Cracking info, Jack - I'll have a look around for the beta then

Quote from Jakg :

Why Vista - why not 7?

Besdes that it looks ok....

It's not out yet, is it?

Hi guys..

So I've been asked by a friend at work to spec up a rig for him. He's into flight-sims in a big, big way and so I'm going to spec a gaming rig for him. The sorts of things it will likely need to do is run Flight Simulator X, displaying to either a Head-Mounted-Display OR a 3-screen setup.

So I'm looking to spec (and probably build) a fairly powerful PC within a reasonable budget (£1250), with good graphics capabilities. Two graphics cards are also a priority for the (more if possible) 3 - screen solution.

Anyway here's a provisional build. I'd like your advice on what to change, bearing in mind the budget. He already has the basics (keyboard, mouse and monitor) so I'm just speccing the rig rather the monitors and stuff. Vista will be bought seperately.

Antec case P182 Black Super midi case NO PSU ATX - £116.29
Corsair PSU 550W VX550W ATX12V v2.2 - £72
Gigabyte motherboard EX58-UD3R Intel Core i7 X58 LGA1366 DDR3 ATX - £165.50
Intel CPU Core i7-920 2.66GHz - £241.49
Nexus XiR-3500 Copper edition CPU cooler - about £40 with adapter plate
2 x Sapphire ATi HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E Dual DVI Retail - £372.62
Samsung 1TB Hard Disk Drive Spinpoint F1 SATA II - £79.34
Corsair RAM memory 6GB XMS3 1600MHz DDR3 8-8-8-24 - £164.83
Pioneer DVD DVR-116DBK Black IDE - £20

Total cost - £1272.

Overclocking is definitely NOT needed, he's not into that and the rig will just potter away running flight sims, period. So what I'm looking to do here is purely to spec a good rig within budget.

Cheers! And thanks in advance for any advice!

Just for a bit of info:

Live rates at 2009.03.25 09:38:09 UTC

The Zimbabwe government redenominated the ZWD again on February 2, 2009 at a rate of 1,000,000,000,000 old ZWD to 1 new ZWD.

The current rate as of 5 minute ago was

1.00 USD

=

186.610 ZWD


But it'll be double that this afternoon probably

Anyway, I can't imagine being able to profit from the Zimbabwean currency. If there was a coup/revolution/change of government that brought about stability, I would imagine the currency would be revalued again or trading would be suspended (if it hasn't been already) - either scenario would leave you with a load of worthless paper.

Don't listen to me though, I know jack all.

Quote from Tomhah :

Im having 15, which I know is correct, so was that a typing mistake, or did I miss something? :P

Yeah it was a typing mistake I meant 15kg - which is made up of 10 Kgs success ballat plus 5 Kgs from your 17 points

So yeah, 15 Kgs

Quote from UncleBenny :

In my opinion though, it seems like religion is the only thing that makes some people want to actually be good people

I'd add that your better half can make you want to be a good person My GF definitely brings out the better side of me

And like you said (I think), some people are good people because being good feels nice I like orgainsing the iTCC 'cos people enjoy racing in it

ALSO: Are there no Jedis left in the world? Come on guys, use the force....Show yourselves

Strange thing, religion, isn't it. Not quite sure what makes some people have faith and others not.

I'm agnostic also, you can't prove to me that God exists, but at the same time I can't prove to you that he/she/it doesn't exist. So we're stuck.

And even if he did exist, I wouldn't worship him.

I've always wanted to know - if he/she/it 'did' exist, would God want us to worship him/her/it? Seems a bit self-centred to me I'm sure a benevolent God would just want you to get on with your own life.

And to those people who would say, 'but I want to worship God!' Well, great - but can you please do it quietly, stop putting 'The Messenger' through my front door, stop knocking on my door promising me salvation, and get religion out of the classroom please because kids need to learn better English...

(I was brought up by Catholic parents BTW so I like to think I've arrived at my view all on my own )

If your faith makes YOU happy though, then that's great

Thanks Timo!

I'm gonna try this as the next round of the iTCC, as I need all the CPU power I can get as I also FRAPs the races, which really works the system hard.

I guess there's nothing to stop me putting the 'FMEcmd command' with its parameters into a batch file so it's just a one-click thing then?

Yeah it's tight at the top

Been great watching you and Nolan trying to maximize your points at each round, the overtaking is getting more daring with every Round!

Ballast now updated, ignore the ballasts on the Driver's Championship sheet, I fail at Excel!

The ballasts are correct now, Bitan scored the most points at Round 3 so he gets the top 30 Kgs ballast even though his penalties mean that Lind scored more points after penalties.

Also, Ostgaard and Burns scored equal points at Round 3 so both receive 15 Kgs ballast in acordance with the ballast rules.

Last edited by Joe_Keaveney, Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:29.

The following drivers are ballasted by the amounts shown for Round 4 of the iTCC Touring car Championship:

16 N. Scott - 46 Kgs
47 D.Lind - 43 Kgs
57 R. van Buren - 39 Kgs
285 E. Bitan - 38 Kgs
99 F. Enersen - 18 Kgs
66 T. Ostgaard - 15 Kgs
94 A. Laudens - 12 Kgs
236 K. Burns - 15 Kgs
69 H. Marques - 8 Kgs
19 R. De Jong - 7 Kgs
209 P. Diaz - 7 Kgs
33 B. Keough - 6 Kgs
38 P. Dolezal - 4 Kgs
55 M. Makalowski - 3 Kgs
200 K.A. Gjerde - 3 Kgs
88 D. Vuckovic - 3 Kgs
86 M. Cherkashyn - 2 Kgs
15 L. Malecki - 2 Kgs
213 P. Goik - 2 Kgs
26 J. Atkinson - 1 Kgs
222 D. Faurie - 1 Kg
82 - S. Mathei - 1 Kg

All drivers in the list above are to ensure they are correctly ballasted.

Failure to use the correct ballast will incur heavy penalties.

Cheers

Joe Keaveney

Last edited by Joe_Keaveney, Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:01. Reason : I fail at Excel!

Quote from Rudy van Buren :

a Damn i missed that you updated the points, you edited the original post so the topic didnt light up as updated for me so missed that,

though i dont see a post in the balast topic with the new balast ( i do see that you putted it behind the points in the championchipstandings)

Ah touché!

Smartass.

I'll put a post up there later on today, thanks Rudy!

Quote from Rudy van Buren :

Wenn will the list of points / balast will be updated?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I updated on Sunday?

You're right - it is a tough call, and to be perfectly fair it's a problem that we have created for ourselves by not penalising chatting since the first race meeting. What I would say is, is that Round 3 is the first time chatting became a 'problem'.

We won't be going over the first two rounds to retrospectively penalise racers, to take away points from drivers now, after we have already declared the results, would be wrong. As I said in the penalties thread, if you don't chat, you have nothing to worry about. The drivers who continually chat will end up harming their own championship points by collecting penalties.

Please bear with us - this is our first season and we're trying to balance the driver's enjoyment of the event with the need to run a well-organised and well-presented race meeting. The rules, for sure, are far from perfect and that's something we need to address also.

The ultimate purpose as you put it, is not to penalise individual drivers, but to put a stop, right here and right now, to further bad habits. Chatting is needless - the only reason you need to chat is to inform Race Control is when you've rolled your car and can't recover, also it's off-putting to other drivers, and lastly, (when my block messages function doesn't work) it spoils the broadcast

Thanks for posting your concern, we're determined to make the iTCC one of the best leagues in LFS, and together (drivers AND admins) we'll have a great league to look back on (and watch again! ) at the end of the season and an even better season to look forward to in 2010 I hope you can make it to the remaining rounds this year

What a great name for a team!

Good luck!

My sincere apologies fellas, am getting married next weekend and have been mega-busy, I was finished for the day with plenty of time to spare for the race last night, but then forgot completely until it was about 1900. I looked on LFS World and you were already into your 32-lap race.

Again, sorry I didn't turn up, I really intended to but my brain (memory) let me down again.

I will definitely be there for the race after I come back from honeymoon

Best of luck to Dan and the boys!

Ack!!!

Sorry about that...

Heh, nah Jack you're always welcome mate, hope to see you worrying the top guys again next time out.

Sorry about the mistakes, I've been writing my groom's speech today , not concentrating 100%

'Locked-in' Drivers for Round 4

The following drivers, who are the top 15 drivers in the Driver's Championship after Round 3, are now 'locked-in' for Round 4 of the iTCC. That is to say, they have qualified directly through to the iTCC event itself, and do not have to qualify through the 'Reserve Shootout'.

These drivers are:

16 N. Scott
57 R. van Buren
99 F. Enersen
94 A. Laudens
69 H. Marques
19 R. de Jong
209 P. Diaz
33 B. Keough
66 T. Østgaard
236 K. Burns
55 M. Makalowski
200 K.A. Gjerde

All other drivers must qualify through to the 4th round of the iTCC through the Reserve Shootouts.

These drivers are in the Reserve Shootouts:

Reserve List

5 T. Osterhouse
7 M. Boljevic
13 A. Zadro
15 L. Malecki
23 J.Pickard
25 T. D'Souza
27 T.Hynninen
30 B. Grindle
31 C. Wilkinson
44 Á. Árnason
73 J. Dimic
74 V. Pavlovic
77 D. Novak
86 M. Cherkashyn
88 D. Vuckovic
96 E. Kasperniunas
213 P. Goik
222 D. Faurie
246 G. Alamaras
261 J. Miranda
288 A. Perrs
301 R. Müller


No-shows required to confirm interest


The drivers listed below did not appear at Round 3 of the iTCC Touring Car Championship and are requested to confirm their interest in the iTCC for Round 4 by replying to this post in this thread with 'Still Interested'. Upon receipt of their reply they will be moved to the Reserve Shootouts.

4 D. Lobb
6 C. Zörner
9 C. Ford
12 A. Moor
18 J. Jokela
20 N. Grans
24 K. O'Keefe
28 T. Falkenberg
36 G. Noll
40 D. Nikolin
41 A. Ristic
42 S. A. Skavdal
46 D. Zanetti
80 M. Meier
81 F. Fredrikkson
87 J. Lovett
89 J. Matthews
91 J. Miranda
98 S. Stankevičius
82 S.Mathei
211 T. Oliver
212 K. Johnsen
217 A. Collett
228 L. Kaczmarek
229 J. Souai
300 I. Sindic
322 G. Kane


New Sign-ups

R. Pearson
R. Goncalves
BOTH please choose a number between 400 and 499 !

405 Y. Laprevotte
433 S. Oliveira
444 D. Jourdainne

There are several places in the Reserve List. Sign-ups are invited from drivers not currently in the iTCC Touring Car Championship. These drivers will join the other drivers already in the Reserve List and must qualify themselves through to the iTCC event through the Reserve Shootouts.


Unable to attend round 4:

26 J. Atkinson
35 J. Ward
71 K. Gasiunas
38 P. Dolezal
47 D. Lind
256 L. Baker
282 Z. Cagas
285 E. Bitan
353 J. Kursk

No longer interested


Eligibility

To be eligibile to enter the iTCC you must be able to meet a minimum standard of outright pace - the iTCC requires that you can lap within 103% of a recognised benchmark. In this case it is Rudy Van Buren's fastest race lap from the Pre-Season meeting at Aston Grand Touring (AS6) - 2:45.22. So the time you will be required to beat is 2:50.18

When registering your interest in this series please submit a .spr hot lap of your racing at Aston Grand Touring (AS6)

Please submit the .spr as an attachment to your sign-up post.

Joining iTCC

Please signal your intention to join the iTCC by replying to this post with the following information as shown below:

• LFS Username :
  
• Real Name :
  
• Team :
  
• Eligible (Hotlap of AS6 in under 2:50.18) :
  
• Preferred Number :
  

Where new drivers belong to a team already competing in the iTCC, if they have a team currently with only 1 driver, then they may join that driver in the that team.

New team entries are allowed within the guidelines published in this thread.

Race Numbers

Any numbers are available between 400 & 499.

Allocation of race numbers is strictly on a first come first served basis.

Rules are here, bear in mind these are in the process of being revised, it would be wise to re-check the rules before Round 4 begins.

Skins must be to the guidlines published here

Best of luck to the new entrants, and to everybody, thankyou for supporting the series, let's give a good show at Round 4!

Cheers

Joe Keaveney - iTCC Admin

Last edited by Joe_Keaveney, Mon, 18 May 2009 09:28.

I can thoroughly recommend RaceSIM to the LFS community, RaceSIM has been behind the iTCC and iCON Racing from day one.

The best thing for me about RaceSIM is their customer service - I know if I drop the guys a PM about something then they'll reply as soon as they read it.

The lads are very approachable and very friendly, they're regular racers too so they know how important their service is to us.

Good luck RaceSIM!

Joe Keaveney - iTCC Admin

Hi racers,

Thankyou once again for your support and for the fantastic driving we've seen so far in this series. The races, in the most part, have been outstanding to watch and this is down to the skill you show in your driving.

However - in the last couple of races, a certain minority of drivers are starting to chat mid-race. This has two effects:

1) It's off-putting to other drivers.

2) It's more difficult for admins to distinguish between spam and legitimate driver/admin communication.

It's also against the iTCC rules.

Until now, we have tried to be relaxed about chatting, we know people get excited about their raceing and have allowed for a certain amount of chat. However, with hindsight this has been the wrong approach as this minority of drivers are choosing to ignore admin requests to refrain from chatting..

So, with immediate effect we are penalising chat in accordance with the iTCC Rules. I'm sorry we did not do this sooner, as there would be then more consistency in the application of the rules.

To those who have the self-control to follow the rules and not chat, well done!

The only chat that should be in the chatbox is

1) Requests to spectate from drivers who are unable to continue (overturned, or in pits)

2) Messages from Race Control

I hope that this post has made it absolutely clear as to the admin's position on chatting during iTCC races.

The following drivers are penalised for chatting during iTCC Round 3.

Pickard - 9 points

Bitan - 4 points

Kursk - 2 points

Faurie - 1 point

Dolezal - 1 point

Footwear, I haven't a clue, I'd say get a pair of running trainers.

Diet - well it depends what you like really, I have cereal in the morning then pasta for lunch and dinner. Don't go mad with it though, have something nice once a week maybe.

Actually going to the gym - well it depends what's wrong with you. After smoking for so long, I'd guess it's your lung capacity that's an issue, so Cardio-Vascular work is going to be what you need. Running, cycling, etc.

If you live somwhere near open spaces (i.e. the countryside or the sea), I'd say ditch the gym, and either get a bike or go jogging. It saves you money and you get the fresh air.

Either way, start off very easy, cut out the fags completely if you can obviously, and just go for a walk for a few miles (across town, along the seaside, whatever). Then make it a few more miles. Then when you're happy with that - go walking again but this time break into a jog and keep it up for as long as you're comfortable and then go back to walking. Then just build up the jogging bit steadily until you're jogging all the time. By that point, you definitely won't need gym membership anymore!

How to cure cramps? Stop! Get your breath back. You'll allow oxygen back into your blood by slowing down. Make sure you're hydrated before you do exercise, plenty of water or isotonic drinks (Lucozade Sport etc). Make sure you warm up, it doesn't take long, just a bit of light exercising of the muscles will do. Make sure you're fed at least an hour before exercising, and make sure you drink plenty of water after exercising and then eat something too.

Cut out the stickies (mars bars, etc) - they're full of sugar, and it's your blood sugar that a) when it's high makes you feel alert or when low, tired and b) lots of them are not going to help your diet

Just to go slightly off-topic (although I wonder if we should have a 'Queen fans' thread),

I'm Queen daft, been a Queen fan since very early teens.

Got two Queen t-shirt, two Queen mugs, all the albums, been to see 'We Will Rock You' twice - go and watch it, it's brilliant - and I finally went and watched Queen + Paul Rodgers in concert at Cardiff last October.

What was absolutely awesome about that night is that we were about 5 yards from the stage - and then in the middle of the concert, with the stage smoke behind Brian, the lights, and him playing one of his amazing solos - man, that was a boyhood dream come true right there. Just amazing.

Brighton Rock is of course brilliant as an example of Brian's guitar skills, but how about Keep Yourself Alive? Or one of my favourites, Dead on Time (from the Jazz album, the opening few bars are great) There's so many really, not perhaps the greatest rock guitar solos of all time, but certainly brilliant still.

OK back on topic

Quote from Joe_Keaveney :

I don't want any arguments in this thread, I will PM the drivers in question to get their comments before any decisions are made.

I will PM you to get your reply to the protest, please be patient and wait for my PM.

WlayCo, delete your post (the one above) please

Cheers

Joe Keaveney