Quote from Rappa Z :

My M4 is too good. I love my clamores, but I'm doing so well with my M4 (deep impact and stopping power FTW!) that I am constantly running out of ammo.

Bandolier perk 4tw!

I presume your on a console because the M4's a tad crappy on the PC, for me anyway, its the gun that took me the longest to get the 150 headshots for the golden AK. Out of all the assualt rifles now though I use the G3, brilliant weapon.

Killcam is a bit annoying for me, since I play the stealthy UAV jamming, silenced pistol type running around like a ninja rabbit!

Its good but varies on servers.

Personally the maps are too small for 32 players and more, and the game is miles better on 'Hardcore' servers where you get no crosshair and you die pretty easily.

I got to rank 55 pretty easily, just earned myself a Golden Ak-47 a couple of weeks ago, that took some doing (150 headshots will all the assault weapons).

There are annoyances online though, such as nooby unlocks/perk, like grenade spam, and the ability to drop a live grenade when you die.

Dry eyes....are you lot on CRT monitors?

Welcome to S2 sir! Remember to drink and drive!

You know you've played to much LFS, when you know just how much too much LFS actually is.

Quote from luftrofl :

Do some research on your own- asking internet forum users will get you opinions from idiots while looking up your own info will get you facts (hopefully from smart people)

Wow......this really puts us in our place......

4GB seems like a decent ammount, I am currently only on 32-bit XP home, but in future might get 64-bit Vista once it looks like a worthy upgrade. 2GB seems a bit pointless.

Now I have looked at the RAM choice and I see your point, so I have changed my RAM choice...although slightly gone over what I originally said I can stretch to £415

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/( ... 2-8500-C5-DDR2-55515.aspx

EDIT:
Actually in light of my overclocking, I have downgraded to an E8400 and with the difference added a good fan/heatsink into the mix

Last edited by spacedskunk, Wed, 28 May 2008 20:34.

Story cut short, I am getting a simple upgrade of motherboard/CPU/RAM, I have strictly £400 to spend on this upgrade and I know intel is better, and I dont know anything about intel...

So far I have this mobo;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/P ... Info.aspx?ProductID=28341

Memory;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/P ... Info.aspx?ProductID=32155

and finally CPU;
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/( ... E8500-316GHz-1333FSB.aspx

Comes to just over £380 with delivery and VAT.

Its a peliminary shopping basket of course, whatever I can stretch for the best performance out of £400 is obviously key. I would normally do ok with picking the best hardware but Intel is virtually alien to me.

Appreciate any help!

It reminds me of the werecar from Futurama...

Quote from Turbo Dad :

dont think you need a water supply pipe to your computer room for water cooling dude

Nah you dont, it takes coolant from a reservior inside the computer. You'll need to replace the coolant every 6 months.

AMD Phenoms got off to a bad start with not being as fast as Intels and being very buggy.

The computer you have picked has one of the buggy processors. The later Phenoms have fixed the problems (the newer ones end in ##50, such as 9750/9850). I would NOT buy a Phenom that doesnt end in 50.

But I was once an AMD man, I am not being stubborn though, Intel's range is better in almost everyway at the moment...they not only out perform phenoms, but they overclock better too so its win win.

Now to the original poster, the computer you picked I wouldnt buy, the next machine you linked is probably better but I dont know much about ATi graphics cards. Note though the graphics card is very easy to upgrade as its just a simple slot in.

Mutt107, I would highly recommend you building your own or finding someone who can, its MUCH cheaper and you can variate your money better to get a much faster and stable computer. Theres certain vendors/manufacturers too, such as BFG that give you lifetime warranties and even better a trade up program;

http://www.bfgtech.com/tradeupprogram.aspx

Which just stretches money even further.

PS
Water cooling isnt connected to a water supply lol. The motor circulates coolant from a reservior.

I use one of the flappy paddles on the wheel for handbrake, because you generally wont be using the flappy paddles as gear shifters on the cars you'll actually use handbrake with.

Since however you already stated you didnt want it on the wheel you'll have to adapt and use something on the gearbox itself, or perhaps if your a usual user of the handbrake for whatever reason....make yourself one

Quote from Jakg :

iirc thats a BF-series only command...

Ahh I see, it worked with C&C generals so I put the trend together and though it was in all the EA games.

I think the screen is cheap because of the VGA input. Its not too bad unless you want to watch high definition in the future, because you'll need DVI-D input with 'HDCP'. A couple of people I know slipped up an got an internal blue-ray player for thier computer only to see that it doesnt work. This from what I can tell only effects HD playback, and not games running in high definition resolutions.

A soundcard, providing it has a processor for the sound such as the one he's recommended does boost your FPS However if you already have one...

Also the 8800GT, unlike my 8800GTX doesnt use that much power, however 8800GTs are good to SLI so I would get a 600W at least really for upgradability value. Also not sure about the size of the GT version, to fit my GTX in the case I had to move a couple of hard drives, the GT does look shorter though so shouldnt be a problem.

As stated before, Asrock are pretty bad, or from what I have heard, I have never been dissapointed with Asus...I choose them for most of the hardware. Make sure you dont leave the mobo to the side, a solid reliable one tends to boost your computers performance more than a little extra CPU speed.

You can force the game to run at a certain resolution;

Right click the icon for the game
Properties
Add these 2 lines at the end of the target line
+szx 1360 +szy 768

BF2142 doesnt work with my resolution for instance, so I forced it too, this is what my target to MINE is set to;

"C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 2142\BF2142.exe" +menu 1 +fullscreen 1 +szx 1280 +szy 1024

Change yours appropriatly to your game, anything else thats different in your icon make sure to leave in, simply add that at the end.

Quote from Jakg :

It does.

Where did I say in my post you'd be using SLi?

Ahhh fair enough.

Yea it looks simple, I would suggest a stronger support stand for the left and right side due to the weight of CRTs, otherwise overtime the cockpit will warp.

A possible improvement I can see in that design is a stand on the right side for the keyboard just infront on where the mouse is placed. (I am presuming your gearbox will be on the left side).

As a little touch too, the placing of a subwoofer so that you can feel the vibrations enhances the simulation effect.

Quote from Jakg :

If you have an SLi mobo then you have 2x 8x+ PCI-e slots, which is good for SoftTH.

All you'd need to do is get a cheap second GFX card (I find the 6600GT is good - you can get them for less than £15 second hand, they don't have turbo crap and are still useful on their own).

You can get a standalone bit of kit to do it, a Matrox TripleHead2Go, but it's £150. The "cheap option" is to get a second graphics card and do SoftTH.

Why don't you want to put a second card in that's different?

I would worry that the 7600GS lacks the power to drive 3x screens, though

(FWIW atm i'm using a 6600GT and an 8800GTX for SoftTH - detailed specs are linked to in my sig)

I thought SLI had to use the same cards?

How do you mean portable?;

Being able to move about then setup and use the laptop
or
Use the laptop on the go

Because from my experience gaming laptop batteries only last 2-3 hours at most, even if your not gaming, especially using a wireless connection.

Just a thought, if you want a laptop for the convenience of work and are trying to hit two birds with one stone and using it as a gaming machine then Jakg's suggestion is better.

My sister is a photographer, and she reads a lot of books to improve her abilities and understanding. Photographers are obviously very visual people so you'll need visual language while including technicalities such as ISO, aperture, lense type etc, and try to include...if you can some visual pieces in your column.

I am into design myself and when I look for advice on how to improve my creative aspects I don't look for long winded paragraphs that ramble on, because I lose interest...its just how my brain works

Anyway good luck

Go to options > controls > select Controller.

Select the shifting type, when you select 'Shifter' you need to assign the gears in LFS under the same controller options. As with the sequential and paddle shift gears, you need to tell LFS which button/gear is up shift/down shift.

Quote from Forbin :

Well, yeah, that's part of it. As a result of the TN panel's poor viewing angles, you end up with a color and brightness gradient across the entire screen regardless of where you sit. Moving around the slightest bit also causes the gradient to change.

Not really sure about this, thanks for the advice. Just my friend has an ASUS 19" TFT monitor and the viewing angles on it are excellent. I cant find the IPS panels your advising me on, on the websites I buy from. Are they new technology thats only started going into production?

Since redecorating the room has finished, I have a new computer desk now, and its all arranged nicely I am looking for the new upgrades to turn my computer into a media centre. I am buying a Logitech Z-5500 speaker system, and a blue-ray/HD player for my computer which pretty much sorts everything apart from the important bit...the monitor.

Currently I am using a cheapish 19" TFT, but am looking for a decent sized widescreen TFT, with enough backlight and colour depth to use to the monitor for films, I will be watching the films from about 2 metres away. My current screen doesnt have the luminosity, even with contrast/brightness/gamma turned high.

So yea I am looking for a monitor that meets this criteria;
- Nicely sized (around 22-26") widescreen TFT. Resolution not really a problem on my GFX card (768MB 8800GTX overclocked)
- Good backlight so its a decent screen to watch from a distance. Viewing angle isnt of a problem due to the placing of the screen in the room.
- DVI-D with HDCP for high def playback
- Budget around £300, strictly not over £350
- Preferably a reasonable dead-pixel on arrival policy.

This is the one I have been looking at;
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products ... o.asp?WebProductID=608174

However I have no experience with monitors and want to make sure that I am getting the most for the money. Any help is much appreciated