PS: Remember to test your setup before you get to camp

Atomic

Might I suggest you pan around looking for a combination of 'LED', and 'DLP' based, projectors. LED lamp means you won't be replacing bulbs on a regular basis, and DLP means you get the clarity of the DLP technology, as opposed to projectors that use LCD panels inside to build the color picture. Or worse, an LCD panel and a color wheel.

I've seen some that meet all the criteria, including 'relatively inexpensive'. and even 'relatively small'... which would be a good combination for something being toted out to a cabin in the woods.

Get it cheap enough, and you could even purchase a backup. Imagine your friends gratitude when, after you're all setup at camp, and for some ungodly reason your projector fails... and you have the backup stuffed in a spare duffel...

Started to link you to newegg, but after you impose LED and DLP on their listings, it only comes out with three... _three_, projectors. That's a bit anemic.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dlp+led+projector&x=0&y=0  I see a couple of potential solutions there, at the very least.

Atomic

True dat. I've just been signed up for the beta for quite a while, and I keep hoping I'll get a chance to poke at it before it goes live.

FOR THE REPUBLIC!!!

Atomic

Oh cute. I seem to remember DungeonSiege had similar problems. Large compressed install files, vs them (gas powered games)blaming peoples drive setups at the time... (ata-133). They eventually got it working, but it was a bunch of hogwash. If the drives were the problem, the OS would be on the fritz from go. Well, it was windows, so fritziness is arguable, but I digress...
 
CD Projekt RED to learn what a differential patcher can do, or split the friggen install up into manageable chunks. Or both. Both is nice.

Atomic

Btw, dirty contacts can cause memory problems. The simple act of removing them and reinstalling, has been known to 'fix' things before.

That's interesting about having to re-download the game in its entirety... I've never hit that before. Admittedly my experience with Steam has been relatively trouble-free.

It does have a backup function, once you get it re-setup properly.

Atomic

http://www.memtest.org/

Mod might want to move this to hardware/software hell at this point.

Get a good copy of that (have another computer handy? the steam comp is suspect, but might be able to do it if you get lucky (and have a burner on it, etc etc)

Boot to it, and let it run for awhile. (It's completely automated unless you stop it and adjust things.) A while meaning overnight, if you can. If it finds errors, you have problems with your memory. (or god forbid, the memory controller on your cpu, but that's unlikely. Possible, but unlikely)

If it finds errors... remove all but one memory stick, reboot, let it run til you're satisfied that stick is clean. Remove and replace with next stick. Keep them seperated (little pieces of tape with a, b, c, d are helpful)

Keep going til you find the bad stick. Then keep going and test the remaining to make sure you don't have more than one bad stick.

If no bad sticks found, you can look elsewhere, (hard drive, eek!), but start with memory. It's free to test, barring the cost of the download and the price of an optical media)

Atomic

Rule #1 of hardware diagnostics (well actually rule #1 is backup everything you can't afford to lose, so we'll call this 1.5): Test the memory first. It's free to test, and if you get back a clean test, you don't even have to crack the case.

Given the subject material of the game, some of the trailers, etc, they _really_ should have set the release date for this as 12/21/2012

Sadly, still no SWTOR beta invite for me'z. Preordered within a couple hours of availability too

With no date set yet, I sincerely doubt it will be out this year - Then again, this is Bioware and they don't play by the same rules as many other developers do.

Games like The Secret World has a release date alreasdy, and its april 2012, so it just seems unlikely by now.

Atomic

Just in case anyone hasn't spotted the somewhat obvious counter to these.

Never. Never ever ever. N-E-V-E-R, click through an email, to do account administration of anything. Not even if it's your bestest buddy sending you the link, and swearing up and down it's legit. Just pretend that no matter what, it ISN'T.

Want to check your account? Manually surf the site, use a bookmark, what have you, and login that way.

Clicking through an email link, is like begging the universe to screw you over. No lube.

The best phish in the world, cannot overcome this. If you don't use their link, they don't get their goodies. (barring spyware, but that's a different subject)

Atomic

And no, no googling for the website. What happens if some scammer manages to get their phish site on the front page for a while and you accidentally use it? Don't be lazy folks

Want my SWToR fix. NAO!

Shoulderpads ftw... but only on a Trooper...

Atomic

Russian Heavies are an excellent choice.  It avoids some of the more painful tanks the A-20 (needed to get to Russian mediums), the M3 Lee (needed to get to American mediums and heavies), the Pzkw III (needed to get to German mediums and heavies).  Plus the Russian Heavies get some of the best guns in the game early on, so you should be able to hit hard even when you aren't the top-tier tank in a match.  The only downside for Russian Heavies are that the KV and KV-3 are quite slow -- although I here the IS and their successors are quite quick for heavies (I've only got to the KV-3).

(strictly talking about heavy tanks here)

The T29 is probably the best tier 7 atm. Tier 8 goes to the King Tiger by a hair, Tier 9 is generally regarded as the IS4's territory, although 'stupid vk tricks' make the 4502 an interesting ride. And we loves the gun. Tier 10 is the IS7's realm, due to the combo of speed and firepower. The Maus is one tough bugger, but it can't move worth a crap. It's situational, for places where you can wedge it in and hold an area, shielded from most artillery, etc.

Personally, I'm liking the german heavy line. They're not as good infighters as the russian tanks generally are, but they have a good combination of accuracy and penetration on the guns. If you can't hit, or can't penetrate, or both... you can't do damage no matter how big the gun is. (with the obvious exception of spamming HE rounds)

Atomic

Trust me, it only stays free until you get a taste of premium

Ow ow ow ow ow... *#%^*%!!!! my as^h^hwallet hurts

Atomic

Previous implementations of compressed drive volumes spring to mind in terms of how it could have worked. However, it's irrelevant.

It does however, look like Bullwinkle would be clear for takeoff, if he decided to continue with his plan.

Beware those prices, might want to post any potential drive selections here for comment before purchasing. My previous comments about ssd manufacturers, controllers, etc, vs real world performance are still extremely relevant. All ssd's are NOT created equal.

Atomic

I may have answered my own question. Reading an article now on sandforce compression, that claims that, indeed, as I've stated, the controllers write less info than you actually send them, to the drive, in order to reduce write amplication... to as low as .5x, which means that they end up writing half the data to the drive, on average, as you actually send them.

However... and this is the first time I've come across this claim... apparently the controller still reports the full size of the file as written to the drive, in order to not confuse the OS.

Which I personally think is gimp, since they could easily allow the end user to reap the benefits of the compression in terms of volume capacity... but I guess they didn't want to go that route.

So you write half the data to the drive (sometimes more, sometimes less, it will depend entirely on the data)... but alas, you don't realize any increase in capacity from it. You just write less data to the drive over time.

I retract my previous statement about getting more out of the drive in terms of size. It appears indeed to be untrue. My mistake.

I'm still pondering the sector alignment vs hdd vs ssd stance though.

Atomic

[The density of the drive doesn't change with on controller compression.]

The density of the drive doesn't change with on controller compression.  I also wouldn't worry about endurance for a laptop, people just don't write that much. 

Big +1, definitely read up on it, there are a lot of SSDs out there and they are not all created equal.

True, but if your controller only has to write 15 gigs to the drive, to represent 25 gigs of data... you've saved 10 gigs. Or am I missing something somewhere? I remember this feature being commented on in earlier sandforce articles. Does it not work like this? A link to an example would be much appreciated.

Atomic

Which is putting you off? The process, the cost, or both? After re-checking the list, some of the 240's are down to 359ish on the greenbacks scale. You don't _have_ to get a world record setting drive to reap the benefits, it's just that after a certain point, you might as well skip the process.

Atomic

Oh and no, they don't all do this. It would be a seperate piece of software doing the drive cloning, etc.

Again, you really don't want to go that route.

Atomic

You _can_ clone the drive image to the ssd, but it's something you actually don't want to do.

Assuming you have an SSD-aware OS (windows 7 covers this, naturally), when you install the OS, it detects that you're installing to the ssd, and sets up the sector alignments, etc, to the optimal configuration for the hardware. If you just clone the drive image over from a hard drive installation, you wont get any of this. It will still be quicker, but not nearly as 'good' as it could be. (without going into technical details)

If you up to the SSD, do yourself a favor, and do a clean install from go.

Also, check around for the reviews. Their are some serious quality 'bins' for ssd's. Intel drives, anything with a sandforce controller in it, any of the 'Crucial' brand drives, all good.

Piece of crap old indilinx (controller) based drives, and the ilk, are in some cases, no better than putting stuff on a hard drive.

As far as your 300 gigs. Assuming that it's not all incompressible/pre-compressed data (think audio/video, heavily compressed .zip, etc), then the sandforce based drives do some seriously heavy compression on the fly... better than nearly anything else available. (they use multiple techniques to minimize the amount of data written to the drive, in order to extend the lifespan... it also means you get more out of your drive in terms of size)

If your data is already pre-compressed, you won't get much shrink out of it, though.

For the record... 240 GB ssd's (pretty common size... 256 GB's on chip, with 16 GB of reserve area which is used to reduce fragmentation, etc), tend to run around the 500$ mark. You can get them cheaper, but see above about 'cheap' ssd's.

What ever you do, read around _thoroughly_ before spending money. Check the reviews, even if it's your best buddy trying to slide you one under the bench for a Franklin.

Atomic

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=636&name=SSD&Order=RATING

Down and clear! Setting up to maintain perimeter and wait for extraction run. You over there! Set up the medical tent, we're gonna have wounded!

Atomic

Unplug power, pull all the add-in cards, and use the motherboard jumper/whatever, to fully reset the bios. Re-add the gpu (assuming it isn't an onboard unit and could be removed in the first place), power up to bios, load safe/load optimal, and go from there. (please note that it is important to actually pull all the cards from the machine for this step, and then re-add them afterwards... I recommend the gpu first, and then once you get it working without any problems, start putting any additional cards back in, one at a time)

For your ramtester, I prefer http://www.memtest.org/, and remember to test one stick of ram at a time, so that you can firmly identify any troublesome sticks.

Check the contacts on your ram, and on the motherboard, clean with alcohol, etc. Sometimes you get corrosion, especially if they cheaped out and didn't use gold contacts for both. Also sometimes you get foreign material down in there. Cpu will usually be ok from this ailment due to the nature of the socket.

I'm betting it's the first, and your boots are hitting trouble when they hit the pnp.sys phase of things. I've seen that, specifically, before.

Atomic

I un-gave up, and setup a gmail account to try and get around this. It worked, don't ask me why. Thanks for the suggestion.

Irritating in the extreme.

Atomic

At the bottom of the download page is a torrent download...

http://hellgate.t3fun.com/Data/Download.aspx

Atomic

(still absolutely nothing from t3fun regarding anything I've sent them... I give up)

We already checked. And just now we checked it again just to be sure. Nothing.

Atomic

And the first person to mention a spam filter gets the thermal detonator. I don't have any

Atomic

Oddly enough, I can't seem to get this one activated. In spite of multiple attempts at resending the activation mail, and multiple emails fired off to the devs (3-4 now?), I've got squat. No active account, no response from the developers, no nothing.

First time I've ever had this problem with a game, and tbh, a little disheartening.

"Our position is correct, except...no Alderaan!" Oh wait, wrong game, and timeline. Wrong galaxy, too.

Atomic

Update?

Atomic

Thankyou, yes, that was it.

And dang. I really liked the world setting they were placing it in, with the npc great houses as competing factions, etc etc etc.

I played it for a bit, but their removing it from the market and returning it to beta was totally justified at the time. Shame it didn't make it

Atomic

Bad thing about using TV's as your computer monitor, is latency.

Some tv's have significant delay processing the video signal input from your computer, to the display screen. For a tv normally this is inconsequential...

but if you're gaming on it, it has its consequences, showing up as input lag.

You click the button to fire your blaster...

... and 200ms later your blaster fires. (extreme example)

Make sure if you get a tv that it has a 'gaming mode' or somesuch.

IPS monitors that size also get expensive, fast.

This link may help you in your search...

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

For me, the fast answer would be to go with the monitor. I _might_ find a tv I would like if I searched extensively before making the purchase. (and believe me, I've considered that option. I have my computer on a corner desk unit... I easily have room to put a 40-50 inch unit on the desk instead of the monitor I'm currently using, which is an HP2475w (24inch IPS monitor... very nice one too)

Atomic

Someone jog my memory, cause it is bugging me.

Once upon a time, there was this mmo. The world within it was destroyed, broken up into seperate areas floating in ... well, lets call it the aether, cause I dun remember what they called it.

The NPC structure was governed by, I think, five different political houses, all sort of at odds with one another.

There were ships, etc, to move you between the different areas.

And, if I remember correctly, after it was released, they 'un-released' it back to beta.

My problem being, I can't remember the name of it for nothing... anyone remember this one?

Atomic

Hmm, interesting.

Ok, skip the pendrive linux. It was only an idea, based on the idea that your drive controller might be shot. (and we can always go back to it)

From what I'm hearing, you have a sata hard drive/optical setup in the malfunctioning computer. And the external drive you have fits only pata drives.

Is anyone here more familiar with the vista install disc? I actually skipped vista itself, don't want to blow up his setup by mistake. My idea here is to either reinstall over his existing setup to get him to a bootable condition without destroying his data, or get him to a bootable environment via either bootable flash drive, or bootable optical (thinking linux environment), long enough for him to recover his data to a flash drive.

And for the record, why can't you get the drive out of the machine?

Atomic

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Mostly, this is just to ascertain whether the system will boot from a flash drive. It almost certainly will... I'm wondering if something happened to your drive controller (since you can't seem to boot at all from the normal drives)

The good news is, if it WILL boot from a flash drive, you could backup your data, assuming the drives are still functioning.

Atomic

Also, you're posting here, so I'm assuming you have access to another comp.

Atomic

If it won't boot from the bootable cd, j00 may have a 'real' problem.

Here's a possible:

Since it seems to be having trouble booting to a drive, either hard, solid state, or optical... is there a possibility you can get a bootable flash drive, perhaps a bootable linux environment? Set the bios to boot from flash (assuming your board allows this), and see if it can boot from THAT.

when you say 'when I click on my hard drive'... to what are you referring? the basic boot menu? (aka the bios boot select, I'm assuming you mean)

your part where it hangs on 'press any button to boot from cd'... are you absolutely certain your keyboard is functioning at this point? we just had another user with a bios usb keyboard selection problem.

Don't pull your hair out, the data isn't going anywhere fast

Atomic

PS: When you get this 'fixed'... an 8 gig usb flash drive is extremely... and I mean EXTREMELY (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220301) cheap. Buy two, and back your data up to each one, and throw them in a drawer. (or one in the drawer, and the other in your safety deposit box at the bank) (we say two, because usb flash drives have been known to die spontaneously.. but as long as that doesnt happen, they have a better shelf life than your average optical backup, as long as you keep them safe)

Bah. If it doesn't have guns on it, it doesn't count.

http://game.worldoftanks.com/news/general_news/wargamingnet_expands_world

Atomic

No, you wire it straight to the ground of your house, and put a capacitor system in your attic. It only works in thunderstorms when the lightning is active to power it, and even then, only for a few minutes

On an interesting note, I'm just poking around egg for other cases... this one claims 33cm, and even has an intriguing look... I don't normally go for this type.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133191

Atomic

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352006

33 cm (more with cage removed)

Perhaps you should hold off.... ? 

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/19870/silverstone_temjin_tj12_case_with_six_geforce_gtx_580_video_cards_19_slots/index.html

On a more available note, you might check out the silverstone raven/fortress in terms of expansion card length... claiming 12 inches, or 12.2 with the fan grilles removed. (305 millimeters is 12.007874 inches)

Raven 3 is claiming 13.58 inches clearance. Temjin 11 is claiming 12.4 inches.

All this said... the case... does not make it go faster. (that said I've eyed a fortress 02 from time to time as a potential addition, in spite of the expense. on the other hand, I have a solid steel chenbro unit in my floor that will easily do the trick... and it's already purchased)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147094

10 expansion slots, 330mm video card.

Atomic

Check around for an audio switch that will do the trick. Normally they're used for tv setups etc where you dont use an amplifier as the 'center', but might suffice in this case. Aka single input, and then output to a:b:c: etc, via pushbutton switch, usually.

Atomic

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=audio+switch&x=0&y=0

I'm loving the 6.4 patch... my jagdpanther is like a whole new machine.

easily getting multiple kills in most matches now, as the machine is now sturdy enough to reliably take hits without exploding in my face, the gunner dieing, falling on the driver who apparently gooses the gas pedal, causing the commander to fall and hit his head while landing on the radio man, etc etc etc.

So far so good. There's a little latency floating around on the servers that wasn't there before, but it seems to have mostly passed.

Before the patch, I was planning to sell off the jagdpanther again once I passed on to the ferd, but now I think I'll be keeping it. we'll see if that changes.

Atomic

pretty sure he's a DAOC only kind of guy.

he's probably a dirty Hibby lover.

Dun be talkin' ugly about dem hibbies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlCco3tJx4w

Not that that really helps my case, but who can argue with a blast from the past?

DAOC had excellent PVP balancing due to the three-way realm setup. If one realm got too strong, the other two tended to team up against it. Combine that with the fact that as you increased your holdings in the RVR area, you had fewer and fewer npc guards, etc, to hold keeps with... made it hard to get ahead and stay ahead...

Class balancing lacked a bit... bonecasters vs... well.. anything, tbh, as an example... but overall DAOC had the best system I've seen yet.

I miss my cabalist (and my druid for that matter)

Atomic

For the record there's a special going on for the next couple? 5x exp, first win of the day, per tank. Imagine my shock in my jagdpanther, with only ten shots fired, eight hits, and a measly four kills... 3450ish exp granted.

The stats should show us more, like 'average kills per battle', 'average number of critical hits taken' etc. But I guess then the jagdpanthers (and others) nerfs would show too much. Can you imagine the poor Tiger I drivers?

Atomic

This is typical of any tank. Freshly unlocked, no upgrades, and (probably) green crew = lack of performance. Very few exceptions. Crew skill tends to make a huge difference all by itself. As an example, a fresh hetzer trying to climb a hill will drop to _2_ kph... it does much better after you up the engines/crew. (I think 2 may be the minimum speed rating... I've never seen anything stuck at 1 before)

For the record, most of the maps are 1k x 1k, so it'd take you quite a while to get to the enemy base at those speeds... possibly more time than a match allows

Atomic