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sneakytaffer

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Xarg, thanks for your help!

 

 

I know some things about computers. I know the very basics when it comes to hardware, but I do have a fairly good knowledge of computer programs. I know I can assemble computers without breaking them, I just want to make sure I don't plug something in the wrong way. Is it possible to plug in something the wrong way and fry the motherboard? The old computer I had was a damn good gaming computer with Windows XP. The motherboard could be upgraded to the extreme if I wanted too. How did I destroy it?

 

One day I pushed the master button on my surge protector to turn off the computer. I guess this sent an electrical surge from the power supply all the way to the motherboard! I WAS SOOOOOOO MAD THAT DAY!!!! I was so frustrated by my ignorance that I constantly wrote "fu**" in a notebook over and over again. xD

 

Anyway, want I want to do is buy a gaming computer with an upgradable motherboard and the basic hardware. If I can, I want to buy the desktop without a drive and use my Windows 7 drive that came with the eMachines computer. The ONLY flaw with this computer is the video card and ultimately the size of the case.

 

If possible, I want to salvage all the good hardware on my eMachines computer and transfer them to a gaming computer. Lets see, I got myself a good DVD drive, an excellent hard drive, and 2 (1gig) memory sticks. If I can buy a motherboard that is good for gaming, I can just use these three hardware parts instead of buying new ones for the gaming computer. I really DO NOT want to re-install another OS to my drive just to be compatible with the new motherboard.

 

Here are my three hardware parts. What gaming motherboard should I get for them?

 

 

 

Hard Drive: 320GB 7200rpm SATA (Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit)

 

Optical Drive: 16x DVD±R/RW SuperMulti drive Write max: 16x DVD±R, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+RW, 8x DVD±R DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 48x CD-R and 32x

CD-RW Read max: 16x DVD-ROM, 40x CD-ROM

 

 

Memory Cards: 2GB DDR2 dual-channel (2 × 1GB)

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The ability to pick up things and have it floating in front of you is fun at times, but it gets really annoying. In really tight spaces, I have to look completely up to turn around without hitting the object on the wall. I am not saying that I want this new ability to be gone, but perhaps you could have a setting that lets you hold things the old fashioned way?

 

Do you know that you can pull things in closer/push them out farther using next/prev weapon/inventory keys (mouse wheel by default)? I don't have much trouble turning around if I pull the object in close, first. Just like in real life, if you are holding something with your arm straight out as far as possible, it will bang into things more when you turn around. So hold it in closer if you want to walk around with it. We considered a system where this was done automatically for you, but decided it would take away too much control and end up being frustrating.

 

Re: Knockout to the face bug

I believe this is a combination of a melee bug and the failed KO animation that tilts their head down a lot (making it easier to hit the back of the head from over the top, which registers as a KO).

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To the best of my knowledge, most components will only fit in the slot they're intended to fit in to. The part you have to watch out for, is the little cables and plugs that go between components. Example being the little cables that come off the bottom right corner (as you look into the pc with the cover off) for the power/reset/front usb/pc speaker etc. You CAN break stuff by getting those wrong, though it'd usually be something like breaking whatever usb device you plugged into the front ports if you put the usb lead onto the wrong pins. Otherwise, actually assembling a pc is pretty foolproof.

 

A workaround to reinstalling the OS might be to upgrade 1 component at a time, though that may limit you in your motherboard/cpu choices.

Intel Sandy Bridge i7 2600K @ 3.4ghz stock clocks
8gb Kingston 1600mhz CL8 XMP RAM stock frequency
Sapphire Radeon HD7870 2GB FLeX GHz Edition @ stock @ 1920x1080

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Do you know that you can pull things in closer/push them out farther using next/prev weapon/inventory keys (mouse wheel by default)? I don't have much trouble turning around if I pull the object in close, first. Just like in real life, if you are holding something with your arm straight out as far as possible, it will bang into things more when you turn around. So hold it in closer if you want to walk around with it. We considered a system where this was done automatically for you, but decided it would take away too much control and end up being frustrating.

 

 

 

I know that you can pull them closer. Sometimes you can pull them as close as possible and still hit things. Maybe I am just too used to the original Thief games. The bow sight is what I would recommend the most.

Edited by sneakytaffer

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it took me ten minutes to workout how to hit the last target in the training mission, you aim at the top of the gate behind the target, then line up that height with the target, then you can hit the target.

 

Medieval longbow were considered siege weapons, or arial bombament weapons, as in they were shot into the air above advancing enemy targets, to rain down on them, the longbows they recovered from the ship the mary rose, were found to have a pulling strength of 120 pounds, were 6 foot long, and its believed that to fire them you lay on your back put the wooden part under your feet and pulled the string back with your hands wrapped in leather. Although the string would have been catsgut, which is dryed sheep intestings. Bowmen were expected to train for a minimum of four hours a day, everyday, some kings even went as far as banning them from playing football (or soccer depends where you come from,) to make them practice using bows.

 

There were short bows, they were used for mainly hunting deer and other such rodents, sometimes for shooting people, dont know the pulling strength for them.

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I know that you can pull them closer. Sometimes you can pull them as close as possible and still hit things. Maybe I am just too used to the original Thief games.

"As close as possible" is a tweakable number for each item. It's quite possible that the closest distance needs tweaking on a lot of items so that you can hold them closer.

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Throwing in here as I don't think every thought deserves a new thread... and this "thought" is one I'm just sort of repeating anyway (sorry if this is more resolved than I realize...):

 

I'm getting the same kind of jumpy/stuttering play with "Dufford" as I did with "Heart"...

 

I wonder if it has to do with the physics engine? I've seen a few screenshots of people coming back to bodies and such and seeing them "still settling". These two missions are rich with manipulatable(?) objects, and I love me some manipulationing(?) :laugh:

 

So, I wonder if all the things that are in play, still maybe settling, in the background are causing the latest buggy-ness? I wonder if there is a way to determine? I wonder if there is a bit of logic that could be applied to tell things to cease settling after x minutes or seconds? That might create a ruinous mess, though.

 

So, are physics-aware/manipulateable objects sort of "inactive" until fiddled with and then "forever-thereafter active"?

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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So, I wonder if all the things that are in play, still maybe settling, in the background are causing the latest buggy-ness? I wonder if there is a way to determine? I wonder if there is a bit of logic that could be applied to tell things to cease settling after x minutes or seconds? That might create a ruinous mess, though.

 

So, are physics-aware/manipulateable objects sort of "inactive" until fiddled with and then "forever-thereafter active"?

No. They are only active as long as they're moving, once they come to rest they're inactive until something collides with them again. The only times where they could remain active is if they keep moving because energy is entering the system unrealistically. This can happen in badly designed ragdolls and stuff floating in water with bad parameters.

 

There is a console command to hilight active moveable objects. I forget what it is, but it's probably "rb_showactive 1". You can check the console commands.

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There is a console command to hilight active moveable objects. I forget what it is, but it's probably "rb_showactive 1". You can check the console commands.

 

Ah, very handy. Thanks. I suppose I should get as acquainted as possible with all the console commands, because I'd really like to see a "count" account of physically active objects. Something has got to be causing this "new" stutter-lag and, though I'm not one to ghost per se, I do have a play style that I use to lend ~realism to my game. This involves closing all the doors and windows I creep through and hiding the bodies too... so, to my understanding, level designer implemented visiporting schemes should not be being destroyed. Only thing I can't imagine is the buildup of active physics.

 

Thanks again.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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if you leave too many doors open in dufford your frame rate will suffer, your like rendering everything in the map if you open all the doors, the visportals that control what you can see and cant see are mainly in the doorways, and are open or shut depending on the state of the door, not the state of, are they in view or not, if one visportal is open to an area, then that whole area is drawn in the background.

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As I said, though... I close all the doors and windows (or leave them as they were before I got there at the very least). It's my way of playing as if these things would be noticed. If there is one person you can count on for this , it's me. If the visiportaling is being correctly mapped, then this is not the issue. I close every door and window I slip through.

 

The reason I think it might instead have to do with physics-in-the-background is that along with the above... I also have a play-style that involves picking up and spinning round every damned thing! :) I love this aspect of TDM! Mucho potentiality. Very nifty.

 

So, the way the stuttering goes, and the evidence of coming back to, say, bodies, that have long since been dropped and finding them still settling, leads me to wonder if that isn't exactly what is building up and causing these longer more filled-out missions to "gather momentum" (in a detrimental sense) as they get played through.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Well, I went back in to a save that eventually gets "the stutters". There were only a couple of items in "still active" -- a hat wedged (de-wedged and layed it nicely; it stopped) and a feather (feathers apparently never can settle unless maybe you can get them just right back in the inkwell).

 

So, I was wrong -- as most probably knew.

 

But, I got me a complete list of console commands and cvars, so I can check other things from here on out.

 

BTW, one of the commands listed in the Wiki, g_showCollisionModels, doesn't work? I'm pretty sure I'm typing it correctly and it's simply not recognized. But there are many other things I think I can use to find out such things. I've been playing about a bit with the extensive list...

 

One thing that I thought might be a problem because it too seems to be not completely ironed out as yet is sound (ambient especially, I think). So I typed in "listAudios" to see if they are just accumulating and perhaps a source of trouble)... instant crash to OS. That's where I am now. Gonna keep looking into that I guess.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Just to partly correct one point:

 

Leaving doors open definitely may slow down performance on low end systems but note it does not force rendering through every door that is open.

 

When a door is open it does not directly open the visportal. What it does is stop it being forced closed. So, once a door is open then its visportal functions like other, non-door visportals. When you go round a corner it will close whether the door is open or not. So leaving a door open only increases rendering if you are in line with it and even only through that door up to the next visportal that is out of line. Nevertheless the effect can be heavy if you are in a small room with the door open to a complex large hall or open area so recommended on low end systems. :)

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I am still unsure about what you mean by stuttering. Is it like a drop in frame rate that persists for a few seconds or longer, or does the game just "stop" shortly while framerate keeps up

 

This is something that has started either with these latest 2 big missions (Heart and Duffords) OR maybe with TDM 1.01. Can't be sure which is the "culprit".

 

Basically, after playing "a wayz" into these missions, I am getting what I describe as stuttering. It's like my player is slogging through a mire and having to "pull" his way out of each step.

 

If I exit TDM entirely and come back in a reload from where I was... I'll be alright... for a while. Then the slows come again.

 

I'm also getting a bunch of crashes (many manifestations/varieties) now too. I say a bunch, but they aren't usually annoying as they most frequently happen when I'm exiting or dead or pushing the limits of the mission in one way or another anyway.

 

I have an Quad 8200, with 4GB, an 8800 and am running xpsp3x86 (I know its not the most perfect fit of OS to CPU and RAM, but I'm still not convinced {though I'm reallllllly close} it even yet time to go 64bit and/or W7).

 

I never had any lagging at all before TDM 1.01 (or, as I say, it might be the bigger missions, but something is "off").

 

Not bitching of course; just looking to figure things out.

 

...

 

Basically, to answer your question. It's a wildly fluctuating FPS thing, yes, this "stuttering".

Edited by aidakeeley

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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For me, I'm a bit unsatisfied with the current alarming-status of the guards. When the get alarmed by a noise and start looking for me, it's just so easy not to get caught. It would be very nice (in the higher level of difficulty) if there would be a script that they take a torch for better view, or if they are two guards one could run for help (e.g. if there were more alarms)

 

Now i just have to sneak into a dark edge, not very far away from the alarming-point and take a coffee and wait.

 

It would also be challenging (in the highest level of difficulty) if there was a place (for example barracks) where almost unlimited guards could be coming out (compared to the Commandos games - or at least a lot of them) - if a guards gets alarmed and runs for help, he could take 2 other guards from the barracks who will help him with looking for the thief. They will stay a bit longer looking for him, but when they give up, they would go back into the barracks.

Edited by Berny
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Those things are already possible. It's just up to mappers to make use of them.

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I think this is an issue with how some of the music is setup in some maps. It will probably require some looking into and testing.

 

I have observed that many of our "ambient" musics, while very good, are not all that "ambient", and have far too much dynamic range to be able to sit comfortably under the game audio without either being inaudible in places or overpoweringly-loud.

 

I would be more than happy to look at this myself (being now fully tooled-up with music software), but sadly we seem not to have the source WAVs for many of our sounds, which means that decompression and recompression of Vorbis would be required.

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Those things are already possible. It's just up to mappers to make use of them.

 

You know, you just destroyed all my negative critique of TDM! Other negative things are just peanuts, or less diversion (in AI,grafics, ect) - but this IS constantly getting better.

 

 

Oh man, You wear me down

 

 

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I have observed that many of our "ambient" musics, while very good, are not all that "ambient", and have far too much dynamic range to be able to sit comfortably under the game audio without either being inaudible in places or overpoweringly-loud.

 

I would be more than happy to look at this myself (being now fully tooled-up with music software), ...

 

It seems you´re the right guy for telling you what I dislike very much: In every mission I played until yet, the music/fire-sounds disappear (nearly all that´s ambient), when loading a savegame. This happens when I played 2 or 3 hours. Or it has to do with how much of the level is 'in the savegame', I don´t know and I guess it´s not fixable right now, but I want you to know!

 

And yes, sometimes the music is too loud, and sometimes very hard or not hearable, or it is only hearable, if a door is opened!

-> Crisis of Capitalism

-> 9/11 Truth

->

(hard stuff), more
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It seems you´re the right guy for telling you what I dislike very much: In every mission I played until yet, the music/fire-sounds disappear (nearly all that´s ambient), when loading a savegame. This happens when I played 2 or 3 hours. Or it has to do with how much of the level is 'in the savegame', I don´t know and I guess it´s not fixable right now, but I want you to know!

 

And yes, sometimes the music is too loud, and sometimes very hard or not hearable, or it is only hearable, if a door is opened!

 

Do you have EAX enabled? I have been experiencing strange things like this lately, I think I toggled it shortly beforehand... hmmm

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Yes, I´m using Surround and EAX 4.0 HD.

 

...

 

Damn it, you´re right! It´s the EAX 4.0 HD!! After I deactivated it, I loaded the 'corrupted' save and the music was playing!

 

Damn, damn, damn! Only for Thief I´ve buyed my 5.1 headphones (zalmann) and now they´re not working with the DarkMod!:(

The Surround-functon works fine, but the sound is not as good as before...

 

Note: In non-EAX-mode I saved and quit the game. Then I re-activated EAX and loaded the save and all was fine again! Even the tourches and all! I saved again and loaded again, all gone again. It works fine until I have to load a game. This will add more tension when I´ll play future missions, no quickloads allowed. I say quickload, but this effect is on Menu-Loads as well!

Edited by LEGION

-> Crisis of Capitalism

-> 9/11 Truth

->

(hard stuff), more
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