The Geek Crew - 64-Bit OS?

b0b

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #30 - Dec 11^th, 2007 at 3:27pm

Stick wrote on Dec 10^th, 2007 at 3:25pm:

warhammer 40k was cool for a while but you have to play the same tactical way everytime or you will lose. Kinda got boring....

I never felt that way with the Dark Crusade expansion. Considering the expansion brought the total playable faction list up to seven (which is crazy for an RTS) and expanded the existing factions with new units and upgrades, I never played two games that were exactly alike. I'm not even sure it'd be reasonably possible.

Of course, I tend to be a bit of a "turtle" when it comes to strategy games, whether they are turn based or real time. I like to hole up in some forgotten corner of the map, create a massive defensive grid, and pour all of my time and resources into research. Only when I've got the biggest and baddest units available do I start creating my Legion of Doom™.

The thing I like about Dawn of War and its sequels is the quick game play. Even though I still tend to play defensively, it's impossible to really turtle in that game because your defensive options are limited and your opponents can field decent units very quickly. In my experience, it's fairly rare that a multiplayer game against human opponents lasts more than an hour.

On another note, have you seen the new expansion that is in production? After nearly four years, the third expansion is really starting to take shape. Soulstorm will build on the campaign engine that was included in Dark Crusade, and will introduce two more races, the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle. The game will also (finally!) bring in airborne units, which should really make for some interesting battles.

You can read more here:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/warhammer40000dawnofwarsoulstorm/news.html?s...

-b0b
(...is thinking about breaking out Dark Crusade when he gets home.)

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Soulstorm.jpg (35 KB | )

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Stick Wootzor von Leetenhaxor FTP Server Offline Stick is back Posts: 501 Michgan Gender:	Re: 64-Bit OS? Reply #31 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 8:49am Numbers from my co-worker's PC. PCMark2005 - 9,000 3DMark2003 - 44,000 3DMark2005 - 20,000 He plays crysis with all maxed except anti-aliasing at 4x at 1600xXXXX i dont know what the new resolutions are for widescreens...
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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #32 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 9:12am

Wow, that's pretty impressive. Thanks for tracking down the numbers for me. It's reassuring to know that I've picked out decent hardware. How am I going to wait until March...

By the way, I played Dark Crusade when I got home last night and really enjoyed it. I don't know how I skipped it! The Necrons are darn near unstoppable once they get a couple Strategic Locations.

-b0b
(...would love to play some multiplayer one of these days.)

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Stick

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #33 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 10:48am

By March all the new nvidia 9xxx series will be out as well as the AMD quad core maybe even a new set of Intels. If you build the same rig in March, you may be getting some mid ranged hardware. Not that its a bad plan or anything...

I am also going to build a new system once I settle into my new job.

BTW I graduate on Saturday. BS in CS baby.

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b0b

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #34 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 10:56am

Stick wrote on Dec 12^th, 2007 at 10:48am:

By March all the new nvidia 9xxx series will be out as well as the AMD quad core maybe even a new set of Intels. If you build the same rig in March, you may be getting some mid ranged hardware. Not that its a bad plan or anything...

Yeah, I'm actually thinking about buying an 8800GT and upgrading to a 9000 series GTX-equivalent later in the year when they drop down in price a bit (as they inevitably will).

I tend to do more RAM-intensive tasks than CPU-intensive tasks, so the Q6600 should be fine for me. If there is a significant price drop in the next three months, I may go with the Q6850 instead.

Quote:

I am also going to build a new system once I settle into my new job.

Fantastic! Once you get a new rig, we should be able to play some of the newer games that have hit the market. Without a doubt, Unreal Tournament III is going to be on that list!

Quote:

BTW I graduate on Saturday. BS in CS baby.

Congratulations! Do you have a job lined up already, or are you going to be looking for something?

-b0b
(...yeah!)

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spanky

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #35 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 11:17am

Quote:

If there is a significant price drop in the next three months, I may go with the Q6850 instead.

I have had my Q6600 to 3.2GHz with no problems. Just no reason for me to keep it there...even at stock 2.4GHz I have only hit 70% load running 2 games at once. And if you are looking for an 8800GT and upgrade check out EVGA, they have a 90 day stepup program. I have heard mixed reviews about them, but they have been great to me...

Congrats stick on graduating! Though I still kinda miss college.

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b0b

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #36 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 11:31am

I typically only do a 10-15% overclock because I expect my equipment to last at least 2-3 years. It never hurts to harness a little bit of untapped power, though. Wink

I've read about EVGA's Step-Up program before, but I've heard a lot of questionable comments about their stock availability. Besides, they don't cross-ship, so I'd have to send out my video card and wait for them to receive it before they shipped out the new one. I'd probably be without a video card for at least a week, and that's not really an option.

Since I built the Bobulator IV in summer 2001, I don't think it or its successors have ever been powered down for more than three consecutive hours. Even when moving to a new place, the Bobulator is the last device to be powered down when leaving and the first device to be powered back up upon arrival.

-b0b
(...needs his computer!)

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Stick

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #37 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 9:43pm

I have an offer with a company in the Parkview Circle Technology Park or whatever its called. The pay isn't quite what I expect but there is a chance that if the company grows I will grow with it quickly. One benefit is finding something in Kalamazoo and I live right near there for now so it would be convenient. I'm just not sure where I could meet girls then...

I've had a bunch of calls from recruiting companies from the east side of the state but no real solid leads there.

Its time the LAN games got an upgrade eh? With the new PC I would definitely get CoD4 as well. It will be my work computer too so I'm thinking duel 22" monitors.

Stick
(overkill? absolutely...) Cool

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b0b

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #38 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 10:13pm

Call of Duty 4 is looking pretty sweet. I wasn't a huge fan of Battlefield 2, but I'll definitely give CoD4 a try. Don't get me wrong, BF2 was an excellent game, but it wasn't really my style.

Dual monitors, eh? I wish I still had a crazy computer budget for stuff like that! I'm sure those days will return... after the kids go off to college. Embarrassed

-b0b
(...wowza.)

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X Post Whore FTP Server Offline Truth Is Treason, In The Empire Of Lies Posts: 3903 Gender:	Re: 64-Bit OS? Reply #39 - Dec 12^th, 2007 at 10:34pm I've played through COD4 now and it still looks great on my 6400...granted I can run everything uber but I don't really care about shadows and all that. It's a good game withe AI that's prob in the top 5 I've played against. Still F.E.A.R. is number 1 for best AI. X
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b0b GeekCrew Administrator FTP Server Offline The revolution will not be televised. Posts: 7464 Battle Creek, Michigan Gender:	Re: 64-Bit OS? Reply #40 - Dec 13^th, 2007 at 8:34am Spanky, what all did you put into your new rig? You're running a Q6600 and an 8800GT, right? What else did you pop in there? -b0b (...bets it is drool worthy.)
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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #41 - Dec 13^th, 2007 at 9:06am

For some reason newegg no longer lists my motherboard but I got this one: Mobo That thing has a metric shit-ton of options for overclocking and whatnot.

I only went for 2gig of ram for now, seeing as I only had a 32bit OS to work with getting 4gig really wouldn't have helped that much.

As far as the processor, the Q6600 blew my freaking mind. Going from an AMD 2600+ to this almost made me cry it was that much of a difference. Though I am kind of sad that I never fully max it out. I am thinking now i should have gone with the dual core, but oh well.

And yeah, the 8800GT is the best thing I feel I put into the computer. I read a lot of bad reviews for this card because it was over heating. This is due to bad drivers, the fan starts at 18% when the card is cold and ramps all the way up to 20% when it is blazing hot. Well there must be a typo somewhere because 20!=100. I set mine to always run at 65% fan and it has never hit 50C. I ordered my card when they first were released I got a normal 600MHz one (ran at 625MHz?!) for $235. The great thing is the 96+(which is 112...why don't they say 112?) stream proc 8800GTS 640M and the newer 8800GTS 512M barely beat this card at high resolutions. At lower resolutions they are nearly identical. Naturally the GTX and Ultra beat it, but I thought I would compare a few cards closer to its price range.

I really considered going SLI with the 8800GT, but after having one and being able to run any game I want at 1600X1200 (all my moniter does Sad

) there really is no need. Yeah I could post huge 3d mark scores! But you don't play 3d mark.

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b0b

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #42 - Dec 13^th, 2007 at 10:31am

Well, 3DMark usually has some crappy little game built into it, so technically you could play 3DMark.

I had a hard time choosing between the nForce 680i chipset and the new Intel X38 chipset. In my humble experience, nVidia's chipsets have always been crap, but they won't license SLI to anybody else so you're stuck with their crappy chipset if you want to run SLI.

I finally decided to go with the X38 chipset from Intel because of their performance and reliability gains over the 680i. I'm too poor to pay for two graphics cards, and I'd rather just have one constantly updated top-end card than two mid-range cards that I could only replace every few years.

SLI just doesn't make any sense unless you've got money to burn. The performance gains are tiny (10-20% usually) and not worth the extra cost, heat, or power consumption.

-b0b
(...would admittedly buy an SLI rig if he was a bajillionaire.)

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Stick

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Re: 64-Bit OS?
Reply #43 - Dec 13^th, 2007 at 11:07am

Its funny, I'm hardly ever playing my 360 anymore with my limited time to play and the unwillingness to pay $100 for guitar hero. I can only imagine how niglected it will be when I have a new PC. Maybe I should just sell it.

From all this lazyness I should also get a workout bench Tongue

My joints crack evertime I move, riggermortous is setting in...

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MediaMaster GeekCrew Administrator FTP Server Offline Holy Xenu! Posts: 1884 Detroit Gender:	Re: 64-Bit OS? Reply #44 - Dec 13^th, 2007 at 11:19am if you want to sell it let me know. which version of 360 is it?
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