Korax

Fucking PC gaming!

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I had AVG and then tried Bit Defender, so my problems weren't from the antivirus; it just happened to stop when I un-installed it, after doing the third system install. So it's all coincidental, install win 7, some time after things went to shit, cleaned out system, still happened, cleaned out system, still happened, un-installed antivirus, it works.

So not bad mouthing the antivirus, because it happened on two different ones, had the steam folder excluded too.

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So I guess this one goes in here.

I just tried to install my Limited Edition of Dreamfall to my Windows 7 64-bit.

I didn't know that the European release had the annoying Starforce protection system. It brought down my whole Windows and after reboot Windows started some repair program and I thought now the whole installation is damaged. Windows 7 doesn't like drivers like Starforce apparently.

Is there anyway to get this to work and get around the god damn Starforce?

I think I need to go to Funcom's message board to check if there's some way to play this game. Not really interested in buying it from Steam because it's 20 euros there and I'd like to play my legally owned dvd of the game damnit... :(

EDIT: Apparently some patch might work with this or a no cd fix. Lets see...

Edited by Kolzig

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Dreamfall is still a problem to me, but this other problem is one that I guess many have had.

I bought during the Christmas sale from Steam the Chronicles of Riddick combo with Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena.

I don't know why, but the menu and the game are really sluggish. Everything is running like 10-15 frames per second max.

I would bet that a game from 2004 should work better on my computer that has a Core2Duo processor and two 8600GT graphics cards running. The fault must be somewhere with drivers or with the game itself?

Has anyone had this problem with Riddick either now or years ago?

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Talking about Fucking PC Gaming, I bought both King's Bounty games and they both crash either immediately or within 5 minutes of being in-game. :|

Did you ever figure this out? I just started playing King's Bounty and it's overheating my laptop like crazy. Apparently it's a common issue that no one knows how to solve. It's so good that I've been alt-tabbing out every 5 minutes to let it calm down, but it's a pain in the ass.

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It's been running fine on my laptop the couple of times I've played it, but on my desktop the whole thing just goes into glitchy-visual land and every icon looks like a MissingNo from Pokemon. I'm glad one of my machines can run it, anyway.

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Did you ever figure this out? I just started playing King's Bounty and it's overheating my laptop like crazy. Apparently it's a common issue that no one knows how to solve. It's so good that I've been alt-tabbing out every 5 minutes to let it calm down, but it's a pain in the ass.
Nope. I remember when I first had the problem I did a bunch of reading on the Steam forums to see different ways which people fixed it, but none of it worked for me. Just booted up Armored Princess and it didn't even get through the opening cutscene before it crashed. :tdown:

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You might try turning v-sync on (override it from the driver if there are no in-game option to do it). Since there's no framerate cap without v-sync, it may cause your gpu to overwork and overheat.

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You might try turning v-sync on (override it from the driver if there are no in-game option to do it). Since there's no framerate cap without v-sync, it may cause your gpu to overwork and overheat.

No dice. It has a v-sync option, but it doesn't do anything to stop the overheating. Maybe I should try overriding it from the driver anyway? How would I do that? I've got an XPS M1530 laptop with a GeForce 8600M GT.

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No dice. It has a v-sync option, but it doesn't do anything to stop the overheating. Maybe I should try overriding it from the driver anyway? How would I do that? I've got an XPS M1530 laptop with a GeForce 8600M GT.

You can access the nvidia control panel from your desktop and override per-application settings from "Manage 3D settings" section. V-sync might not be a problem though. Does it overheat in other games as well? Mobile G80 series cards are infamous for heat problems...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series#Problems

Even if you don't experience the problem in other games, I'd recommend trying out some gpu intensive benchmarks anyway just to rule out hardware problem.

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What do you guys think is the best laptop available for around 5 or 6 hundred dollars (700 is probably the upper limit)? I want to play games, but it doesn't have to be superpowered (obviously that would be impossible).

If I can run the Valve games, most of the buzzworthy indie games that have come out over the past couple years and continue to come out and maybe some games that were a big deal a few years ago but have been outpaced by average hardware...I would be happy. I assume there's no hope of running big, recent titles like the new STALKER or Dragon Age, but I do have to ask...is there technology coming that will make for a much better laptop in this regard, down the road? In other words...Is there something coming that would be worth waiting for?

If someone (or a few people) can point me toward a few specific computers I'd appreciate it. The amount of hardware available is quite overwhelming to someone who's basically clueless like myself.

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What do you guys think is the best laptop available for around 5 or 6 hundred dollars (700 is probably the upper limit)? I want to play games, but it doesn't have to be superpowered (obviously that would be impossible).

If I can run the Valve games, most of the buzzworthy indie games that have come out over the past couple years and continue to come out and maybe some games that were a big deal a few years ago but have been outpaced by average hardware...I would be happy. I assume there's no hope of running big, recent titles like the new STALKER or Dragon Age, but I do have to ask...is there technology coming that will make for a much better laptop in this regard, down the road? In other words...Is there something coming that would be worth waiting for?

If someone (or a few people) can point me toward a few specific computers I'd appreciate it. The amount of hardware available is quite overwhelming to someone who's basically clueless like myself.

As far as I know, there is no upcoming tech that will specifically make laptop gaming any cheaper, just stuff that will improve battery life due to GPU switching (nVidia Optimus) and stuff like that.

As far as your question, it's really hard to find laptops capable of decent gaming at sub-$700 rates... after a quick Googling, this choice looks pretty decent at $750:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157046

The Alienware M11x is pretty good if you actually want your laptop to be moderately portable, but that bottoms out at $800:

http://www.alienware.com/microsite/m11x/m11x.aspx

Beyond that, I don't really have too much insight in budget gaming laptops. $1000 seems to be the sweet spot as far as price-to-performance possibilities go, but that's obviously over your upper limit.

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What do you guys think is the best laptop available for around 5 or 6 hundred dollars (700 is probably the upper limit)? I want to play games, but it doesn't have to be superpowered (obviously that would be impossible).

If I can run the Valve games, most of the buzzworthy indie games that have come out over the past couple years and continue to come out and maybe some games that were a big deal a few years ago but have been outpaced by average hardware...I would be happy. I assume there's no hope of running big, recent titles like the new STALKER or Dragon Age, but I do have to ask...is there technology coming that will make for a much better laptop in this regard, down the road? In other words...Is there something coming that would be worth waiting for?

If someone (or a few people) can point me toward a few specific computers I'd appreciate it. The amount of hardware available is quite overwhelming to someone who's basically clueless like myself.

Do you have an HD TV with HDMI or DVI? I know you already have a laptop, would you need to have a second (assuming said laptop still runs). I know you aren't confident building your own. New Egg seems to have good computers in your budget.

The gaming PCs in your budget

Some I would recommend:

The most expensive one in your price range not the most recent graphics card though

I'm not sure on the graphics card in this, though benchmarks suggest it's decent enough

Finally one which is a out of you budget, though if you could stretch for it, I'd say it's worth the difference.

Above budget

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Not really sure about gaming laptops for those prices. Seems like if you're looking for discrete graphics most are going to be $700+. I have a Lenovo ideapad Y510 (not a current model but the Y series is the gaming/media models) and it has a 1.8GHz dual core, 2gb of RAM, and nvidia 8600M GT video card. It is probably more than what you're looking for, as it can run Dragon Age with the settings turned down. But it is all I have experience using so I can't recommend much else. You can check out the current models here: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=C46D71ACFD7C4475B8E490358F8CA8C3 (looks like there is one at $599 but not sure how much it'd be after customization)

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I'd suggest to always look at the deals at slickdeals.net, very often there are laptops with decent video cards at a great price.

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Thanks guys. as soon as I have enough time to really investigate, I'm going to check out all your suggestions and links (which I've perused at this point but not deeply). Patters, the thing about a PC, while it's really a better idea for lower priced gaming, is that I don't want to go back to using a PC for my other tasks, so it would basically be a $500 to $1000 gaming machine. The thing is, I'm looking to replace my laptop eventually and when I do, I want to buy something that is better able to accomodate some gaming.

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Actually, I should wait and see what happens with OnLive and make a decision after that. I know it almost certainly won't match up with having a real gaming PC, but it might be a good alternative for someone like me.

Also...I'm truly sorry about how much I've moaned about not having a good PC. I'm extremely lucky to have what I do. It's just that the thumbs community can be a little PC-centric sometimes and it makes me feel left out. But it's not a big deal and I've gotten used to it and tried to stop myself when I'm tempted to complain about it.

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Due to me having some extra gear in reserve that I really would like to trade and get rid off, which graphics card do you think is better from the following?

Nvidia GTX260 or Ati 5770?

I'm going to trade some old crap and my SLI setup of two 1gb 8600GT cards and pay something in between I guess to get one of the two cards that I'm asking about. In my town there's one shop that trades old stuff to new stuff.

I have always had Nvidia before, but Ati looks interesting.

I have one bottleneck and that is my 500W power supply.

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The GTX 260 is not produced any longer and may be hard got get for a good price. To make it short:

GTX 260:

+ better texture filtering (less flicker) than the ATi when set to "high quality" in control panel.

+ better performance (around 15% average @ 16xAF/4xAA)

+ GPU PhysX support (e.g. Batman: Arkham Asylum)

HD 5770:

+ needs less power under load (around 50 W depending on power supply and overall consumption)

+ supports DX10.1 and DX11

+ HDMI-out (incl. audio)

(+ GPU PhysX support with secondary nVidia card can be enabled via an unofficial hack)

If you can go without >DX10 support and find the nVidia for a good price (price not higher than the ATi) I would go for it. Otherwise the ATi.

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I have a Radeon 5770 and I'd definitely recommend it. As far as power consumption goes, it's definitely the pick of the two... I remember reading several reviews before I bought it that said it's one of the most efficient cards out there. I also don't really know where you got that 15% better performance number for the GTX 260, Quanta, as I distinctly remember that they were fairly well matched for the most part.

In terms of features, I ultimately chose DX11 over PhysX because there are far more possibilities with the former while the latter is almost purely cosmetic. So far, I've played two games with DX11 support (Call of Pripyat, Bad Company 2) and they both run as smooth as butter.

Finally, I love the multi-monitor support. I have two monitors on my desk and a television not too far away, all hooked up at once. It support up to three monitors running concurrently and provides audio over HDMI. ATI makes it easy with their software, too, as simply enabling the television automatically switches the audio to the HDMI. Usually I can get up and running in a few seconds.

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Yeah, the cards are roughly equal. Go with the cheaper one. I went with the 4870 it's ever so slightly more powerful than the 5770 at dx10 level, though it doesn't support dx11 and was £50 cheaper than the 5770. Planning to upgrade to a 5850 when, you know, they get reasonably priced.

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Thanks for the advices, I'm going for the Radeon HD 5770 1GB card. I got them to take all my old crap hardware and gave me quite a good deal. I wouldn't have bothered to sell these separetely so this is really the easy and nice way to get rid off the old stuff. :yep:

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Thanks for the advices, I'm going for the Radeon HD 5770 1GB card. I got them to take all my old crap hardware and gave me quite a good deal. I wouldn't have bothered to sell these separetely so this is really the easy and nice way to get rid off the old stuff. :yep:

That is precisely the card I have, hope you enjoy it!

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