What's In YOUR Tower has come to present itself yet again in this new issue. This feature will include two known professional gamers and a randomly selected community member. Featured in Issue #3 is long time compLexity member, Tyler "Storm" Wood, community member Dan "Hoyt" Billian, and Pandemic Counter-Strike player Bobby "kEEN" Aihama.

Tyler "Storm" Wood
Hardware/Software:
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz
Video Card: ATi Radeon X1950XTX 512MB GDDR4 PCI Express x16
Motherboard: EVGA NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
RAM: PNY XLR8 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2-6400)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 160GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: Samsung 18X DVD+-R DVD Burner SATA Model
Monitor: 19" Samsung SyncMaster 997DF

Peripherals
Mouse: Microsoft Steel Series Intellimouse Optical 1.1
Keyboard: Microsoft Internet Keyboard (Black)
Mousepad: Steel Series QcK Heavy
Headset: Steel Series 5Hv2 (No Drivers)

Game And Software Settings
-Video Card Settings
Anti-Aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: Off
Mipmap Detail: High Quality
Vertical Refresh: Always Off
Gamma: 1.15
Brightness: 103%

-Mouse Settings
Drivers: None
CPL Mouse Fix: Yes
Windows Sensitivity: Middle
Enhanced Pointer Precision: No

-1.6 In Game Settings
Operating System: Windows XP
Launch Options: -noforcemaccel -noforcemparms -noforcemspd -freq 100
Refresh Rate: 100Hz
Resolution: 800x600
Sensitivity: 2.25
Crosshair: Small, Green, Translucent
I use the CPL 1.6 GUI

-Source In-game Settings
Operating System: Windows XP
Launch Options: -noforcemaccel -noforcemparms -noforcemspd -freq 100
Refresh Rate: 100Hz
Resolution: 800x600
Sensitivity: 2.25
Crosshair: cl_crosshairscale 15000, Green, Translucent
Model Detail: Low
Texture Detail: Low
Shader Detail: Low
Water Detail: Simple Reflections
Shadow Detail: High
Color Correction: Disabled
Antialiasing Mode: None
Filtering Mode: Bilinear
Wait For Vertical Sync: Disabled
High Dynamic Range: None
mat_dxlevel 90



The History

The first computer I played on was at the most 300MHz. I'd sit down at one of the computers at a card game shop once or twice a month and play games like Starcraft and Quake2 with my friends. This was back before CS was even out. We played with dark 15" monitors and ball mice, as optical mice were still a thing of the future.

Having 60fps in spawn for the first four months of playing Source just got old. It was time for an upgrade. This comp was put together in late March by the world famous CS admin Laurent "glostik" Genin. It wasn't hard figuring out what I wanted in the comp as I already had most of the parts. The processor and motherboard were won from the GotFrag Source Invitational. The RAM was won in the PNY March Madness 1.6 tournament. The video card was given to us by ATi for doing promotional work for them in December. The rest of the comp was built by suggestions from Laurent. Matt [Warden] and Marcus [zet] were also tired of their fps in-game, so they too built new computers identical to mine.

Reason For Settings
Most of the settings I have are because they're just what I've used for so many years. I rarely change any of my settings, and if I do it's just for fun during practice. I prefer to find something I like and stick to it. Another important aspect about my settings is that it they are very easy to set up during a LAN. I do not use any drivers for any of my peripherals which makes it easy to play on any computer when I just plug it in. My CS settings are very standard and do not require any special equipment or software. At a lot of tournaments, you cannot get over 100Hz because of the monitors. My teammates have run into this problem countless times and I think its just easier to have settings that are universal from computer to computer.