"Snake, are you okay? Snake?? Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake??!!"

why does this game run so poorly after less than an hour of straight playtime? It starts just fine, on high or ultra settings. Then after about 2 missions things start slowing down and eventually I get a low memory warning, accompanied by a complete slowdown.F1_2004

Right now there are many, many issues with the game. One of them is a bug that causes overheating of the video card because the game isn't properly frame capped. In other words the FPS (frames per second) can reach sky high levels to the point of frying your whole videocard.I know the game has been patched yesterday but I don't think they've fixed this bug already.

Some cards and setups (SLI) are more vurnable than others. I have a GTX 260 and I've encountered this bug myself. I've seen the FPS litterally go over 450 on my own pc.

You can check if this is your problem (you're description tells me it could be) by measuring your FPS. Press CTRL-ALT+F while playing and your FPS will show up in the top left corner of your monitor. Funny enough, the FPS reaches the highest levels on simple loading screens.

I found a small workaround for this problem. If your FPS reaches insane levels go to the options screen and activate V-sync. This forces the game to the default screen refresh rate of your monitor (probably around 60) which means your video card doesn't have to work so hard. V-sync can cause an overall performance drop though so try the game on high first instead of ultra.

BTW
If you want to know the temp of your video card download a program called Everest which monitors the heat and fan speed in your pc and look at the temperature of your videocard. Idle it should be around 45/55 Celcius (depends on case, cooling, etc.) and at full throtle 65/70 is acceptable. If your CPU or GPU goes above 75 you're bound for trouble.

Also, visit the official US forums and check some threads in the technical support section. I believe there's even a sticky there about this issue.

I've got two EU guest passes to give away:

-XC6BT4-27ER-FPNNPK-TRC2-289EED

-XCR29K-486E-T26WGN-WJYJ-BTWR2F

Better hurry if you're interested and please post here if you've activated one so other people won't waste their time.

(If you're not from the EU, you can still play. Singleplayer is the same. Multiplayer connects you to a EU server which probably means your ping will suffer.)

I own a retail version (which is region locked even before you install it) but from what I've heard, when you buy the game digitally through Battlenet you get to choose the region you want. Even when you're in Africa you will then be able to play on US servers.

There's now way you can rewind your decision though. Even if you buy the game through battlenet you'll need a different region account for Africa which literally means buying the game again.

Quick region question : if i live in Europe , can i buy from US region and pley with my friends from US ? if no - ill prolly give it a pass :/

kazakauskas

The game is completely region locked so if you want to play with EU/US friends you have to buy a second account. Even the official forums are region locked.

Also, you only get to create one character when you first start up the game. The name you give this character is the nick you'll carry for the rest of your SCII life. Singleplayer, multiplayer and forum posting.

There is only a very vague warning before you enter the name so there are massive amounts of complaints on the official forums from people who just entered their first name to play the campaign. Thinking they could choose their online nick later on. Some stories are truly heartbreaking. (There's a guy named EMILY (yes, caps and all) who let his girlfriend install the game and then there's BACKSTABBER who has to life with the fact that nobody wants to end up in a team with him in it.)

Names are not unique either. You'll get a random number behind your nick. That's it. There were lots of people who thought they were the one and only 'Zerg' only to find out later on they were just 'Zerg 2004l' and 'Zerg 20042'

Blizzard has stated they have no intention of changing the region lock or the name system anytime soon.

How about Dead Sublime :P

Personally I like abbreviations.

CBS – Can't Be Stopped
WTO – We Take Over

Although I think you need at least some rep in a game to carry those two with dignity.
So perhaps NSA (Non-Stop Action) or something.

It's a bit like boasting in a mature way plus people will always ask what the letters mean.
It's like a telephone that keeps on ringing, it's in human nature to pick it up. Asking leads to remembering. Forgetting sinister names is easy. I do it all the time. They are everywhere in online games.

I hate the new lay-out. I have a channel and youtube's gone from bad to worse in the last couple of months.
It now takes ages to check the statistics of my videos. It's full of bugs (my channel lists all of my videos twice. God knows why.)
The new comment section is a mess. People are less inclined to comment when they have trouble finding out how
and who their commenting on. You don't see star ratings in search result anymore. The star system wasn't perfect. Most people
either clicked on 1 or 5 on stars but at least you could quickly survey search results.

Just my luck. I had some free time last week and decided to make a new video. It's live for three or four days now. 1700 visitors...
I used to have a couple of thousand visitors in the first few days plus a lot more ratings.

Ah well, the times they are a-changin'. It's feels mighty good to blow of some steam though. Thanks for that TC!

BTW.
If you're bored or even worse, interested, here's the video I'm taking about. Is it really that bad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hpEKDc0oKA

You might get a 'this video is not available in your country' message however. Another great new feat :P

My all-time favourite is without a doubt Unreal Tournament 99. I don't care much for the rest of the series but I've played this one for three years straight online at least 2 hours every night and I'm not even a fan of FPS in general. (The game almost destroyed my wrists.)

Other all-time favorites:

-The 2d Commando games (Incredibly hard but oh so satisfying.)

-Age Of Empires II + expansion. (But Age of Mythology is just as great.)

-Grim Fandango (A masterpiece. This game demands a sequel! I bet most people who played it will strongly agree with me.)

Right now I'm really liking Grid. Best racer I've played on PC.
My 2009 GOTY was Plants vs Zombies. Such a cool and funny game.

In order to become an O.G. (Original Gamer) you've got to beat Battletoads and discover the exact location of the 'missing' Atari E.T. cartridges that were burried in New Mexico in 1984. (One quick Gamefaq check is allowed.)