: The Nexus of PC Gaming

can i say first?

lol
then second i am...
no new sales ..>_<

Huhu v6 already...

Then i forth LOL

Congratz for the V6

Gratz on V6.
Time for me to go bac cave 2moro n hibernate a while wit all d sales game

Mid week sales tomorrow?

cant be bothered bout sales now.. CNY approaching, need to set aside money for new furniture, angpao, travelling expenses for hometown trip, new shirt, and hopefully new gaming gears...

Gonna set the money aside till end of year. Gonna need to "teng, teng, teng, teng" jor..

I just gonna get a new chair for my PC and get several tailored suits.

congrats to johnny!

wallet tak cukup lobang?

lol

after that set aside money for diapers, milk powder..

Sien, have to upgrade computer to play new games soon. Things like Hot Pursuit and what not should get a hefty discount this year so I need to prepare for those games.

hello v6

first page!

Gratz
plan till so fast...tis yr marriage, tis year new born

wait for CNY angpow... then only consider what to buy

the only purchased i made was Borderland GOTY , no more steam games for this year

2011 to buy list:
Dead space 2, home front, crysis 2, dragon age 2, mass effect 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Fallout: New Vegas GOTY (if release), Rage, the witcher 2.... that's about it.

Hmm.. my wishlist would be in any order, Test drive unlimited 2, bulletstorm, bf3, Diablo 3 *years and counting*, NFS:shift 2. Not too shabby heh.

It's killing when u have a pc and a ps3. So many game to play but little time and money. Gonna play kau kau be4 2012

This post has been edited by xXAaronXx: Jan 11 2011, 05:44 PM

Shift 2
Mass Effect 3
Witcher 2

I think thats it for now. I doubt 2011 will be as good as 2010 in terms of games.

no luv for nanosuit cheese?
WTG List Q1 2011
Shift 2 (if the handling is good for me )
ME 3
Witcher 2
Crysis 2
Deus Ex : Human Revolution (gonna wait for review before hit it, so far seems so good)

How about Brink and Red Orchestra 2? No one's waiting for those games?

I'm waiting for Brink... although I'm getting less and less excited about it. Set a release date already! (--->this is what I thought 3 months ago, and they still didnt put the release date)

This post has been edited by dazealot: Jan 11 2011, 08:54 PM

just waiting for portal 2 and warhammer 40k retribution for now

no one wanted Assassin Creed Brotherhood ?

Nah, not exactly interested.

Oh yea, Brink,but hope it also runs on dedicated servers.

for its multiplayer? not for me, n even din play AC II wait till tis year end sales n without its DRM 1st

my top want list for for 2011 would be

Assassin Creed Brotherhood & Diablo 3

and bottom line have

Dota 2
Portal 2
Crysis 2
Torchlight 2
Battlefield 3

This post has been edited by KHOdin: Jan 11 2011, 10:44 PM

For sure buying DoTA 2..others..well..see my wallet then

I will wait and see about DOTA...
Ah beng come, I rather save my money and buy other Valve game.

oh ya forget about Dota 2 ....

most hon players who got ditch would be wanting dota2 XD

i guess most Ah beng wont pay for a games...would they ? most of my dota friend dont even know what is steam ...

lol . how do they get their dota then ?
I thought u need BNet to play online ?

there is sumthing with tons of hacker and those nothing to say people...gayrena

yea most dota player will be on gayrena or CC ....at least the ppl i know la....

My wish list is diablo 3 and Deus EX Human Revolution. other game will see on the review

Since the news about DotA 2 released, I gave DotA up and waiting for the new DotA2 to be released.
Hope that it will substitute the original version of this game. Lol~...
Support Valve!

Whether they can afford or not, you can't deny there's actually ah beng who can afford the game. Our time teenage, can we afford even the cheapest handphone? No. But nowadays kids 13 years old already holding an iphone. WTF

phone different. Most kids/teenager only know how to buy pirated dvd or copy from friends.

wonder if they got the news about Dota 2 ... they dont even know steam
but i think Dota 2 will spread easily la maybe will bring those rich ah beng to steam community too ...

Why do they need to know about Steam to know Dota 2? Don't you know the piraters runs games on Steam without Steam?

but for source games like TF2 and CS Source, somehow they are not popular among pirates, at least from what I can see in gayrena. But somehow like left 4 dead 2, every user will have trouble connecting when some patched, some dont and with constant update like tf2, i dont think it's easy for people to follow up.

You'd be surprised about how much efforts those piraters put to get these peoples up-to-date with whatever updates coming on to Steam. TF2 yes, not popular among them, but CS:S, there's large base of them playing online.

usually i just copy all the content in the \Steam\steamapps , whenever i want to install the game again , i just copied to the new folder and let steam verify the game cache

nvr try this kind of backup before , will try

Blacklight: Tango Down is 50% off, now going for USD7.49.

Price drops for certain games such as:
1. Mafia 2
2. Borderlands GOTY
3. Transformers
and etc.

I don't see this?

Steam Sales, Special and etc

If you want to restore backup fast, then just use the copy files method as using backup it'll take some times, but I like to keep my backup managed and streamlined, so I'll know which files are for which games.

If you use the backup function from Steam. When it installs each game it contacts steam to verify your copy/check updates and etc. So more often than not, it would hang if there are several large installs. If you want to backup a lot of games. Directly making another copy, then using a day to archive them using 7zip or Winrar should achieve the same resulting size.

i dont think diablo will come to steam ever...

have u see these games on steam?
WoW, W3, Diablo 2, SC2

And when you just copy and paste and let Steam verify/check updates and etc, won't it hang as it will be doing the same thing?

If you copy and paste, you have the choice of verifying each game one by one, if you install via a batch install file, you'll have to stare at the installation screen for a loooong while.

As advised by a member, it's not wise to make a single backup containing ALL games in it, which is a stupid thing to do in the first place. I always separate my backups.

ewww... i got region locked

it didnt have to be
do both backup

the whole steam folder and backup via steam
the restore took 1 blink only

it add registry to your PC as well

I would now like to recount my attempt to playthrough the entire Prince of Persia Sands of Time Trilogy (Before trying out the latest in the series, Forgotten Sands), all of which I acquired during the last Steam sales.

So, first I get Sands of Time. My rose tinted glasses of recall + 2 tell me that the game had good story, voice acting, platforming (Which wasn't great, just interesting and fun) but had boring combat and lame boss fights. When I first fired it up, the first thing that hit me was the random slowdowns that kick in every now and then (Especially during the cutscenes). So, off I go to the Steam forums to find a solution... Turns out, the game doesn't understand what dual core CPUs are, so you have to disable one core. No biggie. Random slowdowns occur less often but still come in during the in-game cutscenes. But that's not the biggest issue.

The biggest issue was still the controller support. I got this series fully expecting to play it with my Xbox 360 controller and this game didn't support it quite well (Menus couldn't be controlled with it for one). Plus, there was this annoying bug that would happen whenever I change the Prince's running direction, where he would suddenly start walking in a direction instead of continuing his run (Something to do with the diagonal axis detection working not quite right).

Anyway, the game proper seemed inline with my rose tinted glasses' prediction (Except the cutscenes which aged badly). Finished it in 2 sittings and so proceeded to Warrior Within after that.

I liked Warrior Within despite the bad rock music and gothic undertones. The platforming was harder and more challenging (But less awe inspiring like SoT) and the combat was pretty sweet.

But, unlike SoT, the first hitch happened before I even fired up the game. The game, refused to start. The configuration utility that starts actually has the "Launch Game" button greyed out despite checking ever checkbox in the requirements. Looked up the Steam pages and found no such issue with anyone else. Desperate, I looked up the requirements of the game in the game's store page, and I made a horrible discovery...

Supported OS: Windows® 2000/XP (only)

I'm running Vista.

Crap, there goes my quest to finish the trilogy before the new game. Will I need to do a quest to do a dualboot with XP or just give up? Undeterred, I tried various tricks to try to get it to work (Starting the game from the folder, messing around with some compatibility options) and then I found it! Administrator rights enabled and go!

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that silly fog fix that I need to hack into the config because of the engine's quirkiness on nVidia cards.

Fired up the game proper and lo and behold, slowdown is still there... But at least the controller walk bug is gone. So, after putting one core to sleep, I was off on the Prince's quest to save himself from the Dahaka, except that the slowdown WAS STILL THERE. Disabling the extra core just LESSENED the slowdown, it was still prevalent in just about every cutscene, and in random locations around the game (I'm guessing about 40% of the time). To add insult to injury, the slowdowns differed in scale. When there was a lot of ambient light, quite slow, when there was water, a little slow, a lot of fog, super slow. There was also those weird slowdowns that kicked in whenever the camera moved, resulting in combat and platforming being quite frustrating to do.

In spite of all that crap, I pushed on... Rose tinted glasses started cracking a little (So, now its +1 instead of 2). The platforming wasn't that challenging, but was mostly uninspiring and the constant backtracking annoyed me quite a bit. The Dahaka chase scenes which I thought were pretty good, turned out to be pretty crap instead. The voice acting was bad and the story was even worse than I remember. The combat just felt frustrating instead of hard as I struggled in those multi-enemy encounters way too much (To think that I actually finished this game in Hard before) and the boss fights were quite stressful on my old self. Funny thing was, the music wasn't that bad or maybe I've just gotten better at zoning out horrible emo metal.

The worst part about this revisit was realizing that the camera is really crap compared to SoT. It often lingers too long, way too lazy and amazingly enough, it sometimes doesn't show where you're supposed to go correctly (Which was one of the best things about SoT, whereby the camera guided you're platforming path), which results in a lot of needless deaths and rewinds.

After perhaps 14 stonking hours battling both the enemies and the game itself, I was finally done with it... Well, not quite. In my haste, I only picked up a handful of the Life Upgrades, so I only got one ending and was too half-arsed to get the rest... So, I downloaded a save file and tried to do battle with the Dahaka... After a few attempts, I was at this point quite aggravated by the game and just quit entirely and moved on to the next game, hoping at least that my rose tinted glasses were wrong for the next game as well.

I never quite liked The Two Thrones. I felt like it was the uncomfortable middle child of SoT and WW where it had quite inspiring platforming and passable combat, but nowhere near as good as either for each. So, as I fired up the game, I figured "Ok, this one probably works in Vista since it might be using a new engine". It didn't. Upon starting the game, the same configuration utility starts up and the same issue is repeated. Check Steam store page, and same requirements. So, I decide to check the SoT page to see if that one had the same requirements.

It did.

So, in effect, I'm playing all three games on an unsupported OS, so all my experiences are technically tainted... But whatever.

Admin rights enabled, one core to sleep and go! Ok, slowdown bug is almost non-existent this time (Except in some ingame cutscenes) but all is not clear, because the stupid diagonal axis walk bug is back! AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!! Oddly enough, it didn't interfere with my experience as much since it almost never happened. Probably because there were less static cameras being used now (Which was often when that would kick in).

Played through the game until I reach the last boss. Story's really bad, but at least they got the original voice back for the Prince (WW's one was godawful) and he reminded me of the SoT Prince (Which is good). I also now smash my proverbial rose tinted glasses as my impressions of the game beforehand were completely off.

The platforming was quite atrocious (Just boring really) and the combat wasn't as bad as I remembered (But still boring mostly and the stealth kills were lame). The boss fights were quite meh and the chariot races were sterile. But the biggest crime of all... Was the voice acting of everyone else and the script.

Farah and the Vizier... Aside from the fact that these two characters now had American accents, they had moronic dialogue as well whereby they use modern slang phrases that kill the atmosphere completely. The really sad part is, that the Prince speaks EXACTLY like he does in SoT (The whole regal and dignified talking style which was perfect) and these two other jokers seem to be doing everything in their power to kill it instead.

I mentioned earlier, I had just hit the last boss... Up until this point, all of the bugs on modern systems, didn't do anything to hinder my progress or spoil my experience... Except when I hit the last boss. During the second phase of the battle where he floats around (Waiting to be QTEd), and the floor has these rotating rocks that you have to avoid (Meaning you need to be quite fast on your feet), the stupid controller walk button kicks in. It doesn't just "kick in", it lands its foot square up your asshole and goes so far in that you can taste the rubber sole. The walk happens EVERY TIME you try to turn while running simply because its using a single camera in the middle of the arena. It made it almost IMPOSSIBLE to win using a gamepad as I would constantly walk face first into rocks or just fail to mount the boss.

I finally had to resort to using the keyboard to get around this issue. And once I did, the ending that I got didn't seem like a proper reward.

So, after about a week, I was done with the trilogy and was now read y to start the next in the series... Forgotten Sands. Now, after realizing how much I liked the Prince's voice actor, I decided to wiki the game to find out... And I find out something else instead: Forgotten Sands takes place between SoT and WW... Meaning that I didn't need to play through the two prequels beforehand. Also, Forgotten Sands is like 6.5 gigs, which is slightly smaller than the first three games combined. I passed. Maybe later.

And that's my retro adventure with the Sands of Time Trilogy.

tl;dr:
Don't play it if you have any PC built after 2006.

That's... two backups. Considering your library size Edison, you'd need to have like whut, 2 tbs to do 2 backups?

Last time when I copy pasta'd the whole thing which is about 300gbs, I can just choose 5 games at a time and do the verification then. Took me 2 hours to copy pasta and verify everything.

Orange Box installation took me dua jam with shitty koneksion. That's before patches. ._.

yeap, usually can plan when to upgrade your PC and shit right?
so u can do those backup ealier so wen u reinstalling the whole thing it took lesser time

on the other fact

I dont have that much games as kianweic, but i wont say i have few games as well
took me about 3 hours for steam backup and 2+ hours for manual backup
but ofcourse, while copy and backup your PC is damm heavy, playing a movie also a problem, so i leave it overnight and done on the next morning

(i still like retail because it can still install on my separate D drive. C=1TB, D+ 1TB)
so i doesnt need do to any uninstall and reinstalling most of my games for years


i kena once the steam backup kaput, luckily i just have a few games back then
but if u use manual backup, your games wont appear in registry

btw if you do both backup, u can sekali gus backup your steam game in 1 copy, it just reverify the file instead of installing them

1TB is like cheap ass HDD nowadays.

thanks H@H@ for comprehensive feedback on prince of persia series.
i using win xp, i hope i dun run into that many problems.


regarding games not appearing in registry, that is not a problem, yes?

i just like keep my programs tidy, thats all
so many games in steam, u woint know which later need reconise your game registry or not
better safe than sorry

Well, if steam doesn't create a registry entry, first run of the game will.

Yupp, one of the good things about steam. I don't need to worry about registry. I can just do a manual copy to a clean pc with steam and install. First run if registry not found, will install it. I really don't see the need to use steam's backup option so long i have a copy from the /steamapps. I should really think about having a backup scheme going on. Even with 1TB, on my current catalogue about 600 GB worth. Its filling up fast Not to mention other DD/Retails.

Thanks for the review H@H@, was thinking of getting PoP but having imagine going thru all the pain, i'll pass heh.

This post has been edited by ashx: Jan 13 2011, 12:14 PM

Can I ask something?

My TF2 every time update then is update 2 gb. I don't think the update is that big.

Is it really 2 GB or is it my computer not good? (I install it in external hard disk)

erm mine is around 200mb is normal,

maybe u get extra hatzzzz?

lol, nope. Everytime update also 2 Gig. damn annoying.

Can anyone login to Steam now ? This morning i could enter without problem in office, and around 9am I had update and restart steam, again no problem entering.

Now when I returned to office, it couldn't enter, stuck at connecting status.

Anyone can confirm this? I am downloading some games at home ><

well i am in steam right now never disconnect ...

I can't connect either. Used to be able to connect at office through VPN, but now even VPN doesn't work.

Steam games only go on sale after 1 or 2 years after the game is released? Damn with steam selling games so cheap, i'm still seeing these ignorant people. Sorry guys, just ranting. Had to spend money to go to s'pore to warranty my x360.


http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...&#entry39271235

Cheapskates always cheapskates, especially when they're used to it.

I also can't connect to Steam now

Edit: I'm able to connect again after changing my IP

This post has been edited by username: Jan 13 2011, 04:07 PM

>< What is the odd that my steam download still ongoing?
Damn, I still got like 3-4 more games to do, shiat.

Yeah, I didn't change any IP (as it's on VPN = same IP always) but suddenly I was able to connect. Steam server down perhaps?

Now back at home, my steam able to connect, since friday is my day off, I can only try on my Laptop this saturday.

Well, it's impossible to avoid bumping into these kind of people. Just ignore them, move along & know that you don't belong in the same group as them.

If my friends mentioned something about pirated games, I'll either educate / lecture / change the topic / make the indifferent facial expression, depending on how close they are to me.

edited.

This post has been edited by Mr.Beanster: Jan 13 2011, 07:37 PM

wrong post -.- tot ac2 is the new one..should be brotherhood is the new one

This post has been edited by sasaug: Jan 13 2011, 10:44 PM

AC:B with multi player a sure buy game for me .... as i am also AC and AC2 fans

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is currently on sale.

75% off, now at USD5.00.

is the game play nice ? the screenshots seem very beautiful.. macam photoshop like that

it look good for me. this game is the original Escape from Butcher Bay remake + new Assault on Dark Athena.
review I read:
- Escape from Butcher Bay > Superb
- Assault on Dark Athena > Suxx

But I think USD5 still a good bargain.

I had that problem before. Re-install is the only solution for me.

Now what you need to do is download the updates. Once the update is done, backup!
Then uninstall and reinstall with backup. Pray that it'll work.

I learned this the hard way, I have to re-download the whole thing since I didn't backup.

Kindly note though that it uses TAGES DRM.

TAGES DRM + Windows 7 64-bit = FAIL. I can't play this game at all as the TAGES DRM driver is blocked by Windows

Seems to work fine on mine.

I am using Windows 7 64bit as well.

huh??!!!

it suxx!!

tks for saving my USD5 man

Really? Which version you're playing? The retail or Steam one? I'm playing the retail one and Windows instantly blocked the driver, had to play it on other PC