samm

It does support athlons, too. Google didn't find anything too interesting about Turions on this mainboard Could you borrow one to try if it works?

Firstly, you are correct: It is of course a chipset with integrated gfx-solution. I don't know how people interested in HW could confuse that with a CPU/GPU-combo... Secondly, this is an ATI-chipset, devolopment has likely begun before the AMD/ATI-merger - that's just an assumption and I can't cite any sources on this. ATI's chipsets have a reputation of using little power while being stable, AMD hasn't done any chipsets for quite a while now. Integrated grafics are always sub-par, again, I don't know how HW-interested gamers would even bother talking about this chipset. Integrated graphics-hardware is just like integrated sound-hw (except Audigy): it's no good if you have any expectations of something special. The x1250 is good enough to play FarCry, which is an old game, but still more than previous integrated graphics could handle. So: if you're an Office/Internet-User and want to play some UT on 800x600 once every week, this is the chipset for you and you don't need anything additional (except CPU, RAM, HDD etc ). Otherwise, buy a normal graphics-card just as you would do with any other mainboard, disable onboard-gfx and you're fine...

That game is enormously hyped here, almost everyday they write something about it in the newspapers: How much money one can make playing this game, cracked servers, in-game presence of real-life firms etc. It sounds quite boring to me, the typical possibility to escape for people without real life, as it seems to be not much but a life-simulation where you can pimp your avatar. I wouldn't waste my time and money with this platform for self-display... Note: This is a completely biased opinion, and not based upon ever playing the game

an agp-version might eventually be released, but judging by the specs, an ati x1950xt (from gecube) agp is a better choice for people with a fast pc on an older mainboard.

Gfted1: sorry... I'm sure there are some pretty ones too, and as the Oktoberfest is swimming in beer, you might find almost every woman attractive after some time spent there

to answer your question: check out the db-website, they have a route-planner that shows travel-times, where to change trains, and probably even ticket prices (not sure about that, though). don't underestimate travel times, costs and the lack of comfort if you travel by train more than 4 hours or so... some more advice (don't read further if you don't want any, unwanted advice sucks) 1. for your own sanity: make sure you're there with some good, younger people, as this is a volksfest, which means that conservativity to the extreme will be spread by some bavarian patriots - but if you don't understand german, it's all good as you can sit next to some of the older ones there without being disgusted by the themes brought up by drunk old (wo)men. 2. by the way, if you get the chance to try swiss beer (well, certainly not at the oktoberfest ), have a draft of vollmond-bier (fullmoon-beer) 3. be prepared to hear some funny accents! 4. the women there aren't generally pretty. they wear "dirndls" to optically increase breast-size, thats about it... 5. if "bear-land" below your avatar means canada, mention that you're from there to avoid the fashionable racism against us-americans or french people...

Athlon 64 3800+ (on an Abit AV8-3rdEye, S939, Zalman 7700Cu) 1 GB Ram (2x 512 MB OCZ super-fast thingies) 320 GB HD (2x Samsung SP1614C or something like that, SATA) GeForce 6800GT (Asus V9999 with Arctic Cooling Silencer) It's just fast enough for NWN2, but won't be be replaced until the next gen of processors/gfx-cards or even the gen thereafter, because I'm a student but like high-end hardware, that's quite a bad combination [edit] Quite glad after reading this thread that I'm not the only one to run a "last-gen" system and not have jumped on the c2d-train

the perfomance gain will not be very significant, but if you've got 55$ left, why not... it will probably allow you to enjoy the time till the end of the year a bit more.

This is not meant to be bashing, but informing: Ah. I didn't know that. I wonder what caused this drop in standard. It's very disappointing to see a B-class game when they have made A+'s before. Obsidian != BlackIsle, and BlackIsle didn't develop BG but just publish it, and not mentioning PS:T (quote quoted) is a sacrilege... The Fallout-Team wandered off to found Troika, but I don't know if some of them are now at OE. Obsidian does however have several employees taken over from BlackIsle, the Imperator, the Webguy (Bishop Sawyer ), MCA et al. They don't remake the same games they made in the past, and probably, you're gloryfying past times anyway. PS: T is my all time favourite game, and I've never since played anything coming close to the experience it offered, but it does suffer under a lot of unfinished stuff. IwD1 didn't have any noticable flaws except using BG2's avatars if you installed HOW, but IwD2 did. BlackIsle did have several games cancelled and was closed by dying Interplay. So please don't wish past times back. As with your standards being higher: People have said everything there is to say about this, except: If you have been playing since your youth that is probably a long time gone (no offense, just a guess), it's only natural that gaming per se loses it's appeal. You live no longer in the times where your taste dictates the style of games because you're not in the target audience anymore. The target audience is the 12 to 17 y.o. from nowadays, which I'm glad not to be part of. That's why there are not many games to your liking anymore. Plus: Development did get a lot more expensive and does have to adhere to tighter schedules to create visually interesting titles. It's natural that many other aspects get lost in this process dictated by an unforgiving market. And especially if you take all these things into account, NWN2 will stand from the average CRPG out dispite it's flaws and mistakes (including NWN1 with it's nearly infinite development time since BG1, the boring Elderscrolls series, the lacking Gothic series etc.) edited for better english

oh nice! something I didn't know (or have forgotten) *goes to play some more ps:t* Can you do that without being a godsman?

you'd just have to find a faction you'd rather belong to, because as the o so many posters above me have said: you can't get back to factionless state once you've joined any of them.

I never played KOTOR2, because KOTOR1 was kind of boring and I read about the sorry ending of the sequel. NWN2 was really fun though. Yes, it was a shame that all the sounds from NWN1 were reused, and yes, it was strange to have the same questions to ask your companions until the end. Obsidian should have forgotten about the romances (hello, no RL anyone?) and put more effort into developing a more logical dialogue-system with the party-members. Also, it was bad that a thief didn't have a real chance to be anything but a murderer. Yes, NWN2 could have been better, BUT: It's a very good game as it is, the most fun and engaging fantasy RPG I've played since BG1 (seen from the point in time when it was new and I was young and unexperienced) because: The party-members were mostly done much more interesting than in any game I've played. It's just the b*tching amongst them, the unavoidably joining NPCs and the dialogue-system that was strange. Their story background, visual design and comments on game-situations were very well done. There were major motivation points, such as the trial, the keep, the variety in quests and fighting-tactics (if you took an interesting party-constellation with you) The graphics are quite beautiful at most places, and if viewed from the same angle and distance are equal or superior to the renderings of good old IE. The whole OC was so much better than anything from NWN1... I never cared to play HotU's SP-campaign for more than the first 3 hours or so because I don't want to start at level 15 and go epic. That already sucked in BG2: TOB (and BG2: SOA too to a lesser extent). The UI is very good The possibilities for CC are much, much bigger: from interface to effects to possibly completely phantastic environments to the script-interface everything is so much >NWN1.

oh, you can't play it? too bad...

I'd get a wii - if I'd get a console at all Zelda alone would be worth it... And by 'worth', I don't mean 600$ or something of money spent for hightech only really cool for those who spend another 2000$ in a suitable HD-TV. As for the controller not being rpg-friendly: You could still use the classic-controller or just play a game without motion-sensing. I mean, just that the controller supports it doesn't mean developers have to support the feature in their games. Hm, hopefully this doesn't start a console-flame-war, because imho, the only true RUL0R is the PC

At last! I've finished nwn2 :D now I know you'll not like it, but even without shadows and other details set to med to hight we have here a worthy successor of the infinity engine. doesn't it remind of iwd? then here my favourite screenie from the game, as it captured what the engine is capable of when seen from a closer perspective.

hell no, that graphics card simply does not meet the minimum requirement of pixelshader 2.0. it doesn't even support hardware t&l, iirc it was a (unworthy) competitor of nvidias riva tnt and 3dfx's voodo 2

jorian: how could santee not be inspired by the one in this movie? nice christmas tree, jessica clearly inspired by those enervating flashlights that are unfortuately becoming popular here too... another question: is it possible that obsidian artists do have an extraordinary tendency to have nieces that draw christmas-cards for them?

heh, no chance in hell the ie is coming back... and it doesn't have to, because the nwn2 engine seen from the traditional angle has the potential to look just as good or better (the latter especially concerning the individuality of characters). and on topic: i find some of the nwn2-related answers quite interesting. for example what feargus says about the pws and the ideas obsidian is trying to implement.

nwn2 by itself doesn't make use of both cores dual-core systems, but is 'dual-core friendly'. see here: http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewt...500057&forum=99

scythe is a company-name, and this is one of the (judging from reviews: quite good) coolers they fabricate.

lim-lim, no question. hth is gizka? that piece of meat being ripped apart by the sweet, green, most courageos insect?

the no avatars, the better... so, bis-web-guys, please ignore people complaining about too small avatars, and let's all have none at all... B)

hey, i found this site about a really promising looking (dark)fantasy rpg called the witcher. look here!

obnoxious hero? however, my d&d bard-character would be a demi-god, what a relief..

kotor2 isn't fine by me - but it's up to obsidian to convince me of their ability to make interesting sequels to general, simple and boring games. i voted for "new, no-dnd game", because that's what i wanted delaware to be