Humanoid

What would be really awesome is Wing Commander 4 DVD - it was only ever released as part of the Creative DVD bundle although there are ways to patch your CD copy to use downloaded DVD FMV. Prophecy DVD would be nice too of course.

Opportunity to resurrect Wing Commander and Crusader at the same time?

Install the OS on it. Ideally a clean install, as there are various acrobatic feats required to set it up correctly if migrating an existing installation. There are some third-party (paid) utilities available to simplify migration if you must go that way - Google tossed up this for example.

Well Chris Roberts is apparently keen to come back to gaming so I'm willing to put my cynicism aside for a short while.

Yeah, would wait at least until the graphics vendors at least pretend to agree on a standard for the tech. Personally if I was looking to "broaden my gaming horizons" - forgive the marketer-speak - I'd plump for the old fashioned larger screens, bigger speakers and comfier chair.

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

It's not really a question that can be answered generically - it depends on the particular setups you're comparing and what your display resolution is. Few examples to illustrate: 2x GTX560 or 1x GTX580? Answer is the former in the common case of 1080p, as the price/performance gain of the 580 is laughable. However the 560s may become memory constrained at higher resolutions of with multi-monitor gaming, such that the 50% more memory on the 580 becomes viable. Once you hit multiple high-res panels, the 3GB version of the 580 starts coming into the picture - but with the catch that one nV GPU can only drive two screens. 2x GTX 550 or 1x GTX570? The 570 all the way. And that's just comparing cards from the same vendor - as you can see there's no real rhyme or reason to the naming schemes, you just have to figure out your price point then evaluate your options from there - then it's just a matter of comparing four bench results - the single and dual card options from both nV and AMD. And for the sake of fairness, some common AMD-based comparisons: 2x6850 vs 1x6950 The 6850s have a pretty good raw performance lead, but the 6950 is still pretty good price/performance and leaves the option of adding another later. It also has double the memory which is handy in situations mentioned earlier. 50:50 call. 2x5770 vs 1x6870 Again the dual-card setup has the speed advantage here, but this time the ceiling is a bit lower and as it'll obsolete sooner, may not be as good an option in a relatively short-to-middle term.

If you were going for a high-level screen you wouldn't be picking a Samsung in the first place. NEC, or at a more consumer-friendly priced Dell IPS panel is the minimum I'd go for. HP do relatively affordable IPS panels too, but not in 27" as far as I know.

Games were on CD back then.

Thrustmaster hasn't been the same since they got bought out a decade ago - except for the Cougar and now Warthog. No idea how the suits were convinced to approve those but nice to see. I really miss the F-4 replica sticks though, those were more usable for general gaming than the hardcore F-16 sticks. CH is still making the exact same sticks they made 20 years ago, except with USB connectors.

You can't see the graphics in Doom 3 anyway since it was basically a black screen plus your UI.

Trackballs are underappreciated. Wired one for my laptop and wireless one for my HTPC. Death to all trackpads!

I recently replayed it and it wasn't quite as hard as I remember it being as a kid - only gets tricky in the final couple two chapters. I'm probably better in general at platformers now, but worse than ever at shooters. Hmm. As for input devices, the one I wish they still made is the trusty ol' Thrusty FCS.

I'm a dumbphone user and like it that way. Seriously considering a John's Phone.

Yeah, SMAC was interesting in that it had a pretty defined narrative compared to its predecessor and it's rival/sibling (Civ2 and Civ:CTP respectively), which is alternately viewed as either being brilliant or pretentious. Either way, lead designer Brian Reynolds was philosophy nut which explains most of the background design elements (which makes it all the more galling that he's now directed his talents making Facebook games). I believe EA still holds the rights to the IP, if only Firaxis could strike a deal with them. The faction leaders while conforming to broad stereotypes were a lot more interesting than the simple "Genghis Khan is going to stab you in the back because he's Genghis Khan" approach in Civ. The eclectic mix of wonder videos and voiced quotes for all techs/improvements added a lot of atmosphere too. Compare this to the bland videos and stale quotes in say, Civ4 (no slight on Leonard Nimoy, but the in-character stuff is just so much more engaging). So yeah, SMAC ends up having more plot than many RPGs, whether you take that as praise for the former or an indictment of the latter is up to you. The expansion, Alien Crossfire, is not included in the GoG download at the moment although odds are it'll be added free at some point. But it's a bit unbalancing and for some people, damages the narrative of the original, so it's often preferred to just play the base game regardless. Speaking of unbalancing though - Supply Crawlers.

If it's just a card you'll leave in there once you get a new system, I'd go for a 6850, or a GTX460 (end of life, but should be able to find stock). Lean towards the former especially if constrained by the power supply, I probably wouldn't run it with under 300W. Under that the only viable gaming option is the bare minimum 5770/6770 (they're identical). EDIT: Trap for the unwary - there are 3 versions of the 460 around. a 768MB model, a 1GB 'SE' model and a plain original model. The former two are cheaper cut-down versions, the original is the fastest. Between the cut-down versions, the 768MB model is faster at lower resolutions but might get memory bottlenecked at 1080p+ where the SE might compensate. Yes, graphics companies are in the business of obfuscation and this kind of naming stupidity has been around forever.

Info in the "Good time to upgrade" thread recently is still current. Quoting myself: That said, I'd always be a bit wary about buying a system in anticipation of a certain future release - you never can quite tell how a particular setup will go with what you're waiting for. If BF3 performance is the deciding factor then it may be best to wait until the game is actually out and tested with the hardware current as of the time of release. That said, a current midrange solution would look like: CPU: i5-2500k (if comfortable overclocking), or non-k version if not Motherboard: Any entry level Z68 chipset board Graphics: AMD HD6950 or nVidia GTX560, lean towards the former if gaming at above 1080p or with multiple screens SSD: Absolutely, Intel or Crucial most reliable To turn it into "high-end" just add a second video card of the same model, and get the 'k' version of the CPU and overclock to ~4.5k. This is faster and cheaper than going for the overpriced top-end parts.

The integration is precisely the reason they're not trusted. But while it's not saying a lot, I'd say I trust MS more than the likes of Google, Facebook and maybe even Apple. So while I don't particularly like Steam, it's mostly a standalone product which a lot of people are more comfortable with - in relative terms that is. A fair few can't imagine how messy a Steam 'divorce' would be, with a more integrated platform it'd be an even messier breakup. I think I'm rambling, but anyhow, not a big deal personally - I haven't even logged into Steam since I stopped NV in January.

Both buckets (basically alarms) and puddles are factors in the stealth mechanic, yes, and it does work to some extent. There are a few other things that have the same role as buckets, such as the swords leaning against each other, and small tables. Far from polished of course, but I had a pleasant surprise during one such segment where I managed to kill an npc with a throwing knife then proceed to continue undetected.

Well, it was reported in a study (no idea how exhaustive) that Australians despite the slacker image, worked the longest weekly average hours of any developed nation - might be local management as much as fault.

Descent to Undermountain 2

Didn't end up needing it, but at one point I hid behind a pillar long enough regenerating that combat dropped and I was able to save. Extreme cheese of course, but it meant that with patience it becomes three fights instead of one big one

If you're looking that far into the future, and because you're considering larger displays, it may be worth going the (somewhat rare) 3GB version of the 580. And yes, you probably need to go second-hand for a second one if you decide to go that way in the future (though next year's release of 28nm chips - the current generation is 40nm - may make that path poor value since it's expected to be a pretty healthy jump in performance). Alternatively, go for a midrange card now, and replace with a next-gen card next year.

The 580 is the top single-chip solution ...and is as such, very poor value for its performance. This is balanced by avoiding the complications of support for multi-GPU solutions. If you have an allergy towards the issues that do crop up with SLI/Crossfire then the premium may be worth it to you, but for raw speed, you can get in excess of 50% more bang per buck by buying two lesser cards. Remember that these days, both vendors multi-GPU solutions can scale in excess of 90%, compared to the situation just a generation or two ago where you would only gain 50-80% from the second card. I'd personally take a pair of 2GB 6950s, as at the top-end of performance, nVidia's lack of memory will be an even bigger limitation. Crossfire also scales marginally better than SLI. That said, a pair of 560Tis can hold their own for raw performance when not bottlenecked by the frame buffer. If you're sure you'll never want to go for gaming on multiple screens and/or 27"+, then the disadvantages of the nVidia option won't show up. Both have their issues - SLI didn't work at all for DA2 for a couple weeks for example, and both had issues with The Witcher 2 - but waiting a couple weeks is okay for me given the big gains otherwise and because even when problems do arise you can just use one card for perfectly serviceable performance. The value proposition can be shown in any old review - e.g. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-ra...radeon-hd-6950/ to see just how dual GPUs crunch the 580.