Gorth

3013 you say? Hmm... I might just hold off a bit then. I've been living with the constant flickering for more than a month now, while it's driving my crazy(more crazy?), I might survive 1 or 2 more. Thanks for the heads up. Not that I have any idea what the 13 implies compared to the 11 Edit: Yeah, I'm still stuck with my old 42" plasma. I just can't justify investing more on TV, since I rarely watch it. Maybe once or twice a week, catching some news or foreign language movie.

Cheapie me was just looking at the Asus PB278Q, which as I understand is their version of IPS (they call it PLS?). Mostly because it's $700 instead of $1000+ and Fry's carries it (I still don't like online ordering...). Sigh. I have such a hard time making decisions sometimes. Similarly priced in OZ Thing is, once you've had 30" for a few years, you just can't live without it... Candidate 1 (Dell) Candidate 2 (HP) Sadly, neither comes cheap, but my current Samsung was 1600$ plus shipping, which is why I was dreading the outcome of my little test.

Speaking of monitors... it looks like I owe my gfx card an apology (sorry gfx card). Hooking up a second monitor on my card and swapping the cables around a bit, seems to indicate that the "flickering" is following the monitor. Sort of sucks since it costs twice as much as the gfx card. I guess I'm in the market for a new monitor too. Looks like Dell and HP are the two contenders so far (currently wouldn't touch a Samsung monitor with a fire poker, great image quality, crappy production values).

Spent last week working interstate. Had an interesting trip home, as a storm was bearing down on Sydney, almost preventing me from leaving on the Friday night. Plenty of delays and cancellations and a rather bumpy ride when finally getting off the ground. Sort of makes you appreciate that you are wearing those seat belts, to prevent lumps on your forehead when hitting the ceiling

heh, I remember the original two cows, they were around 30 years ago, but there seems to have been added a few contemporary ones

Two people go into a room. One is a smoker, one is a non-smoker. Which one is the tyrant, the one that want the non-smoker to suffer through passive smoking or the non-smoker because he wants the smoker to stop it? It doesn't matter what you do, you are going to force a decision on one of them. I for one favour the one that doesn't really have a choice.

Didn't you have a 590 card? I've yet to find anything that could bring it to its knees. Most games run in 2560x1600 resolution and maxed out in most settings without issues

1) All of them 2) We've had a shapeshifter. You do the math

North Korea nuclear test: No radiation detected I don't remember if I shared my suspicion here or elsewhere a few years ago, but I can't help but think that all the posturing and playing with explosives is "Smoke and Mirrors". Does anybody actually, honestly, believe North Korea was ever in possession of anything but a truck load of TNT and a long fuse? Look up articles about Messines Ridge in 1917 for similar effects (largest man made explosion at the time).

Yeah, did that on my previous PC (by accident, not design). Trying to find the two pins to shortcircuit on the ATX cable to boot it up without having everything in place yet. Ran for all of 3 seconds before CPU turned hot and shut down the system.

I could understand it if it had been the same rig, but just about everything was replaced at the same time. First few cards died on the old PC and the recent batch of cards on my current PC (the last card did last almost 2 years though). I have an old Leadtek FX5900 card which is still chugging away in my old Pentium 4 archeotech computer (it's AGP though, not PCI, so I can't use it elsewhere), getting close to its 10th year

Hmm... tricky one that one. Desktop computer? Does it start the POST (i.e. show BIOS information, hardware info etc.) or does it die even before showing anything on the screen? Has it been exposed to lots of G's or power surges? How old is it?

Hmm... with THQ being in hot water/thin ice, they may have been "gagged" and not allowed to talk about anything that could affect the future of the project. Looks like UBI are the ones that have to greenlight any interviews at the moment.

The (catastrophic) intro until Flemeth + the somewhat more entertaining Isabela recruiting mission spliced in. Mmm, Isabela... While I applaud the decision to make the demo, the intro level wasn't exactly the best one Bioware's ever designed (close to the contrary, I'd say), and probably succeeded in turning off a lot of people who might have been on the fence otherwise. The demo actually got me to buy the game. It convinced me that while the camera was horrid, combat would still be fun, and the new flashy maneuvers was kinda cool. Though I kinda wanted an excuse to get the game, since I liked the first so much. My instincts told me no though, and unfortunately in the end they turned out to be right. So yeah, demos are a double edged sword. Given their length, they can sometimes not show you enough, and sometimes not show you how tedious somethign will be after doing too much. but they're better than not having a demo regardless. One thing to make sure of when you release a demo is, what is your selling point? Are you doing yourself favours by being "honest" (in what you chose to show)? Entirely anecdotal, I know, but I was lined up for buying DA2 at release (since I liked DA:O) and dropped it like a hot potato after playing the demo. The "combat" and complete omission of anything even remotely resembling the game mechanics and skill system from the first was what killed it for me. Only much later, thanks to some persistent individuals here, did I pick it up on a bargain and gave it a serious playthrough (two actually). I still hate the game mechanics, but other parts, the characters in particular, to some degree made up for it. Ironically, none of those were shown in the demo

The ultra left wing zombie apologists? "ultra left wing zombie apologists" , good one. Thats the line of the day for me Join the ZCP (Zombie Communist Party)

I've finally placed an order for a new case, so I figured when it arrived, I would try a few things, amongst them switching the "rails" on the PSU (tried the monitor output on the gfx card to no avail), just to see if it's the cause. Doesn't help I'm going to be out of state all next week, so it wont be before the week after that again

Ah yes, Kangaxx. Still on my to-do list in my current game. Got the staff from the Twisted Rune (is that the name?) and am about to go up against his cousin in Watchers Keep (4th level, working on getting access to Lum the Mad's machine). There is a Demi Lich and a Dragon in the Gith Yanki part of the dungeon. Not too worried about the dragon, having already taken care of the black (whose name I can't remember), Firkraag and the silver dragon (for a nice skin armour for Viconia). The latter is now 100 in Magic Resistance and has absurd saving throws. I've been stacking up a bit on Spell Immunity spells/scrolls in preparation for the Demi Lich. Immunity Abjuration FTW Ring of the Ram is also priceless for that fight, ignoring magic resistance, giving you a good head start.

I like the little "Dream about vodka guy"

This is getting frustrating... the flickering is now constant and a pain in my rear anatomy. I still don't know if it's the motherboard, the gfx card, the monitor or the power supply that is not up to the challenge. I think I'll bring home a laptop to hook up to the monitor, just to rule that one out. It seems resolution independent, so even the humble laptop should be able to provide a test screen. I'm seriously tempted to buy a "disposable" gfx card after that, to see if it's the culprit and carry me over until the regularly scheduled system upgrade. If it's not the gfx card, then it will still be usable on my old (current) system as a "No. 2" pc. Some day, a card manufacturer is going to come up with a card that lasts for a full 2 year and the world will end.

Scripted encounters... one of my pet peeves in crpgs (together with minigames, QTE's and respawning enemies).

Hmm, I guess I'm a notorious liar I don't remember having to fight them at this point. Haven't played consular for ages either (favouring sentinels for their abundant skill points), but I seem to remember when I did play consular, favourite powers were things like the "haste" (whatever it's called) and healing, making my guys stay in the fight and whittle down opposition slowly, but steadily. Who are your party members and what force powers do you have available?

Not so much "action" sims, but I miss the glory days of SSI and all their strategy wargames. Microprose were the ones trying their hands at "dumbed down" strategy games with pseudo realtime (Nato Commander, War in the Desert and Conflict in Vietnam). Nice games, but their (Microprose) claim to fame were the early military flight sims. Utterly simplistic by todays standards, but damn, they were advanced for their time. Only "sim" I remember playing at LAN parties would be the original Delta Force. That was before games used 3D accelerators and what have you (what was that thing called, voxels or some such?).

My first crpg was Temple of Apshai (c64 version) My favourite was Rogue though, because of the randomly generated dungeons.

Wheee... Talk about going out in a blaze of glory. If I had been a dwarf slayer, my ancestors would have been proud of me! Well, better line up in the queue for when the next job opening comes up

Still playing a game of BG2. I had completely forgotten how much I hated that particular room in Watchers Keep ("labyrinth" level), where you enter a room of demons, causing fear and you can't use magic to remove fear and your scared party members keep running back and forth between a trap that doesn't disappear until you disarm it... Trying to remember what I did in that spot the last time I actually bothered playing through Watchers Keep (would be at least 6-7 years ago).