My only question is "Why do themeparks and sandboxes have to be mutually exclusive?".

I think the last years of SWG show that they can work together pretty well.  Remove focus from the combat engine changes and just look at the content available to players at the end. It had a very good list of features in my opinion.  Now add on the CU style combat (32 functioning professions with a more familiar control scheme), and I think you would still have a few hundred-thousand playing that game.

I would point to the success of Minecraft.  Thats a pure no frills sandbox that has sold 5 million plus copies. It is not a MMO, but it shows that  style of gameplay has serious interest in the gaming community.

In my mind loading screens aren't what makes or breaks "open world".  Its the instancing or to be more precise the creating of an instance for every group that travels to that zone. 

Guild Wars would be at my lowest end of open world scale.  Every area  is instanced just for you or your group outside of the quest/social "hub" area.   AoC would be in the middle of that spectrum as you have open playfields to quest in with other random players, but the dungeons are created on the fly for each group.  Vanguard is probably the most open I have played the dungeon is sitting right there on the playfield and anyone can enter it and play that wants to.

Guy on the Couch.....Guilty.

Just glad to hear I can attack without targeting.  After some time with AoC click target, click attack is kinda stale.

Just to update I installed the 960t tonight.  Everything booted up smooth and it made the cut for Skyrim! Even installed the new HD pack on top of the mods and I only get a slight studder when loading a crowded city cell ( takes a couple of seconds for the system to smooth out but no problems afterwards.

Checking the task manager it looks like Skyrim will scale to 4 cores, I show 90% on 2 cores , the 3rd at 60 ish , and the fourth at about 45% or so (that poor A2 x3 was really choking I bet.).  Everything returns to idle when I kill Skyrim so I'm pretty sure thats my  main resource hog while its up.

Originally posted by Qazaam

Originally posted by Dragonantis

Their isnt a more rewarding and fufilling experience than building your own gaming computer :)

I think I might be ready for this next time around.  With 50+hours at work and college plus a wife and 3 kids - I just don't have the brain cells left to pull this off.  Maybe next time - It would be nice to have a system that I built.  That time will come.

 

Actually building and upgrading my PC is my way of unwinding from all those things ( wait for everyone to go to bed and start tinkering :)) can't afford the hot rod cars anymore (or the tickets) so customizing my PC has become my hobby.

You may have to go into the bios and manually set the timings.  Your ram should come with a sheet (or sticker on the module)  that tells you the optimal settings. 

Thanks again for the replys.  I am gonna go with the 960T, I don't plan to OC this one but the board has the capabilty ( the current A2- X3 is at 3.2 from 2.8? stock been on almost 24/7 for many months like that). 

Ed.  It is the rev. 1 board and I have it updated to F8 Bios.   I think this will be the little extra I need to survive the current generation of games :).

Actually I am at a $150-175 budget for this upgrade (christmas giftcards).  I am waiting to see how the next generation of processors turns out before a rebuild.  I could swing a smaller SSD or a CPU that fits my current board in that price range.

After checking the things that you fine folks have suggested it really looks like a cpu limitation. (never thought of checking the task manager and CCC  for limitations.)

And thank you for helping me out!

Well the Zosma http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103995   is 95w and I don't think I would need an overclock since the stock is 3.0 ghz.

According to task manger I am at 90-95% on all 3 cores while Skyrim is up and running.  Most of the options are turned of or down (no AA have AF on doesn't seem to hurt performance either way, water effects are off)  where I am choking performance is using SSAO to fix shadow flicker.

CCC shows about 50% Activity while running around outside on a sunny day.

Yes Seasonic M1211 (checked the box)

The GA- MA78G-DS3H is an old board the first generation of the ATI 3200 integrated graphics boards.http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2800&dl=1#ov  with bios update it should be am3 ready.

Skyrim and The Witcher 2 are the problem games at the moment (I am overextending the quality but am very close to having the look and performance I want just need a bit "more" somewhere.)

Will check the task manager!  (why didn't I think of that)  Will come back with some results.

I use @BIOS on my Gigabyte board it can flash the bios from windows, just have to download the correct bios from gigabyte as the "auto" flash option has never worked right for me.

Currently running a Athlon II X-3  Rena chip @ 3.2 ghz and considering going for the Phenom II X4 Zosmo.

Would the extra core and L3 cache be a greater benifit than the speed of a SSD?

Seasonic 620W Bronze

Gigabyte 780G DS3GH MB

8 Gigs ddr 800

WD Black 640g 7200 HD

HiS 6870 Iceq 1g graphics

Win 7 64 bit

Its an aging system I know and its beginning to choke on some of this generation of games.  The 6870 has really helped but it seems like something is still holding it back.

Age of Conan kept me entertained for over a year.  One of the  only Current MMOs I have stayed engaged in for over a month since Star Wars Galaxies.   Alot of free content to play so dig away.

DDO with its varied difficulties for its dungeons can be very solo friendly, with the aid of a henchman of course.  Again alot of free content to play so worth digging.

Vanguard is a great world but didn't seem very solo friendly to me.

You can also search the bazaar for ship deeds (already constructed vs. blueprints you will have to pay to construct).