Humanoid

OCUK tested the 290X with the god-king of air coolers installed. Temperatures were down by well over 30C, at essentially inaudible volumes. It's proof that the problems with the card aren't inherent to the chip itself, certainly, but also shows how much they cheaped out on the cooling. It's ridiculous that with a 'reasonable' fan speed setting, the card with a stock cooler throttles down to ~850MHz. It's ridiculous that at those clocks, it beats Titan anyway. It's ridiculous that *overclocked* to 1100MHz, the custom cooler can keep the card stable at 62C. So oddly enough, in damning AMD for their silly decisionmaking here, we end up being even more amazed at the potential performance of this beast, which lest we forget together with its little brother and the 7950, renders the entire nVidia lineup pointless. Another point though: factory coolers still aren't anywhere near as good as the best self-installed one. I bought an MSI Twin Frozr 3 version of the 7950, but I needn't have bothered - the noise was unacceptable regardless and I was forced to install Arctic Cooling's cooler (which is fantastic). Only cost me $10-20 more than the stock model though, so not that annoyed, and. (And besides, it meant getting a 7970 circuit board instead of a 7950 one: not particularly useful, but better is better) But I digress, I just mean to say that unless you're familiar with and are satisfied at the noise level of previous factory custom cards, it may be an idea to just buy now and install your own solution down the line, which will be better but probably $30-60 more expensive.

Well, an orange filter over brown terrain just looks like a slightly warmer brown, so yeah. I'd say the sky had a very orange tinge to it though, which is probably the most telltale sign of it. Cinematic gaming - taking the worst parts of the film industry and adopting it as your own.

Doubtful anyone's actually making passes of each light source and adjusting it for the sake of a rerelease. More likely it's just collateral 'damage': removal of the urine yellow filter globally (which I am completely in support of) without really paying attention to the result. Whether something ends up looking improved or otherwise is just a fluke of the original design. I need something to remove all the colour filters from New Vegas, ugh. That general orange filter over everything (better than Fallout 3's sickly green doesn't mean it's good) is bad enough, but the heavy handed use of the location-specific ones are the real offenders. Especially the various locations along the river.

Steam's never sent me a single discount coupon for anything, ever. No idea what's up with that, unless it's an opt-in thing or somesuch. But none of it sounds interesting or even represents a meaningful discount, so eh.

Now that is unusual. Wonder if the safety (amongst other power-related toggles) is disabled in your BIOS. Thermal protection comes in two general stages, throttling which is to some extent in the user space, and as a final measure, an emergency shutdown which is a fixed function of the CPU. Looks like you've skipped to that last step. I looked up the manual for your motherboard and the relevant setting is "Hardware Thermal Control" under "PC Health Status". You may also want to check the setting of the various C states. C states, which will be listed individually like C1E, C3, C6, etc, are various features that turn off parts of the CPU when not under load - if they're off they might partly explain the non-gaming shutdowns. Consider just resetting to the defaults and retesting, especially if you've fiddled with the settings before, for overclocking purposes or whatnot. It's possible that the system shipped with them off, as power efficiency related features can affect maximum overclocks - this is fair enough for enthusiasts doing it on their own initiative, but it'd be plain irresponsible for a vendor to ship a system like this. (Might explain the negative things Kaine has heard about them - I've never heard of them myself) I'd also likely use this time to update your BIOS, as there may have been issues with older versions which contribute to your problem. But yeah, while that may explain your shutdown problem, it doesn't solve the overheating, so the cleaning and reapplication of thermal paste, etc, is a good idea. And more broadly, dust around your case intakes as well.

Well if you consider the fact it uses us a WHOLE 30W more power than its competitors, you could argue that the cumulatively accelerated global warming would have those effects, yes. Two CFL lightbulbs worth! Nvidia are launching the 780Ti in about a month too for what it's worth. They've already announced the price as being $650, so in that regard it's probably not going to be competitive unless it also trounces Titan (which surely would mean Titan being discontinued), or if they change the pre-announced price as a reaction. There's also a reasonable possibility that regular 780 drops to ~$500, but again, probably still behind value-wise. The common assumption is that 780Ti will be Titan with half the VRAM (3GB instead of 6GB) and with the extra compute stuff stripped out which would enable higher clocks. Releasing second is always a win-some-lose-some proposition in that what you lose in initiative you gain by being able to react to the competitions benchmark numbers. In this case I assume nV will tweak the clocks *just* enough to make sure it beats the 290X by a couple percent. Bearing in mind that factory-overclocked regular 780s already beat Titan today and it's a reasonable guess.

I'm a terrible person and am restarting New Vegas for the fifth time in about a month, this time with Josh's mod. It just got a bit dull once I had all the stuffs, which was demonstrated when I walked into Quarry Junction and one-shot every last thing there. I still like the idea of a melee character but already have multiple failed attempts at actually playing one, so I'm going to compromise and make a character who exclusively uses shotguns. And, as usual, hardcore, no companions. Might go no speech at all on top.

Couple reasons I can think of which may not be make or break: 1) The AMD stock cooler is an inadequate lump of plastic. Apparently all the initial launch cards are reference-only, so they're all identical - which is to say, identically hot. If you're going to remove it and go water then it's not an issue at all, of course, but if air-cooling, it's probably a good idea to wait for either custom cards or compatible third-party air coolers to be released (waterblocks are available). 2) The R9 290. If it's a repeat of the 7970 vs 7950 scenario, you could save another $100 and still overclock to within 5% of the performance. Reviews will be released when the NDA lifts on the 31st.

They managed to make a lockpicking system worse than Oblivion's? Impressive indeed.

It's an interesting halo card to be sure, but the real news will be when the R7 290 (non-X) comes in - the NDA lifts on the 31st. If it launches at $450 we may have a new effective ceiling for video card pricing. After the 7970 launch price of $550 (and to a lesser extent the 680 at $500), which were followed by the ridiculous Titan and the only slightly less ridiculous 780 ($650), it would be a refreshing change for the high-end to once again be defined at a sub-$500 level. We have this tantalising pseudo-leak: Is Titan performance* for only 55% of the price good? Well how about 45%? * To be fair, while it makes a good headline, yes, but then Titan is such a stupid product that it makes comparisons with it mostly hyperbole. More relevant is GTX 780 here. 290X soundly beats it for $100 less. Nice, but you have extra costs with custom factory coolers or user-installed ones. 290-non-X for $200 less? It ends the value debate instantly.

CPUs these days tend to handle overheating a bit more intelligently than in the past, both AMD and Intel CPUs now should throttle instead of just instantly shutting down if they're overheating. Do you notice any slowdown or other performance related issues occuring before the shutdown? I'd run the PC under load while monitoring temperatures. Run something like HWinfo64 to monitor temps while you test - I'd recommend two tests: something that pushes the CPU/RAM only, and then something that pushes the graphics as well - say OCCT then Unigine Heaven. HWinfo64 has the benefit of being able to monitor live clock speeds and the CPU voltage (Vcore) as well so you can tell if it's throttling before it dies (I think Bulldozer drops to 1.4GHz when it throttles). What's a safe temperature? Chips these days are pretty resilient, I'd only get really concerned at 70+ (but a quick search shows that Bulldozer may begin throttling at 61+). If that's not a problem, then I'd move on to testing your memory specifically using Memtest (you'll need to boot into it from a disc or USB stick). If it passes that then it's a bit trickier because other potentially faulty components are harder to test. The PSU might be at fault, as could be the motherboard. For the latter you can use a multimeter (onboard readings of PSU numbers are horribly unreliable) and test using the back of the ATX connector while running under load (like so).

Finished Honest Hearts. It's, eh, okay. Pretty to be sure, the kind of thing I'd like to see more in the genre, as opposed to every square inch of the world being bombed out rubble. But it was an uphill battle from the start as I've never really liked the concept of mostly-stereotypical tribal societies in future settings, and ultimately I could sympathise with neither of the two leaders' agendas. I guess I really am a sneering imperialist, even though I didn't actually take the perk. And then the MMO-esque fetch quests and simplistic "kill X" quests and the result is really just a standard sidequest just with an alternate landscape. I mean ultimately, there's wasn't any reason for the hoop-jumping when in terms of the narrative, you could have just marched into the hostile tribe's territory and taken them all out singlehandedly, thus solving everyone's problems in a fraction of the time. (Also, I have a problem with the alliteration causing me to say 'honest' with a hard H sound. Yeah. ) And the Narrows. Oh god, the Narrows. Anyway - what's next? Dead Money or Old World Blues? At 30 I'm pretty much overlevelled for everything so that shouldn't be a factor.

Hmm, a week to the year of the last system update. I've just bought ALL THE DISKS. It's not actually installed yet, but on the way. I was a bit suspicious of some parts possibly on the brink of failure, and also wanted a clean Windows install - the repair install I did a couple months back was useful, but still too much cruft (and sfc is reporting another corrupt system file). So instead of mucking about with old stuff and trying to find issues which may or may not be there, I decided to go for a proper cleanout. In: 240GB Sandisk Extreme II, 250GB Samsung 840 EVO, 4TB Western Digital Red, 8GB G.Skill DDR3U-1600 Out: 128GB G.Skill Falcon II, 808GB Western Digital Green the remaining 4GB G.Skill ECO DDR3L-1333 (removed a pair in the interim when one stick failed) CPU: Intel i5-750 @ 3.33GHz, Prolimatech Megahalems, 2x Nexus Real Silent 120mm M/B: Gigabyte P55A-UD4P RAM: 2x4GB G.Skill Sniper DDR3U 1.25V HDD: 4TB Western Digital Red SSD1: 240GB Sandisk Extreme II SSD2: 256GB Crucial m4 SSD3: 250GB Samsung 840 EVO Video: MSI Radeon HD7950 Twin Frozr III, Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme 7970 cooler Sound: Asus Xonar Essence ST ODD: Pioneer DVR-216 DVD-RW FDD: Sony 3.5" Case: Antec P182B, Scythe Slipstream 800-1200rpm case fans PSU: Seasonic X-650 O/S: Win7 Pro 64-bit OEM Mouse: Logitech M950 Keyboard: Das Keyboard Professional Silent (Cherry Brown) Display: 2x Dell U2711 27" IPS Speakers: Audioengine A5 2.0 Headphones: Alessandro MS-1i Gaming Peripherals: - CH Products F-16 Fighterstick USB - Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar - XBox360 Wireless controller for PC

Not true! They made some pretty decent Australian Rules football games back in the late 90s. :D

I thought that too initially, but really, loan repayments are pocket change - even taking the easiest jobs every day your loan repayment component is a drop in the ocean. So now (well, not now since I haven't played for a while) I max out my loans and get as many trucks on the road as possible. And remember to focus your hired drivers' training on long distance or they might end up idle a lot.

Protected species. When you have the clout that comes from being Sega's golden goose, you can get away with it. Not so the developers of a certain espionage thriller RPG.

It's sort of already happened, albeit in an extremely telegraphed way. But still, I liked having the "option" for the non-standard game over, which is a refreshing change over having three options leading to the exact same result. I mean I just started Honest Hearts and had an ....incident that short circuited the whole DLC. I reloaded, natch, but still, I like the option of being able to live with it. I wish there were options to short-circuit the base game too, and legitimise the ending with the closing slides and all that. I mean the gate's already there in the Mojave outpost, just make it interactable - make "screw this, I'm going home" a valid ending. Starting to feel I'm in the wrong thread, but I think I've ODed on that game in the last few days. Steam says 66 hours in the last two weeks, but that's heavily, heavily backloaded.

Perhaps not the intention, but my first thought is: "and this is a company hundreds of millions of people trust to operate their e-mail, act as a front door to the internet for, and control their mobile telecommunications?"

Hmm, looked into it: It looks like that's true. Crouching, zooming, weapon skill and limb injury only affect sway of the crosshairs, but the only thing that affects accuracy relative to the crosshairs themselves is the inherent accuracy of the given weapon itself. That said, it also looks like no "normal" weapon is 100% accurate, only Alien Blaster and one of the unique Tesla Cannons have an inherent weapon spread of zero, though it's not hard to find something accurate to within 0.1° (most non-automatic rifles).

I've started four games of New Vegas in a month, all of which bar the current one ended in and around Vegas. Just now, for the first time since the game's launch, I spoke to Caesar. I know there's an incredible amount of content in the game I've never seen, but I'm not sure I have the determination to go that route. At any rate, I can put off any thinking for now, about to tackle the DLC for the first time ever (again, after owning it for quite a long time). Going with Honest Hearts when I fire the game up tomorrow, at a few levels shy of 20 - unless someone thinks I should do them in a different order? I admit some temptation to play XCOM due to all the recent chatter - and I really do intend to play vanilla XCOM once more before getting into the expansion - but I really should stick with one thing for now.

I had to look up what iron sights were... yeah. In NV I never really could tell for most weapons what part of the mechanism I had to put over the enemy, what with all the bizarre shapes and sizes they came in - something that's not an issue with an old-fashioned crosshair.

I remember in photos taken back in the BIS days he looked barely twenty. Happy birthday.

The threat of Thinmen subsides is reasonable time, yeah. But early on, with only conventional weapons and grenades, they present a new challenge. Rockets aside, nothing in your arsenal is capable of reliably taking them out in one hit due to the extra HP they have (4hp in classic and 6hp in impossible). Arguably the +1 they get for classic probably means more as it means doubling the firepower required to kill them: whether 4 or 6 hp, it's two grenade or on average two shots with ballistic weapons. And as per any difficulty, it's harder to flank them and easier for them to flank you due to their extra mobility. The risk of a panic chain is also much larger and is arguably the bigger threat from the poison, as opposed to the actual damage. Unfortunately it also means they promote somewhat boring play early on: the scripted ones in council missions in particular are best dealt with by mass overwatch fire the moment they spawn, so it enforces the strict conga-line strategy even moreso than usual.

I don't know what about Wals has done this to me, but now I'm also tempted by another gadget, the Asus Transformer Book T100. Yeah, it looks like one of those woefully underpowered netbooks from years gone by, but with Bay Trail, it looks as if Intel finally has Atom performance at a point where it's useful for more than being a punchline in a joke. I'd prefer it a little larger than 10" (oooh, matron), but at under $400, when I'd been sort of thinking about alternatives like the Dell XPS 12 and Lenovo Helix/Yoga/whatever convertibles at well over $1000, it's probably a safe investment. The gimmick isn't new, the form factor isn't new, but for my purposes I just needed the design translated into a Wintel machine instead of the ubiquitous ARM-Android devices. It also means I no longer have to umm and ahh over whether the Haswell notebook I intend to purchase next year should be a ~12" device like the aforementioned, it probably seals my choice of a Lenovo T440s.

Technically you can get up to three rockets - shredder rocket adds one (albeit with different properties), and another normal one with Rocketeer. The double grenade one isn't taken so much either, but is also a viable choice. Regardless though, one rocket makes a huge difference, and there typically are only 6-8 aliens (typically in three packs) in early missions anyway. That one rocket is therefore potentially up to 1/3rd of the mission objective completed in one shot. The poor aim part is true, but is more than compensated for by the Bullet Swarm ability which can be taken very early. I mean Assaults get two shots a turn too, but it requires a higher level, is restricted to one target, and gives an aim penalty to each shot (which probably takes each shot to under the hit chance of each of the heavy's). And while less ammo is annoying, Bullet Swarm also means you get more opportunities to reload - i.e. no one else can fire then reload in the same turn. Aside, it's common practice to take the heavy's actions last in each turn. Arguably their greatest asset is insurance - let the rest of your squad try to kill all the aliens earlier in the turn (keeping resource waste to a minimum), and if that fails, either finish them with your rocket or suppress them (and you can shoot then suppress in the one turn, bonus). More of a fun fact than a tip, but rockets and suppression count for the purpose of Holo-targetting. While skipping Bullet Swarm for Holo-targetting makes for an extremely speclaiised heavy, it can be oodles of fun. Fire a rocket (danger zone!) to take our a bunch of cover, then have an In The Zone sniper take *all* of the aliens out without spending a single action.