Humanoid

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.

How about Wuthering Heights?

http://staticice.com.au/ - search for EVGA 570 brings up a fair few shops, including my favourite local online shop (semi-contradiction I know) PC Case Gear. Note though I don't think they honour the lifetime warranty outside the US which removes much of the incentive of going with them in the first place.

P67 is the launch platform for Sandy Bridge, it has now been superceded by the new Z68, so the former becomes the "budget" platform - and a poor excuse for one given the price difference of only $10-20. The 2500k is indeed the popular pick, as only it and the 2600k can be overclocked - and the price difference is pretty big for a small clock speed bump and the addition of hyperthreading (useless for gaming). 8GB RAM is good, some might argue overkill but at rock bottom RAM prices who cares. On this platform, memory frequency (MHz) matters more than latency (CL rating). And yeah, grab the SSD for sure. nVidia vs AMD graphics is not so much about one performing better than the other, but on features. nVidia has more mature 3D glasses support, PhysX hardware physics for selected games, and support for up to two monitors. AMD has more memory which starts becoming a limiting factor at high resolutions and/or extreme anti-aliasing or if you plan on multimonitor support (3-6 monitors off the one care depending on model). That said, for raw performance I'd rank off-hand 560Ti (note the Ti is pretty important) < 6950 < 570 < 6970, but the gaps are small enough and highly variable depending on game such that I'd suggest basing your pick on the above criteria.

Would be a pretty balanced system for resolutions up to, say, 1920x1200. On larger monitors the 1.2GB memory on the 570 might start choking and the 2GB on the ATI 69xx cards will start to tell.

I'd take a third button for the leaping attack as a preferred solution with both other attacks being standing attacks. Adding more commands for specific moves otherwise is a bit too much complexity for my tastes. People with only two-button mice might disagree. That plus a more wieldy target selection + lock system would make my day

Never tried either, but that's just the inner miser in me. Knives aren't recoverable after using them are they? I also avoided Quen for the most part since it was boring, but found I'm just not good enough to dodge the big but quick foes like the golems - two hits and I'm dead.

Dammit, I just skipped to the bottom of your post and first thought was a physical robotic dog action figure not an ingame one. Disappointed now. They actually mention femshep at least....

That's all I ask for in an RPG really. The obscured message there is that me tolerating the combat is, in relative terms, a positive. Most other RPGs I count it as an outright negative - set easiest difficulty right from the get go, and if that's still too tedious, cheese/cheat to make it bearable.

Yep. I just finished it after a 12 hour session and there's so many things I hate about it. Yet it's still the best game I've played for a long time. Bunch of negatives: Don't like alchemy. Don't like the crafting. Don't like the looting and inventory system. Character system isn't particularly interesting. Most skill points are passive flat bonuses that don't change gameplay. (Rare exceptions like riposte and area-effect spells) Mutagens and weapon/armor enhancements are just passive fluff. Irritated like hell at the finisher animations (being an Aard spamming magic build doesn't help) Bored by the repetitive nature of all the spells. Ambivalent about the roll-roll combat in general. Ravines. Oh god, ravines. Turned lush outdoor environments into tunnels. Yet some things that I thought would be huge negatives we're really so bad. QTEs were easy and predictable - simple enough to know when to expect them unlike ME2 which tended to catch me when I was sitting back watching some cutscene. And boss battles - lots of complaints about them but I'd rather 90% of the inconsequential mooks be removed instead. Anyway, more generally - I'd probably go for another playthrough once 1.3 is released - but on easy (normal all the way on the first clear), skipping nontrivial sidequests (Melitele's Heart the worst of them) and ignore loot (including crafting/potions) as much as possible. And I'll still love it. EDIT: Early worries about instability didn't turn out to be an issue. After the two CTDs up to the beginning of act 1, I didn't get another ....until the end credits crashed.

You will have to upgrade the motherboard, yes. CPU-wise, Intel's Sandy Bridge launched earlier this year and that's all we'll see from them this year. Ivy Bridge is a refresh to it, not due until next year. AMD's next-gen, Bulldozer, is nominally due out this month but seems all but delayed until September at the least. Unlikely to be worth waiting for, unless you need 8 cores at an affordable price, it's very much expected Intel will hold onto its performance lead. For graphics, nothing has really been announced - the best we can do is rumours and that's that AMD will launch 7xxx sometime this year, probably Q4. Very unlikely nVidia will have anything this year. Graphics are in a bit of an odd spot currently - in terms of price/performance there's probably never been a better time, plenty of viable options all the way from $100 to $300. On the other hand, in terms of real performance gain there's been not a whole lot of improvement on 2009's 58xx series (which were admittedly a big jump). All-in-all it's hard to go wrong at the moment. I5-2500k (the 'k' version is for overclocking which is a huge gain on this platform), Z68 based motherboard, and for graphics AMD 6850/6950 or nVidia 560Ti/570.

Well DN3D was always generous with its shareware version.

Decided to start over with 1.2 and all the free loots you get and try to get through normal difficulty that way. Seems to have worked, although it might partly be because of the mechanics changes as well. Unfortunately have had two crashes to desktop up to the start of Act 1 (both seem to be caused by scripts triggering) - whereas previous game was 100% stable to the end of Act 1. Not sure if it's related to the patch, but hopefully it doesn't continue.

Probably get death threat for including it, and death threats for removing it. Can't really win with religious imagery.

I will now never purchase any EA game from now on. They crossed that bridge a long time ago when UO2 was renamed "Ultima Worlds Online: Origin" and turned it into some sort of 3D steampunk MMO. Which was mercifully canned.

I usually play DOSBox games scaled up 2x (for VGA games). On a 27" monitor I'd guess that'd correspond very roughly to the physical dimensions of an old 14" CRT. Anyway, I'll probably wait for GoG's next sitewide sale before jumping on this new stuff - but once it happens I'll probably grab every single one of them. I still need to buy a USB flight stick though - pretty hard to find the CH sticks locally. EDIT: Mm, just noticed the GoG version of Privateer doesn't include the expansion Righteous Fire. I'd expect it to be added free to the package down the line though.

It's also one of the very few MMOs to host an Oceanic/Australian server that's actually *gasp* in Australia, while the competitors just count their stacks of cash - so kudos for that. It's still probably the most 'open' MMIO out there too, maybe the only one that merits the term MMORPG (instead of stull like WoW which I'd classify only as an MMOG)

My CE took its time arriving, but finally has. Just got home and a mysterious white sack made of the stuff they make tarpaulin out of (name escapes me) was waiting on my doorstep, which gave the impression of some ill-gotten booty waiting for me. Inside, the more conventional large cardboard box, filled with air cells, and the hefty CE box. No damage to report, which is better than a lot of other people's experience with the head and all that. So not speedy, but not bad for free delivery from the other side of the world. I never feel like I own a game until I can touch it, so yeah. Paper manuals, oh how I missed thee.

The EA deal mooted a while back probably. Which is a fate worse than shutting down in some people's eyes. EDIT: Once again, way, way late. That's what I get for reading new posts in reverse order.

Mythic says "Welcome back, Avatar" - but what's the occasion? Have you heard something, Avatar? http://www.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/ultimaforever.png

You're meant to use a Cat potion.

Go back to cartidges! With some speedy flash chips faster than optical or magnetic spindles.

On Easy you walk up to her face and hack away until dead. Yeah. Haven't had the chance to play with patch and Catalyst 11.5b just yet, hopefully can bump up settings a bit.