General J

I always check the servers, but no one is ever playing at the times I do.

Bose Companion. I have had the series 1's for about 4.5 years. I love them. Go to a Bose store and check them out.

Bullet? How ya been? Now all we need is gooters or El Barto to post up and it will be a reunion party!

Why would you switch to a "better" OS and then use the evil/crappy competitors office programs? OpenOffice FTW no matter what OS you choose! On a serious note, I have quickly realized how handy having a netbook/ultra-portable would be. Toting around a 15.4" laptop that weighs 6 lbs. is not ideal, even for at home use. My wife has been using my laptop around the house while searching craigslist, checking email and such while going room to room chasing the kids. We both came to the conclusion that this thing is best on a table or desk, and maybe the occasional trip. 2-3 lbs. netbooks seem more and more appealing each time I try to carry the full size one and use it at the same time.

I had a few issues trying to get FarCry to run on Vista 64-bit. I finally downloaded the 64-bit patch for it, and now it runs smoothly. What games are you trying to install? Someone may have already had some experience installing and running them. On a side note: I wish that Microsoft would not say that each new version of windows will be backwards compatible. They never are very seamless at this, which I would think would lead to a lot of frustration for their customers. If it is going to have some major issues with software made for previous versions (XP, 98/2000/NT) just tell people!

Ughh... It's a Dell... Running OS X.... Double Whammy. They just took two overpriced brands and mashed them together. What will the world come up with next? I guess if you just couldn't break that mac addiction, this is a pretty cool deal. But from past experience with both Dells and Macs, I will take a pass.

The originals don't seem to play as much. I played a whole lot pre - Source. Those were the days. Until they added that freaking riot shield. Then I got married and had children... Play time went down hill in a hurry. About all I have time for anymore is gun game servers where I can leave without being in the middle of a round.

I do Yo! You haven't been around if you don't know what LC stood for, or you never used the MMMMCS board.

It started after I downloaded ZP. I have also heard that it is the most CPU intensive Source based game. I had thought about uninstalling Steam and all apps and starting over again. That just sounds like a pain. Guess I will give it a try when I get some time. I really like ZP. But if a fresh install of Steam and CS:S fixes the problem, then I may have to forget about ZP for now. I guess I had chalked up my problem to some odd compatibility issue with the laptop drivers or some such thing.

So, I have been using my Asus G50V A1 laptop for a little while now and I generally like it. I have been using it as my primary computer, so gaming is one of its duties. I was playing CS:S with no problems, and I had downloaded a few demos, Crysis and COD 4, to see what it could handle. I also got Far Cry 64 to work as well. Everything runs smoothly. So, then I found Zombie Panic and started playing. The laptop now has what I call "fits" in the middle of the game. It acts like really bad lag, but I have watched my ping through the scoreboard and through netgraph and it does not fluctuate. Everything becomes very jumpy for a very short time, then returns to normal. The laptop has a display that shows CPU load, and it doesn't fluctuate during the fits either. I could write the fits off as a quirk of running heavy loads on a laptop, but it is more than powerful enough to handle the games. (Note: this only happens in Zombie Panic and CS:S, that I have noticed.) The kicker is this: Either during or after these "fits", my console text and text chat (pressing "Y" or "T" type of chat box) language switches to Chinese. Now, not all of the text turns to Chinese since it gives me a translator option of English. But, anything I type out in the console or chat is in Chinese characters. It is easy enough to fix. All I have to do is right click the text line and change the language back to English. But, the annoying thing is that once it has done this once, it will do it randomly through out the game. Any ideas? The other issue I am having is the keyboard keeping up with my typing. It misses letters if I type too fast. And no, I am not missing them when I type. It is hard to miss the space bar!

EDIT: Who will loan me $10,000? I'll pay you back, I promise! +1 for building your own. I had basic computer knowledge (well, still do...) when I built my desktop. Had some rough goings at first with formatting and getting all the bios settings to run everything at proper speeds. But, once it was done, I had a fresh install with none of the manufacturer bloatware. It's been about 5 years since the build and it still runs fast today. Outdated, yes. But it runs well. My best advice to you if you decide to build, buy a nice mobo. I cheaped out on mine and I regret it to this day. It was supposed to handle the RAM speeds that I bought and be ok for overclocking. But it wasn't. I had to run RAM at a lower speed and keep the CPU at stock speed. Lesson learned though, and I will do better research on my next one.

I got the message when I tried to join from Steam. But when I joined from within CSS, it downloaded just fine. Any way a separate page or sticky could be made with previous maps listed in it?

EDIT: Never mind. When I connect to the server from within CSS it allows me to download it. Where can I get the custom maps from? I am getting a message saying something about map consistency enforced. But I do not have the current map.

Save the space and drop the floppy drive. I know there are a few occasions where you would need it, but you can really get away with just a dvd/cd-rw drive from my experience. Someone else can either give an affirmative or a negative, but I was questioning how much more performance you would get out of the quad core than a faster clocked dual core. Or, if you wanted to stick with the quad core, and bring your price down, look at the AMD Phenom X4. Again, I don't know how well they stack up against the Intel lot. I have a core 2 duo in my laptop and an AMD Athlon in the old desktop, so I am impartial. If you took the savings from going with the AMD processor, you could almost buy another video card and run it in SLI for 2 gigs of video mem. I thought when I built my desktop ~4-5 years ago that the 512 mb video cards were serious overkill.

So, I have my new laptop with 2X250 gig 5400 RPM HD's. They are currently set with 4 partitions. One is Vista 64-bit, and the other are data from what I have seen. Asus ships with a program called "express gate" which allows you to do web browsing, music, some online games, photos, chat, and skype calls without launching the OS. It's neat, and nice not waiting for windows just to look up directions on google maps. But, the BIOS supports a RAID 0 setup. I know nothing about RAID setups at this point other than they are supposed to be faster (?). Can someone shed some light on why the RAID setups are better? How much of a benefit would I get out of it? How hard is it to do? And is it worth the hassle of setting it up and reformatting? I would lose the ability to use express gate, which seems some what handy. But if performance would be greatly enhanced, then I would probably give it a shot.

I actually thought about that this morning. In my search to end the high cpu usage, I actually ran across something suggesting that it be turned off. What exactly does it do? Is it just for search functions, or does it help with load times?

So, I have had the laptop a few days, and only had a limited time to mess with it. CS:S runs like a dream with everything cranked. System is fast, build quality is super nice. I would definitely buy another Asus in a heartbeat. The machine I bought for the money is worth every penny. You can not beat ASUS's warranty, and they were ( I believe) the only company offering 802.11n that I noticed. Battery life is great when it is set to "power saving." "High performance" sucks through the battery in less than an hour from what I have seen. But it is running a lo of stuff. Even comes with everything down to a Logitech MX518 mouse. My only complaint is the keyboard, which feels a bit loose for my taste with a new computer. It's not horrible, but it feels a little pre-broken in to me.

This is the strangest thing. I knew that when I built my new desktop, a few years back, that it took a while to settle as far as reliability. I got the laptop, and not even an hour after my first post, it settled down. CPU load just totally dropped off. Nothing was running sluggish anymore. I knew it shouldn't have been, but I didn't understand why it was. Everything is great now. CPU usage is only up while a demanding application is open. System is using almost no CPU. Strangest thing. I was just about to be seriously ticked off with Windows Vista when it leveled off. Running all high graphics in Windows now, and no load at all. Everything runs perfectly well.

I have. But I forgot to mention that huh? System is always above 50, and usually well over 60-70. System Idle Process is next at around 20 or so. I knew Vista was supposed to be a resource hog, but this is ridiculous! I figured with the specs this thing had, I would handle vista just fine, and be able to at least multitask between 2 windows. I can barely open 2 instances of firefox!

So, I just got the asus g50v-a1, and I am having issues. CPU usage is showing anywhere from about 75% - 100% all the time. Is it normal for the OS to be running the processor that hard constantly. It is doing this even without extra programs running. I have turned all services off, other than the Windows ones. I have set the power mode to high performance, and I have turned all the visual effects off (setting for performance) and boosted the virtual memory (which I would think it wouldn't need with 4 gig's RAM at it's disposal?) Anyone experience any similar problems or know anything about this?

Here! From everything I have heard of Vista (have a laptop on order that has it, but I have never used it personally) he might want to either upgrade it to 2 gb ram, or dump vista for xp. He might also be able to do some light gaming on the integrated video. My bro-in-laws sony vaio has the intel 945 chipset, and he runs GTA San Andreas, hardly any eye candy, but it does run it pretty well.

So, I went with the G50V-A1. I figured the 15.4" was more than big enough. I also had read a lot of things talking about how the 32-bit version of vista would show all 4 gigs of ram, but couldn't actually use it all. I don't know if that is still true after all the updates. But, if it is, it amuses me that they sell machines with 6gb ram and pre-install 32-bit vista. Anyhow, I will give a review once I have it in hand.

I had the feeling that the 17" one was going to be a burden to carry around. Now my serious question is the difference between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of vista, and just how much better the 9700M GT will perform compared to the 9600M GS or the 1 gig ATI 3650.

So I have narrowed it down to two. THIS ONE, or THIS ONE. The first is a 15.4" and the second is a 17" I don't know how crazy I am about carrying a 17" laptop between classes and such. The 15.4 seems awfully big on its own. I also do not know how much of a difference I would notice between the screen sizes, unless I was playing a game or watching a movie. Most of the specs are pretty similar. Same processor, ram, super-multi drive. One cool thing is that they both have a full num pad. The first one has 2X250 gig HD's, that can apparently be set up for RAID 0. But I am lacking in the knowledge department as far as RAID setups go. It also has the 512mb GeForce 9700M GT. And it comes with Vista 64-bit, which I am not sure if that is a plus or minus... Some say 64-bit is the only one that will recognize all 4 gigs of RAM. Some say that the regular version of Vista will now recognize all as well. The only true down sides I see here are the price at $1700 (which is still a bargain for the specs compared to the more widely known manufacturers) and not having the 1 gig video card like some of the others that I have seen (although I never could figure out whether they were truly 1 gig, or 512 dedicated with 512 shared available). The second one has the larger screen which, as I said above, I can't decide if that is a plus or minus for me. It has a single 320 gig HD. And it comes with the 512mb 9600M GS. I am pretty sure that the vid card would be more than sufficient, but with that large of a screen, I would have liked the better card. But, it is $200 less than the first one. Same thing as the first one with the video card. I would have liked to see the 1 gig card in this one, but oh well. I think I know which one I am going to order. Which one would you guys go for, and why? How much better is the 9700M GT vs the 9600M GS? And why is NVidia using recycled ATI numbering schemes?

I thought I had read something about a lot of problems with the mobile NVidia cards. I have only owned ATI, so I have no experience with NVidia. I know that from past experience, ATI's driver upgrades have been problematic for me. Also, I have only really had experience with desktops, as far as the performance side goes. I have never used a higher end laptop. $1300-1400 is a stretch for me, but if it means a machine that will hold up to the test of "tech" time for a while, I think I can convince the wife to let me splurge. $1500+ probably isn't going to go in my favor. Either that or I would go for the ASUS with the dual NVidia card setup! Anyone have anything as far as side by side test results for the ATI and NVidia mobile cards? I haven't searched Tom's hardware yet, but if anyone has anything that would show real performance specs it would be much appreciated.