by Dave Pascoe

Study the manual thoroughly before you attempt to set the mainboard up. If you don't understand anything, CALL FOR CLARIFICATION. It's not really very difficult getting answers to set up questions.

Don't waste your money with more than 128 RAM. More than this won't help unless you have a sim that calls for it.

Ultra fast CD ROMs are no longer needed, so there's no need to waste money on these. I did because I plan to try TV.

Don't work when you're tired. Shoot for a weekend when you won't be boxed in for time. Being tired AND in a hurry will be your two biggest enemies.

Relax, and don't be in a hurry to get all your nifty new parts up and running. If you assume that it will take you a week, if will likely take a lot less. For your first go-around, it's important to have a relaxed attitude. Haste makes waste.

Finally, I send words of encouragement by way of telling you that I have some really half-assed techical knowledge of PCs. Usually just enough to get me in big trouble as I go poking into things I probably ought not to. But if can do it, anyone who can roughly perform the basic operations I've described can also do it.

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Conclusion

My ultimate goal was a clean, lean, mean machine that is not cluttered up with personal or business software. I did not want a machine that was designed to be all things to all people, which accounts for more than half our problems. I learned the hard way that the more cluttered your hard drive is, your compatibility issues will grow exponentially. If you want a fast gaming machine, keep it as clean as possible.

My 18 GB hard drive doesn't yet have ONE GB on it! I eliminated over 50 meg from the operating system alone.

Not Quite Perfect

Now comes the bad news. As soon as I fired up Falcon 4.0, my new speedster ran slower than my old machine. I was crestfallen, but I knew the reason why. It was tune up time and back to those web sites like COMBATSIM.COM™ and TWEAK3D.COM to remember how to do it. Working at a snail's pace, it was a couple of weeks before I got the frame rates above 20 fps, but they did improve with every little thing others suggested to do.

The final coup de gras for the likes of mail order or off-the-self computer companies, for $1524.91 and a little elbow grease, I got a machine that is running Falcon 4 as smoothly as a baby's bottom. Never again will I ever have to buy another computer from some overhyped computer company that can't even make a sound or video card work.

Let's hear it folks! Three cheers for a total, bumbling amateur.

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