Glukx Ouglouk

Actually, 2560x1600 is a very common resolution for 30" monitors. There aren't that many on the market, but I've seen some from Nec, LG, Dell, HP and Eizo at least.

@ Fetchez: I don't think there's really a need for 4 different types in Normandy - AFAIK, the bocage hedgerows there pretty much always have some sort of earthbank anyway. I guess that bocage hedgerows without earthbanks might be useful in some other places though.

I think there's a huge difference between low and high bocage - using tank guns to blast through low bocage is feasible, but it's not a reasonable method for high bocage. In the case of the demo scenario, the channeling of the armor through the few existing openings is part of the challenge! Personally, I attacked solely through the left, and could get all my tanks through the single opening without any issue once I had knocked out the German AT gun (which did first get one of my tanks through the hedgerow, though) and captured the farm on the left.

Just in the last few days? I've personally heard Norton's name associated with every imaginable cuss word for years, by now...

Just started seeding the mac version. Hope it helps!

No, most games sold in Europe aren't bought in the USA. For big titles, there's usually a different retail package for each country, or at most the same package is sold in a handful of countries. Some games are imported, but that's mostly only when a game isn't well distributed in a particular market by its publisher. edit: to clarify: for instance, if you buy an EA game in France, the price will be set by EA France or EA Europe, depending on what they think is the right price for the French market, and it won't be a straight conversion from the price set by EA America for the North American market.

Definitely agree with DaveyJJ - BFC can't lie on such things. That being said, in this case, the pre-order includes both a download and a physical media, so it migt be possible to (legally) put a lower value then $60 (+shipping) on the package, considering that only a part of that cost is for what's in the package... But I don't really know how that would work.

For CMSF, BFC had the game published in Europe by Paradoxe Interactive (IIRC) - but there were some issues with them (though I'm not sure of the details). It's a question of trade-offs: a company like BFC can either self-publish everything (with the kind of issues everyone noted) or work out publishing or distribution deals with other company... But those come with their own set of issues (including things that impact customers - for instance, there were complaints about the Russian versions of CM:A and CM:SF on the forum not long ago, I think with issues related to patches). As for the difference between the video games industry and others: there is a vast difference with, say, the movie industry, at least because of the importance of customer support, releasing patches, and so on - which are often linked with the publishing deals in one way or another. Music is even simpler than movies, because you don't even need translations and localizations. But even so, there are many indie movies or music albums which never get released in more than a handful of countries - so I'd say that distributing anything worldwide is always going to be difficult...

I think it's worth point out that the text states that the 100 yds figure comes from the sights setting - it's not uncommon for WW2 weapons to have sights set for completely unrealistic maximum ranges, including SMGs with sights set for firing at 200m... I don't think that means that it's the actual effective range.

I'm not exactly one to defend everything that's done within the EU (quite far from it, in fact...), but this is definitely not a matter of EU policy. The EU has basically abolished trade barriers within itself, and customs taxes for goods from outside the EU are a matter of national policy, not European policy (hence the differences between various member states on this issue)...

You don't have this problem if you buy games published by big companies (which have distribution channels in most countries) or if you buy through downloads without physical media (which BFC does offer too). If you buy from another small developer/publisher based in the US and chose to order physical media from them, you'll run into the same kind of issues.

I've ordered quite a lot of stuff from abroad, and I've never seen any company (even with a lot more resources than BFC) quoting a price that includes possible customs/import taxes to its international customers... International orders are always like that, the seller only takes responsibility for the goods and their shipping, and any customs-related costs are up to the customer.

The Support>Sales Policy page does include a disclaimer about the possibility of custom fees (and delays) for international orders, and it also lists the average delivery time depending on where you live... edit: also, living in France and having pre-ordered, I never noticed anything about shipping the game from anywhere but the US - which seems rather normal to me, since I'm ordering straight from BFC and BFC is an American company.

I think what Redwolf means is that you didn't verify whether the performance increase was really due to the memory increase (as you think) or whether the faster GPU also played a role (or even played the main role). The only way to check that would be to test with the same GPU, but with a different amount of memory (for instance by disabling half the memory of the 9800GT, if there's a way to do that).

You're right, I didn't remember well and I got confused because I just looked at the manual instead of actually checking in the game. Anyway, CM:BN will be here soon!

What I always find funny about this "no foul language on TV/video games/whatever! think of the children!!!" thingy, is that back when I was a kid, most of the foul language I learned was at school, from other kids, not from TV or video games... It's quite amazing how quick learners kids are, when it comes to things adults don't want them to learn!

I was just quoting from the manual - not to mention that, when acquiring 7.62x39 ammo from a vehicle, I'm pretty sure it's the first bar that goes up (I'll check later, I can't launch CM:A right now). As for crewed MG ammo, I'm well aware of that - but there's at least one squad-level small arm which fires 7.62x54 ammunition (namely, the SVD), so you can definitely have 3 types of ammunition for small arms in a squad. Anyway, the way it's displayed in CM:BN seems like it should be a good compromise until the next big overhaul of the interface, so I'm happy about that.

No, in CM:A there are only two bars for rifle/MG ammo (one for small arms, one for MGs); the other two bars are for rifle grenades and hand grenades.

Anyway, in the case of CMBN, didn't BFC state that their goal was to release the game and the demo at roughly the same time? At least, that's what I seem to recall.

In CM:A, what I found confusing was the use of the bars to indicate how much ammo of a given type is left, whith only two categories for rifle/MG ammo, when many units in the game can use 3 or more types... That's mostly a problem for mid-war soviet units which have a mix of 5.45x39 and 7.62x39 assault rifles/LMGs (as well as SVDs firing 7.62x54) in the same squad - it makes acquiring ammo from vehicles quite a bit confusing. When a unit has expended, say, half its rifle ammo, there's (AFAIK) no way to know whether they mostly need to resupply 5.45x39 or 7.62x39. Of course, there are also the mujahideen units with half a dozen different ammo types, but resupply generally isn't an issue for them. It shouldn't be such an issue for CM:BN though, as the actual ammo quantity is apparently displayed for each ammo type, from what I saw in the manual. BTW, Chops, about sniper ammo: in one of the AARs which have been published here, the German player had a sniper resupply from a Kübelwagen, so that's definitely possible. Also, the manual does state which ammo each weapon use, but there are a few typo/mistakes (at least in the version they put in the online viewer), such as the same ammo being described by two different name (7.92x57 Mauser or 8x57 IS) or not using the same name in the text of the manual and in the game UI (.30-06 Springfield or .30cal M2 for instance)...

Which Seagate drives are you talking about? AFAIK, they don't have any consumer-level HDD faster than the Barracuda XT, and that one definitely doesn't benefit much from SATA 3 (according to this test, or this one, or a bunch of others). Not that I'm not saying that this drive isn't fast - it definitely is, but it's pretty much as fast when plugged on a SATA 2 bus. To saturate a SATA 2 bus, you need to reach transfer rates of 300 MB/s (not counting overhead), and I just don't see any 7200 rpm drive reaching that kind of transfer rate very often, when their sequential speed tops out at around 140 MB/s for the fastest ones... BTW: you meant 6 Gb/s, not 6GB/s - there's an eight-fold difference. Also, that's the theoretical transfer rate of SATA 3 (which you'll never perfectly reach in real life, even with a drive that's fast enough), and 20 % of it is taken up by overhead anyway - putting the max theoretical transfer rate for SATA 3 at 600 MB/s of actual data. Anout video memory, I 100% agree that it depends a lot on how it's used - I was talking about "usual" gaming use, not knowing the specifics of the CMx2 3D engine.

Two things worth pointing out: - SATA3 will not make any noticeable difference unless you're using one of the latest SSDs (like the OCZ Vertex 3 or the Crucial M4). No consumer hard disk drive out there can saturate a SATA2 bus. - for video memory, AFAIK, with current games, 2 GB of video RAM won't make any difference even in 2560x1600 resolution - let alone with lower resolutions. Unless things have changed very recently, I'd say it's usually better to go for a faster GPU with 1 GB of memory rather than a slower one with 2 GB (if they cost the same, of course). One thing to keep in mind with response times is that it's just an average value, so it can be very different depending on how it's calculated - and the methods used by manufacturer don't always tell much about real world use... That's why it's better to trust good reviews rather than the manufacturers' data on this (though I wouldn't rely too much on users reviews - most users don't have a lot of screens to make comparisons, and obviously don't have the instruments to actually measure things like response times). Another thing to note is that displays with fast response times can very well have crappy colors and vision angles, so choosing based on response time alone can be a bit short sighted IMO... But it also depends on what you use your screen for, besides gaming.

That's definitely not true for all of Europe... Over here (France), pretty much all debit cards are either Visa or MasterCard cards (with a few American Express cards too, I think, but that's not common), and all payment terminals in stores are compatible with the EMV standard (used by Visa, MasterCard, and a bunch of others). I'm pretty sure that in Italy too, most cards are compatible with either Visa or MasterCard in addition to their national system (Bancomat), though some store will only accept Bancomat cards. I can't speak for other countries, but there are probably quite a few others in similar situations...

Frankly, that game was a disgrace... I guess Barcelona deserved to win overall, but both teams should have had quite a few bookings for all the rather obvious dives (I'd like to see diving stats other a season for both Busquets and Di Maria...). As for Pepe's red card, Real's fans can complain all they want about it, I won't cry for them - there are other Real players who should have been sent off anyway, beginning with Adebayor. I think you just can't compare players who played in such different times... The game has evolved tremendously over the past decades, and the skill you need to shine in today's football just aren't the same that you needed back in Maradonna's days (let alone in Pelé's)! Real was created in 1902, long before the days of the fascist regime, and the name "Real" was awarded by the king of Spain in 1920, so once again before Franco's coup. Now, AFAIK, Franco's regime did end up favoring Real (though I'm pretty sure the Athlético de Madrid was originally preferred) - but it was just a pre-existing team that happened to be convenient for Franco's propaganda, certainly not a creation of the regime.

@ MikeyD: the preorder includes both a boxed copy and download, so it's not something you chose instead of the "simplicity of direct download", but as an addition to the download.