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Well. The LAN party went smoothly, we played Crysis on LAN for 8 hours straight, then had some Counter Strike source fun. Ended our main gaming spree at 6 in the morning. Got about 3 hours sleep, then got up a cracked on with some more Crysis, followed by some Company of Heroes. It was good fun.
My graphics card didn't go as smoothly though...
It didn't come on Wednesday, as was planned, but arrived at the depot on Wednesday instead. They then put it up for 3Day delivery, to arrive on Friday. So, I was waiting on the Friday for it to arrive, at about 4 o'clock, I phoned up and asked them where it was, and they said that I should've been told that the card was out of stock. It was flagged for delivery on Friday, I was told it was coming on Friday, but it was actually going to come on Monday. I asked them if they could change it to another day, since I'd be at college until 5 on Monday, but they said, no, because I'd left it too late to change the date.
Sorry, what? They cocked it up, and then try to blame it on me when I ask them to change the delivery date. Christ, I could understand if I'd just rung them up and asked them out of the blue, but no, they were the ones which buggered it all up, by sending me a duff card in the first place, then wrongly telling me it was coming on Friday, and not telling me it was out of stock.
They tried to deliver it on Monday, but obviously no-one was there. So I phoned them, and asked them to deliver it on Wednesday. Which, to my surprise, they managed without fault. I then fitted the card in my machine, and found out that my motherboard wasn't going to play nice with the new one. Old card back in, online, for some unknown reason, I went back to eBuyer, despite them not being able to provide me with a decent service, and ordered an Asus P5N-E SLi Motherboard. Arrived next day with no trouble at all, replaced my old board, new card back in, and finally, it worked.
I think the original cock up was just a one off. So I'll keep going back there. They have very cheap prices, and free shipping on orders over £45. Which is good, since all my orders tend to be over £50 at least.
Anyway, with that over, I've been having some very good gaming sessions. I've been playing World in Conflict alot, which has some very impressive visuals. Also, I played through Portal again, and booted up Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Now I'd already played HL2 EP2, but I thought I'd whack it up to full, now I can. To everyone who says that graphics don't matter in games, they can shut the hell up, and go back to playing their point and click ASCII games or whatever it is they got that notion from. Playing through EP2 with the settings maxed really adds a whole new level to the game. The real-time shadows, the motion blur, the new particle system. All these new little extras, they really add to the experience, and the atmosphere. When your walking through a dark, area, which is a little spooky, and you turn on your flash light to illuminate the area, it illuminates some things, but it casts shadows on other things, so theres always going to be something hidden. It's not what you can see which is scary, it's what you can't. Which is why the new shadows are a nice little touch. The new particle system is very nice too. When you shoot an Antlion, and it explodes, rather than getting a very false looking 2d sprite, you get a nice big, gooey splat. Which although it's not much, the added realism really adds to the feeling that you're there, fighting that Antlion, rather than just telling some imaginary character what to do.
Well, it's the 31st. I've kept my pc working for the LAN party. I've avoided all urges to overclock, my CPU and Ram, update my BIOS, or do anything which could potentially go horribly wrong. Except of course buy a new Case, PSU and Graphics Card. The Graphics card, which was dead on arrival, got collected today, and I should have a new one the day after this one arrives at their returns department. It should arrive there today, but I'm not sure if they work on new years day, so I'm hoping to have one on Wednesday, however, I wouldn't say no if they tried to give me one tomorrow. A £200 Graphics card is a £200 Graphics card. The sooner the better.
Yesterday I fitted 2 friends new hardware for them. My friend Owen got a new case and Graphics card for christmas, so I fitted them. The case was an Antec P190. It a behemoth of a case. It barely fitted under his desk. But despite it's size, and the 5 Case fans, plus the 8800GT fan, and the Cpu fan, it's almost silent. It's pretty damned heavy too. I like it overall, but I think I'll stick to my Nine Hundred case. It looks like it's got a lot of raw power in it, no matter what you've got in there. Although, by Wednesday, I will have alot of raw power in there.
Another friend, Kai, bought himself, some new Ram, a new Mother Board, and a new CPU. Although that didnt go as smoothly. I put it all together. Somehow got T.I.M in my hair. Plugged it in, and WHOOSH! Nothing happened. The fans came on, but nothing hit the screen. No BIOS beeps. Nothing. Tried the old graphics card, since this happened to my 8800GT, but that didn't work. So, I took it all apart again, put the old stuff back in, and it all worked. Except the HDD got a windows error, and refused to boot up. So, we're going to take his HDD, put it in my pc, back it up, then format the disk, and do a complete reinstall.
I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly tonight. I've checked the Ring main, and we can support the PC's power requirements. I've got a 24 Port LAN switch, even though there's only 2 other people Pc gaming. I've got a few other people hopefully coming along later on to indulge in some Guitar Hero. I'm sure everything will be fine...
Well, seeing as it was me who wanted one, Scan ran out of 8800GT's, so I got the money to buy one when they come back in stock. Which happens to be now. So, With the money for that, and some extra money I got from family, I'm buying an XFX 8800GT Extreme, which has the pre-overclocked Memory, GPU core, and Shader Clock. Should run Crysis nicely. I'm also buying a new 700Watt Arctic Power PSU. It has Dual 22Amp rails, and another rail which I forget the ampage on, but it's the Dual rail which matters to me. The 8800 needs a combined ampage of 26A across all rails, so the 44 + whatever from the other will work nicely.
I'm also buying a new case. It's a really nice case, an Antec Nine Hundred. I was toying between a Cooler Master Stacker, an Antec P182 or 180, or the Nine Hundred. I decided on the Nine Hundred. I've got a P180 sitting in my room which belongs to my mum's boyfriend, which at some point, will come out of the box, and turn into an epic gaming rig. I like it, but I don't really want to open the front to access my drives. So I went against that. The Stacker has a £140 price tag, so that's out of the question, and according to alot of reviews, the Nine Hundred is a very nice case. I like it alot, and the deep blue L.E.D's on the 2 front 120mm fans look cool. Most coloured fans look cheap and nasty, but these are nice, they're a very deep blue, and aren't too bright or over the top. It also has a side window which looks pretty cool. It has a 200mm fan on the top too. and has a nice big inside volume, with separate cages for the PSU, HDD's and main component's. So cooling is very good.
I was also given Crysis, which I've been playing. I really like it. The game area's are huge compared to Farcry, and even on lowest detail, it still looks fantastic. My frame rate in huge gunfights in the middle of forests are questionable, but given the age of my current system, it's still pretty impressive, and mostly playable. I'm ooking forward to Unreal Tournament 3, World in Conflict and Quake War's, which I'll be purchasing tomorrow. Then, in the coming weeks, I'll upgrade my Mother Board, RAM, and Processor. I've got my eye on a Core 2 Duo E6850. It's a damn good piece of kit, and is the best money can buy without jumping into the small fortune range.
