Komag

They are both the same. Obscurus said a mapper can use SpeedTree to make a great forest filled with variety, like they did in Oblivion. Which is the same as the post you read, that SpeedTree was used by the designers, and now the forest it generated is there in the game, the same for all players. No one ever said the forests get generated on the fly (they don't)

Yes it works fine, will just stretch or whatever. Same with any game that doesn't "support" widescreen

It's easy enough to figure various parts of the Bible are figurative, metaphorical, whatever. For instance, I really doubt God and Satan really had a conversation in which they bet whether or not Job would remain faithful through his trials. And as far as Eve being literally made out of one of Adams ribs, fundamentalist crazy Christians can just kiss my butt on that one.

My laptop is widescreen, and a lot of my games aren't, so there are a couple options I have. 1. I can set it to only center the resolution, using the exact pixels. If the game is set at 640x480, this would make for a very small viewable game screen, because it will use just the center of my laptop screen. But since my laptop screen is 1280x800, if I use a game at 1024x768 it uses most of the vertical screen, looks pretty good, and nice and sharp to boot since there's no scaling. 2. I can set it to "fixed aspect ratio scaling" which will scale up the size but not stretch it, so a 640x480 game will be large up to the top and bottom, but the sides will be black, preserving the 4/3 ratio. 3. I can just set it to fully scale up and use the whole screen, stretching any 4/3 to my widescreen. I always use 3 just to have the biggest picture, and only at first did things look stretched wide a bit. Very soon I got very used to it and it looks completely normal to me now. The scaling does sacrifice some sharpness, but it's fine with me and I sort of consider it some free antialiasing. In fact, I've gotten so used to the wide stretch that when I do something on my desktop with normal 4/3 it looks squished to me! But then I get used to it being normal after a few minutes, so now I can go both ways just fine.

Very intersesting, I agree. I am also a faithful Christian, but I have no problem at all with science and evolution studies. A lot of believers think that it's blasphemy, but who are they do dictate the manner of God's creation? To them, God could only have waved his magic wand and POOF mankind is sitting there. I think God could have utilized and perhaps directed/steered the natural process of evolution in all the creation. If God is perfect, then wouldn't he be efficient? It's highly efficient to let a natural process do the work for you, and you only have to nudge it a bit here and there, or set it up well in the first place, or whatever. I don't want this to turn into a athiests vs believers discussion. I'm just mentioning that there are religious people out there that don't have a big bible belt problem with evolution and other science.

If Spielberg used a Sony Handycam it obviously would not look indistinguishable from his latest modern films, an no one ever said it would, that was never the point. The point is that he could use it to make a film that is like a quality 60's (or so) movie. And that would be MILES above crappy "funniest home movie" shots which are all obviously not even attempts at being good quality movies, but are just mom or grampa shooting the kids. That would illustrate that MOST of the difference is skill, lighting, etc, and that only part of it is the camera.

I think Gothic 2 has great swordfighting, once you really learn how it works with the controls and timing

Yeah, but try explain how a dwarf sees in the dark!

no, just a fan - fanatic (although maybe that means half nerd half mental)

If they went with your better definition, how round would be round enough? "That lump is too big, it's not a planet!" "Yes it is, a speroid doesn't have to be perfectly sperical you idiot!" Where to draw the line?

I agree, things will remain possible. It's not like no one can make independent low budget movies just because the typical Hollywood fare goes for 50 million nowadays. But back in 1915 people might have thought "crap, making films is getting too expensive for the little guy anymore, pretty soon only the big studios will be able to afford to do anything" But what do we have today - affordable high quality cameras, microphones, etc, allowing a couple guys to pull off pretty high quality stuff, and you can edit it all quite professionally on a decent PC as well. I think it's a fair analogy.

We call things whatever we WANT to call them. Our language is simply what we say, and that's that. Tradition, semantics, politics, all of those are valid things that affect our language. If you only want cold hard science to rule the day then life would be pretty drab. For instance, if we simply took a big poll and voted on what we should call planets, that is just as legitimate and valid as some strong and consistent scientific definition. It's not stupid, it's humanity.

I'm tempted, but I'm going to pass watching any more trailers or footage - I want to have the best experience I can when I open the box and fire it up in a couple months

Oh no, I actually find it harder to do anything serious with it. I only use it to watch TV, movies, and play games. If I do anything else, I switch the signal to my regular monitor on my desk to the side. That will probably turn you off to them! The reason is probably mostly due to the fact that the best way to look at the screen is to lay back on the couch. I can still play games this way because I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, which I can lay on my lap and next to me on a book on the couch. But to do something more than game controls just doesn't seem to work well in that position, and works better sitting nice and upright at a desk. (BTW, I mostly do all my serious stuff on my laptop anyway, so it also might be I'm just not used to working on the big screen)

I've always thought that Pluto has no business being called a planet. It's not just "not much smaller than Mercury", rather it's a LOT smaller. It's mass is around 1/20 of Mercury, it's diameter is less than half, making the 2D surface area appearance less than 1/4 Mercury. But more than that is it's location - way out there past all the gas giants, it's clearly just a large asteriod. You have the inner planets, small and rocky, then the gas giants, then this little puny twerp Pluto. To top it off, it doesn't follow the plane of revolution of all the other planets, it's over 17% off! It's on it's own. Sorry Pluto, goodbye dude, you never should have been invited to the party, our bad. I know my point of view isn't exactly scientific, but it's just based on my own personal "duh" factor.

Your best bet would probably be to read "Cinematography for Dummies" (if there is such a book), as it would cover all that stuff in a good basic introductory way

Until you get used to it... Sitting on the couch seeing my screen is a similar ratio to seeing a movie screen from about a little forward of center of the theater. It IS great and cool and stuff, but after time you just get spoiled by it!

Playing Oblivion on a huge wall is quite a trip though, highly recommended!

Well, that's good news then! Too bad I "only" have a 6800 GT, might have to upgrade at Christmas or maybe my birthday in March

Have you looked at projectors? They can be very sharp nowadays. I have a 800x600 one and I'm amazed at how clear each square pixel is on the large screen. I imagine the pixels could be one quarter the size (1600x1200) and still be pretty sharp little squares up close. I don't know what resolutions they can come it, but I'm sure they run the gamut.

okay

Okay, I got my insurance, and I opted to do full coverage instead of the basics, with just a $500 deductible, so the new total was $485 for a year. So if I damage it and need $1500 in repairs, I'm only out $500. Same deal if it's stolen, they'll give me the full value minus $500. I then got it registered and paid the "government steals from me because they can" $120 (5%) sales tax (why do I have to pay sales tax on a USED item??? The guy who bought it new paid the sales tax, that should be it, forever.) Now, after my wife gets off work at 2:00pm, we'll go and I can get my bike and ride it home!

Well, yesterday I bought a little 2002 Yamaha Virago 250, woohoo! I'm just about to run off to my insurance agent (who quoted me $270/year on it) to get that all set, then to the RMV for registration and plates, then back to the dealer to pick it up and ride home! The bike was $2400, with about 3500 miles on it, and it came with a few extras (gas tank "saddle" thingy, luggage rack, back seat-back). I'm excited! I know it's very small and probably not good for the highway, but around here I don't need to go on the highway anyway. Plus, I figure I'll probably sell it in about 18 months (spring '08) when I want to move up to a larger bike, and I believe I'll be able to get most of what I paid for it at that time, probably around $2000.

I like partition magic, has been very nice and helpful for me, and easy and clean too.

Well, you may be right over time, but I hope not!