Humanoid

I relied on the autosave for the entire game and haven't been burnt.

I've tried watching some gameplay video of Half-Life 2 a few times over the years. Each time it's swiftly given me a bout of motion sickness. Now that I think of it, Bloodlines may have induced some level of discomfort for me as well, but one nowhere nearly as bad. But this just suggests that I might have a problem with the Source engine specifically, since I don't recall any other video game ever having that effect on me. On another note, resolved my crashing problem with Broken Sword 5, which is to say, have worked around it based on information provided by a kind soul on the GOG forums. Revolution themselves haven't been any help with the issue, because I can't even register on their forums, the activation email never comes through (and have tried a couple times, and it's not in the held queue for spam). It seems the backer portal on their site has vanished as well, not sure what's happening there. As for the workaround - well, it's apparently based on the notion that there is a missing asset that causes the crash, but if you play the game at a lower resolution, a different, lower-detail version of said asset is loaded instead, and that works fine. For most people, simply setting the game to windowed mode was sufficient to do this, but the window is not dynamically resizable, it's set at a fixed proportion of your desktop resolution. I'd been playing on windowed mode all along, so at 2560x1440 desktop resolution, clearly my window was still too large. Dropping my desktop resolution then re-enabling windowed mode finally got me through.

The only Source engine game I've played is Bloodlines. I didn't even get that far. The requirement of metagaming combat by reducing enemy HP as much as possible without killing them completely put me off the game and I haven't been back since. It's nonsensical and makes me rather combat be excluded from the game altogether. I can't remember if there was a difficulty setting, but even if so it just makes it a chore rather than abjectly dumb. Could be the way you play the game, but I've also noticed I've become less critical towards certain games as time go by. Dragon Age for example, almost hated the damn thing when it came out but year or two later I actually liked it when I went back to it. So it's kind of learning to take things as they are, at least in my case. And actually, the Banner Saga is just one of the games that show I have the complete opposite tendency. I become more critical of games with the passing of time, without actually having to play them. At the time I put it down initially my thoughts were along the lines of "this is a little silly, I'll come back to it later", which has been slowly evolving into "that was idiotic, I don't want to do that ever again". Dragon Age is probably another good example, went from initial impressions of thinking it a reasonable if sometimes overlong game, gradually boiling down to feeling that it's an earnest attempt (one thing that its sequel didn't have) that eventually fell completely flat on its face.

I seem to remember from the patch notes that the game at least will tell you what region you're in at any given moment. Prior to that it only informed you, and very briefly at that, when you technically enter that particular zone. There was also the one riddle that wasn't so much of a riddle as much as a vocabulary test. You either know that word and get it instantly, or you don't and are completely stumped.

The highest difficulty should be "normal".

VGA connectors are still used a lot in business because, lot of older projectors and the like in use. Most business laptops worth their salt will still have D-sub alongside mini-DP or mini-HDMI. Conversely, laptops more than a few years old will probably have no video output other than VGA. But yeah, HDMI (at least more recent revisions of it) support 1440p, however my U2711 screens don't because of some hardware limitation. So the point is all elements in the chain have to support it, the video card, the cable and the monitor. That said, if it's only going to be for the WiiU then it's irrelevant anyway since it's strictly 1080p.

Was going to buy Democracy 3 at the current Humble sale, but it looks like they're only just selling a Steam copy, which makes no sense given that it's available from both GOG and direct from the developers DRM-free. Ah well, waiting.

Hit a terminal bug on Broken Sword 5, save says about 80% through the game. Blah. Reports missing animation. Now obviously people have completed the game, so it might be my version, GOG patched to version 1.11. Seen the reported by others with no present resolution, and have reinstalled my game to no avail, so it's either some incompatibility or the current GOG version is problematic.

Register at World of Trucks and get the Metallic paint DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 for free. Pointless perhaps, but free is free.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00JEN10EE

Personally I want Sid to take another crack at Covert Action.

Let's see, either one Dell 32" 4K screen.... or for the same price, *four* 32" BenQ BL3200PT QHD AHVA screens. Or more realistically, buy three of them and $500 worth of ice cream. Actually, hold on the ice cream and buy a colorimeter instead to calibrate them, as the settings out of the box are apparently very suboptimal. Seriously though, it's a fantastically well positioned product for an unheard-of asking price. Heck, it's almost half the price of a 30" Dell Ultrasharp U3014. It's not the best at any one thing in particular, but the hard-to-please folks at TFT Central are sufficiently impressed.

While we're naming basically any property we want to be turned into an RPG, I nominate Oglaf. It's set up perfectly for such an undertaking. EDIT: Probably should give fair warning - if you're going to look up Oglaf, don't do it at work.

The Steam screenshots require the Steam overlay to be turned on, which is something I prefer not to do. And yeah, it's a little janky when I do try to use it (turn the sound effect for it on so at least you know when it succeeds), which I suppose would be a problem if trying to capture one specific fleeting moment. Other than that it works as advertised, though it dumps the files in a stupid place (and seems not to acknowledge the custom folder I specified). P.S. Scroll Lock is a stupider key than Print Screen.

Netflix apparently has been bugging out. Main source.

Not just the obstruction but often just plain old convection plus radiant heat from the backside of the bottom card. In an multi-card configuration it's always going to be the top card that's going to be problematic, it can be significantly hotter than the bottom card. In theory it might be a workable compromise if you have an open air cooler up top and a blower model at the bottom. The blower at the bottom means it recycles less hot air into the case making the top cooler work better as it intakes somewhat cooler air. At any rate it should be better than the reverse, forcing hot air from the open-air cooler into a top-positioned blower would probably be bad as the blower probably has higher temperatures to begin with. Did a little bit of work on my NAS project yesterday, the NAS box itself is assembled. Cabling a bit of a mess until I finish the drive loadout and use SATA power splitters instead of a bunch of separate cable runs, etc. Tripped up by the simplest of things though. We take Gigabit ethernet for granted these days so it slipped my mind that my ancient Netgear modem-router is only 100MBit, probably not enough for streaming. So uh, time to go shopping again. - TP-Link Archer D7 ADSL2+ Wireless AC modem-router - Asus PCE-AC68 wireless PCI-E network adapter My Thinkpad T440s has wireless AC support, and I want to give everything the best possible chance, so I splurged a bit. Over $100 for a consumer level network adapter is daylight robbery, but it seems to be literally the only option available. There are technically wireless AC USB adapters available for about half the price, but with internal antennae and being rated at only AC1200 (867Mbit AC + 300Mbit N) versus the AC1900 of the Asus (the maximum spec 1300Mbit AC + 600Mbit N). The router itself is only AC1750 though, being rated at 1300Mbit AC and 450Mbit N. If all this is confusing, what it means is that these things are dual-band, they operate at the old wireless-N speed on the 2.4GHz spectrum or at the new wireless-AC speed on the 5GHz spectrum. However a consequence of the higher spectrum is that wireless-AC has much more of a range dropoff, being notably more sensitive to obstructions such as walls than previous wireless standards. But yeah, as I said, wanted to give it the best possible chance, so I'll try it in that mode first up, then fall back if it doesn't provide sufficient speed to stream my raw Blu-ray rips. Plan: test wireless-AC > test wireless-N > test Ethernet-over-powerline (I have a couple 500Mbit EoP adapters, but I suspect the wiring in my house will heavily restrict them) > long ugly cable run (bought a 20m cable, god I hope I don't have to use it). If I wasn't living in a rental I'd be able to bypass this all and just get in-wall Ethernet cabling. P.S. Also threw in a generic ASMedia chip dual SATA 3.0 controller card, to test out compatibility with Nas4Free for the future when I inevitably run out of native SATA ports. P.P.S. Since the NAS is running off a USB stick now, it means the basic Sandisk Ultra Plus SSD I was considering using in it is now spare. Might as well toss it into my desktop. Or more accurately, toss that 120GB drive into my planned HTPC instead, and take the 250GB model (also an Ultra Plus) planned for the HTPC into my desktop. Terabyte SSD storage in my desktop, ahoy!

That's not even a date! (At best it's just an afternoon coffee with an acquaintance)

A 'proper' sequel to Alpha Centauri is probably impossible without Brian Reynolds, since essentially all its themes were developed from his personal interest in philosophy. It'd end up being Fallout 3-esque as an exercise in missing the point.

Open air coolers, which most custom designs are, might be a little quieter in solo operation, but because they exhaust hot air internally are less suitable for SLI. So depending on your likelihood of going SLI in future, decide whether you want to pick up a model with the stock blower cooler instead.

The Qunari romance will. Maybe a Qunari and a hairy dwarf for best results.

Some people get a little nervous about the EVO because it uses TLC NAND rather than the conventional MLC NAND in most drives. TLC is used as a cost-cutting measure, theoretically having less endurance than MLC, but Samsung's controller is smartly programmed and makes up for most of the shortcomings of the memory type. When we talk endurance here, it's estimating the life of the SSD assuming an approximate consumer-oriented load, typically 10-20GB/day of writes (already very conservative). At that kind of load, the EVO might last 20 years instead of a competitor's 30 years, so it tends to be not a big deal in practice. Personally I'm comfortable with the EVO, which I'd pick over the majority of alternatives. The ones I can comfortably say are better are the 840 Pro as mentioned, the Seagate 600, and the Sandisk Extreme II. Can't find good deals for the former two, but I see Amazon has the Sandisk for $287 which is a great price for arguably the second best consumer SSD available. Compared to the EVO at $249, I reckon I'd take the Sandisk, which is marginally better in just about every metric. (If you can get the EVO cheaper than that then it's obviously tilting the balance back in its favour) P.S. I have both an Extreme II and a EVO 840 in my system, no complaints about either. (Also a Crucial m4, but that's comparatively ancient) P.P.S. Samsung has an excellent software package called the SSD Magician which is handy and is a point in its favour, allowing easy health checks and firmware updating on their SSDs. I wouldn't say it's make or break personally, it's more of an ease of use thing: my Crucial drive required me to boot from a CD to update its firmware for instance, for Samsung it's just a couple of clicks on a desktop application. The Sandisk hasn't required an update so I'm not sure about it, but it looks like they have an updater application available for their other model SSDs. P.P.P.S. I should also note an SSD's longevity scales almost linearly to its capacity. Lazily quoting Anandtech's estimates for the EVO, at a heavy usage of 50GiB/day, the 120GB model would expire in 4 years, the 250GB in 8 years, and the 500GB in 16 years.

Like the idea of the setting, but a little let down that an RPG based around a team of *investigators* ends up being apparently pretty heavily combat based rather than be more investigative and adventure-like. Happy to throw the minimum coin at it regardless.

Would've been the choice I made with an open budget, so there's that. :D

$100 is a tough budget for a build like this. Filtering Newegg's list I don't see a single under-$100 model than I'd buy, though this is taking your SLI requirement into account. At a bit over there's the Seasonic M12II 850W which ought to go okay, it's a bit of an older model though and not the most efficient. A little more past that is the newer Antec High Current Gamer M, but specwise it's pretty much the same and while it's a Seasonic OEM, I'd probably not bother. Both appear to be fully modular. Fake edit: Oh I see the Antec has a $30 MIR up to the 26th, so it'd go down to $90 effectively. Probably your cheapest bet then. Real edit: There's also an XFX Core 850W which is again almost the same, $95 after MIR, but not modular. All three options being made in the same factory, all bronze certified, would suggest they're near-identical electrically, but not necessarily acoustically. Oh, there's a Gold Antec TP-750C for $80 after MIR, probably would be sufficient though borderline for SLI, bit on the edge if you overclock. (Rough maths, OCed 780Ti maybe 300W each, OCed CPU maybe 150W)

You keep it forever*. * Until Valve goes bust. EDIT: The other clue is on the front page of Steam: Arma3 is labelled "free weekend" while Arma:CWA is labelled "free game".