VACkillers

If you haven't already got one, this one seems pretty nice for $74.99

Extreme Division Sentey Case

Its too hard to say if there was any serious damage done, how long have you had it, and had it running like that?

Anyone know of a good mid-sized case that has a window on the side? as the op stated i wouldn't mind finding a case thats below 100$ and has good cooling with a window on the side for lighting i want to add, ther then the Antec 900 i haven't found a single good case in the mid-rage yet that would at least fit big cards, always looking on newegg, and the only one that really seems to fit the needs is the ever-aging antec 900, but thats often over 100$ anyway.. If your going to spend 100$ on a case, you might aswell just get a full tower lol... so if anyones using a good mid-sized case, lemme know :D

This may seem a really stupid thing to ask, but, when you were round your friends house, did you have the laptop plugged into the mains? If you didn't, its running on a power saving mode which turns off the graphics card and uses the onboard one instead....

Also, make sure that the laptop wasn't running in battery mode even if it was plugged in, i believe by default for alienware you can check this by hitting the FN key + F2... and make sure that you didn't accidently hit the stealth mode touch key at the top right hand corner of the laptop when you were moving it around, you did this, you essentially turned off your graphics card aswell.... To check this you just need to open up your alienware monitor software and it will tell you if your running in stealth mode or not...

One last thing, sometimes Alienware gets kinda stuck on battery mode, where you cant get it out of it, even after hitting FN+F2, if its still in battery mode after a restart, turn the laptop off / take the battery out of the back / hold down the powerbutton for 10 secs, and put the battery back in and load it up, it should be reset and back out of battery mode. Personally had quite a lot of issues with my Alienware laptop, when it runs, its fucking amazing, but when it messes up, usually messes up really badly lol...

Hope this helps next time you go somewhere with it........

Try changing the drivers first, try a couple different ones, if you are still getting the same crap....RMA it, the GPU might just be defected, it doesn't need to be overheated to cause a defect, the GPU just might be fucked....

Passing on Windows 8 myself, I just dont need to change at this point, Windows 7 runs perfectly fine for me and for all my needs, i like it, and its plenty fast enough for me, just feels like Windows 8 is more for people with touch-screen monitors and such, as its basically just an upgraded version of whats actually on the Windows Phones, the layout, and colouring, the tiles and shit, its really made for touchscreen stuff in my opinion..... I dont have one, so im going to stick with Win7... just how i feel right now

I like free-to-play, very much so, i think it has a lot of potential for certain genres of games, but to have that model come out for every damn game thats getting released is becoming more of a joke, and we ALL KNOW THE ONLY REASON this game is going for the free-to-play is because of End of Nations, period, that is the only reason to push this model with a RTS like game, the only difference is Command & Conquer isn't a fking MMO, its a story based strategy game which is pushed forward by amazing FMVs, with the ability's to play skirmish modes or go online if you want. I dont take many games online, i couldn't care less about most multiplayer games, i'll do it occasionally for fun, but for the most part especially in RTS,s I play skirmish modes a lot more then SP campaigns, last thing we need a command and conquer MMO!!

I would rather pay for a game, and know exactly what im getting, rather then risk getting a game thats free-to-play then have half of the content its supposed to have, be missing from the traditional ways of how a game gets devs money. I dont wanna pay for booster packs that "might" have a skirmish mode down the line. Everyone in this new gaming industry has a fking harddon for 100% multiplayer, its getting to be really fraustraiting, just like at sim city and whats going to go on with that, that is purely a singleplayer experience, and their adding all this wacky crazy social stuff with facebook and all other kinds of crap, NOT EVERYONE LIKES MULTIPLAYER!!!! omg I litterly feel like im the only person who plays game, that DOESNT actually like going online and playing. Give me bots or AI anyday over playing ppl online where its open house for cheaters and hacks with huge lag spikes.

I WANT TO EAT MY WORDS, but EA's track record with the battlefield series, and what their doing with sim city, it just doesn't bare well for C&C either, and i've been playing these games since the mid 90s when the original came out. I hope and Prey!! there is skirmish mode, but im not going to hold my breathe now, and its sad, its sad they feel they got to do this, and compete with the likes of end of nations, C&C is a brand of its own, it CREATED this genre, THIS is what fans want, not some bsh!t hash to take on a competitor like BF3 with COD.

C&C 4 was an absolute fking mess, it was by FAR!! the WORST C&C game of ALL TIME!!! with no base building, and the absolutely terrible multiplayer! absolutely shocking!!! and this, from what has been said, just feels like a different take of the same fking idea that came from that game.... ITS DONE!! its whats going to happen and nothing we can do it about, but the gameplay just better not be solely MP without the things that make a C&C game. SP and Skirmish mode make so much of a good C&C, to take that out of the picture is INSANITY to its core. Then because your constantly connected to servers, you take out another huge chunk, and thats the community, with no mod tools, no mapping tools, and no lan support, this is so messed up on so many levels... WTF are they thinking? in all seriousness? no one from the gamespot forums wants this either!!! you HAVE TO LISTEN to what is being said, do NOT brush off what we are all saying just because for the most part its negative!! LISTEN!!! to get it done RIGHT!!! you'll pay in the end otherwise. Apparently they are adding all the factions from the whole command and conquer universe (red alert and tiberium universe), this has yet to be confirmed, but if true, WTF!!! really, WTF??? all into one game? that is just simply stupid, im sorry but it is....

as for whats been mentioned, for the Pay-to-win, there is only so much cosmetic micro-transactions you can do before it gets old, boring, and doesn't translate into much money making either!! you HAVE to come up with stuff that affects the game in a good way, not just tank skins, and this, in turn, will create a Pay-to-win scenario, like star trek online currently is.

Indeed Mord, but ya know, i was REALLY supprised how fucking good VGA looked, visually the quality is bar none exactly the same as an HDMI cable, but of course the HD'ness isn't there and i guess FRAPS really fucking hated it haha... EITHER WAY its fixed now, and yeah i mentioned in my Original Post that i use just 1 haddrive, and to tell you the truth, i've never noticed a single bit of performance increase in using a seperate harddrive, I think its just down to how everyones system is, and what kind of hardware is in each system, but recording to a second drive has never given me any performance increase in the 6-7 years i've been using fraps. HERE are the videos anyway, and you can clearly see in my DM-Deimos video, the fraps issue i was having, and in the BF3 videos, no issue what so ever, it was a weird one but im glad i figured it out anyway... if you go see the videos, hope you enjoy em at least...

FOUND THE PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the culprit was the VGA!!!!! went out and bought a mini-full HDMI cable and BANG!!!!!! recording FRAPS at a steady 60-90FPS @ full and 1920 res.... absolutely incredible, i never would have thought that the VGA cable would affected that in the slightest what so ever, amazing..... and totally weird, i know HDMI is all performance, but for this sorta thing i never would have thought that was it even though i had my suspicions it could be that....

DONT FRAPS with a VGA port/cable, lesson learned here.... its a good thing to know for those that do, or plan on FRAPSing games and what not, that have a VGA cable, if you fraps with a vga, you are loosing so much performance its rediculas...

Been using fraps for absolutely years and i know about slowdowns, what kind of FPS hit you are likely to get when recording in full mode and all that, but im at a total loss with this at the moment. Im using the wifes machine which has the LED 42" TV hooked upto the PC via a VGA port, playing games at 1920x1080, while playing the game with fraps on "not recording" im getting an average of 170-204FPS with absolutely everything maxed out, but the very second i turn FRAPS to record, my frame rates often drop to 27FPS which is absolutely insane and have no idea why its dropping at such a dramatic rate. Usually when you want to record you'll select the preset you want and then deduct the FPS your recording at from what you normally get in-game, so 30FPS "should" leave me able to play the game around 120FPS and recording at 60FPS should leave me hanging around 60-80FPS while playing and recording, so when i select to record at 30, im only getting 27FPS and sometimes less, even when i record at 60FPS its still dropping into the 20s. I've turned off antivirus/anything that would normally be a system hog, turned off windows effects like AERO, shut down almost every program i have running in the system like keyboard and mouse stuff, and im STILL getting absolutely MASSIVE slow downs the second i turn on record...

Now, the really weird thing, is my other PC which has WAAAAAAAAAAAAY lower specs then this system im trying to record on, records at a MUCH high FPS without any lag/slowdowns of any kind what so ever at the same resolution but connected to a proper LED monitor. I've even tried on my laptop and FRAPS records at exactly how it should do, "FASTER" then the high end PC, ANY help would be muchly apreciated because im at a total loss, i've tried re-installing different gfx drivers without any difference at all, reinstalling the game, its almost like the second i hit record, its recording twice or something because thats the feel of the performance loss its about double what i should loose, or something else is accessing the harddrive the second i hit record, i even tried associateing a different hot-key for the record in case something was loading in the background with the F-keys, and that didn't even make a difference.

FRAPS Version tried : 3.5.5 / 3.4.6 / 3.2.2

High-End PC Specs (more middle-range but high end in my household)

OS : Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

CPU : AMD PhenomII X6 @ 3.2ghz

RAM : G-Skill Ripjaws 8GB DRR3 1600

MOBO : Asus

GFX CARD : 2x EVGA Nvidia GTX 560ti in SLi Mode

HDD : Regular Seagate 1TB 7200RPM HDD

VGA connected LED 42" TV

1920x1080 Res

2nd lower end PC (where i can record @ 50-60FPS with no slowdowns)

OS : Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

CPU : AMD PhenomII X3 710 @ 3.01ghz

RAM : G-Skill 4GB DRR2 800

MOBO : Asus

GFX CARD : EVGA Nvidia GTX 260 216 core

HDD : Regular Seagate 1TB 7200RPM HDD

DVI connected 22" LG LED Monitor

1920x1080 Res

Alienware MX17X10 Laptop (can record with FRAPS with no slowdowns aswell)

OS : Windows 7 x64 Home Edition

CPU : Intel Core i7 Q740 2.1ghz (turbo 3.1ghz)

RAM : G-Skill Ripjaws 6GB DRR3 1600

MOBO : Asus

GFX CARD : 2x AMD ATI 5870s in Xfire mode

HDD : Regular 500gB 5900RPM HDD

HDMI connection to the 42" LED TV or 17" laptop screen

1920x1080 Res for HDMI and 1440x900 Laptop Screen

Now the reason why I'm using the VGA instead of an HDMI, is if anyone owns an Nvidia card, they will know that nvidia doesn't ship with a full hdmi port on the cards, their mini-hdmi, and i currently do not have an mini-hdmi to hdmi cable. I just do not understand why my single card machine of 2 generations of gfx cards ago is able to fraps so much faster then dual modern cards, it just doesn't make sense, the cpu definitely has the power i checked on that as well but a if my old tripple core can do it, then a 6 core should be no sweat... Im thinking its either because of the VGA port, the harddrive (might be something wrong with it) or i may need to re-install windows thats all i can think of why im getting such a massive FPS loss compared to my hold heap of crap lol... YES im recording on the same harddrive, not using 2 harddrive to record on, and before you guys think its that, THAT is the same setup on my old machine also, both read/write on the same drive, only difference is as i've mentioned several times, one machine is high end, the other isn't...

PLS HELP!!!! and thank you all for absolutely anything you can advise me... PS: BF3 recording absolutely perfectly on my high end machine.

Unreal Tournament 3 is at Max Settings on all machines, and I've tried with V-Sync and Frame Smoothing on and off, makes no difference.