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Rakthar posted:Putting together a PC is fiddly bullshit and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you -want- to do it, please enjoy the task as it can be fairly zen. But if you are apprehensive or not really eager to do it, um, it can be quite annoying if you run into problems. Speaking of builds, I just put together an i7-2600K system with an Asus P8P67-M Pro in a Lian Li PC-354B case. For all the case's drawbacks (don't plan on opening it up very often) it looks great and was a breeze to carry to and from the LAN party I went to this weekend which is pretty much all I wanted out of it. Apart from fitting my Radeon HD5850 and Zalman CPU cooler as well. By the way, a mobo with UEFI combined with Windows 7 on an SSD is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
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Apr 18, 2011 20:00
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Rakthar posted:Building your own PC is not easy and not simple, especially if you are worried about messing it up. "If everything goes well" it can be straightforward and enjoyable, but there are usually a lot of "what the hell, this isn't explained well" moments when you build your own. I remember getting all my parts and being intimidated as heck. Even in a full tower case like the HAF 932, there was still a little less space than I had wanted. Wiring was a mess and generally its very unfun to deal with because they can make the case look alot uglier afterwards. But on my 4th rebuilding attempt (more on that later) I learned what the suspicious side panel holes allowed me to do with wiring. Upon putting everything together for the first time, I closed the case up and put the computer into the desk space. Dont do that. Like you can assume, it didn't turn on.I rebuilt the computer again that weekend probably 4 times, running into the same issue: video card problems. I decided to pull my half broken GeForce 7900GS from my old machine and test it in the new hardware. The computer started up, amazingly. The display was terribly corrupted (from the 7900GS) but the computer was running strong and well. I turn it off and swap back to the new HD 5870, and of course it doesn't work. Everything looked right, and I assumed I only needed to plug 1 power cable into the video card. I mean, why use two right? There may be two slots but maybe its just for overclocking? WRONG!. So long story short: Read directions carefully. Even the most obvious things need to be checked, and don't assume idiotic things like I did. Also later that week, the Intel i7 930 processor was hitting record temps of 98C. The stock cooler was a very large pain to install, I wish they used actual bolts/screws instead of the plastic finicky things they've had. Maybe its just a first time mistake, but those stock coolers are a terrible pain to get installed correctly.
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Apr 18, 2011 23:27
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Devil Wears Wings posted:The astonishing thing about Warriors of Elysia is that it's not the first game that the development studio has produced. Their first game was the aptly-named Bikini Karate Babes, which spawned a hilarious 1.5/10 review on IGN and pretty much nothing else of value. If you're male and don't buy this game it means you're a homosexual or at the very least asexual. So everyone better buy it.
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Apr 18, 2011 23:43
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Devil Wears Wings posted:What the hell is this It's like the Xena: Warrior Princess of fighting games
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Apr 19, 2011 13:07
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I went to D2D to pre-order Brink and that game was listed just below. I watched some of the trailer.  It's..yeah, pretty terrible capture stuff laid over some straight up N64 looking stages. Worth a chuckle to check out, or as a reference in a PC GAMING IS DYING trollpost somewhere.
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Apr 19, 2011 15:00
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teh_Broseph posted:I went to D2D to pre-order Brink and that game was listed just below. I watched some of the trailer. What's even funnier is how big of a deal D2D made about having it as a DIRECT2DRIVE EXCLUSIVE!!! Sometimes D2D is almost as hilariously pathetic as Impulse.
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Apr 19, 2011 15:27
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Whatever their other faults I managed to score Brink for $37 thanks to their 10% preorder + referral coupon stacking. I think it's the cheapest way to score that game right now and it's a Steamworks title so it'll just be a key you drop into Steam.
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Apr 19, 2011 15:56
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Bluetooth human being posted:I honestly expected this to be some sort of city building game from that picture. I'm kind of disappointed it's not. Evony has ruined us. Anyway, looking for goon opinions on these cheap AMD cards.  http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/19/amd-elevates-the-low-end-with-trio-of-sub-100-cards-radeon-hd/
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Apr 20, 2011 07:58
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The MSJ posted:Anyway, looking for goon opinions on these cheap AMD cards. Depends on what you want to do with them. If your mainly playing 2+ year old games, or emulation or web games, they should run pretty good. Newer stuff will perform pretty poorly. You can get a far better card though from either ATI or Nvidia though without having to spend much more. All the reviews linked on that page will give you all the info you need.
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Apr 20, 2011 08:27
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Devil Wears Wings posted:What's even funnier is how big of a deal D2D made about having it as a DIRECT2DRIVE EXCLUSIVE!!! They just can't compete with Steam. I don't blame them though, if I was D2D I'd do everything I can to try and get people to use my service instead of Steam. Impulse is hilariously bad except for with Gal Civ 2 etc. But they might be getting better with Gamestop taking over. (Is it "Gamestop"? I'm British and we don't have it).
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Apr 20, 2011 10:35
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Gamestop is notoriously terrible here, especially when it comes to PC games. They already have Impulse shutting down some of the nice stuff associated with it like the affiliate program so they can push their own (horrible) player reward program. I think they saw impulse as a competitor, especially when it comes to PC preorders and decided to pounce.
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Apr 20, 2011 10:38
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Lurchibles posted:(Is it "Gamestop"? I'm British and we don't have it). It is, and the reason everybody's talking about the acquisition is because Gamestop has some rather predatory business practices. They pretty much thrive on the used game market: you can sell a used game to them after it's been out no longer than a week and get at most $30 for it, which they'll then turn around and sell at $55, a mere $5 below the MSRP of $60. They're also notorious for constantly pushing magazine subscriptions and preorders at you, and for new games you'll be lucky to find three non-preordered copies when you can go to the nearest electronics chain and find it with no trouble without any preorder nonsense. Basically, Gamestop is the reason why many games (those released by EA in particular) now come with codes in the box to enable multiplayer or other useful features in a game.
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Apr 20, 2011 10:47
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404notfound posted:It is, and the reason everybody's talking about the acquisition is because Gamestop has some rather predatory business practices. They pretty much thrive on the used game market: you can sell a used game to them after it's been out no longer than a week and get at most $30 for it, which they'll then turn around and sell at $55, a mere $5 below the MSRP of $60. They're also notorious for constantly pushing magazine subscriptions and preorders at you, and for new games you'll be lucky to find three non-preordered copies when you can go to the nearest electronics chain and find it with no trouble without any preorder nonsense. Don't forget the part where they open shrinkwrapped games and remove the contents, then stick the stuff back in at the time of purchase (and you hope that they remember to include everything that came with the game originally).
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Apr 20, 2011 12:37
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Death Himself posted:Gamestop is notoriously terrible here, especially when it comes to PC games. They already have Impulse shutting down some of the nice stuff associated with it like the affiliate program so they can push their own (horrible) player reward program. I think they saw impulse as a competitor, especially when it comes to PC preorders and decided to pounce. Gamestop hired a guy who worked at primarily PC oriented developers (Steve Nix, formerly of id and Ritual) as their digital distribution guy, then bought Impulse a month later. I'd guess he convinced them that it would be better to buy an established distributor than to spend ages failing to build a usable product like Microsoft has been doing for the last 3 years. I think that was a very smart move on their part, and I don't see how they can mismanage it any worse than Stardock did. This is a platform that started out with a lot of consumer goodwill and managed to PR itself into a complete pariah in a single year.
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Apr 20, 2011 18:21
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The MSJ posted:Evony has ruined us. The newest cards are too expensive for lower end stuff, especially the 6670 when you can get the more powerful 5770 for about $10 more.
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Apr 20, 2011 18:28
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Universe Master posted:The newest cards are too expensive for lower end stuff, especially the 6670 when you can get the more powerful 5770 for about $10 more. Yeah, you're looking at serious diminishing returns when you go below the $100 price point. I think the Parts Picking thread still recommends the Radeon 6850 as the "sweet spot" pick, and that's like $160, so not too bad of an investment.
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Apr 20, 2011 18:33
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I'd actually argue the OP. Right now, I have this for a setup: Athlon II X3 720 @ 3.2GHz 1GB radeon hd4890 @ stock 8GB DDR2 ram in DC @ 400mhz and I find what is lacking is actually my CPU in most applications. My 4890 (two generations older than the suggestion) is still a beast and with this setup I can still play everything at max or more than max at an acceptable framerate (over 30fps but usually near 60) at 1920x1200. I'd actually suggest something along the line of an i5 2500k and even an HD5xxx would be fine. What would be better would be to wait until next year or so until the next gen comes out and get a 2GB at that time while getting a cheap 4xxx or 5xxx or the nvidia equivalent and get that later on.
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Apr 20, 2011 19:18
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I'd actually argue the OP. Right now, I have this for a setup: The 720 is actually a Phenom II, but semantics aside, in what games do you find your CPU lacking? I run a 1.5-year-old, tri-core Athlon II (basically what you have minus the L3 cache) and don't have any complaints whatsoever.
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Apr 20, 2011 19:22
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Parker Lewis posted:Don't forget the part where they open shrinkwrapped games and remove the contents, then stick the stuff back in at the time of purchase (and you hope that they remember to include everything that came with the game originally). Yeah, gently caress those guys for trying to prevent theft.
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Apr 20, 2011 19:25
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Cheezymadman posted:Yeah, gently caress those guys for trying to prevent theft. Uh, no. I mean yeah they don't have a dummy box which is silly, since don't think people are going to care that much that it isn't the original box on the shelf, but you're also getting an opened game sold to you at the new price. If theft is that much of a concern, please put everything behind glass cases like Walmart. I'd rather ask someone for help than get an opened copy.
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Apr 20, 2011 19:28
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Devil Wears Wings posted:The 720 is actually a Phenom II, but semantics aside, in what games do you find your CPU lacking? I run a 1.5-year-old, tri-core Athlon II (basically what you have minus the L3 cache) and don't have any complaints whatsoever. Yeah sorry, that was a typo. But I mean I find that games are either: Want more vram want more cpu power at 3.2 I think it's quite enough, (if I changed voltages which I don't want to play with) and I could put this to 3.6 on air cooling I doubt it'd change a lot. It's mostly in games that expect more CPU oomph than GPU. I find for example GTA4 just wants lots of vram but you need a decent processor more than a graphics card. The Witcher is also CPU bound to the point of the graphics card mattering little. Older games than that (TW1) have little to no issues on that setup though. Just two games that come to mind. Most of the time I don't have too much issues, but rather I find the CPU ends up being a little more important. Also, the CPU is a little harder to upgrade, because if they drop support for your socket, you're SOL and you have to buy a whole new board, ram, and cpu. Compared to simply a new gfx card later on.
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Apr 20, 2011 19:29
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averox posted:Uh, no. I mean yeah they don't have a dummy box which is silly, since don't think people are going to care that much that it isn't the original box on the shelf, but you're also getting an opened game sold to you at the new price. Yeah, not sure how that practice is defensible when literally every other store that sells video games has figured out a way to handle theft prevention that doesn't involve opening games and then selling those opened games for the same price as shrinkwrapped ones. Target has those retractable cable things that latch on to the case which let you pick up and check out the actual game case without being able to steal it. Parker Lewis fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 19:30
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GreenBuckanneer posted:But I mean I find that games are either: GTA4 is just weird - it's basically a crapshoot as to whether or not the game runs well on your hardware configuration - and I'm pretty sure all The Witcher needs to run well is a decently speedy dual-core. I'm not sure where you're running into these mythical CPU bottlenecks. And where are you getting this idea that VRAM matters outside of, say, preventing a Radeon 6850 from doing well at 2560x1600 (something which you shouldn't expect anyway)? Any mid-range card today has enough VRAM to power a 1080p display. quote:Also, the CPU is a little harder to upgrade, because if they drop support for your socket, you're SOL and you have to buy a whole new board, ram, and cpu. Compared to simply a new gfx card later on. You don't need to immediately buy a new mobo and CPU if they drop support for your CPU's socket. Unless you like to waste money. Basically what I'm getting at is, upgrade when you need to, that being when you start to notice bottlenecks in a lot of games. Literally everyone in the Parts Picking thread will tell you the same.
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Apr 20, 2011 19:48
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Devil Wears Wings posted:GTA4 is just weird - it's basically a crapshoot as to whether or not the game runs well on your hardware configuration - and I'm pretty sure all The Witcher needs to run well is a decently speedy dual-core. I'm not sure where you're running into these mythical CPU bottlenecks. Yeah, I'm still on the same ol' 3ghz Core 2 Duo that I've had for years and I've yet to run into a game that really cared that much about CPU that I needed to upgrade it yet. I got a far bigger boost out of swapping my 8800GTX for a GTX580 than I think I'd get from upgrading to a Core i5 or i7 and associated motherboard would (especially since the newer i5/i7 processors are only a few percent faster at the same clockspeed and don't run all that much faster than the 3ghz I already have). I've you've got a modern multicore CPU that runs above 3ghz, there's really not much you can upgrade *to* that will give more than a slight percentage of improvement. We're pretty much running up against the limitations of physics at this point with regards to being able to further shrink microprocessors down and make them run faster, and until there's a huge scientific breakthrough, you're not going to see much improvement over where we're currently sitting without involving things like liquid cooling and refrigeration systems.
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Apr 20, 2011 20:00
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Cheezymadman posted:Yeah, gently caress those guys for trying to prevent theft. That's really silly especially considering Gamestop years ago did actually use dummy boxes but stopped to save on labor costs or some other such nonsense. More than a few times I've purchased a disc that some employee has taken home due to this policy, judging by the condition of it anyway. I don't get all up in arms, flailing away about it but it's still total nonsense when other stores have figured this out already.
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Apr 20, 2011 20:19
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The Gunslinger posted:That's really silly especially considering Gamestop years ago did actually use dummy boxes but stopped to save on labor costs or some other such nonsense. More than a few times I've purchased a disc that some employee has taken home due to this policy, judging by the condition of it anyway. I don't get all up in arms, flailing away about it but it's still total nonsense when other stores have figured this out already. It's strange because a one-time investment in some glass cases, like every other retailer, would save a lot of employee time/company money removing and then replacing all the drat disks.
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Apr 20, 2011 20:22
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Well the labor was probably the insertion and removal of the covers from dummy boxes. Saves them money from having to get prints done too. I assume they figured it's just easier to cut a box open, take the contents out, and dump it on the shelf. Hey it's still sold as new and the employees can bring it home to trial it! Two birds, one stone. Yeah also gently caress them for trying to prevent thef- http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3359752&pagenumber=8&perpage=40#post383751314 http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197992669643/games?tab=all 
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Apr 20, 2011 20:37
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HotCanadianChick posted:Yeah, I'm still on the same ol' 3ghz Core 2 Duo that I've had for years and I've yet to run into a game that really cared that much about CPU that I needed to upgrade it yet. I got a far bigger boost out of swapping my 8800GTX for a GTX580 than I think I'd get from upgrading to a Core i5 or i7 and associated motherboard would (especially since the newer i5/i7 processors are only a few percent faster at the same clockspeed and don't run all that much faster than the 3ghz I already have). I'll just offer a slightly different piece of anecdotal evidence. I went from a C2D 6600 with a 5770 video card, to a core i7 2600k with the same 5770 video card, and my performance in most games is night and day. Any CPU intensive game like Fallout 3, Starcraft 2, Dawn of War 2, really sees a big benefit and improvement. Even TF2 and source games really benefit from a better processor, and you can run at 1920x1200 much more easily in just about everything. And the stuff about processors hitting a flatspot is kinda wrong, if you look at any benchmarks you can see a clear 20-40% improvement in most games with each processor generation that comes out every 18-24 months, keeping the other stuff similar. The architecture redesign with Sandy Bridge alone result in vastly improved performance. And more and more games are being written to support multi-core processors. Your advice and observations were accurate to about 1 year ago, but as Charles Barkley would say - poo poo's changed, Bird.
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Apr 20, 2011 20:45
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averox posted:Well the labor was probably the insertion and removal of the covers from dummy boxes. Saves them money from having to get prints done too. I assume they figured it's just easier to cut a box open, take the contents out, and dump it on the shelf. Hey it's still sold as new and the employees can bring it home to trial it! Two birds, one stone. I normally don't condone internet detective type behavior but this was hilarious. How does someone own Juiced 2 but not pickup a legit copy of New Vegas? I hope that was a THQ freebie or something. NV was on sale for like $20 too 
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Apr 20, 2011 21:12
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I'm usually too lazy to do so myself but I've got a Firefox Greasemonkey script that quick links someone's rap sheet in their posts. Saw big, red, glaring text and decided to take a peek. I forgot I even had this script because I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.
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Apr 20, 2011 21:38
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Argh. Finally got around to installing the original Crysis, and the pissing thing refuses to acknowledge the fact that to play the game I need to be capable of some loving movement. I can activate my suit powers, I can use the attack keys and everything like that, but when the cutscenes are finished I'm floating in the water like some absolute moron only able to jump. Apparently I can only sort this through a reinstall. Bollocks to that, it took me seven hours to get through Steam as it is.
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Apr 20, 2011 21:51
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More proc input, semi-cross post: I just went from an Athlon II X3 435 @ 3.3 that I had on my 3.5 year old AM2 board to a Phenom (in name) II X4 @ 3.55 on a new AM2+ board and got a quite noticeable frame boost in Starcraft, Just Cause, Bad Company, Warhead, Crysis 2 (acronym-wise that's S/J/BC2, hah). Bad Company was a crazy surprise, going from choppy frames (avg 30?) at lowest settings to smooth frames (avg 50+?) at max with 4xAA. This is paired with a 5870 at 1080p. Fast processors help, and I wish I could justify getting the boost I know an i5 setup would give. I don't think socket obsolescence is much to worry about.
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Apr 20, 2011 21:53
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Is some shrinkwrap seriously that important to you that you can't handle the idea that the game was opened before you got it? I get the idea of having an unblemished disc and all the goodies inside, but most copies at Gamestop never leave the store unless they're sold. Only a few copies of each game are allowed to be "loaned" to employees, and they're the last ones sold.
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Apr 20, 2011 22:41
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That's a dumb thing to whiteknight. It's shady as hell to be told it's brand new when it's clearly been opened, regardless of the reasons. There's no point in opening them at all if every other retailer in the world has figured out how to keep people from stealing them.
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Apr 20, 2011 22:53
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If it's never been played, it's brand new, regardless of the packaging situation. I really don't know how you can say "opened = not new" if it was only opened to be stored somewhere else. And I don't have any reason to "white knight" for Gamestop, I don't even buy from them most of the time. Walmart is closer and the same price. I usually don't get used games unless I'm strapped for cash because I like having fresh unsmudged discs, but I'm not some autist who can't play a game unless the shrinkwrap is opened in my own living room.
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Apr 20, 2011 22:59
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I don't want to get into a "used software" debate, but Gamestop is a used game retailer. Buying open unpackaged products marked as "brand new" from a retailer, that also happens to sell opened "used" games, is a shady situation. And it's a situation that can be easily avoided but isn't. Especially right now when new games come with a million slips of paper and one-time-use codes. It's dumb to be put into a situation to cause more human error and not get something you were supposed to.
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Apr 20, 2011 23:19
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Cheezymadman posted:If it's never been played, it's brand new, regardless of the packaging situation. I really don't know how you can say "opened = not new" if it was only opened to be stored somewhere else. If it's opened, how do you know it's never been played? And why are there this many posts about Gamestop in the PC gaming thread?
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Apr 20, 2011 23:24
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Dr_Fever posted:If it's opened, how do you know it's never been played? Can't live with it, can't live without it.
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Apr 20, 2011 23:29
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The.GreyWolf posted:Can't live with it, can't live without it. Sure you can. PC gamers haven't needed to go to video game stores for years now.
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Apr 21, 2011 00:42
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Cheezymadman posted:Is some shrinkwrap seriously that important to you that you can't handle the idea that the game was opened before you got it? You could get a game that's never been opened, or you could get a game that's been opened and has had fingerprints all over it and scratches and stuck in a sleeve. I think it's important enough. Once they even gave me the wrong disk because it was in the wrong sleeve. It's poo poo.
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Apr 21, 2011 00:50
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