After starting as a games journalist in 1998, things have moved at a fast pace. Games consoles and computers have edged their way into peoples’ living rooms and the consciousness of the general public. Gaming is no longer a taboo, a thing for children that grown-ups dare not touch. The reason is simple: those who started playing games in the late eighties and early nineties have grown up. They have jobs and lives, but they have never given up on games as a hobby. The bottom line is that nowadays, games are an accepted form of entertainment among others.

The transformation of living rooms into entertainment centres has not been smooth, though. The traditional TV is a box that starts showing a program with the flip of a switch. Very simple, very elegant – a user interface anyone can learn.

Enter the consoles. I for one am a fan of nearly all the current games platforms out there. The Xbox with its hard drive and processing power is amazing, while PlayStation 2 holds a place in my heart with its host of exclusive titles such as Kingdom Hearts. Then again, when I host gaming evenings for friends, where would I be without my GameCube with its Monkey Balls and Smash Brothers? And to top it off, I’m a strategy fan of enormous proportions. I’m positive I could have built a life-size football stadium from matchsticks in the sheer amount of time I’ve poured over the various Civilization games. With that in mind, the trusty old PC is the way to go. Not to mention when I want first-rate FPS action.

I'm sure you're beginning to see the problem I and many other avid gamers face. With at least four devices hooked up, the amount of cables and devices is staggering. And I’m trying to keep my hardware headcount to a minimum. This is naturally relative talk, as I used to have six functioning computers in a LAN back in ’97. Be that as it may, I’m still faced with how to accommodate the army of games machines in a limited space.

This is basically the way I’ve arranged the equipment now. I’ve separated the gaming room into two areas – one for consoles and movies and the other for the computer. So far it has worked out rather well. The areas working independently from each other, but I get the most out of the equipment I use.

On the computer side I run two machines in low-noise Antec cases that are piled on top of each other. A P4 2,4 GHz platform with an Abit IC7 motherboard serves as my main gaming platform. I’m currently stuck with a low-end Radeon 9100, but will be upgrading it shortly. I use the other machine as a backup computer and file server – it’s housed in a larger tower case that is reasonably well ventilated. I use studio monitors and headphones for audio reproduction. The downside is that there’s no 3D sound, but you can’t have everything. As you can see from the foreground of the large picture, I also dabble with music every now and then. I have two 90’s digital era synthesizers (Korg X3 and Alesis Quadrasynth) that are hooked up to the main computer. I complement the sounds with virtual instruments on the PC.

I recently cleared room in my equipment rack by loaning out and giving away a few effects processor and a rack synthesizer I wasn’t particularly using. The biggest object in the middle is a Roland line mixer that I use to mix sounds from different sources. Those include the aforementioned synthesizers, computers, consoles, the video plus all manner of audio equipment that temporarily makes its way into the room on occasion.

As you can clearly see, game console manufacturers have a thing or two to learn from pro audio designers. By fitting into 19” racks, their usability would be greatly enhanced. Yes, I know, they wouldn’t sell ten units if they looked as boring as a rack synthesizer, but I could certainly appreciate a 2U 19” Xbox :)

My main nemesis in all setups is the dreaded cable spaghetti. You can see some cables hanging from the background, and I can assure you they don’t end there. Thumbs up to wireless hardware developers, they’re making life easier all the time. Logitech’s cordless controllers and Nintendo’s Wavebirds are generally better than the original non-cordless controllers that come with the machines. Plus they can be neatly stored in a box next the sofa, for example. Now if we could only have cordless electricity, it would all be swell.

One of the things I most often hear complaints about is switching video signals. It’s a pain in the posterior to constantly hook and unhook video cables. The situation is hardly helped by the fact that the rear area of most TV’s is cramped and you have to bend into unfathomable angles just to insert the end of a cable. I solved the problem by buying a relatively cheap VCR with three video inputs. The signal is forwarded from the video to the data projector via an s-video cable. A separate composite cable transfers the signal from the computer to the same destination in case I want to play a PC game on the big screen.

Here is the short story of how I set up my gaming gear and what problems I’ve faced. The one I sadly haven’t solved is how to teach my wife or friends to use the ever-changing mountain of obscure hardware – watching a DVD requires turning on no less that seven devices. Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all.

Cheers,

Kalle