The Nostromo is bitchin'! I've been looking for something like that for a long time. Cool name, too. You definitely recommend it?

Absolutely. It's got an understandable learning curve coming from WASD, and on any given game it takes a little while to develop an effective control scheme.

That said, I've had mine for two years, and had no technical or mechanical problems with it. The thing is built like a tank, as it were. And when I used it to play WoW I honestly couldn't play without it.

Also, FYI, for a long time, there were no Vista drivers, but Belkin has recently released some, albeit quietly. But there are already a number of negative reviews to this effect floating around.

P.S. I've also heard of people using it with Photoshop and the like to have a bunch of hotkeys close at hand. I haven't tried it, but you could probably do something similar for Hammer.

I am totally getting one of these. I'm not a great fan of WASD as it is. In fact I use ESDF instead, so that my left hand stays in its "homerow" position. Otherwise I get confused if I try to send a text message or something and my hand is skewed one key over.

Plus, gamewise, having it in that location lets you reach more keys without moving your hand. I never understood why WASD became the standard.

Anyway, I hadn't even thought of using this beast in Photoshop and Illustrator. That just seals the deal. Thanks for the infoes, brother!

Hober wrote:
I haven't tried it, but you could probably do something similar for Hammer.

Unfortunatly, I don't think Hammer allows you to remap key combinations and/or record keystroke macros. Unless there is some software that comes with it that mimics key combos, in which case ignore me.

msleeper wrote:
Unless there is some software that comes with it that mimics key combos, in which case ignore me.

Indeed it does. See attachment.

Being a poor college student, I went for value. For a total of around $750:

3.4 GHz Pentium 4
2Gb RAM
512 MB MSI NVidia GeForce 8600/8800(can't remember which)
250 GB HD
18" LCD Monitor

And all but the graphics card was bought around 2 years ago.

hamsteralliance wrote:
8800 GTX, 768MB

What the hell? Since getting a mac I haven't really kept up with hardware standards but, like, that seems fucking insane to me. Good lord.

Quad Core
8800GTS
2gb RAm
10,000 rpm 150gb hard drive
5 fans
ASUS case.
19" (maybe 2-"?) widescreen monitor.

pwnd.

Crooked Paul wrote:
OMG, why not? I'm running this thing 68% above spec 24/7 for more than a year, without a single hiccup. What possible reason could you have for wanting your machine to be slower than it could be?

I used to tinker with hardware myself. And I burned some CPUs and drives and what-nots. Then I grew old and now all I really wan't for is a stable system that plays my games.

When it's too slow to play my games I get a new system. I also pay for the additional 3 year warranty that makes any problem not directly caused by me maiming the system the suppliers problem. (Since I expect to do a full system upgrade every 2-3 years.)

Since overclocking effectively voids that warranty it would be silly to do it. Besides I really don't need more horsepower for anything at the moment (except maybe Crysis which is still perfectly playable and very pretty at sub-very-high settings).

Crooked Paul wrote:
I just got me a G5. I really like the feel of it... the mouse I have to use at work, which is a perfectly fine Logitech wheelmouse, just feels clunky now. But the middle-click on the G5 is really mushy-then-hard, so I had to remap some buttons and now I never use it. That sucks. I mean, that's your tertiary button. They really should have engineered it better. Still, the mouse does everything else way better than any other pointing device I've ever laid a hand on. So I'm not going to whinge too much.

I so agree on the G5. It has a nice feel, but the middle mouse button ruins it all. That and the fact that there's only one thumb button. I'm thinking G9 now, though it's wheel is a bit odd at least the middle-mouse function seems okay. (And don't be fooled by the photos, it has detachable "chassis" so it can actually look pretty nice and comfortable.)

Tbh my favorite for a long time has been the MX518 and I might just end up buying one of those again since I know I love it.

Here's my POWERHOUSE:

Athlon XP 1700+ (@1.46 Ghz)
1.5 GB RAM DDR PC3200
Geforce 7800GS (8x AGP) I think it has 512MB...?
7200rpm 250 GB HD
21 inch CRT monitor
Windows Vista Ultimate (no, I don't have any business running Vista on my ancient PC, but it was given to me by a friend who recently worked for Microsoft)

I got the video card just after Oblivion came out. Otherwise I haven't upgraded since ~2002

If I ever get enough money saved then I'll get a whole new rig, but that might be a while off. "I'm pulling down delivery boy money!"

I just recently did a new round of computer upgrades so:

Intel Core2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66 GHz (Stock, I don't overclock)
2.0 GB RAM -- forget the specs, but it's good Mushkin stuff
ASUS EAX1950PRO (Radeon X1950Pro)
19" LCD (Samsung 915, fairly old, got a good deal on it though and still a nice monitor)
XP Professional (not touching Vista if I can avoid it)
4 case fans (2 temperature sensing speed regulating, 2 full speed)
Mobo: EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 NF650I 775 R

and (I think I might win on disk space)

4x250GB SATA drives RAID 5'd. (750GB usable space, 1 terabyte total).

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00 GHz
4 Gb Kingston HyperX RAM
Nvidia 8800GTX 768 MB video card
21" Samsung SyncMaster 226BW
2 x 200 GB Seagate Barracuda hard drives in RAID 0. Don't every need that much space.
a DFI mobo, but I dont' remember the exact model, and I'm too lazy to find it. Newegg doesn't sell it anymore . It was relatively new too.

build-msleeper-a-new-computer-win-some-crap-t682.html

Rawr:

New. Delicious. Samsung 305T.

Logitech Speakers FTW!

hamsteralliance wrote:
Rawr:

New. Delicious. Samsung 305T.

Willing to sell your old 24" ones? yes I am very serious.

msleeper wrote:
Willing to sell your old 24" ones? yes I am very serious.

omg! They've already been taken off my hands.

Get them back. seriously, I am looking for two 24" widescreen flatpanels and will pay a very nice price for them.

msleeper wrote:
Get them back. seriously, I am looking for two 24" widescreen flatpanels and will pay a very nice price for them.

Unlikely.

But, you can get two of the 24" Samsung monitors like mine for $459.00 here at PC Connection.

If $459 isn't higher than the, "nice price" in your head, they may be worth the purchase.

Dell also has a set of 24" monitors (not the ultrasharp model) for $399, here.

Heh.

Nothing uber here but it gets me by, it's about 2 years old now.

AMD Athlon X2 5000+ (2.6GHz dual core, 1600MHz FSB)
Asus A8M2N-LA motherboard
Radeon X1300 OC (factory overclocked to 600mHz)
XP Media Center
4GB PC4200 DDR2
19" LG Monitor (2ms response time, 3000:1 contrast)

I actually didn't build this one (first time in 10+ years), I bought this one here. and added RAM and video card.