This is not true.

I chose the Core 2 Duo E6850 because of its value for the money, but it's not the most powerful Core 2 CPU. The best performance-for-money right now is probably the 2.66 GHz E6750 for nearly US$100 less than the E6850, while the best performance may be the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Yorkfield 3.0GHz 12MB L2 Cache quad-core CPU at US$1070 (and twice the power consumption at 130W).

I actually didn't know the Wolfdale (E8000 series) CPUs were out. The E8400 certainly looks attractive at its current Newegg price of US$240, but it is so new you may have some difficulty finding a motherboard that will run it. Existing boards may require a BIOS update.



In that case, so do I!   


Power supplies have their output specs on a label on the case. You may need to remove the PSU if the label is on the top rather than the side.

Heh—I'm still running a 2.8GHz Northwood P4. My WinXP installation dates from December 2003.   

 


If I were in your situation, I would start by upgrading the power supply. It really isn't adequate for modern motherboards, being designed for older—old even—motherboards with ISA slots. How do I know this? Well, let's look at the specs:

+3.3V@30A
+5V@40A
+12V@18A
-5V@1A
-12V@1A
+5VSB@2.5A

Without going into an excess of detail, let's just say that these voltages represent the power feeds to different components in your PC:

• The +12V "rail" powers newer CPUs, devices like hard drives that use the large four-pin Molex connectors, and PCI-E slots and connectors.
• The +5V rail powers the PCI slots, the floppy drive, and older CPUs like the PIII, and also contributes to devices that use those big Molex plugs.
• The +3.3V rail powers RAM, the AGP slot, and some motherboard components.
• The -5V rail powers ISA slots.

So what does this mean? Note the whopping 40 amps on the +5V rail. You have only three PCI slots and you may not even have a floppy drive; you certainly don't have a Pentium III CPU. Therefore, 40A is overkill.

On the other hand, your +12V rail is powering your hard drives and optical drives, the CPU, and your PCI-E graphics board as well (and PCI-E boards draw considerably more wattage than do AGP boards), but can only offer up 18 amps (and note the efficiency of this unit is only about 65%, which is pretty poor). 18A for the +12V rail in this PC is woefully insufficient; you would like at least 30A, and doubling to 36A wouldn't be bad.

30 amps for the +3.3V rail is fine.

The -5V rail is useless, since that pin (18) on your motherboard is a ground line, not -5V, because there are no ISA slots on your motherboard.

This is a surprisingly expensive power supply considering its age and low efficiency; presumably what you're paying for are the modular cables, which, all else being equal, is not really a good idea because you lose some efficiency at the connections.

So what do you want? Your graphics board requires the 6-pin PCI-E power connection, so presumably it draws some significant power. You don't say what else you have in your PC but I'm guessing only one hard drive, one or two optical drives, and perhaps a modem, but no plug-in sound board or networking card. Even if you have a bit more than this, a quality unit in the 500W range should do the trick—I'm running three 10K rpm SCSI hard drives, two optical drives, a floppy drive, a modem, a sound card, a 2.8GHz Pentium IV, 2 GB RAM, an overclocked ATI X800GTO video board, and a bunch of case fans (and, until recently, a SCSI tape drive) with a 510W PSU from PC Power & Cooling with no problems whatsoever.   

Something like this SeaSonic SS-500ES ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 500W Power Supply would be a good choice, rated at >80% efficiency and with two 17A +12V rails (some would argue that single 34A rail would be better, but the latest ATX spec calls for two +12V rails, one for the motherboard and CPU and the other for peripherals). This is currently US$70 ($30 discount) with free shipping from Newegg. This is the same unit as the Antec Earthwatts EA500 for $10 less. Of course, if you're not in the US you'll need to find another supplier. Brands to look for are SeaSonic, some Antec (Earthwatts, for example), Corsair, Enermax, and PC Power & Cooling. There are a lot of really crappy power supplies on the market, so beware!

Here are the specs for the SeaSonic (note the absence of a -5V rail):

+5V@24A
+3.3V@24A
+12V1@17A
+12V2@17A
-12V@.8A
+5VSB@2.5A

If a new PSU designed for your hardware doesn't fix the problem, you may then wish to consider changing the graphics board. Wasn't the 6800 series among the nVidia products that had so many driver problems when running TS2? You may want to do a search of this site to see what you can turn up, as there was quite a bit of discussion about this and which driver versions to use.

Ah, it was fun. My only regret is that I can't build it for myself.

On further reflection, I guess I should have included links to each item.

Note the heavy discount on the power supply—a real bargain at $119.

Quite a few of these items included free shipping at the time I put together the list (06 February).

I present to you:  The $1400 MATY PC!
     

All prices current today at www.newegg.com.

SILVERSTONE Kublai Series KL02B Black Aluminum front panel, SECC body ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: KL02B
Item #: N82E16811163093
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
 In Stock 
$149.99  -$20.00 Instant    $129.99 

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - Retail
Model #: GA-P35-DS3L
Item #: N82E16813128059
Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy
In Stock
$89.99
 
GIGABYTE GV-RX387512H Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
Model #: GV-RX387512H
Item #: N82E16814125086
In Stock 
$219.99
 
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V EPS12V 610W Continuous @ 40°C Power Supply - Retail
Model #: Silencer 610 EPS12V
Item #: N82E16817703005
In Stock 
$199.99  -$80.00 Instant    $119.99
 
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6850 - Retail
Model #: BX80557E6850
Item #: N82E16819115028
In Stock 
$279.99  -$5.00 Instant    $274.99

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA1065 - Retail
Model #: BL2KIT12864AA1065
Item #: N82E16820148069
In Stock
Mail-in Rebate 
$114.99  -$25.00 Instant    $89.99
 
Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD740ADFD
Item #: N82E16822136033
In Stock 
$149.99

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD7500AAKS
Item #: N82E16822136131
In Stock 
$159.99  -$5.00 Instant    $154.99
 
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model LH-20A1L-06 - Retail
Model #: LH-20A1L-06
Item #: N82E16827106072
In Stock 
$35.99

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio VARPAK 7.1 Channels PCI Express Interface Sound Card - OEM
I just discovered this is not a "real" X-Fi, but a crippled version that offloads audio processing to the CPU. Avoid these Etreme Audio models!
Model #: 30SB082000000
Item #: N82E16829102016
In Stock 
$49.99
 
Subtotal: $1,315.90 $1265.91

You need to post the model and specs for the power supply. Wattage is less important than amps, regulation, and efficiency.

I suggest you read through this article:  Best Gaming Graphics Cards: February 2008. It covers the entire price range.

A few things to be aware of:

If you change from an nVidia board to an ATI board (or vice versa), you will need to boot into safe mode and remove every trace of the old drivers before you remove the old board and install the new one. ATI used to offer a tool for this, but afaik nVidia never has, so you may need a third-party tool, like Driver Cleaner. Even if you go from nVidia to nVidia, you may still need to remove all the old driver files before installing the new board.

If you have an older motherboard with an AGP slot, be aware that a lot of users are reporting significant problems with the drivers for the AGP versions of ATI's new HD series boards.

Many of the mid- to high-end PCI-E boards require a special power connector, so you will need either a new power supply or an adapter of some sort.

New power supplies come with a 20 + 4 motherboard connector for the current generation of motherboards. If you have an older board with a 20-pin connector, the +4 part can be separated or folded out of the way. This looks similar to the classic four-pin P4 connector, but it is different, and you cannot connect this to the P4 power socket on your older motherboard. There will be a separate P4 connector that should be marked as such in some way.

You may need to set aside USD50—80 for a new power supply. Some of the newer video boards draw more power than the CPU.

If you are in the US and can buy from Newegg:

This Corsair is a nice unit for the price (with rebate); I put one in Reggikko's PC last fall.

If you need a few more watts, this Antec Earthwatts unit is only $10 more; I put one of these in the PC of another member of the household a couple months ago.

This SeaSonic unit is virtually the same as the Antec, for the same price as the Corsair (due to a larger discount than the Antec receives).

To the best of my knowledge, all three of these PSUs are manufactured by SeaSonic, and they all qualify under the 80+ initiative for high efficiency. The more efficient your power supply, the fewer watts you need for the same power delivery to your components, the less power is drawn from the wall, and the less heat is pumped into your room.

You might be surprised at how many computer problems—including graphics issues—can be solved by a power-supply upgrade. The PSU may possibly be the most important component in your case, and is usually the crappiest if you haven't built the machine yourself.

Heh—that's the same motherboard I have.

You need an AGP card. I'm using a Radeon X800GTO (made by Sapphire). You probably can't find these anymore, though, except perhaps on eBay. AGP cards are disappearing, but even so getting one that will play TS2 well is going to be difficult for US$50. Your best bet is probably a Radeon X1650. The nVidia AGP models in that price range seem to have had some driver problems when running TS2.

The thing about getting XP on your computer is that the product key needs to match the version on the disk. For example, a product key for an XP Pro disk will not work with an installation from an XP Home disk.

Now, if you already have a legitimate XP disk that is the OS installation disk and not a "Recovery CD", you may be able to install WinXP on a new computer. Some OEM XP disks look for manufacturer-specific hardware (the motherboard BIOS) and some do not. For example, we have the XP disk that came with an HP desktop PC, and could not use it for a machine with a non-HP motherboard. However, I was able to get a functioning XP Home disk image via bit torrent and used that with the legitimate registration key we already had. The physical disk is just the delivery medium—what you buy from Microsoft is the user license, which we had. We just needed a disk that provided an installation that would accept our product key.

One of the reasons (but not the only reason) we can't use just any OEM XP disk for any PC is that some of these OEM versions of Windows do not require input of of the product key (this is the case for my HP laptop) or even activation iirc (again, I don't think the HP laptop required activation). But if you have a legitimate product key, all you need to do is find an installation disk that will work with your key.   

I don't think you would have any problems finding the necessary XP drivers from the various manufacturer's Web sites. You won't be able to use the recovery disc from another PC since it will have drivers for different hardware. Both XP and Vista ship with drivers that should run all the components in a new PC, although some will be generic drivers that won't tap all the capabilities of the hardware.

To be honest, I think the machine you linked to is overpriced by a fair amount for what you get. If you want control over your purchase, buy your machine from a local independent builder. Everyone works from the same stock of components anyway, except for some of the big vendors that use proprietary parts for some things (motherboards and power supplies most often). It may not be cheapest option, but if you get a good builder, you should be able to get the parts you want.

Not long ago I but together a shopping list for a new machine for a friend of mine. What you would pay for something like this from a local builder is hard to say—on the one hand, these are retail prices (although discounted) while your builder should be getting wholesale prices; on the other hand, the builder is going to include a markup on the parts plus the cost of labor and configuration (in other words, it is probably cheaper to buy the parts and assemble them yourself. but the builder will have installation disks for XP).

All prices in US dollars. Prices from Newegg on 03 January.

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: CAC-T05-WW
Item #: N82E16811119077
Mail-in Rebate
$54.99    -$10.00 Instant      $44.99
Comment:  Bought one for Reggikko's PC; very nice for the money.

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Model #: GA-P35-DS3L
Item #: N82E16813128059
$99.99
Comment:  All Motherboard models seem to have their share of  bad units. This one seems to have fewer, and has connectors for legacy devices like parallel printers. Uses Intel's new P35 chipset.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6750 - Retail
Model #: BX80557E6750
Item #: N82E16819115029
$189.99
Comment:  Currently the best bang for the buck in a Core2 Duo (Quad core is unnecessary for your purposes).

MSI NX8600GT-T2D256E OC GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Model #: NX8600GT-T2D256E OC
Item #: N82E16814127286
Mail-in Rebate
$99.99
Comment:  AMD seems to have killed ATi as a quality brand. The new DX10 HD2xxx boards appear to have lousy drivers (at least for AGP)—welcome to the old ATi. As much as it pains me, I have to recommend nVidia for a current, DX10-capable video board. If you make the move to PCI-E, be sure your board has DDR3 and not DDR2 memory.

SeaSonic SS-500ES ATX12V 2.2 /EPS12V 2.91 500W Power Supply - OEM
Model #: SS-500ES
Item #: N82E16817151040
$99.99    -$30.00 Instant      $69.99
Comment:  Not much name recognition in the US, but popular in Europe. Manufactures for proment brands--Corsair, Antec, Silverstone. This is an 80%+ efficiency model, the new trend in PSUs. Similar to Antec's Earthwatts series (made by SeaSonic).

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - Retail
Model #: TWIN2X2048-6400C4
Item #: N82E16820145034
$87.00    -$10.00 Instant      $77.00
Mail-in Rebate
Comment: Good price for quality PC2 6400 RAM. Check motherboard manufacturer's Web site for compatibility
   
Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD740ADFD
Item #: N82E16822136033
$149.99
Comment:  Not enormous, but the fastest SATA drive you can buy. Use it for the OS and apps (I doubt you have 60 Gigs of application files). Don't worry about your SATA drives not having NCQ (native command queuing); it actually slows down data transfer on a single-user desktop system.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD5000AAKS
Item #: N82E16822136073
$104.99    -$5.00 Instant      $99.99
Comment:  A good blend of capacity, performance, and low power consumption, with a better warranty than the Samsung SpinPoint T series.
   
Subtotal:    $831.93

Drop the Raptor and go with a single drive to knock $150 off the price. I did not include a DVD writer, which is about $30.

I would like to suggest unpinning this thread, as I am not inclined to keep it current. If someone else wants to take over, that's fine with me. Otherwise I think it should be left to sink down the list like any other thread.

Of course, if you wish to keep it as a catch-all repository for hardware discussion, that's fine too. I will change the subject heading to remove the date.

In addition, if the RAM already in the machine is PC2700, your new RAM should also be PC2700.

If your new module is a 1GB module, just use that one in slot 1 and leave the other one out. If that works properly, try adding the old module in slot 2. Personally, I have never had any problem mixing RAM sizes, and I've been doing this since 1991.

Note that in your computer, RAM slot 1 and RAM slot 2 are not adjacent. The slots are paired as 1 & 3 and 2 & 4. If you have only two modules, they go in slots 1 and 2.

The module connector strip is keyed, so it fits only one way. Make sure not to try to force it in backward. The module is fully seated when the retaining clips snap into position. On some motherboards, this requires more force than might seem safe.

Make sure you didn't accidentally buy an ECC module.

The free utility CPU-Z is useful for identifying the components in your PC, including motherboard, CPU, and RAM.

Heh--I had one of those too. Didn't need a CP/M board, but I had a Hercules display adapter so I could see italics and such in PieWriter. When I was no longer doing that work, I had to sell it to pay my income taxes (self-employed), but it and my Star Micronics dot-matrix printer remained in service for years afterward, printing product and tracking labels for a company that made cardiac catheters, using absurdly primitive BASIC routines I wrote for printing the labels.

My first programming experience was in a CS course coding Fortran IV on punch cards to run on a Burroughs 6800 (I sucked at it).   


Okay, wait. My PC takes several minutes to boot, and I don't have all that stuff—I actually know what I'm doing. But, um, my XP install does date from December 2003. . . .   

Despite the large number of files in the list, I am fairly selective in what hacks I use, so a number of popular hacks are not here.

I also encountered this problem with TwoJeff's Dorm Gender Controller. FYI.

Have you considered removing any community-lot-related hacks? What about removing all hacks, and putting them back a few at a time?

According to the motherboard specifications for this model (ASUS A7V8X-LA), your PC has on-board video. Make sure this is disabled. If one of the choices in the Primary Video Adapter setting is "onboard," then choosing AGP will disable the on-board video. If that is not one of the choices, you will need to look elsewhere. You should be able to download the user manual for this motherboard from the ASUS Web site (you may need to use the main Taiwan site rather than the US site); this will have a complete description of all the BIOS settings and where to find them. Note that manufacturers like HP often use custom BIOSes, so your Setup screens may not be exactly the same as those shown in the ASUS manual.

Then open Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and uninstall any references you see to VIA UniChrome graphics or something similar.

EDIT:  But do not uninstall the VIA chipset drivers!

I having trouble keeping track of who is doing what with the game on their laptops, so bear with me.   

TS2 is not designed for laptops, therefore, compromises are to be expected. This not to say it can't be run on a laptop, or that all laptop users will experience problems (please read that again); but if you run into problems it should not come as a surprise.

First off, be aware of the minimum specifications for the game, which can vary from EP to EP. These are in the readme.txt file installed with every EP (found in EA GAMES\The Sims 2 [your latest expansion here]\Support\en-us (if you are in North America). For Pets, the relevant section reads as follows:

Supported video cards:

  NVIDIA GeForce series (GeForce2 GTS and better)
    GeForce 2, 2 GTS
    GeForce 3, 3 Ti
    GeForce 4, 4 Ti, 4200, 4600, 4800, MX 420, 440, 460
    GeForce FX 5200, 5500, 5600, 5700, 5800, 5900, 5950
    GeForce PCX 5300, 5900
    GeForce 6200, 6600, 6800
    GeForce 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950

Note there is no mention of the GO series, just as in the ATi section there is no mention of the Xpress line of laptop video controllers. The GO 7000 series was released in January 2006, while the readme for Pets is dated September 2006, so it is unlikely that its omission from this list is a mere oversight. I believe EA has made clear that TS2 is not intended for laptops, hence the Sims Stories series.

Note also that the GO 7400 shares system RAM with the CPU, and has only a 64-bit memory interface (compared to the 256-bit interface--the "highway" for transferring data in and out of video memory--in any decent desktop graphics controller) which could significantly affect game performance, perhaps even texture rendering. To be honest, this was a low-mid part, so you can't expect a lot from it (although it is certainly more capable than the Intel 915 Extreme Graphics in my business laptop, which, with a 1.6 GHz Centrino CPU, will only run the base game and Uni, and without much graphics pizazz).

Running the game at a non-native resolution could also lead to unintended graphical anomalies; I frankly don't know if it places additional strain on the graphics controller, partly because I don't know whether the re-rendering of the display image to the non-native resolution is done by the video controller or the circuitry of the display itself (which I think is what happens in my desktop LCD). I also don't know, but strongly suspect, that running in Windowed mode also adds some strain to the overall system, and might also contribute to graphics anomalies.

For most games most of the time, running full-screen at native or recommended resolutions is the way to go.

From the system requirements for The Sims 2 Seasons:

NOTE: If you have a non-T&L capable video card, such as Intel Extreme Graphics, then you need at least a 2.4 GHz processor.

I suggest you read the Read Me file that is installed with every expansion. It is full of useful information about the hardware you need to run the game. The more recent expansions have steeper requirements than the base game and Uni.

According to the specifications, the native resolution of the 17-inch WUXGA display on this model is 1920x1200. I think I would go blind!   

You can find the specs here.



Sorry! I didn't intend to suggest you did. I think we've all seen examples of this on download sites, and this is my guess for why it occurs. I was just using it as an example.

Is this fix still required for the current Pets patch (which I assume is P2)?


NECROMANCY IS BAD, M'KAY?



Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 30 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Yes, this symptom is typically the result of some incompatible object—for example, an object made with Seasons installed when you don't have Seasons yourself.

As you've discovered.   

Rereading the original post, I suspect that the image showing the on-screen anomalies was taken with a digital camera—she says that the first image is her screen capture, which shows a normal screen image.

As you suggest, this is what we would expect. The screen capture is going to be what the video controller is sending to the monitor, not what the monitor's interpolation circuitry is sending to the screen. If the anomalies appeared in the screen capture, we would know the problem lies upstream, in the video controller (or its drivers) or the game itself, for example.


But which model is it? The manual should be available on one of Sony's Web sites.


As Pescado suggested, this is probably the native resolution. I don't know for certain, but I don't think LCD displays can be driven at resolutions higher than native. That must be some giant screen for a laptop—my 19-inch desktop LCD runs at 1280x1024 (I run the 19-inch CRT at 1280x960 to maintain the proper aspect ratio). Either that, or everything on the screen is minuscule. To be honest, the two times I have bought laptop computers, I've made sure to get one with a resolution no higher than what I find comfortable for viewing, which means I end up with machines that some would consider "inferior" because they don't have the latest and highest (and most unreadable) native resolutions. It took me long enough the adjust to 1280x1024 on this LCD after years of using 1024x768 on 17-inch CRTs; when I bought a laptop for work a couple years ago, I stuck to 1024x768 on a 15-inch screen. I don't mind giving up some display "real estate" in the interests of readability.


This is as expected. The screen captures are what the video controller sends to the display, before the monitor's circuitry modifies the image to fit the screen at the selected resolution. Again, CRTs and LCDs work differently, and what works fine on a CRT may not work so well on an LCD. So now your saying, "But then, why would sims that appears smooshed on-screen also appear smooshed in screen captures?", my thought is that this is because you set the resolution for game in the game, so it is sending a pre-sized image to the video controller. The controller sends this on to the display, and if the game resolution is not appropriate for the monitor, the sims (and other objects) won't appear in their proper proportions. They appear this way in screen captures also, because the "distortion" is already present in the image the video controller receives from the game.


Personally, I've never seen an LCD display running at a non-native resolution that didn't give me a headache because of the blurry text (and everything else). Of course, I don't use ClearType either because it makes on-screen text blurry also, as if out of focus. Out of curiosity, do you do your own artwork on this machine at a non-native resolution? I ask because if you do, I wonder how you know what it really looks like. I could never edit photographs at a non-native resolution; although in truth I find LCD displays inadequate for photo editing anyway, even my mid-high level monitor. Of course, I've never seen (and certainly can't afford) one of those dedicated graphics LCDs like the Eizo ColorEdge CG211 (US$2716 from CDW), which are claimed to eliminate the traditional shortcomings of LCDs in displaying fine tonal gradients, especially in shadow areas. Wait—let me check these lottery tickets. . . .   

I ended up choosing the Corsair VX450w high-efficiency unit for Reggikko's PC. It's a new model on the market, built by Seasonic, a brand well-regarded in Europe. Although new, it is getting quite favorable reviews from sites that do proper, thorough testing with a gaggle of specialized test equipment. The specifications are good, especially for efficiency, although not quite a match for the PC Power & Cooling unit is it replacing. This is the first non-PCP&C power supply I've bought, but the current model (Silencer 470 ATX) is not as well-spec'ed as the one that is being replaced (Silencer 400 ATX); and while a pioneer in the high-quality PSU field, PCP&C seems to be losing some of its edge in the engineering and construction area, at least in its low-end models—the Turbo-Cool 510 ATX in my PC is quite a bit more impressive than either of the Silencers or the Corsair, albeit at more than twice the price:

Turbo-Cool 510 ATX:
+5V @ 40A
+12V @ 34A/38A
-5V @ 0.3A
-12V @ 2A
+3.3V @ 30A
+5VSB @ 3A
continuous = 510W
peak = 650W
Regulation:  1% (+3.3, +5, +12) / 5% (-5, -12)
Ripple:  0.5% (p-p)
Hold Time:  20ms
PG Delay: 300ms

Corsair VX450w:
+5V @ 20A
+12V @ 33A
-12V @ 0.8
+3.3V @ 20A
+5VSB @ 2.5A
regulation unspecified
efficiency up to 85%
active PFC

As a comparison, the Silencer 400 ATX that is being replaced due to start-up problems has these specs:

+5V @ 40A
+12V @ 20A
-5V @ 0.3A
-12V @ 1.0A
+3.3V @ 40A
+5VSB @ 2.0A
continuous = 400W
peak = 450W
Regulation: 3% (+3.3, +5, +12)

If I had gone ahead and tried to fix this problem last year when I bought the motherboard I installed earlier this week (thinking that was the source of the problem), the Silencer 400 ATX would have still been under warranty.   

Oh yeah, now I need to buy a new UPS to replace the 14-year-old APC Back-UPS 400 it's been running on.

It will be in your owner's manual. What model do you have?

It used to be that 12-13-inch laptop screens were typically 800x600; 14-15-inch screens were 1024x768, and larger ones were 1280 x 960 or something similar. But with the advent of wide-screen models, resolutions are all over the place. A 15-inch wide-screen model could be 1680x1050, 1920x1200, 1280x800, 1440x900, etc. The "recommended' resolution for your laptop will be the native resolution.

Note that the game will only look its best if you use one of the resolutions available in the video controls. I don't think it supports many, if any, wide-screen modes. Ever notice how some sims in custom-creators' screen captures look too short and too wide? I'm betting they're using the wrong resolution for their monitors.