Same note.  You can play many X-Box games on a windows machine, but you
can not play most windows games on a counsel (unless you got a cool
X-Box hack to load some acquired windows on it and make it a gamming
machine)

I have a 3GHz duel core with 3.5 GB ram.  The video card has some memory
onboard (64MB I think) and steals another 512MB from the system.  It
plays Dungeon Lords, Bio-Shock, and Overlord quite easily so you could
probably step down from their.  I am told from my WoW friends that 1GB
of ram is the minimum but the sweet spot is around 2GB of ram.  A 2GHz
to 2.5GHz processor should be fine but you need a fairly beefy video
card with at good VPU, at least some basic 3D acceleration, and I would
say a minimum of 64MB on board ram, preferably 128MB.  System barrowed
memory is not that good.

As for processors in general...  A single 3GHz Duel core processor will
perform ~60% better then a single core 3GHz processor for most
applications written to efficiently utilize duel cores.  This is similar
to the multiple physical processors, but you actually get much better
performance out of multiple cores.  However there are diminishing
returns.  A quad core will do about 40% better then a duel core and an 8
core machine will do about 30% better then a quad core machine.  When
given the choice I would rather get a duel core with a 1333MHz FSB then
a quad core with an 800MHz FSB any day.  As for would you need it; for
me, it is nice just because I run many applications at the same time.
Some one with a CSE degree can probably tell how threaded it needs to be
before you see performance increases but I am not that smart of the top
of my head.  The big point is that a duel core 2.4GHz processor is
cheaper to produce then a single core 3.8GHz, processor and thus is
cheaper to sell, but you get very similar performance.

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
[mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Matt
Graham
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 4:31 PM
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: Off-Topic: Looking for Hardware Recommendations

After a long battle with technology, gm5729 wrote:
> Honestly the best choice is to get a gaming platform/console and use
> it.... cheaper and designed for games

I see you missed the OP's saying "one of my daughters likes to play
WoW".  You 
can't play WoW on a WiiXboxPS2 according to Blizzard, so that won't work
for 
the OP's needs.

Higher-end gaming was never my thing.  xmame, snes9x, epsxe, sdl-gnuboy,
and 
fceu = plenty to keep me amused.  If the games that everybody likes will
run 
OK on an older box with 2200MHz/512M/40G/reasonable graphics card (like
the 
OP said), then it's reasonable to spend $350 on that.  The graphics card
spec 
really depends on the exact games the users want.  To avoid hassles
later, it 
might be worth getting a card that's a little more powerful than you
need 
right now, since game updates may mean the GPU has to work harder.

Remotely managing a 'Doze machine from a Linux machine can be done
reasonably 
easily.  Turn on whatever 'Doze uses for desktop sharing, then use
rdesktop 
from the Linux side.  Or install TightVNC Server on the 'Doze machine
and use 
any VNC client from the Linux machine.  Remotely managing a Linux box
from 
a 'Doze box is easy; just use PuTTY or a VNC client.  HTH,

-- 
   I think I'll go hold my head under a bucket of vodka until I feel
   better.
   --localroger on kuro5hin.org, 06/26/2003
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
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