I'm thinking about getting a new computer with Vista Home Premium Edition and Windows Media Center. I work nights, so I want to be able to set my computer to record over the air HDTV shows and analog cable tv shows to the hard drive. I would like the card to be able to record in 720p as a mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 so I can burn my own Blu-Ray disks. If I get a 720 Gig hard drive, will that be enough, or should I get a 1 Terabyte hard drive?

The specs on the computer I'm ordering: Dual core (12MB) 3.0 GHz, 8 Gigs RAM, GeForce GTX 285 graphics card.

Thanks!

I have a Geforce 8600GTS. The worst problems I'm having is with Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, and Red Faction. With both of the Splinter Cell games, light sources don't cast any light on the walls or floor. For example, in Splinter Cell when you get to the part where you're outside the sliding glass doors that lead to the server room in CIA headquarters, the middle part of the hallway is brightly lit. When I play it on my pc, that entire hallway is pitch black, but my light meter still goes up when I walk to the center of the hallway. The same kind of thing happens all through Pandora Tomorrow. There will be a window, doorway, or light bulb, but there is no light being cast on the wall or floor. For Red Faction, the picture is such a jumbled up mess that I can't even play it.

So, for fun I installed those games on my sister's computer, which has a Geforce FX5200. To my shock, all of those graphics problems were gone. All the lighting effects are exactly how they are supposed to be, and Red Faction looks perfect. The problem is that I have to put all the settings to low and put it on 640x480 to get more than 5 frames per second on her computer. Is the 8600GTS that big of a piece of junk, or is it that those games don't support anything above the Geforce 5 series. Would those problems go away if I upgraded to a 9800GTX or a GTX 275?

Also, is there much of a difference between the Soundblaster X-Fi Extreme Audio and the X-Fi Extreme Gamer sound card? How about the X-Fi Titanium?

I downloaded Velvet Assassin from Steam so I could use the cheats from the trainer because the console version is so frustratingly hard. My specs are: dual core 2.66 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, and a GeForce 8600 GT. The only way this game will run liquid smooth is if I turn every setting to the minimum, turn off anti-alaising, and set it to 800x600. If I turn even one setting (especially the resolution) up one notch, the game is absolutely unplayable. It runs at like 5 frames per second, no joke. The thing is, I can run games like Bioshock, Doom 3, and FEAR with every setting at maximum at 1440x900, and there's not so much as a hiccup in the framerate. So, I don't get it. Is it just poor programming or what?

Would another graphics card help? I've been thinking about a GeForce 9800 GTX. The thing is, I don't know if my power supply is enough for a 9800, or if it will fit in my computer. How do you find out what your power supply is?

Resident Evil 2

Silent Hill

Tomb Raider 2

Reading the review at IGN has convinced me not to pick up my pre-order. The review said that you are under attack every second of the game by swarms of enemies. This kind of thing is not fun and enjoyable at all to me. It is very frustrating and infuriating to get slaughtered every 10 seconds. I like corridor shooter / action type games where you only encounter 1 or 2 enemies every once in a while, and have lots of down time.

so.. anyone playing it, and how far are you./ im just back at the house after killing the plant thing in some other place.. lol this game sure does have great cutscenes., i used to own it back on the ps1 but sadly sold just about all my games including this one. i wasnt a fan of it back then because i was a little kid and didn;'t know what the hell i had to do. plus, i never owned a memory card for the ps1

iamshivy

Heck, I was 27 years old when the game first came out, and I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. Pretty sad huh. In fact, I got so tired of always being out of ammo and dying so much that I bought the Gameshark. Even now, at 39 years old, I can only beat it on Beginner.

Holy crap! I keep my ethernet cable plugged into myXBox 360 all the time, so Inever know what's on the PSN. I didn't even know about RE DC being on there until right now. I just bought it andit just finished downloading. This and Infamous will take up my whole weekend. Plus, I still have to finish Velvet Assassin, FEAR 2, Saints Row 2, and Dead Space on the 360. There's not enough time for everything!

Anyway, I'll really be happy when or if they put the original Silent Hill on the PSN.

What I find annoying is:

The dashboard. I want the blade menus back.

You can't use a SD card. I want to be able to download other people's game saves and transfer them to my 360, back up all my saves to my PC, and to be able to copy music and pics to the 360 with a SD card instead of ripping a disk.

Certain 360 game saves and all XBox game saves are locked to the hard drive,which means you lose those saves forever if something happens to your hard drive because they can't be copied to a memory card.

They don't make memory cards that are 1 Gig or more.

I wish they would just make a completely new Half Life instead of all these episodes. I also wish they would remake the first Half Life, HL Blue Shift, and HL Opposing Forcewith current gen graphics.

Space Station Silicon Valley (N64)