mikeszekely

From what I've read, the story and cinematics are pretty good, and that fans of FFVII should play it for that reason alone, but as far as gameplay goes, you could just mash the X button and finish the game without even looking at the PSP.

I'd say good news for me, since I missed Alternators Prime, but ¥5250 is a little steep.

Not to discount what you said, as it's likely that this is part of it, but I look at the Compendiums numbers as something like a minimum. As is, there were at minimum 13 Megaroad ships, and the ships between Megaroad 13 and (new) Macross 1 may or may not be, at the Hory Froating Head's discretion. Oh, and your math's a little screwy. Yes, 13 Megaroads and 13 New Macrosses make 26, but Macross 7 was the 37th, so you don't count 8-12. 13+7=20, and 17 missing.

My bad, then.

That's the leading theory. Wreck-Gar hasn't been confirmed, but Weird Al is confirmed to have a role.

It looks like I missed the sale at PCMall on the GeForce. As for the Radeon, cheapest I found it was at ZipZoomFly. I thought the A+ exam would be easier, but I've actually failed three out of four practice exams (irritatingly enough, just by one question, usually). Maybe they made them harder since they updated it? It's still multiple choice, but not only are there no stupid choices, several of the questions maybe have more than one correct answer, and there's no partial credit. Yeah, I was thinking about Network+ next, but if they drop it, no skin off my teeth. I was angling toward Cisco anyway, and maybe Server+.

Oh, I'm not implying that it would be. I'm sure they could digitally replace the entire logo. I like the logo though, and would like to see it clear with minimal changes.

"Megaroad" is three syllables in English, and "Macross" is three in Japanese, and since most anime gets dubbed and subbed when it comes here, there character's mouths should even still sync if every instance of "Macross" is dubbed "Megaroad." Then, I'd hope they could mostly keep the Macross Frontier logo, maybe just add a silver bar over the katakana and print "Megaroad" in red with the same font as "Frontier." The people most likely to be able to read the katakana are the people most likely to know that it's supposed to be Macross Frontier anyway.

My MacBook has two slots, PC5300. Are the current Pros still two slotters? I'm guessing they bumped the RAM speed?

I'll probably do just that. I'm thinking a year, 18 months tops, before I start building my real VAIO replacement. In the meantime, it'd just be nice to have a computer that can run Neverwinter Nights 2 adequately (VAIO runs it slowly on the lowest setting with graphical glitches since it's below the minimum requirements, and my HTPC will run it slowly at the lowest settings, which is still pretty good for integrated video. I don't even thing I could install it on any of the other computers floating around here). Seriously, I don't even really play PC games. I'm just a tech junkie.

I was about to panic, since I want to get a Pioneer for this other computer. But then I remembered you're after SATA, but I want an IDE. Not that any of you care, but for those of you keeping score at home, that means I'm running five computers at the moment, six if you count my wife's laptop. Sony VAIO PCV-RZ32G has been my main desktop for nearly five years... bought her before I knew any better. 2.6GHz Pentium 4, GeForce 6200, and 1.5GB of RAM, one of the first Sony DVD burners on the market to do + and -, and a 500w PSU that doesn't even fit in Sony's proprietary case... I'm not even sure I could find the side panel anymore if I wanted to. Oh, it's Windows XP... Apple of all people finally got me to with SP2. She's due to be retired to eventual Linux duties (see below). Lenovo ThinkCenter 8288G1U is the computer my friend rescued from the trash for me. 2.8GHz Pentium D and gigabit ethernet are significant upgrades from my VAIO, and I've already upgraded the stock 230w PSU to a 480w PSU, but the Intel X3100 video isn't. I plan to buy a video card, upgrade the RAM to 2GB, and put a Pioneer DVD burner in it, then pull the 320GB second hard drive from my VAIO and make it the Lenovo's second hard drive. I already installed Vista on it, and as is, Vista gave it a 3.2. I'll see if I can maybe squeeze another year out of it before building my true next PC. eMachine's T2542. Around the time we got cable internet, I bought this extremely cheap desktop for my wife so we could use the net at the same time. A 2.5GHz Celeron processor, Intel 845 graphics, and 512MB or RAM suited her until recently, when it she got into Puzzle Quest. I got her laptop to replace it, but in the mean time, I installed Xandros 4 Home Desktop Premium on it, and while I've dabbled occasionally in Linux, this was the first distro I've truly enjoyed. As such, I'm going to pull the hard drive and put it in the VAIO (the VAIO's original hard drive will be put away for safe keeping), and at that time I'll use a KVM switch to alternate between the VAIO and the Lenovo at my actual desk. A spare hard drive will go into it, and I'll restore it back to Windows XP before selling it off. Home built HTPC. After learning a bit about computers, I swore I'd never buy another desktop. And with Nintendo charging $8 a pop for SNES games on the Virtual Console while half the fansubbers out there insist on using mkv files, I decided I'd be better off if I build a computer specifically for my living room home theater. Building it as cheaply as possible was a priority, and I blew most of my budget when I went with an eVGA motherboard with a solid GeForce 7150 integrated video chipset, plus HDMI and toslink outputs. I pulled a DVD-ROM from another computer and bought the cheapest processor I could find, a 1.6GHz Celeron 440 Conroe-L, and packaged it all in a slick low-profile In-Win case with 2GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive for storing my iTunes library, my videos, and my emulators. When Blu-ray burners come down, I'll replace the DVD-ROM and upgrade the processor to a Core 2 Duo and another 2GB of RAM, but I doubt I'll spend the effort to find a low profile video card for it. As long as I have the processor and the RAM for it, the 7150 chipset is already HDCP compliant and capable of 1080p. I will probably at some point also put an HDTV tuner in there, if I can find a low-profile one that suits me. Windows XP for minimal headaches MacBook. It's a first generation MacBook, 1.6GHz Core Duo, Intel GMA 945, a little dated if you compare it to Apple's current MacBooks. I did upgrade it to 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and OS X 10.5 Leopard, plus Vista in Boot Camp. I do kind of wish it had a little bit better graphics performance, but there was no way I could have afforded a MacBook Pro. It's good enough to rate a 3.1 from Vista, though, which is still slightly better than my wife's brand new laptop, and it was good enough to get me through 11 hour shifts in a store that saw maybe three customers a day. I love it so much, in fact, that I'll only buy Mac laptops for myself from here on out. If you're so inclined to count my wife's new laptop, she has an Acer Extensa 5420. 1.9GHz Turion 64 X2, ATI Radeon Xpress 1250, and 2GB of RAM. It was pretty good bargain laptop, and while it falls behind my nearly two year old MacBook with a 3.0 from Vista, it's a big upgrade for her that has the stuff she cares about like Bluetooth, 802.11g wi-fi, and a built-in webcam. Oh, and it plays Puzzle Quest nicely.

That just muddies the waters... so the Radeon has a faster core clock and more memory bandwidth, but the GeForce can fill more pixels and textures per second. But only the Radeon has info on the shader and vertex operations, while the GeForce just gives the shader clock speed. And neither tells me how many pipelines. I doesn't feel like that long ago when I bought my 6200 to replace the MX 440 that came with the my current desktop. It's depressing to hear that an 8400, which is a big step up from it, is already low-end. I'm all for good graphics, but if the PC Alliance is serious about reviving the PC gaming market, they need to get nVidia and ATI to slow down. No one wants to buy a new video card every six months just to keep up. It doesn't help that they want to keep changing the port, either. PCIe hit shortly after I bought my AGP computer, PCIe 2.0 is still new to the market, and I hear that PCIe 3.0 hits in 2010.

The Snake-Eyes looks pretty good. Faithful to the Snake-Eyes I remember (screw Commando Snake-Eyes). That Destro looks like crap, though. It looks like they painted some bald Asian guy silver.

Good ol' Az. Somehow I just knew you were going to be first to chime in with an answer. Ironically, you might have settled my decision, but for the Radeon. ClubIT didn't have much, but ZipZoomFly has the Radeon for $20 less than Newegg. So instead of thinking $99.99 Radeon at Newegg vs. $138 GeForce at PCMall just became $80 Radeon vs. $138 GeForce. Unless you really think that the GeForce is worth nearly $60 more, I'm leaning Radeon. What would you say the most important factor is when comparing video cards? I can't find any detailed info, so I don't know about shaders or pipelines for iether card. But they have the same amount of VRAM, and the Radeon has a faster clock speed. EDIT: $138, not $118. I'm not qualifying for any rebate. But still, Onsale.com has it for $114.

That's why they make those rounded IDE cables now. Sure they're not as small as SATA cables, but in my mind airflow's only an issue if the system's running too hot. My HTPC has probably one of the worst airflow situations I've seen, and Speedfan says everything's running well within tolerances.

Help me out, guys. As far as graphics cards go, I've always been a bit of an nVidia man. When I build my best main desktop, I'll most likely continue that trend. Now, I've been out of work for awhile studying to take the CompTIA A+ certification exams, so even though my current desktop is 5 years old with a lone AGP slot occupied by a GeForce 6200, I don't have the money to build the desktop I want. However, a friend of mine gave me a computer they were throwing out at his work. Amazingly enough, it was a just a little under-powered and had some BIOS settings screwed up. It's still a 2.8GHz Pentium D, which is a step up from my 2.6GHz Pentium 4 (and integrated gigabit ethernet, also a step up from my plain vanilla 10/100 card) so I threw a new PSU into it, fixed the screwy BIOS settings, reinstalled Windows, and it was good to go. I figure I'll add some more RAM and replace the DVD drive with a dual-layer DVD burner, and this computer could actually tide me over a little while until I rejoin the workforce. But here's the catch... the video is an integrated Intel X3100 chipset. While my old GeForce 6200 has more or less faded into obsolescence, I don't see any Intel video as an upgrade. Naturally, I want to install a dedicated video card, but there's no PCIe x16 slots, just a single PCIe x1 slot. And PCIe x1 pickings aren't much better than the AGP selection available to my old desktop. Basically, I have two choices, and depending on where I shop, they're about the same price. I can either go with a GeForce 8400GS, or a Radeon X1550. Under normal circumstances, I'd just go with the best nVidia card in price range, but in this case, I want to be certain I'm getting the most bang for my buck. I'm not very familiar with ATI's cards, but at the moment I'm leaning toward the Radeon simply because it's available at Newegg, but if the GeForce really outperforms it, I might take my chances with a different e-retailer.

Megaroad Frontier.

It is indeed sad to lose a man with such vision as Clarke. He seems to have lived a very full life.

I still don't get the glut of movie toys after even the extra pushes with the DVD release and Christmas are mere memories when the first season of Animated is nearly done, and the Animated toys won't officially hit shelves until June. Spectacular Spider-Man toys are out, I see. And that's only been on for two weeks.

What even makes that a compelling reason? IDE transfer rates are plenty good enough for CD and DVD media. I say if you've got an IDE controller on the mobo, use it! EDIT: Added bonus, if you've got the open bays on your case, you probably don't have to remove any of the drives you already installed. You paid for 'em, you might as well use them. Sorry we can't really be any more helpful than that, David. The only other thing I can say is that I've owned two Sony DVD burners, an internal and an external, and neither of those struck me as particularly loud, but what I think is noisy and what you think is noisy might not be the same, nor do I know how newer drives sound.

Pull the burner from your old computer?

I'm glad you put that up, and I think you're absolutely right, when you look at some things you can see the similarities, but when you pay attention to other details, they do look very different. Yeah, the wings have that VF-1/VF-0 look, and while there are differences, but actually what really clicked in my head are those, I dunno, vents, where the fuselage connects to the main body. They're always on the Battroid's chest. Battroid totally looks like an SV-51 with smaller shoulders and head, and wings that fold back like a beetle instead of folding up like a birds. They both have the same slightly out thrust pelvis, sort of zig-zagging torso, kneecaps that jut upward, and little stubby chunks hanging off their their hips.

I'm glad that I finished God of War first, by now my PSP's L button is sticking.

There's more than a color scheme and VG wings. When I first saw a pic of the VF-25, I thought it was a VF-0. They'd have very similar silhouettes.

Battroid aside, I'm a little disappointed that the VF-25 looks a bit like the VF-1/VF-0. Between Macross Plus and M3 Kawamori cranked out a lot of interesting designs, but since then, he's cranked out the SW-XA1, the VF-0, and now the VF-25.