Computers which run stepmania well

Paradox0 · 08-06-2006, 03:39 PM

As my 1st year of college approches I realize I need my own computer for projects, especially since I'm majoring in something to do with computers. However, why stop at just getting a minimal requirement computer when I can get something which I can finally play stepmania whenever I want.

So past all of that fluff, I want to know what computers work well with Stepmania, becuase my current one sure as hell doens't (was a basic model 2 years ago).

I'm currently looking at these but if anyone has a better suggestion I'd like to know.

http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs

http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs

TheFlyingSquirrel · 08-07-2006, 01:32 PM

XPS 700? You can afford that overpriced sort of thing?

Yeah, XPS should be good. E510 is probably OK, too.

Paradox0 · 08-07-2006, 01:52 PM

if I do it through the installment plan, then its really not that bad. It's like 25$ out of my paycheck, which really iosn't all that much.

TheFlyingSquirrel · 08-07-2006, 02:19 PM

Go for the XPS then. Dell is a reliable brand.

TougaKiryuu · 08-07-2006, 03:06 PM

build your own machine

stock computers are too much of a hassle to deal with, it's always better to build your own and go from there.

eepiccolo · 08-07-2006, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TougaKiryuu

build your own machine

stock computers are too much of a hassle to deal with, it's always better to build your own and go from there.

Nah, the easiest thing is to get a stock computer, wipe the hard drive and reinstall WinXP from scratch. Especially with Dell, who puts 30 metric tons of bloatware/bloodware on their computers. Often, though, you have to contact Dell to get the installation disks, but they provide them for free.

On another subject, though, a two year old computer, even a barebones computer, shouldn't have problems with Stepmania. What kind of problems are you having? The only thing I could see is a lack of RAM, which could cause erratic choppiness, but that would also be easy to upgrade.

TougaKiryuu · 08-08-2006, 04:17 AM

what fun is that

if your going to build a machine for doing basic work and running games, why not make it the best it can be

plus y'know... dell is horrible as far as PCs go

eepiccolo · 08-08-2006, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TougaKiryuu

what fun is that

if your going to build a machine for doing basic work and running games, why not make it the best it can be

plus y'know... dell is horrible as far as PCs go

I wish I knew where all this Dell hate comes from. They have very nice, well priced computers, and decent support for people who are not computer savvy. And the new XPS line has especially been getting good reviews.

I am particular fond of the 1920x1200 display for laptops that they offer, which I happen to be using right now

. And once I re-did the OS, this thing works great!

**dieKatze88** · 08-08-2006, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eepiccolo

I wish I knew where all this Dell hate comes from. They have very nice, well priced computers, and decent support for people who are not computer savvy. And the new XPS line has especially been getting good reviews.

I am particular fond of the 1920x1200 display for laptops that they offer, which I happen to be using right now

. And once I re-did the OS, this thing works great!

Yeah, and the decent price comes from their mistakes, and contracts.

Lets see.
Dell Laptop batteries exploding? apparently they found out that this goes a ways back.

at one time, more than half of all dell computers were shipping with blank hard disks due to a "manufacturing error". What the fuck. how can you fuck up more than 50% of your shipped product.

Dell puts on More spy/bloat/ad/trial/free(notreally)-ware than any other company that builds computers. My thinkpad came with 0 programs intentionally designed to fuck me over, However, I dont use norton and I uninstalled it. 0 to Thinkpad in: 17 minutes! a new record! 0 to Dell in: Yeah you have to reinstall, so this cant even register, as you have to use the base install to win here.

Dells use sub quality parts for the price nowadays, they get away with it because they bulit awesome computers back in the p3 era. Gateway is winning again because Gateway learned from what they did in the p3 era (Hint: Its what Dell is doing now) and stopped that shit. Stop fucking the customer and give them what they want, a good computer. Dell doesnt do that. Ive seen high end dell systems with Onboard sound what the hell.

and despite what the commercials say, every single person I know of that has called Dell tech support, has wanted to put their foot through the wall. this includes me, and I deal with tech support alot. To the point where I have actually called, and talked to, someone at Microsoft to solve a problem (OEM OS's are supported by the manufacturer.

ceraf · 08-08-2006, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

and despite what the commercials say, every single person I know of that has called Dell tech support, has wanted to put their foot through the wall.

indeed. some (if not all) of those tech support don't know jack about comptuers. maybe it was a good thing, since my bro got a new motherboard and cpu when it wasn't even the problem. then he wrote a complaint letter to the manager, and he got a new top-of-the-line laptop for free. =)

eepiccolo · 08-08-2006, 03:50 PM

Heh heh, if you want to talk about pain, Dell is nothing compared to Toshiba. I don't have a count as to whether the amount of bloatware Toshiba puts on their computers is the same or more than Dell, but it's worse quality, if you can believe it. The CD burning software and DVD playing software did not work AT ALL. And there's no way to make a clean windows install as far as I can tell. It seems you can't get the WinXP disks from Toshiba like you can from Dell.

MdX MaxX · 08-08-2006, 08:24 PM

I want to put SM on a TV, and I am looking for a laptop that meets these criteria.

-Very rare SM choppiness (WITH Theme, Announcer, Characters, BG Videos, and near 4 GB of songs (hope i'm not going too far))
-S-Video Output
-At or under $500

Can anyone recommend anything? Please?

eepiccolo · 08-08-2006, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxx freak

I want to put SM on a TV, and I am looking for a laptop that meets these criteria.

-Very rare SM choppiness (WITH Theme, Announcer, Characters, BG Videos, and near 4 GB of songs (hope i'm not going too far))
-S-Video Output
-At or under $500

Can anyone recommend anything? Please?

It's hard enough to find any sort of laptop for under $500. But with that said...

In my experience, eratic chopiness seems in large part to be due to background processes going on in Windows XP. I have Stepmania set up on a pretty low end desktop, and it has problems running Stepmania in WinXP, but it runs nearly perfectly in Linux. So, another question for you is would you be willing to go with a Linux system? Going with Linux can also save you almost $100, what with not having to pay for WinXP, as long as you install it yourself.

Although one funny thing that happened to me is that at first Stepmania was choppy, but at very regulay intervals (about every 30 seconds there would be a big chop). It turned out that the screensaver was actually running in the background, slowwing the silly thing down! That was with Ubuntu Linux.

MdX MaxX · 08-08-2006, 09:02 PM

Mmmmmmmmmmm.... I would like to stick with Windows. You said it has choppiness in XP, what about Windows 2000? And after all, that's probably the only thing I'm gonna use it for, SM.

TougaKiryuu · 08-08-2006, 10:12 PM

well if your gonna hook it up to a TV...

get a cheap ATI card (9200-9800 model will work)
get a shuttle case with matching board/psu/processor
go grab a SBLive! 5.1 soundcard.

put it together and woosh! You have a tiny box that can hook to TVs made specificially for SM