Seeking advice on a new Computer System for Guild Wars!

Hello, everybody!

I was introduced to Guild Wars a while ago by a friend and I've been hooked ever since, I go to play at Internet Cafes mostly since I lack a PC of my own. I want a purchase a system, but I don't know much on Gaming Systems, I've been told that Guild Wars does not require a high-end Video Card to max it's settings, yet I don't know which card would do that. Any advice on this will be greatly appreciated.

During the re-search I found out that CRT Monitor are better for Gaming than LCD, thanks to it's high resolutions and refresh rates. They are also cheaper. Seems like The ViewSonic® G90fB 19" Is a good choice?

I'm all confused.......with the components on the system itself.

I do disagree that CRTs are superior for gaming compared to LCDs. Yes they were at one point in time, when the response time was 25+ ms. However since then the technology has come along quite nicely and the speeds are as high as 2 ms. Keeping in mind that is grey to grey or something like that. Anyways, I recently had a BenQ 19" LCD that was probably 16ms or higher and yes the ghosting was noticable although it didn't take me long to get used to it. Currently though I'm running a nice 21" Samsung 214T LCD display which has a response of 8ms. I can't make out ghosting at all, and I'd have trouble seeing a comparable CRT offering sitting on my desk with the space it would take up. Nice crisp and clear colors running at 1600 x 1200 resolution. I think I'll continue to stand by LCDs.

Comparing prices, yes a CRT will cost less than the comparable LCD. However as with most things, you get what you are willing to pay for.

As for hardware components. Before my last upgrade my desktop system was running a P4 2.4GHz, 1GB Ram, and an ATI 9600 Pro AGP video card. This stuff was all purchased at the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2002. I could run Guild Wars at 1280 x 1024 (The BenQ 19") with all the settings turned up high with no issues at all. So yes, Guild Wars doesn't require anything that would be considered high end these days to run with awesome performance.

Personal preference: Build a system to spec what you want. However I don't think it likely you'd be at that stage. If you happen to be Canadian and would like assistance from people in the know to spec out a system that fits your needs you could visit www.ncix.com. Great place, love the prices and I've never had a bad experience with them. Else you could easily go out to the local store and purchase a brand name system, just be sure to avoid "Onboard Video" (Video card built into the Motherboard). A lot of brand name manufacturers do prefer that, or at least the last time I ever looked at a brand name computer (which has been quite a while now).

Additional NCIX info: They will build and test any system that you spec out, however that of course adds to the price tag. The forums are a great place to get help speccing a system to fit needs and budget.

First... Budget.....

Next, LCDs provide a clearer crisper picture. It does not necessarily run higher resolutions. Only that at 19inch, usually LCD monitors run a max of 1280x1024. CRTS sometimes go higher, but the less eye strain that comes from LCDs is far worth it.

I'll put together a newegg cart list, after you provide your budget

I have to disagree, as well. It took me the longest time to switch from CRT to LCD because I kept hearing that there was a lot of ghosting on LCDs, the image looks like crap at anything other than the native resolution, etc. But my 19" CRT was getting a little old, so after doing some research, I took the plunge and bought an LCD. It's fantastic. I don't think I could ever go back to a CRT now.

Let me ask you this first...are you planning to build a system on your own? Or buy a premade PC?

For premade PC, probably a $300 or less worth computer will let you play Guild Wars at minimum requirement.

If you are planning to build your own PC:
- Motherboard: buy a motherboard that uses PCI express, 2 slot or 1 slot doesn't matter (because I think dual video card are just too power consuming), but it HAVE to be PCI express, because AGP is a dead technology, this leaves you room to upgrade you PC later(this MB going to cost you at least $100). Now's the choice between SLi or Crossfire huh? Well, SLi is better with games in general, but crossfire do significently better on games that involves physics, like most FPS games. So if you really like FPS games too, go for crossfire. ASUS's motherboard is very user friendly. It's easy to setup and overclock, because almost everything is done automatically even overclocking. DFI offers motherboard for the pr0 and 1337, everything about the motherboard you can tweek manually.

- Video card: Then try to get your hand on the cheapest card that runs on PCI express (probably can get one for $50, if used $25). ATi x300 will do.

- Memory: the minimum requirement states only need 256MB, the truth is, you can't play any games nowadays with 256MB, you need at least 512MB of memory. But getting 1GB of memory is not really neccessary, it will improve your GUild Wars performence, but only slightly.

- Moniters: Don't buy CRT!!!! They are big, heavy, and very fragile. If you accidently drop it on the ground, you can be sure it's broken. LCD doesn't break that easily. Also, CRT consumes twice as much electricity as LCD. Since most people like to leave their moniter on all the time, it's best to have LCD. Everything about CRT is bad except one; it does allows very high resolution with even a small monitor.

The above post cover it pretty well, if you can fork out a bit more than $300 more up towards 500 I would up the RAM to 1 GB - I just got 1 GB for like $75 on Newegg. Also you may need a processor too ;p. Generally you may want to put a price range in when asking a question like this. The cheapest GW computer you can make is around 300-400$ to just run the game.
My current build is 1 GB of RAM, 256 MB GeForce 5500 FX, AMD Thunderbird running at 2.05 GHz. I tweaked my OS to hell and GW runs just fine, lowered the settings a bit. I use dial-up and I still load ahead of most broadbanders and I generally only frame skip for a couple seconds right after loading a zone.

If you plan to play other games, 1 GB is a very safe bet; 2 GB more so, but only if you go DDR2.
You may want to wait until Q3 for AMD's Socket AM2 and Intel's new Conroe processors before getting a new system now, though, as if you go 939 you're resigning yourself to DDR1 and current Intel systems will be pwned in a few months.

Thank you very much guys for the replies!

About the monitors, which one you like best:

http://www.viewsonic.com/products/de...series/g225fb/

http://www.viewsonic.com/products/de...eries/vp2030b/

Which do you guys think it's better?

I was checking out ibuypower.com and cyberpowerpc.com they seem to have great prices on gaming systems. My budget it's $1200 but I'm thinking on saving up more and using the extra time to re-search the purchase better.

When talking about a power supply unit, What is the recommended amount of watts? and if it says it's SLI ready it means it can power up a SLI motherboard or a ATi Crossfire motherboard?

About the Motherboard, for example the most expensive motherboard on Ibuypower is: Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI-x16 Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Dual Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, Dual PCI-E MB.

Could anyone please explain to me what does it mean?

About Video Cards, I should aim for ATI since on the Guild Wars site they have an ATI symbol?

my advice is actually,

Pick up a 600-900$ computer.

Basic things

venice 3000+
1gb RAM
6800gs or x800xl
Any case you want
Any hard drive
80$ish psu OR 120-180$ psu
100$ Mobo

This machine will play you GW, with pretty much max settings.
Just hold on for a year or two, and then shell all you can out for AMD m2 boards. As it will render your RAM+your CPU useless. DDR2 and New Socket. By 1 year or 2, you could reach 2kish? 1.5kish? That way also, nVidia may hit 8xxx series.

My advice, your choice

BTW

Sceptre FTW!!! ^^

Asus is the manufacturer
A8N32-SLI Deluxe is the model
nForce4 SLI-x16 is the chipset
7.1 Sound is pretty obvious, there will likely be an SPDIF out for as well
Dual GB LAN means there are two network (RJ-45) ports. I personally have never had a use for more than one.
S-ATA Raid means it has ports for Serial ATA HDDs (really small cables) and that multiple HDDs can be set up to act as one 'large' HDD, or mirrored. I'm not going to go into a long explaination about RAIDs, you probably won't be using it.
USB 2.0 - USB 2.0 ports... probably 6 - 8 of those.
IEEE 1394 - Firewire port. I've never had a use for Firewire but it's always there.
Dual PCI-E - Two PCI Express slots. This is what allows the motherboard to support SLI or Crossfire multi-GPU solutions.

I'm an ATI fan myself. All the better that Guild Wars loves working with those cards.

The monitor. Well as per my post above, I'd recommend nearly any LCD over a CRT. Plus that LCD you looked at is 8ms, supports 1600 x 1200, and has a 1000:1 contrast ratio. Everything else is icing on the cake, IMO.

MSI motherboards, come with onboard Audigy ZS. However, you must also understand that ALL audio onboard, except for DFI's Karajan Audio Module recieves electrical interference from your motherboard. DFI's Karajan Audio Module is moved off the board, onto a small sound card. It kills the interference, but is still only 16 bit.

Doesn't help the fact that the sound produced by Karajan module is terrible. Quite a few people (myself included) have complained on the DFI boards that they create loud "crackling" sounds. Ended up picking up an AV-710.

Point of my post (a suggestion): think about picking up a cheap Chaintech AV-710 instead of using the onboard solution. Cheap and good.

if all else fails buy one of these!

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[1] Aurora™ ALX

Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-60 with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Operating System (Office software not included): Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Chassis: Alienware® ALX Full-Tower Case - Saucer Silver
Chassis Upgrades: AlienIce™ 2.0 Video Cooling - Astral Blue
Thermal Management System: Alienware® ALX Active Liquid Cooling System
Power Supply: Alienware® 650 Watt ATX 2.0 Power Supply
Graphics Processor: Dual 256MB PCI-Express x16 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 GT - SLI Enabled
Video Optimizer: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer
Motherboard: Alienware® NVidia nForce™4 SLI™ X16 Motherboard
Memory: 2GB Low Latency Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: High Performance - 150GB Serial ATA 10,000 RPM w/16MB Cache
Storage Drive: Additional Storage Drive - 250GB Serial ATA II 3Gb 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x DVD / 52x36x52x CD-RW Drive
Secondary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Visual Interface: No Monitor
Sound Card: Integrated High-Performance 7.1 Surround Sound with S/PDIF and Coaxial Digital Outputs


Alienware FTW!!!!

Consider my new rig which costed 800 dollars. It run Guild Wars at max setting and other games that i played on do the same too.

Here it is.
P-4 3.0GHz 800MHs 2MB L2 Cache
1GB Memory (Amp-X)
X1600XT PCI-Express
Asus P5LD2 Motherboard
Antec SLK1650B: 350W Mini-Tower BLACK w/USB2.0
250GB Seagate HDD

Sir i like that Antec case! very cool is it the alloy one??

No, i don't think it alloy. Still the case is nice for 50 dollars!

I'm just giving a lesson in sound lol.

Also, there is almost 0 support for that sound card if you plan on running more than 2 speakers. Just read around, and you'll see, if you plan to run more than 2 speakers, then you can forget about that card