McPhee

Im confused. Heres my guess at what you want to know: Anyway 1440x900 is very high for a 15.4" display. It's a classic 19" resolution, so things do look a tad odd. Windows does have some Resolution Independence support, meaning you can run certain elements of you're display enlarged so they aren't too small or blurry. I'd either do that or buy a screen with a lower resolution, dropping the res below screen native looks shite. Also, games are very demanding at that resolution, you'd get better performance at a lower res EDIT: Just realised my bro uses a laptop at that res. The text is pretty small, smaller than normal anyway

Thats the case with nearly every broadband service now. It's less a case of them trying to rip you off and more to do with people wanting more out of the internet but at a lower price. With the increased demand from users caused by downloading loads of files, playing online games and partaking in other bandwidth heavy activities ISPs are finding that they can't cope. The increased demand on they're networks is too much, hence why they have started to limit useage

Take a few screen shots then we should be able to help you out. At the moment we're firing blind

Finished CoD4 single player. I must say it's probably the best game i've played on the 360 so far! There really are some incredible moments and the contrast between playing the USMC and SAS is incredible! Im struggling to get under 19 seconds, i can see where im going wrong though. Theres small sections i could sprint on, i could be more accurate or just stop bumping in to the odd doorway here and there Im guessing the ones at the top of the leaderboard just quite simly nail the timing

I think so, had trouble with Halo 3 earlier. Got bored in the end an did the whole CoD4 single player in one sitting!

oh wait, these are japaneese. oops, thought they were world sales...

Im guessing 360 having 447,601 units life to date is a typo, yeah? Interesting that the PS3 seems to finally be selling steadily

Choose Basic PC, you can configure that with no GPU. Or, go to the site Haggis suggested. C2D E4500, 8800GT, 1GB RAM = £404. It's easy enough to stick an extra 1GB RAM stick in when you have the cash (about £40) What sort of performance are you really hoping to achieve? The 8600 will run Orange Box, but the settings won't be turned particularly high. It probably won't be much use in a years time. Personally i'd stay clear of the spec in you're first post. It's very possible to get a really good PC for £400 (i paid about that for mine and can run Orange Box max'd out) but the spec has to be balanced properly. What Dino PC have come up with isn't. It's got a fancy processor, some good RAM and a nice case, but it's let down by a poor GPU and a pretty meh motherboard.

*the 8800GT sits between the 8800GTS and 8800GTX, but it's not been added to the chart yet. This chart gives an idea of what i mean when i say the 8600 is bad value for money. Heres the approximate pricing of the cards i circled: 8600GT: £60-£80 8600GTS: £100-£130 x1950 Pro: £70-£100 x1950 XT: £100-£130 8800GTS: £200-£250 8800GT: £180-ish This is why im saying the 8600 is bad value for money. The only alternative i can think of is that you buy a comp from DinoPC with no card and then fit one yourself afterwards. That way you could go for a decent DX9 card like the x1950 Pro, have a better performing card and save some money in the process

The 8800GT has just been released. Theres such a fuss about it because it retails for around £180 and yet is better than the GTS (£200-ish) and almost as good as the GTX (£300+). The problem with the 8xxx cards is they lack the 'mid-range'. Traditionally with each new generation of cards there were a few cards that sat around the £100 mark, making a good compromise between a low-end card and a gaming card. Price-wise, the 8600 is that card. Unfortunately it falls down on the performance level. The 8600 is actually less powerful than last generations cards, and sits closer in performance to the low-end cards than the gaming cards. The leap in performance from 8600 to 8800 is HUGE The result of this is that the consumer is forced to choose between the 8600, which offers pretty terrible value for money or the 8800 series of cards, which are expensive. This isn't true. A good 500W PSU is easily capable of running the 8800GT, theres probably even a few 350-400W models that can manage it

Phone them up and ask for an 8800GT. If they are any good they'll accommodate. It's cheaper than a GTS (or it should be, it retails for less) but out-performs it by quite a bit. With the Processor/Graphics Card you have to choose. If you can't fit both a brilliant CPU and a brilliant GPU in to you're budget then one has to slide. If the computer's for gaming then the GPU is more important, so drop the CPU by any means necessary, even if it means going AMD (or just up you're budget).

Thats why i look forward to watching the Anime, the game hints at all this stuff. I've got a lot of questions that need answering. I know the game won't spoil my enjoyment of the Anime because theres so much more to see, but the Anime could spoil my enjoyment of the game if i'd watched it first.

Theres me, pretty mullered after a night of free beer. Good night, not such a good morning after

Drop the RAM down to 667MHz, DinoPC are asking too much for 800 over 667 (£26.60 when i checked) Think about an AMD CPU instead. If budget is really tight then an AMD CPU might let you get better parts elsewhere in the system, improving the performance of the machine as a whole If DinoPC won't give you an 8800GT as an option (try ringing them if it aint on they're site) then choose None. An 8800GTS ain't worth £100 of anyones money It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it (or rather, the quality of the thing) I know theres quite a few people out there running 8800GTX's on 400W power supplies!

Back to the sticky-ness it goes!

I'd play the game then watch the series. That way you'll get the base story and then have it expanded upon My biggest problem with the game was that as a non-Naruto fan i didn't find that i cared much for the characters. There was very little character building in the game, which sucked big time. I do look forward to a sequel though. I traded Naruto in today for CoD4

I've gone the same way with Call Of Duty 4, still buying it though. Can't wait to play this. I just hope my decision to get the PC version doesn't backfire!

Thats me staying well clear of York then...

There was a sticky, but i removed it a while ago along with a few others that were rarely/never used. It's still in here somewhere, might re-stick it if people want it back up

Never even knew we had a calender lol, just had a play with it :p

Pretty sure Virgin own the Cable lines and don't rent them out to anyone. I would go with them any way, even if there are other Cable companies around i doubt they will be better than Virgin. As an ISP they rate pretty highly, the only ones better than them are all DSL and not really worth the cost of subscription + BT line rental unless you use it for phone too

i meant to say smiley lol

Just been reading about The Witcher, can't believe it passed me by unnoticed! It looks brilliant! Saw it in a shop a few days ago for £20, will have to try and remember where now I would have been interested but the performance boost over the x1950XTX isn't that massive. If it was a single slot card then i'd probably go for it, having a dual slot card at the moments is a pain in the arse! I want a Sound Card and DVB-S TV card, at the moment one has to go PCI-E but the choice of both is pretty crappy What i really need (performance-wise) is a new CPU, i wish AMD would hurry up with the Phenoms!

Just pre ordered Assassin's Creed and Unreal Tournament 3 from Shop-to. £42.99 for the 2 of them, seems like a good bargain to me! Was going for Assassin's on the 360 but as far as i can tell the 2 versions are identical, yet the PC version is £15 cheaper! Will probably end up mapping the controls to the 360 controller though, can't see a keyboard + mouse being great for it

Lower the RAM or HDD first, these bits are upgradable. Then the CPU (unless you'll be running number heavy applications) or the Graphics Card (if you don't want to use it for games, if not then leave it as this one) Is this a Dell?