Astronomer

*speechless!*

I appreciate all the work that goes on behind the scenes. Hat's off to the Admins for the efforts.

If you're adventurous, you can also get the latest beta drivers from the nVidia site. I've been running them for a couple of weeks with no problems with my old cards and now my brand-new one.

Good to see you on here Roadkill! See you in the games!

No big issues. I had a couple of micro-CI's, but no one else experienced them so it was likely on my end. We also had a brief period with 14 or so folks on when pings bumped up to low triple-digits. One or two had 999 and things settled when they left.

It'll be 23 years for my wife and I this February.

Congratulations!!! All the best to you both in the next 29!

Microsoft will stop supporting XP in April 2014.

So, we had this issue on the old server, and have it again with a different host in a different geography. What should be looked at for causation? One option is that the same issue is coincidental to two different hosts for differing and unrelated reasons. Another is that maybe the mods in the game have somehow introduced a limitation on the number of players it can handle before errors start cascading. There are 3 variables that I can see that are the same in both servers: The number of players involved before the error hits (same number for both servers), the same mods, and generally the same core majority of players. The last one is the weakest correlation as this variable fluctuates, and one player with a high ping does not negatively affect the pings of the rest of the players. My thoughts are that we need to look at the first two variables to find the source of the problem. I'm thinking that the mods have introduced a player-number limitation.

What's funny is that I bought the mobo and cooler, and after I purchased it, I realized that it would not fit in the case I had originally intended to buy. After a bit of research I found the HAF X life'z been good. It's a great case to build a clean setup with tons of room for storage and big cards.

The 680 is a better card performance-wise, but the performance of the 670 is pretty darned close so some folks might balk at the general ~$100 cost differential, and rightly so. In some specific real-world tests the 670 equaled and even bested the 680 in SLI (which strikes me as odd. Overclocked 670's vs stock 680's?) Having said that, there was a a 670 I saw that was only $20 under the price I paid for the 680. For maximum future-proofing, the 680 made sense for me. Who knows what future drivers will add to widen the performance gap?

Hi Shamu, My general rule of thumb is, if your PC plays your game(s) of choice acceptably, then you have the right tool for the job. On the other hand, I'm a PC enthusiast - it's a hobby - and I like to tinker under the hood. It's really the same thing as a hotrodder modding their car in the garage. They don't really need that ten more horsepower or flashy bit of chrome whatever, but they do it for the pure enjoyment of it. I like to tweak and push and tinker to get that bit of extra FPS or Mhz or lower temperature. If it can be measured, it can be tweaked!

Lots of good advice and experience in this group. I really enjoy building and modding my systems. Every time I do, the older systems (mostly tasked as servers or spares) get an upgrade as the parts cascade downstream. I'll likely pick up a cheap i3 or i5 and a couple of stick's of RAM and upgrade my media server with the old motherboard. Right now it's running on a Core 2 Duo at 3Ghz. Ubuntu Server is the software platform.

And in COD-WAW, I'm getting 150-300 FPS at 1920x1080 with the 550's. They're a good combo, but I have the opportunity to jump up, so I figured I might as well do it and have a rig that can take just about anything thrown at it.

Interesting point. This http://www.squidoo.com/gtx680-vs-gtx670 mostly agrees with you. OTOH, I'm getting the card at wholesale cost (plus an additional discount), the card is factory overclocked, and there's some headroom left in it. That, and it'll be in my hands Monday morning. Or...I could return it and get a 690....!

Hi all, With the kind permission of She Who Must Be Obeyed, I'm upgrading my gaming rig, specifically the video card and motherboard. Old Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V New Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe Old Video Card: (2x in SLI) EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti, 1Gb New Video Card: EVGA Superclocked GTX 680 2Gb (hope to put in a second one in the near future) Case: Cooler Master HAF X CPU: Intel i5 2500k 3.4Ghz, Overclocked to 4.4Ghz (shooting for 4.8 stable) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V8 Boot Drive: OCZ-Vertex 4 SATA III120Gb SSD Cache Drive: OCZ-Vertex 3 SATA III 60Gb SSD Data Drive: Hitachi 1Gb 7200RPM SATA II Data Drive: WD 500Gb 7200 RPM SATA II Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200W Memory: 16Gb (4x 4Gb) Corsair XMS3 (9-9-9-24) Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K90 Mouse: Cyborg R.A.T. 7 "Contagion" Edit: Forgot to add my game controller: a Belkin N52te Now, if I could only upgrade my in-game attention span and skills, I'd kick some tush!

Very nice rig, sir!

So sorry to hear that Baldie. We have 2 fur-kids as well (border collies), and I know what it's like to have one of them not well.

Congratulations on yet another successful orbit around the Sun!

Yeah, I overclock my i5 2500k to 4.3Ghz (I pushed it to 4.9 on air cooling for fun), but it's not an "always on" overclock. Most times, the CPU drops to 1.6Ghz when idle or for light-duty things: web surfing etc. The "K" series is designed with overhead in them and there is a safe range. I have a massive heat sink and many fans, and even when gaming my CPU barely gets warmer then the warmest Summer day. With today's CPU's most folks don't need to overclock. Your video card(s) are more important to game-play, though I did see my games play a bit smoother with a bit of a frame-rate bump when I OC'd. I also like to hack my toys to get more out of them: CPU, video cards, router, DVD drive, AppleTV, PS3, PSP, tablets etc.

Saw this on slashdot.org. As someone who loves building their own gaming rigs and upgrading processors periodically, this is terrible news if true. Link to the referring article is embedded in the quote: "According to a story by Charlie Demerjian, a long-time hardware journalist, Intel's next generation of x86 CPUs, Broadwell, will not come in a package having pins. Hence manufacturers will have to solder it onto motherboards. That will likely seriously wound the enthusiast PC market. If Intel doesn't change their plans, the future pasture for enthusiasts looks like it will go to ARM chips or something from offshore manufacturers."

Awesomesauce! Thanks Rugger - greatly appreciated.

I bought in the Summer, tried it a few times and was lost. I'm a long-time COD player. I might have to dust it off, jump on TeamSpeak and give it another go. It sure looks awesome.

Glass tiger Trivia: Wayne Parker's (bass) other passion is astronomy. A few years ago he formed a company called "SkyShed" that makes affordable back yard observatories. Their POD series are a huge success. My astronomy club contracted him to build our second roll-off roof observatory at our dark sky site. Wayne's a nice guy to chat with and his enthusiasm for astronomy and SkyShed is boundless. http://www.skyshedpod.com/

Lest we forget.