Get a newer generation card of equivalent speed. It'll use less power. My GTX 560 runs fine on my 400 watt PSU. It's probably a ticking timebomb, but it runs fine max load nonetheless.

You're right about character interaction. That's what makes Saints Row 3 superior to GTA4.

I suppose I'm a little excited about it: it's a Rockstar game and when they release a new game, it's usually a big improvement of it's predecessor, at least technologically speaking. Hopefully they continue this behavior. So far, I really like the way they recreated Los Angeles. The textures aren't so depressing this time around and they've captured that golden California vibe pretty well.

GTA4 wasn't a bad game, it just lacked longevity IMO. The multiplayer was easily the best part and it's worth the money for that alone.

I run GTA4 perfectly with that same CPU. It's odd because when I changed motherboards, it fixed the stuttering I used to get. GTA4 would run terribly before, now I can run it maxed out without a single hitch. Idk what the framerate is but it's damn good no matter what settings I use, max view distance, all that jazz.

Your CPU and RAM is fine. If anything, maybe you can look into a new GPU or mobo. If you've got a cheap mobo, it could have compatibility issues with some games in my experience, but don't bother replacing it unless you can justify it with other features you want.

Try something from the Postal series. I haven't looked at the recent Postal 3, but I remember the original Postal was kind of funny. It got terrible reviews, but it might be up your alley. You could of course kills strangers, but you could also piss on them and burn them if I recall correctly.

It's not a bad card, especially for 35 bucks. Funny enough, I just upgraded from that a couple weeks ago. You can max out most pre-2007 games. Newer ones you'll need to lower the res and maybe some settings.

Agreed. Fantasy is fun, but I find that post-apocalyptic games get my attention more than anything. There's more room for conflict in these types of games. Usually there's the protagonist vs. some non-human threat vs. human threats and it makes for an interesting dillema.

Thought I would add.. The only time Steam Mover can corrupt files is when a game-related file is running in the background and you attempt to move the game. It won't exactly "corrupt" the file, it'll just fail to move it because it's in use, actually corrupting the installation. This file can be the game executable itself.. or some other file that runs alongside it. For GTA4, I've had issues with the Rockstar launcher. With Shattered Horizon, I've had issues with sh_server.exe.

Ultimately the fix for this broken installation would be to move the whole game back to the steam folder so that Steam Mover can recognize it correctly, then if you'd like, move it to your HDD.

Before you move a game, take a quick scroll through the processes and you can prevent this problem beforehand.

Boo hoo. If you do a little research beforehand, you'll have a PC that lasts long and doesn't cost an arm and leg. This involves building your PC as well. Any off-the-shelf PCs will be overpriced. Nowadays you can get a $100 CPU, $40 motherboard, $30 PSU, $30 case, $50 HDD, $15 optical drive, $35 for a couple gigs of RAM.. then get a GPU ranging from $100-$300 depending on how long you want your PC to last as a gaming machine. For $400-$500, you have a PC that can max out BF3 and run it relatively smoothly at 1080p; at nearly the cost of a launch-time PS3.

If that's too much for you, go ahead and play on consoles. Your loss. No one's here to laugh at you or ridicule you. No point. We're here enjoying smooth full 1080p(+) games with anti-aliasing- graphics that are likely equivalent to what the Xbox 720 and PS4 will deliver. We're not complaining. Some of us dish out a little more for our PC because we do more than play games.

There's nothing wrong with a console if you don't want to get your hands dirty with hardware and you just want to pop in the disk and play. That's respectable.

Since it said "flashing," it sounds like the BIOS attempted to update.. Unless something else was flashed, like the hard drive firmware. It's always good to have an Ubuntu Live disk sitting around somewhere when this stuff happens, or a laptop that can burn disks.

Either the HDD failed, some firmware is corrupt, or the PSU is failing, which is unlikely IMO. Look into updating the firmware for both the BIOS and the HDD. Of course make sure the molex connection is secured in the HDD, or even try another one for the heck of it.

Download Steam Mover. It allows you to switch one or more games to and from the HDD and original steam folder on your SSD in one click. Don't worry about installation errors or anything. Windows percieves the files to be in the original steam folder no matter what.

This works for non-Steam games as well but they'll need to be installed in the steam folder originally.