Cheers guys and thanks Doug actually..i take that back, i blame SimHQ for my pc journey! if i never stumbled in here i would have a fatter wallet and non bloodshot eyes ! ..and pray you never have to go through the Hammer Vs Card scenario, the card is a severe underachiever in this category, even in sli mode !

Really though, besides that, its been good times and 90 % of what i have learnt about what goes on in that magical little box is from here.

Great read, thanks ajay. I can relate to the hammer incident, as it happens :-)

Great article, nice reading. Thanks!

Great article, we have all been there with our various rigs, cupboards full of once prized bleeding edge tech that now gathers dust and that feeling of dread when you boot up a game like crysis for the first time and hoping to all that is holy that it will run on max smoothly! For me its as much about the PC and putting it all together as it is about the games.

Nice article Ajay. I think a lot of people here have been on a similar journey. I for one can't see myself ever buying an off the shelf PC again, and I like you built up my confidence one little victory (upgrade!) at a time. Glad to see that your keyboard is going stong after a few years as well as my 'Cyborg V5' looks identical to yours! My next upgrade has to be a better HOTAS set-up and I'm looking around at my next opportunity to splash my (as yet nonexistant) cash..

My first PC was a IBM 286 or IBM/AT, with 3 or 4 colors, and a few MB of RAM
I played Falcon on it (Falcon AT?) This One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rijiL8XfaVo

From there a Packard Bell 486DX2, 16MB of Ram (trident 9680 PCI 1MB Ram Direct Draw GFX),
Then Intel 200MHz MMX, 32MB of RAM (Same GFX Card),
Then AMD 400MHz K6II 64MB of Ram (3dFX Voodoo 3/2000 PCI w/ 16MB VRAM),
Then 750 Athlon w/ 128MB of RAM, and ATI All in Wonder Radeon (7200 I think w/ 32 mb of Ram)
Then upgraded that System to a 1.1Ghz Athlon and two 256MB sticks (512mb total), then to two 512 MB sticks (1GB Total) then added the 256 sticks back to make it 1.5GB total), Then Upgraded to a Ati All In Wonder 9600XT (128MB)

Then Built an Athlon64 1.8Ghz, 768 MB of Ram, Geforce 4 MM 440 GPU
Then Sempron 2.2Ghz, 1 GB of Ram, ATI AIW 9600XT

Then Athlon II 3.0Ghz, 2GB of RAM, 8800GTS 640mb


then Phenom II 3Ghz, 4GB of Ram ATI 5830, which was replaced with a AMD6850 under RMA.

then FX-8120. with 16GB of Ram, w/ AMD7950 3GB

I remember coming out of one of those PC conventions with 2x512MB Dimms, and rushing home to install and go on the PC irc channel and flash them with my /systeminfo script, as 1GB of Ram in 2001 was A LOT. Now i Have 16GB.

The 9600xt was a damn good card i thought, heaps of grunt for a good price

Great article Ajay! I laughed, I cried.

Good job man, well written too.

Nice read.

I think there have to be a few who share that crushed feeling when you realise that the $400 upgrade you made doesn't resolve the problem with the one game you were hoping it would...

Are Il-2/Clod and Crysis really the only games you've been playing?

I dabbled in a few others..V8 supercars, BoB WoV, Lomac and Flaming cliffs, Tom Clancys Rainbow six Vegas and Ghost Recon..one of the Medal of Honours and Hearts of Iron II. Black Shark is sitting in the cupboard awaiting a moment when i feel like putting the time into it. Black Ops got a run but online was a kiddie fest plus crap small maps and offline i never finished after about halfway through.The original Call of Duty and United Offensive sucked me in for a while as it was my first Clan type thing and we were pretty serious about our matches for about 6 months.

The il2 series took up most of my gaming time over the years though and i went pretty hardcore online with it for a while there, plus mucking around with the FMB. Crysis would have been the main FPS type as i played it through with a couple of mates and again with a certain lady , as well as part 2, we would go death for death and see how far we could get through per life. Was cool playing it and mainly focusing on trying not to die.Many nights and much alcohol was consumed

Latest Arma version is on the cards soon , will need to get up to speed with the controls and such. I tried the original years ago but it was a crashy bug fest unfortunately.

Atm the only games i have installed are il2 4.11m plus and a modded version, i connect and fly with my son who loves it which is cool as. We have Waterplane river races and bridge to bridge races lol. CloD..wheres the flippin paaaaatch !! Crysis 2 , my 9 year old girl loves getting scared by it when the aliens come out . Open General which i may get some games going with a couple of guys here.

I spend more time on here mucking around with a tablet drawing and doing arty farty stuff than gaming the past year or so.

But yeah..in answer to your question, those three games plus EAW and HOI would have had the most pc time since i have had a pc.

Sorry for the dribble