This is a story about awesome things happening.

[Renzatic Gear]

Gonna make this short. I'm eating tacos.

First, the sucky bit. My 7900GT died on me. I try everything to get it up and running again. That fails, so I call up Asus and wave my warranty at them. They were happy to help, so they give me an RMA number and tell me send it on it's merry way. I spend 8 on S&H.

Next, the even suckier bit. They don't make 7900GT's anymore. My card was beyond repair, so they tell me to wait a bit to see if they happen across any older boxed cards. I'm all disappointed.

Now, the awesome bit. They don't happen across any within 3 days, so instead, they send me a brand new 512 meg 8800GT.

In closing: HAHAHAHAHA! WOOOO! Man, 8 bucks and a janky old graphics card for a new 8800GT? I'm a lucky mother****er.

[Renzatic Gear]

Slight change. It's an 8800GTS, not a GT. Oh well. WOOHOO!

[Renzatic Gear]

Not to rub this in, but hell...I never get anything free, let alone something this good.

At first I was kinda disappointed I just got a GTS. They're kind of the suck ass of the 8800 line, and when you boil it down to things, I'm a bit of a hardware elitist. Turns out the GTS I'm getting is some brand spanking new thing that's more comparable to the 8800GTX than it is anything. It's like comparing the 7900GT to the 7800GTX in a way, cept Nvidia decided to keep the GTS tag instead of upping to a new sku.

So anyway, I should have it in by Wednesday. Mochan, If I'm still alive by then (the cosmos has to balance itself somehow), I'll be up for another round of benchmarks.

[Fivespot]

Quick, go buy a lottery ticket.

[joquito]

Congrats!!!

Getting service like that would all but make me a customer for life. It doesn't take much to get buyer's loyalty from me.

[Renzatic Gear]

Quick, go buy a lottery ticket.

Hell, son. I'm already 2 steps ahead of you there. If I luck out and win a ton of money, you'll be the first person I send a postcard to. :thumbsup:


Getting service like that would all but make me a customer for life. It doesn't take much to get buyer's loyalty from me.

When it comes to service and tech support, all I expect is for whatever company I'm sending whatever to to fix my problem. Considering all the straight up **** I've had to deal with in the past, I'm almost amazed I even got a working card back, let alone a nice shiny $300 upgrade for free.

So yeah, they've made a lifelong customer out of me. I've bought a good share of Asus stuff in the past, and this is the only piece of their hardware to ever go bad on me. The fact they were willing to bend over backwards to make me happy has impressed me to no end.

[Mochan]

I am buying a lottery ticket.

[Renzatic Gear]

Yeah, go for it. Share my luck.

I might as well use this as an excuse to upgrade to 2+ gig of ram. At least then I can finally play The Witcher with all the bells and whistles turned on.

[PapaSmurf]

Maybe your luck will roll over to my finals.

[ceevee]

hey Renz, i'm currently setting my new pc. overclocking the parts i know how and aiming to finish things off in a couple of weeks.. it's a long time but i'm no longer that enthusiastic student of hardware from yesteryear.

what i'd ike to know is what you'll be benchmarking and at what settings.

[Renzatic Gear]

I'll tell you when I've got it. The card should be here this Tuesday, and my new ram around Friday at the earliest, Monday at the latest.

[Friend_Bear]

Friday my new gaming rig arrived, not 'top of the line' but for $900 I think I got a pretty decent system from CyberPowerPC.

Mostly got this for to play Age of Conan, even though my older comp wasn't bad either, it plays the open beta client fine on medium settings, even though it crashes alot.

Amd X2 6400 AM2 3.2Ghz
320GB Sata II 3.0GB HD
3GB DDR2-6400
Orange Xblade 3 Case w/ matching Apevia media keyboard etc
Asus M2N SLi AM2 Nforce 560 Limited Edition
X2 Nvidia 8600 1GB
Ultra Lifetime SLi series 600w PSu
Vista Home Premuim
Soundblaster Audigy 4

Freebies included

laptop bag
tshirt :p
Halo 2
Rise of Legends (gonna throw it away - already got it)
Age of Empires 3 (gonna throw it away - already got it) :P

[ceevee]

that's quite a deal there Friend Bear for £450 ($900)

i decided against SLI config for the time being as some games seem to have a tough time. but my Abit IP35-Pro motherboard does have the SLI (x3 if needed even) so i've got that option later.. lets see how the bencharks come out before i splash out on another card.

[PapaSmurf]

Friday my new gaming rig arrived, not 'top of the line' but for $900 I think I got a pretty decent system from CyberPowerPC.

Mostly got this for to play Age of Conan, even though my older comp wasn't bad either, it plays the open beta client fine on medium settings, even though it crashes alot.

Amd X2 6400 AM2 3.2Ghz
320GB Sata II 3.0GB HD
3GB DDR2-6400
Orange Xblade 3 Case w/ matching Apevia media keyboard etc
Asus M2N SLi AM2 Nforce 560 Limited Edition
X2 Nvidia 8600 1GB
Ultra Lifetime SLi series 600w PSu
Vista Home Premuim
Soundblaster Audigy 4

Freebies included

laptop bag
tshirt :p
Halo 2
Rise of Legends (gonna throw it away - already got it)
Age of Empires 3 (gonna throw it away - already got it) :P

why don't you just throw those games over on to me?

[Friend_Bear]

If you pay for the Shipping and Handling :P I thought Rise of Legends was junk, Age of Empires 3 isn't too bad though, but not really that much of an improvement from AoE 2 though, Halo 2 was the only really good 'free' game they offered.

that's quite a deal there Friend Bear for £450 ($900)

i decided against SLI config for the time being as some games seem to have a tough time. but my Abit IP35-Pro motherboard does have the SLI (x3 if needed even) so i've got that option later.. lets see how the bencharks come out before i splash out on another card.

The SLi can easily be disabled with a couple of clicks, I've got another monitor plugged to the other 8600 GT so when i'm playing a game, I can have a movie playing or a webpage on the other monitor, its pretty sweet. So far, I haven't really pushed this system much, only real game i've still been playing has been San Andreas, which I can play on max settings.

[ilnadmy]

Incidentally, how are Rise of Legends and Age of Empires 3? I've only seen videos of both, but they seem quite fun.

[Friend_Bear]

Rise of Legends is terrible mess, but Age of Empires 3 is pretty good.

[ceevee]

i saw RoL as gamble that didn't pull off perfectly, whilst AoE3 was unambitious and as safe as houses in terms of what to expect.

RoL tried to implement the style of play that made RoN impressive but in a fantasy setting that wasn't balanced and a mythology that needed too much study to get to grips with. unlike AoE3 that took the done dusted and donned the tshirt gameplay from AoE with the many villagers and pallisades on toe. ##shudders##

oh the whole concept of pcking up 'cards' and a home city doesn't deflect its mediocrity. arguably the best thing about AoE3 were the graphics and the gloriously destructive power of the monster bombard (from a Turkish empire in north america - fantastical indeed)

RoL>>>>>AoE3 anyday for me. but still waiting for a true successor to 7Kingoms style.

[Mochan]

If you aren't shipping those games to anyone Friend Bear PM me the CD Keys so I can use them to play online if I ever feel like it. :) Don't need the CDs or the boxes.

[Renzatic Gear]

Friends and various acquaintances, It has ARRIVED! Tonight...we benchmark!

[PapaSmurf]

I need to actually benchmark my PC one of these days. That's something I just really never get around to.

[BaneNWN]

Well if you got one of the new 512 mb gts cards there suppose to be somewhat stronger then the 8800 GT.Cant remember what they did to get the extra horsepower but i did read there alot stronger then the older GTS cards so sounds like you got a hell of a nice free card there RG

[Aku]

Friends and various acquaintances, It has ARRIVED! Tonight...we benchmark!

My best aquamark is 103. I bet you'll crush that.

[Renzatic Gear]

Nope, you've got me beat by 2 points. My AM score is 101,661 (http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/AM8800_1.jpg). (score summary here) (http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/AM8800_2.jpg)

But my current install of WinXP is so old it's starting to flake out a bit. It's been many a moon since I last reformatted. It takes forever to get to the desktop, and I'm starting to get random errors here and there...a pretty good sign saying I need to wipe everything and start fresh. I'm sure once everything is nice and squeaky clean again, I can tweak things up and get 105-110 or so.

I'd do it now, but since I have to be up by 5AM tomorrow, I won't have time to back everything up, reinstall XP, then install a bunch of games, Aquamark, 3DMark, and whatever else tickles my fancy. So, for now, I'm delaying the true test til later tomorrow.

Oh yeah, what card and proc are you running? Also, Moch, what'd you get with your 8800GT in AM?

[Intangir]

Nice luck!

Last break I caught was about a year ago when my NEC 19" CRT died. Naturally it was about 4 months past the manufacturer's warranty expiration date, but I called them up for the hell of it anyway and they replaced it for me. I was trying to dance around the fact that the warranty expired, but before I could even attempt to deceive them they just called me out to the effect of, "You know the warranty is no good anymore, right? We're just replacing this out of customer appreciation." They actually replaced it twice since the first one they sent to me was defective (randomly turned the brightness down to zero every now and then). Plus they also picked up all the shipping expenses--which probably wasn't cheap for a ~50lbs monitor.

All the while I was hoping they'd replace it with a better, newer, and more robust model, but my luck wasn't quite that good. Still, I did indeed appreciate it.

And JFYI -- 149,574 (http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9136/am3lm9.jpg). I had about 151K on a fresh format last year; not sure if the drop is due to different drivers, SP3, or just me lazily keeping an RDP session and Firefox window open in the background while I ran it.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
EVGA 8800GTS640 (169.21)
Corsair XMS2 2GB 6400
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
Windows XP SP3

edit: Hey, new WHQL nvidia drivers (finally).

[Renzatic Gear]

Man...how are you outclassing me by so much on a card that is roughly the same as mine? I can't believe the processor would make that much difference. I could understand 10, or even 20...but hell....50 FPS more? I'm gonna check and see if I have everything hooked up right.

Oh yeah, fresh XP install and all netted me a 2 point gain. Maybe it's because I'm using slightly older Omega drivers. The GTS 512 is a newish card, so I might have to use newer Forcewares to get any big gains.

Oh well, I'll have to leave all the experimentation crap for tomorrow. I gotta get to bed.

[Renzatic Gear]

Quick question. A 500w power supply should pump enough juice for this thing, right? Specially considering I don't have much else hooked up in this comp at the moment. Just a DVD-RW, the harddrive, and the fans alongside the card.

Also, I'm blue screening when I set max frames rendered ahead to zero. Something weird seems to be going on here.

[Intangir]

Man...how are you outclassing me by so much on a card that is roughly the same as mine? I can't believe the processor would make that much difference. I could understand 10, or even 20...but hell....50 FPS more? I'm gonna check and see if I have everything hooked up right.
Beats me. I wouldn't put too much stock in a ~4 year old synthetic benchmark though, and the default resolution is fairly low so video card performance probably doesn't give a whole lotta weight to the overall score (anymore).

Quick question. A 500w power supply should pump enough juice for this thing, right? Specially considering I don't have much else hooked up in this comp at the moment. Just a DVD-RW, the harddrive, and the fans alongside the card.
If the PSU is relatively new, yeah. My system idles around 120W and only reached 220W during a FEAR performance test with Prime95 running in the background (measured at the wall; not even factoring in the 80-85% PSU efficiency). I say new because the spec for ATX/PSUs have changed quite a bit over the years and so nowadays there's more of a focus on how many amps there are on the 12V rail(s)--so some older PSUs on paper may have more than enough wattage yet not have enough amps dedicated to the 12V to keep the the video card/CPU satisfied.

[BaneNWN]

To be safe id go with a 600 watt PSU i just had to buy a new PSU because my 450 watt didnt have enough juice for my x1900xt and id bet your gts needs quite a bit more juice.I think 500 watt your pushing it.Id atleast get a good quality 550 watt.I also think i heard somewhre that a subpar psu can hinder performance to.RG you should be hitting around 120k aqua id think with your setup.more importantly is how many amps the psu produces with the 12v lines.my new psu i have 3 12v lines 2 are 25 amps and 1 i believe is a 28-30 amp id look for something similar to that

[Aku]

The 12v rails are important, but vid cards actually use all the rails, even the 3.3v and the 5v. I've seen 500w psu's with twin 12v rails but really low ampage on the 3.v and 5v. I had a stock 300w psu that could actually run my 8600GT no problem, so I thought I'd do a cheap upgrade to an Antec 380w with two 12v lines, but the pc would intermittently shut down when in Windows. So I bought a 500w with roughly the same amps on all the lines as the 380w and it's fine. They need to have a standard for those things.

[Renzatic Gear]

To be safe id go with a 600 watt PSU i just had to buy a new PSU because my 450 watt didnt have enough juice for my x1900xt and id bet your gts needs quite a bit more juice.I think 500 watt your pushing it.Id atleast get a good quality 550 watt.I also think i heard somewhre that a subpar psu can hinder performance to.RG you should be hitting around 120k aqua id think with your setup.more importantly is how many amps the psu produces with the 12v lines.my new psu i have 3 12v lines 2 are 25 amps and 1 i believe is a 28-30 amp id look for something similar to that

I'll look that up. I'm using an Antec Smartpower, by the way.

Beats me. I wouldn't put too much stock in a ~4 year old synthetic benchmark though, and the default resolution is fairly low so video card performance probably doesn't give a whole lotta weight to the overall score (anymore).

Yeah, if it were only that. I just fired up The Witcher...and you know what? Almost no performance gain between my old 7900GT and the 8800. I may have an extra 2-3 FPS on average or so, but that ain't what I expect from an 8800.

I'm gonna take my card over to a friends house. He has C2D and an older (but still kicking my ass on the performance front) 8800GTS 640 meg card. If it sucks on his computer, I'll have a pretty good idea it's a problem with the card. Or hell, maybe my whole setup. Who knows. I'll be ****ing with this for days now.

[BaneNWN]

I dunno from what ive read on the antec smart power looks like it only has one 12v line.If it were me id dump it.AKU knows more about psu's then me he kind of explained stuff to me and i never really bothered to learn much about them before because yesterdays gpu's didnt need much to stay powered.Todays rigs need a heck of alot more juice and now that ive had problems with my last PSU ill always go overkill with power supply's.I got a 650 watt knowing that eventually ill be getting a geforce 8800 gtx or better so then i wont have to worry about my juice for a while.

I got an Antec - EarthWatts 650 watt have had not an issue.I dunno its your call you could try and see what happens.I know mine would shut my PC down playing certain games.believe it or not i had more problems running NWN 2 then anything would shut my PC completley off every 5 min

[Intangir]

The 12v rails are important, but vid cards actually use all the rails, even the 3.3v and the 5v. I've seen 500w psu's with twin 12v rails but really low ampage on the 3.v and 5v
Well, that's normal. The amperage requirements for the 3.3V and 5V lines are getting lowered since most devices are taking power from the 12V rails instead (notice all the extra yellow wires in connectors these days). SPCR did a pretty nifty article that tracks the power draw of individual components (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article265-page4.html) a few years ago that shows the de-emphasis of the 3.3V and 5V rails:

1) It seems to be highly unlikely that a modern system will ever overload either the +5V or +3.3V lines of a ATX12V 2.x compliant power supply. In our systems, neither of these lines ever drew more than 5A under any circumstance, and many power supplies rate them above 20A. The power draw on these lines tended to be quite stable and did not fluctuate much with load.

2) The +12V lines, on the other hand, are very heavily used, especially under load. For Intel-based systems with no external VGA card, this power comes almost exclusively from the +12V2 line. Adding a high powered VGA card may add some load to the +12V1 line, although not all cards use +12V. The systems with AMD CPUs tended to draw power more evenly across the two +12V lines, mainly because they do not consume as much power as Intel CPUs.

3) Looking at the total power draw alone, it would appear that all of our systems could easily be handled by a 300W power supply. Given that as much as 90% of that power comes from the +12V lines, it is likely that that the ratings for the +12V lines matters more than the total wattage. If these lines are inadequate, the power supply may not provide enough power even if its "wattage rating" exceeds the total power draw of the system. It would be wiser to qualify our statement thus: When it comes to adequate power delivery, all of our test systems could easily be handled by a 300W power supply that conforms to ATX12V v2.xx. Conversely, an older PSU rated honestly for 300W output may not be adequate for the most powerful system examined here because of the much lower 12V current capacity on models that comply with v1.3 and earlier versions of the ATX12V spec.
Of course the 3.3V and 5V are still being used throughout the system, but just not to the extent they were in older systems (and older ATX specs). They aren't anywhere near irrelevant like the old -12V and -5V rails, though, and probably won't be with USB using the 5V, and even SATA has a 3.3V lead with the 12V and 5V in its connector (although I think most vendors ignore the 3.3V in SATA since a lot of people use those molex-to-SATA power converter cables which don't have the 3.3V line). But, in terms of modern hardware, I rarely (if ever) hear a case about a modern spec PSU not having enough 3.3V/5V amperage to drive someone's new machine, but I hear the converse--people with an older spec PSU and not enough 12V juice to power their new hardware adequately--all the time.

* * * * *

The dual- or multi-12V-rail is another hairy development in PSUs. From another handy SPCR article (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page3.html):

In PSUs that conform strictly to ATX12V v2.xx, it's important to know that even though there are two "independent" 12V lines, they still draw from the same main source. It's highly unlikely that there are two separate 120VAC:12VDC power conversion devices in a PSU; this would be too costly and inefficient. There is only one 12VDC source, and each of the two lines draw from the same 12VDC source, but through its own "controlled gateway".

PSU makers' specs are misleading in that they rate the current capacity of each 12V rail independently. What really matters is the total 12V current: Generally, up to 20A is available on any one 12V line assuming the total 12V current capacity of the PSU is not exceed.
Not all PSUs with 6-pin PCIe connectors follow ATX12V v2.xx to the letter. In fact, they can't, as the guide does not cover the 6-pin 12V PCIe outputs. This connector and its current delivery capacity was specified by nVidia, the originator of the SLI concept. nVidia maintains a list of power supplies that they have certified as being suitable for SLI systems. The question is, Where should this 12V come from? More to the point, which line DOES it come from?

I interviewed a number of engineers from several power supply manufacturers to pose this very question. The answers were surprising. All of the engineers I spoke with wished to remain anonymous. This is a summary of what they told me:

* Some PSU makers are using 12V2 to supply more than just the 2x12V or 4x12V connectors. It is often used to power the 6-pin 12V PCIe outputs as well.
* Many PSUs marked as having dual (or more) 12V lines actually have only a single 12V line — they do not feature two 240VA current limiters specified by ATX12V v2.xx; they have only one Over Current Protection (OCP - current limiter) for the single 12V line.
* The 240VA current limit is considered a high cost, useless annoyance by most PSU makers. If multiple 12V lines are used, because the vast majority of components now use mostly 12V, the 18~20A limit for any line means that the precise power distribution to the various 12V output connectors can become critically important in some cases.
* The engineers point to the many high power pre-V2.xx ATX12V PSUs that had as much as 30A on a single 12V line. As a product class, those have not proven to be any more dangerous in any way than other ATX12V PSUs. Even if exceeding 240VA in a single wire run was dangerous, this is extremely unlikely to occur in a PC because 12V is distributed to many different components on many different wire runs.

What's really interesting is that Intel has tacitly waived the 240VA limit requirement in its PSU validation program for the better part of a year. Intel maintains a web page listing all the ATX12V they have tested that "meet MINIMUM electrical, mechanical fit and functional compatibility" with Intel desktop boards and processors. For the 32 ATX12V v2.2 PSUs tested in 2005 that are on this list, 17 models are identified as having at least one output line that exceeds 240VA. And yet, these 17 models are on Intel's approved list.

According to the engineers I spoke with, the majority of these 17 models have just one 12V line. They also point out that there are another 20 or so ATX12V v2.0 PSU models on the Intel list, and none of them were tested for the 240VA current limit conformance. My sources say that if these models had been tested, more than half would not conform to the 240VA current limit because they have only one 12V line.

In the last couple of months, my PS engineering sources report, Intel has verbally informed them that the 240VA limit has been removed. A single 12V line is now "officially" approved, never mind what ATX12V v2.2 specifies.

What does all this mean? The safety benefit of dual 12V lines is questioned by the engineers I spoke with. There are many downsides to multiple 12V lines, including higher cost and the extra headache of ensuring adequate 12V current for all the components in complex, high power systems. For the consumer who is trying to make a choice among the myriad of PSUs available on the retail market today, the most practical approach regarding dual 12V lines and power capacity is to consider only the combined 12V current capacity.

This is not to say that there are no advantages of multiple, independent 12V lines. The fact is that the 12V line is where most of the power is delivered in a modern PC. In a high power system where many components are pulling on the 12V line simultaneously (for example, a high power dual video card gaming rig), independent 12V lines could help improve stability under certain conditions. The current limits on each 12V line then become important to consider when wiring up the system. If no specific guidlines are given by the manufacturer regarding which components should be connected to which connectors and/or cables (especially with detachable output cable models), then it is probably safe to assume that the PSU does not have really independent, separate 12V lines.
Lastly and really just a FYI/PSA more than anything else: I cringed when I heard that Renzatic had an Antec SmartPower. Antec's recent offerings, namely the TruPower and SmartPower, have a bad rep (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/77909585/m/643004881931) these days amongst enthusiast sites. The exception to this is the EarthWatts series which are rebranded Seasonic units--those are solid. I have a Corsair 520HX which itself is a rebranded Seasonic unit, and it's been the best PSU I've ever owned.

Anyway, I don't think any of that has anything to do with Renz' performance issue. So sorry about that, I was just going where the topic took me! I don't really know if that's a bottleneck or a hardware/software issue somewhere, but if you keep throwing tests and experiments at it you'll figure it out in no time. Good luck (or is that redundant by now?).

[Renzatic Gear]

A friend of mine has just given me the ok to take the card and pop it in his comp. Since he's running a Core 2 Extreme quad core, a ton of ram, and (I think) a thousand watt PSU, I have no chance of that card being bottlenecked on his machine.

If it sucks there, I know it's the card, and I'll be giving Asus a call.

[Aku]

Intangir, all that info you posted kind of sums up how frustrating this whole psu business has become. I put an 8600GT in my pc with a stock 300W psu in it, and I fully expect to see smoke coming out of the vents, and the thing runs beautifully. But to be safe I buy a name-brand 380W that meets or exceeds the amapage on all the lines as my stock psu, and the pc can't start up on occasion, or it turns on but can't boot. So I exchange that for a more powerful psu with similar ampage specs (a Coolermaster), and it's fine. In the old days you didn't even need to think about the psu other than how many watts it had. Now, like Bane said, you need to have completed an electronics course in power distribution from the local JC, and be able to read between the lines of the specs on every psu you're thinking about getting. It also doesn't help that these new video cards give you a psu requirement of "must be at least 400W", etc., which tells you nothing. No mention of how many amps you need on what line to adequately run the card, even a ballpark figure.

[Renzatic Gear]

Welllllp, called Asus again (they're such nice people, grade A tech support). They basically said I could use a PSU upgrade, but even with 500w, I should be seeing more gains than I already am. I told them about taking it over to dude friends house to test out on his beast rig, and they said if it performed flaky there, I could send it back and they'd happily replace it.

The way things are looking, the cosmos balanced out the good luck stroke I got with the new card by making it janky.

[Intangir]

It also doesn't help that these new video cards give you a psu requirement of "must be at least 400W", etc., which tells you nothing. No mention of how many amps you need on what line to adequately run the card, even a ballpark figure.My EVGA 8800GTS has a tiny minimum requirements table that says "at least 400W and 26 amps on the +12V". Obviously that's not for the card alone, though, so I guess they just added a fairly generous amount on top to account for the CPU and other components you might have. Video card vendors also tend to recommend PSUs that often far exceed the actual required wattage because they know a higher wattage unit will have plenty amps on the 12V (since those extra watts gotta come from somewhere)--and maybe for some CYA on their side, too.

It's an indirect way to go about it, but I think a lot of the problem is that people want to think of PSUs as (relatively) simple devices. If the wattage output is high, then it must be new and good. If it's low, then it must be old and obsolete. But, as you said, PSUs just aren't that simple anymore and high wattage (400+) really, for the most part, doesn't matter--at least not nearly as much as retailers would want you to believe. Unless of course you're on some freakish triple-SLI GeForce 8800 Ultra, Super-Peltier-Overclocked Quad Core 2 Duo, loaded to the hilt with HDDs and optical drives. (Obligatory recent power consumption chart (http://techreport.com/articles.x/14355/9).)

Intangir, all that info you posted kind of sums up how frustrating this whole psu business has become. ... Now, like Bane said, you need to have completed an electronics course in power distribution from the local JC, and be able to read between the lines of the specs on every psu you're thinking about getting.
Haha, that's about right. I remember a few years back when my previous machine's Enermax PSU fan was dying a slow, loud, clicking death... I decided I didn't really want to open the PSU up and mess around with replacing the fan, and since the unit was pretty old by now, I figured I'd just go to NewEgg and grab a cheap but solid Fortron/Sparkle replacement. And I think that's when I first encountered this whole "dual-rail" marketing push. Naturally, the more I read about it the more confused I became. Are the amps going to be split between the two? Will I have enough amps on one rail to keep my system stable? What happens if the rail hooked up to the CPU or video card needs a little more juice than it has allocated? Do I even need dual rails? Is the box even telling the truth about the rails?!

I actually just changed my mind and opened up my Enermax and swapped the fan!

Hell, even playing it safe with some top-notch brands can get you in trouble every now and then. For instance, a friend of mine somewhat recently bought a high-efficiency PSU (my efficiency drive seemed to have rubbed off on them a little) for his soon-to-be new machine, hooked everything up, and hit the power button... and nothing. It turned out that the problem was that the PSU was being "too efficient" and was creating an incompatibility with the motherboard:



In some fairly recent motherboards, there are various time delays implemented in order to ensure that the PSU (and motherboard) is not subject to a huge current surge when everything turns on all at once. Many Asus boards have been identified as doing this -- though you won't get Asus to talk about it -- I tried -- they will say it's proprietary information they don't want to share with competitors. They are not the only board makers doing this.

The practice began in the peak of the Prescott era when startup surge became quite serious, and the board makers extended the practice to AMD boards as well.

So this means, for example, that there could be anywhere between tens and hundreds of millseconds between different portions of the board and components being powered up. Just how much delay there is and how much power the CPU/VGA draw affects whether one of these high efficiency PSUs will actually start. Sometimes, adding HDDs will help, sometimes not -- they may not pull current soon enough after the power button is pressed to change the current demand the PSU "senses".

I don't have concrete information about the delays involved.... however, some of the Asus boards that would not start with some high efficiency Seasonic PSUs also would not start with some high efficiency PSUs from Antec, Fortron-Source, and Enhance.

A sure-fire way to tell whether too-low 12V start current is the problem is to hook up a known working bog-standard generic 300W PSU to the afflicted system. If max power was the problem, it would have a hard time starting -- or not start at all. But invariably, with these too-low 12V start current situations, such PSUs (even several years old ones that long precede 24-pin ATX outputs, etc) will start the system fine.

The reality is that most of the better brands -- like Seasonic and the others mentioned above -- are going for high efficiency because this is one of the big differentiators between PSUs today, and also very high power output. There are few PSUs that put less than 80% of the total power rating available on the 12V rail. For a 400W PSU, this typically means 320W is available on the 12V lines. Trust me, you simply don't get a surge that big at startup with 99.99% of computers, enthusiast or not.

http://www.cyberiapc.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/shrug.gif

[Mochan]

Oh yeah, what card and proc are you running? Also, Moch, what'd you get with your 8800GT in AM?


I can't remember too well right now but I seem to recall I was hitting 130. I have a GIF somewhere but I can't remember where I put it. I still believe that my procie and especially my RAM are holding my PC back. I have mixed RAM in my slots and I have always suspected them to be what is causing the slowdowns in load time when I am entering a new stage or otherwise loading a lot of data.

[Mochan]

I'll look that up. I'm using an Antec Smartpower, by the way.



Yeah, if it were only that. I just fired up The Witcher...and you know what? Almost no performance gain between my old 7900GT and the 8800. I may have an extra 2-3 FPS on average or so, but that ain't what I expect from an 8800.

I'm gonna take my card over to a friends house. He has C2D and an older (but still kicking my ass on the performance front) 8800GTS 640 meg card. If it sucks on his computer, I'll have a pretty good idea it's a problem with the card. Or hell, maybe my whole setup. Who knows. I'll be ****ing with this for days now.

Just so you know Renz, when I swapped my 7800GT for the 8800GT I didn't get much performance gain in The Witcher either. I think we've already pushed the S939 chipset as far as it'll go.

[Renzatic Gear]

I can't remember too well right now but I seem to recall I was hitting 130. I have a GIF somewhere but I can't remember where I put it. I still believe that my procie and especially my RAM are holding my PC back. I have mixed RAM in my slots and I have always suspected them to be what is causing the slowdowns in load time when I am entering a new stage or otherwise loading a lot of data.

Actually, I remember seeing some weirdness with your FSB speeds back when we first got the Opterons and we were swapping CPU-Z info. You weren't running full tilt DDR400. I think it was either 266 or 333.

Same thing happened to me when I mixed my ram. The timings between the chips didn't match perfectly at 200 FSB, so it went for the lowest common denominator at 133. Killed my performance.

Just so you know Renz, when I swapped my 7800GT for the 8800GT I didn't get much performance gain in The Witcher either. I think we've already pushed the S939 chipset as far as it'll go.

I expect It to top out at lower framerates than it would if I were running a C2D. But I didn't think it'd run exactly the same...getting as low as 15 FPS at 1680x in somewhat complicated scenes on medium/high settings. I was hoping to keep the low end performance in the 25-30 range.

You know....in hindsight, I wish I saved up for the Core2 instead of going with the Opteron.

[Intangir]

Eh, I was getting less-than-ideal framerates in Witcher too (with draw distance at high or whatever). Specifically in the Trade Quarter and the beginning of Chapter 5 (the fiery part), I'd drop down to 20-30 FPS or so. I finished the game before that load-time patch came out and any other subsequent patches so I'm not sure if they've improved performance since then though.

[Mochan]

Actually, I remember seeing some weirdness with your FSB speeds back when we first got the Opterons and we were swapping CPU-Z info. You weren't running full tilt DDR400. I think it was either 266 or 333.

Same thing happened to me when I mixed my ram. The timings between the chips didn't match perfectly at 200 FSB, so it went for the lowest common denominator at 133. Killed my performance.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I guess I should buy that Corsair bundle I saw. Costs $140US though which sucks. I've been holding off on buying it since I didn't know how much of a difference it would make. But if you say that the mixed RAM lowered your bus speed and caused a big performance dip, then that would be $140 well-spent.

You know....in hindsight, I wish I saved up for the Core2 instead of going with the Opteron.

Hey, you and me both. The components for the Opteron are expensive because of their scarcity here. I would have spent roughly the same in upgrading to a Core 2 Duo, except with the Core 2 I would have to buy an additional mobo for an addition $100 or so. I guess my laziness got the better of me because I simply don't feel like opening up the entire case and taking out all the innards.

BTW did you upgrade your PSU? What did you do to get your PC running up to fool speed?

[Renzatic Gear]

Yeah, that's what I thought. I guess I should buy that Corsair bundle I saw. Costs $140US though which sucks. I've been holding off on buying it since I didn't know how much of a difference it would make. But if you say that the mixed RAM lowered your bus speed and caused a big performance dip, then that would be $140 well-spent.

I've been toying with the idea of buying ram besides Corsair for this machine. Since I'm probably gonna be upgrading to a C2 sometime in the nearish future, I don't want to spend a mint on ram if I'm just gonna replace the whole thing a few months down the line. So far, G-Skill looks to be a good bet. 2 Gig for $69, nice tight timings, and good reviews.

You heard anything about that particular brand? If it's good, and you are in fact having problems with your mixed ram, I'd get it instead.

Hey, you and me both. The components for the Opteron are expensive because of their scarcity here. I would have spent roughly the same in upgrading to a Core 2 Duo, except with the Core 2 I would have to buy an additional mobo for an addition $100 or so. I guess my laziness got the better of me because I simply don't feel like opening up the entire case and taking out all the innards.

My problem is I'm cheap more than lazy. I figured spending a good $300 less for a machine that's almost as good as a lower-mid C2D was a great deal. Now that I've got everything up and running fairly well, I think it was a fairly decent purchase.

Not great, mind you. But decent. I still wish I saved my cash and went with a complete upgrade.

BTW did you upgrade your PSU? What did you do to get your PC running up to fool speed?

Nope. I looked up some stuff and figured I didn't need a PSU upgrade. At least not immediately. For an 8800 class GPU, I read that you need at least 26A on the 12V line. I have 35, so I was good there. After figuring that out, I was about ready to send the card back. Still had that one thing to do, though. Test it out over at my friends house.

So anyway, long story short, when I opened up my case to pop the thing out, I looked at the card....

....and realized I didn't have the thing plugged into the power right. It was shifted over to the right so only 4 of the 6 teeth were in. Surprised the damn thing didn't blow up my whole computer.

Only weird thing now is I still only get 101 FPS average in Aquamark. But I'm scoring 10k in 3DMark06, and my games run beautifully (STALKER running 45-60 FPS with everything jacked to max at 1680x is an experience).

So I'm happy now.

[Mochan]

LOL how the hell did you get it running half plugged like that?! Radeons would give you a warning if you didn't plug the card in properly. I never tried it on my 8800GT but I would have supposed it would do the same thing!

As for Aquamark well don't put too much stock in an old synthetic benchmark. The proof is in the pudding and if Stalker is running fine jacked then there's no problem. I never got to try Stalker on my new card so I don't know how well it would have done.

Right now I don't see anything on the PC that really needs me to upgrade to a bigger better PC. I was able to run Crysis satisfactorily even with my crappy memory so I figure I should be fine for anything that I throw at it for a good year or two, I doubt we'll be getting anything that will severely tax it in a while. My only real hiccup is the loading chugs which I still attribute to the RAM. I think I will buy the Corsair RAM (it's got good reviews, this is it: http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Memory/Corsair-XMS-Pro-PC3200c2-2GB-Review/4/ ) and go with this rig for another year or two. I figure I can play Far Cry 2 and Stalker Clear Skies well on this thing.

The 8800GT, despite being a "budget card" is pretty powerful and runs most stuff great. Some parts it chokes on though and I'm not really sure why (some parts in the Witcher crawl a bit and heck even in Silent Storm!) but regardless it looks fit to work for another year or two, especially at the resolution I game on (720p).

[Renzatic Gear]

LOL how the hell did you get it running half plugged like that?! Radeons would give you a warning if you didn't plug the card in properly. I never tried it on my 8800GT but I would have supposed it would do the same thing!

Hell if I know. I remember forgetting to plug in my Radeon 9800 back when I first got it, and it wouldn't even let me boot into Windows. This thing kept chugging along like nothing was wrong.

Maybe it's because the thing was getting at least some power. I dunno. I'm just glad it didn't explode and burn the house down.

As for Aquamark well don't put too much stock in an old synthetic benchmark. The proof is in the pudding and if Stalker is running fine jacked then there's no problem. I never got to try Stalker on my new card so I don't know how well it would have done.

I'm not fretting. My performance in Stalker easily doubled over what I was getting before, and that was with mixed medium settings. The only thing that isn't set to max is my texture quality, and that's just because I don't have 2 gig of ram.

I also saw some improvements in The Witcher, though not quite as extreme as the boost in Stalker. I noticed a huge difference when I first fired it up. That intro, which chugged hard on my old card, ran a silky smooth 50 with everything turned up on the 8800 (cept, once again, textures...for the same reason as Stalker). It still gets choppy in places during actual gameplay. Sometimes it'll drop down as low as 25 FPS. But that ain't too bad considering how I was playing it beforehand.

My only real hiccup is the loading chugs which I still attribute to the RAM. I think I will buy the Corsair RAM (it's got good reviews, this is it: http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Memory/Corsair-XMS-Pro-PC3200c2-2GB-Review/4/ ) and go with this rig for another year or two. I figure I can play Far Cry 2 and Stalker Clear Skies well on this thing.

That's the exact same ram I have, and I can vouch for it's solidness. You can't go wrong with Corsair, specially when it comes to their high end stuff.

It makes me wish I could get more, but I can't. Cuz A. I'm poor due to gas prices, and I have to drive 20 miles to work everyday, and 2. it's getting harder to find DDR1 Corsair nowadays. This G-Skill stuff I'm considering looks pretty good, but I doubt it'll be as slick and smooth as what I have now.

[Mochan]

In the Witcher I was able to up the details to max and still get smooth frames for pretty much all of the game for the first 2 acts. On the 7800GT I got choppy performance here even with some lighting and draw distance options turned down.

Then I got the third act inside that saucy city where your sorceress has a house, and it bogged down a lot in certain parts of that town. Other htan that it still played pretty much flawlessly.

Stalker I am going to try again tonight. I am currently downloading Oblivion Lost 2.0, whcih is freaking hard to download. For some reason Fileplanet won't let me download anything (wtf is up with that) and Filefront has no servers available. I settled for getting it from Strategyinformer but I'm getting a crappy 10kb/s speed and it'll take 4 hours to finish. That's fine I am dead tired and will fall dead asleep shortly.

Renz
That's the exact same ram I have, and I can vouch for it's solidness. You can't go wrong with Corsair, specially when it comes to their high end stuff.

So this is also the RAM you have, huh? LOL for some reasons our PCs keep getting similar components over and over. I also can't afford to splurge too much on my gadgets these days, gas prices are killing me and we are having trouble with credit and we actually lost our house 2 years ago so we are renting right now. What's really weighing me down is my car loan, + gas prices I sort of wish I just bought a damn mountain bike and pedalled to work everyday, I'd be buff and trim in a few months to boot! Still waiting for the opportune time to get a government housing loan and get a good house somewhere. I already spent a bunch on an iPod Touch, a Logitech set of speakers, a new Samsung Windows Smartphone and some other stuff so I should be happy for a while. :)

[Renzatic Gear]

In the Witcher I was able to up the details to max and still get smooth frames for pretty much all of the game for the first 2 acts. On the 7800GT I got choppy performance here even with some lighting and draw distance options turned down.

Then I got the third act inside that saucy city where your sorceress has a house, and it bogged down a lot in certain parts of that town. Other htan that it still played pretty much flawlessly.

I'm thinking my itty bitty ram is the main culprit there. Even when I had ****tacular performance with my conflicting 2 gig of ram, the thing never once hitched and maintained a consistently smooth 18 FPS. The way things are now, running down a dirt road causes the framerate to jump up and down the 10-60 range like a drunk circus midget on a trampoline

Stalker I am going to try again tonight. I am currently downloading Oblivion Lost 2.0, whcih is freaking hard to download. For some reason Fileplanet won't let me download anything (wtf is up with that) and Filefront has no servers available. I settled for getting it from Strategyinformer but I'm getting a crappy 10kb/s speed and it'll take 4 hours to finish. That's fine I am dead tired and will fall dead asleep shortly.

Okay, I loved Stalker. Loved it to death. But I gotta say, if you're playing it without OL 2.0 in tow, you're only playing half the game. The mod turns it into the game I always thought it would be. That's about the best compliment I can give to it.

If you want to know more, head over to the TTLG stalker page. I've been gushing about all the cool and scary stuff that's happened to me since I installed it. If you're experiences are even remotely as cool as what I've seen, you'll be absolutely floored.

Seriously, A-Life puts Oblivion's Radiant AI to SHAME. With this mod, you'll come to appreciate why it took GSC all those years to bang it into shape (then apparently turn half it off before release).

So this is also the RAM you have, huh? LOL for some reasons our PCs keep getting similar components over and over. I also can't afford to splurge too much on my gadgets these days, gas prices are killing me and we are having trouble with credit and we actually lost our house 2 years ago so we are renting right now. What's really weighing me down is my car loan, + gas prices I sort of wish I just bought a damn mountain bike and pedalled to work everyday, I'd be buff and trim in a few months to boot! Still waiting for the opportune time to get a government housing loan and get a good house somewhere. I already spent a bunch on an iPod Touch, a Logitech set of speakers, a new Samsung Windows Smartphone and some other stuff so I should be happy for a while. :)

I still have a cooler comp case. :P

No, trust me. You don't wish you bought a mountain bike. I have one, and I've tried riding it around to places I used to drive to. If you live in a big city, it ain't a problem. But I don't. I live on the sharp edge between a nice, trendy suburb and...The Dirty South. There isn't anything cool near enough for me to bike to without taking 2 hours. If you don't get run over by some dip**** in a riced up Civic, you'll be so worn out that by the time you get where you're going, you won't be having any fun.

I'm thinking about brewing up some ethanol or something. But...on the plus side...I spend more time at home playing videogames now. And I've got a ton of games I have yet to beat. So it ain't all bad.

[Mochan]

heh, I live in a big city and it would take 30 mind tops to bike to where I need to go. But anyway, I don't need to learn more about Oblivion Lost, I just wanna freaking download it! You know any good place to grab it?

[Renzatic Gear]

I grabbed mine from here (http://stalker.filefront.com/file/Oblivion_Lost;89584). Filefront is almost always nice and speedy for me.

[Mochan]

Yeah I came from Filefront but I couldn't get any download slots. I will try again.

I tried twice from Strat Informer already but my download cut off both times, it's frustrating! Someone needs to get this on Bittorrent somewhere.

[Mochan]

Hey Renz you wouldn't happen to have IRC or something setup would you, maybe you can pass the file over to me. Fileplanet doesn't have any free servers for it, and FileFront is just not working for me all day for some reason (I used to get files there all the time)

[Renzatic Gear]

Not right now. But I'll take pity on you and set something up If you haven't managed to get it by the time I'm home tonight. :thumbsup:

[Aku]

I downloaded Oblivion Lost lat night. I wonder if I should do a fresh install of the game. Most of my mods I don't think would conflict with it (things like super flashlight and the trader mod), but the reclamation project mod might.

[Renzatic Gear]

You'll have to restart. When I tried loading a vanilla Stalker savegame, it crashed on me.

Restarting isn't all that bad, though. Alot of stuff has been changed for the better, so it'll be worth starting again just to experience it all anew. There are a few things in there to ease the transition, though. You can grab an AK and a ton of bullets in the starting village if you look around enough. Just check out some of the stashes.

[Aku]

No, I meant reinstalling the game. If I layed Oblivion Lost on top of my other mods, it might mess up even if I start a new game.

[Mochan]

According to the readme you need a clean Stalker without mods, so maybe.

BTW I just woke up to my download being screwed yet again, but after I tried it again viola now I'm getting 100kb/s! I'm now at 40% of the download as we speak... and I'm using the same source. Weird. Maybe it likes to be fast only during the weekends. Whatever.

I'm just happy I'll be playing STALKER later tonight.

[Mochan]

Well I got it, just having trouble running it. How do I know what STALKER version I am using? I need 1.005 right? Guess I'll grab the patch first.

[Renzatic Gear]

No, I meant reinstalling the game. If I layed Oblivion Lost on top of my other mods, it might mess up even if I start a new game.

Ah, my bad. I didn't see the whole "reinstalling" bit til after I made my reply. By then I was having to rush out the door.

You don't have to reinstall the whole game to clear out all your old mods, just delete the "gamedata" folder and you're set.

How do I know what STALKER version I am using? I need 1.005 right? Guess I'll grab the patch first.

Yup, 1.005. You can see which version you're running by looking at the bottom left corner of the screen when you're on the main menu.

[Mochan]

for some reason the version number wasn't there, but I installed the patch. everything is fine now though I had to turn some options off in the NVidia control panel as I got a weird conflict.

Wow the nights are scary but the game got abut easier especially at the start because your starting weapons can actually hit something now. Before you couldn't snipe at all at the start but now with the rebalanced guns I cleaned out the bridge and military base fairly easy even on Hell difficulty.

This mod rocks I enjoying myself thoroughly.

[Renzatic Gear]

Not just that, but damage is increased to more realistic levels. One thing that always pissed me off about Vanilla Stalker was how you could empty a clip in a guy wearing nothing more than a leather trenchcoat and still not drop him. Now, a couple of well placed shot to a head will drop any but the most heavily armored guys.

Enjoy it while it lasts, cuz once you get deeper in, the game is anything but easy. The AI seems to work together alot more than they even did before...and oh gawd they're a helluva lot better with grenades now. The military especially, they toss the damn things like they're giving them away at Goodwill.

Also, the animals are alot more wily and populous. Boars and dogs, they never stay in one place for long, and they roam around in packs. On top of that, zone blowouts can happen just about anywhere now. That causes not only the wildlife to freak out, but all the NPC's of different factions start fighting over whatever hiding spots they can find. That can make for some scary, crazy moments.

So...hope you enjoy it as much as I have. For me, OL made an already great game tons better.

[Mochan]

Oh hell yeah, it's funny how I made mince meat of the military base but got rundown by a pack of doggies. Since you also get "wobbly" after your life gets to about 1/4th you can't run away anymore and the dogs just keep taking potshots until you die.

Well I'll just terrorize these hapless bandits and humans while I cower in fear of man's best friend. I also just experienced my first blowout and almost crapped my pants, then doggies and zombies started invading the town so I watched the friendly STALKERS put those tenacious zombies to rest. Thank you I am conserving my ammo!

[BaneNWN]

anyone got a link i wanna try this mod.i liked stalker but havent had much of a chnace to play it yet but i really want to try this mod

[Renzatic Gear]

BAM! (http://stalker.filefront.com/file/Oblivion_Lost;89584) Sweet mod molasses!

Have you found a drivable car yet, Moch? I found a beat up, old, rusted Yugo across the railroad tracks near that one guy you have to help defend from the dogs. I jumped in, cranked it up, and headed to the bridge to run down that one soldier who fleeces you everytime you want to enter the Zone. It was great. I could almost see the oh **** expression on his face right before I pinned him between the grill and a stack of concrete slabs.

Then I found an APC. I had alot of fun with that...until I tipped it over. Kinda like my first real car.

[Renzatic Gear]

Since the mod makes everything look prettier, I think we're long past due for another screenshot extravaganza!

Me and my APC. VROOOOOM errrRRRRRRR HRRRRRRK
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/1849/stalkerapckk1.th.jpg (http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stalkerapckk1.jpg)

Pretty Day 1
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9747/stalker4el5.th.jpg (http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stalker4el5.jpg)

Pretty Day Bar Edition
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1001/stalkerbarva0.th.jpg (http://img138.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stalkerbarva0.jpg)

SCARY AS ****! I BET ZOMBIES ARE IN THERE!
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4629/stalker1iw1.th.jpg (http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stalker1iw1.jpg)

I call this picture "The Choices We Make In Life". Very post modern.
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1254/stalkerwarehousekm7.th.jpg (http://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stalkerwarehousekm7.jpg)

[Aku]

I just started playing it. I have to get a car. My big complaint about the game was the insane amount of walking you have to do.

[Mochan]

Hey I have a question. How exactly do you drive in this thing? I have gotten into cars but I can't seem to figure out how to turn the ignition on. Or is it that if you can't drive it, that means it's not drivable?

Also can you stash gear on your car? I was hoping the cars had a stash on their butt.

I'm already in the Strelok hideout level I didn't realize there was a car I could use Cordona. I should go back for it later heheh. Oh and because of a blowout I failed to save the guy in the garbage hangar, he got killed lol. Mole also died because for some reason he went back into the facility. Well whatever.

[ilnadmy]

I've never actually stuck with a game as long as some of you have with Stalker. I'm lucky to get through a game I'm playing before I lose interest and move onto something else. These long games that take ages to finish rarely hold my attention (see Oblivion...tried to get into that game THREE times, but failed every single time). I was considering getting Stalker and installing this mod, but I know I'll get bored of it soon enough.

[Renzatic Gear]

Hey I have a question. How exactly do you drive in this thing? I have gotten into cars but I can't seem to figure out how to turn the ignition on. Or is it that if you can't drive it, that means it's not drivable?

Go to the control tab under options and scroll way way way down til you get to the General list. look for a "turn on" entry, and set a key to it (I used G). From there on out, F will get you into the car, G will turn it on, and L will fire up the headlights.

Also can you stash gear on your car? I was hoping the cars had a stash on their butt.

You know, I've never looked. I don't think you can, though. And even if you could, I wouldn't, cuz the cars are kinda buggy at times.

I'm already in the Strelok hideout level I didn't realize there was a car I could use Cordona. I should go back for it later heheh. Oh and because of a blowout I failed to save the guy in the garbage hangar, he got killed lol. Mole also died because for some reason he went back into the facility. Well whatever.

I've only lost the hanger guy, and that was only because he was a complete jackass. After taking the time out of my day to his ass from a bunch of bandits, he decides to take a walk right out along the railroad track thereafter and got said ass sniped. Mole and everyone else are still alive. In fact, I saw Mole at a campfire way off from the facility a couple hours after I stormed Agroprom.

I just started playing it. I have to get a car. My big complaint about the game was the insane amount of walking you have to do.

Truthfully, the car really doesn't help all that much. The anomalies keep you from using it as much as you'd probably like, since it's hard to spot them while you're driving along. A even if you remember where they're all at, they'll move around after a blowout, and probably make it twice as hard to drive around thereafter.

They are good at saving your ass at times, though. If you're getting chased down by a pack of Fleshes or something, and you see a car, you can use it to either run them down or drive to safety. Just don't expect to be using one all the time.

[Renzatic Gear]

Just a quicky here, since I have to head in about 5 minutes. I downloaded the Clear Sky E3 demo. Long and short of it: looks neater, cool depth of field effects, a bit higher poly, sky is alot more animated now, runs a bit slower. It's a prebeta demo, so I expect they'll have alot optimized by the time the game comes out.

Pic 1 (users.chartertn.net/greymatt/clear_sky_1.jpg)
Pic 2 (users.chartertn.net/greymatt/clear_sky_2.jpg)
Pic 3 (users.chartertn.net/greymatt/clear_sky_3.jpg)
Pic 4 (users.chartertn.net/greymatt/clear_sky_4.jpg)

[Mochan]

Worse comes to worse I'll just lower some sliders until I get the silky smooth 60fps back. I really can't wait for Clear Sky, the singleplayer setup sounds a lot like the faction thing they are doing with Jagged Alliance 3. I expect these two games will be on my harddrive for a LONG time to come.

[Renzatic Gear]

All you'll have to do is kill the light rays. When they're on in full force, usually at the crack of dusk and dawn, my framerate will literally get cut in half. Beyond that, it stays about the same as Old Stalker.

[Mochan]

HEheh lightrays those were all the rage in Crysis. ;)

[Mochan]

Ack I ran into a bug where Kruglov wouldn't move on his escort mission to Yantar. Failed it, ah well.