StillLife

Hmm, I have a RealTek AC97 16-bit. Could that be the culprit in my crummy sound on certain things?

I liked Post Mortem & Still Life, though they were a bit on the short side.

Half-Life 2 and FEAR. Or is my memory failing me again?

You know, I've always been of the mind that on-board sound was more than adequate, though recently I've had a revelation that made me not so sure. I've noticed that for several of the albums I've been listening to lately, there are certain sounds that are very faint in comparison to how they sound in my car, stereo, or mp3 player - usually vocals, and it drives me insane. I've tried messing with every software sound option available, but came to the conclusion something with the hardware just sucks and I've just failed to notice before. Which got me wondering: Have I been hearing sound in games messed up or quite inferior to how they should sound in the time I've owned this computer? Anyway Eldar, if you can shell out the cash for two copies of Office, might as well get yourself a decent sound card.

Just to chime in: As far as ragdoll physics, I'd give the nod to Hitman: Agent 47(suck) or Silent Assassin(excellent). It was at least the first game that I thought ragdoll physics added something substantial to the experience. Blasting a dude at close range with a shotgun and having him respond to the impact by flying back into a wall was pretty cool for the time, as was being able to shove incapacitated victims into tight spaces.

"OMG, I just got my head lopped off by a lightsaber, I think I'm gonna pass out!"

Class-based multiplayer first-person shooters: Team Fortress Classic. Mind-numbing, click-festy hack & slash: Diablo Wretched D&D games: Pool of Radiance 2 You would have been better with one of the Final Fantasy games. PSTs main characters weren't dramatically emotional, they were more comedic than anything. Hell, none of the primary ones displayed excessive emotion at all.

It's not going anywhere anytime soon. Yes, in 3+ years maybe/possibly Blue Ray will be the new, must-have, digital storage device format. However, letting the fact the PS3 uses Blue Ray influence your decision in purchasing it over an Xbox or Wii while it's still a new, unproven format would be retarded. I just think you may be jumping to conclusions when stating its importance to people buying a console.

I doubt it. Games on DVDs aren't even a standard on PCs yet. It will probably be a looooong time before you ever end up with more than two DVDs for a game. It's really not a selling point to anyone but tech junkies.

But...why? Why can't discussion forums just be a peaceful place in cyberspace where posters alternate between over-exclamated praises and the posting of cute, fuzzy mammal pics? Voicing disappointments(teh whining) is soo negative. Now ladies and gentlemen, I present one of my personal favs--and a critter not found in my native Florida--the chipmunk: Oh yeah, and NWN2 is going to kick total ass!!!! All the way.

Stop being silly.

It was obviously a move to make a compromise Volourn. Had everyone adopted a mindless fanboy stance and said "Hey, that's ok", I doubt they would have set the deadline for it so close to the release of the game.

How bout that. And the clueless say making a fuss about a companies business decisions has no impact.

Hmm, well if the box says that it could very well be that the guy I quoted is wrong about that part. Might still be a problem with the voltage and amps but I'm clueless when it comes to power supplies. Good luck though!

Hmm. What is the AGP speed of the card? Even if it's X8, it should be backwards compatible with your AGP slot(if it really is X4). I've never had trouble with a card that I can recall though, so I'm not entirely sure what the problem could be. Not to sound like an ass, but did you make sure the card was firmly seated in the slot? Found this on another forum, could be relevant: So, could be you don't have a good enough PSU.

Unfortunately if your system is still leaves something to be desired, you'll have a bottleneck, regardless of your new card. I must be really behind in the times or something though. I still think of 1280x1024 as an excessive resolution setting, with 1024x768(what I always use) being good or better than average.

Her face seemed too... strange. Mostly the lips, but the eyes didn't seem quite right either for some reason. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Her brow was in a fixed position almost the whole thing. Humans--and all primates for that matter--manipulate our brows to communicate through facial expression, especially when conveying emotions. The lip-syncing was off in a lot of spots too. You can't really speak clearly, mouth agape while keeping your top teeth exposed for long periods of time. Especially when sounding out certain letters like P. The fact it's kinda eerie is a testament to how lifelike it almost is though. It's on the verge of almost fooling the human eye, yet still noticably unatural which makes it disturbing. We'll probably have to go through a period of that as games and CGI movies attempt to become more photo-realistic with characters. The background stuff and some of the lighting looked extremely well-done though.

Not to get too off-topic, but was there ever a time when CRPGs were popular ( I sure can't remember)? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You mean when there were quite a few of them being released on the PC? Sure. If you mean they haven't ever really been consistently huge sellers, that's kinda my point.

I think MMOs have killed the cRPG. Consoles have not. If anything, the KOTOR games show you can have a true RPG experience on console. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, a number of factors have killed CRPGs. Primarily consumers. I wouldn't think of blaming consoles for it. Not sure what that has to do with me thinking Microsoft is trying to destroy PC gaming though.

From a standpoint of pure self-interest, I want Microsoft to fail miserably in the console wars. Not because I have an inherent dislike of MS or the system, but I'm tired of their blatant destruction of the PC as a viable gaming platform to make a buck. Outside of their earlier role in it, they should just keep their filthy mitts out of the gaming industry.

See, I don't really understand that. With each release, consoles(with the possible exception of the Wii) seem to grow closer and closer to becoming plain 'ol PCs and then people freak out and act like it's a big deal or notable advancement. Just to toss out a few examples: The hub-bub over HDTV ready consoles. Hello? High resolutions have already been achieved with monitors. The Live! marketplace, specifically the small games from independent developers. Yeah, there are already plenty of those on the web folks, free ones at that. It just takes typing a keyword or two in Google. MP3/CD player capability Crossfire style buddy lists Hard-drives - 'nuff said

I hear ya.

That's true, for some reason it's easy to forget that. Both MS and Nintendo looked like underdogs compared to Sony last round. I thought it was something more akin to how you play PC games online. Is it going to be a fancy, extensive service like Live and the PS3 are attemping?

FEAR has been out for the PC like almost a year dude. Is it a new version? Shadowrun looks like ass and Star Trek sucks. Gears of War does look fairly interesting though.

It seemed pretty weak to me too. Nothing that really struck me as amazing or something to strongly anticipate. A few PC games like Dark Messiah, Huxley, Spore, CivCity, and Medieval 2 came close, but I already knew of those anyway.