The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

None of that stuff sounds very pleasant, and now we have a world flu pandemic - first time in 41 years. It's the zombie infection!!

 

Well, you've got to consider that it's not exactly much worse than it has been for the last week or two, the WHO have just decided it's the right point to start calling it that

And look on the bright side, at least it's not H5N1

 

Not only are Poison Ivy and Oak bad to touch, you can't clear them out by burning either. If you breathe in the fumes you get it in your lungs and that can be fatal.

It has a resin in it called urishiol. It can remain active on dead plants and sometimes it grows huge root networks underground, making it dangerous to dig around Poison Ivy. And the oils are very hard to get off of clothes and skin.

I had to misfortune to get the oils in my blood stream because I had a very bad outbreak. I still get mild rashes on my left arm from time-to-time. It's an allergic reaction and I was prescribed to steroids for like a month. It took me out of work and basically made me a vegetable until it cleared up. I couldn't use my computers or get sweaty or anything for fear of irritating it. Not to mention I could barely move my arms because they were swollen so bad. Constant gushing pus all day every day without a break. And let me tell you, it gets painful.

This is what it looked like when it started:

http://www.poison-ivy.org/rash/source/25.htm

After a week my arms looked about like this:

http://www.poison-ivy.org/rash/source/1.htm

Though some are unfortunate enough to react this badly

http://www.poison-ivy.org/rash/source/15.htm

And if you think that's bad I strongly suggest you don't look at the next one...

Funnily enough, it's very hard to get Poison Ivy on your hands and feet as the skin is too thick.

Incidentally, I also had bad Stinging Nettle on my hands the same week I got my Poison Ivy. Though I'll tell you what, Nettle is nowhere near as bad... Pulling weeds out of an organic cranberry marsh. Hell, that's where I'm working now.

 

eeewwwww that's well gross.

I'll stop whining about my throned hand now.

I just finished high school and burnt all my books.

 

LOL did you really? If so then nice

I just hung out with some friends on graduation and got really drunk. We LAN'd Halo PC and Call of Duty 2 and smoked herb. It was fun

 

I live in the UK so we had no graduation or anything. We just stopped turning up after our exams.

How sad.

We just had a good laugh burning the books. We didn't get p*ssed or owt coz we had stuff to do today.

Now I can finally get round to finishing:
Assassins Creed
Burnout Paradise
DiRT
GRID
Half Life 2
Left 4 Dead
Mirrors Edge
There are more but I cba

 

Tsk, not going on to sixth form?

Most of us finished on Wednesday Though there's only about 10 in my year not coming back for sixth form - 11 week holiday isn't bad, mind.

 

I'm going to sixth form but I don't need any of my books. A fair few aren't going to OUR sixth form because John Leggot (an apparently awesome mutant ninja place that we all must bow down to) is about an hour up the road.

 

Right, listen up guys, my 8800GT just died, so I'm looking for the best card under £100, anything better than the GTS250?

 

Wow, book burning, drunken binges, the sweet smell of herb in the air, and grotesque attacks by very unfriendly vegetation! No wonder some of you guys aren't that impressed - your reality is more intense than L4D!

Regarding Left 4 Dead, it seems that if I'm not playing it, then I'm thinking about playing it, lol. And all of a sudden, since Wednesday's Advanced marathon, I've been thinking a lot about changing my TANK tactics from "Run like hell" to: "Rush the Big Dummy!"

I have seen some tight teams demonstrate what coordinated tank destroying can do, and I keep thinking of what Sam said about 4 guys with auto shotties taking down a tank in 2 seconds in survival mode - but Sam said that was a 5000 health tank. So for an advanced 7000 health tank, 3 seconds should work, and if one guy is pinned, maybe 4 seconds. I haven't timed it, but I think it takes the tank at least 6 seconds to kill somebody with full health - about 3 blows.

So on the finales, when everybody has full health, I'm thinking the new team strategy, instead of running from the tank, is for everybody to grab auto shottie and 1. hold your ground, or 2. at the very least, stay really close and circle. If you're not being chased by the tank, then you chase the tank.

For example on No Mercy. If the Rooftop Finale strategy is staircase, or defend the ammo, and everybody switches to auto shottie and just stays there, chances are one guy will go down before the tank does. But then the other three can finish the tank - way before the guy who is incapped gets killed. That's my theory. Or, if the getting pinned idea sounds too unpleasant, everybody circles the building by going up the stairs, jumping down in front or right side, come in through doors or windows, and go up the stairs again. The tank chases one guy and everybody else chases the tank.

But be very careful about friendly fire - the auto shottie is instant incapacitation! That's why I don't think circling the building will work, because the side and back ledges only allow one person to fire, since you can't run and crouch at the same time. Running up the stairs allows you to spread out momentarily on the roof before you jump off. If a guy is pinned on the roof, you can get up quickly - there's a ladder right there also - and hopefully finish off the tank before your buddy is killed.

On airplane you can circle around the escape plane. Four guys with auto shottie right next to the escape plane, on the hill side, around the middle of the plane, wait for the tank. As Sam said, two crouch in front, two stand behind. The tank hopefully won't have any concrete with him. Let him come around the plane and then just keep blasting. If he picks up concrete, spread out.

Four auto shotties going full blast - you might get him down on the initial attack before he can pin anybody. If not, the guy being chased runs backward with auto shottie going, like Kevin was talking about, the other three chasing the tank. The rule is, circle the airplane and don't go anywhere else - even if you risk getting pinned. Don't run way out in toward the rope like I see guys do. If everybody keeps their head, the rest of the team will be close by, and you'll only be pinned for a couple of seconds.

For boat, unless you are doing the TOO EASY rock defense, circle the building by going up the stairs and jumping down to back deck, and just keep repeating.

For barn, defending loft around the ammo, circle the barn by climbing out on roof and jumping down in the back (don't drop from loft on the house side, since that causes loss of life, except at very end maybe to board escape vehicle) then go up the ladder to the loft again. Barn seems easier though because the most successful team I was with just went out on the beams next to the loft and were able to blast the tank below - you have ammo but not weapons, so you can't change to auto shottie, but assault rifle works well although it takes a bit longer. The tank has trouble climbing up to the beams, and if he gets uncomfortably close it's easy to drop down and go up ladder again, or go around and climb up hay bales to roof and enter loft that way, depending on where tank is.

And by the way, the consensus from some good players, is that the tank runs faster when he's lit! In fact, they say, he can outrun a player on green health!

I don't know how to test that - but I may have experienced that when I was fooling around in Single Player in Expert mode with the bots in the beginning of Boat Finale, when the tank who had set himself on fire by climbing over the fence, chased me out of the house and was following me down the street toward the opposite end from the safe house. I was going to turn around when I got past the car, but all of a sudden I was pinned! To my great surprise, he had caught up with me. That's when I posted a few weeks ago: "I thought players could outrun a tank." Sam's answer was "Yes, they can, but I don't know about on Expert mode."

But maybe the deciding factor in that case was that the tank was on fire, which I had forgotten to mention in my post.

So, assuming the guys who say "Tank runs faster when he's burning" are correct, this new tank strategy involves not setting him on fire. Let him lumber along, stay out of the way of the concrete, and finish him off.

By the way, one more question: From the Rock - since you are stuck up there with not much room to move, I continued firing as the tank threw concrete, and it seemed to me that the bullets broke the concrete up before it could damage me. Is that true - Sam, Jeff? Can you blow up the concrete that the tank hurls at you?

So for whoever joins next Wednesday - you're gonna see me push the idea (especially on finales) of "Hold your ground", or maybe "Circle the building, and if you're not being chased, charge the tank!" LOL

Rich

 

LOL rich!
Ive tried that tactic as well. Ive found that upclose shotgun blasts(Point blank range) have a more significant impact(OBVIOUSLY LOL). Although it does depend on the area. Ive been lucky enough a few times, being able to round a post or other object in his path. VERY useful. If he were alive, im sure he'd be quite irritated LOL! Bait helps to. If he's interested in another teammate, I can blast the holy hell out of him

 

Exactly!

I've got myself so worked up, I think I'm going to cheat a bit and jump on the game for a couple hours, lol.

 

Okay, so i thought screw it, i'll break my £100 limit...

HD4870 (512MB) - £103
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB-XFX-ATI-Radeon-HD-4870-775M-DDR5-DUAL-DVI-XXX-EDITION

HD4870 (1024MB) - £110
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-091-PC

GTS250 (512MB) - £86
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-199-AS

GTS250 (1024MB) - £107
http://www.amazon.co.uk/PALIT-NVIDI...6?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1244840900&sr=8-6

GTX260 (896MB) - £121
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=1013325

So, which to go for? :O

 

My friend just got a 40" RCA HDTV for his graduation present. We played some L4D on it with his laptop in 1920 x 1080. I have to be honest, with some AA it looked pretty sweet. He has a 2.26GHz C2D in it with 4GB of RAM and a GeForce 9800m GTS 512MB.

It makes me wanna buy an HDTV really bad now. Hopefully I'm getting a job repairing PCs at a local electronics shop. This should fit my schedule better and I might have hope of an HDTV after all. The cranberry marsh doesn't cut it.

 

Wow, Jeff, forget the 30" stuff - going straight for the 40 inches!! That should be killer!!!

Do you think Shokz should get one of the nvidias, or the 4870 512mb or, for another 7 pounds the 4870 with the 1 gig memory? (Shokz, I found you on my friends' invites and added you - thanks.)

Hey you L4D fans, following up on my last post about tanks, here is my new set of tactics: Advanced Finales - Everybody Gets Out!

This afternoon, I tested my new Chase the Tank theory with one guy I've worked with before, DocG I think, and a couple of his friends. We tested the "1-2 punch" tank buster strategy on all finales: 1. do-not-light-the-tank and 2. most-guys-auto-shottie (and if you're not being chased, you chase the tank, sometimes right on his butt blasting away!)

We did a new Death Toll boat finale I never tried before - all four guys at the end of the dock, 2 auto shotties, two hunting rifles for random smokers (or two assault rifles would have been fine) dual pistols most of the time, and nobody goes back for ammo or health, but of course everybody has pain pills, since that finale is loaded with them - seven bottles in all, guaranteed!

We kept two gasoline cans near the side of the stairs on the wharf, for after killing the second tank (you bring one with you from behind the guard shack - and sometimes there's another one in the little house, or already on the dock.) We used all pistols most of the time, including on the tank until he got to the beginning of the pier, switching then to primary weapon. When things got a little hairy one time I used auto shottie on the horde. The basic idea was that with at least two auto shotguns blasting, we would kill the tanks as they came down the pier before they reached us at the wharf. The first tank somehow charged through - I think he got us off with a well-placed concrete throw although we had spread out in anticipation of that - and he knocked a few of us off, but we were able to continue to shoot from the water, and he went down quickly after that. We had enough time to get back to land and into position and heal. With the second tank, it went as per plan and he died about two-thirds of the way down the pier. I don't think I got more than one full load of 8 rounds into him - there was another guy also on shotgun - but I guess the hunting rifles were working pretty well too. One hunting rifle guy used his last round just as the tank died. We then ran the gas cans out near the beginning of the pier, tossed pipes, and we made an easy escape.

For Blood Harvest, we did a new defense, upstairs bedroom, on the farmhouse finale, but the tank appeared in the room with us in the middle of another horde, and that didn't work out. So then we went to barn and we did the defense with everybody on the rafters shooting the tank below - very easy. We got through both tanks, ran out, then one guy got pounced by a hunter on the steps of the escape vehicle. I tried to revive him while the other two shot, but the zombies kept turning off my revival - until finally the 3rd tank showed up - only two guys got out. We did it again, the difference being we agreed to stay up on top of the barn this time, until the ramp dropped. I said "Now" and we jumped down and got out. (By the way, I was mistaken in my previous post about taking damage when jumping out the loft that way - there is a crate just below the opening that I never noticed before, duhhh.)

For No Mercy, we all switched to auto shotguns after stairway - I think most of the guys, like me, had assault rifle for the stairs. Everyone kept their molotov or pipe bomb from the safe house, but only for the escape - we didn't light any tanks. Most of the time the tank was in the building and we were shooting through the windows. If a tank chased us up to the roof, the guys all had mics and were telling each other where the tank was - so everybody was able to get a couple shotgun blasts off then jump down. Both tanks went down without much problem. I didn't even know the second one was already dead until I saw all the guys heading up to the helo pad - I thought maybe they were just moving the defense up there. We launched a couple pipe bombs and molotovs and everybody got out.

Same thing on Dead Air - hill defense, then switch to auto shottie. As I recall at least one of the guys kept a hunting rifle or assault rifle. We stayed close to the plane and when the tank was looking one way, we were auto-shotgunning his back.

So with four finales and all survivors escaping, fairly easily, I am now a firm believer in not lighting up the tank during the finales.

There are other times, however, during earlier chapters, where the best strategy might be to light the tank. In fact, lighting the tank might work better in all other parts of the game except for the finales. I'll have to think more about that - I think a big factor is how healthy the team is when you get a tank.

I'm thinking of that one chapter of Death Toll called The Streets, right after Church. I remember once we were all beat up. Following the forklift near the minigun, you know you're gonna get one more tank. For example, as in that case, let's say the team is pretty beat up. Let's say there is one set of pain pills on the team, and one molotov. So you give the guy with the molotov the pain pills, cover him from a distance for hunters and smokers, and he has enough temporary health to go find and light the tank and run back. Everybody else limps off back around the bus toward the minigun and by the time the tank gets close enough to be a threat, he is almost burnt up. LOL

Rich

 

Well also considering the TV was about $600 on sale at Best Buy which puts it well within my means in the near future. Great image quality and contrast. Not to mention the gargantuan size. I'm very well tempted to put one on a wall mount over my desk as my main monitor. It looks really really nice

@ Shokz,

I recommend the 4870 as it has taken good price drops and is still hella fast for the money. A single one should play most games maxed problem-free and in Crossfire they absolutely dominate. The 4890s are faster but they're still much more expensive. Either way I'd recommend a 1GB card. That's one thing I regret about my rig

 

Way better than the GTS250 Shokz, I assure you.
Rich: Remember that taking the tank down in 2 seconds relies on Auto shotguns, which don't run out of shells by the time the tank dies if all 4 people are firing. When the tank has more health, if it takes more than 10 shells per person then they have to reload, which massively ups the time taken to take the thing out.
It takes the tank three blows on hard, usually just the two on expert to kill someone outright. This of course relies on them having full health to start with. The first hit will put them at about 150HP on the ground, the second will kill them (on expert). It's a knockdown from the first hit, regardless of health.
The tank can find concrete. - even if it's the middle of a field, he finds a rock to throw. Unfortunately the game doesn't disable that part of the tank's programming in the appropriate areas.
I've not seen any evidence to show a flaming tank runs faster. You can still outpace a flaming tank in Vs. and medium, I know that much. I'm also increasingly confident that the tank runs faster than you on expert mode.
If you have the option, igniting the tank and running back is still a safer bet than trying to take it down in an arena, provided you can deal with the appropriate smokers, hunters etc. during your escape.
Shokz: The HD4870 1GB is the best bet, but if you want it from a trustworthy store, you'll have to shell out a bit more and use Scan. I would say go for the 512MB HD4870 at Scan, that's a very cheap price for a powerful card. I'm assuming you're using a resolution lower than 1920x1200?
Rich: We don't usually flame the tanks during the finales either, as it's not really safe to run anywhere.
Jeff: but but, LED TVs are out!

 

I was gonna recommend buying the 512mb XFX 4850 waiting a lil while and buying another but with the 4870 at that price go for it!

 

I think I'm torn between the 4870 (1GB) and the GTX260; they've both got comparative performance, but nVidia has PhysX, and although not utilised too much at present, could be bigger in the future... Really impressed with the 4870s performance in a couple of games though - can beat the GTX280

SLI and CrossFire are out of the question; only got a Corsair 450TX and don't plan on upgrading, so a single card it is (interestingly, these cards do recommend a minimum of 500 to 550 watts, but in real world tests at 100% load either card and a whole system only draws around 280-290 watts - though obviously far more in SLI / CrossFire)

And yes, just got a 19" 1440x900 - will get a bigger one with my next build

 

the PSU will be more than enough for a 48701GB, and OcUK are a perfectly fine retailor.