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I'm having mixed feelings about my choice of video card: MSI R5770 HAWK (1 GB) for $140 after $20 MIR that I picked up recently... It's a MSI version of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 using their "Twin Frozr II" cooling design (in this case two fans, three heat pipes and a heat sink). So far I'm not noticing many problems, though all I'm running are Pirates of the Burning Sea and Black Ops (AA off), so the 10.12 version of the ATI desktop drivers aren't giving me noticeable problems, and the desktop remains very stable in my experience. In light of the recent 6850/6870 offerings, did I make a bad choice? (even though it's Newegg, no returns unfortunately.) I hope you agree with me that this merits inclusion in the OP: When picking the CPU/motherboard, remember that AMD is better than Intel when it comes to backwards compatibility, so keep this in mind depending on your "upgrade path"/plans. Personal example: I have a Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H (rev 1.0?) motherboard that's advertised as "Socket AM3 Ready." Although I'm running a Socket AM2 processor (supposedly the Athlon X2 5050e), it supports Socket AM2+ and even Socket AM3 processors, so I could theoretically stick in a Phenom II X6 1090T (on the official compatibility list). I understand that AMD's planned octo-core CPUs are not backwards compatible with current motherboards, but that the so-called Socket AM3+ motherboards (for the octo-cores, called "Bulldozer") will be backwards-compatible with Socket AM2, Socket AM2+ and Socket AM3 CPUs.
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Dec 25, 2010 10:55
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I was thinking of an AMD Phenom II X4 Deneb (9xx)... L3 cache unlike the Propus models (the 6xx's), though the cost is more like $120 (920 Socket AM2+) -186 (Black Edition 970 Socket AM3). Mindja I want a processor for gaming while I have a poo poo ton of browser tabs/windows open... What IS the AMD equivalent of Core i5-i7 anyway? Socket compatibilities have been why I've stuck with AMD... Currently using an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 Brisbane (Socket AM2) on a Socket AM2/AM2+/"AM3 Ready" motherboard. (My computer thinks it's a 5050e, and Core Temp thinks it's a 5050B... that's nonexistent... unless I've been looking at the wrong box this whole time.) Stock heatsink and fan btw. P.S. Are there Socket AM3 boards that are NOT AM2/AM2+ backwards compatible?
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Jan 2, 2011 13:24
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:I play Crysis maxed at 1080p maxed with Chrome open in the background with normally about 6-7 tabs on an Athlon II X4 620(no L3 cache, sadly bought after they finally took it off completely instead of just locking it). I get closer to 30-45 FPS than 45-60, so if you're a MUST BE OVER 60 AAAARGH kinda gamer, your idea is better, but you can even go a little lower if you're fine with sub 60 frame rates.
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Jan 3, 2011 10:57
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For PC gaming, no. A dedicated sound card is not worth it except as a last-resort backup in case your onboard audio fails without somehow bringing down the whole motherboard with it.Devil Wears Wings posted:There really is none in terms of price-to-performance ratio at that price point. However, a $100 Athlon II is enough for most gamers. *Reads about the new Sandy Bridge (LGA 2011?) CPUs* Bit Tech posted:The Sandy Bridge lineup gives us some of the easiest conclusions to write that we've ever come across: the new range of Intel CPUs renders almost every other processor redundant and pointless. Part of my nerd-rage here being because I'm more used to AMD-style "backwards compatibility" with CPU sockets, am on an AMD motherboard/CPU, so I can't justify this to myself unless they both die or something.
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Jan 3, 2011 20:48
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More like "Microsoft stopped making WIRED 360 controllers," from what I understand, and haven't licensed out "wireless 360 controller" to anyone else, so to my knowledge all third-party 360 controllers are wired. *Using a Microsoft wired 360 controller* The answer re: whether to upgrade the video card -- are the games you want playing fast enough (CONSISTENTLY) for you at the settings you find acceptable? (For example, I haven't tried Black Ops in 1920x1080, but I was able to get ~30 fps on average at 1600x900 with AA 2x, using the MSI R5770 HAWK 1 GB, while ARMA II: Operation Arrowhead's shooting tutorial ran acceptably at 1920x1080 with default video settings.) I'm not sure whether monitor size as opposed to resolution makes a difference, though. (Both my current 21.5 inch ASUS monitor and the 40 inch Toshiba HDTV support 1920x1080.)
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Jan 4, 2011 02:34
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When setting up, does number of HDD partitions matter?
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Jan 4, 2011 10:26
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meme posted:I picked up an AMD Phenom II X4 for £120, thought it was a pretty good deal. Just looking for a new PSU, New graphics card (looking at a Pallit 1gb GTX460) and a 64 bit windows and I've got a pretty poo poo hot pc set up for pretty cheap.
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Jan 5, 2011 17:16
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jassi007 posted:xfx has double life time warranty on Radeon cards at least. Not only do you have a lifetime warranty, but you can transfer the warranty to someone if you resell the card and they also have a lifetime warranty. xfx cards usually cost $10-20 premium, but hold a high resale value due to the warranty.
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Jan 7, 2011 20:47
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EVGA's reputation from the lifetime/10 year policy probably helps keep them afloat. I for example recommend them to anyone who specifically wants or will only pick an NVIDIA card, though I'll be more flexible for Radeon cards (i.e. mine is from MSI).
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Jan 11, 2011 07:56
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Samurai Sanders posted:I have a 360 pad plugged into my PC, which works great for most things, but there are a few games that won't let me use the d-pad for anything, because Windows treats it as a POV hat. Does anyone know a way around that, other than just using a keyboard emulator or something?
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Jan 11, 2011 08:56
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4000 Dollar Suit, so it's corporate fuckery with attempts to bring low-cost/quality (read: "Korean-style") broadband to the masses? I smell Templars... Node, well, it IS a Japanese RPG localized because a pair of goons rejected for localization jobs decided "we'll show you some loving credentials..." how wouldn't it be anime? (darkhand, glad you agree that at least the controls thing isn't the goons' fault.) Wait, "capitalism, ho!"...? OH GAWD TEMPLAAAAHS 
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Jan 12, 2011 05:55
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spasticColon posted:Jesus, I can't even begin to imagine going to back to dial-up. You must live way out in the middle of nowhere. If you live out in the boonies here you can at least get wireless but it uses line of sight though so I'm not sure about the correct name for it or get DSL if you're lucky. Of course those two come with their own drawbacks of only being somewhat faster than dial-up and having really high ping times.  )."The_Fuzzinator, the graphics card might be the bottleneck, what're your settings? BC2 for some reason doesn't strike me as a "CPU bottleneck" game like ARMA II for example, but my CPU is only slightly above yours (AMD Athlon X2 64 5000, though my computer believes it to be a 5050e, 2.6 GHz).
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Jan 12, 2011 06:45
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A Fancy 400 lbs, I still remember the days when my sister would pick up the handset whenever she felt I was hogging the (then only) desktop computer... Only concern I'd have re: the AMD quad-cores is whether or not they have a L3 cache (the 6xx series called Propus doesn't, the 9xx series called Deneb does), but otherwise I defer to SH/SC on further upgrade advice.
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Jan 12, 2011 07:02
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Note that not every game supports windowing "properly," i.e. a fixed aspect ratio/resolution (i.e. POTBS seemingly having only one windowed resolution: 1024 x 768), having to twiddle around with the game to get it to support windowed mode, or the game not properly resizing/shifting HUD elements to scale when in windowed mode, usually by toggling the full screen option off.
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Jan 12, 2011 14:01
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The_Fuzzinator posted:Red_Fred, brainwrinkle, and Chortles Thanks for the advice, going to pop over to the SH/SC Thread about it once i figure out what kind of motherboard i have definatively, As far as i know its an older one Supporting only AM2 socket CPU and DDR2 ram :< (It oddly reminds me of the old "laptops are coming down in price, desktops are doomed" story... and that was even before netbooks.) P.S. Don't try to futureproof with part specs, try to futureproof compatibilities.
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Jan 12, 2011 23:17
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Vertigus posted:Oh yeah I know, but going with nVidia is kind of like buying insurance against lovely console ports that slap on a "Made for nVidia" logo that means they only bothered to test their game on one configuration. FWIW, I can't pick out my MSI-made 5770's two fans out from the rest of the "computer powered on" noise. By the way, this is my "gaming" headset: the Rosewill RH-40C, which at the time was at 30% discount and free shipping on Newegg. If any of you have heard me on Armagoons, Dynasty Warriors Online, or Pirates of the Burning Sea, that's what I was using. The most recent Newegg review is from me, if you want further details.
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Jan 17, 2011 04:30
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Sorry to hear... incidentally, part of the reason I picked the 5770 instead would be Radeon's seeming tendency for using native "full-size" HDMI ports instead of DVI (for HD graphics) or mini HDMI, at least on the 5xxx's, dunno if the 6xxx's continued the tradition. Oh, consoles 
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Jan 19, 2011 07:37
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Spaz Medicine posted:My TV is right next to my monitor, so I don't use one myself, but it seems like the most sensible way. As an alternative, I have a wall mount that cost $25 but may or may not fit said monitor.
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Jan 23, 2011 12:04
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"We have to do a demo? But that means more WORK for us " - what the devs may be thinking "We wanted people to be enslaved to the brand name, not actually able to make choices based on quality!" - the publisher's version It doesn't help that in order to keep the demo as a viable marketing tool, they might have to patch the demo with any improvements in the full game. If I recall correctly, Bohemia Interactive Studios has never bothered to patch the ARMA II demo despite all the changes and attempted improvements in the full game, so I don't consider it that great of a selling tool for ARMA... Demos nowadays would have to be separate packages though, as "full games" hidden inside demos would just be waiting to be cracked. As for "free games with paid DLC," some of them pair that with a paid subscription option, but I like Pirates of the Burning Sea's option where anyone who's ever subscribed is automatically given a "premium" account after unsubscribing, which keeps the most important benefits of the paid subscription: character slots per nation, dockyard slots per character, ship storage slots per character, and economy structure slots per account, and automatic ship insurance. NOTE: Due to the just-released Divine Wind expansion/DLC, Europa Universalis III Complete (base game, In Nomine and Napoleon's Ambition) is only $4 on Steam until Thursday! Also, Heir to the Throne (the third expansion) is only $2 until Thursday. If you decide to get Divine Wind ($19.99), there's a Divine Wind+Heir to the Throne bundle for $21.99 as well.
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Jan 24, 2011 23:54
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Cross-posted from the ARMA 2 thread: ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead for $11.90 for the next just-under-38 hours (2 am January 28th?) in a claimed "once gone, they're gone" 48 Hour Madness sale .
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Jan 26, 2011 18:17
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Node posted:Developers, if anything, will be more like Epic. I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure when Gears of War sold like poo poo on the PC, CliffyB (of Epic) bitched and moaned about how piracy is killing PC gaming sales because "if you know how to upgrade a video card you know how to torrent their game." When in fact the port was extremely lovely and the game wasn't anything new or interesting in the first place. I will agree though that PC games besides CoD seem reliant on discount sales, though I believe that Steam's reputation (for having discounts) helps make those sales more likely to ever actually happen. Whenever I see a discount sale on ARMA 2 and/or Operation Arrowhead, I rush on over to the ARMA 2 thread to post it, and cross-posted it here since there were other games in the sale -- and lo and behold, from our own thread two pages ago: A Fancy 400 lbs posted:w00t. I <3 48 Hour Madness Sales. Just got EndWar, Death to Spies and Fallout Collection.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:20
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My current monitor is a ASUS MS228H (which unfortunately uses the ring-type base -- that is, it's held up by a ring, instead of the base being circle-shaped horizontally -- and has no wall mounting capability to my knowledge) which has a HDMI port, D-Sub and a 3.5 mm speaker port... I'd have to use an adapter for DVI, but the video card (R5770 HAWK 1 GB from MSI) has a HDMI port. The monitor has no speakers built-in, so I have to plug the speakers into the monitor's speaker port, then set the sound playback device (in Windows' sound options) to "AMD HDMI Output" (the sound controller being "AMD High Definition Audio Device") to get the sound output to my speakers. Why this? I've got a mic-equipped headset plugged into the computer's onboard audio (standard microphone in and speaker out ports) as "Speakers" (controller is "Realtek High Definition Audio"), since the right speaker has a 3.5 mm headphone port of its own but not a microphone port. Make of this what you will. (My interpretation: video card's audio output to TV, headset input/output to computer audio.) Chortles fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Jan 27, 2011 |
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Jan 27, 2011 06:53
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Actually Steamworks games are very easy to pirate and require no updates to keep working. The DRM is mostly ineffectual, and several steamworks games have been leaked and cracked before the official release. Not sure why you think you'd need to update anything since the cracks completely unhook the game from the steam client. And somehow Steam's reputation is high enough to mitigate this amongst the usual suspects? I somehow don't believe that...
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Jan 27, 2011 14:38
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From Bohemia Interactive's lead programmer:quote:I am contemplating removing the "hard formation" support to clean the formation handling code a bit for further fixes and improvements. quote:I have created this poll so that if anyone, be it mission designer, addon maker or a mod team is using the functionality, can say it here and we could discuss how to move on. I doubt anyone is using it, as I do not think it brings any significant behavioral improvements, but I want to be sure before removing it. quote:
(Yes, I mean this in contrast to Epic Games' guy that said "if you know how to install a video card, you know how to torrent our games," which I paraphrase from earlier in this thread, and even in contrast to the quickscope drama involving Josh "JD_2020" Olin and quickscopers.)
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Jan 27, 2011 23:28
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Not this piece of junk... (Unfortunately Newegg doesn't cover return shipping and you can only ship returns to their California location, so after return shipping from New York to California and the restocking fee I think I got around $6 back out of a $18.99 purchase. ) Would love to see any other reliable USB wireless keyboards... Now as for wired keyboards, I'm limited to wired USB keyboards because my motherboard's PS/2 keyboard port died, so for the moment* I'm using a Zboard (formerly by Ideazon, now by SteelSeries) with the standard, non-gaming keyset (though I have that). If you're interested in the Merc Stealth ($89.99), it's a standard keyset with the directional keys added to the left side and surrounded by extra (programmable?) keys, as opposed to the Zboard's gaming keyset (which superimposes those onto the left side, removes the number pad and otherwise shifts keys around), plus a microphone port and a headphone/speaker port. The Shift has those ports too plus multimedia keys, but gives you a choice of a standard keyset or a MMO-focused one that replaces the number pad with buttons for common MMO commands. * I was previously using a generic Chinatown-bought USB keyboard, but unfortunately I found that the rubber housing of the USB cable was too weak, and it would keep being cut open by the edge of the keyboard housing itself (I never did think to dremel that, oddly enough) and eventually the internal wiring would break... repaired that by resoldering the circuit board to a non-broken section of wiring, only for it to happen again, at which point I abandoned said keyboard.
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Jan 28, 2011 02:28
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Oh yeah, DEAL ALERT, good through Wednesday, February 2nd: AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb (3.0GHz, 2 MB L2 cache + 6 MB L3 cache, Socket AM3, 125 W TDP) for $125 with Newegg free shipping (certain states not eligible), using promo code EMCKJHC36 (supposedly subscriber-only, has anyone actually tested that claim?). Also, a XFX HD 5770 1 GB PCI-E 2.0 video card for $120 with $20 mail-in rebate, also with Newegg free shipping. I personally am considering the Deneb, but should I wait for a Black Edition deal or for the Bulldozers to come out? (If only to figure out whether it was worth it or whether I should give in to damnable Intel and their sucking-up-to-Hollywood-DRM Sandy Bridge...)
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Jan 28, 2011 02:42
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GoldenNugget posted:I love BIS for being awesome PC developers. While ArmA2 isn't perfect, it's definitely flexible and BIS consistently improve their product especially with ArmA2 which has been out for about 2 years now. BRAVO, BIS. I don't see any other "major" dev team (okay, so he's the lead programmer) with this sort of attitude.
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Jan 29, 2011 01:28
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That'd be Gabe -- I think Tycho threw him under the bus:quote:When I hate my machines, I "hate" them with the quotation marks firmly attached. It's like fighting with a sibling; we scrap, but our union is in the blood. This isn't true for Gabriel, who only started playing games on computers because I made him, and who I suspect may secretly resent me for it.
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Jan 29, 2011 21:43
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Was it from Newegg? And was it EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte, or XFX?
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Jan 29, 2011 21:55
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Ularg posted:Oh poo poo this game is becoming a reality!
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Jan 31, 2011 04:15
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But then they can't have Meido Chun-Li on console.
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Feb 2, 2011 06:25
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Vertigus posted:More games are starting to feature evil PMC bands and I kind of dig this change. Metal Gear Solid 4 and MAG both had portrayals of the near-future as being dominated by PMCs fighting each other in turf and proxy wars. There's also the PMC DLC for ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead.
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Feb 4, 2011 17:21
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I continue to stand by the Rosewill RH-40C. Those of you who've heard me on Vent or TeamSpeak, it was on the RH-40C and its integrated microphone.
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Feb 5, 2011 02:23
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Jetsetlemming posted:I use a USB Microsoft LifeChat headset. Sounds good, good mic. I paid ten dollars for it. I have no idea if it can do 7.1 or even 5.1, but I get a vague directional sound with them so it can do stereo at least even when I'm just plugging it into the standard ("green") 3.5 mm speaker and microphone ports.
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Feb 5, 2011 21:04
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Any way to train hand-eye coordination for first-person shooters so that I can actually track a moving target with a mouse during a twitch shooter? (I'm looking at you, Call of Duty.) P.S. You'd think it was easier with a mouse than with a controller... for me it's not, I'm sucktastic at tracking-a-moving-target with either.
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Feb 7, 2011 04:59
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PROTIP: Never sit down (much less in the dark) if you don't know where your peripherals are. I JUST sat on and broke a "gaming" headset for the second time now. First a Turtle Beach X1, now the Rosewill RH-40C. Usually force of habit had me putting it aside, but I guess it must have slid off of the couch armrest or I must have just left it for once (I can be incredible inattentive of even actions that I'm performing physically), and now...
Chortles fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Feb 7, 2011 |
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Feb 7, 2011 08:40
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Amrosorma posted:Why not practice with the single player? Vertigus posted:How are you with normal computing tasks, like just moving a mouse around in Windows? Of course, Black Ops' woes on PC (I usually tend from 15-30 fps... yes, I know how fatal 15 fps is in a twitch shooter, and I sometimes have severe lag spikes) don't help at all.
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Feb 7, 2011 08:52
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One nice thing about MAG (although that's PS3) is that only have to "slog" your way through level 2 -- you can get to level 2 just by playing the training mission (albeit this no longer applies if you "vet" -- "prestige" -- to subsequent levels) and at level 3 you unlock the Medi-Kit, which dramatically boosts your XP gains, albeit not your actual survivability or firepower (those are later). I rather like that as a model for competitive shooters.
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Feb 26, 2011 01:22
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Hint: NO. See the SH/SC parts megathread.
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Mar 6, 2011 04:43
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RagnarokAngel posted:I don't have to. I'm rich. Strangely, reminds me of a Brotherhood mention of Abstergo finding that capitalism worked less and less on enslaving the young... As it is, to 'thank' (?) people who actually "take the chance" on ACB despite requiring online activation for single-player, they're putting in pretty much all of the bonus content into the PC version except the Copernicus Conspiracy (still PS3-exclusive) and a drat Codex; supposedly both the free and paid DLC ($9.99 for PS3/800 Microsoft Points) are included.
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Mar 10, 2011 19:25
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