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Hiriyu

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Posts posted by Hiriyu

  1. None taken at all.

    There are two stores where I live. One in Modesto, and one basically on the outskirts on the other side of town in a town called Riverbank. I work at the one in Riverbank and we've had to report the Modesto store more than once for bad practices to our HQ. We used to get stories all day long about how people would go in there and ask a question, then come to us and ask the same question only to be told something completely different and a lot less expensive. I stopped shopping at the Modesto store long before I ever worked at the other. I'll be one of the first to admit BBYs prices aren't all that great, but where I live they are down right cheap compared to the two computer stores we have in town.

    It all depends on who you get and what you want. Most of the time a quick diagnostic/fix won't cost anything because it'll bandaid the existing issue, we'll give suggestions and it most likely sells a new system because of the cost of parts and repairs. If they do an in-depth scan and find a bunch of stuff using our software, we won't offer the quick fix because it won't work. We give them a list of what needs to be fixed. Again, usually sells a new system because of repair costs and parts.

    I don't know that exact name of the diagnostic program we use but BBY also owns a tech firm stationed back east somewhere that remotely does a lot of our work for us to save time as well.

    Your fears aren't unwarranted, but we're not all bad and the reality is, if we don't do it, someone else will and usually not as good and without the guarantees.

    My nephew is a Geek (in the proprietary sense), and I agree with Chewie in that the service you receive is proportional to the tech and managerial talent existent at whatever location you sample. That said, and not wanting to stomp all over my nephew's profession, the Zentrans among us are really much better off in general finding their very own non-professional geek (in the non-proprietary sense) to help out with their PC maintenance and repair. Most real-life computer geeks will do basic operations at no little or no cost - maybe feed them a $20 or a 12er of beer to keep them happy. The real trick is to find a local geek willing to help. There otta be a central databse of willing computer nerds... Lord knows, I've done more than my share.

  2. That's good to know, there is not much info on eyefinity online. i just don't want to buy 2 more 28's only for gaming. got AvP with the 5850, it should be nice. then i might just suck it up when I found a right size desk, these things are getting expensive. do you use a displayport adopter or your monitors have displayport on them?

    My monitors are all DVI, and I'm using a Dell active displayport adapter for my main (center) monitor. The main problem with active adapters right now is availability - though there are several models that work, Dell is the only company that has any inventory right now. Running on Catalyst 10.4, I don't experience any of the glitches associated with Eyefinity except for a minor one which involves windows explorer needing to restart when switching back to extended desktop mode. I understand that this was not a problem in 10.3, so this will likely be fixed with 10.5.

  3. Hey Vince,

    You don't need any special versions of games for it to work, it just works, albeit with varying degrees of success from title to title. It's not really hardware-related, but has to do with how various games cope with ultra-high resolution and FOV settings. Mine is 5760x1080 (3x 1920x1080).

    I've got a largish pile of games that I still need to install, I haven't tried any FPS games with it yet. I've also got a ton of flight sims that are waiting in the wings for installation. So freakin time consuming ;)

    Some games that I've played with and work well so far:

    X3: Reunion

    Sins of a Solar Empire

    Pirates

    rFactor

    GTR

    GTR2

    GTL

    NFS Shift

    Test Drive Unlimited

    Defcon

    I haven't taken any actual pictures of the setup (it's just three monitors on a desk, heh), but here's a quick screenie:

    ss1.bmp

  4. Just got my Eyefinity rig up and running over the weekend. It involved a migration to Windows 7 64bit from XP, an upgrade to an HD5870 from my HD4890, and the addition of 2 more 24" LCD panels, but all I can say is its uber gaming bliss.

    Mini-Rant: I will say for the record that Windows 7's startup recovery software is a retarded throwback in that it is truly retarded. I installed 7 on a fresh HDD, but have my previous XP drive installed in the system as well, dual-bootable. W7 found a file that it did not like (a "corrupted" device driver) on my XP drive, and refused to boot because of it. Nevermind that the file in question resides on a completely different physical drive than the W7 OS resides on, and nevermind that the file in question was a driver for a completely different operating system, with the driver not even installed on the W7 installation; 7 just did not like it, and refused to boot due to its presence. Instead, Win7s response was to automatically backdate my install to a previous restore point, disregarding that the "corrupted" file in question was present during the initial install and susbsequent 8-10 boot cycles. In general, I have a problem with software that thinks it knows more about what I want to do than I do, and when it is demonstrably wrong.

    /Mini-Rant Over

    Aside from that, Win 7 actually seems pretty nice :)

  5. Cool pickup YLM. You must be back in the states now?

    What did you end up paying for the Corolla? I'm led to believe that these are starting to get difficult to find in decent condition... The vast majority that I see have been riced out and thrashed. A friend of mine had a GTS hatch, and it was a great car - simple, lightweight, RWD, and damn-near indestructable.

    Y'know, Lone Pine is coming up soon!

  6. ...Aside from MAME (which doesn't count, and still has no sound emulation anyway) I've only ever played it in an Akihabara game centre once in 2001, and it's long gone now.:(

    Au contrere, mon frere! Sound in SDF Macross has been supported in MAME for years now.

    Sorry for the OT.

  7. ...From the show, we really only see two TREADs, or three if you count the blue TREAD twice:

    Blue = "21" in the first episode. This would be the TREAD that Stick is attached to at the beginning. His squadron is 21, so the TREAD would be "21". On a side note, I’ve always assumed that Stick’s Legioss was “21” during the entire series, but the idea that Stick happened to find another Legioss from the 21st doesn’t really make sense. Did they repaint “21” on the Legioss that Jim has? Do we even see the squadron markings in the show anyway? Are the markings only really seen on the toys and models? Does anyone have any insights into what the number on the Legioss should be?

    I would love to hear everyone's insight into this.

    Thanks!

    I have no insight on this subject, but I had always kind of idly wondered about the numbering of Stick's Legioss. As I recall, we do see the "21" markings on Stick's Legioss(s) throughout the series, but sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not in the actual animation. I think that it can be rationalized in-story as the crew having painted Stick's numbers on the Legioss that Jim had been restoring/maintaining. Maybe a viewing of that particular episode where they meet Jim will show something... I think it was the third or episode but may be wrong there.

  8. I find it hilarious Jobs is touting it as some ideal way to browse the web yet it doesn't support FLASH. Nearly all the streaming servies out there like Hulu and Youtube use flash as does almost nearly every web game out there.

    On top of the numerous other bone head decisions, no USB port, no memory card slot, not even a built in way to just view the stupid thing without holding it... just an easy easy pass for me.

    +1 on this post. For a scant moment (once I had heard of the fairly inxepensive [for Apple] price point), I was mildly intrigued by the idea of the iPad. I caught myself thinking that so long as it had USB, it may actually work well. Three seconds later, as I came to my senses, I realized that software incompatibility for what I would want to use it for would be a deal-breaker anyway. Then, Eugimon mentions that there is not actually even any USB support. Brick.

  9. Oh dear lord rofl, I hate retards who do that - I meet one of these idiots on the expressway almost every single day. I'm part of the elite 1% of the Michigan population that believes in following the law and try to obey the speed limit, which for the expressway is 70mph... quite generous compared to other places....

    Anyways, I sometimes very very gently tap once on the brake (not hard enough to slow the vehicle down) so that they can see my damm brake-light as communicating to the car behind you is what I guess it was originally designed for - but they never get the idea or understand what I mean. Eventually, just like you describe, like 10 minutes later they pass.

    I've noticed lately that most people who do this are also yapping away on the cell phone, hence probably too distracted to figure out that there is less than 1m clearance between his front bumper and the rear of my vehicle and that we're both doing 70 mph.

    A good rule of thumb is to merge into the next lane to the right when faster traffic approaches from the rear. Let the faster traffic by, do not play vigilante traffic cop by trying to slow the flow of traffic. If you regularly brake-check people while slowing the flow of traffic as you describe above, you should be prepared to be the subject of road rage.

  10. Stick's invasion group is the Third Earth Reclamation Group. The second invasion group brought Yellow and Jim to Earth, along with their mecha and Houquet's mospeada. I believe the time period between the two invasions was something like 3-5 years... someone remind me.

    Oh, and the Inbit? The Ibit themselves are purely biological, not cybernetic. Their mechs are bio-mechanical, and are controlled by "lifeforce".

  11. Yeah that's it. I have it set on 1920 x 1080 or something like that. I think it's better, but letters look...I dunno, smaller and not as sharp or something. I'm reading about something callled "clear-type" in xp but I just realized how amazing Call of Duty 4 looks so I've been playing instead of tuning lol...

    You absolutely need to set your LCD monitor to display its native resolution (1600x900), else your image will be stretched or distorted. You may be able to get away with a lower resolution which preserves the same aspect ratio, but why would you want to? All lowering the resolution to the next matching aspect ratio serves to do is to give you less screen real-estate (less viewable onscreen), defeating the purpose of having a widescreen in the first place. 20" widescreens are on the very small end of the scale anyway, so you really don't want to lower the resolution in any case.

    Given the screen resolution you have, you have no reason whatsoever to upgrade your video card unless you're using Vista or Win7 and want to take advantage of DX11, which isn't a big deal as of yet. If for whatever reaon you do want to go DX11, then the ATI 5000 series is the only game in town. Your current 8800GT is more than capable of whatever you throw at it with that monitor under DX9/10/.

  12. Why is it that concept sketches don't always translate well to prototypes or actual production units? Case in point: this 2010 Zagato Perana Z-One. The sketch looks beautiful, but the car itself looks bland in comparison.

    There are limitations in production tool design wrt draft and compound curves which cannot be easily translated from drawing to tool; also, sketches can imply shapes and proportions which are not actually present. Just look at some of the Macross perspective lineart for examples of this. Also, a design artist has a lot more leeway in terms of glossing over details that engineers cannot - window and door seals, functional door handles, mirrors, etc.

    ** Edit: The biggest difference in the example provided is the cove in the front bodywork, around the wheelwells (though there are a lot of other details like the mounting of the mirros, rear haunches/wheelarches, etc, etc). Notice that on the "production" model the front fenders and valance appear to be one piece. If you used the more heavily coved design from the sketch, I'm guessing that you would have a very loosey-goosey non-rigid body panel there. Notice the flattened "lip" around the wheelarch? That kind of feature gives a panel much higher strength as a unit. I don't know what the body is made of, or if this is a unibody design in the first place, but manufacturers generally don't want to sell a car with body panels that flap around as the car moves through the wind.

  13. Too bad for Warner Brothers because HG, the company whom they got the rights from to make this movie, doesn't have the rights to the anime (Macross) which this movie will be based on. That's kinda like buying a car only to be told by the guy who sold it to you that the car doesn't have an engine, so in order for it to work you have to buy the engine separately.

    You guys really need to work on your automotive analogies. A more appropriate description might be, "That's kinda like buying the rights to the name 'Corvette' for use in a movie called 'Corvette Summer', only to be told that you cannot use the likeness of a Corvette in the movie". :lol:

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