Cost of PC/Equipment has no bearing on ability to drive.
However, people that are more 'involved' with LFS tend to devote a large portion of their disposable income to their preferred hobby, namely the computer. Therefore it is only natural that you find people that are classed as aliens tend to have (statistically speaking) better set-ups.
Point I am making is that if somebody consecrates a lot of time to practice, then they will soon wear out 'normal' wheels, and will need a wheel with more durability, which just happens to cost a heck of a lot more pennies. (G25: €200, ECCI setup: €1800!!!!)
Furthermore, if they spend 6 hours a day or more at the screen, then they are going to want a very good image to look at...all this costs money..
Big question is, what comes first? Chicken or the Egg?...Alien or Ninja PC?
If someone had paid you instead I'd be impressed. However as it stands you are -1000 in your investment and have no WR to boast about either. Talk about bad entrepreneurial ventures.
Whilst my laptop isnt quite as quick as my PC, it plays most games - including LFS - perfectly fine. GeForce something or other and dedicated graphics ram. I'm not going to get an overclocker drooling - but to say laptops cant play games is usually the view held by those who didn't specify dedicated graphics ram (no fault with the end user really, it isn't often very clear on the specs)
I paid nothing and will pay nothing for a WR. Mainly because my luck would make it so that 10 minutes after I get a record it'll be crushed beyond my reach.
well if you had any hopes of playing criysis acceptably forget it but otherwise you should be fine for the most part... unless the screen has some ridiculous resolution
As for spending money on LFS? I already have a computer whether I race LFS or not, so I can't state I paid $xxx for LFS. I already had a wheel controller from past racing games, so I can't state I paid $xxx for LFS.
I did purchase a (cheap) graphics card to eliminate the onboard ATI chip usage. If simming, I am either racing LFS or flying FS9. So I guess since I don't need the gfx card for email or web surfing, I can say the gfx card cost is split between those 2 sims, at approximately a 60/40 split between them. So, I will say that I spent $42 in total for my LFS racing not including the cost of LFS.
The 40% of the cost of the gfx card for the flight simming is $28. But I did have to purchase a flight stick since I had not previously flown. The flight stick was $30, so total for flying would be $58 not including the purchase of FS9. More expensive than LFS.
You are way behind the times man, laptops have been churning out some good gaming systems for a long time now. Agreed a top end lappy will only be a low to mid end PC but they are capable and have been capable of gaming for years.
You need to stop being so prejudice and actually look at what is shipping with laptops these days.
I've got (what was) a pretty nice Laptop, when it was new. An Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMi. When I got it, I was blown away by the speed of it, gaming included. The problem with a laptop is not the initial speed of it, it's the relatively short life (comparatively speaking) they have compared to a conventional PC. This is due to the fact that they have sub-par cooling, a direct result of the tighter confines of the 'packaging.' Even with a laptop cooling dock they still can't keep as cool as a traditional computer, this leads to damaged hardware.
My laptop is now nearly 3 years old, and it's slow as all hell. That's not just because my PC blows it out of the water, either, it's because the hardware is just simply 'burnt out,' for lack of a better term. It's starting to fail (already had the power supply and mother board replaced, harddrive is going I think; it's constantly corrupting Windows system files) because it was used as if it were a PC - constant, daily usage including gaming, for 2 and a half years. Laptops just simply aren't designed for that.
That being said, they work for gaming.. just not in the long term.
As for my input on LFS? Well.. there's the family computer in the basement, which is all I had when I got S1 (and S2, I think...). Then there's my laptop, which was $2300 at the time. Then there's my PC that I got about 20 months ago, $2k flat, plus speakers and my G25. The G25 is the only thing I wanted for LFS, and it was a birthday present. So, my LFS investment is 24 pounds. I guess that doesn't buy you any WRs...
