TheTerminator2004

Look on the bright side - the fact that you've had any girlfriends to break up with means you're doing a lot better than some people. Just keep at it, you'll find the right person eventually, if you put the effort in. From what experience I have, relationships seem to be a combination of really hard work, and luck. Women don't make any sense (well, not to me anyway :P), and when something's wrong, they don't tell you what - they just leave you to guess. Which is probably the root cause of most breakups tbh, people don't tell each other what's wrong until its too late (and often never explain it properly). But, you'll get there eventually, if you keep at it. :) And yeah, giving up completely won't help solve the issue. Though, I can tell you, it sure as hell is tempting sometimes... but at the end of the day the only thing it'll achieve is potentially letting what could be great opportunities pass you by.

DX10 allows you to play DX9 games, remember, and even if it isn't taken advantage of in the actual games, it has been improved enough to be potentially faster in some cases. So, if you have Vista or 7, theres no reaosn not to install it. In fact, I think it comes preinstalled with the OS anyway. All versions of DirectX are backwards compatible with previous ones - thats why its still possible to play ancient games using DirectX 6 on a modern PC.

Just saw this interesting interview here... seriously, some of the answers given in it are truly facepalm-worthy... Seriously, does he think we're stupid or something? EDIT: oh, SWAT_WaLkAwaY, you forgot to add the limit of 18 players per game (down from 32) to your list :P (18 being the max the game will let you have... ignoring the fact it'll probably be pretty much impossible to go above 8 or 10 without the game becoming too laggy to play)

Been playing this for a while now, and am enjoying it quite a lot. Its certainly a very good game, though pretty unforgiving. Until you've got your skills up, almost everything can kill you with ease, and even once you've got your skills up a bit, its extremely hard. I'm 10 or 12 hours into the game now, and unless I'm careful, most enemies can still kill me - the number of healing potions I get through is unbelievable. Fortunately I was able to forge myself a decent sword, and I nicked a large shield off some guy in harbour town, so I'm surviving mostly. The insta-death traps in the ruins are a nightmare though as well, you really need to pay attention to what you're doing, and save often. One issue I do have with it is the experience system - I don't like the fact that improving skills and attributes costs gold, as well as experience points. It doesn't seem realistic, and makes it a lot harder to get enough money to spend on other stuff (though, to be fair, there isn't that much other stuff to spend it on). Its a shame about the lack of armour/clothing too - you can't buy any anywhere, so presumably you get given some at some point, but it would be nice to have a bit more variety. Other than those few issues, its definitely an excellent game, well worth a try. And yes, the graphics are a LOT better than the 360 version. I reckon those screenshots jim posted don't really do it justice either.

This already happens - its why I avoid buying anything off Steam where possible. This issue has nothing to do with piracy, its just the fact that IW know this game will sell shedloads on the consoles, no matter how bad it is, so they have an opportunity to see how much they can get away with - after all, the more similar the console/PC versions are, the cheaper it is to make. And tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if this game gets pirated a lot more than most releases because of this move - people will just pirate it in protest. I don't particularly agree with these people's methods (a boycott would be a better idea), but hey, its better than just going out and encouraging other companies to do the same thing by buying it.

Firefox for me too :) Did try Seamonkey for a while, but it didn't really have any benefits over Firefox, so I didnt keep it. Firefox is by far the best browser available atm.

Every modern processor (since the old Pentium 4s IIRC) is 64-bit, so no worries there. As for compatibility, 64-bit OSes can run 32-bit programs, but not vice-versa, and provided you upgrade to Vista or 7 instead of XP, you should have no issues (the 64-bit version of XP was horribly buggy I believe, and is probably the main reason why people always worry that using a 64-bit OS might break stuff. Vista or later are perfectly compatible, and you should have next to no problems with it). Yes, if you have a really old printer or whatever, that might get a bit funny, but by and large you should be fine, and 64-bit does offer a speed increase. In theory, a very major one, but in practice its usually smaller (but noticeable, when running 64-bit software). x64 versions of any version of Windows later than XP are absolutely fine, and are no buggier or more unstable than the 32bit releases. You won't see a massive benefit, except from the increased RAM capacity though, thanks to the lack of software written for x64 systems, but once it gets more widely adopted, it should have some great benefits. Oh, and Retribution, Oblivion runs flawlessly for me, on Vista x64 Ultimate. Never had a single issue with it, in fact it probably crashes less than it did on my old 32-bit XP install.

The GDDR5 is just the type of memory the graphics card uses, and will work with any motherboard which you can actually plug the graphics card into. But I find it odd how nobody has mentioned the HD4890 here, it is effectively two 4870s bolted onto one board, and only costs around £130-140. Its excellent value, even more so than the 4870, and a brilliant card to boot. I have one in my current PC, and while I normally hate ATi cards with a passion, I'm loving this one. And it sure beats paying £2-300 for the equivallent nVidia offering :P

If you uninstall your current graphics drivers first (and use something like Driver Cleaner to make sure they're entirely gone), can you install the latest version then? That would seem to be the first thing to try.

It depends on the size of your monitor. With larger monitors, VGA supposedly gets a bit blurry, whereas DVI remains crisp. There shouldn't be any loss from using an adapter, unless the screen is around 20" or bigger (probably bigger).

If you mean the big mothership thingy, I've no idea - I'm actually stuck on that bit too. If you mean the thing before it (that might be the exosuit, it might not - I forget the names. It was the big monster thing you fight on the deck of the carrier), just shoot it as much as possible with other guns, it'll go down eventually. I'm finding it harder than I should do because the Aircraft carrier is the only bit it lags on with my PC - I spend half the game playing through a massive, beautiful, amazingly detailed tropical jungle at a solid 50 FPS, and then it struggles with one measly aircraft carrier :P

Edit: Again, statistically, there is a 1 in 100 chance that Humans will live through this century, there is an extremely high probability of self destruction, mix in some over-due dates on asteroids, a few hundred prophecies, a doomsday clock reading 4 minutes to midnight, a bible code with 100% correct matrices and none occuring after 2012, mutated swine flu, waters reaching critical desalinization points, a colapsing global economy and a few hundred other problems. The sun, I'm afraid is the least of our worries. You say its statistically likely to be the end of the world in 2012... care to link your statistics for us? Also, that 1 in 100 statistic you mentioned... what source is that from? You can't just go around claiming things to be true unless you can provide evidence to back it up :) (and yeah, in case you hadn't guessed, I'm skeptical about the whole 2012 thing :P Though I remain open to any evidence to convince me otherwise)

Thats a review of the console version, and we all know console gamers don't appreciate good games. According to Metacritic, its actually doing quite well, though I noticed a lack of any big names from the list of reviewers - so no Gamespot or IGN reviews yet.

Firstly, there should be a 'Remember Me' option on the login page for this site - if you have cookies enabled, it should log you in automatically. Secondly, normally when you log into somewhere, such as this forum, a little bar should appear at the top of the page asking you if you want Firefox to save the password for this site, click yes and it should remember it. If that doesn't happen, I don't know whats the problem... make sure Firefox is set to remember your search and form hisory, make sure it isn't always set to run in a private browsing session, and make sure it isn't set to clear your private data (or recent history as it seems to be called in the latest version) when you close it.

Give your entire PC a general clean-up in fact. The entire thing can become completely clogged with dust and fluff (especially the fans), and that can really affect cooling. Its particularly bad if you have your PC on carpet rather than a wooden floor or desk. The other thing to do is to clean out your hard disk. The best thing to do is to completely reformat and reinstall Windows, but if thats not possible, regularly running a program like CCleaner (google it) is essential. You'd be amazed at how much crap builds up that needs getting rid of, both in temp files and registry entries.

Dwarf Fortress is probably the most complicated game ever made. It is so complicated that, even though it has ascii graphics, you still need a powerful pc to run it properly once things get going. The graphics certainly don't make it any easier though. Theres an excellent series of video tutorials on Youtube, here, but be warned, there are 43 videos in it, each 10 minutes long. Which comes to around 6 hours of video I believe, so I'd recommend not watching them all. If you have the time, I'd recommend watching the first 17-20, then just using the rest for reference (and fun). The other thing to do, is to play in a window, and have the DF wiki open all the time when playing, and if theres anything you don't understand, search for it there. Its invaluable. There are also a few getting started guides onthere as well, which you might consider checking out. And if you get stuck with anything, feel free to ask here, and I'll do my best to help. :)

Yeah, I don't get food from KFC either. I'd much rather not eat their genetically mutated chickens thank you very much. Plus I don't like chicken. :P

Use it to make a massive magma cannon for killing elves. Or kittens. I'd be up for that, for sure. In fact, if theres enough of us here who play, we could even do something like Boatmurdered, where we each take it in turns to play a season, before passing it onto the next person. Though with me playing, I doubt it would last too long...

I have a Powercolour Radeon 4890, haven't checked the fps, but Oblivion runs silky smooth with all settings on max, and QTP3 installed. Its great! :D

The empire strikes back!

Hah, that is kinda funny. I'm liking the sound of this religion, I have to say.

"The article you have requested does not exist, or is no longer available" - Your link doesnt work :P

Ha! I love this :P

But only if you've been able to log into it at least once beforehand. And after most updates, you have to log into it again before offline mode will work. As I can't connect at all, that leaves me unable to play any of the games I paid for.

Bear in mind that the quality of PSUs degrades over time. So while a brand new, good-quality 530W PSU should be enough, an older one won't be as good, and might not be able to cope. Basically, due to capacitor aging, the maximum wattage decreases over time.