Building the Ultimate Gaming System VII

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is the ultimate Microsoft Office killer. Made by Sun, the people who made the popular programming system Java, it combines Java and your basic needs to make a cross-platform, cross-system office system that replaces EVERYTHING Microsoft Office could do- from spreadsheets to basic word typing.

Of course, this is just for us students, but I've found it helpful even in the sense of reading tutorials, e-books, and the like. However, because it runs on Java, it has a tendency to suck up system resources. Not too much, but people on a very crappy computer may find it slow- still no slower than Microsoft Office.

PSP/Photoshop/GIMP

This is absolutely necessary if you're going to do modding, go to forums... just about anything. These allow you to edit images that you find- from texture maps in video games to someone's stupid picture online. I pop open Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop every day for one reason or another, be it to edit a picture for a friend, or just screw around with a website template.

Between the three, GIMP is free, therefore GIMP is the best. However, if you're willing to put out some cash, I still would reccomend looking toward the "Little brother" program Paint Shop Pro. While I do a TON of work with images for websites, I absolutely detest Photoshop. Paint Shop Pro was designed to be as easy to Windows users as possible, while Photoshop is so obviously geared toward Apple platforms. In that, the ability to right click, or small little abilities get in the way with Photoshop, whereas in Paint shop Pro, you can be cranking out things faster.

Still, it's a matter of preference. Photoshop is $600. PSP is $80. Take your pick.

ATI Catalyst or some similar program and the latest DirectX

Okay, time to tell you my situation. My room, with my computer, is in an attic room of an old house. Because of the old structure and the placing of the attic, it gets really hot up here. REAAALY hot. So, that leaves me in a sucky position where I have to watch my computer heat.

ATI Catalyst, while it sucks up some of my RAM, has saved my ass more than one time. In game development, I've sometimes run into scripts that will needlessly page into my Video RAM, or some shit like that. ATI Catalyst features some extremely useful features that monitor my Video Card heat and, if it starts getting too high, cuts it down.

I would reccomend getting this if you're an ATI user, or finding a similar equivelant if you run nVidia cards. Even if you're not overclocking doesnt mean that overheating can't happen.

Macromedia Flash Player

(Note: This comes with the Kazaa Lite Codec Pack, or at least the version I got)

This allows you to play Flash games/movies in a nice little window instead of firing up your browser. While it's not much, it's kinda nice in it's own little way. Of course, it's kinda unnessesary if you don't save flash files.

WinRAR

You absolutely need this no matter what. WinRAR integrates into the Windows shell, allowing you to easily manipulate .rar, .zip, .tar, .tar.gz files, and even more types to your will. Instead of having to deal with multitudes of stupid programs, it allows you to unzip any of them, saving yourself a lot of time.

And it's all there in your right-click dropdown menu when you right-click a supported file. Aint that grand.

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