JB0

Most DVD drives today aren't CLV anymore. "Officially" and what is out there now are two different things. 358655[/snapback] I thought we were speaking in terms of game consoles. PS2 is CLV, and XBox is PROBABLY the same. 358772[/snapback] I thought the question about the drives were about the new ones(360 and PS3). So we were... I guess I got lost somewhere... M'kay. I'm still waiting for holographic storage. Drop-in plastic cubes with a terrabyte of space... *drools*

Most DVD drives today aren't CLV anymore. "Officially" and what is out there now are two different things. 358655[/snapback] I thought we were speaking in terms of game consoles. PS2 is CLV, and XBox is PROBABLY the same.

The CAV/CLV is a bit misleading, too. Aside from you got them reversed(DVD is officially CLV), speed is a variable term here. CLV is designed so that the data transfer rate is constant. If you view the CD as a single really long ribbon of 1s and 0s, the last bit is just as long as the first. CAV is designed so that the disk speed is constant. This means that data on the inside goes by faster than data on the outside. There's interesting side effects of both technologies. In CAV, a track on the outside of a disk reads far faster than one on the inside. In CLV, all areas of the disk have the same data transfer rate, but your rotational speed varies signifigantly. This is why hard drives are CAV, since you'd lose too much time to disk spin-up/spin-down. All modern disk designs(CD included) put more sectors in outer revolutions than inner ones, because it's a grotesque waste of space to put the same # of bits in the vastly larger outer tracks area as the tiny inner ones. Past about 12x, CD-ROM drives reverted from the CLV spec'ed by the original CD standard to CAV, because they couldn't actually spin the disk faster. If you spin a disk at 52x CLV, when you get to the inside of the disk, it'll be spinning fast enough that it literally explodes. Even if the disk is reinforced with kevlar, it still tears apart. High-speed DVD drives also transitioned from the original CLV spec to CAV. The PS2 uses a 4X DVD, which was the high end for CLV. It should have a constant data rate. XBox is being listed as 2-5x DVD, presumably due to the fact that MS has changed DVD-ROM models several times during the XBox' life. Logically, the XBox drive should read all games at the same rate to avoid compatibility issues, but logic rarely enters into hardware design. If it's reading games at 5x, I think it's reading them in CAV mode for at least part of the disk. Speaking of which, it would be nice if game designers actually worked to REDUCE loading speed with this new generation. Nothing like playing a game designed for the Gamecube with nearly undetectable load times, and then hopping over to a PS2 game and being forced to sit through ridiculous loading. 358604[/snapback] Some do. Ikaruga, as an example, is completely full to the brim on the Dreamcast. BUT it's almost all empty space. There's a huge dummy file to get the data away from the small inner tracks to the large outer ones, which minimizes load time because you can fit more data on the outside, so there's far less seek time. If the data had landed on the hub at the beginning of the disk, teh laser head would do a lot of dancing back and forth as it loaded data. If I recall, they did the same thing on the 'Cube version. Even with a full disk, there's ways to exploit the disk layout. If you're creative, you can stick the most commonly accessed data towards the outside, so that there's minimal tracking, and the less frequently used data on the inside since the performance hit for a 1-shot FMV is far less than a set of textures that's loaded every time you go through a door.

You forgot definition 2. 2. something not found on the internet

HG says he didn't, and won't, and the fans need to get over it because having him cap that zentradi in cold blood was too mean.

But will there be rioting fans wearking t-shirts that say "Hikaru shot first!" after the platinum edition but before the Diamond one?

Have yet to kill anybody, but have spent a lot of time over the years training quite extensively with knives, guns, swords, sticks and bare-hand for the day I may have to. Homeless people don't bother me, It's queue jumpers and people that talk in the cinema that really piss me off. Graham 358417[/snapback] Removing line-cutters and theater talkers is a very worthy cause, and we all support you in this endevour, even if it comes at the cost of MW.

Sony can eat a loss for a while. Also, there's no indicator of how much of a BluRay player is the actual drive, whcih is all PS3 needs. Why is 1x too slow? Remember, 1x on BluRay isn't the same as 1x on DVD or 1x on CD(both of which are diffrent speeds). Telling what sort of load times you'll get is fairly difficult without knowing actual data transfer rates.

Of course, ePSXe and PSXeven provide graphical boosts too. AND let you save. Actually, the DC doesn't emu the SNES very well. Tends to have trouble keeping up. Genesis was about the max that could be pulled off without someone expending the effort to create a new DC-optimized emu instead of porting an existing emu. Which in the SNES' case was the sluggish SNES9x(development seemed to have been going in this direction, but all 4 emus stalled out before they got there). And with all the DC SNES stuff dead, the improvements being made to SNES emus NOW(SNES emulation is a LOT worse than it looks at first glance) aren't being integrated.

I think once sales start to slump, we'll see the Macross Criterion edition, with 8-channel DTS ES and CG special effects edited in.

Teh bracelets are good. The 300HP bonus may not seem like much, but it adds up after a few levels. Especially for hard mode, where you can get it from level 1. I just passed one around and slapped it on whoever was closest to level up, though. Don't need to keep a lot of 'em. The emerald necklace is good too. 100 extra CP at levelup. Basically, every time someone approaches level up, you should slap both of those on 'em. Though you have to be careful when draining the XP orb for a new character. It's VERY easy to max their CP with an emerald necklace. Won't kill you or anything, but it slows skill growth down a bit.

Riiiiiight.

Good priority. Also, it's a good idea to see what items can transmute to before you use them. Several transmute into a much better item, especially with skill books.

I'll be glad to bitch and moan at A1 if he gets the post. Regardless of if he updates or not... he'll slip... oh yes he will... 358361[/snapback] I already said that my goal is an online wasteland (like a post-apochalyptic feel)... Nothing but insults for having opinions and the least fair modding possible. We will all be intoxicated with the howls of laughter and glory as we see the innocent suffer! (Basically, if you are a pussy, you will be punished) AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!! 358369[/snapback] Translation: The death of the forums.

Could try gAIM. It's a pretty functional alternative AIM client, in my experience. Sounds like as good a reason as any.

There's no way to permanently alter the CP gauge in any way. It's all based on what weapon you're using. The XP orb is your friend. I suspec tthe "better" is because it lets you allocate all the capacity points they would gain through level ups(be careful, it's REALLY easy to run that up to 999 while doling out XP orb points). ... How dare they have 2 diffrent and unrelated CPs? Charge points and capacity points makes it easy to get confused when using acronyms. Like I said, CP gems are good too. But only in some situations, while XP gems are ALWAYS good. ... Item drops are also governed by the XP gem rules. So every time you're knocking XP gems out, you've got a chance of getting an item instead of an XP gem. Taht's always good too.

And it's missing a left arm.

If there IS a proper PS1 emulator for the Dreamcast, it sucks super monkey balls and isn't worth teh time it takes to download. The DC just doesn't have enough power to run a general-purpose PS emulator.

CP gems don't have any long-term effects. When they disappear, they remove one point from the collector's charge gauge at the bottom. But the game's handling of them is such that they're distributed randomly among ALL characters. If someone has an empty CP gauge, they can still collect the gems. When you get a half-dozen and your 8-CP mage doesn't get any because a chargeless fighter took 3, it's... frustrating.

I've heard RE4 speeds things up quite a bit. Don't quote me on it, but I THINK I remember hearing something about quick evade moves(can't recall for sure, don't wanna look it up). Either way, RE isn't a raw action game. The controls and limited items encourage a more calculated approach to the combat.

Second everything. Including the bit about Aelia(I actually liker her more than Lenneth, but you don't have an option there). And when picking attack orders, consider the entire party. Some combos look good as a standalone, but don't mesh with what everyone else is doing. And some dismal-looking ones work great when fused with the rest of the party's actions. If you order things properly and time your hits right, you can almost make the enemies bleed XP gems. Or CP gems. Not as pretty as XP gems, but a few of these go a long way towards keeping the mayhem levels peaked if your fights take more than a few turns. And until you get mental reaction, mages NEED these to do anything but idly spin their staff around.

Ok, settle down. No, you can't strafte - it's a 3rd-person shooter, doesn't lend itself well to it... StarFox Assault did it well enough. Robotron did it better still, though.

Dun have the game, but I somehow doubt it. Very few games let you sidestep.

A Tommy gun.

Yes. You don't really need to know anything before you start. Which is more important, your wife or a tri-Ace game?