I've noticed the people who use mobiles on the road tend to be the Jeeps/BMW drivers... Just reinforces the stereotype that blonde women of a certain age think they own the damn road.

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No it isn't!

Yes it is! When you're crusing at 2000ft or above you don't need split second reactions, and when landing you're typically at 160kts max, which is slow and if you're making sudden adjustments to be able to land, you're doing it wrong.

A few points which may save you a lot of money but cost you time:

- 17fps is just fine for a civilian flight sim and quite good in FSX terms.

- You can download free terrain meshes from www.simviation.com

- If you get FS2004, you can use TileProxy to get photoreal scenery for free.

The 1150 and 1270 offer comparable performance- the 1270 only has a small advantage in DX9 stuff, which I don't plan to use.

And another GB of RAM for a laptop costs £110.

Last edited by TiJay, Tue 17 Jul 2007, 12:11.

It's the old processor holding you back, the bottleneck is the physics calculations I would guess.

Those national speed limit signs at the start of tiny country lanes always make me chuckle because you just know some idiot in a Nova is going to write his car off racing down there.

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/vodaf ... le-connect-data-card.html

If you want access anywhere, General Lee, you'll need one of these. Be prepared to pay through the nose for it though.

Also... what company are you going for a job with? No offence but if you're in the final 6 with the limited amount of knowledge you have, that says a lot about the company...

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f your laptop is going to have Vista on it, 2GB or more is seriously a MUST.

Agreed. I'm running Vista Ultimate on my current laptop and it's slow as anything at times with 512MB RAM and no Aero.

I'm going to go for the 1501 I think, I don't want the 1521- the 1521's webcam and slight improvement in graphics doesn't seem worth losing 1GB of RAM.

Thanks guys

EDIT: The ATI 1150 and 1270 actually use the same graphics chip, so I'm definitely choosing the Inspiron 1501.

Last edited by TiJay, Sun 15 Jul 2007, 20:41.

Those ones are customized- the best I can afford of the limited options Dell offer on them.

Sooo... Should I choose the 1501 with more RAM and a lower-end but same class of graphics chip instead of less RAM and a slightly better gfx chip?

I thought all cars had slightly off centre steering? My steering wheel points slightly right in a straight line.

The laptops are both £539, which is the absolute limit of my spending. The Inspiron E1705 seems to be at least £1300.

Right now I have a Celeron 1.6, Intel GMA 915 and 512MB RAM and Vegas is OK (even if render time is long, which doesn't bother me), 3DSMax is OK with LFS cars (again, long render times) but I'll need something more soon. I don't need a 'gaming' laptop, just one that is noticeably better than what I have now.

As for the screen size, 15.4" wide is enough as it has to be portable.

I'm leaning towards the Inspiron 1501 as it has more RAM and the graphics card is in the same class as the Inspiron 1521.

Here are two identically-priced Dells and I don't know which one to pick...

#1: Inspiron 1501
AMD Turion 64 X2 TL56
2GB 533MHz RAM
ATi Xpress 1150 256Mb HyperMemory
160GB SATA HD

#2: Inspiron 1521
AMD Turion 64 X2 TL56
1GB 667Mhz RAM
Ati Xpress 1270 HyperMemory
120GB SATA HD

I need a laptop mainly for 3D modelling, Photoshop, Sony Vegas and possibly the odd bit of LFS/OutRun 2006/GP4.

So, will a laptop with more RAM and a slightly lower-end graphics card out-perform a laptop with less (but faster) RAM and a slightly better graphics card?

Iron_Maiden, brilliant imitation of the Honda!

Madman, fantastic attempt and very detailed, even if there are flaws and doesn't have the Honda look as much as Iron's, it's FAR better than anything I could do so I can't knock it!

Generally good, but the res doesn't seem high enough and it lacks... well, texture.

I would get the crack repaired if I had fully comp, but I didn't have £4000 to spend on insurance so I had to settle for £2000 TPFT instead.

How much does it cost to repair a very small chip?

The fact is that LFS' nature means it has the best drifting physics, therefore it will attract drifters. ISI engines have unrealistic grip curves, Papyrus sims don't feature driftable cars, GT has glaring problems and NFS is arcade.

EDIT: To the OP, are you from Florida?

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Sounds like your government is taking you to the cleaners

Our government takes us to the cleaners for anything car-related because they're profiteering ****ers.

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Oh, BTW, you shouldn't just replace 3 tires

I didn't replace them, they were on the car when I bought it. It's not uncommon over here for people to be running four different brands of tyres, each with different ages. Ideally I would like four the same though.

Also... Is a chip in the windshield a fail? Because a stone flew at me at 60mph the other day. It's not cracked.

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New rear exhaust £160.0

Was that the entire exhaust system?

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3 new tyres £150.00

Three of mine were new when I bought the car so I shouldn't have to worry there.

Btw, I've put aside £170 for the entire thing. So hopefully that should be OK...

Thanks, I'm getting a family friend who's a mechanic to do mine so even if repairs need doing I can trust him not to rip me off.

So it's my car's MOT in August and I'm just wondering how much I should expect to pay/how much I should expect to be wrong with it.

It's a 2002 Fiesta Mk5 which I bought from a Ford dealership in October 2006, and it was serviced the day before I picked it up. Its last MOT was August 06.

Since then I've done 2000 miles max (if that) and I take good care of it (regular tyre pressure checks, only use 99 octane super unleaded...).

So are there any common MOT failures I should expect and how much will they cost to fix? And the brake pads MAY need replacing, how much would that be?

Thanks in advance

The guy who turns up in my bathroom mirror is called John Mirra, geddit?

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Now I am NOT saying this because I am trying to be a e-jerk. It is a good effort. But the sound was too inconsistent, and, I am a fan of vignetting, but some parts were a little over the top.

I completely agree, the mark scheme was very forgiving and there were a few videos with worse sound that also got A's. And like I said, looking back, the vignetting is OTT.

As for the voice, thanks My main concern was keeping it interesting but you're right that I should have made it more powerful. I'm 17 and was when the video was made.

Well, an A for that module anyway. Don't know the final grade yet.

Thanks

I know... But it's too late to change it on that video now

Still got me an A

Thanks Bob.

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Varying sound levels throughout the clip (and I don't mean when music has been quitened for vocals), annoying "blip" when you turned your mike an and off,

I wasn't the same distance away from the mic for all the narrations which caused the varying levels- it was the first time I'd done voiceovers. And the mic was crap (free with PC Gamer magazine)... And that's not my usual voice, honest!

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not keen on the black edges to the video

Looking back on it, I agree with you on that now. I think I overdid the effects just to show my teacher/class that I could do all this technical stuff and differentiate my video from the iMovie/Movie Maker crap a lot of people had created

Any more feedback from anyone? It's all useful