Creative sound cards with EAX on saturate the PCI bus so badly, other cards are getting bandwidth chocked. Wether this is fault of shared PCI bus or Creative having monkeys for coders is up for debate..

Anyways, situations like that will not happen on PCI-E. 

creative's fault. They've really gone to shit lately. 

However, in addition to looking at general bus performance there is the question of what actual performance increase will be seen between a PCI-E X850 and an AGP version of that same card. My understanding is that the increase is zero, because current AGP bandwidth is not saturated and does not hold the card back at all.

If you don't care about what cards you'll be adding to this motherboard at a later date, PCI-E offers no real advantage as well as being more expensive. If you want to be able to upgrade and still keep your motherboard, PCI-E looks better. 

Call me crazy, but I'm interested in building a Mini-ATX gaming PC.

Although I admit, it's probably not going to allow for a really nice setup... but I've been bringing the current tower over to a friends and it's kinda annoying to lug that around and set it up. I'm aware of LanBoy handle straps too, but I thought I'd check out my options in smaller case sizes first.

Essentially I'm wanting to have a good enough system for a few years. I'm not one who needs the ultra-best system either. Right now on 2GHz, 512 MB RAM and a GeForce FX 5600 mid-tower system, I can run Far Cry and Half-Life 2 rather well.

Maybe a Mini Tower is better than a friggin' cube? 

Supported CPU: LGA775 Pentium 4 EE(HT) Processors
Chipset: i925XE
FSB: 1066/800MHz
RAM: 4x DIMM for Dual Channel DDR2 400/533 (Intel PAT) Max 4GB
Slots: 1x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI
Ports: 2x PS/2, 1x LPT, 1x COM, 8x USB2.0(Rear 4), 1x RJ45, 1x IEEE1394, 2x S/PDIF Out, Audio Ports
IDE: 1x ATA 100 up to 2 Devices
SATA/RAID: 4x SATA
Onboard Audio: Realtek ALC880 7.1 Ch
Onboard LAN: 1x Marvell PCIe 88E8050 Gigabit LAN
Onboard 1394: 3x 1394
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-121-263&depa=0 

Get yourself a PROPER case.

http://www.vst.co.nz/case/supermicro/images/SUPER8050.jpg

Hotswap massif! Boh! 

I imagine the pullout-containers are for hard-drives? I always thought HD's needed to be stored flat. 

Yes, they did. But that was back in 1892 when George Washington first invented hard drives. 

didn't he have a wooden motherboard? 

Yes, he did. But that was before Benjamin Franklin flew a silicon wafer on a kite and proved that silicon is a better conductor than oak; even though oaks grow taller than silicon trees and thus are more likely to get struck by lightning. 

once was hit by lightning whilst climbing a silicon tree. Damn near killed him. 

... 

http://vieillemontagne.free.fr/digestion/rectum.gif


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectum 

For medical "body-visit" fans...

http://www.innerbody.com/htm/body.html

I guess blackpope will love this website ;P 

666
35 MB pak reviewed at http://www.3dgamersedge.com 

I like shaderparms, I've decided.

Any doodad I want to make into an entity, I can set up my material with whatever textural variety I want built into it. I model one door with a decal on it for the label, and instead of swapping textures on the door or having to have multiple door models that point to different decal textures, I just add a switch in the decal material and all I've gotta do is swap a parm on the model and I get instant and easy access to a whole variety of appearances with one model.

Think of how you could apply this to crates! No more aligning textures, or constantly reapplying textures with different symbols on them to different sides - just make one crate model and make the .mtr do the work.

:D 

JC knew the crates problem, so he made doom 3 engine... 

Vondur for pope... Oh too late :/ 

I get to be vondur? 

What kind of game reviews do you prefer:

- one that summarizes the game, and goes through it's pros and cons
- one that gives a fair review throughout the game
- one that goes in depth, maybe adding up to 5 or more pages

I've got some reviews to write, and since I'm lazy I'm contemplating on writing them more concisely and shorter, but I don't want to leave pertinent info out either. 

Don't summarize the story or anything, nobody wants to hear that ahead of time - we're buying the game to find out.

Otherwise, uh, I don't know what you expect us to say to the other points. Yes, of course I want the review to be fair. What else would I want? As for length - make it sufficient to say everything you have to say about the game. Five pages, unless they're short pages, is probably too much unless the game comes with new hardware.

Also, saying "I'm lazy" doesn't give you an excuse for being lazy. :P 

There's one thing I expect from a review.

I want to be able to make an informed decision on whether or not to buy the game after reading the review. That's it. I don't want you to tell me to buy the game. I want to know if I'm going to like it. I want enough information in the review about the game itself, not its background, not its makers, not how your review is universally exclusive.

Of course, if, at the same time, it's entertaining, well-written and coherent, I have nothing to complain. 

I would just like to announce that there is a monster in World of Warcraft called Deviate Shambler.

How did Blizzard know? 

http://img239.exs.cx/img239/5803/dmdepotrc2previewtitle7uz.jpg

If anyone is still playing HL2DM, check this map out. It's pure class. I just had a nice 12FFA on a French server, and I had no problems with lag at all. The map is quite stunning to set foot in -- not because of any specific design or set piece, but because the sense of place is so flawlessly realized. Not that it is devoid of fancy setpieces though. (it even has a very nicely done moving train)

It's very large, so you'd probably want to find a server with at least 6-7 people on it. The only knock on the map I have is that more areas should have been clipped off -- you can jam yourself in some tiny/awkward places (though you won't get stuck, it just sucks moving around in it)

Anyway, yeah, this map is pure fun. Go find a server! 

[screenshot]

At first that really impressed me, but the whole shot is just blocks and a cylinder or two.

I must learn this ninja art of impressive boxes.