Show Us Your Rig: Divinity: Original Sin designer Farhang Namdar

Farhang Namdar, lead game designer of Divinity: Original Sin, uses three different computers all designed with a different purpose in mind, and has a great sense for interior design to boot. In fact, his living room PC molds so well into its surroundings that, at first, I thought he was just bragging about his immaculately furnished home. Farhang was gracious enough to take some time and show off the rigs he uses, along with the pets that inevitably crawl around them.

What's in your PC?

My work PC:

• Motherboard - Asus P9X79
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• CPU - QuadCore Intel Core i5-2400, 3200 MHz
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• HDD - Crucial M4-CT128M4SSD2, Samsung 1 TB
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• Cooling - Scythe Mugen 4
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• Memory - 8 GB Kingston DDR3-1333 (667 MHz)
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• Video - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580
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• Power Supply - Corsair 650M
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• Case - Antec One Hundred
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• Displays - Samsung SyncMaster 2243WM, Samsung SyncMaster 225BW(G)

Most interesting part of this setup is that my right screen can be rotated 90 degrees in order to play Ikaruga the correct way!

My home shooter PC:

• Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
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• CPU - QuadCore Intel Core i5-2500K, 3400 MHz
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• HDD - Crucial M4-CT128M4SSD2, Samsung 1 TB
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• Cooling - Scythe Mugen 3
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• Memory - 8 GB Kingston DDR3 1333 Mhz
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• Video - MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC 2 GB
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• Power Supply - XFX Core Edition 650W
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• Case - Cooler Master CM STORM ENFORCER
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• Displays - Samsung SyncMasterSA300

This setup can be seriously over clocked but I never needed to. Also this is the PC I do most of my intimate gaming on, stuff you need a headset for, mostly shooters and such. It's at a desk in my house making it a bit more serious, so all business related things happen on this PC as well.

My home HTPC/multiplayer PC:

• Motherboard - ASRock H67M-GE/HT
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• CPU - Intel Core i3 2100 processor 3100 MHz
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• HDD - Crucial M4-CT128M4SSD2, Samsung 1 TB
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• Cooling - Scythe Shuriken
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• Memory - 8 GB Kingston DDR3-1333 (667 MHz)
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• Video - XFX AMD HD 6950 2GB
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• Power Supply - Cooler Master G550M
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• Case - SilverStone SUGO SG02B-F
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• Displays - Panasonic Viera Plasma 52

This setup started as an HTPC just to view movies, general surfing and such. It was always meant to be connected to the Plasma TV to provide additional functionality, ease of use and entertainment (The PS3 was falling short in every department). I managed to get an AMD 6950 for 50 bucks off a colleague and an extra PSU. Now this setup provides multiplayer fun on the PC, there are four Xbox 360 joypads attached to it and an additional SFIV Tournament Edition Arcade Stick. Trying to relive the old multiplayer feeling in the living room. There are plenty of fun four player games out there. This PC is also the car simulator, there is a Logitech G25 steering wheel mounted on a Playseat connected to this PC.

All the other consoles including the Wii are connected to the TV with four DDR dance mats, guns, guitars, drums etc. However all the consoles do occasionally make a trip to the bedroom where a 42 inch Samsung LCD is located!

What's always within arm's reach on your desk?

A joypad or an arcade stick is really always there. The notebook is also a must, writing things down physically makes me remember them better. And for some reason a fly swatter, though I never really swat flies with it…

What are you playing right now?

Divinity: Original Sin, Shovel Knight, Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Metal Slug 3, Counter Strike GO, Ikaruga, OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, GRID, Contra 4 NDS. All these games except DOS are round based games or finite games, you die often when playing them and you can play them for a short time. It's very time efficient.

What's your favorite game and why?

I would have to say that my favorite game of all time is Shadowrun on the SNES, I really loved that game, the fact that it had keywords and you could talk to everybody. Everybody was hiding something, the music and the gritty cyber punk atmosphere of the game were very engaging. You could hire npcs to come fight with you, the locations were amazing. They had the hacking mechanic in there and the video phone as well, which was really cool too I mean this was 1993!