i'm over half way done with the SP part of F.E.A.R., and lemme just say, it kicks a!

i definitely recommend this game to anyone - you owe it to yourself to at least try the demo (assuming, of course, your comp meats the min requirements...)

It does. 2/3 of a gig is pretty steep though...

lol! the full version of the game is 4.93 GB, and Kerm, this is about the STANDARD size for games nowadays (hell, the patch to take it from version 1.0 to 1.3 is 260mb), hence the reason games are starting to ship on a DVD now instead of 3 to 5 CDs

GTA: San Andreas is 5.36GB
NFS: Most Wanted is 2.83GB
LOTR: Return of the King is 1.99GB
Half-Life2 is around 4-5GB (hard to get an exact w/ steam)
Dungeon Siege II is 2.23GB

so that 2/3 of a gig for the demo is small compared to full versions of various games

Wow, that's insane. And I thought the 100+ mb for BL was excessive...

i told you blockland wasn't graphically intense, hence its small size. It only has small, low-res textures and low poly models, hence its small size. Not sure if its a limit of the developer or a limit of the engine they are using

Btw, what settings can you run F.E.A.R. at?

i have a grive devoted only to games and its 60 gigs, and 52 used... i have fear, the hl platinum pack.. thats all the originals except condition zero, hl2 goty pack, gtasa, battlefield 1942, Vampire - The Masquerade Bloodlines, ut2004, starcraft w/expansion, worcraft iii w/ frozen thrones, wow, tiberian sun, red alert... the list goes on.....
my steam folder is 10.1 gigs...my radeon 9600xt does em all great, altho it is time for an upgrade, for my whole system.... i plan on gettin an x2... eventually... and idk wut video ill use yet... msi will b the mobo.... ive never had a problem with it.. and my friend has gone thru 3 asus mobos...

I really want to get my hands on a GeForce really cheap for a second monitor

for dual mons it would be easier if you just got a vid card w/ 2 outputs

even an old as dirt geforce4 has that

whatever. I just really want to have that ability, whatever it takes. I want at least 128mb RAM though on it. btw, mine is an MX 4000

a geforce 4 mx is basically a tweaked geforce2 mx, just so you know

ebay's got some 9800 pro's pretty cheap, you might wanna start looking there: Click Here 1 (the 9800pro is a good card, but is really showing its age. However, for the price, its a solid option if you don't mind gaming at 800x600 in new games)

if you've got the money, however, a 6800 gt will last you much longer (make sure you get an AGP one!): Click Here 2 (or buy it new from newegg or whatever)

Btw, I thought you said you had two graphics cards? why don't you just use that?

I can get a second MX 4000 for about that 9800 (i know not as good, but it will be new). I was told by a friend that if I wanted dual monitors I would need a second GeForce

Am I the only one thinking sli here?

now your talking an expense (and I think my mobo is so old it won't support SLI (PC133 SDRAM))

SLI is a card feature, not a mobo feature. And all you need is a cable connecting the two cards, provided they support sli.

nope, its a mobo feature as well

Required:
chipset that nvidia supports SLi on (currently i believe it is limited to the nForce4 SLi)
2 x16 PCIe slots
2 IDENTICAL cards that are SLi capable (sli started with the 6xxx series, not all cards are sli capable - for SLi cards must be same GPU, speed, mem size, and often manufacturer)

Oh, it's card and mobo? That makes it a bit more doubtful for Rivereye then.

SLi is a new feature anyway. A geforce mx doesn't support it anyway. Not even the FX 5xxx series does. Only the newer PCIe cards do, and even that not all of them do

Oh, and SLi is only helpful for major titles, as if the driver doesn't specify an SLi mode for a certain game, it defaults to NO sli. Meaning a game like blockland would get zero benifit from SLi (if you feel like doing trial-error testing yourself, however, you can create your own profile and specify a sli mode for the game, but it could crash, have artifacts, or other nasties if the game doesn't like it)

but even so, rivereye couldn't even install two sli capable cards, as his mobo doesn't have any PCIe support at all. There is no AGP or PCI SLi, as they like the necessary bandwidth to keep up with the extra card-to-card comminucation

Eh, that's lame. It kinda makes sense though, that the game would have to be set up to split the render load...

the game doesn't have to support SLi.

Man Kerm, you really need to read up on how SLi works!

alright, lemme explain briefly how the differnet SLi modes work. The game itself does nothing different. Instead, for SFR (split frame rendering), the driver chops the screen in 2 and has each card render half of 1 frame. This isn't necessarily optimal, as the top half might be more intense than the bottom half or vice versa. The other mode SLi supports is AFR (alternate frame rendering) in which one card renders the even frames and the other renders the odd frames.

ATi's crossfire adds another mode, in which the screen gets broken up into 32x32 squares, and alternating squares get sent to different cards. This is a much more even load balancing

For both crossfire and SLi, however, it is all driver implemented. However, there are some issues where it doesn't work correctly "out of the box" for whatever reason, and one mode must be used instead of the other. Crossfire, however, has default modes for both openGL and directX, rather than just turning it off like SLi does.

Oh, OX. From this:

if sounded like if had lo be programmed into the game.