WOLF'S 101:- HARDWARE CENTRE

Hey guys! So I'll be starting a series on understanding different hardware that come together to make our PCs. And there will be buying advice!

Articles published in this article lineup will be listed here after they are published.

WOLF'S 101: What To Do With Old PCs

After a while, your trusty PC is bound to get old and outdated. With newer and newer hardware being released every month, the time for which 'latest' PCs are actually latest decreases dramatically. So you would soon find your PC unable to cope up with the evolving hardware world.
 So, then you get carried away with the new flash GTX 970, while your current GTX 560TI holds no value now; or that new i5 6500 has made its home in your mind? You must either be looking to upgrade your current PC with new hardware, or build an entirely new PC from scratch (in which case I recommend you worm your way to the EGC Community for further guidance. I gave been a Moderator of the community and can vouch for it).

  This guide is aimed at the latter, the newbie PC builders, who just don't know what do do with your old PC. This guide aims at making you understand how you can make good use of your old glory box and make the most out of it. You can sell it and stop reading this guide. But if you don't wanna sell it (and I recommend that you don't), keep on reading! So let us begin!!!

1. Setting Up Your Old PC

So you got an old PC sitting in the corner gathering dust? Or you have just built that new gaming destructo-rig, but the old PC is sitting in the garage? Well, get that baby out of its retirement and back to 24/7 work!

Salvaging Parts:

Could be that your old PC still holds treasure, like a set of good 4GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM, which you can use in your new PC. You would want to leave older RAM/Hardware inside your old PC if they are more thsn 5yr old. And if you want to use that old PC, you should leave the bare minimum inside it.

 After you have done it, and either have a useless old box or a usable PC left (we need the latter!), proceed to the next step.

Cleaning Your PC:

First of all, move all your data from your older PC to the newer PC. This is because you are going to do a fresh install of Windows or vice versa on it! 

 So after you have moved, insert your install disc or whatever you have and install it. NOTE. Format all your drives.

Wolf's 101 Tips:- I recommend you merge all drives into one partition and then install your OS on it. This tip is only for what we are going to do with that old glory box next. Its your call anyway.

After you have that fresh install, and your PC is digitally shining brand new, proceed to the next step.

2. Choosing Its Role

So now we are going to choose what to do with this PC:

A. An Emulation Machine 

Emulate all those oldies and retros on your PC! 

B. A Torrent Hub 

Download/Upload Torrents 24/7.

C. A Compression Box 

Use your new PC, while your old one handles all those UHARC/KGB compressions.

D. An Encoding Powerhouse 

Let your old PC slow down to a crawl for long whiles, encoding your hour long movies, while you game blazing fast in your latest gizmo.

E. A Multimedia Showpiece

Transform your old PC into a Multimedia device. Let it be the star of all those movie nights!

An Emulation Machine

This is one of the best choices. These days, we can simulate other systems on our PCs to either run those platform specific files, OR PLAY THOSE OLD PLATFORM EXCLUSIVE GAMES!!! Want to play your favourite NES games? Download an emulator! Want to play Pokemon Black? Download no$GBA or DeSuMe (both emulators). There are a ton of resources out there, and I would try to compile a good enough reference.

But why only Windows Emulators?

Reason!

 So here it goes:

Resources:

Wolf's 101 Tips:- I mostly don't emulate on PC. Android, people. If this article hadn't been only about PCs, I would have mentioned them.

1. Emuparadise:- This is where you grab all those games. For trial purposes ofcourse. You should always buy the game, but still try this site out. It has reference for emulators as well.

2. no$GBA:- There it is. My favorite DS emulator! Its fast, its cool, and its free.
Here's a pic:

3. Visual Boy Advance:- Thats my favourite GBA emulator. Same as above.

4. DOS Box:- Emulate DOS. Duh. Find the games yourself. Lol.

5. ePSXe and PCSX2:- Former for PSX, Latter for PS2. Consider the first only. Imho that old box can't handle PCSX2. Its resource heavy.

6. Dolphin:- An add-on/plugin heavy emulator, it can be used to emulate GameCube/Wii, as well as a number of other systems.

7. RetroArch:- Its as retro as it gets. It can emulate over a wide variety of systems. It is based off the concept of "cores" .i.e. sorta mini emulators that the program uses to emulate what we want.

A Torrent Hub

If you don't know what torrents are, Google is your friend. Then come back here later.

 Hey! Back already? So let us continue! 

  By turning that old PC into a Torrent Box, you are actually doing the best thing on the planet (if you are an extensive torrent user ofcourse. In that case, skip this section. You already know what to do). Now, your are using that old hunk to do something useful .i.e. FOR DOWNLOADING HUGE TORRENTS 24/7/365/WHATEVER! 

Resources:

You should get started by downloading the best torrent client ever (opinionated). Its Bittorrent.

1. Download Bittorrent

Now that we have a torrent client, we want...guess what...TORRENTS! #xD

 Here I have compiled one of the best torrent sources:

1. TORRENTZ:- This site redirects you to where what you want is.

 Now for the bigger picture.

2. KICKASS TORRENTS:- Its just kickass.

3. ExtraTorrent:- *cough*PIRATES*cough*. No ale or prisoners. Its all of the latest flicks.

You *should* not pirate (laughs)

4. PIRATEBAY:- Savvy, can't get the link but..(Goog is your friend).. MAKE WAY FOR TORTUGA! This thing is the godfather of all sites. Its the tavern for pirates from all over the world. Let the Black Flag fly! But rest assured:

A Compression Box

Compression is the way of the judicious. Way of the pirate. Way of the file sharer. Way of whatever. Its also a long process. Way too long in some cases. Tick that max compression box and your PC becomes unusable. But we have another PC to bear the power of compression, while you enjoy your latest games and gizmos on your new PC.

Resources:

1. WinRAR:- Its a pretty good tool. And by far the easiest to work with too. Absolutely recommended for the beginner.

2. 7-Zip:- A little more advanced, but great once you aren't the noob you once were. I like WinRAR for its ease of use and pretty straightforward "want it, get it" attitude. But I equally like 7-Zip's raw power. Its high compression ratioes are just a minor example. It can be tweaked to compress like hell.

3. KGB Archiver:- We just talked about how high 7-Zip compression ratioes are. Well, KGB's are just INSANE! I recommend this baby in your Compression Box as a MUST! It takes far too much resources to perform compressions, but its worth it. Ever. Single. Second. Couple this thing up with one of the two above (WinRAR imho), and your Compression Box goes out perfectly. Dud I tell you that this guy pwns your machine more than Crysis 3 pwns an Intel Pentium? So if your PC goes to a crawl, don't freak out!

4. Universal Extractor:- I like to call it the Everything Extractor. It extracts every single file archive. Its a pain in the ass for a newbie, but its my regular cup of tea. You guessed that already, right? 

An Encoding Powerhouse

Encoding. If you are a ytuber, you exactly know what I mean. Whether you own a copy of Sony Vegas Pro or not, enciding is still a tedious, but necessary process. 

Resources:

1. Sony Vegas Pro:- You knew it to be here? Right? Why shouldn't it be? Its the best video editing cum compressor. It takes time though, and it ain't free.

2. Handbrake:- I love Handbrake. Its the most versatile software I ever used in the encoding scene. The formula to insane vid compression is Handbrakin' (word of the day) WLMM (Windows Live Movie Maker) outputs.

A Multimedia Showpiece

You can also use your old PC to manage all your vids/pics. Just download Plex. 

CONCLUSION

So here was my guide to what to do with your old PC. After reading this, you should emerge as an enlightened being. Alright joke! But it will definatelt help you! 

If I left something out, free to let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading! See you in the next article!

The To-Do List!

Alright. This is what I aim to accomplish in the near future:
1. Use torrents like a boss. THIS JUST NEEDS TO BE PORTED.
2. LoneWolf's twin graphics theory. 
3. Of dragons and men. 
4. How to make the perfect RPG.
5. Controllers vs. Keyboard+Mouse. Till death!
6. Retro is still fun!
7. Crysis 3: Still a monster?
8. Definitive guide to pc game settings.
9. How to start modding your games like a boss.
10. Rogue-like games. In a nutshell.
11. An introduction to Transcendence.
12. Jump, duck, FIGHT! What makes a fighting genre game so awesome!
13. Revise and Revisit all other posts from the original blog at EGC.
14. How to boost internet connection. (Thanks to my friend Antonio).

Any more ideas are as welcome as pie.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

NEWS UPDATE !!! BLOG MIGRATION!!!

Ahem... Hey ye new readers and some old ones (if any)! As it is to be declared in the EGC Blog as well, I am going to migrate that blog to this new site. The reason? I DON'T GET ANY VIEWS OUT THERE! And to top that off, all the migrated articles are NOT going to be mere copy/pastes or HTML/copy/pastes or whatever, but REVISED AND REVISITED EDITIONS! Also, all thd new articles posted here would have a mirror on the EGC blog as well! So I hope you enjoy the new avatar!
-TheLoneWolf