Fuse

That's not 0, that's 0.4. :)

Battlefield has always had amazing sound. I remember when I got Road to Rome and my neighbor complained about what he said sounded like thunder. It was the ambient artillery on Market Garden, IIRC. Unfortunately these days Battlefield's beauty is only skin deep. I really hope we get some tweaks to Arma 3's sound engine soon. With all the gunshots being so loud regardless of distance it makes firefights a bit of a headache when I'm using my speakers. But, hey, that's alpha.

I'm not usually one to go on much about peripherals, but I purchased a Razer Naga last year for MMO gaming and I absolutely love it. I honestly do not know how I would play without the extra buttons on my mouse. IIRC 1 is optics, 2 is toggle fire, 3 is switch to pistol, 4 is switch optics, 5 is freelook, 6 is zoom; and those are just the controls I feel are essential (ok, maybe not fire selection) for using my weapon. Having them on the same hand as the aiming control feels incredibly natural. Of course they still have to be bound to a keyboard key, but I can bind them to keys that are far out of the way of WASD, cramming more movement controls under my left hand without having to use double-presses (which seem to cause the key to lag a bit on a single press, something I can't stand). Since the Naga came out I think a few other companies have launched similar products. If you're shopping for a new mouse I'd highly suggest checking out one with a metric shit ton of thumb buttons. I could never go back to a 5 or 6 button mouse.

I honestly have no idea if the Geek Squad will build it, but I've heard horror stories about their tech support so I would avoid them. Maybe the Canadian Geek Squad is better, I don't know. haha It is definitely worth it to build it your self. As I said, after you've put the time in to learn it initially it will save you hundreds of dollars every time you need to upgrade. I don't see computers going away any time soon, so those savings will add up to a lot of money over your lifetime. How long it takes to learn is really hard to answer. I've been tinkering under the hood of PCs since my age was in the single digits and I'm still learning new stuff every day. My first PC was pretty crappy, but it was also a lot harder back then (and I was an idiot). These days I feel like if you can assemble Ikea furniture you can assemble a PC. I'd spend a couple weeks researching parts, checking what people on one forum say vs the other, stuff like that. Once you know what parts you want (and have posted on a forum making sure they all work well together) the build is just following directions, then plugging in anything that wasn't mentioned specifically in the directions. Everything is pretty much color coded or clearly labeled. You don't need a friend to build it for you, though supervision would be ideal to make sure you don't do something ignorant like build the PC while wearing socks on carpet, but I'm not sure I'd recommend doing it on your own without someone to call if something goes wrong; unless you're the kind of person who can deal with sinking a little time in to trouble shooting without getting frustrated. Like I said, if it doesn't boot the first time you're going to have to go online and look up what to test and how. That sucks if you're just pissed off by the expensive brick sitting on your desk. If you have a friend with a little experience he can tell you, "Ok, start checking the RAM one stick at a time, then we go from there..." It will just make the process a little less painful if something does go wrong and isn't really a big ask... So long as you have someone to ask. :) Let me try to sum up. I'd spend a couple of weeks to a month on research (an hour or so a day, don't overload or you'll miss things and it will feel like work), just trying to understand the basics of why people are suggesting the parts. The build will probably take a full evening and then possibly a few hours of trouble shooting if you get a bad part (It just happens. It's a fact of life and is merely a delay, not a major setback). If you do get a bad part it usually doesn't take long to isolate and getting a replacement cross-shipped from a reputable retailer is quick and easy. Once it boots installing Windows and drivers will take maybe two hours tops, depending on updates and your internet. Whether or not you should do it is really your call. If you're easily frustrated and don't have anyone around to help then I would probably advise going with a pre-built for now, but with the caveat that you should start checking out the basics of PC building in your free time, maybe speculate on what part to upgrade first. When you need to upgrade a part on the pre-built PC you'll have some basic knowledge and it should be a good way of getting your feet wet. If you're the kind of person who enjoys tinkering and don't need the PC right now then take the dive. You've got plenty of time before Arma 3 is done. Sorry, I tried to keep it succinct but I'm frankly just not very good at that and I didn't want to just say, "Go for it!" and have you regret the decision. I hope I've answered your questions well. If the thread gets locked and you have a question feel free to PM me and I'll try to help. I'd suggest you re-post your initial query in the thread Max linked and also check out the Tom's Hardware forums. That place is usually friendly, always buzzing with activity, and the posters there spend most of their time just reading about PC hardware. I should probably mention: be sure to buy your parts from reputable vendors. Newegg, Tigerdirect, Microcenter (No idea if you have those in Canda). These types of places sell a ton of hardware for home-built PCs so if you do have a bad part they will get it replaced with a quickness and very little hassle. Their volume also means they often have the best prices. Don't buy parts from stores that are less specialized, such as Best Buy. I also really like going in to Microcenter because there's always a couple of nerds there loading a cart up with parts for a new build, and the enthusiasm is palpable. :)

Go free? That's a joke, right?

They both have drawbacks, as prebuilt deals often do, so both would need a part or two changed out. Personally I think the iBuyPower is a better starting point, there aren't any parts that jump out immediately as needing to be replaced but it is short on storage. An SSD would be a great addition and they are reasonably priced at the size you would need. The i5 is going to be plenty for anything you do, and the i7 won't be fully utilized for gaming. I could be missing it, but I don't see the motherboard listed on the CyberPower machine, and that makes me very wary. Finally, I prefer Geforce GPUs over AMD. My reasoning is that GeForce has a bigger market share and more frequently gets the "Powered By Nvidia" deals which allow them to better optimize their drivers for new games. It's not a big deal, but as a gamer I prefer to go with the most common types of hardware as that is what games are typically tested on. Both still seem a bit pricey to me, but I always build my own PCs. I know it's daunting, but if you have anyone who you could bribe to help you with the build then DIY is the way to go. Picking parts is pretty easy with the help of forum users (Tom's Hardware forums are a gold mine, though I don't always agree with the hive mind there), and installing is pretty much "Plug A in to B. Repeat 50 times." You will want someone with experience to be standing by if something goes wrong. I'd say about half my builds have one dead part in them on first try, usually a stick of RAM. Troubleshooting is typically easy and replacement quick and painless, but if it's your first time then you probably won't even know where to start if it doesn't boot on the first try. Forums can help here as well, but it's less convenient if you have to wait for an answer while your new PC sits there like a brick. The pros of building your own PC are practically innumerable. You will get a lot more bang for your buck, you can build exactly what you need straight off the bat (all reasonably priced prebuilts have something they skimp on that needs to be replaced), and after you've done it once it really is a lot easier. It's kind of like car maintenance: it may seem daunting if you were never taught, but a day or two of effort will lead to a lifetime of savings.

Avast!, AVG, or MSE all seem to work fine and I can't recall having any major issues using them while gaming (though of course things are always changing). Right now I'm using Avast! on one PC and AVG Free on another. No complaints with either. When I worked free tech support at college we put AVG on hundreds of machines and it never did us wrong. I've got a bit of a fondness for it due to that. I hear a lot of good things about Kaspersky, but haven't tried it my self. IIRC it used to be kind of a pill with some games. I can't remember what the deal was exactly, maybe it was a DRM thing, I just remember I avoided it for some reason. Anyone know why that might have been? Check out Comodo Firewall if you want to add an extra level of security, though Windows seems to do the firewall thing well enough for most users.

Forums were a lot busier when alpha first launched. At this point most people have voiced their initial concerns and have gone back to playing. There's still lots of people reading the posts, but most of topics have already been discussed at least 3 times so don't expect to see a lot of replies right now. Us noobs have also gotten our feet under us and are happily engrossed in the editor. :)

That's easy. Change a setting and see if CPU or GPU use changes.

I've been enjoying A3 so much I decided to give A2 another shot. I spent over an hour with both games open trying to get the controls to be pretty much the same before I finally just gave up.

I don't care how "obsolete" a weapon is. If it still fires then I don't want to be in front of it.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahahhaha. Phew, sorry. Just the thought that people might still buy this tripe. Heh.. Heheh... Hahahahah- Oh crap, there I go again. If I want to turn my brain off for some pure FPS fun I'll play Serious Sam. If I want to have my dreams shat on I'll buy anther Battlefield title. Guess which I'm not going to do.

No. Enabling GPU PhysX doesn't mean anything for AMD users. They can still run PhysX on the CPU as they are now, and do in every other game that has PhysX. The only PhysX "features" people using AMD hardware are locked out of are the prettier visual effects that have no impact on gameplay. This is done so that companies can use PhysX without locking out half their customers, which no company in their right mind would ever do. PhysX is not some magical code that runs on GeForce hardware and makes games better. The only difference AMD and Geforce users are likely to ever see are fancier particle effects and debris (fluff debris, not anything that impacts gameplay).

Damn, Drum. How do you always know exactly what I want? Can't wait to watch this.

You made me realize I had heard it said at least a dozen times on these forums, but never actually read the article my self! From Co-Creative Director Jay Crowe, via Gamespot: My bad, I should have been more specific with my reply. I haven't noticed the difference in 3rd person camera position just from casual play. I only fire from 3rd person in emergencies and you say it's a very slight change, so I'm going to have to play the two back-to-back and pay more attention. I definitely can tell the difference in the grenade throw. :)

I worry that it would make clearing feel clunkier, like in previous titles. In real life you're constantly making small adjustments with your waist and shoulders that you can't easily simulate in a video game. Without that fine control you'll be hitting the wall every time you turn around. I think it would be too disruptive to gameplay, at least in this engine.

BI says the grenade throw is a placeholder. A few players have voiced their concerns that BI may still make it too simplistic since one of the devs said they liked the current system more than A2, but I think they're taking the comment too literally. I doubt that means they are going to essentially leave it as is, and if they do then I'm betting we'll still have plenty of time before launch to yell at them for it. :) I haven't noticed these issues because I rarely fire in 3rd person. I guess the difference isn't enough to be noticeable when just running around? I prefer it centered as it gives me a better field of view, so I wouldn't like to see it moved much without being an option. Not trying to start a debate, just saying that is why I wouldn't like to see it permanently locked to the right. Some games have had a slider that lets you move the 3rd person camera from left to right. Maybe that's worth consideration here?

This is the fix he is referring to. Unfortunately it is not an FPS fix but a possible fix for the mouse lag imrevned was experiencing.

I just bound collective lower to a different key, but have you tried modifying your controls in your profile manually (via a text editor)? It looks to me like LCtrl is double bound (maybe even triple), if I'm reading it right. I'll have to test in game later. I do apologize. I have no idea how I missed the bit where you said you unbound Adjust.

Grabbing an old console is the best way to play anyways since Ubi appears to hate PC gamers with a passion.

Unless you live in a country like Iran, China, N. Korea... Remember, the internet is only a source of liberty so long as we defend it. Don't let your govt control and monitor your internet access.

I get about 1000 more FPS. Since benchmarks are apparently avoided like the plague by posters here then you just have to take my word for it. ---------- Post added at 12:10 ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 ---------- See if this helps.

I think it's fine. The immersion is strong enough that I don't expect my body to automatically return to some "default" setting after every action. I just put my map away, of course my weapon isn't shouldered!

It amazes me how easily people fall for little tricks. BF3's destruction isn't nearly as fancy as people seem to think.

Using your e-mail as a forum handle is a good way to let spam bots and e-thugs find you, just FYI. Maybe that's not your real address, but I felt like I should say something.