Gaming – Page 3 – Paul's Notepad

New Desktop Purchase

Paul Darr / 2016-03-23 / Leave a Comment

I’ve had my old system for over six years now and I felt it might finally be time for an upgrade. So I have been searching NewEgg and doing a few test builds for what hardware I might want at the right price. Today the stars aligned and a few components came on sale at the same time. I like to keep a low budget yet have a system capable of doing all the tasks I need. So that influenced some of my decisions.

For the processor I liked the price and multitasking of this:
AMD FX-8300 Vishera 8-Core Socket AM3+ 95W FD8300WMHKBOX Desktop Processor

For the motherboard I liked the price and features of:
MSI 970A-G46-R AM3+ AMD 970 + SB950

For memory I decided to go with:
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB)

I also decided to get a new case:
DEEPCOOL TESSERACT WH Mid Tower Computer Case

I’ll reuse the video card that I recently upgraded my old system with:
MSI Computer Video Graphics Cards N730K-2GD5LP/OC

I’ll also reuse the power supply and SSD from that system.

All the new components for the system cost me $247. So that will be $2 than my old build that also reused parts, though not the same reused ones.

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PAX South 2016

Paul Darr / 2016-01-31 / Leave a Comment

So PAX South was pretty fun yesterday. I went with two other friends and I was glad we only did one day after getting tired out there. Click on the pictures below for larger images.

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Shield making: Part 1

Paul Darr / 2015-08-30 / 1 Comment

I spent some time today making wooden shields for Joseph Darr’s birthday. After they dry I plan to paint one to look like a combination of the Hylian shield and Links wooden shield. The others will get the initial of the family names for his guests.

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Bring your game to the next level

Paul Darr / 2015-07-17 / Leave a Comment

A few years ago I ran into a problem with our D&D games played at our dinner table. With all the character sheets, food snacks and books; we had little space for a gaming grid. I’m a fan of having more space, so I decided to look into gaming tables. If you have looked yourself, you probably noticed they can get pricey. I didn’t have the budget for that so I went the DIY route. With my first attempt I just made the table larger using a sheet of MDF for game nights. This worked but it made it difficult to reach across the massive table for battle maps.

I decided I wanted to take a different approach. As I did a few Google searches I found a few designs of using a second table on top of the primary table. I went out and built a small table on a small budget and this design works great. Now we have a dedicated space for the battle grip, miniatures and few other items. The remainder of our items can now sit nicely under and to the sides of the table, making things much less cramped. There are several ways to make a small table. You can re-purpose an Ikea side table or you can go completely DIY. I built mine for less than $20 in lumber and it suits my needs well.

Lumber list:
2 ft x 4 ft Plywood $9.97

2 in x 2 in x 8ft Furring Strip $1.95 a piece

1 in x 3 in x 8ft Furring Strip $1.77 a piece

This project actually took very little cutting. The plywood was already the size I needed and had the eight foot boards cut down to four foot lengths before leaving Lowes. I used one set of the 2×2 inch to create a simple rectangle below the plywood. I then placed the legs at the corners. If the plywood is thick enough to be sturdy on it own, you might not need this. I used a thin/light plywood so I wound it up needing a bit of a frame and it gave me a second point to anchor my table legs into. After using the table for a while, I decided it needed a lip, to stop dice from rolling off. That’s where the 1×3 inch wood came in. I just attached it to the outside of the existing frame.

I also built my dining room table but that is another blog post.

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