ROI and FPS

Half of this post will make absolutely no sense to many of you, mainly because it's got nothing to do with poker.

This week marked the release of id Software's Doom 3. I'm blogging about this mainly because computers and computer games used to be the addiction that's currently occupied by poker. I've been playing games like Doom and Quake since 1994 when Doom was first released.

Those of you familiar with these games know that they fall into the category of "First Person Shooters." The name is derived from the fact that your perspective during gameplay is from the eyes of the player, the only part of your own body you can see is the hand holding your weapon. Obviously the weapon part is where the "Shooter" comes in.

These games and upgrading computer hardware tend to go hand in hand and Doom 3 is no exception. When the first Doom game came out, it was not uncommon to hear stories of people buying entire new computer systems just to play that one game. Personally, I remember upgrading video cards when Quake 1 came out and again when Quake 2 came out.

So it was with a bit of hesitation that I bought Doom 3 yesterday. Mainly because my current main computer may be woefully inadequate to play this game without stuttering and pauses. Many of these games come with built in benchmarks so you can assign a numerical score to how well your system can play the game. Basically, you'd run what's called a "timedemo" and the game would spit out a total score measured in "frames per second." FPS, first person shooter and frames per second.

Let me just say that my current system running Doom 3 scored in the low 20's. That's barely playable my friends. To put things in perspective, modern motion pictures run at a constant 30 fps. My score in Doom 3 is an average score and into that average are periods of faster and slower gameplay. A more appropriate measure may be min fps during the timedemo. If this were the case, my machine defintely drops into single digits and it is during these times where the game becomes nearly unplayable.

What does that all mean? I need to upgrade my computer. Again.

*****

The title of this post mentioned ROI and here is where I can get back into poker content. After reading pokernerd's (see link to right) sit and go strategy guide, I've decided to keep track of my performance during such tournaments.

So far, I've played in 14 $10 SNG's. My results: 5 firsts, 2 seconds and 4 thirds. That's 11 out of 14 placements, yielding an ROI (return on investment) of 153%. This is obviously unsustainable, but every now and then I need to toot my own horn so I seem like I'm actually decent at poker. I'm also sure that blogging about it will jinx me, but what the heck, I'm feeling frisky.

I'll have a post up probably tomorrow as I've got another home game this evening. Hopefully my winning trend will continue and I can win enough to buy that video card for my PC that I so badly need.