Maximum PC

What's great about a huge cruising bike like the Fat Lady is:

you can park her in the shade and look really cool laying back on her with a cold beer in your hand

Then you should have addressed your post to reflect the intended desitation of the possessiveness.

At that point, you might as well tell him to get a "real" car, like a Dodge Challenger (which I think is the ugliest higher-end car)

Or you could look even better with a hot biker babe on the back seat while racing through the twisty bends of the Blue Ridge parkway roads. 2 man up knee dragging action is hawt... And I have only known 2 girls who are brave enough to do this with me. Actually want to rephrase that... I only know 2 girls I trust to take high speed turns without getting me killed and/or wrecking my bike because they know physics and how to shift weight correctly as they ride themselves.

Sounds like some nice "rides"

I always wanted to do the Blue Ridge Parkway, but
it's a long way from Centralia WA. Farthest I ever made it
in that direction was La Crosse WI a few years ago.
I'm not used to all that heat and humidity.
Strictly a West-of-the-Rockies boy.

Ooops....I hear the Thread Police coming......

Its nice when boobs are being hugged into your back... And its ok... as long as we keep the road discussions about GTA, Dirt 3 and GT 4 specific... I find it hard to pull a long wheelie in the game. Always keep falling off, even with the xbox 360 controller.

justj a quick question, have you ever ridden a harley racing bike?

Yes I have. I actually know one of the Harley/Buell racing riders in the AMA who lives a few miles from me and is a good friend; although he now rides for Triumph in the superstock. I've shot AMA and MotoGP for a few years and was very lucky to ride a few bikes, even did 2 man up for a lap back in 2009. Very scary being a passenger on a 200mph race bike.

Re/ games, any opinions on the Deus Ex: HR DLC ?

The DLC campaign was great, and the DLC weapons add some replay value to an already very repayable game.

However, the Missing Link is only about 3 hours long, so it's not much.

Thanks for the info. I'm asking because some of the DLC for Fallout: NV was disappointing.
BTW, what's your choice for best new FPS ?

Did you ever try FEAR? I enjoyed that fps.

Nasty

Deus Ex series, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Crysis, FEAR series, Fallout3, Fallout: NV, CoD, MoH, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.
Also really enjoyed The Longest Journey, even though (and partly because) there was no violence,
although my preference usually runs to drum-fed big-bore shotguns and silenced large caliber sniper rifles.
Oh, also did BioShock: way too creepy.

I like games that combine outdoor adventure, FPS, RPG. I do not intend to play online (I'm too slow for that scene).


Well, I have a few suggestions. I understand that you like relatively open/ability to explore FPS games with RPG elements (I understand perfectly). I think Borderlands fulfills all that. Dead Space might be up your alley, but I imagine you want something less claustrophobic and the Elder Scroll should be right up there also. You can consider Vampires and Alpha Protocol if you don't mind buggy games.

All in all, Borderlands is your game.

Thanks for the tips.

I have been wavering on Borderlands because of what looks (superficially) like cartoonish graphics, but I may give it a shot.
I did the FEAR series, liked it. I like military shooters, and was disappointed to read that Heroes of Stalingrad did not have a good single player mode.

Do the STALKER series, you will love it...I did. The above poster mentioned it and I agree, it is worth playing through all three games in that series.

Nasty

I did the STALKER series and did like them, except Clear Sky apparently had a lot of bugs,
either that or my system could not handle it (but it handled COP just fine, which I loved
-- exactly the kind of game I like, and can't wait for the next one.).

I was sorry to read a lot of negatives about Crysis 2 (i.e., it's a lousy console port), so I have not gotten it.

BTW, my new gamer runs Win7Pro64 (old one WinXPSP3) -- are there many games
that run on XP but won't run on Win7 ? Does Win7 have a working compatibility modes ?
(I should just go look.... )

Win 7 64 bit has compatibility modes and they work. I am running Baldures Gate, that is a 16 bit game that was made in 95 I think. I right clicked on the .exe and chose properties then compatibility mode and chose XP. With old games like this one, be sure to shut off SLI or Crossfire if you run it. The old games were written for one gpu and will royally screw up the video in the game if turned on.

Nasty

I just installed Mass Effect (first one) and it would not run on Win7Pro64 until I chose the WinXPSP2 compatibility mode.

_________
For a gaming rig, no need for that CPU or that much RAM. An i5-2500 [or 2500K if you are going to overclock], or i5-3550 [or i5-3570K if you are going to overclock - just do not crank voltage up much and you will be OK], and a good heat pipe air cooler for overclocking. 8GB of RAM is plenty for gaming, more than that is wasted.

The only thing I agree with Dan on is you have spent money on to much ram instead of a second video card. All you need is 8 gigs of ram unless a program calls for more to run efficiently. That machine is super! Enjoy turning up all the eye candy in games and still run at 100fps+.

Nasty

I did add a second GPU card in Crossfire mode (I'm sure some of you are thinking:
"Here's a guy with more money than sense." --guilty as charged .

I'm looking forward to this rig being able to handle
just about anything I throw at it for quite a few years to come.

What is the state of 3D graphics now ?

Regarding the future,die shrinks, on-die hardware configuration, and even tweeks are still available in the future, however, as with Intel, there are difficulties in manufacturing below 22nm, especially in the current video card world.

At the moment, both AMD and nVidea have good products. I believe AMD is and will continue to be the winner. In the past nVidea was the winner for a long time, however, they used strong-armed tactics with companies. Now that AMD is producing a good product, those companies need not worry about being strong-armed and I suspect this has been and will continue to produce more games running very well on and even coded for AMD video cards.