Pandora

Well... it sucks. I'm sorry, but it really does if you ask me. And yes, I've got a the leaked version. Which is the version that's gone gold. Anyway, let's start of with the graphics, they're absolute crap. You know how most games that you install, you first have the crank up the settings (as they always start on either medium or low). Well, that's what I wanted to do. I was like bleh, uglyness. Let's quicly crank up those settings. So I open the menu for graphics and I was absolutely shocked to see it was actually already running at max. God. Really, Half Life 2, a game of 2004, looks lighyears ahead of Sims3. Beh, at least the fps would be rock steady, right? Well.. don't think you're going to get 200 fps with this game. No. I've got no idea at what it's actually running, but what I do know is that this game has a horrible Vsync problem and frame drops now and then, for no obvious reason at all. So, the engine is absolute crap, ok. The camera is pretty shitty too, but on the bright side, it is much better than the one of the Sims 2. Bye bye loading screens, those are history too (well, for a part). It does add up to a good experience. Other then that, just more options, better sound (yeah) and a nice 'wish' and personality system. Gameplay has improved, yes. Much better. But I just can't get over the graphical flaws. Like, please, at least just a Vsync. Just so it won't hurt the eyes. If they come with that, yeah, I'm sure the fans will be very happy and even people like me might like it a bit.

OEM versions of Kaspersky just cost 30 EUR here. Probably 30 pounds for you then. Online shops usually have it. It's totally worth the money and really, it's just half the price of a console game. OEM versions of Kaspersky just cost 30 EUR here. Probably 30 pounds for you then. Online shops usually have it. It's totally worth the money and really, it's just half the price of a console game.

It's a nice engine, but it really is time to update those visuals. Like, at least attempt to surpass a game that was released in 2007. But visuals aside, I'd really like some more physics to be built into the game. That's what I actually missed most in COD 4 en WaW. Though that'd only be for the singleplayer though. Physics usually don't really work online..

Does anyone know if MW2 is going to use a new engine? Or are they sticking to the CoD 4 one?

So next week I'm starting to save for an upgrade. Westmere CPU, DDR3 and a couple of NV's GT300 cards. So basically for in 6 months time. Might throw in those cards earlier if they're released much before those Westmere CPU's, but I guess having just one big upgrade would be a bit more fun. Will involve getting a new motherboard and cooler too, as I'm still using LGA775 (X38). Got myself a new parttime job (for two evenings and a sunday). Will earn me something like 105 EUR a week (140 USD). So yay (:

Kaspersky. Full package blabla.. Point is, I've never had any problems with it, and unlike Norton, it isn't a resource hog and Kaspersky actually gets the job done. I'm quite happy with it.

Not interesting if you ask me. New chip? My ass. R7x0 (9 I think..) seems to just be an R770. No difference at all. Yeah, neat card... but just a 'fill in the gap of the market segment' one.. In the mean time, the GTX295 reigns supreme. Good argument, kid. Woah! Really? Like, you aren't kidding me or something? Anyway, conclusion: HD4890. Didn't live up to expectations. Thought that so called new chip (ahum, steping maybe?) would deliver quite a bit bigger performance boost. Drivers probably won't be any different either. So, basically a card for the people that don't mind spending slightly more money than the price of the 4870, but don't want to either make the leap to the X2, or go the green way (GTX275 or GTX285)

Vista is kewl.

Carter failed in the middle east. Under him Iran plummeted into what it's now. The Sha was basically the puppet of the US. The Sha fell. Which means the US failed. He would have done anything that the US president would ask for. He asked for advise when things were starting to go wrong. But instead of getting a sound answer, Carter comes with some riddle consisting out of two points. Oh, which contradict each other. Though he did a good job getting those hostages free. So, who was? I've got no idea, I'm sorry. I've always thought Roosevelt (second one. Forget is firstname) to have been very good though, but I know to little about him to state that as a fact or anything as such.

Agree. But this is the one thing I just don't understand about Americans. These so called high gas-prices. Though I have to agree that the US has a potentially large influence in this sector, it doesn't mean the people have to go crazy about it. Like let's just be honest now, the prices weren't that high. If anything, relatively low. At some point in time, we were paying 8,30 USD per gallon. (with a EURO to USD rate of 1,4. In those days the rate actually was 1,55. So it would have actually been higher). And really, the government didn't say a thing. They were thinking about increasing taxes (and more on oil products). Did anyone here care? Well, no. People were just like "Oh, that's quite much. But meh." But that's just about all the complaining about prices. Of course, if you've got the resources like the US has, then it might be wise to use it. On the other hand, 4 USD isn't bad at all. The government might have just wanted to wait with using these precious resources until the prices get.. well, higher. I support. I truly believe it was for the better good. So, it took it's toll and in a sense, it still is. But we already can see huge improvements in the region. Yes, Bush sort of lied a few times. But I'm not looking at those things, I'm merely looking at the actions taken and I support almost every singly one of them (which I know of). As he said in his 'Ultimate' Exit Interview, people will probably see that it was a wise decision later in time. Other then that, Obama.. who wants the troops to all move out. Well, it seems his generals don't agree with it at all. And come on, who knows it better when it comes to these things? The neat, well-spoken president, or people like Petraeus?

The SB Live! won't work. No drivers for all recent OS's.

Much better, yes.

That's the speed S-ATA can do, not the disk itself.. Try to find a disk that uses 320 or 500 gb platters.

In that case I really pity PS3gamers. 9 more years, while it can't even play current high-end games.. Trust me. Not more than 5. If Sony waits any longer, they'd be fools. It is faster, but rather unneeded for a console... It's machine for games, not for video-editing (iLink, which is Firewire). Makes little to no sense really.. Unless you want to replace S-ATA with FireWire, which is partially possible, but very impratical if you ask me.. Look at the sentence next to my statement.. I've written a small lightweight calculator once for FireWire. Works pretty quick. I can't imagine dev's having any problems coding for FireWire. .. Beh.

AWESOME! Mario with your mouse. Some hyperactive First Person version or what? Please tell me the name. Anyway, Mario games do make me nervous at times (took a long time to get 121 stars in Galaxy... And it wasn't worth the headache). And Bioshock made me slightly nervous at the intro, until I realised it wasn't a scary game at all. I really can't think of any other games that have made me nervous as such.. Maybe FEAR.

Well, yes. I like MS FS. Got FS 2000, FS 2004 and FSX. If you wonder why I don't have 2002, that's because I got FS 2000 in 2003 from some guy, I wasn't in to it before that time. Anyway, it shouldn't be released on any console as it will be crappy anyway.. First of all, you need a joystick. And other then that, the system requirements for FSX are out of this world. I think it's actually heavier than GTA IV and Crysis. Thing is though, for this game, 10 is actually playable. Albeit not a very nice experience, it's playable alright. 15 fps is fine. In fact, the game even has the option to lock it at 15 fps, as you don't really need all that much more.

Old benchmarks.. With the 180 drivers the GTX 260 got a great boost making it the winner over the 4870. With the latest drivers for each card, the GTX 260 wins the race... .. by a quite some. 20% to 40% faster by those figures. And don't forget that CoD MW loves ATi cards in general (just like 3dMark 06 loves ATi cards and quite some other (mainly TWIMTBP games) love nVidia cards). But expect the GTX 260 to usually be something like 20% faster than the 4870.

... I don't give a crap about it being s-ata. Point is that the data density is extremely low, thus making it a quite slow HDD. So 1TB is going to be for the main OS? Cause then you're all fine. Just wouldn't install my main on a slow HDD.

Lol, well that aside, I wouldn't be able to do anything in the living room. My parents wouldn't be monitoring me constantly and I wouldn't ever be able to crank up the volume (And I didn't buy a 5.1 set and X-Fi for nothing...). Other then that, they disaprove of forums, MSN would be an absolute pain and I wouldn't be able put on some metal (as they hate it). And.. well... my dad would be watching TV of course.. which isn't all that nice for my experience. Hang on, I'll make a quick picture. And yes, my desk is messy. I was suppossed to tidy my room today, but I was sort of busy.. Beh... shitty picture. It's sort of difficult to make, since I've placed my desk next to a wall. And yeah, there's a big tower of energy- and softdrink cans to my left. And for some strange reason, the picture has a horrible yellow shade.. Might have left it on some special mode, or just crappy lighting (as I'm actually siting in the dark. Just switched a light on for this). Probably the first option.. Went to a tennis tournament just a few days ago and had to adjust quite some settings to get good pictures. PS: To the hardware guys: I don't have fans in that rack yet. I want to buy quite a few soon though and do a light casemod. Black case, with a green LED casefan at the top and the HDD bay. Mod power on switch too. Not sure what to do with the PSU though.. I'll lose my warranty if I mess with that thing.

GTX 285 is a GT200 chip from the GTX280, but one that has undergone a die-shrink. New chip is called GT200b, which is a quite appropriate name. So, from 65nm to 55nm.. not a huge difference, but enough to get the clocks up a bit, making it, essentially, an overclocked GTX 280. It's also noteworthy that the GTX295 is significantly faster than the 4870X2. Scales extremely well. Or did you mean 4870X2 in CF (so 4GPU's)? Edit: What the fuck does the third option of the poll mean?!

Isn't it sort of unwise to use such a slow HDD for Windows when you've got that 1TB disk at your disposal?

256 Mb if I'm not mistaken. Valve said something about the next generation of consoles coming in either 2011 or 2012. Ubisoft said that too. Unreal Engine 4, which is suppossed to be for PC's and for the next gen consoles (like, PS4 and XBox 3), is going to released in 2011. PS3 is reaching it's limits for crossplatform gaming (as optimization is a bitch, but can be done --> Killzone 2) and so is the 360 (which actually has a more powerful GPU than the PS3). Unless Sony wants to stick on the market with an outdated console as they did with the PS2 for some time. I'd like it to not use the Cell. Use something that dev's don't actually hate developing for. I'm sure that will bring you nice games in the end then. That would be my major complaint.. I don't give a crap about the price. 500 - 600 EUR would be pretty reasonable.

... You said what? Like everyone knows that Nvidia has been dominating the Graphics Market since end 2006. Ever since then, the fastest solution has been provided by Nvidia. But yes, it comes at a price. Like the fastest you can get at the moment is tri-SLI GTX 285, which should cost you about 1400 USD (just a rough estimate, based on 370 EUR per card, which is actually pretty cheap. Expect it to cost a little more). But ATi has provided the mainstream market with good performing cards for a cheap price (HD 3xxx serie), and lately even high-end performing ones with a even cheaper price (HD 4xxx serie). You can get a HD 4870 in CF for just 400 EUR in Holland, which is an excellent price. BTW, I wouldn't pay 50 USD more for a card that's factory OC'd and has got 512 MB more. The Memory interface is still the same, it might even end up a bit slower at times (except for extremely high-resolutions) and the OC isn't worth it. I'd rather do that myself. But it's your choice really.. it isn't a bad deal or anything. I love Nvidia, but I really don't have any reason to hate ATi/AMD. They're a good company, are fair to customers and thanks to them, NVidia has been forced to lower their rediculous prices. I'm quite happy that there's a company like ATi.

Don't listen to TM on this one You can't compare the stream processors of ATi to those of nVidia. They both use a quite different architecture (basically nVidia's stream processors are much more powerfull, but bigger. ATi can fit much more stream processors in their chips, but usually nVidia ends up quicker (with big, hot, power-hungry chips.) Basically, the GTX 295 is a overclocked GTX260 in SLI, in one singly card. And as we know, the GTX 260 is faster than the 4870, so the GTX 295 kicks the 4870's ass out of the window. However, this graphical power comes at a price... A price many aren't willing to pay. I'd suggest you'd go for the 4870, as you don't seem to be one of those hardcore gamers or overclock/benchmarkers that want to enter the top 100 of 3DMark. And yes, that's just part of the discussion. In theory the 4870 produces something like 1,2 TFLOPS. The GTX 295 must be doing something just under the 2 TFLOPS. Do bare in mind that nVidia's cards, even though they pump out less FLOPS, are almost always faster (relatively, of course). Personally I'd go for the GTX 295. Partially because I'm a nVidia Fanboy, but also because of CUDA. I'm amazed at the speed one can brute-force crack MD5 hashes with a graphic card, seriously with the speed of light for short passwords. 9 characters and above take quite a long time though...