Best Budget PC mid 2016

Found this standard post:
http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-budget-gaming-pc/

This is a little pricey. But found this suggestion in the comments:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/zw8Yr7

Much cheaper! Don't need the graphics card straight away. Will upgrade this later!

Building a budget gaming machine Jan 2013 for less then £250

So, what with all the Christmas money (about £250), thought it best spent on a nice gaming machine. Where to start? Research:

• AMD or Intel?
• AMD is the cheap option, Intel the expensive. So, as it's a budget PC then AMD is first choice. If I had more money I'd go Intel.
• AMD just released FM2 socket A series, with APU (on chip graphics). After reading a few reviews this seemed the obvious choice.
• Go with cheap A4 chip or expensive A8 chip?
• basically I could buy a cheap A4 chip with good motherboard and good RAM or
• expensive A8 chip with cheap motherboard and cheap RAM
• I choose expensive chip. The only real benifit of an expensive motherboard is an extra 2 slots for RAM. But I think I'll only need a max of 32GB RAM for the near future.
• Chipset - A75 or A85X?
• I think the A85X is newer, but I like the fact that the A75 is cheaper and also has USB 3 native controller to make it more future proof
• both have SATA III support for fast SSD action
• graphics card or APU?
• after reading this nice review from Anandtech I wanted to go for the higher priced A8 chip, and when I get more cash, get a graphics card which uses crossfire.
• SSD or HDD?
• HDD are cheap and BIG! £40 for 1TB!
• I can't believe the price of an SSD (about £40 for 64GB). I can always plug an external one in for more storage, which isn't a priority. I want SPEED!
• Also SATA III is a must!
• 2 sticks of 4GB RAM, or 1 stick of 8GB?
• reading up on it, because the new motherboards support "Dual Channel" RAM thought it best to get two. Apparently works out at 1/3 quicker.
• Windows 7 or Windows 8?
• Windows 8 is the future. Also reviews say it's a little quicker.

So after scouting about in ebuyer.com I found:

£20 - Micro ATX case with 500W PSU

£75 - AMD A8 5600K 3.6GHz Socket FM2 Processor

£40 - Biostar HiFi A75S3 Socket FM2 motherboard

£40 - SanDisk 64GB Pulse SSD SATA III

£35 - 2 x 4GB DDR3 1866MHz RAM

£12 - Liteon DVD RW Drive SATA

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£222 - total!!!

So, when I get more money I can always:

1. Buy AMD 6670 graphics card
1. cheapest at the moment is £52
2. replace 8GB (2 x 4GB) with 32GB (2 x 16GB)
1. cheapest at the moment is £185!
3. Buy an AMD A10 5800K processor
1. currently £94

And these will be cheaper in the future.

I predict without the upgrades it'll last me 2 to 3 years (£220 / 3 = £73 per year), with the upgrades it'll last up to 5 years (hard to say what things will cost in 3 years time).

Just putting it together at the moment, will send some pictures and do some benchmark testing for games!

If anyone has any other recommendations, or perhaps what I should have done with the £250 then comment below.

Creatures - the game - fixes and docking station

Well, Jakeh has remembered the creatures game he played many years ago, and how much he enjoyed it. So I decided (he made me promise) to install the game on Windows 7. Doh! That was a mistake, doesn't seem to like Windows 7 as it was originally built for Windows 95. Even tried in compatibility mode!! Found this website which is the games development website involved in Creatures. They've got all the downloads. I tried one of the patches but something goes wrong with unzipping it.

I did find a free game download called "Creatures Docking Station" which looks like it'll work in newer versions. I installed it and it comes up with the game in the background, but in the foreground a username and password is required. The link for registering doesn't work. Only found out  a day later the registration website has moved to this. But after filling in the form it doesn't let me log in! So I've emailed them to sort it out. I did find some fixes for this common problem here. Although someone does say in the forum that it does work!!! I've not tried the fixes yet. I've also found there is a patch (crack) for the docking station.

I shall add to this blog when I find out more

3D Character Modelling for Games

Well, after some google searches I found some interesting ones, each using different techniques:

Tutorial using cylinders and a little extrusion:
http://www.creativecrash.com/tutorials/real-time-character-modeling-tutorial#tabs

Modelling a winged devil thing
http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorials/mudbox_character/

A comprehensive tutorial modelling by extrusion of a line
http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/head1.php


I think I prefer the ones which start from scratch but I shall have to give them a go.