-E is a current
technology that promise a faster speed / data transmission than AGP
but you have to stuck with AGP if your mobo has no PCI-E slots.
Please do NOT use integrated graphics (Mainly motherboard graphics
from Intel, SIS, VIA and few of the NVIDIA & ATI cards) even
though they are cheaper, but they share your limited memory (So if
you have 2 sticks of 1GB RAM, meaning a 2GB RAM might just have
1.7GB RAM shown as integrated graphics might just "eat" your 300+MB
of RAM, which my laptop is the case) and provides a slower graphics
/ data transmission = lower fps.
