Sandeberg Rising

I had Monday of this week off, which I spent upgrading my computer. My options were either going to be upgrading the whole motherboard so I could buy a mid-range PCI Express graphics card or buy a top-of-the-range AGP graphics card. Both options would have come in at the same price but with different results

AGP is dead. End of the line. Outclassed.
While a top-of-the-range AGP card is still pretty impressive stuff, they’re as rare as hens teeth, require their own power supply connection and can’t benefit from stringing them together to improve graphics further.

However…

If I buy a new motherboard today, it will be outdated soon as the new quad core processors require a different motherboard and different memory. Also, a mid-range PCI Express graphics card (all I’d be able to afford after the motherboard purchase) would probably drop off the bottom of the Minimum Specification list within 14 months and the last 6 months of that would be painful for any new game.

And so I bought the top-of-the-range AGP card, or more specifically, the GeForce 7800GS+. And wow… The fact the a brand new game (Titan Quest, review soon) can run at the maximum resolution with all enhanced features switched on is pretty impressive. I’ll have to try it on Elder Scrolls 3: Oblivion tonight as I recall that being particularly punishing for graphics cards, but I’m really not worried. I think I can quite safely say that, other than maybe a RAM upgrade to 2Gb next year, I’ve bought over two years of gaming potential for the computer.

She’ll need a new name methinks. Hmm…

Well, I’m back. No, not just back on the blog after an extended absence, but back. Back in the country, back in the office, back at home and back in black.
For now the project is over for me, User Acceptance Testing is over and international travel is over. And I can honestly say I learnt something over the last two weeks. And that is that Jameson’s is bad. At least in quantity. On an empty stomach. On a school night. I shudder now to think of it.

The last two weekends that I’ve been in the country I did some site seeing in London with Penny. First to the Tower of London and the London Aquarium and then last weekend to St Paul’s Cathedral. We wanted to do Vinopolis again to choose our Christmas wines, but it was full. This mystery was swiftly explained by the army of hen night attendees rushing past us clutching pre-booked tickets.