Oh, right, forgot about that.

I think you've got a chance of getting some extra traffic this year.  Just from anecdotal observations in the PA forum threads about the convention, there seems to be some grumbles from people in the PC gaming crowd over a perceived reduction in PC exhibitors and events this year.  No nVidia booth on the main floor, for instance.  Maybe these folks will come see your room instead? 

Will you have the GTX 680 in your machines?  That seems to be one of the things in particular the grumblers are wishing they could see.

Not sure.  I'm not even quite sure what room we will be in.  Honestly I am not quite sure what hotel I am even at right now, just found out I was going. 

Still need to figure out my flight schedule and if I want to take a day or two in Boston the next week for vacation.

Did you already get your ticket, Vidiot?

Exhibitor tickets.  Hopefully I get to wander around more this year, last year was a bit crazy.

Well, unless there is another change at work it looks like I will be going again this year.  I should probably take a few vacation days this year and explore Boston a bit, it was a bit depressing only seeing the cab ride from the center to my hotel last year.  Reading this thread just reminded me that it happens to be on Easter this year, family isn't going to be happy. 

Second note:  Your drives area connected to either the black (3gbps) or white (6gbps) ports NOT the grey ports, correct?  Working from the newegg picture but the grey ports are not using Intel SATA and could have their own complicated procedures.

When you put the BIOS in RAID mode and try to install windows 7 does it not see your drives?  Windows has some older Intel RAID drivers on the disk.  If it doesn't work it is probably because x79 uses the iRSTe drivers (instead of iRST).  You should be able to download the driver package to a usb key and just click "have driver" on the screen where you select the disk you want to install windows to.  You may need to get what they call the F6 driver, not sure just throw both on the key.

I do need to figure out a good NAS solution for my photography.  Even with a large SSD in my Mac there just isn't room to shoot RAW.

So you shoot pron?  

Looking to hire someone? 

No Demo for me.  I need to finish the last 15-20 minutes of arrival this weekend.  I didn't intend to wait this long but it worked out.

After that trailer though I am ready.  Is it tuesday yet?

I have moved to pretty much all SSDs (besides bulk storage).  Heck even my PS3 is running an old Intel X25.  My main windows box is running RAID-0 300GB Intel 320 series drives. 

Once you start down this path, forever will it alter your destiny!

I do need to figure out a good NAS solution for my photography.  Even with a large SSD in my Mac there just isn't room to shoot RAW.

If it is clicking that doesn't sound like a control board failure, so replacing that is out.  You can try the freezer trick and hope for the best. 

I don't know exactly how much of a HDD boot sequence (the drive boot, not the system boot) needs to work out for the drive to enumerate.  So it sounds pretty reasonable that it wouldn't show up in BIOS if the servo system isn't coming online or behaving correctly for whatever reason.  It probably just never returns status after phy negotiation or stalls on the ID.

The only HDD I have tried to debug was a control board failure, so in that case the phy didn't even try to come online in a protocol trace.  I believe my friend eventually found a matched drive and replaced the board.

I got something very similar (maybe the same virus) while running Microsoft SE (it may have been out of date).

I was able to remove the virus but it left behind a rootkit I couldn't detect or kill.  In the end I just backed up key data and nuked the whole computer (secure erase on the SSDs).  After I got it up and running again with a fresh W7 SP1 install security essentials did pick up the bug buried in some of my backup files.  I guess the lesson is make sure you install the latest OS patches and AV updates.

Customized and DLC vehicles and mission reward vehicles will simply infinitely respawn in your garage...a vehicle you just picked off the street and didn't upgrade any at a mechanic...that won't respawn. 

What about if I just drop a car at a hideout garage?  If I want to use it again do I need to at least paint it or something?

Saints Row 3
Assassins Creed

With CoD and Assassins Creed out it will finally feel like Christmas time.  All that is missing is Mass Effect.

Same

IP: 99.189.49.113

I got a password reset request from this forum which originated from Arkansas at a Comfort Inn this morning.  That was pretty worrying but I don't think it would be connected with Steam because why would they bother and I also see that you only need a  Username to initiate the request not an email address so I guess I'll just stay vigilant.

I got the same thing a few hours ago.

IP: 99.189.49.113

They said that beta and beta weekends are not in any way related to pre-order status.  On the other hand the 5 days head start will be rolling based on when you registered your pre-order.

I got my CE within hours of pre-orders going live and no beta for me. 

Got my code from D2D and preloading on Steam now!

Nothing here. 

I will still be playing PC BF3.

MW3 on Xbox (BF3 on pc just isn't the same without the normal GT fps crew)
Skyrim on PC (Ohh wonder if it supports 5750x1200 out of the gate..)

I always get fairly excited about the release of these games, but like Oblivion I doubt I'll finish it. I'm usually enthralled with it for the first few days, but something happens and the bottom falls of it. I'm hoping Skyrim keeps me entertained at least for one complete play through.

I should be getting my GTX 580 superclocked card tomorrow...so it will be fun putting it through its paces with Skyrim.

I end up the exact same way.  In the end I always get super excited for the next game thinking "this one will be different".  And then the exact same thing happens.

That said, I am pretty sure this one will be different.

Are there any deals? I can't find poop. This might be the first game I pay full price for in years.

Also, is steam unlocking at 2am? Seems that way, but they sometimes change to 2pm.

Direct2Drive has the game at 10% off for preordering, or $53.95.  However, depending on where you live, D2D might charge tax, which would negate most of the discount.  You can also sign up for IGN Prime which takes 15% off, bringing it down to $45.86.  At one time, IGN Prime offered a free trial, but I can't find any working links to that offer.  It's normally $6.95/month, so you'd still save $1 and the discount is good on all D2D games for the whole month.

As for unlocking, Bethesda tweeted that it would be available at midnight in each time zone, but my Steam clock is counting down to 2am on Friday as the unlock time.

Thanks for the tip!  I will need to remember that 15% off in the future for Steamworks games.

I'm currently running 2x560 and they shred most stuff.  Starting to hit some limits with BF3, it didn't like 5760x1200 on ultra.  Getting one beefy card gives you the option of moving to SLI as an upgrade in the future, but from my experience I always say I can do that and never do.

Rumor has it Sandy Bridge-E is going to hit before the end of the year, that or a higher end current i7 would probably do you fine for a cpu. 

I also highly recommend an SSD, once you have one you won't want to ever go back.  If you don't want to pay for a big enough one to cover everything pair it with a nice HDD and just run windows and your current top game off the SSD.

I hope I get in for my first try. 

Origin: VidiotGT

See you there!

I have the Khador jacks put together so far.  I hate trimming off flash.  You can get some interesting poses with these guys using the ball joints.  I figured I would get everything built before I started painting anything.  That way we can start playing some games.

This thread is getting worse by the day. 

I need to go check my email again.

Yep, this could just be the first strategy people latched on to (like when we discovered the power of Chapel in Dominion).   I'm still trying to figure out a valid portal based strat.  I think the problem there might be how fast the game moves.  If you don't jump right on making glory you get left behind.  I almost wish there were glory dice you got to counter and slow you down allowing some time to build an engine before sprinting for the win.

From our playing the first turn seems critical for setting a stage.  Ideally you can cull at least 3 quid over the first 2 turns.  Our ideal mix so far is cull 3 quid and 1 assistant, 4 quid in some cases.  At this point you can fold in your discard nearly every draw helping recycle in your monsters faster.  You can end up a bit monster rich but so far it seems to work best.

So far there has been strong correlation to losing when you can't cull right away.

I went ahead and ordered the 2-player box online (my FLGS failed me by only getting one box, which was already pre-ordered).  Looked over the quick start rules and reading though some of the full rules now.  Khador and Menoth are both interesting, but even if I decide to go another way I figure having a small army around for friends is useful.  I also figured my best bet for convincing someone else to buy in is to get them playing.  Unlike Warhammer almost every army sound interesting in some way.

About how long does a 35 point game take?  I think the box set is a bit less in points.

I was reading about Vassal.  I might try to get it setup and see if there are people willing to play around with a new player.

Playing Space Marine got my interested in W40K again, which after some research led me to Warmachine.  The fewer models to paint, smaller investment, and less repeated models seemed easier to get into that Warhammer.  Has anyone tried it out?  Is it fun to play?  It will be a hard sell trying to convince any friends to commit, but with the new 2-player box coming out I figured I might have a chance.

I kinda like the web based UI.

+1 to what Pug said.  It is super satisfying to do almost anything in the game because it is so hard.

Can we move on to complaining about the lack of a pause button?  If I get this it will be for playing single-player, so I'm pretty annoyed about the omission.

Use the soul stone to warp back to town.  Problem solved.

but then I lose my progress!  WHAAAAAAAAAAA!   (like most people complaining about this wouldn't end up replaying the same levels dozens of times anyway)

Also the graphics look just fine to me.  (hint:  watch them in HD instead of low res in a tiny window)

Isn't it like a town portal where it saves the current state of the world until you go back to B.net?

Alright so my PC has started crashing lately. Boots up fine and I get to the desktop no worries. Then a black screen with the normal startup text only this time it says Disk Boot Failure. Please insert system disk and press enter. WTF?

As Atomic said the disk isn't coming ready before the bios is ready to start loading the OS, so the BIOS is reporting that it doesn't see a boot disk.  Can you listen to the drive as you boot?  Is it clicking?  Is it whirring a lot reving up and down?

In general I believe most disk drives will enumerate themselves on the bus before they are fully spun up, but if it is having real issue it could be stalling long enough that it is timing out.  Does it seem to take a long time at the BIOS loading stage?  Unfortunately without a protocol analyzer listening to the disk (and testing other component as Atomic noted) are really your only choices for segmenting the issue that I know of.

I bought it in to our lunchtime Dom group last week with mixed results.  Most of the group felt it was too random and that they couldn't piece together and strategy other than buying the biggest monster you can pay for at any moment and hope for lucky rolls.  I think we decided we need to play with it a bit more before we get a good feel for how deep any strategy really does go, but to put it in the same class as Dom feels like it would be a mistake right now.

That said one of the guys that doesn't really like Dom (I know, right?) loved it.  I think with the speed and luck it could be a good beer and pretzels game when you don't feel like thinking too hard and need something quick.

Nada for me so far.

I think it says a lot about how much people care when they loudly declare how they do not care anymore. 

I had almost convinced myself the game didn't exist for the last month.  Getting closer now. *smacks self* "Hey, check out that Deus Ex over there, nothing to see here..."

[this is Beta]

IF you can get a good team going, there is a huge potential for teamwork winning the day here. Basically, many of the maps are set up so that a good support system is key. By that I mean machine gunners, and sniper to cover from behind while infantry and squad leader advance, often under the cover of the Squadleaders smoke grenades.

A lot of people have voice activated that I saw, but not many used it yet. As Turtle noticed though, the squad and commander system seems a bit wonky still, but hey, this is Beta.

Its a hugely lethal game though, and you have to plan your advance accordingly - Also yes, expect to die, but expect to learn from your deaths as well. You cant guard yourself against everything of course, but 70 percent (yes, I totally made that up) of your deaths could probably have been avoided, if you had known the map, scouted out enemy positioning and generally kept low instead of sprinting like Laura across the open field.

Not anymore.