What's important?

  • Thread starter LoudMusic
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LoudMusic

LoudMusic

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When you use a computer what is important about it to you? What do you care about the most?

I don't play games on my computer much so 3D video isn't that important, neither is surround sound. And my computer doesn't move much so I don't care how big and heavy the computer and monitor are.

But what isimportant are how snappy responsive it is, how high 2D resolution and color I get, and how the keyboard and mouse feel. I'm not overly concerned with the speed of my internet connection, but I don't want it to be overly slow either.

Effeciency is a really big deal to me. I don't like my apps to go nuts using up huge amounts of memory or heavily taxing my processor. Even though I really enjoy Winamp visualizations I rarely use them because they're such resource hogs. But Winamp is one of my favorite apps because the player itself hardly uses any memory at all (2.x that is ...)

Boot time and shutdown time are of no consequence as I never do either (:

When I build/buy a new computer the parts I will spend the most money on will be keyboard/mouse/monitor/hard drive - as these are the parts that make the biggest difference in daily use. My 3 year old video card does 1600 x 1200 x 32bit color at 85hz and my SoundBlaster of the same year plays mp3s just fine. A 1Ghz processor and half a gig of memory will run the latest Windows (or Mac OS) with little difficulty. I think I would get a wireless mouse, hopefully with builtin rechargable batteries.

Ease of use is huge. If it's not easy, what's the point? It doesn't have to be screaming fast, so long as I'm not spending much time waiting on it to complete a task.

How about you guys? I assume the gamers want the latest and greatest video cards. Anything else?
 
Gee, for me, it has to have decent 3d video so I could run my game-dev programs, excellent resolution, so a nice monitor is a must. Sound isn't an issue at all. Reliability is huge-it MUST be reliable. I want it to be fast, but I don't care about hyper-threading. If I did get a new computer, I would definately get Linux as my OS, but that's just personal preference. I'll probably have to give this more thought.
 
Crashes are bad. I hate crashes. A lot.

Sound I could care less about (it just has to be decent enough to play music... I'm no audiophile), video card I don't mind so much, other than the fact that Apple is going to be basing more and more tasks on Quartz Extreme, which utilizes the video card. Speed isn't much of an issue... aw hell, I'd love to get my hands on a G5, but I don't really need one by any means.

And I like ease of use, but I also like gimmicky things. Animations, transparency, all that stuff makes me happy for whatever reason.
 
HARDWARE WISE: Everything! But most importantly, the amount of memory. Few people realize that you could be running an 3.2 Ghz processor, but if your computer starts using swap memory (on the hard disk) things will slow waaaaaay down.

SOFTWARE WISE: Minimalisitc design. OS X may look cool, but I get tired pretty quickly of the unnecessaily bright interface and the space-wastign rounded buttons. Its just distracting.
 
I also like my computer to be very quick. I don't need the newest components though. My 1.2Ghz ad 512MB of ram with a 40GB hard drive (althought I wouldnt mind having a 200GB :D) is just fine. Having good audio isn't a must, but it would deffinately be a plus. Same with video (but who wouldn't want a nice, new FX5900 256MB or 9800Pro 256MB? :P).
 
HARDWARE WISE: Everything! But most importantly, the amount of memory. Few people realize that you could be running an 3.2 Ghz processor, but if your computer starts using swap memory (on the hard disk) things will slow waaaaaay down.
Click to expand...

That's very true. But how much memory is enough? 256MB? 512MB? Maybe all the way up to 2048MB? I have 1024MB in my home computer and it never needs to swap. And even if you have lots of RAM your computer is still going to have to copy stuff from the hard drive to memory. You need a really fast hard drive system in order to get apps to launch the quickest. And that way when your computer goes to swap, the swapping happens much quicker. (S)ATA133, or even striped 133, would be great.
 
Well, the laptop I'm on right now has 512 MB. Under windows, get more than 4 applications running (Winamp, Kazaa, IE, AIM, plus anything that I might actually be DOING) and you could hear it continually acessing the hd for swap memory. Under Linux, I can have 10 applicaitons open and it still stays out of swap (because linux uses so much less memory). But I want to upgrade to 1024 ASAP.
 
Silence is golden.
My old system was whiney, but I got used to it.
When I'd shut it down, there was a huge feeling of relief.
It was stressing me out without me realizing it.
 
Originally posted by Oliver DePlace
Silence is golden.
My old system was whiney, but I got used to it.
When I'd shut it down, there was a huge feeling of relief.
It was stressing me out without me realizing it.
Click to expand...
My computer used to be silent. Then I got my old 4GB harddrive put in. It keeps making this irrating noise whenever you access it, which is quite often as all my music files are placed on that drive. So playing Winamp also gives you the smooth sounds of Tool with the annoying sounds of my HDD....:irked:

I'm thinking of taking it out. I'm just thinking what I can use the spare IDE cable for then...
 
The most important thing for me is the monitor. I'm running a 21" at 1600x1200, 32-bit, 85Hz. It's absolutely flat, and the colour reproduction is perfect across the whole area, with no flicker. It's the single best component of my system, and if I replaced the computer, I would not replace the monitor.

The keyboard and mouse are also important, as they're the primary input, but I can live with most types as I've used most of them professionally. I had a cordless mouse for a while and it was inaccurate, so it went back. I hate to have any tension on the mouse cable.

In hardware terms, memory is important, because I tend to have a lot of apps open, and switch between them all the time. Also, my film-scanning app uses 330MB memory when it's in full flight. How much memory is enough? I would suggest that for a W2K Pro system, 256MB is a minimum, 512MB is healthy. My next computer will have at least 1GB memory.

My network connection can be slow, but it has to be always-on. I feel isolated if I do not have internet access.

I like a clean interface. As few icons on the desktop, quick launch and system tray as possible. I tend to use a two-row taskbar, because of the number of apps I use. I like to keep my hard drives in good order, making sure that the filing system is clean and logical. I delete all unnecessary shortcuts from the Start Menu. On my work machine, which has only 128MB memory, I do not have wallpaper. I do not like the computer to waste time doing anything unnecessary. For this reason, I switch off things like auto-detection of my digital camera. I remove unrequired modules from the base OS wherever possible.

I play only one game: Quake III, therefore bleeding edge 3d is unimportant to me. My sound card and speakers are good, but I have a kick-ass hi-fi system in the study, so how much do you need to spend to play chord.wav?

I guess you could say that reliability and efficiency are important to me.
 
reliability is a key factor for me....from both my hardware and software...

my system doesnt need to be the latest processor or massive ram or have a 1GHz fsb....

i am quite happy with my p3 1000MHz 256 ram and 20g hdd...

next year i will upgrade but at the moment this handles the sofware i need to use....
 
Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
The most important thing for me is the monitor. I'm running a 21" at 1600x1200, 32-bit, 85Hz. It's absolutely flat, and the colour reproduction is perfect across the whole area, with no flicker. It's the single best component of my system, and if I replaced the computer, I would not replace the monitor.

The keyboard and mouse are also important, as they're the primary input, but I can live with most types as I've used most of them professionally. I had a cordless mouse for a while and it was inaccurate, so it went back. I hate to have any tension on the mouse cable.

In hardware terms, memory is important, because I tend to have a lot of apps open, and switch between them all the time. Also, my film-scanning app uses 330MB memory when it's in full flight. How much memory is enough? I would suggest that for a W2K Pro system, 256MB is a minimum, 512MB is healthy. My next computer will have at least 1GB memory.

My network connection can be slow, but it has to be always-on. I feel isolated if I do not have internet access.

I like a clean interface. As few icons on the desktop, quick launch and system tray as possible. I tend to use a two-row taskbar, because of the number of apps I use. I like to keep my hard drives in good order, making sure that the filing system is clean and logical. I delete all unnecessary shortcuts from the Start Menu. On my work machine, which has only 128MB memory, I do not have wallpaper. I do not like the computer to waste time doing anything unnecessary. For this reason, I switch off things like auto-detection of my digital camera. I remove unrequired modules from the base OS wherever possible.

I play only one game: Quake III, therefore bleeding edge 3d is unimportant to me. My sound card and speakers are good, but I have a kick-ass hi-fi system in the study, so how much do you need to spend to play chord.wav?

I guess you could say that reliability and efficiency are important to me.
Click to expand...

That about sums it up, barring the monitor. I need a new monitor.
 
Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
... I had a cordless mouse for a while and it was inaccurate, so it went back. I hate to have any tension on the mouse cable. ...
Click to expand...

I had the same experience. I was using an ergonomic Logitech cordless. My favorite mouse is the ambidextrious Microsoft Intellimouse Optical USB. I have two of them. My keyboard of choice is the (out of production) Microsoft Natural Pro.
 
Originally posted by LoudMusic
I had the same experience. I was using an ergonomic Logitech cordless. My favorite mouse is the ambidextrious Microsoft Intellimouse Optical USB. I have two of them. My keyboard of choice is the (out of production) Microsoft Natural Pro.
Click to expand...

One positive thing about MS is that they make very good mice. At work I have an Intelimouse Optical USB and two on my home PC's. Oh and a spare extra swanky silver one just in case. As for the keyboards I couldn't care less, at home I have a lovely battered old keyboard.
 
Originally posted by the_cobbinator
Yeah, I forgot quietness. This computer I'm on gives me a headache after a while from the noise.
Click to expand...

You might want to check the screen refresh rate. If it's under 70Hz, the headache is from your monitor.
 
Originally posted by Race Idiot
One positive thing about MS is that they make very good mice. At work I have an Intelimouse Optical USB and two on my home PC's. Oh and a spare extra swanky silver one just in case. As for the keyboards I couldn't care less, at home I have a lovely battered old keyboard.
Click to expand...

Yes, quite! My favorite mouse (:

You might want to check the screen refresh rate. If it's under 70Hz, the headache is from your monitor.
Click to expand...

True enough. I am stuck at 75 at work, but at home I think I'm running 1600 x 1200 at 85Hz. It's beautiful.
 

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