Father Xmas

Gate entrance on the east side of Atlas, due east of City Hall.

I like my ice tank namesake as well.

Well to be fair the devs do set the drop rate. But once they do it's all up to the RNG. Now I understand how probability and statistics isn't understood well by the general population, I think I took it in my Junior year of college while studying engineering.

Let's say there's a 1% drop rate and you defeat 1,000 critters. You would expect to get 10 drops. However there is a 12.9% chance you will get 6 or less and a 1% change to get 3 or less. That means 100 players go defeat 1,000 critters each and the odds are 1 unlucky player will only get 3 or fewer drops. It's also true that 1 player will likely get 18 or more.

A RNG can be a harsh mistress.

Well why do you find Sky Raider Sky Skiffs inside of rooms at the Terra Volta Reactor? Initiation prank?

Yes, the HD 5770 is worth the extra $20, a nice 15% kick in performance.

What's interesting is that the pigg files that changes were mainly the map and geometry files. I wonder if something got out in the previous patch?

The patch was only 170-180KB.

Try this link.

http://help.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/ncsof...p?p_faqid=4654

9800GT < 8800GTS 512MB.

9800GT - 112 SPs @ 1500MHz
8800GTS 512MB - 128SPs @ 1625MHz

9800GT has only 80% the raw compute power of an 8800GTS 512MB.

More memory won't help you here.

Well I knew it was either 24 or 26% for the wrong store origin. And the 40/26 rule is true at any standard origin stores in non hazard or PvP zones. I never thought of Ghost Falcon, Mr. Lin or the stores contacts in Croatoa as "standard" stores.

I haven't checked this recently but it use to be a correct origin store gave you 40% of the sell price and an incorrect origin store game you 24% of the sell price.

The nVidia hate is strong in this one (talking about je_saist).

All three of those articles that je_saist linked to are overclocked 8600GT so yes their power use is higher than the standard one, but still not high enough to require an external power connector, so less than 75 watts max. The HD 5750 does have an external power connector.

Well it's tough to find data on just an 8600GT on it's own. The PSU calculator says 43 watts and the HD 5750 at 59 watts. X-bit Labs list the HD 5750 under OCCT GPU burn in at 70 watts and under Crysis Warhead at 59 watts. techPowerUp lists the HD 5750 at 92 watts under Furmark and 72 watts under 3Dmark03 Nature test. Lastly BEHardware also did a Furmark test and they list the HD 5750 at 83.4 watts and 3Dmark06 Pixel Shader test at 74.5 watts.

Unfortunately few people actually tested the 8600GT in a stand alone setup. But they did test it's big brother the 8600GTS, which is simply clocked faster and thus needs an external power connector. PSU Calculator lists the 8600GTS at 47 watts. X-bit Labs also lists it at 47 watts (starting to wonder where the PSU calculator gets their estimates from ). BEHardware lists it's Furmark at 3DMark06 at around 58 watts.

So, what does this all mean. Well your current 8600GT DDR2 card most likely uses 20-30 watts less than an HD 5750, all of that at 12 volts. So the important value for your power supply is the amount of wattage it can put out at 12 volts, which considering your system, using a Shuttle 300watt PSU, most likely can't handle. Only recommendation I have is to look for a card that doesn't use an external power connector.

Maybe an HD 5570. BEHardware lists it's Furmark power use at 41.3 watts and the Furmark result at techPowerUp was 50 watts. Performance wise it should be about 60% faster.

That's a misprint by the way. Found that board with the same manufacturer ID number (11163-02-20R) on Sapphire's Italian website and they confirm it's only 128-bit, like every other HD 5770 so no super special secret HD 5770 built off of a cut down 5830 or some other marketing malarkey. Also the UPC code is the same as the US Sapphire model 100283-3L. And as for a triple check Zipzoomfly ties both the ID and model number together on the same page.

I would still like to see, even if it's only on one day before it's release, a GameStop ad featuring the game. Honestly the GameStops near me are downright PC phobic, so I wouldn't expect a lot of in store benefits from this arrangement.

No, you can put Cityofheroes.exe and the exclusion list for WindowBlinds.

So then, what are you all going to complain about after the merger when villains still can't afford recipes?

That's basically right. OEM editions of an OS is tied to a system. Sell the system, OS goes with it. Junk the system, OS goes with it. Retail editions are treated like any other part, you can move it from machine to machine, as long as it's only on one machine at a time. The difference is $100.

Let the Wiki win?

je_saist has only 2GB and no power supply. Which is how he paid for the higher end motherboard, nearly top end AMD Phenom II quad core and 500GB larger hard drive than mine.

Mine is a mere inexpensive dual core with a more mainstream motherboard, only a 500GB hard drive but 4GB of memory. Similar video cards however.

There are a few other examples online of low cost system.

bit-tech.net May's affordable "all-arounder" (unchanged for June)
Tom's Hardware June 2010 $550 build.
The Tech Report's Spring 2010 Econobox (a little light in the video card department for Ultra Mode).

All three come without OS which sets you back another $100 (aka the Microsoft tax).

It's cute. Pretty much nettop size but a lot more power. It has HDMI out and Display Port. It does come with an HDMI to DVI adapter.

It's also not really inexpensive ($699, 2x1GB, 320GB), very unfriendly for a HD upgrade but very easy for memory.

Here's the steps in taking it apart and seeing it's insides.

The tablet problem? I seem to remember a problem with tablet drivers but I don't remember exactly what.

Well that unit comes with a Blu-Ray drive. If you want a Blu-Ray drive then fine, otherwise for around the same amount you can get a laptop with better graphics. The drawback is they then tend to use larger and higher resolution screens which will drag native resolution framerates back down as well as making the laptop into a huge beastie. The two out of stock Sony's look to be the best of both worlds, same lower resolution display but with a better GPU.