echo1

Negative, it's a biological weapon

The new GTX 460 cards that have just come out are pretty good. I'd go with one of them, it should be more than enough to power a 17" at high quality. That said, I'd rather buy a bigger monitor than a quicker graphics card. The GTX 460 should be able to power a 24" at good quality and good performance.

I don't think there's any combination of hardware on the market at the moment that would let you run ArmA 2 on full settings. What size of screen do you have, and how much do you want to spend?

I noticed something odd in OA that I don't remember seeing in ArmA 2 - planes don't stay in level flight, they always drop out of the sky unless you keep pointing them up. What's up with this?

Not bad for running native res on a 27" screen.

It's not as much the accent as it is the way he talks - he's trying to sound like a 'Hoah' tough guy and failing miserably. There's a particularly bad example of this in Coltan Blues in OA (not sure if it's the same guy) - when you clear the mine and receive your next orders, your character questions whether he will be able to hold off the Takistani aircraft with the militia weapons. The reply from HQ is horrifying... it really sounds like whoever said it was going out of their way to take the piss. Voice acting is, like the name would suggest, acting. Being able to talk in the right accent isn't sufficient, you have to be able to deliver the lines in a convincing way. Some may accuse me of being anal, but I think it can be difficult to take a game seriously if you want to face palm every time some dialog comes up. That said, it's the only real gripe I've had with an otherwise exemplary game so far.

If you have 7 or Vista, you can contact MS and get a license to go from 32bit to 64bit. AFAIK, it costs something like $10.

Ran into an annoying bug with the game towards the end of the mission -

I learned almost everything I needed to know about computer hardware at the age of 14, disassembling and reassembling old 486s and Pentium 1s that were being dumped out of the office my Dad worked at.

Really it only lets you use 3GB. I'd get 64 bit Windows 7 if I was you.

I wonder what sort of sight that is in the fourth pic, it looks like some "EOTech-ski"

Do SF units really have dedicated medics wandering around them? I'd thought that their training would give them some degree of self-sufficiency.

Well, I don't really recommend $500 graphics cards because they are a terrible investment (invariably their useful life isn't much longer than a $250-300 one) so I'm standing by what I said.

Yeah, the voice acting is pretty terrible alright. The tanker in the second mission has the weirdest accent, it sounds like an Eastern European trying to do a subtle American accent and failing miserably. Could be worse, the voice acting of "Coops" in ArmA 2 made me cringe every time he opened his mouth.

Yeah, I remember reading somewhere or other that RPK gunners in Chechnya would swap their 45-round mags for the 30-round mags of the other troops, because the longer mags made it difficult to lie prone with the weapon... Speaking of Russian weapons, has anyone else seen that AK-200 rifle that they are thinking of adopting?

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the SCAR. Yes, the Army is getting the M110. The USMC is fielding the M39, which is just a pimped-out M14, to replace the DMR. Which is also a pimped out M14... just not to the same extent.

Other way around, they're buying a variation of the Mk. 17 called the Mk. 20 to replace the SR-25, M110, M14 and other such semi-auto sniper weapons. Compared with - Have the Russians got rid of their RPKs from regular service?

Second one. Dual GPU cards, such as the HD5970, cause all sorts of problems, especially with the BIS game engine.

How much do you want to spend on the graphics card? The current Geforce 400 series aren't great value for money, and are very power/heat intensive. They are releasing some mid-range parts that are apparently going to fix a lot of these issues, but that remains to be seen.

3D editor, and firing out of vehicles. No thanks to weapons/units/vehicles, because eventually someone will mod them in if there is proper demand.

The graphics card is too weak for any decent performance. Rest of the system is good though.

There are a lot of viable alternatives to oil for transport and possibly electrical production... Maybe all this wankery with crazed Islamists will possibly convince the powers that be that the prerequisite time and money should be sunk in.

Thanks for the clarification.

Whoops, misread!

EDIT: Ignore