Off topic ... and i mean way way off ... (hey to computer experts out there please enter!

Well for starters, Abit makes a great motherboard and they are relatively inexpensive. Intel or AMD processors of anything greter than 400MHz should be fine for these games. Although you may want to go a little faster for future games. Just make sure your motherboard and processor match. (i.e. slot1 for PIII chips and whatever slot/socket your AMD needs)
For sound I use a soundblaster LIVE I think it was like $89. But the soundblaster PCI512 is a good card also and is only about $69.
I recommend 128MB of RAM if you can aford it. Personally I have 256MB in all 4 of mine.
Graphics is going to be pretty dependant on what quality your looking for. The higher the quality the more expensive the card. This is usually the best place to get performance gains outta your games though. I use Geforce2 based cards. I currently have 2 Creative Annihilators, one is the origanal Anihilator2 the other I just bought is the Anihilator2 based on the MX Geforce2 chip. Both have 32MB on them. These are great cards and have VERY fast FPS ratings in most games. The MX based card cost me about $129 last week.
Take most of my advice with a grain of salt. I haven't tested all the different hardware out there. I'm just telling you what I am using and it seems to be working great.....so far.

As for the networking part (I am a network engineer, so....)
Use 10/100 PCI network adapters--3com makes an excellent card but they are a little more expensive.
Use a 100BTx hub (switches are ALOT faster and less likely to have collisions, but they are also more expensive, but since you only need 1 of these devices it may be worth it to you to spend the extra money) 3Com is my recommended brand for the switch, but HP and Cisco make good products also.
Make sure you get CAT5 (category 5) cable to run from PC to hub (even if your going to go 10BaseT) It will save you ALOT of frustration and aggrevation when you want to upgrade to 100BTx. And you will want to upgrade if you start at 10BaseT. Most newer games transfer a ton of info back and forth and it's only going to get worse. (or better depending on your point of view).
Almost every Multiplayer game runs on TCP/IP protocol these days (for use on the internet). Use this setting for your home network as well. THis should be the only protocol you need to load. Delete any other protocol from your windows setup (unless you have a program that only works on IPX ). This will speed up your network traffic considerably. Mostly by eliminating all the Netbeui bullshit that windows transmits constantly.

The only other advice I have is DO NOT USE ANYTHING FROM LINKSYS!!!!! I have had SOOOOOO many problems with conflicts and drivers. Their tech support blows goats. If you are not a network technician you do not want to f*** with setting these things up if and when you do get a conflict.

Have fun and enjoy!!! It is great to have 4 computers networked and have all your friends within earshot while playing BGII. Was a ton more fun than playing alone

[Zoratorak]

hiya all, anyway this is a way way way way off topic from baldurs 2 but i dont know anywhere else to get any decent information from all of you computer experts out there. Anyway here is the thing, ive been planning to build a new bunch of computers and i want them networked... the problem is i have been out of touch lately with the good kinds of quality video cards, sound cards, motherboard, processor and blah blah (you get my drift) to make a whole new computer. if im planning to make a whole network out of it then im in the dark because i dont know a zip on how to lan it so tips can be useful... so, is there any nice lan cards as well as hubs out there so it can play cool games like counter-strike, bg2, diablo, red alert2 and all the other latest games? and what kind of motherboards and other computer parts that are AFFORDABLE as well as HIGH QUALITY (well, i hope it is) ... i dont mind if you give me the best kind quality too... oh TIPS also please on how to make a lan network i need it... THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU....

[robertthebard]

I can suggest Homefree as a pretty good LAN device, if all the networked computers are in the same house, office, etc., but I have know idea how to do it any other way. I will contact my computer buff buds, and see what they say. reply with your email, and I'll forward their reply to you when I get it.

[robertthebard]

I can suggest Homefree as a pretty good LAN device, if all the networked computers are in the same house, office, etc., but I have know idea how to do it any other way. I will contact my computer buff buds, and see what they say. reply with your email, and I'll forward their reply to you when I get it.

Athlons are faster and cheaper than the equivalent Pentium III, especially for games. Make sure it has 256k of full speed cache, sometimes referred to as an Athlon T-bird. Generally only available above 800 MHz. Make sure the motherboard has a x4 AGP socket for graphics cards and supports UDMA 100 hard-drives, as these are the latest and fastest, although 66 will be okay. IBM and Western Digital are the best HDD. Make sure they have at least 7,200 rpm, preferably 10,000+ and 2Mb cache. 4 USB sockets and 5 PCI slots would be nice too. Don't bother with ISA unless your network card is an older one that uses it. In the near future DDRam will be replacing SDRam for motherboard memory as it is faster, so support for that would be useful. P4's use RDRam(rambus) which is horrendously expensive and arguably slower than DDRam, so avoid! I agree that the geforce 2 MX with 32 Mb DDRam is the best value for money high speed graphics card, which over here cost £99, so you can probably buy it for $99 lol. Get the new Soundblaster live 5.1 as it supports dolby digital and is quite cheap. Don't be tempted to buy a combo DVD/CD re-writer to save money, as they are generally unreliable( my company sold them for 1 month and then stopped because of frequent laser failures). Ten speed DVD drives are fairly standard, but the most demanding application, playing movies, only requires a x1, so don't worry too much about spin-speed as transfer rate is more important. If you are buying a CD-rewriter look for burnproof technology as it prevents under-runs, ie you can copy at full speed with no failures.

[Zoratorak]

thank you all for the great info... however im still stuck at what kind of motherboard i should buy... Onabe said that Abit is good a one (what kind of abit motherboard?, there are many versions) ... how about soltek, pc partner, microstar, asus and other mother boards out there... anyone knows which are good and which are not...
hmm... im kinda thinking about...

amd T-bird processor 750
128 sdram
15 gig 7200 rpm
asus gforce 2mx
monitor-???
motherboard-???
case,sounds,keyboard,mouse, floppy disk, and cd-rom (not needed. i think i can handle that)
video card-??? (gforce is cool but way expensive... any second top version of video card info is welcome)

[Zoratorak]

oh yeah... (my title is kinda long so if you get the error of having more than 90 words then just remove the RE: of the title)

what kind of cool lan cards can i get since i understand thier features yet... (as well as hub please, ive heard that there is a cool and faster hub that the ordinary one)

lan card- ???
realtek 100bps lan???
soho 10mbps or 100 mbps (whats the difference with 10 and 100?)
prolink 100 mbps
surecom 100 mbps
dlink 100 mbps
planet 100mbps
linksys 100mbps (although onabe said it sucks, cant hurt to have some info on it)
aztech 10/100 lan card
-------------
which one is good????

[Bahamut]

If I were you Zoratorak, I wouldn't worry about monitors first. all you need is a big-enough clear monitor... how bout AOC?

Since this is about computer stuff, can you guys help me with a cheap 3d accelerator, with great performance that can play BG2, FF8 with no difficulty (no stuttering, stoppage)? I currently have a TNT2(i think) Vanta and I overclocked it. I wanna buy a Voodoo 3 but I dunno.... help?

Zor, it doesn'realy matter who has manufactered your motherboard, important is how many pcmcia(and isa) card slots board has. And how much can you add ram. And it have to has agp-slot 'course. AND that it supports processors over 1ghz. After that, start wonder about slotspeeds un'stuff..

-hobs-

The Asus K7V is suposed to be a good board for an AMD thunderbird. I haven't tried it myself but when I upgrade over the summer I'm switching to the thunderbird.

I don't know what the newest ABIT board is, but they're good. I've presently got one in and have no complaints.

3com for the network cards definately. Pricey but dependable. They're what we use at work. I have one in my home computer. Unfortunately I'm no longer on a T1 line. I hate modems.

Also don't by a Kenwood TrueX cd-rom if you're thinking about it. They get good reviews but they don't have long lifespans. My friend and I have gone through three or four in the last year and a half.