Magister Lajciak

Thanks!

There's always the smell of a new girlfriend. Well, than we can all compromise and say that new computers, girlfriends and leather articles have a great smell!

Is this a published adventure or part of the Pathfinder adventur paths or a download?

I want to post some pictures too, but a question first: What program do you use to capture screenshots? Do you just do the default "printscreen" and does that even work in games?

Yeah, the inventory management system does leave a lot to be desired. The sheer amount of stuff one can pick up everywhere is certainly a major contributor to that.

Scratch that thought - I must have been running something in the background, when I last tried that last time, since I just fired up King's Bounty again (still 1920x1200 and highest settings) and it works like charm without so much as a single slowdown.

I am finally playing the game now too! Even better, I just found my first bobblehead, giving me a permanent +10% to my medicinal skills!

This is it, right? Looks great, and the proc is a P-series too. Yes, that's indeed it! I did make a typing error with the graphics card though - the suffix should read GTS (not GTX). The two letters (X and S) are next to each other on the keyboard, but of course in this case it makes a difference. May I ask what is your budget? If you look for good deals you can probably go higher than you think. I scoured the web for deals for weeks (or maybe even months) and asked for lots of advice on this forum and on other fora on all sorts of things related to purchasing a laptop - including quality of the build, because I want it to last. In the end I got the Sager NP5793. It is currently on a $600 off sale here: http://www.pctorque.com/sager-5793-gaming-computers.php It's a great deal and still available until stocks run out, since the model is about to be replaced by a newer one (which will be without the $600 off ). The base price is $1360, but you can configure it in various ways. My configuration cost something under $1600, but it has a Blu-ray drive and that's already including shipping and handling, taxes and the charges I had to pay for an international wire transfer (since my bank is back in Slovakia and I had to wire the money from there - that alone cost me about $40). You can also go for a 6MB cache processor, but I was advised that this is not that useful for gaming or normal applications and is mostly only good for encoding of video and so on. I have only installed 2 games so far (I have only had it for basically one day): King's Bounty: The Legend Fallout 3 Fallout 3 can run on ultra high settings at 1920x1200 resolution, but at that point the responsiveness does seem rather deteriorated. I cannot judge the framerate, since I don't have a program installed that would measure it, but it would probably be low. At lower resolutions and settings, it of course, runs better - I am currently playing at 1600x1200 resolution and medium settings and it seems to work fine. I have not yet tried tinkering to find out what is the maximum resolution/settings it can pull off while retaining performance. King's Bounty: The Legend runs at 1920x1200 at the highest settings for everything, though at those settings there is a slight but noticable delay between me clicking somewhere and the character moving there, but I like the graphical beauty of it at those settings and the issue is not gamebreaking so I am sticking to those settings.

Indeed! I am enjoying it immensely. I have already installed Windows XP on it and the computer works like charm.

I made a mistake. The NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX should read NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS.

Not really - benchmarks as well as other indicators (pixed fill rate, bandwidth, etc.) show them to be behind top-end NVIDIA mobile cards. 4xxx series might correct that, but hopefully it won't turn into vaporware. Remember that the 3850/3870 have been released many months ago, but they were basically vaporware until a couple of weeks ago - no laptops were available that had them. Even now, only very few laptops have them. Given that, who knows how long it will take for the 48xx series to actually appear in notebooks. Hopefully, it will be faster than the 38xx series. What top-end cards? The 9800m gtx et al? Sure! 9600m GT or less? Certainly not However, all of the higher end mobile graphics cards are actually not good for the whole notebook-idea of portability etc., as they simply use so much power they can't run at full speed for very long when the notebook isn't connected to a wall socket... So yes, they aren't widely used. Yes, I mean 9800M series (GS, GTS, GT, GTX). Top-end ATI compared to top end NVIDIA... Battery power is not very important for all notebook users. I, for example, use a notebook as a desktop replacement, but I do need a notebook for that, since I move relatively frequently and have to fit all the possessions I move with on an airplane. Battery, however, is something I rarely need. Indeed, I just bought a notebook with 9800M GTS after having considered many other options including notebooks with the 38xx series of graphics cards. I am not anti-ATI by any means - my older machine does have an ATI card (Mobility Radeon X700), which has served me well and was glitch free, but at the moment they simply can't compete in the mobile top-end graphics market. This will probably change with the 48xx series if these cards don't take as long to appear as the 38xx.

Nothing beats Quake 2 for old school FPS action. Whether it be the single player campaign or just blowing up your best friends I have never played Quake 2 to be honest. The first FPS I have ever played was Wolfenstein, then DOOM and then DOOM 2 and then there was a long lull before I played any more FPS games.

Did you try my device manager idea?

Now that my new computer has arrived I am playing the full version of King's Bounty: The Legend. It's still early into the game, but I am loving it.

Very good point kalniel - there are often contractual obligations leading to specific release dates.

That issue was supposedly overcome already. Not really - benchmarks as well as other indicators (pixed fill rate, bandwidth, etc.) show them to be behind top-end NVIDIA mobile cards. 4xxx series might correct that, but hopefully it won't turn into vaporware. Remember that the 3850/3870 have been released many months ago, but they were basically vaporware until a couple of weeks ago - no laptops were available that had them. Even now, only very few laptops have them. Given that, who knows how long it will take for the 48xx series to actually appear in notebooks. Hopefully, it will be faster than the 38xx series.

I sure hope so!

I second this choice UT2K4 This game rocks. Unfortunatly when i go online i dont find as big of a community as before UT3. I tried UT3 and that blew. Ut3 was meant for consoles, and the weapons of choice were lacking. I dont recommend it Yeah, UT2K4 was good - especially on a LAN where you don't have to rely on online players...

After spending a long day crunching code I don't see how Josh goes home and fiddles with the toolset. When I get off work I do things that are to total opposite of what I do at work. That's a good point. Even if you love your work, you don't want to spendall your time doing it.

My new laptop computer has finally arrived! I want to thank all of you who have given me advice as to how best to chose a new notebook. I really appreciate it and the new notebook is great!

I don't think you should place them in any particular folder manually. Try installing them through device manager instead.

Well, if you want really old, try Doom 1 & 2 and Wolfenstein!

I am not much of a shooter guy, but even I enjoyed some multiplayer UT 2004. I would recommend you try it, or perhaps the new version of the game which has recently been released.

I am happy to say that my new computer has arrived and after I do all the installs I will join you in the Wasteland! On the other hand, my posting frequency, fueled recently by the eager anticipation of my computer, will drop dramatically - perhaps to zero - for some time.

I don't play modules, but Blackhound I will probably try.