UT3 on the PC? Not for me.

It's official - neither my 4-year-old desktop nor my 7-month-old laptop have the capability to run Unreal Tournament 3 without coughing and sputtering and looking like a 6-8 year-old game. In fact, UT3 crashed the video driver on my desktop three times in one session, forcing a reboot because even the 2D drivers were hosed. The laptop was a lark, since it wasn't chosen to be a gaming rig, but I was hoping for something better performance-wise. Instead, it looked just as grossly pixelated as the desktop did.

The cost of a new desktop gaming rig is going to be in the $2,000-$3,000 dollar range if I want something that's going to last me. It's not even a matter of just updating the video card, as most video cards are PCI-Express now, and my mobo predates that technology. (Oh, my little Asus A7N8X Deluxe, you were once the mobo of choice, back in 2003.) New 'board means new processor, new memory, and probably a new PSU and case as well. Could probably get by on the same hard drives and optical drives, but I'd want to start putting SATA drives in it and a DVD burner. Add it all up, and it's beyond my current price range. Maybe in six months, if I get that new job, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I have a Xbox 360 (yes, yes, the_buzzard, I'm a traitor), and it'll run UT3 just fine.