Posted 10/30/2009 at 04:46:27pm

If you have never played STALKER you should.  It scared the hell out of me the first time I played it.  A very cool game that could have been great if it had fast travel.  Get the no weight mod and always run mod if you play.  Without fast travel they save a lot of time and keep the game very enjoyable. 

Posted 10/30/2009 at 04:25:14pm

A rendered still image I beleive....but what is so impressive about that?  I thought it was supposed to be an artist created image but the update shows that it is not.

Posted 10/30/2009 at 04:22:18pm

I will be the first to say it's fake.  No way this can be a created image.  I will happily eat crow if I am wrong.

Posted 09/04/2009 at 06:17:58pm

If only Opera and Firefox had a baby browser we would be able to end the discussion.  Opera has the better speed and organization and Firefox has the customizaiton--which I agree with others cannot be replaced with speed. 

Posted 08/26/2009 at 10:58:34pm

While I agree and appreciate those who give their time to produce free software (e.g. Open Office) the fact remains that withouth for profit software we would not have PC as they exist today nor would updates be as quickly as they are.  You can complain about every two years but without the funds and motivation to update software it would not happen.  Besides why they hell does anyone care how much money MS makes. No one is forcing anyone to buy the software or use PCs.  You can go live in the woods eat grass and wipe your ass with leaves.  Me, I prefer to live in a FREE CAPITALIST society where profit motivates and rewards innovation...even if it is not perfect at least I do not have to wait in line for food or worry about speaking out against my government...well at least not yet.

Posted 05/19/2009 at 12:17:29pm

Well I ignored the warnings from others and signed up for the free version at Gametap.  The download completed late last night and I played the game for about 15 min.  I went to bed woke up and tried playing today but when I go to start the game it tells me that I do not have enough room to download the game...problem is I did a full download.

CS told me to redownload the game and free up space on my C: drive.

GAYtap will only save to your C: drive.  My C: drive has enough room for an OS (15 GB) and a few small programs.  This was done intentioanlly by me to keep my OS small and easy to defrad.  I have a 1TB HD that I cannot access with this stupid software/crapware. If you use GAYtap know that you have no control over where the files are stored. 

This is 2009 you idiots at GAYtap.  Why they hell would I want to spend money to use a system that is so gay!  You need to fix this aspect of your service or like me and all the others on this thread will never use your crap even if it is free. 

BTW the game looks awsome from what I played.  I may use Steam and just pay to get it.

Posted 03/24/2009 at 08:10:51pm

The difference is that Ver.Q includes the ability to burn light scribe while Ver.F does not have that ability.

Posted 03/23/2009 at 06:57:18pm

This is a much better round-up guide...but only for an Intel system.  I do think that it would only be fair to also have an AMD system as well (which can be built much cheaper without sacrificing THAT much performance). 

Speaking of, I wish that MPC would include a price-to-performance ratio in reviews, especially for "performance" hardware.  In other words, like having a zero-point system that is used to compare performance of hardware, MPC sets a "zero point price-to performance" marker.   That way readers could compare price/performance empirically.  Or more concretely, whether or not paying $500 more for a system (or peice of hardware) that benchmarks 5% faster is really worth an extra $500 (e.g. $100 per percent performance increase), or conversely if NOT paying out $500 more results in a %25 decrease in performance had we bought it (or $20 per percent performance decrase).  

Such an index would technically fit into Maximum PC's ultimate goal of finding peak perfomance and reporting on it since the price to performance ratio is sure to be curvilinear (i.e. their exists a floating "Maximum" price to performance integer for every set-up or peice of hardwar). Sure we could figure i out on our own but isn't that what we PAY our subscripts for(me 5 years in advance mind you)?!

The exact details of the index could be determined by the staff (they are geeks after all) and I am sure that the readers of the mag would appreciate it. Moreover, it is relevant to the economic times.

Just a thought... 

Posted 03/15/2009 at 08:53:48pm

If you think that the Hollywood special interest is not funneling money to the Obama administration you have your head burried in the sand. I am NOT saying this exact law will get passed but there will be more strict regulation of such content if the special interest groups have their way.  Think about it.  Pelosi is part of California which is in horrible economic condition and Hollywood provided Obama with millions in donations.  Something will be done in congress in the next four years on this issue and Obama will be more than happy to sign it into law...

Posted 03/11/2009 at 09:04:00am

ALL PRICES FROM THE EGG....as of 3/11/2009 no rebates included.

CPU: AMD Phenom II 940                                                         219.99

Case: Coolermaster Centurion 5                                                  54.99

Motherboad: Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4                                       114.99

GPU: Sapphire 4870 1GB                                                           199.99

PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650W                                                 94.99

Mem: Mushkin 4GB PC2 8500 (1066)                                            66.99

Hard Drive: Western Dig WD1001FALS 1TB                                   109.99

LinkskeyLKA-CR15B Internal Card Reader*                                    14.99

Fan Upgrade:  Thermaltake Dual Orb*                                          64.99

TOTAL                                                                                    $940.42

*Without these components which are optional.                           $860.44

I assume you already own a DVD drive that will work with this config. 

(I bought 2 new Samsung SATA DVD drives for $50 which still keep me under $1000). 

I say go cheap on case, high on CPU, GPU, PSU, and Memory.  Gigabyte makes killer MBs IMO and I have owned both ASUS and Gigabyte (ASUS are obviously good as well just cost more).   Hardrive is a monster.  I like my list better.

In a recession Intel IS overpriced compared to the performace gain you would get with that system.  I built a comprable Intel system to compare and it was about $250 more with no fan, card reader or case.  I went AMD again given my budget.

 EDIT: ALso, those complaining about MPC using 550W PSU, you shouldn't.  Given what they put into their case 550W is plenty of juice.