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Arthmoor

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So on the whole bandwidth issue:
I would have LOVED to buy Star Wars The Force Unleased: Ultimate Sith Edition... but I couldn't. I noticed that the install size was 30GB.
30 fucking GB people. That's insanity no matter what type of connection you have. Just how do they expect this to work out for' date=' say' date=' Canadians? I guess all of Canada just got the bad news.[/quote'']He's quoting the Minimum System requirements, not the actual download size. See for yourself: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Ultimate Sith Edition. Without downloading it, I couldn't tell you what the download size it, but Steam compresses the shit out of all of it. But the Ultimate Sith Edition is the original game, plus 3 mission packs, each of which have 40ish minutes worth of play time to them.
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On the Note of F:NV, I've had it since release day for the 360. And I couldn't play it until the first patch hit the Xbox because it was locking up. After the patch though, never had an issue again aside from the one time the Xbox itself overheated from almost 36 hours of straight playing. (with a nap in the middle)

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You'd have to have the compression scheme of the gods to overcome something that large. A lot of the resources included in games are already compressed.Still, even if that's not the actual download size, they should probably tell you what the size really is so you don't get burned afterward and find out you can't get it because it would exceed your quota.

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It's not really that out of left field when you consider the amount of compression DVDs generally get. I just looked up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is 12 GB of disk space, and the actual download was I think 2 but possibly 4 GB. Steam tells me Fallout 3 takes 7 GB, which is to be generous 2 DVDs of content retail. Considering how much you can compress onto a DVD, well.

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Is the FO3 download the GOTY edition? I'd believe 7GB in that case because it would include the DLCs in the download. The main game is only one disc though, and I doubt it's double-layer, so that's a maximum of 4GB in whatever compressed form the disc is in.

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7GB is a hell of a lot to grab.In the interests of accurate data, I've got the server downloading the Nehrim installer from the ModDB.com mirror. They're easily the fastest mod site out there so I'll have some idea of how quickly 1.6GB will come down. Current estimates are just over 3 hours if the current speed is sustained.

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The point I think we're making here is that you're not so much grabbing 7 GB as you're grabbing about a quarter that much, which is something more Nehrim-sized. The other point I think that's being made is that Steam's servers are good enough you'll probably do so at something approaching cap or at the very least well above average. See previous screenshot for details.Which again, isn't trying to suggest that multi-gigabyte downloads aren't a serious issue for some people, so much as I'm trying to suggest that it's not quite apocalyptic levels of bad.

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I'd need to see hard data on their apparently miraculous compression ratios then. You're suggesting that they've achieved a near-miracle. I don't buy that. The retail discs for FO3 are already compressed because the game + DLCs is way larger than 7GB total. Mine currently has 21GB in it, counting a few small mods. So the retail distribution is already at 3:1 compression ratios which are considered quite good.I'm also not saying Steam's servers can't dish out the speed, but if you're telling me you have a 3Mbit cable line, your download speed is only half of your capacity and that's the point *I'VE* been making for awhile now. You can't even sustain your maximum possible speed with them. Either they capped you, or your ISP capped you. Besides, comparing 800MB to 12GB doesn't quite fly. Also, it indicates you're getting 1.5MB/s if I'm reading that right. My line capacity is 1/3 of that at top speed. EDIT: Wait. At 1.5MB/s you've got a way better internet connection than I do. So don't lecture me about connection speeds not being an issue with a line speed like that.In the time it's going to take to download Nehrim, based on current traffic conditions, I could drive to Los Angeles and back again, have the game in hand, and be installing it. For the distance impaired, Los Angeles is 40 miles one-way from here and typically takes about an hour to get there and an hour to get back. Anaheim being closer (where Fry's is) I could be down there and back in half the time. So I think your argument about distance to retail probably falls flat due to the fact that I'd be able to beat this download even under California traffic conditions.So for people who have even slower lines that me, and that's a hell of a lot of people, it is approaching apocalyptic levels of bad. Especially if you're with an ISP that has quotas. And even some here in sunny SoCal have them.For comparison:3Megabit = 375KB/s. So assuming zero overhead, that's the best I could ever do.Dwip's steam client says he's pegged at 1.5MB/s - standard symbol definition says MB = Megabyte. So that connection is pushing 1.5Megabytes per second. Which translates to roughly a 12Megabit connection.

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So, ok. Some numbers:My Fallout 3 dir, which is straight off the GOTY discs and hasn't even been played since install, is 8.56 GB. Can't tell you what the Steam version was, since I don't have it. On the other hand, that CoD:MW2 install I keep talking about? 11.4 GB installed. As I say, it was somewhere between a quarter and less than a half that when I actually downloaded it.So, you know. It's not like I'm making shit up here. I'm saying Steam gets DVD or somewhat better compression, which is about what you'd figure.As far as the speed thing goes, what I realized and didn't communicate particularly well, is that yeah, my connection is better than yours (which, wait, seriously? Basic cable?) and I was wrong about that. And you know, most days, from most sites, I get about the same download rates you do. Steam, well, rather more. It may not hit MY cap, but would almost certainly hit what seems to be YOUR cap, which is how you should be measuring it.And we've been over how you can probably go straight up to the store and do that thing and most of the rest of us just can't, but you also ought to consider: You get what kind of gas milage? What's gas out there these days? I know for me in my car, the Anaheim trip would be like adding $5-10 onto the cost, plus the hour and change where I'm doing nothing but driving. And, as I've said before, if it was a matter of going down to Gamestop, that's like a half hour round trip for me and all of about a mile. Not a big deal. Hartford for me is about the level of your Anaheim trip. Best case mall trip about half that and they might have something. NYC is $30+ and 6+ hours roundtrip just to get there.Which I could do if that's how I wanted to do it. Or I could spend however the hell long it took to do the download at home, not paying any money, and spend the let us say 4 hours (to double your LA time) doing whatever, including using my computer for other things.And in the event, I've done the download-several-GB-on-shitty-DSL thing before in my life, and on worse DSL than you have. And yeah, it took me all night. Yeah, I left the damn computer on all night and went to bed. I know how that works. I'm not trying to say at all that that's not really damned annoying.It's just not 12 GB with bad servers worth of annoying.

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Also on the F:NV note, I just bothered to look, and the whole thing is 6.77 GB installed, plus a single 7 KB esp that I tossed in there to fix a bug. And, for what it's worth, it came on a single DVD. Which, for the record, is almost entirely uncompressed at 6.27 GB.Which is to say that there's no eventuality that I can see in which you would be downloading 12 GB worth of it.

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I'm trying to figure out then why my FO3 install with all the DLCs is pushing 21GB with only some small mods. I never really modded the game all that much.I'm also wondering then where the F:NV people who have repeated the 12GB claim fairly often are getting that figure.Neither of these changes the reality of the situation for people like me on what used to be considered ultra-high speed DSL lines. I do not consider it a feasible solution to leave the PC running all night on a service I already have no reason to trust in order to download something I could drive to Anaheim and bring back and have installed in a fraction of the time. While I have access to a Best Buy at the Montclair Plaza, that's still further away from me than your Gamestop is from you, and their selection of PC games is limited. Not nearly as limited as Gamestop, but still.You apparently max out Steam's download cap from what you're telling me. That leaves you an unknown amount of overhead above and beyond that. Thus it enables you to actually use your computer for things of purpose while doing so. Me, should be obvious that the PC will have to be dedicated to the task at hand and remain undisturbed for several hours in order to get the best possible download speed. Yes, I'm insanely jealous that even basic cable beats the entire range of DSL offerings in my entire state. As I said, I'd need to switch to FiOS in order to have any hope of digital distribution being useful in any way to me.Since you asked, my RSX gets 34mpg on the highway. Reasonably good. Obviously since I have no valid reason to drive all the way to LA, worrying about how much gas that takes would be silly. The Anaheim trip is more realistic. 15 miles down, 15 back. Takes more or less the one gallon accounting for the hills. If I added the $3.50 for that gallon of gas, that's still less than mail ordering a game from Amazon. So there's that. I do consider having to go clear to Fry's a serious inconvenience, but it's one I'm willing to put up with in order to avoid having some nebulous untrustworthy 3rd party with their hands on a kill switch for my games.My trek through the Steam forums has me wondering how they've escaped being sued into non-existence as it is. Holy shit the number of people getting fucked in the ass by Valve for no reason is ridiculous. No brick & mortar would still be in business with practices like that.

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Now then. For the interested.Nehrim is done downloading. It took 2.5 hours, at an average download speed of 186KB/s. On the slow side, but there you have it. Long enough I would have easily been home even from an LA run if I'd made one. For something only 1.6GB in size.Let's say for the sake of argument that your 6.7GB disc was the download size of the game. That's 10.4 hours worth of waiting at this speed. I have no reason to expect Steam would be able to cut that in half by guaranteeing me double the download speed. Mainly because that would hit my theoretical cap anyway. In either case that's still 5.2 hours. A LONG ass time to wait.Remember that bit about being able to stop for pizza and a movie and still having time to spare to run the install? Yeah. And this is one of the smaller mainstream games. Downloading something bigger would be out of the question. I'm simply not going to put up with that.

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On my connection I can usually get up to about 120-150kb/s' date=' so I know what you mean about the idea of downloading something that big taking forever' date=' but for my concerns, I'd be far more fearful of the size compared to my quota limitations. I doubt I could pull 12gb in the five hour window I get at night, and the system would definitely not let me pull it outside of that window.[/quote'']I'd have to go try it again, but when I last downloaded the big Nehrim installer, which is 1.6GB, the estmated time to download was several hours. I canceled it and got the server to pull it overnight while I slept. Having no quota, yes, I can do this.
Just figure whatever time it takes you to download it, I'm looking at about twice the time and only a five hour nightly window to accomplish it in. :sigh:
In the time it took to download' date=' I could have taken a shower, gone to the store, bought the game, watched a movie in the theater, stopped for pizza on the way home, and had time to consume the entire pizza, watch a TV show, and then sit down to install the game afterward. All before Steam would have been close to done downloading it. This is not the halmark of high speed internet.I shudder to think of all the things I could do while waiting on 12GB to download. Unless I miss my guess, this would be > 24 hours at present speeds on my PC. That's not my definition of convenient by any definition of the word. I'm just not THAT lazy I'm afraid.[/quote']Now you can understand why, if it's not locally available, I either just don't need it that badly anyway or I can easily wait for it to ship to me on a CD, it'd end up taking just as long to download. ;)
I would've thought asshattery like Giskard would've been a greater impetus but I guess when you start combining such things... either way' date=' it's really a shame that you're considering giving up on computer games and modding.[/quote']I can ignore Giskard. I generally do in fact. I wouldn't be able to ignore Valve if they shut off my game for arbitrary and fraudulent reasons.
Well' date=' yeah, I do understand, but I'd still hate to see you leave another medium I share. ;)
On that subject' date=' there is a thread on the first two pages of the Steam forums where they did exactly this. One guy lost 90 games due to giving his copy of F:NV to a friend without realizing he'd need to prostrate himself in front of Valve to transfer the disc key. The fanatics there all piled on to him claiming he should have known better. Why would you if you bought retail box? It's physical property. Serves as a fine example of what I don't want happening. Two people got banned from the forums in that thread, and the thread itself locked, though after 12 pages. I guess Valve doesn't want bad things said about them despite it being the truth.[/quote']This is a tough to one to argue. In a sense, he should have known better. Even if you completely unistall a copy of Windows Vista from your computer and replace it with Linux, if you go and give the CD it came on to a friend, they're not going to be able to re-use your activation code to install it on their computer. This isn't quite as uncommon as all that anymore. On the other hand, losing his other 89 games is not right either though...
You've seriously never registered anything?
Not online' date=' no. I have occasionally sent in physical registration cards though. Know why? They can't prevent me from putting them in mailboxes because I didn't give them my phone number. The online forms can' date=' because they're generally hardcoded to demand it, and some of them are smart enough to realize 000-000-0000 is invalid. A blank spot on the paper form serves the same purpose. I don't see any reason for them to need that info.[/quote'']Well, ok, but you still registered the games you just opted to do it by mail rather than online so you could withold the info you didn't feel like sharing. (btw, most of them were never smart enough to know that 555 is an invalid number when set in the middle of a valid area code and any four ending numbers.)
Well' date=' I suppose there is always that option' date=' though is there anything under Steam preventing you from burning your own installation disks? You know, in case Steam ever goes under...[/quote'']No, you can burn backups of Steam stuff. Which I suppose is nice, but that won't remove the DRM protection. You'd still need cracks for that, but I guess it beats being completely out the purchase price of your games.
At least that would still give you a work around then should Steam ever ban you or go out of business. :shrug:
I couldn't tell you if Valve has it coming' date=' but I can tell you I've watched plenty of gaming companies fold over the years and it's been pretty rare for one to be good enough to ensure their last act was a sacrifice for the sake of their customers.[/quote']Very few game companies last longer than 5 years. It's a rare thing for one to last 10. Of those that did' date=' they usually went on to become publishing houses like EA and Bethesda. Not just developers. There are people involved in the Steam debate who have been around gaming for 30 years and who to this day still play 15-20 year old titles. And they can because they don't have draconian DRM attached.[/quote']innocent.gif No, there couldn't be any of us that old who still play games on their computers...
I'm not certain I see the tie to Steam' date=' but.. nice rant. I also question whether the US is poorer than Canada' date=' but I know I'm poorer than some Canadians. ;)[/quote'']It's an indirect tie. But consider. Downloading games is a sure way to run up a 25GB/mo quota, yes? It changes the economics of the entire setup when users suddenly realize that downloading 2 things the size of F:NV will cost you dearly in payments to the ISP. As much as I despise quotas and bandwidth overcharges, if it causes Steam to go out of business I'm happy to see it become more widespread.
Oh, believe me, I know about download quotas.. and, yes, I doubt it'd drive them out of business in and of itself, but it'd certainly hurt their Canadian market.
So' date=' since the two of you decided to take up this particular debate within a topic that's specifically geared towards making pretty much nothing off-topic anyway.. what do the two of you (or others too' date=' for that matter) think of the Wii? My wife's been wanting one for awhile now because her folks got one and she really thinks she'd like it enough to use it far more than we ever get around to using our PS2 (the only gaming console we still have here).[/quote'']I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Wii. My parents have one, and they really love it. I think they're too busy to do it right now, but for a while they were spending an hour or so a night playing games. My mother is about as far from being a gamer as you can possibly get (unless it says Ms. Pac-Man on it and looks like an Atari), so whatever that's worth. I played it a bit, mostly various parts of Wii Sports, and thought it was ok, definitely the first controller since the N64 I could actually play on, but I like different sorts of games than we had, so it wasn't hugely compelling there. Take that for what it's worth.
:nod: Dragona prefers casual gaming overall anyway, and, as far as I know, she's really liking the Wii for it's bowling game but apparently it's also got some Super Mario type thing she likes. Personally, I found the controller a pretty weird experience when I tried it at their house, but I'm not so big on console gaming anyway.
Actually' date=' unless my memory has somehow suddenly failed me altogether' date=' we've had games that phoned home with registration info since long before the internet really even existed. In fact, I still have quite a few older games that require you to complete some mini survey and then choose to use your modem to phone in your answers, print it for faxing, or print it for mailing as the last step in installation. A simple one time activation/registration doesn't actually bother me at all.[/quote'']My experiences here are much as Samson's - there are games that ASK you to register, sure, but I can only think of maybe one that MAY have required registration, and I can't really remember over the space of 10-15 years what it even was.Man, remember that? When mailing in registration cards was some huge deal? Oi.
Well, yeah, most of the games would try to insist on registration at installation and a few would continue to nag you at start-up until you registered them, but almost all of them would still let you play even unregistered. I suppose require was a poor word choice on my part.Yes, I do indeed remember that. :)
- Steam has a pretty good download manager in place that can be paused and resumed at will' date=' auto-pauses while you're playing games, and such things. I realize that's not really a perfect solution, but it does exist. You're not being forced into some multi-gigabyte in one go suicide pact.[/quote']See, now that would make a huge difference for someone in my situation. If I can somehow set thedownload manager to auto-pause during my non-free window hours, it'd take days to complete a huge download (at least days if we're talking in the neighborhood of 12GB), but it'd eventually complete without killing my daily limits that way.
All of that said' date=' I'm fully aware how aggravating that sort of thing would be for Conner. Still, I was able to push about 6 or 8 GB down to my box without any real trouble other than having to dick around on the internet for a few hours.[/quote']Bet you're not really fully aware, but.. yes, it really would be almost enough to drive me nuts watching it's daily progress and waiting a week for a single download to complete, but at least it wouldn't completely kill me if I can set it to only download during my window.
Considering that every Valve game ever released is almost universally loved by the people who play them' date=' considering how much money Steam must be making them I can't say I'm really worried by this. For that matter, Valve has gone on record a number of times saying they'd get ways to unlock games if Steam ever does go under. Which, you know, maybe. Believe it when it happens.Opinions justifiably differ on the matter, however.[/quote']In my own experience, I'm inclined to agree with Samson that there are very few companies in the gaming industry that make it for the long haul, especially with a single given program, and it's rare when one of those companies does pause in the middle of financial collapse to do something solely for their about to be former customers, despite the flowery speeches they all make when times are good. But it does happen now and again. :shrug:
So on the whole bandwidth issue:
I would have LOVED to buy Star Wars The Force Unleased: Ultimate Sith Edition... but I couldn't. I noticed that the install size was 30GB.
30 fucking GB people. That's insanity no matter what type of connection you have. Just how do they expect this to work out for' date=' say' date=' Canadians? I guess all of Canada just got the bad news.[/quote'']Um, yeah.. let's see, if 1.6GB would take me two nights to download, and thus 12GB would take me about a week and a half, I suppose I could do 30GB in a month... :(
I'd recommend an Xbox 360 over the PS3 [...]
Since this topic is called random stuff I'll take that up. [...]
So' date=' since the two of you decided to take up this particular debate within a topic that's specifically geared towards making pretty much nothing off-topic anyway.. what do the two of you (or others too' date=' for that matter) think of the Wii? My wife's been wanting one for awhile now because her folks got one and she really thinks she'd like it enough to use it far more than we ever get around to using our PS2 (the only gaming console we still have here).[/quote'']Well, the Wii is an incredibly fun console, but only for short periods of time. The wii had a lot going for it for a while, but you were always hampered by the Wiimote. It always had to be in your hand or on your person, or the Wii had no idea what you were doing. At the start, that was great, it still is great. I still enjoy playing on the Wii from time to time, but the Wii isn't truely a frontrunner for console gaming. Not hardcore gaming anyway, the Wii is more for casual gaming. And it's strengths are more for the sports games like WiiSports, or WiiSports Resort, which are both fun in their own right. The one game for the Wii that actually has my attention and makes me want to go out and buy is Epic Mickey. Google it, it's a pretty fun looking game.For a long time the Wii didn't really have any competition in the "Active" gaming scene. "Active" gaming meaning you have to actually stand up and be active to play it. But now PS3 has the Move system which sadly is almost a direct rip-off of the Wii's system, except the PS3's Move is a little more queer looking. You have to hold what looks like a glowing torch ball to work with it, and honestly, I'd take the Wii over that anyday. But now the Xbox and Microsoft have stepped into the "Active" gaming scene with Kinect. and Kinect blows the other two out of the water. Kinect doesn't require anything but the Kinect sensor, and a Kinect enabled game. Once the Sensor is plugged in your body is the controller. You can control movies with a wave of your hand, and the games involve your whole body, and not just where the Wiimote or Move sensor is.Overall, the Wii is a great console if you're looking for casual gaming, it doesn't have any High Def support, and it's games are kind of limited, but fun. But it's not the only way to get that "active" experience anymore, and in my opinion, unless there's a game you want to play on it, like Epic Mickey, the Kinect or Move would be a better buy. I'm personally partial to the Kinect because of all the stuff it does in addition to just expanding the games into the "Active" category.But it's all going to boil down to what you and Dragona want to do. So if you do go to buy one, look into all the options, Kinect for Xbox 360, Wii, and Move for PS3. I'd reccommend Kinect, but that's my cup of tea, and your mileage may vary. But I'm loving controlling movies with my hands. >.>
Understand, I don't share her enthusiasm. As I mentioned to Dwip a moment ago, I think she's really looking for a bowling game and something related to Super Mario, neither of which are really my bag. But I'll definitely suggest we look into Kinect as an alternative then. She told me today she saw the Wii at WalMart is down to only $200 and I was just ...only, eh? :rolleyes::facepalm:
7GB is a hell of a lot to grab.In the interests of accurate data' date=' I've got the server downloading the Nehrim installer from the ModDB.com mirror. They're easily the fastest mod site out there so I'll have some idea of how quickly 1.6GB will come down. Current estimates are just over 3 hours if the current speed is sustained.[/quote']Yeah it is. :stare:Right, so if it'd take you just over 3 hrs, it'd take me just under 7 but I only get 5 each night to work with.. like I said above, for a 12GB I'd be looking at 45 hours at 5/night means 9 nights. A week and a half is a helluva long download for anyone.
Which again' date=' isn't trying to suggest that multi-gigabyte downloads aren't a serious issue for some people, so much as I'm trying to suggest that it's not quite apocalyptic levels of bad.[/quote']Um, yeah.. see the last thing I just said about a 9 day download time. :facepalm:
Dwip's steam client says he's pegged at 1.5MB/s - standard symbol definition says MB = Megabyte. So that connection is pushing 1.5Megabytes per second. Which translates to roughly a 12Megabit connection.
(which' date=' wait' date=' seriously? Basic cable?)[/quote'']Sounds about right to me. When I was still living in Virginia I had basic cable from Comcast at 12 Megabit with no limits and I absolutely loved it and now I miss it something fierce especially since my internet bill actually went up (a lot) for the crap I've got now. :(
Nehrim is done downloading. It took 2.5 hours' date=' at an average download speed of 186KB/s. On the slow side, but there you have it. Long enough I would have easily been home even from an LA run if I'd made one. For something only 1.6GB in size.Let's say for the sake of argument that your 6.7GB disc was the download size of the game. That's 10.4 hours worth of waiting at this speed. I have no reason to expect Steam would be able to cut that in half by guaranteeing me double the download speed. Mainly because that would hit my theoretical cap anyway. In either case that's still 5.2 hours. A LONG ass time to wait.Remember that bit about being able to stop for pizza and a movie and still having time to spare to run the install? Yeah. And this is one of the smaller mainstream games. Downloading something bigger would be out of the question. I'm simply not going to put up with that.[/quote']That's a little better than your earlier estimate, so I guess I'm only looking at 5 days instead of 9 for that 12gb download... I suppose I could drive out there to meet you for that pizza while it's downloading, I'd still be able to get back in time to install it. :lol:
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Understand' date=' I don't share her enthusiasm. As I mentioned to Dwip a moment ago, I think she's really looking for a bowling game and something related to Super Mario, neither of which are really my bag. But I'll definitely suggest we look into Kinect as an alternative then. She told me today she saw the Wii at WalMart is down to only $200 and I was just ...only, eh? :rolleyes::facepalm: [/quote']Well, the Wii will definitely be the cheaper route if you have to buy the console as well, but Amazon has some nice bundles that come with the Xbox 360 Slim w/250GB Hard Drive, Kinect, and 2 Games, and I think they're somewhere around $350 for everything (well, sans shipping, we don't pay shipping from Amazon, we've got Amazon Prime or Amazon Mom's or something).
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I know the feeling. We just bought a car, and our budget is stretched pretty tight right now too. Thankfully, we got our new Xbox 360/Kinect Bundle for Christmas from her parents.As an aside though, I just got back from the ER with the little one not long ago, and I have to admit, Chest X-rays on a 5 month old are not fun, and neither is putting eye drops in her eyes. But I think the best part of my midnight excursion to the ER was finding out she has an upper respiratory infection, and pink eye. And that we need to have her regular doctor keep an eye on her heart because it looked a little bigger then normal in the x-rays, but they said it could just by the thymus gland. So lovely evening for me full of Great news.

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This is a tough to one to argue. In a sense' date=' he should have known better. Even if you completely unistall a copy of Windows Vista from your computer and replace it with Linux, if you go and give the CD it came on to a friend, they're not going to be able to re-use your activation code to install it on their computer. This isn't quite as uncommon as all that anymore. On the other hand, losing his other 89 games is not right either though...[/quote']Pretty much my feeling, too. What's more, it's not like Steam doesn't explicitly tell you this at least once on install, and it's hardly Valve's fault if you didn't pay attention to that. What's even more, if I am not mistaken there's an easy enough way to transfer your games to your friends via Steam itself, so it's not like he couldn't do it that way.Too, I've heard enough stories of people having their entire Xbox Live accounts locked for things like cheating that it's hardly as if you're going to escape this sort of thing on consoles.
No' date=' there couldn't be any of us that old who still play games on their computers...[/quote']For what this is worth in regards to Samson's point, Valve was founded in 1996, and Steam has been going since 2003. Both of them make a lot of money. Which, yeah, a lot of gaming companies fail, and I'm exquisitely aware of how well people like Origin, Microprose, and Interplay are doing, but Valve's not precisely a new kid on the block at this point, either. Just saying.For what this is worth, Half-Life and Baldur's Gate both came out in 1998. I can fire up Half-Life through Steam without any real issues, whereas BG takes a lot to get going on modern hardware. Valve's pretty smart about that sort of thing, much more than most publishers have ever been.
:nod: Dragona prefers casual gaming overall anyway' date=' and, as far as I know, she's really liking the Wii for it's bowling game but apparently it's also got some Super Mario type thing she likes. Personally, I found the controller a pretty weird experience when I tried it at their house, but I'm not so big on console gaming anyway.[/quote']Yeah, I will say that Wii Bowling is pretty sweet, although I don't know if it's $200 kind of sweet.
Sounds about right to me. When I was still living in Virginia I had basic cable from Comcast at 12 Megabit with no limits and I absolutely loved it and now I miss it something fierce especially since my internet bill actually went up (a lot) for the crap I've got now.
I think my point is that it's not entirely concievable to me that Samson couldn't get something as good, although I have no idea what he pays for his DSL. I seem to recall us having this discussion in the past, but I forget most of it offhand.I'll have more to say about speeds and times in a while. As Samson has run an experiment, so shall I.
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Lol. I have a 2Megabit cable connection right now and I pull speeds faster then Samson. Damn DSL must suck ass.
Your maximum rated capacity at 2 megabits is 250KB/s. You're significantly slower than I am. I don't know why the Nehrim download was as slow as it was. Could be congestion on ModDB's side of things' date=' or just the reality of the fact that I'm not the only person using this DSL line. Under ideal conditions I'd be running faster than you. DSL didn't used to suck btw. There was a time when line speed like what I have now was the envy of every cable user in the country.The only good thing about it is that I never have to worry about sharing it with 50 neighbors who are all torrenting music at the dinner hour. Given the number of teenagers around here, that would be a very real possibility.
This is a tough to one to argue. In a sense' date=' he should have known better. Even if you completely unistall a copy of Windows Vista from your computer and replace it with Linux' date=' if you go and give the CD it came on to a friend, they're not going to be able to re-use your activation code to install it on their computer. This isn't quite as uncommon as all that anymore. On the other hand, losing his other 89 games is not right either though...[/quote'']Pretty much my feeling, too. What's more, it's not like Steam doesn't explicitly tell you this at least once on install, and it's hardly Valve's fault if you didn't pay attention to that. What's even more, if I am not mistaken there's an easy enough way to transfer your games to your friends via Steam itself, so it's not like he couldn't do it that way.
If Valve had simply denied him the one game that caused the problem, nobody would have had issue with it. Even the Steam worshiping fanatics later in the thread agreed that cutting him off from every last game ever tied to the account was all sorts of wrong. I don't care what the SSA says, it wouldn't be enforceable in this manner if someone took it to court. Valve would lose, as they are interfering with a contract between two unrelated parties. Namely the EULA between the user and the game's publisher.
Too, I've heard enough stories of people having their entire Xbox Live accounts locked for things like cheating that it's hardly as if you're going to escape this sort of thing on consoles.
Near as I can tell, VAC-banning isn't nearly the same thing as having your entire account locked out through no fault of your own. You get VAC-banned for cheating in multi-player games. Extremely unlikely to be an issue for me since I tend toward single player games where cheating isn't even a valid concern.Same goes for XBox. Everything I can find on the subject suggests that Microsoft has an equivalent to VAC-banning and you don't lose access to your entire account over it.Trust me when I tell you that M$ would have been sued into Oblivion for over-reaching their authority. It boggles the mind why Valve hasn't yet suffered the same. They're both just as evil in this regard.
For what this is worth in regards to Samson's point, Valve was founded in 1996, and Steam has been going since 2003. Both of them make a lot of money. Which, yeah, a lot of gaming companies fail, and I'm exquisitely aware of how well people like Origin, Microprose, and Interplay are doing, but Valve's not precisely a new kid on the block at this point, either. Just saying.
That may be, but they're still a small timer in comparison to giants like EA and Bethesda. Yes, they qualify under the rare few I was talking about, but they're beginning to expand beyond their normal reach and when that happens it usually means Bad Things™. As in the kind of things one well placed class action lawsuit could topple. They aren't Microsoft. They can't survive a prolonged battle in court against determined class action trial lawyers.
I think my point is that it's not entirely concievable to me that Samson couldn't get something as good, although I have no idea what he pays for his DSL. I seem to recall us having this discussion in the past, but I forget most of it offhand.
That "something as good" is Verizon FiOS or nothing. DirecTV doesn't offer internet service packages out here. I'd never take that option anyway. Satellite internet sucks balls (sorry Conner). There is no longer a local cable company in this area. They went bankrupt 2 years ago and left everyone who was with them out to dry. DSL Extreme has a 6Mbit DSL plan, but I've already tried it and the line stability sucks. So I can't use it.Verizon FiOS does not allow the operation of servers of any type on a residential line. They also don't allow static IPs. So everything currently hosted here would by necessity need to go elsewhere. Your blog, my blog, this site, the Smaug site, all the MUDs I'm still hosting, all of it would have to go. A minimal VPS to house stuff would cost $20/mo. By minimal I mean something probably just big enough to handle my blog and one of the forum sites. Much more and the storage limitations cramp it too much.I currently pay $60/mo for 3Mbit speed and 5 static IPs. Unlimited bandwidth usage, though I'm fairly sure I'd be classified as an irritant on a lot of other ISPs due to the amount of traffic flowing in and out of here.Bottom line is that it's just not practical right now to move to FiOS. Even moreso because once the move is done, it's a one-way trip. Verizon comes and takes the copper line out so future DSL connections would be out of the question. It's basically a Verizon lock-in I'd be looking at. They don't even allow their FiOS to be resold by ISPs.
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I know the feeling. We just bought a car' date=' and our budget is stretched pretty tight right now too. Thankfully, we got our new Xbox 360/Kinect Bundle for Christmas from her parents.As an aside though, I just got back from the ER with the little one not long ago, and I have to admit, Chest X-rays on a 5 month old are not fun, and neither is putting eye drops in her eyes. But I think the best part of my midnight excursion to the ER was finding out she has an upper respiratory infection, and pink eye. And that we need to have her regular doctor keep an eye on her heart because it looked a little bigger then normal in the x-rays, but they said it could just by the thymus gland. So lovely evening for me full of Great news.[/quote']Nice gift.First ER visit for the little one for y'all? Pink eye sucks, but it's not one of the worst things to happen by a long shot and it frequently accompanies respiratory infections. Concerns about an enlarged heart on the other hand.. we'll keep Claire in our prayers for ya'.
This is a tough to one to argue. In a sense' date=' he should have known better. Even if you completely unistall a copy of Windows Vista from your computer and replace it with Linux' date=' if you go and give the CD it came on to a friend, they're not going to be able to re-use your activation code to install it on their computer. This isn't quite as uncommon as all that anymore. On the other hand, losing his other 89 games is not right either though...[/quote'']Pretty much my feeling, too. What's more, it's not like Steam doesn't explicitly tell you this at least once on install, and it's hardly Valve's fault if you didn't pay attention to that. What's even more, if I am not mistaken there's an easy enough way to transfer your games to your friends via Steam itself, so it's not like he couldn't do it that way.
Unless his friend didn't have Steam, but, either way, getting the rest of his games locked out for it isn't right. :shrug:
Too' date=' I've heard enough stories of people having their entire Xbox Live accounts locked for things like cheating that it's hardly as if you're going to escape this sort of thing on consoles.[/quote']That doesn't make it right though. :(
No' date=' there couldn't be any of us that old who still play games on their computers...[/quote']For what this is worth in regards to Samson's point' date=' Valve was founded in 1996, and Steam has been going since 2003. Both of them make a lot of money. Which, yeah, a lot of gaming companies fail, and I'm exquisitely aware of how well people like Origin, Microprose, and Interplay are doing, but Valve's not precisely a new kid on the block at this point, either. Just saying.For what this is worth, Half-Life and Baldur's Gate both came out in 1998. I can fire up Half-Life through Steam without any real issues, whereas BG takes a lot to get going on modern hardware. Valve's pretty smart about that sort of thing, much more than most publishers have ever been.[/quote']Lord, I'm feeling old now.. I suspect Samson's 5-10 years is a bit short, but even so, it's not like Interplay or Microprose or Origin didn't offer to do right by their customers if anything ever happened. On the other hand, it's not like their games had DRM either..
:nod: Dragona prefers casual gaming overall anyway' date=' and' date=' as far as I know, she's really liking the Wii for it's bowling game but apparently it's also got some Super Mario type thing she likes. Personally, I found the controller a pretty weird experience when I tried it at their house, but I'm not so big on console gaming anyway.[/quote'']Yeah, I will say that Wii Bowling is pretty sweet, although I don't know if it's $200 kind of sweet.
I'm kinda thinking similarly.
Sounds about right to me. When I was still living in Virginia I had basic cable from Comcast at 12 Megabit with no limits and I absolutely loved it and now I miss it something fierce especially since my internet bill actually went up (a lot) for the crap I've got now.
I think my point is that it's not entirely concievable to me that Samson couldn't get something as good' date=' although I have no idea what he pays for his DSL. I seem to recall us having this discussion in the past' date=' but I forget most of it offhand.[/quote'']I wouldn't be surprised, it's the sort of thing that would've come up.
I'll have more to say about speeds and times in a while. As Samson has run an experiment' date=' so shall I.[/quote']The quick way is to hit a site like speedtest.net gives you a nifty little graphic you can share with us like this:
1135554116.png

(Of course, my numbers are probably way skewed because I'm in my free download window... and I'm only about 70 miles from Dallas, not 350...)

Lol. I have a 2Megabit cable connection right now and I pull speeds faster then Samson. Damn DSL must suck ass.
Your maximum rated capacity at 2 megabits is 250KB/s. You're significantly slower than I am. I don't know why the Nehrim download was as slow as it was. Could be congestion on ModDB's side of things' date=' or just the reality of the fact that I'm not the only person using this DSL line. Under ideal conditions I'd be running faster than you. DSL didn't used to suck btw. There was a time when line speed like what I have now was the envy of every cable user in the country.The only good thing about it is that I never have to worry about sharing it with 50 neighbors who are all torrenting music at the dinner hour. Given the number of teenagers around here' date=' that would be a very real possibility.[/quote'']I'll vouch that once upon a time DSL put cable to shame regularly, but cable's never really been a slouch since they started acting as an ISP either.
If Valve had simply denied him the one game that caused the problem' date=' nobody would have had issue with it. Even the Steam worshiping fanatics later in the thread agreed that cutting him off from every last game ever tied to the account was all sorts of wrong. I don't care what the SSA says, it wouldn't be enforceable in this manner if someone took it to court. Valve would lose, as they are interfering with a contract between two unrelated parties. Namely the EULA between the user and the game's publisher.[/quote']I would have to agree with that. If it was just about the one game, he wouldn't have even really had ground to justify bothering the forum regulars with his post.
Trust me when I tell you that M$ would have been sued into Oblivion for over-reaching their authority. It boggles the mind why Valve hasn't yet suffered the same. They're both just as evil in this regard.
One does have to wonder' date=' if they're really doing this sort of thing this regularly, how they haven't ended up in court yet.
That may be' date=' but they're still a small timer in comparison to giants like EA and Bethesda. Yes, they qualify under the rare few I was talking about, but they're beginning to expand beyond their normal reach and when that happens it usually means Bad Things. As in the kind of things one well placed class action lawsuit could topple. They aren't Microsoft. They can't survive a prolonged battle in court against determined class action trial lawyers.[/quote']Has anyone actually bothered to check their stock profile to see if this is true?...Hmm, ok, just tried, they don't have a stock symbol because they're basically a subsidiary of Sierra which is a subsidiary of Activision. No wonder they've stayed around so long.
That "something as good" is Verizon FiOS or nothing. DirecTV doesn't offer internet service packages out here. I'd never take that option anyway. Satellite internet sucks balls (sorry Conner). There is no longer a local cable company in this area. They went bankrupt 2 years ago and left everyone who was with them out to dry. DSL Extreme has a 6Mbit DSL plan' date=' but I've already tried it and the line stability sucks. So I can't use it.Verizon FiOS does not allow the operation of servers of any type on a residential line. They also don't allow static IPs. So everything currently hosted here would by necessity need to go elsewhere. Your blog, my blog, this site, the Smaug site, all the MUDs I'm still hosting, all of it would have to go. A minimal VPS to house stuff would cost $20/mo. By minimal I mean something probably just big enough to handle my blog and one of the forum sites. Much more and the storage limitations cramp it too much.I currently pay $60/mo for 3Mbit speed and 5 static IPs. Unlimited bandwidth usage, though I'm fairly sure I'd be classified as an irritant on a lot of other ISPs due to the amount of traffic flowing in and out of here.Bottom line is that it's just not practical right now to move to FiOS. Even moreso because once the move is done, it's a one-way trip. Verizon comes and takes the copper line out so future DSL connections would be out of the question. It's basically a Verizon lock-in I'd be looking at. They don't even allow their FiOS to be resold by ISPs.[/quote']Hey, no need to apologize to me, I've been preaching the same thing about satellite service for just shy of two years now.Otherwise, this is starting to sound like a conversation you and I had just recently somewhere else...
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Here's mine:1135581413.pngWhatever their testing conditions are, it reached very close to the maximum amount. Distance to their LA server probably helped. Ping times don't look so good though.Also, yes, Valve being a subsidiary of a much larger company starts to explain how they've managed to survive this long as a draconian evil bastard.

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The only good thing about it is that I never have to worry about sharing it with 50 neighbors who are all torrenting music at the dinner hour. Given the number of teenagers around here' date=' that would be a very real possibility.[/quote']Yeah, there are times when it really, really slows down around here about dinner time. Most of the time not so much though.
If Valve had simply denied him the one game that caused the problem' date=' nobody would have had issue with it. Even the Steam worshiping fanatics later in the thread agreed that cutting him off from every last game ever tied to the account was all sorts of wrong. I don't care what the SSA says, it wouldn't be enforceable in this manner if someone took it to court. Valve would lose, as they are interfering with a contract between two unrelated parties. Namely the EULA between the user and the game's publisher.[/quote']Yeah, also that. A complete account lockout is a bit much. I'm just saying that it's hard to claim complete innocence here.
Same goes for XBox. Everything I can find on the subject suggests that Microsoft has an equivalent to VAC-banning and you don't lose access to your entire account over it.
I was under a rather different impression' date=' but then, I don't really keep up with Xbox stuff, so.
That may be' date=' but they're still a small timer in comparison to giants like EA and Bethesda. Yes, they qualify under the rare few I was talking about, but they're beginning to expand beyond their normal reach and when that happens it usually means Bad Things™. As in the kind of things one well placed class action lawsuit could topple. They aren't Microsoft. They can't survive a prolonged battle in court against determined class action trial lawyers.[/quote']Could anyone, I wonder, with the possible exception of EA and Activision. And they're well over 5 years into this whole expansion thing, with well over 30 million Steam subscribers if the quick Wikipedia search is to be believed, and as we all know, that really worked out for Blizzard with WoW's 12 odd million people.So, you know. Maybe not tiny.
I currently pay $60/mo for 3Mbit speed and 5 static IPs.
Insofar as I'm paying $65/mo' date=' you, sir, are kind of getting shafted. Which I do believe you realize.
Verizon comes and takes the copper line out so future DSL connections would be out of the question.
Wait' date=' for real? How does that work? I mean, I know about the resale stuff, but what?[edit']And my speedtest.net thing:1135607950.pngI feel kind of embarassed. For some reason I had been laboring under the idea that Samson's internet was equivilent to my own for some years now.
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Insofar as I'm paying $65/mo' date=' you, sir, are kind of getting shafted. Which I do believe you realize.[/quote']Well aware of this. Static IPs don't come cheap. Not much I can really do about it without severely disrupting my current setup. As Conner alluded to though, that's certainly not out of the question given the way things are going.
Wait, for real? How does that work? I mean, I know about the resale stuff, but what?
It works that way because if you get FiOS service, they bring a fiber optic connection to the house and put your landline phone service on that in addition to the internet service. That's the only way they do it out here and since they own the copper they have you by the balls once you've committed. There is no turning back as they WILL NOT lay a new copper line in the future, and for that matter, neither will Pacific Bell which is the only other local landline service in this area.This of course works out badly for me as I don't own the landline portion of our setup. I only own the DSL loop attached to it. I do all of my actual phone stuff over my cell. It's the only number I have. Which I see as a good thing because no matter where I move to, I don't actually NEED a landline.
I feel kind of embarassed. For some reason I had been laboring under the idea that Samson's internet was equivilent to my own for some years now.
Not entirely sure how you came to that conclusion, but no, it certainly isn't anywhere close :P
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So, ok. On the whole download sizes and compression note. For purposes of the experiment, I checked the installed size of Mass Effect 1:masseffectsize.jpgSo that's pretty big. Bigger than F:NV or FO3 at any rate.Then I totally uninstalled it and redownloaded the whole thing through Steam. Here's the starting part:masseffectdlstart.jpgPay attention to that total downloaded number in big letters at the top, because that's the critical one. You'll see a number out of 10.1 GB at the bottom, which is what Steam says the total install size is. Where the discrepancy between 9.94 GB and 10.1 GB lies, I'm not sure, but I'm sure there are a few files somewhere that Steam adds to itself. In the event, 150 MB is not the 5.33 GB F:NV would have to be somehow hiding.Here's where it was at the end:masseffectdlend.jpgNotice the 2 GB worth of compression. That's actually pretty bad, since as I say, CoD: MW2 had much much better compression. Then again, it's not like this sort of thing hasn't been known amongst Bioware games before. Consider it the absolute worst case scenario.The graphics don't really reflect it, but I pulled it all down at roughly 1.5 MB/s with a couple of 2.4 spikes as I did with that L4D2 thing. Like I said, it won't hit MY cap, but it'll probably hit yours.So make of that what you will.

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