Thanks Wazoo.

And LG Orange, during those 7 minutes I was making dinner and helping my nephew with his homework...oh, and picking out spelling mistakes is usually indicative of someone who's desperate for a clever retort but just doesn't have it in him. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get some dishes done before we throw a movie in.
Toodles.

What part of "I didn't have the time to read all these posts about steam" didnt you understand? If you'd written a simple yes or no instead of your whiney complaint (sorry to turn your world upside-down like that) you'd have answered my question in less time than it took you to be an snotty doofus.

I didn't have the time to read all these posts about steam, but they can't be so stupid as to make Halflife2 unplayable without an internet app running, can they? What if you don't have an internet connection? This is only for multiplayer right?

Excllent atmosphere, a truly cinematic feel, blew my mind...for the entire five or so minutes that it lasted. Am I crazy or when you have a broadband connection should it not take longer to play a demo than it does to download it?! I'm not buying the full version for the sake of killing an hour, so this is one of those "wait for the reviews" kind of games. If I want a cinematic war experience that lasts a couple of hours I'll buy Saving Private Ryan on dvd for 15 bucks. Why I remember the day when computer games took days if not weeks to finish...then again I remember when you could get a loaf of bread with a nickel and have enough change left over for a hooker.

I wasn't implying that anyone was screwing me...it was a rant, a commentary on the availability of ever improving hardware technology and the total vacuum of games that make use of it. All the hype is premature, and is accompanied by delay announcements. Arrg! Ya know? Hopefuly we've stopped at least one person reading these posts from wasting their money upgrading to a 9800/5900 like I did. 50fps vs 150fps is meaningless as far as the eye is concerned.

Thanks for the url...I wish they'd been allowed to say wether there was any "game" built into their version, or if it was just an 'optimized code' version of alpha demo. It is encouraging though.

"Also, old geezer, if you had seen the benchmarks made by several hardware review sites when testing the 9800 pro on a test build of DOOM3, you'd see that it gets over 60fps on 1024x768 at high detail. This means the game WILL run fine on your current card."

You should have posted that info, along with an url or two, in your first reply (in other words: actually made an intelligent reply). Test build? You mean a different build than the leaked alpha? What hardware sites?

"So don't sweat yourself, missy".

Ugh...apparently I've been talking to someone's ill-mannered kid. Does your mom know you insult people online for kicks junior? How 'bout your councelor?

"While Activision may be in charge of most of its games schedules, I'm pretty sure id does what they want, even if it includes keeping their publisher in the dark. That's why Activision doesn't know anything about it."

I can't think of anything to say about this statement that would be any funnier than the statement itself.

"The new thought".... bah hah!...And I thought that I needed to get a life!

Hope you grow up to be a nice person, social n00b.

"The 9800 is going to run DOOM3 fine. Your 9700 would have run DOOM3 fine"

Forgive my impudence if I don't just take your word as gospel, but if you're going to make statements like that, you should at least post some logical explanation for your statements...are you a Doom III beta tester? Work for ID? Are a programmer and are privy to information regarding the system workload induced by the as-of-yet unseen elements of the game? Have a clue what you're talking about? What is your idea of running fine? For me, nothing but max-eye-candy settings at a minimum 30fps constitutes 'running fine'.

"If you weren't a freak spender, you wouldn't have this problem. I've held off upgrading my video card until the last second because of this. It's not id's fault you're a n00b"

Heh heh! Just because I have more money than brains, doesn't mean I'm a "nOOb" (is that the cool way to spell it?). Some people blow their paycheques in the bars, some blow them on subwoofers and disco lights for their cars...I'm a computer tech freak, and have been since the first S3 Virge 3d decellerator. But you're right about one thing; There's no point in buying the best card at top dollar right now as there is absolutely sweet f.a. for games out there that need them...and aparently there won't be for a while. Doom3, Halflife2, and LO-Mac will change that...whenever. If you have a Ti4200 or better, save your cash! That 9800/5900 will likely cost ALOT less by the time the games that really need them hit the shelves. And being a freak spender is a hoot! But for the first time ever, it's impossible to actually "upgrade" no matter what card comes out as the games themselves have become the bottleneck. Mafia at max settings with AA/AF is taking my breath away again though, heh heh. Not bad for an 'old' game.

Have a good one!

You know what I'm sick of? - Buying the latest and greatest video card, only to hear an announcement that the best card is about to be released in a couple of months by the same manufacturer. WTF. 9700pro comes out, and within a few months, the 9800. The 9700 was supposed to be 'the' Doom3 card. I bought it. Then the 9800 is supposedly 'the' Doom3 card. So I, and a million other idiots run out and grab it. Now I find out the jerks at ATI are already announcing the next 'greatest' chip just months away, and the jerks at ID are telling us it'll be next year now, as if another four $#*&ing chipsets won't be released by then. My days of upgrading my computer are over. If it turns out Halflife2 and Doom3 don't run all that well on 9800 cards, then they can shove their games. I'll keep buying everything that runs on this machine, and when that doesn't work anymore, I'll buy a Playstation3 or Nintendo Gamesphere or whatever the hell is out. I have a 9800 and there isn't any game worth playing out there that I couldn't be running well on my old Geforce 4200! If ID's stategy is to hype the hell out of their game so everyone runs out and upgrades, it's gonna backfire on them, cuz everyone who just bought an FX or 9x00 card and finds out ID's POS will run like a slideshow on their systems are gonna say FU ID. Think about it...the E3 Demo is unoptimized, sure....but even if the final code could run that demo at twice the framerate, there's nothing going on yet! A couple of retarded (absolutely no AI) zombies walking straight at you does not tax your cpu. What do you think would happen if you had five enemies shooting at you whilst dodging your bullets and working out stategies (sneak around and flank you...not scripted either)...in other words...if there was actually a game being processed as well as the graphics. For Doom3 to run decently on todays hottest hardware, it's going to have to be a boring pile of steaming braindead zombie-shooting/target-practice crap. That's probably why they're holding off on the release- So that more than 2 percent of the gaming public has the hardware to at least run it with all the eye candy turned off at an acceptable framerate. You really believe that BS about the minimum hardware requirements? Will the game run in wireframe mode?! If you want an immersive gaming experience with lots of action and Doom3's graphics, you'll likely have to wait until 'the' Doom3 card comes out....not the next 'the' Doom3 card, but likely 3 or 4 'the' Doom3 cards down the road. Screw off with the new chipsets and overhyped vaporware...give us some games that can actually make us of what we have NOW!