A little background about myself: I spent the better part of my teens and early 20's playing at a high competitive level in games like Quake and Counter-Strike. I've won semi-major events; I was even on a few teams with notable CPL/WCG winners. You could say that I was right on the cusp of becoming a pro gamer.
There are a few reasons that I didn't go "pro" like a budding career and the fact that only the very cream of the crop players actually made enough money at the time to consider pro gaming a worthwhile endeavor. I knew I wasn't the best player around, and carting myself around to places like the CPL to finish in the bottom half of the top 10 or top 5 didn't make any sense to me. Working a steady job and earning a living from 9-5, 5 days a week, did.
Back then, I watched a lot of demos of other players and teams. You know what? I hated it. It felt like homework to me. When I attended lans, I rarely watched or was interested in spectating matches.
Why? Because gaming, especially at the highest levels, is way more fun when you are actually playing. Gaming, to me, is all about the adrenaline rush that you get when you're storming a base, or grabbing quad damage, or fighting back to win a round when it's 1v3. Spectating, to me, is for losers. Spectating is what I did back in high school when I lost a round of Street Fighter II and had to sit and wait for my turn in a rotation of friends.
I have probably said it here before, but it bears repeating. Pro gaming relies on sponsorship which, in turn, relies on spectators. And gaming is a is a poor spectator 'sport', or at the best, a niche market.
"As long as games (yes, games), browsers, mail, and office productivity apps run on XP, MS is not providing a compelling enough reason to change."
There's the thing, you see. Microsoft doesn't want newer games to run on XP. They were essentially forcing pc gamers to upgrade to Vista if they wanted to use DX10. Hell, I made the switch myself. At the time, I had a new DX10 video card and there were more games coming out that promised DX10 support.
Well, you know what? I wasn't really impressed by what DX10 had to offer (atleast what the DX10-enable titles had to offer). Some games didn't look all that different between DX9 and DX10 (bioshock), some took better advantage of DX10 albeit with a significant performance hit (world in conflict), and some games dropped promised DX10 support altogether (supreme commander). After 9 months of running Vista, I went back to XP. I've been doing all of my gaming there ever since.
Now, W7 and DX11 may be an entirely different experience. I can guarantee you one thing, though. Just like MS refused to port DX10 from Vista to XP, they will also never port DX11 (W7) to XP. So at some point, pc gamers will be forced to upgrade to W7 if they want to run the latest games.
Re:If Intel are smart they will mix Core and Larab
on
Larrabee ISA Revealed
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· Score: 1
Like,... if I like the musty smell of men, does that mean I'm gay?
-id releases a free game (Yay!). -Testing the viability of web-based, ad revenue-supported games (QLive will have in-game ads).
So, we all get to play a free game with matchmaking and stat tracking. But, it also appears to be a business move as well. id releases a free, unified version of Q3A/Q3:TA and gets an attaboy from the gaming community, while at the same time they get to test the waters of ad-based revenues. It's a win-win for them.
I played quite a bit of QLive in the closed beta. The open beta has had a rocky start thus far, but I'm sure they'll hammer things out. FWIW, I think this is a good thing.
First, they cut 4v4 play (which the red alert series used to have and which ra3 was announced to support). Then, they release the game with lobsided support of 1v1 and 2v2 over 3v3 maps.
Now, they're going to release an expansion pack with NO 3v3 maps whatsoever?!
Hell, I like ra3. A few friends and I enjoy playing 3v3 online (in lieu of 4v4). 25 new maps and none of them 3v3?
Fuck you, EA. I probably would have bought this expansion if you added 4v4 support back in or atleast threw 2 or 3 3v3 maps in there.
I could swear Valve tried something like this with Steam back when it originally launched, but my memory is a bit fuzzy... probably has something to due with the bouts of fiery rage I experienced at the time.
I helped my father-in-law purchase a wireless router for his home and set it up for him recently. I was rather surprised when I updated the firmware and was then greeted by spam upon opening a web browser. I have to say that I'm really disappointed by d-link on this one. Here's to hoping that the backlash is enough to make them reconsider doing this type of stuff again.
Generally speaking, I'm a fan of their networking equipment (own a dgl-4300 that I'm very happy with myself), but if this is the direction that they are going in, I won't be buying or recommending their stuff anymore. I plan on e-mailing them and telling them I am unhappy with their practices.
Pff. if you aren't running atleast 2 marathons a day and have a harem of supermodels at your disposal, you're obviously doing something wrong. BTW, my wives are out of town this weekend... wanna grind some xp at the hinterlands instead?
Not completely. Sure, they won't see all of the ram with 32-bit windows. But, in my experiences, windows will recognize between 3.25 to 3.5GB in a 4GB system.
Ideally, 3GB would be the config to use for modern gaming PC's running 32-bit windows (gaming benchmarks seem to indicate that 3GB is better than 2GB for current-gen games). However, if you don't run matched pairs, your ram isn't in dual channel mode.
So what do you do? Run 4GB across 2 or 4 sticks. It's your best, albeit slightly wasteful, memory config for gaming. And if/when you decide to migrate to 64-bit windows, you're in good shape memory-wise.
I've been playing online since the original Quake days (and modem-to-modem games like Doom before that) and I've probably logged tens of thousands of hours of FPS gaming. Do I enjoy dying? Generally speaking, no. I'm a competitive player who enjoys playing in online leagues. I don't like losing. Dying == losing.
I also believe that when you've played so much (as I have) that you are, in fact, desensitized from the whole kill/death thing. I don't think of it as "killing" the opposing player, but rather as stopping them from achieving their goal for that match/round.
However, there are many instances where dying is enjoyable or outright hilarious, especially when playing casually with friends. Getting blown up and sent rocketing into the air when you fail to defuse a bomb or getting stabbed by a zombie in games like Zombie Mod can be a fun and enjoyable experience.
Yea, they ticked the community off so much that CoD2 is still consistently in the Top 5 multiplayer games played online according to statistics gathered from Gamespy and Xfire. Furthermore, IW didn't even develop CoD3! It was developed by Treyarch and Pi Studios which freed IW up to work on the next major game in the series.
Now, IW did abandon their PC gaming fanbase with the outsourcing of CoD3. Here's to hoping that they can make it up to us with the upcoming title.
I was thinking the same thing when I started reading the article. A quick search at any of the major car enthusiast websites will lead you to dozens of threads on direct injection and forced induction (turbocharging). This isn't news. There are already direct injection, turboed factory motors out there. The 2007 Saturn Sky Red Line, for example, is powered by a 2.0-liter direct injection turbo engine. You may have heard of another auto manufacturer using this same technology in it's diesel engines... VW's TDI (Turbo Direct Injection).
Sure, it's not anything evolutionary. And the article might read like 1st Grade literature for anyone who is familiar with cars and tuning... but it's still interesting stuff.
PC gamers like myself will likely have no choice but to upgrading to Vista seeing as how Microsoft refuses to release DirectX 10 for previous versions of Windows. If it wasn't for DX10, I would have no interest in upgrading to Vista.
Unfortunately, it looks like I'll get dragged along kicking and screaming the whole way. From this gamer's standpoint, Vista is an unwelcome, forced upgrade.
Slashdot Mirror
A little background about myself: I spent the better part of my teens and early 20's playing at a high competitive level in games like Quake and Counter-Strike. I've won semi-major events; I was even on a few teams with notable CPL/WCG winners. You could say that I was right on the cusp of becoming a pro gamer.
There are a few reasons that I didn't go "pro" like a budding career and the fact that only the very cream of the crop players actually made enough money at the time to consider pro gaming a worthwhile endeavor. I knew I wasn't the best player around, and carting myself around to places like the CPL to finish in the bottom half of the top 10 or top 5 didn't make any sense to me. Working a steady job and earning a living from 9-5, 5 days a week, did.
Back then, I watched a lot of demos of other players and teams. You know what? I hated it. It felt like homework to me. When I attended lans, I rarely watched or was interested in spectating matches.
Why? Because gaming, especially at the highest levels, is way more fun when you are actually playing. Gaming, to me, is all about the adrenaline rush that you get when you're storming a base, or grabbing quad damage, or fighting back to win a round when it's 1v3. Spectating, to me, is for losers. Spectating is what I did back in high school when I lost a round of Street Fighter II and had to sit and wait for my turn in a rotation of friends.
I have probably said it here before, but it bears repeating. Pro gaming relies on sponsorship which, in turn, relies on spectators. And gaming is a is a poor spectator 'sport', or at the best, a niche market.
"As long as games (yes, games), browsers, mail, and office productivity apps run on XP, MS is not providing a compelling enough reason to change."
There's the thing, you see. Microsoft doesn't want newer games to run on XP. They were essentially forcing pc gamers to upgrade to Vista if they wanted to use DX10. Hell, I made the switch myself. At the time, I had a new DX10 video card and there were more games coming out that promised DX10 support.
Well, you know what? I wasn't really impressed by what DX10 had to offer (atleast what the DX10-enable titles had to offer). Some games didn't look all that different between DX9 and DX10 (bioshock), some took better advantage of DX10 albeit with a significant performance hit (world in conflict), and some games dropped promised DX10 support altogether (supreme commander). After 9 months of running Vista, I went back to XP. I've been doing all of my gaming there ever since.
Now, W7 and DX11 may be an entirely different experience. I can guarantee you one thing, though. Just like MS refused to port DX10 from Vista to XP, they will also never port DX11 (W7) to XP. So at some point, pc gamers will be forced to upgrade to W7 if they want to run the latest games.
Like,... if I like the musty smell of men, does that mean I'm gay?
Either that, or you're French.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_fedora_q209&num=1
Yep. xfire game stats: http://www.xfire.com/cms/stats/ Top 10 isn't bad for a free game.
The "idea" as I understand it is two-fold:
-id releases a free game (Yay!).
-Testing the viability of web-based, ad revenue-supported games (QLive will have in-game ads).
So, we all get to play a free game with matchmaking and stat tracking. But, it also appears to be a business move as well. id releases a free, unified version of Q3A/Q3:TA and gets an attaboy from the gaming community, while at the same time they get to test the waters of ad-based revenues. It's a win-win for them.
I played quite a bit of QLive in the closed beta. The open beta has had a rocky start thus far, but I'm sure they'll hammer things out. FWIW, I think this is a good thing.
This pisses me off.
First, they cut 4v4 play (which the red alert series used to have and which ra3 was announced to support). Then, they release the game with lobsided support of 1v1 and 2v2 over 3v3 maps.
Now, they're going to release an expansion pack with NO 3v3 maps whatsoever?!
Hell, I like ra3. A few friends and I enjoy playing 3v3 online (in lieu of 4v4). 25 new maps and none of them 3v3?
Fuck you, EA. I probably would have bought this expansion if you added 4v4 support back in or atleast threw 2 or 3 3v3 maps in there.
I agree with you. But I've found that you can change the default zoom level in the RA3 WorldBuilder (was released recently).
An unfortunate limitation: Don't go out too far though, or you won't be able to hear the unit sounds. :(
I could swear Valve tried something like this with Steam back when it originally launched, but my memory is a bit fuzzy... probably has something to due with the bouts of fiery rage I experienced at the time.
I helped my father-in-law purchase a wireless router for his home and set it up for him recently. I was rather surprised when I updated the firmware and was then greeted by spam upon opening a web browser. I have to say that I'm really disappointed by d-link on this one. Here's to hoping that the backlash is enough to make them reconsider doing this type of stuff again.
Generally speaking, I'm a fan of their networking equipment (own a dgl-4300 that I'm very happy with myself), but if this is the direction that they are going in, I won't be buying or recommending their stuff anymore. I plan on e-mailing them and telling them I am unhappy with their practices.
So does that mean that we get to pay $39.99 three times to get to play the entire game instead of a one-time fee of $49.99?
Sign me up!
Pff. if you aren't running atleast 2 marathons a day and have a harem of supermodels at your disposal, you're obviously doing something wrong. BTW, my wives are out of town this weekend... wanna grind some xp at the hinterlands instead?
Not completely. Sure, they won't see all of the ram with 32-bit windows. But, in my experiences, windows will recognize between 3.25 to 3.5GB in a 4GB system.
Ideally, 3GB would be the config to use for modern gaming PC's running 32-bit windows (gaming benchmarks seem to indicate that 3GB is better than 2GB for current-gen games). However, if you don't run matched pairs, your ram isn't in dual channel mode.
So what do you do? Run 4GB across 2 or 4 sticks. It's your best, albeit slightly wasteful, memory config for gaming. And if/when you decide to migrate to 64-bit windows, you're in good shape memory-wise.
...more like Holodeck 0.01.
When I can spray a truffle-shuffling Chunk with my tommy gun, then we'll start talking about release candidates.
I've been playing online since the original Quake days (and modem-to-modem games like Doom before that) and I've probably logged tens of thousands of hours of FPS gaming. Do I enjoy dying? Generally speaking, no. I'm a competitive player who enjoys playing in online leagues. I don't like losing. Dying == losing.
I also believe that when you've played so much (as I have) that you are, in fact, desensitized from the whole kill/death thing. I don't think of it as "killing" the opposing player, but rather as stopping them from achieving their goal for that match/round.
However, there are many instances where dying is enjoyable or outright hilarious, especially when playing casually with friends. Getting blown up and sent rocketing into the air when you fail to defuse a bomb or getting stabbed by a zombie in games like Zombie Mod can be a fun and enjoyable experience.
It is is.
If your video card doesn't flinch at Supreme Commander, please share your secret. SupCom is capable of burying even the 8800 Ultra in tests.
a _geforce_8800_ultra/5.htmlu ltra/index.x?pg=4
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/05/02/nvidi
http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/geforce-8800
Yea, they ticked the community off so much that CoD2 is still consistently in the Top 5 multiplayer games played online according to statistics gathered from Gamespy and Xfire. Furthermore, IW didn't even develop CoD3! It was developed by Treyarch and Pi Studios which freed IW up to work on the next major game in the series.
Now, IW did abandon their PC gaming fanbase with the outsourcing of CoD3. Here's to hoping that they can make it up to us with the upcoming title.
I was thinking the same thing when I started reading the article. A quick search at any of the major car enthusiast websites will lead you to dozens of threads on direct injection and forced induction (turbocharging). This isn't news. There are already direct injection, turboed factory motors out there. The 2007 Saturn Sky Red Line, for example, is powered by a 2.0-liter direct injection turbo engine. You may have heard of another auto manufacturer using this same technology in it's diesel engines... VW's TDI (Turbo Direct Injection).
i nes)
The "new" part comes where they are using ethanol direct injection. It's a new twist on an old idea. See also water-methanol injection:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(eng
Sure, it's not anything evolutionary. And the article might read like 1st Grade literature for anyone who is familiar with cars and tuning... but it's still interesting stuff.
DMM Tech Demo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4EF9IkhAOo
Endorphin Tech Demo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp1stQ49Bfo
Pre-viz video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDUQYc_OeVg
Really? Like when Napster was going down in flames, yet you could still find the latest tunes by Spitney Bears and 2U?
Why aren't these drivers listed alphabetically? http://www.radarsync.com/vista/vista_more.php?resu lt=0
And no search feature?
... immediately.
-Tenacious D, "City Hall"
PC gamers like myself will likely have no choice but to upgrading to Vista seeing as how Microsoft refuses to release DirectX 10 for previous versions of Windows. If it wasn't for DX10, I would have no interest in upgrading to Vista.
Unfortunately, it looks like I'll get dragged along kicking and screaming the whole way. From this gamer's standpoint, Vista is an unwelcome, forced upgrade.
If game developers are going to start feeding us adverts, they'd had better well start lowering their $50 (and now $60) price point for new games.