Quote from flymike91 :

Alright so I have to return the game today so I came to a final conclusion on fm3. There are many elements that are wayy beyond fm2 such as graphics, car/track selection, maybe physics but honestly I couldn't see a drastic difference from fm2. There are some parts that were a definite step backwards, one of which is the heavy and slow steering when using controller, which I assume a vast majority of players use. I was borderline disgusted to see a car like the porsche 944 which is so lively and balanced in fm2, wallowing into heavy understeer in fm3 in the same turns at the same speed on the nurburgring. In (I guess) an attempt to make the game easier for controller users, they seriously dumbed down the automatic steering and throttle control. For example I drove the 1970 GTO around the nurburgring in both games. fm2 time: 9:10 fm3 time 9:47. I'm not bitching that my lap times were worse, I'm saying driving the american heavies is all about managing and using oversteer to your advantage, but in fm3 it is almost impossible to make the cars oversteer simply by flooring it mid turn in first or second gear. Even the shelby cobra which is literally next to impossible to control in fm2 is tamed considerably in fm3. Maybe the dumbed down steering helps the majority of forza 3 players, but it only made the experience less realistic for me. I'll be sticking with forza 2 since I don't play online anyway.

Try changing your settings? I play with all help turned off, except TC on certain high-powered cars and no clutch (xbox wheel doesn't have a clutch) and it's pretty good for me

Quote from sinbad :

It feels pretty good when playing, but I've felt from the start that things aren't spot on because of the replays. It's like everything is turned down too low, tyre grip, weight, inertia. Quick changes of direction in road cars are where it's most noticeable imo, although there isn't enough pitching in heavy braking either, I feel.

I've only played the demo so far (USPS doesn't deliver on sundays :|) but it does seem that way, especially in corners. hmmm

and the promise of money paid back (~$150)



If anyone wants to race on forza (getting it monday. damn you, USPS!) add my gamertag: PR1620

Last edited by MijnWraak, Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:50.

Quote from R34GTR :

Now I have to find a cheap way to mount my DFP up

Cheap laptop stand + peg board + some thinking = win. Use the peg board to place the pedals (using the metal things that you hang on the board to limit the position of the pedals)

You'll most likely need some sort of adapter, as it has the analog green cable audio in. Not sure the exact name of it, but it's 3.5mm I'm pretty sure. Depending on your HDTV/setup, the tv might have some type of audio out that is the red/white kind or optical. What kind of HDTV do you have?

Got a fresh dusting of snow here Lots of icicles, roads are fine, half the snow has melted.

Quote from logitekg25 :

the first time i got to move a real car in a long time was trying to move it from the 14" snow, its fwd, and summer tires....lets just say with boots and ack of experience the pedals might as well not be there

Haha, I had to move my brother's FWD Infiniti with summer tires as well. Needed a big push to get it moving. Managed to get stuck in parking lot of wal-mart with 2 inches of snow in the road... sad day, lol.

Quote from mrodgers :

The big "snowstorm of the decade", as I've seen it mentioned above, that hit the Eastern US netted me a mere 2 inches out in the driveway. Hardly anything to fret about, but the cancellations being scrolled across the news this morning is unbelievable. Every weekend event is canceled and it isn't even enough snow to make a nice snowball out of.

I just ran for gas for my car and to fill up the new snowblower. I'm anxious to try it out, but I'd look like an idiot out in this "dusting".

Really depends on where you live, though. 20" here, 150 miles north is getting around 2-4"

Quote from SidiousX :

I'm down in richmond virginia, we have about 5 inches so far, supposed to get like 5-10 more tomorrow

Let me just tell you with a picture



sauce necessary

Just ordered FM3 Friend assured me that it was decent to play on controller, so if I do enjoy it I might buy either Fanatec or MS wheel for the xbox

I'm thinking of selling my g25 for a Fanatec with Xbox support (dawes, don't say anything about fanatec if you reply) and getting forza 3. How does it compare to LFS in terms of lifetime before getting boring? I don't want to end up with a loss of $200 for nothing, will forza last awhile?

Monitor: 2333sw Samsung 1080
GPU: 4870 (runs Dirt 2 at about 50fps with 2x aa for me)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1tb

Quote from runeman :

Well, if you want to live longer and get a better taste of life... Staying in shape does help wraak.

I'll stay fit by biking and walking

Thanks, guys, I'll try your suggestions, but FWIW, I'm not one of those people that go their whole lives trying to strengthen their muscles for physical activity; hence why play LFS

At least I'm not fat

Quote from runeman :

I agree.

Alot of people tend to start out way too fast and end up stopping in such a short distance. Or run too slow they don't get much out of the time that's spared.

A good jogging pace should be about 9-11 minute miles.
A good running pace should be about 6-8 minute miles.


Alot of people seem to complain about their knees. Try and squat down about ten times before running and warm the knees up. Also extend your legs further out, this will help for sure.

I also heard the mentioning of leg cramps, if you're having trouble with calves cramping or your thighs.

If it's your calves, i'd say it's most likely not the over exertion. There are a number of reasons why they can get cramped up quickly.

if it's your thighs that cramp in such a short time, you're either running too fast or maybe need to shorten your stride.

Every time I try to run, I get a really bad stitch/cramp in my lower abdomen area on my right side. People say you just have to work yourself through it and it happens to everyone, but it's really agonizing for me and I have to stop.

Also I got "runner's knee" (ironic since I don't run often) and have to do like 10 minutes of knee-stretching before doing anything heavy in movement.

Quote from trebor901 :

ive put it into our other pc which has an AMD dual core and 2gb ram and a 550w psu and its running perfect so i think ive found my problem, not enough power. ATi's recommendations on the box are a lie lol.

It could also be a driver conflict, the AMD rig might not have nvidia drivers installed on it.

And if you ignore my post again I'ma punch a wall.

Quote from MijnWraak :

Uninstall all drivers completely, use a driver cleaner to remove ALL ATI and NVIDIA drivers, reboot into safe mode and use the driver cleaner again. Reboot and if you have windows 7 let it automatically download the drivers. Or go to ati.amd.com and find the latest drivers for the 5770.

Yep, just ignore people that try to help you.

Quote from trebor901 :

My first ATi card for 3 years

Uninstall all drivers completely, use a driver cleaner to remove ALL ATI and NVIDIA drivers, reboot into safe mode and use the driver cleaner again. Reboot and if you have windows 7 let it automatically download the drivers. Or go to ati.amd.com and find the latest drivers for the 5770.

Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

LOVE the back, reminds me of NFS Hot Pursuit days. Don't remember which car, but it was pretty long and was white. Loved it

Quote from Migz :

Haha, fair enough

I swapped down to the first of those two motherboards.
So they'll still support dual sli/cf? Although im not THAT keen on sli/cf, my dad has 2 8800gt's SLI'd in his computer and it doesnt seem that good compared to a single 9800GT or something.

Hmmm, do you mean 650 or 750? Cause you've said 650 twice, but you linked to a 750? So i put a 750 in :/ If a 650 will do then thats good, more money saving.

How good is CF though? To me it seems like it's not as good as having one powerful card? :/

Yeah both of them will be able to dual crossfire/sli: one at x16 speeds and 1 slot at x8 electrical speed (x8 will only bottleneck a 5970, so there's no need to worry about that)

When setup properly, crossfire 5770's will perform on par with a 5870. Ideally, you should buy a single 5870 and then crossfire in the future. Buuut, it costs a lot more up front and it's impossible to find a 5870 available these days.

Meant the 650hx - it's modular so you can choose which cables are plugged in so it isn't as cluttered.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173104
Corsair is one of the best PSU companies, so you don't need to worry about the PSU failing and taking out your expensive rig, and it supplies it's stated voltages unlike cheaper ones.

Last edited by MijnWraak, Sun, 6 Dec 2009 18:42.

Quote from Migz :

Thank's for that

The CPU i found is pretty much exactly the same as yours although mine is Nehalem and the one you posted is Lynnfield, i don't think there's much of a difference though.

I found the case, although i find it a tad ugly because of those handle things but oh well, it's much cheaper then the Antec 902/1200 i was planning to get.

This is the board i found
MSI P55-GD80 P55 Socket 1156 G ... nel Audio ATX Motherboard
As far as i can tell it's the same board as the one that you posted.

I couldn't find any solid state drives that were 80GB, so i picked the closest i could find which was a 64GB one. Smart idea though, having a SSD for the main drive and then the 2TB drive for storage, i was just going to have both on the 2TB drive.

I couldn't find that many 5 series cards by ATI, i found more 4 series.
I'm not sure which to pick out of these two
Asus HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 Dua ... Port PCI-E Graphics Card

The 4890 is more expensive then the 5770 but i thought the 5770 being a higher number would be better?

And nope, not needing anything else besides the system itself, i'll be using my old monitor/mouse&keyboard/speakers with the new system as they're all rather good.

Thanks btw wasnt expecting someone to come in and pick most of the parts for me, was just expecting some advice haha.

Had nothing else to do hehe.

The handles are a bit ugly, but the rest of the case is awesome, the interior is painted flat black and I get really good temperatures with my setup. The tinted window is nice too hah.

The mobo is $100 more over the pond than in U.S., so I think you can get away with downgrading that a bit to save some cash. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173537 would save you around 40 gbp or you could go with the GD65 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172654 either are just as good for less money, they just don't support tri-sli/CF which TBH I don't think you'd need.

64gb should be fine for a boot drive, just make sure to put any downloads/media/not-important-game-installations onto the HDD to save space. They are a bit expensive, and I forgot to factor in increased prices in the UK, but hopefully you can fit a x25-m into your budget. It supports Intel's TRIM feature which makes sure that your SSD doesn't degrade over time like they usually do. Don't fill it past around 90% or else it will slow down. Found an x25-m on amazon.co.uk if that works, just seems a bit expensive lol

About the video card situation, it's a bit confusing.
4850 = 5750
4870 = 5770
4890 = in between 5770 and 5850
(roughly)
BUT, the 5xxx series has support for the latest and greatest DX11, so it'd be more future proof to get a single 5770 then buy another and crossfire them to get better FPS if need be. They scale really well even with immature drivers, so it seems like you wouldn't lose that much performance CF'ing them.

So IMO, get a 5770 now and then upgrade to a second if you need it. The 650hx will definitely have enough power to do so since the 5770 is a lot less power-hungry than other cards (only 1 pci-e power connector)

Last edited by MijnWraak, Sun, 6 Dec 2009 16:47.

Anyone have optimal settings for G25 with Dirt 2? Would appreciate it

A lot of laptop/low end motherboard chipsets don't support AA simply because they don't have the power to have AA with decent frames per second.

(obviously you'll need to find a UK etailer but included links to newegg)
i5 750
MSI P55-GD80
XFX 5770
Gskills Ripjaw 4GB
Corsair 650hx
CM Storm Scout
2tb Storage HDD
80gb SSD main drive


You can get a lot better than the 8/9 series for that high a budget

If you can, try to find a 5850 or a 5870. If not settle for a 5770 or a 4890. Nvidia's high end is a bit overpriced at the moment compared to the 5xxx ati series when it comes to performance.

Do you need a monitor/mouse/keyboard/speakers/ etc?

Last edited by MijnWraak, Sun, 6 Dec 2009 02:26.

You don't offer shipping in the auction... only local pick-up. Also big red letters usually don't help get information across