Welcome back to "What's In YOUR Tower" Issue Two. Thank you to Supply and Garett for participating the first installment where the complete computer specs were unwrapped with pictures of their set ups. In similarity to the last piece, this feature will again discuss the hardware and software aspects of the players' computers. In addition to issue two, a couple new portions have been added on as requested by the GotFrag community. Discussion of reasoning and benefits to the gamers has been included as well as a randomly selected community member of gotfrag.com to also be featured in this piece. The two gamers selected for this installment are Matt "Warden" Dickens of CompLexity, and John "Bigwie" Wie of Missed Me. Plus a third guest from the hardware community Chris "confire" Luong.


Matt "Warden" Dickens



PC
Case: Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS
Graphics Card: BFG Tech BFGR78256GTOC Geforce 7800GT
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego
RAM: OCZ Enhanced Latency 2GB (4 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 W0070 ATX 430W
Hard Drive: Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM
Sound Card: Steelpad 5H Sound USB Sound Card
Motherboard: ABIT "FATAL1TY AN8" NVIDIA NF4 Ultra Chipset

Peripherals
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse 3.0 Explorer
Keyboard: Microsoft Internet Keyboard (Black)
Mousepad: SteelSeries QcK+ Heavy
Headset: SteelSeries 5H

Software/Game Settings
CS Settings:
Operating System: Windows XP
Refresh Rate: 150Hz
Resolution: 640x480
Sensitivity: 1.4-1.6 (Whatever feels right at the time)
Crosshair: Large, Green, Translucent
CPL 1.6 GUI

Mouse Settings:
Drivers: None
CPL Mouse Fix: Yes
Windows Sensitivity: Default
Enhanced Pointer Precision: No
Launch Options: No "noforce" commands

Video Card Settings:
Gamma: 1.16
Vertical Sync: Off
Antialiasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: Off
Image Settings: High Quality

The History
My gaming history dates all the way back to the very first Starcraft. My older brother and I used to play a lot of that and became quite good for the time. Of course, like all the other games I have played on my way to Counter-Strike, many of the players who still play could smoke me now. Basically the way I have always been up until now (I play a lot of games now) was I'd pick a game and become very competitive with it. It started with Starcraft and later I moved onto the expansion set: Brood War. After my love of the Starcraft series faded, I got into first person shooters. A friend of mine down the road used to play the Tom Clancy duo Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear, so I started laddering on Zone.com with him for a while. We probably competed in that game for a year or two and once that was over I found Counter-Strike. I've been playing ever since and loving it. I think it has been a total of 6 years now or something really ridiculous like that. Some of the other games I play now are World of Warcraft, WC3: DOTA and Day of Defeat with my CAL-open team (we dominate!).

How does your set up benefit your game play? Why did you choose the components your have?

I have made 3 changes to the computer since I received it after winning the NewEgg LanFest 2005. I added a 200 GB HD which is a must if you have a Raptor. I also added another 1 gig of ram of the same kind it came with. Keep in mind the difference of adding ram with high or lower timings. I ran into problems after I ordered ram with different timings, so make sure you check on that. Lastly, I replaced the original ATI 9800 with an nVidia 7800 because I love my digital vibrance! The raw speed of the computer and smoothness of the game play alone will affect your play if you are coming from a poor performance PC. But I have found that the processing and memory are more important than buying a major video card. It is a huge misconception amongst non PC savvy people that if you upgrade your video card, you will have a fast and nice looking Counter-Strike. It is better to upgrade your processor/mobo and ram than to go out and buy a $500 video card that will not run any better on a poor performing computer. Keeping that in mind, I think the processor, ram and motherboard really keep my gaming running nicely, no matter what I'm playing.

Steel Series sponsoring Complexity has made it very easy for me to also test and try the latest and greatest. I love the QcK series because it has awesome size for all the previous supermat users but it always provides a smooth and quick gaming surface that was badly needed for the cloth pad up until now. Most cloth pads were rough and unprecise, but Steelpad did a great job developing one that was quick and accurate on a large surface. I also love the 5H headset they provide us. They have a very clear and crisp sound; such as low bass for great ingame hearing. Steel also provides a sound card that is awesome for me because no matter what computer I go to, I get the same sound. This comes in handy when you’re in 4 cities in 4 different weeks playing counter-strike on foreign made computers. As far as my mouse and keyboard go, I am using the same ones I have used probably since I started counter-strike. Although I have seen Microsoft is coming out with an updated version of the 3.0 which I may invest in when it comes out later this year.

Do you have any shoutouts?

I Would love to say thanks to all my teammates, all the great fans behind the Complexity organization, Jason Lake for this opportunity, and last but not least our selfless sponsors who never cease to amaze me: Steel Series, Icemat, Typefrag, HiDef Gaming Servers, Globalcon.net, and IMG Web Design.