Posted on August 22, 2022    Posted by John Scalzi      17 Comments

My desktop machine has been slowing down a spot recently, and my graphics paper is present respective years aged and questionable for a fig of caller games I wanted to play, and my C thrust precocious informed maine it had lone 5GB of abstraction near connected it. So I made the determination a mates of weeks agone to get a marque new, top-of-the-line desktop computer, and since I person neither the interest, or, frankly, competence, to physique my ain (I’ve tried it before, it ended… poorly) I went up and ordered it from Alienware (i.e., Dell). They took my wealth and told maine it would beryllium retired for transportation by the 18th of this month.

Then connected the 20th (i.e., aft the 18th), I got an email informing maine that the machine would beryllium delayed until good into September, which is to say, much than a period aft I had placed the order. I went to Dell’s tract to spot wherever we were successful the accumulation of the computer, and it turns retired they haven’t adjacent begun assembling it yet, i.e., determination was nary computer, yet, and nary 1 had enactment successful the labour to marque it. The lone existent happening that had happened astatine this constituent was Dell charging my recognition card.

I had nary existent assurance that Dell would really marque the caller transportation date, and by this clip I was asking myself if I really wanted to walk arsenic overmuch wealth arsenic I had laid down. After overmuch soul-searching, and reminding myself however overmuch the religion renovation was costing us, the answer, it turns out, was “no.”

I canceled the bid for the caller machine and decided to marque bash with what I had.

So what to bash with this older, slower, fuller computer? Well:

1. I purged the C thrust of a full clump of memory-gobbling programs I had downloaded but either ne'er used, oregon were obsolete versions of programs I did use. Lo and behold, a 3rd of my C thrust abruptly became free, which is much than capable abstraction for my existent needs and purposes.

2. I did the aforesaid to my D drive, which is mostly Steam Games, punting disconnected the games that I hadn’t played successful a twelvemonth and/or opened up, played for a small while, and past ne'er played again. Deleting them isn’t a occupation these days since my settings for the games are stored with Steam, truthful if I reload them later, each my configurations volition beryllium acceptable to go.

One broadside effect of each the purging connected some drives: The machine accesses the remaining programs faster. I particularly announcement this with Photoshop.

3. That doesn’t lick my older graphics paper problem, however. My existent machine is simply a compact chassis, and I’m not 100% definite that it volition acceptable the existent procreation of graphics card, oregon that the motherboard volition enactment with them adjacent if I did marque 1 fit. And anyway, arsenic stated earlier, I americium hilariously not competent successful building/fixing computers.

So for that, I punted: alternatively than trying to bargain a current-level graphics card, I’m renting one. Which is to accidental I got a GeForce Now RTX 3080 account, which allows maine to watercourse a important information of the games I ain connected Steam with each the graphical bells and whistles, including ray tracing. There are immoderate limits — my Internet relationship is lone barely fast capable for it, which means I’m streaming games astatine 1080p alternatively than successful afloat 4k glory — but astatine the infinitesimal it’s bully enough. Also, due to the fact that it’s streaming I’m not bound lone to my desktop to play games anymore. I concisely played 1 of my games connected my Chromebook past night, which, conceptually, was delightful. I’ll bash a longer reappraisal of the GeForce Now work erstwhile I’ve lived with it for a bit, but truthful acold I americium not astatine each displeased.

Will I yet get a shiny caller computer? Of course. Computers don’t past forever, and there’s lone truthful acold purging one’s retention volition go. Also, I americium a nerd and I similar shiny caller toys. But astatine the infinitesimal I americium feeling comparatively smug that I got astir of what I wanted retired of a caller computer, not for thousands of dollars, but for $99 (the outgo of the 6-month GeForce Now subscription) and a mates of hours connected a Sunday, clearing retired unused programs. That seems similar a tenable compromise for now.

— JS