YAY NEW COMPUTER

[Spectere]

I'd shoot for the 6200 at least.  It'll cost a bit more but it'll yield better performance, especially when it comes to DirectX 9 stuff.

Edit: Oh, in regards to the sound thing.  As it turns out, the Realtek onboard HD sound isn't just quiet...its output is actually considerably less noisy than the SoundBlaster Live!  Holy shit.

If anyone's building a system and wants to save some green, don't bother getting an X-Fi or whatever overpriced crap Creative is peddling these days (that they'll no doubt refuse to support at all a year or two down the road...), give your onboard sound a shot.

[MortifiedocAlot]

• nVidia GeForce 9800GTX, 512MB GDDR3 (THIS CARD IS FRACKIN' HUGE)...I'm seriously considering getting another one

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. I thought I could wave my E peen around, but not around you. Also I just realized my processor was a quad core (thought it was a dual, probably should have gone with dual). Also you could effectively use that as a time machine.

[Bobbias]

If anyone's building a system and wants to save some green, don't bother getting an X-Fi or whatever overpriced crap Creative is peddling these days (that they'll no doubt refuse to support at all a year or two down the road...), give your onboard sound a shot.

I'm using my onboard sound right now, lol. If I was ever going to buy a soundcard for this, it would be a high grade recording soundcard, and not a creative one.

[Ulti]

Ditto, onboard sound for me as well. I don't see much of a reason to buy a soundcard anymore, these days.

Also: Crysis is pretty sweet, I really enjoyed it. It's short, but it's got some pretty epic moments, especially towards the end of the game. Crysis also had one of the best boss fights I've seen in a long time, I actually felt like I was playing a real old-school fps-style boss fight, instead of the modern ones where it's like "HAY INSTEAD OF A BOSS FIGHT, YOU'RE GOING TO GET A ROOM FULL OF LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF GUYS, AND THEN WE'LL END THE GAME!".

[MortifiedocAlot]

Also: Crysis is pretty sweet, I really enjoyed it. It's short, but it's got some pretty epic moments, especially towards the end of the game. Crysis also had one of the best boss fights I've seen in a long time, I actually felt like I was playing a real old-school fps-style boss fight, instead of the modern ones where it's like "HAY INSTEAD OF A BOSS FIGHT, YOU'RE GOING TO GET A ROOM FULL OF LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF GUYS, AND THEN WE'LL END THE GAME!".

Really, I played threw the beginning and it sempt like a weaker Far cry (which I "had" to delete due to this computer LOL RUNNAN  OUT OF SPACE). How far is it in to the game when you get to the dig site and you have to run away from those Koreans at night?

[Ulti]

Only a couple levels in. The running away from Koreans at night level was awful, retardedly hard D:

I think the game gets significantly better after that point, when the entire taskforce attacks the island, and it becomes a massive battle. At that point you start to get the cooler weapons (Gauss rifle, minigun, incendiary ammo for the AK), and enemy difficulty ramps up. The tank level is pretty badass as well, especially if you try to blow up tanks by foot by attaching C4 to them, that's hilariously awesome. Once aliens show up, the game gets preposterously badass, the alien ship part of the game is amazing, although it's horribly disorienting. But that's the intended effect.

[Spectere]

Far Cry left such a sour taste in my mouth that I think I'd find it hard to enjoy Crysis, especially considering I heard that the gameplay is remarkably similar (confirm/deny, anyone?).  Nothing quite like having psychic enemies that do fairly high amounts of damage and are positioned in such a way that it makes them hard to kill, not to mention ridiculously tough mutant creatures that kill you in a few hits on easy.  No thanks; I'll stick with games written by people who know what the word "balance" means so I don't find myself doing the same carefully constructed section time and time again until I do it absolutely perfectly (only to die repeatedly at the next clusterfuck of enemies, since that's how all "good" games seem to do it nowadays).

In case it isn't obvious, I loathe Far Cry.

[MortifiedocAlot]

I liked farcry, but from what I've heard a lot of people say "DON'T PLAY THE ENDING PART". Also as far as Crysis is concerned I'm on normal and haven't had much trouble with anything. Besides this one part were you HAVE to walk into this "base" surrounded by land mines and C4 that will kill you DESPITE having shot all the land mines and C4 around.

[Alice]

back on topic:

BIOSTAR V6802XA21 GeForce 6800XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card

It's open box, though, which is why i'm asking:  would this be a better idea than the new biostar 5200?

[Spectere]

One thing that you'll definitely want to check before ordering it is whether it'll actually work in your system.  That board only supports 1.5V and 0.8V operation (given by the way it's slotted).  If your motherboard only supports 3.3V, it's not going to work.

If you want to know for sure, check the slot on the motherboard itself.  The AGP slot should consist of two sections -- a larger one and a smaller one.  If the larger one is toward the back of the case, ORDER IT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE YOU WILL LOVE THAT CARD.  If the larger part of the slot is closer to the front, you're SOL...you'll have to get the 5200 (or any other similar card that's either double-keyed -- i.e. has three sections on the slot rather than just two).

[Alice]

Confirmed, the missing divider is towards the back of the computer!  Always wondered why most of my AGP cards were double keyed when all of my AGP slots only had one key, guess that's why.  Can't order the card right now though, I have to get my job first, not sure how much longer that will take.

[Bobbias]

Yeah, I wondered why they were like that myself.