Post-Mortem on the Computer Build

Crossfire seems to be working. I’m seeing just over 12K on my 3dMark06 score with Crossfire working, and just over 8500 without. That’s not a huge improvement, but it puts me firmly in the realm of the 8800 GTS cards for a little less on the price side. Call of Duty 4, Team Fortress 2, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars all run smoothly at 1680 X 1050 with all of the graphics settings in every game set to high. CoD4 chokes just a wee bit in heavy fire fights (fps drops to 28-35 on average), but that’s okay. I’m going to attempt Unreal Tournament 3, Company of Heroes, and Neverwinter Nights 2 tomorrow. I’m eager to see how the rest of these guys perform, especially the last two. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to run games at maxed out settings, so hopefully I’m in for a visual treat.

I have a few complaints about Vista now that I’ve run it for a few days. The biggest thing is that Vista just automatically makes the microphone jack on my sound card the primary recording device and mutes my Logitech USB mic. I don’t ask it to do this, nor do I sanction such a wanton violation of my user-based preferences. I suppose I should send some riot troops over to the Device Manager and get it to step back in line or be purged. Windows XP is currently only about forty minutes away from a coup…

The next thing that Vista does that I find annoying is the User Access Control. We’ve all seen this Mac commercial:

The sad thing is that is 100% true. You can disable UAC, but doing so causes a constant flag in your system tray (when you turn the system on) that reminds you how “unsecure” your system is. Thanks for that, Windows Vista.

And speaking of funny commercials, a group of three guys did an excellent spoof of the Mac advertising campaign.

I have a white Macbook.