pritch

Silicon Valley, series 4, but I'm rewatching the whole thing, too. Love this show. I'm also rewatching all of Red Dwarf on Netflix, even though I own it on DVD...

I like Erebus a lot, I've always loved open maps like the Factory and Dead Zone as well, but in Episode 3 Limbo is probably my favourite. I like the flow of the map and I was always satisfied to max Limbo, including using the rad suits to minimise damage ahead of the exit to the final battle.

Would this be some of that fake news I keep hearing about these days? I really don't understand the internet any more. The sweet spot was when I joined this forum, late 2001. I've been saying for ten years that Facebook peaked in 2007, visually and, given my age now, relevancy / content wise, too. And as for Doom, that increasingly feels like a childhood blanky that I need to throw myself under at times.

I'm (shamefully) out of the loop on the good work that's doubtless been released these past few years. I'm going somewhere for a week where I'll only have a really old machine of mine with, wait for it... an Athlon XP and a Radeon 9800 Pro. Yep, it's the best of 2003. A bit of dooming on a 4:3 monitor and very little internet, might actually be quite cathartic. Almost looking forward to it. So looking for anything that'll run in zdoom adequately on that hardware, released recently. Ideally mapsets, longer the better. Hit me with your recommendations and I'll put them on a USB. Thanking you...

I really appreciate you putting the time in to that list, including the links - thank you. Exactly what I was looking for, and great to see some of my favourite mappers represented including Chris Lutz, probably my favourite Doom 1 mapper period, and he's put in to another TUD 4 episode megawad? Wow. Tough to know where to start! I now have 173MB of zips on my USB stick. I'd better book an extra week off :) Had to go fishing as many of the mirrors seem to be down this morning, but thank goodness for mancubus.net (Manc, wherever you are, I love you man). Interestingly, from having to do a manual search on /idgames, I see the search function doesn't seem to like two words - I had no results with TNT Revilution and 50 Monsters, but they turned up under TNT and 50 respectively. Ling? I have noted all the other suggestions too, thanks... don't stop! Heh, thanks. It's one of the fishes which go a loooong way back on these forums. It wasn't one of the first though, just followed the trend. I made the original bmp but IIRC community member and contributor DSM made this much funkier and more colourful gif for me. It looked better at 36x36 though :P

I built my current machine last year which is Asus z170 based, running a 6600k at 4.4Ghz and Vengeance RAM at 3Ghz. I re-used my monitor and graphics as I didn't want to lay down all the cash in one go so they are the weak links, so now I'm thinking of moving everything up to speed. I currently have two R9 270s in Crossfire. I ran a single one for a couple of years; I added the second a few months back as a cheap bandaid but of course it does nothing for Doom, and with such variable support and performance scaling I'm thinking it's time to cut my losses and open my wallet again for a single card solution. My monitor is an 8-year-old 23" Samsung 1080p. Nothing really wrong with it, but I'm finding myself wanting to give the newer titles a go in QHD. More to the point, I'm putting off playing the newer titles in my Steam library. Amazon has Asus 24" and AOC 27" QHD monitors at ~£200. The card is probably going to have to be used from ebay. I don't really want to pay through the nose for a new 10xx card. My whole life I have used ATi / AMD cards, but I find myself looking hard at the 980 Ti for 1440p. I have a Corsair Carbide case that can handle the long versions. Are these likely to have been on mining duty? Have you made the switch to 1440p and would recommend it? How are your frame rates?

The whole 144hz thing is another factor, and one about which I know nothing. I mean, I understand the technicalities, but haven't seen one in the flesh so I don't know if the cash would be better headed toward, say, a 144hz 1080p display than a ~60hz 1440p. Perhaps I'll just have to haul my ass to PC World or somewhere and try to see for myself. That would probably give me more card options, because I think I'm right in saying you don't need to be at the 980 Ti level to be getting around 140 or whatever FPS in most titles. Ling I seem to remember yours is a g-sync setup? And that you were pretty excited about it - has that held up?

Yup, megawads of megamaps. Only half joking... I appreciate a megamap as a one-off project, and I think they can be better for some authors' sanity... But I really appreciate a megawad that builds flow through a single episode, or better yet, multi-episodic theme in the bigger ones. Start with small, tight maps and build to more expansive ones with bigger monster counts, more and tougher secrets etc. Making the most out of the secret maps scores highly with me. I know modern ports take away the need to be tied to the 32 map and episodic shifts, but I think it's somehow just right and if done well, it's the best. People often knock Evilution, but I thought it did this particularly well. Some tough, tight maps, then more expansive tech maps before a hell themed last ten maps. Always best to end with hell.

Fallout 4. I've put it off because the user reviews have been a bit crappy - I can appreciate the move away from RPG elements has annoyed some, but as a shooter guy historically I figured I'd still get enough out of it at £10 now. That was all though - I have a fair bit of stuff to play through from previous sales and these days I tend to buy more than I have time for.

In the UK from that list we only have McDs, BK, Subway and Pizza Hut with any regularity. We have other places instead but I voted Subway because a footlong with a drink for a fiver is p. much always the best value option and most filling and fresh vs the fast food competition. I quite like the taste of BK but there's a lot of inconsistency in quality between outlets and let's face it, it's not wholesome food. Aside from the saver menu or special offers it's not great value, either. I never go to McDonalds these days. I used to like a Big Mac when I was a kid, but that's it really, I think McDs is for kids. Also not good value, at least not in this country. I never liked Pizza Hut. Maybe it's better now but if I want pizza I will go somewhere proper and preferably Italian to have it. Domino's lunchtime collect offer is ok and I will do it once in a while, but I know that's a slightly different thing to this.

I just surprised myself by picking up a second R9 270 on ebay (already have one that was carried over in to my new build earlier this year). I was initially just interested in seeing what it would sell for (hardware prices are a bit odd post-Brexit) but as it was kinda cheap, I bid on it and picked it up. I've never given Crossfire a try and always advised others against it. But part of me just wants to tick the box for my own experience, despite tales of woe from pretty much all of the internet. My PSU and case can handle two of these, but probably not two of anything beefier. I don't really want to buy another single card until the newer gen AMD stuff comes out and settles in, so I figured this might give me a little boost to tide me over until then. Part of me wonders if I won't just be selling one of them on again in a month's time anyway - so dubious are reports of recent times for this tech. Tiny market shares and a lack of support for many titles (including Doom 4 still?!) Does anyone else SLI or Crossfire, perhaps with more powerful cards? What's your experience and best and worst experiences re: games?

It is where, which and why. I have a MA in English so if the teacher disagrees tell them this forum guy from England officially overrules them :P Oh and btw, in your original post you should say "neither where nor why are considered relative pronouns" /smartass ;) http://youfailit.net/qdb/?170

There's a bit of a strain on the cable so I wouldn't leave them like that permanently, but assuming it's wired correctly and the cable is insulated and not too crimped, which it shouldn't be from just the weight of a bulb fitting, there's nothing really dangerous about it.

ROTT followed shortly by Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior

Fucking revenants, always and everywhere, every single time. This is personal.

I'll assume that you are using a modern sourceport to play Doom and that your monitor and video settings are all normal. If you have issues like this in gaming it could be an issue with your vision. Do you play in a dark room? Try turning up the lights or letting more natural light in and adjust the game gamma settings accordingly. Do you wear prescription lenses? You may need an eye test or updated prescription. If your eyes are straining in any way it can cause headaches. If those things don't help you should see a physician, especially if it gets any worse.

I think you're probably better off with the one card tbh. It was only worth me trying it because a) I already had one relatively modest 2 year old card and adding the second one was cheap, and b) running two such cards is lesser than or equal to the TDP of a more expensive single card, and c) as explained, I would rather wait to buy a single newer gen card. The two cards should run at 8x each which to all intents and purposes is equal to running one at 16x. Above 16x combined isn't possible. From what I can understand, there is negligible performance hit in running two in 8x mode vs one in 16x mode. Performance issues are much more likely to be caused by poor support implementation (or lack of it altogether). Another practical issue is heat dissipation - in the testing I've done so far on a game that doesn't fully push the card(s) I've recorded a max temp of 65°C in single-card config, 67°C when the second card is installed but deactivated (fortunately can be easily set for individual games' profiles in Radeon settings, in case of issues), and 73°C & 67°C for cards 1 and 2 respectively when running in crossfire. Doesn't sound like a huge increase but is getting that much closer to the thermal limit for this card. Certainly limits overclocking, though the benefits of crossfire at stock speeds should easily outweigh the marginal overclocking abilities of a single card in real world scenarios anyway. Another issue is noise - the extra few degrees of heat means fans running close to 100% on card 1 versus 50-60% when the other card isn't active. It's still not loud by any means and the fans on these Asus cards seem good, but in quieter periods of gameplay it can definitely be noticed. I don't see how card 1 can not be subject to this kind of penalty in any kind of regular air-cooled case - instead of a pocket of relatively cool air above the PSU, there's the second card just a few centimetres below, acting like a radiator, with hot air rising. One of the big issues with SLI / Crossfire is this fundamentally outdated physical configuration of the ATX layout. PCI was never intended for such things, and with AGP and PCI-E it's basically just been an ongoing workaround through card design. My board in theory supports 3-way Crossfire but that is pretty much ridiculous. In an ideal world the cards would go in vertically with an ATX interface at right angles, and then you could look to less compromised air cooling solutions eg. 120mm fan underneath, with heatsinks running all the way to vents the top of the case past the CPU maybe...

Sometimes the automap is used by a skilled mapper to deliberately flag to a player that an area of the map is yet to be fully explored. Especially when the secret is otherwise very well concealed. If you can find the exit but still only have a handful of linedefs showing in that particular section, chances are you're missing a secret.

Well... it's in. BIOS confirmed both recognised and running at 8x each. Bit of screen flicker when Windows loaded but it seemed to settle and Radeon settings sees both cards are linked. HWMonitor doesn't see the second one though, not sure if that's a limitation or not.. Now, off I go in hope to play...

Even if this is double-posted I don't care, it's staying. That is literally the coolest thing to ever happen to a MacBook Pro.

Nope. I am typing this on a Skylake PC with 16 gigs, 43 flux capacitors, 4000 milicochrane warp engines etc. etc. I spent hundreds on six months ago and guess what I've played more than anything in that time - zdoom. I just go through phases of going back to Doom. Obviously that wouldn't be the case if we didn't have the greatest community of content creators that ever existed, anywhere. But we do, so I do. And I'm very glad that's the case. Oh - but the new build does handle the various nuts.wads a lot better... heh

Yeah as a rule CPU is less important in titles than GPU these days but that's not always the case and besides, a better CPU does prolong the life of any given build. I'd always favour the newest chipsets even if board selection is a little limited at the time. That way you do in theory get some options to upgrade the CPU later on if you really need to. Socket 1151 is quite established now and where you need to be, and if you do want to drop in an unlocked K model for example some time down the line, you can. To compliment that I personally would get a board with reasonable OC support that will support the faster DDR4 speeds, though I concede it won't make much difference in games and you're at or over your budget limit already. I'm pleased to see you've added in an SSD now since your post in Blogs, though. Just a word on the case - check the reviews and listen to what people say about them, especially if this is your first build. A poor quality case can make the difference between enjoying a build and finding it a pain in the ass. Not to mention the hassle if things like cheap power buttons break within weeks. Far better to find a good value but high quality case for your shiny new components, than just a cheap one...

Top work!!

These days buyer protection on ebay with Paypal is extremely robust. I've used ebay for over ten years. I was sceptical at first but it was a different era back then. Most of my transactions have been smooth or better, but I've had the odd problem where I've needed a refund, and it's been sorted - usually by referral to Paypal. In terms of Doom collecting, I've got the id anthology and some Doom 3 stuff like t-shirt and that's about it. If there were more classic Doom stuff around I'd get it, but it's a bit too niche I guess.

Sad to hear this and hope he can make a speedy recovery.