Project Lore

Of the Christmas presents (a few WoW-related) that I was happy to receive over the holidays, the one that I most appreciate is a present from myself: a new desktop. You see, for the past few years I've been playing WoW and doing all of my other computer tasks (such as blogging) via laptop.

First, it was a Sony VAIO running Windows Vista with pretty measly specs and a 15.4-inch screen. I could do most of my day-to-day productive tasks on it fine, but WoW -- not so much. My graphics were turned way down, addons were kept to a minimum and tabbing out of game was really the equivalent of committing in-game suicide -- an automatic crash. Not too fun at all.

Then, a pretty major upgrade came when I started swiping my husband's "gaming laptop" (an oxymoron? yes.), a Gateway FX series, when it wasn't in use. A larger, 19-inch screen, more graphics capabilities, less worry about tabbing out. But to keep things running smoothly, it was best to close all other programs while playing. Then there was the addon confusion. Our two sets of addons aren't entirely compatible, and it took me a few times to realize that I could customize the addons per character. Not a huge deal, but it still wasn't my computer.

Now this new beauty has been built, and what a difference. I had forgotten the glorious beauty of WoW graphics tuned to ultra -- all on a respectable but not too-huge 23-inch monitor. My toons look extra-epic on the character select screen, and in-game I can spam Fan of Knives on hundreds of Onyxia whelps at a time without a single lag spike. And tabbing out while in flight or to check on a quest or item I'm not sure of? I do it all the time. I also now have my VAIO set up on the side so alternatively, I just use that instead of tabbing. So much fun. Heck, I could even record video on this thing... The only negative -- with so few unwanted interruptions to gameplay, it's much easier to get sucked in and lose track of time.

I'm sure I'll get all sorts of input on what I should have done differently for the money, but it's working out awesomely for me so far. Here's the specs:

• cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo 8200
• mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P
• PSU: Corsair 650TX
• Vid Card: ATI Radeon 4850 made by XFX
• hdd: 1 TByte Western Digital Caviar Green
• os: Windows 7

Next up: to try out the Wow in 3-D capabilities of my hubby's new video card! I'm sure most of us, if we've played WoW for long enough, have gone through a computer switch at some point. What have been some of your experiences on how it affected gameplay?