Smoken Joe

Fare enough. Steam is the way to go- that is how I voted before I ever heard of the crap with the DRM I hate just about all the CD based DRM. I have had enough of starforce secure rom and all the other crap I have waited for a lot of games to hit steam before buying. Ignoring this game is like ignoring HL2 if you want to do reviews this has to be one you do or be part of the sidelines.

Well I finished the game I thought I would give some of my feedback. Fist some updates. 1080P and wide screen work period end of story. The person that made those potos is just an attention whore. The developers codsidered difrent aspect ratios and that is the one thay decided on. They do plan a patch so you can adjust the width to your prefrence. I use a 1080P TV 1900x1080 full screen no issues. They updated the number of installs to 5 computers 5 times. This should help. You can avoid the whole issue using steam though. SM 2.0 support Shader model 3 was all about water effects you cant do in 2.0 without a FPS hit. Do the same effects in SM2 and the FPS on that 3 year old card is going to take too much of a hit to play well. Get a new card or just wait to play it untill you have one it will be worth it in the end. The game: quite simply a landmark. If you play games and are OK with FPS you need to get it sooner or later end of story. The game well deserves the 10/10 rating of many game sites. No single thing is groundbreaking it is the some of all the timgs done right that is so suprising. Grapics story and setting all come together well to a level that just hasnt ben done before. Nearly all attacks are dleiberatly misleading except the activation complaints. Once you get it installed and running it is good in XP. Those that dont have memtest and prime stable computers may face the consiquences. The download was encrypted and many people with less than perfectly stable systems faced the consiquences. Some have soved this with replacing game files from the demo I hear. Download problems could also be at fault but this is the only real blemish all the rest of the concerns are personal prefrence. I did have some problems using my Audigy sound card in Vista repeatedly crashing at one point at one level and but this went away after using the intigrated sound and honistly I never have got the Audigy sound card to work well in vista. Is this game for everyone- well no it has some very adult themes to say the least. Not . but but morality and violence. Normaly I dont even pay attention to the violence but this game is so well done and immersive that it hits you hard at times. In XP there were no problems none. I have never had a computer game play this well on release- ever. No slowdowns or problems anywhere on XP. A few minor problems and slwdowns ones with with Vista but with slightly higher quality grapics. This is also a long game with replay value. It is probibily the longest game I have played in a year or two. My only real disapointment was that it ended. Note new system specs played on C2d at 3.2, 2gig DDR2 and 8800GTX at stock speed. Yes they will go higher with OC but the system was not all that stressed for this game- and crashing sucks!

I haven't had any issues with the game yet but I bought the steam version I have used in it XP and Vista. To say the activation process was annoying is an understatement, it was claiming to be preloaded then it needed to download more and that took 45 min to get it installed and working. Sorry but that is just plain stupid. It should have ben automatic. I will be upgrading to quad core tonight we will see if it causes any issue. Great game it looks much better in Vista for some reason- I am wondering if it is just a driver issue with a 1080P monitor or they just have diffrent textures. There are not enough diffrent effects to explain it. Some people seem to be unhappy with the wide screen support- you have a more close up view. The full screen is used though so I am not sure it is any kind of real problem or just an excuse to classy lady. The game really could use some higher quality textures in widescreen at 1080P. I dont know what kind of memory a card would need to run the bigger files the game deserves or how huge the game would be size wise. The game is already large on the HDD. We may need blue ray disks just for all the files at this rate. Too bad Nvidia did not manage to get the drivers together in time for Vista for on the fly video card memory sharing now we have to wait for the next set of cards to be mainstreem before games decide to fully use it.

The MR2's are some of the most fun sports card made. Very reliable and strangely low insurance on many models. I had one for about 12 years bought it for 6k got 3k when someone hit it. Look at the cost of insurance before you go much further. The MR2 was 1/4th the insurance of the Camaro the Mitsubishi 3000GT are decent card but can be a fortune to maintain if the last owner did not take car of it. The Civic is a very good car but I am not a Honda fan.

Right now DX10 is a joke MD backed down on the things that would pull it together because no one could get it all working in time. It is possible Crysis will work better in DX10 soem of the time but it will be the only game for a year or three. It is unlikly though there is too big of a hit just from using Vista. Maby when everyone has a DX10.1 card...... of cource they are not makeing any yet. That is what DX10 cards should have ben like the first time. The hardware makers must love MS you have to upgrade to get lower performance.

The game is getting tons of 9.5-10 scores which is unheard of. It is getting the highest sores of any game that I remember. Higher than HL2 and doom 3. I cant wait. I will agree on the FPS and a console it just doesnt work.Bo way to get around the programing. Even games that were ported to the computer just dont work well that is life and some games are better on the controller though I will alwas choose a computer over a console given the choice.

Why is it that there is always someone that wants to set them up as a little dictator telling you what you can and can not read, see, think or do. This is no better than book burning. There are plenty of people that would love to ban most video games here too. There is not much you can do but constantly fight this kind of thing. It will always be around in one form or another. I am also of German decent and our family find some of these laws frightening for the German people. Even the ones that are very conservative are worried for you guys. Using the political party's actions of the 1930's-1940's as an excuse to act like them.

What good is a upgrade if you dont use it?

True the main limit to video game performance is the video card. You can use 4 sticks at slightly lower memory speeds usualy. The AMD's are not exatly hobbled by memory bandwidth so that should not e a real issue.

It is hard to get good insurance without it being part of an orginisation for a reasonable price. What is often more inportant is getting a doctor that can help you avoid going to the ER. I would strongly suggest you look for a OD doctor for family pratice they are traind to avoid illness not just treat it. A 10 doller dcotors vistit or two is always better than the ER. See if your wifes school has health insurance for the students. It is iften very cheap because most young people have fewer illnesses. The 160 doller ear drops is not nessarily meaningfull. It is the doctor that decides on the dropps the new med instead of one on the approved list or the paitent doesnt go to the preferred pharmacy yes it can cost 10 times what it mould normaly. That is not the insurance companys fault. With a good doc they will often work with your policy to help contol costs. I get confused at times with all the red tape and I am a RN. When I am sick I dont feel like messing with all that either. PM me if you have questions I dont get on the forum as much as I like because work has become a reinactment of Dante's famous book.

Congrats! Not an easy thing to do getting a job as a fireman most give up before they get a job. Just rember to stay safe off the job or going to the fire like you do on the job! You cant save anyone elses butt if you break your own. The firefighters around here often have two or three jobs and not all of them safe.

Arg that sucks. Are there any law schools in your area? All have free legal help services or can point you in the direction of one. They get pratice and hopefully you get the help you need. The letter to the hockey league regaurding ethics can be far more effective than you think you dont know untill you try. Fines come out of there paycheck embaras. I hate to say it but for some people the only ethics they know is punishment. News stations can help guide you to resources too if the station gets intreseted people often fall all overthemselves to avid the bad press. I went through the same kinds of things and it was probibily the best thing that ever happened to me in the end. I learned to cross my t's dot my I's and whatever it took to never ever get in that position again. The attorny general office of you local state can sometimes help too. We pay enough taxes they should help.

Do it right or dont even think about doing it. Agreed though I might add the corsair kit for just the CPU or video card. The swifttec kit is very good but I would replace the tubing with some Masterkleer they sell at petras. I like it better than the Tygon. Avoid the high inpingment designs like the Storm unless you are willing to be a freak about keeping the line clean. I gave up on watercooling for now. The Thermalright Ultra and similar products are so good I am not really losing anything. It did seriously help the video card it is hard to match WC for a serious overclock.

It is a steal if you follow though witht he rebate. It works as advertised and that good speed with those timings and it overclocks well with cas 5 and more volts.

+1 on 3800 how can you go wrong at that price? I the 3800 they are selling recently have overcloked as well if not better than the higher priced ones. If you overclock and validate it using the OC database it is safer than stock.