For years, I've been using low-end hardware. Even the best PC I've ever had only had an Ati Radeon HD 4650, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, an Intel Pentium Dual-Core processor and a 300GB Hitachi hard drive. It died in summer 2014.
A year before its sudden death, I got a 2012 Fujitsu A512, which had a slightly worse GPU, slightly better CPU, more RAM and a more capacitive HDD. So the performance wasn't much of an upgrade. More like an insignificant downgrade.
After the old PC died, we got a 2007 Fujitsu S7210. Intel GMA X3100, 2GB of RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 and a 160GB HDD. Originally it belonged to my younger brother, until late 2015, when I stayed at my grandparents' for a week. My parents insisted that I let my brother use the A512 for the time being, and that I bring the S7210 with me.
It was a mistake. Or was it, really?
My brother got spoiled and couldn't stop using my 2012 laptop. He didn't want to switch back once I returned. And I've been using the 11-year-old laptop ever since.
Its performance was awful. Maps would take sometimes hours to compile, rendering videos in Sony Vegas would take ages even at 360p, games had horrible framerates. But it taught me an important thing: optimisation.
Optimisation is an art. You've got a bunch of polygons in a map, but are they all worth looking at? Some of them are unnecessary. Also, most of them aren't even visible when you're standing in some areas. My laptop pretty much advocated that. It's so satisfying when you make some changes to your level, and you gain 5 more frames per second. Additionally, the compiling times are reduced a lot. I once had a map compile for nearly 2h48m. I shortened it down to just 3 minutes by placing some hint brushes and turning some things into func_detail. Basically, VIS (the 3rd part of GoldSrc map compilation; calculates what polys are seen when) had too many portals to handle. I reduced the number of these portals drastically by changing some rocks into func_detail and adding hint brushes (imagine it as placing the portals manually).
So I would say it's a blessing in disguise, as one of my friends said on Discord.
And what now? Why the title goodbye? Am I no longer going to optimise?
Nope. I just drifted away from the topic a little bit. Here's the thing: I'm saying goodbye to my 11-year-old laptop.
It's not going anywhere. It's just getting retired, because a new worker is soon coming into its position. It's got a surprisingly good portfolio too:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600
GPU: Asus Cerberus GTX 1050 Ti
Memory: 8GB DDR4 RAM
Storage: 1TB HDD and 250GB Samsung 860EVO SSD
I've been waiting 5 years for this moment. The patience will finally pay off. I'll enter a new age, an age of prosperity, peace, high framerates, an age where my room won't get too hot due to the CPU temps, an age where the engine is the limit, no longer the hardware (to a certain extent).
See, I thought that my golden age was gone. When I was 9 and 10, those were the best days ever. I had that HD4650 PC, all my favourite games were there, I was buying PC Play magazines every week, and I had lots of free time. But now I understand that that was only the silver age, followed by a dark age. What happens next will be my true time to shine, hopefully. :]
So, in a few days, it will be time to say goodbye to my old Fujitsu S7210. You've served me well, comrade. Now await your retirement, 140 € a month it will be. :v
Great to hear you are getting something that will finally suite your needs c:
Indeed. I've always wanted to work in modern game engines ^^
Good to hear that! Still have to buy some parts for my PC though XD
You'll get them eventually. It took me 6 years since I wished to have a new PC, and it came true. xD