SLI or Faster CPU?

I'm going to splash the cash and get a new PC soon, partly for performance reasons, partly because I want a machine that runs Vista, for compatibility-checking, and for general up-to-dateness, and partly because I want a bigger hard disk.
The thing is, I'm not sure where it's worth spending the money component-wise.
The two areas I'm dithering between are video cards and CPU (I'm happy with a 300gig disk, and with 2gig of RAM surely?)

options are:

Upgrading from Core 2 Duo E6400 to E6700 (£225 difference)

or

GeForce 7600 GT (256MB) to 2x 256MB GeForce 7900 GS - SLI [upg £ 195.00]

Is SLI more trouble than its worth? I could get a 512MB nVIDIA 7950 GT for £130 increase instead.

I think my compilation times and Poser 6 rendering may benefit from the Chip more, but does dual core cause issues, or does it really give better speeds with those programs? Are these chips fast ones?

Do all games work with SLI? Will this machine be l33t enough for Crysis and Spore? *bites fingernails*

Decisions...Decisions... Next bank statement or accountant summary I get will tip me into hitting that pesky 'buy now' button...

OFFICIALLY INNOVATIVE

That's me:
http://videogames.yahoo.co...

(Most innovative game of 2006 says yahoo).

All very welcome. I'm working away on Rock-Star, just spent a fortune on new poser models and textures, because it's WAY easier, quicker and cheaper than paying an artist to do it.
Inbetween that, I bought far Cry. Am I missing something or does it look *really* average? I remember this game being the greatest engine of all time, was it *that* long ago? I have every setting on maximum, and it's still disappointing. Could this be a bug somehow?

backstage Food

Just wikipediaing to check that my memory serves, and that the food a band get given at a gig is called the 'rider'. The Wiki proves my memory isn't as damaged as my hearing, and also led me to some interesting links:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour/vanhalen/vanhalen1.html

That's apparently the food and beverage requirements for a Van Halen gig. The next time I'm interviewed, I shall make a similar demand*

The game is coming along nicely. Meanwhile, the MAC release of Kudos is imminent, as is it's retail release in Russia. W00tage.

*not really.

mini screenshot time

mini screeny:

Album art

I did some low level stuff to do with the way audiences have expectations of quality at gigs, and also changed some stuff to measure 'fame' instead of Kudos in the rock star game.
But in addition, I did some more 'album art' to show the covers of music your character can buy. By buying (and listening to) certain albums, your character can unlock new techniques to use in song writing. So listening to a blues album lets you put bluesy bits in your songs, basically giving you more flexibility in the song writing mini-game.
here's 3 of the albums I did today:

Help me WIN a Zeeby

It seems that the nice people over at GameZebo.com have submitted Kudos to their first casual game of the year awards thingy.



You can vote here
Obviously all the categories that don't have Kudos in are relatively dull, but you can click randomly until you get to the 5th category with my game in, and make sure you vote for KUDOS!
I might have failed to win the game tunnel award, but life has given me a second chance at stardom. Get voting!


I got quite a bit of work done on the Rock Star game today. It makes a difference to have a few more sound effects in the game, but there's a lot of art and sound to get, and tons of code to write...

I want YOUR band.

Are you in a band? or is a friend of your in a band? Do they want some free publicity?
If so, maybe we can arrange something. I will be needing the following for my game:

Band Names
Band member names
Music for the game
Some recordings of band-stuff, sound check stuff (testing one...two.. etc) the typical rock band vocal bits of "thank you!" "goodnight!" etc etc.

Want to be in a video game?
I can promise credits in the errrrr credits, but no cash. My games don't make enough money that I think it's ok to waste it on having pop stars do radio commentary (*cough*) , so its really just a bit of fun for those bands still in the garage. If I get enough bands involved, I'll probably dedicate part of the games website to them, and certainly link to their sites, have some photos and sound samples etc.
If you are in a band, you have a website (and legit email addy from that site), and are interested, email me at illdoit_andidontwantmoney AT positech dot co dot uk :D

Todays Code so far...

Made it so there's a chance of lazy musicians not showing up to rehearsals.
Wrote code and basic GUI so that business-savy musicians can get you discounts on stuff
Added code to allow for the 'retiring' of old songs you don't want to perform live any more.
Removed some old Kudos code that is irrelevant now.

Off to shoot stuff now.

Art Time

Ok, I'm going to get some artwork done. The last time I did this, I kind of blew it, because I paid for loads of art, then shortly afterwards decided to do a different game instead. I won't do that this time. Nosiree. This time, I'm going to plough ahead and get the darned thing done.
I'm at the tricky stage with the new 'rock star' game, where I have written quite a lot of code, and done lots of art mockups, and even some final 'coder-art' (yeah, I'm confident about *some* of it enough to leave it in) , but I don't have much in the way of that necessary cool artwork that looks good in screen shots, as well as making me feel generally really motivated about the look of the game.
I've emailed an artist for a quote, and hopefully it won't break the bank. I'm hoping to get a sample bit of work done first (paid for, of course), so I can check we are 'on the same page'.
The thing I'm starting with is the 'rival band' photos. These are quite large (300 px wide) images of the other bands that you can go check out for inspiration while you are working your way to the top. I'm hoping for some really cheesy publicity photo style pics that you get on flyposters. Lots of people holding guitars in silly positions, and wearing sunglasses.
This kinda thing:



How on earth big companies can employ an artist and work for months without being sure about how the game will play is beyond me. I bite my fingernails over spending a few hundred dollars on art I may not use.

My drum kit's bigger than yours

My fave bands drummer (dream theatres mike portnoy) in the studio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRefvPY6hGM
Not a great example of his drumming. but holy shit, did he buy the whole drum shop?

On topic, coz of the music game yasee...

Battlefield 2 multiplayer idea

Here's an idea. someone with an FPS please implement it :
When you play an online game, especially one based on teamwork like BF2, you will always encounter some people who play like total jerks. They are the ones who teamkill, who spam the voice commands to everyone, who have macros to spam the chat channel with a load of nonsense. They are the ones who shoot endlessly even when nobody is around, serving only to betray their position. They play for glory rather than points, they are jetwhores, and happy to steal your tank while you are repairing it.
Then there are the good guys. The teamplayers, happy to be medics or support or engineers if the squad needs it. they always join a squad, they resupply you when you need it. They will risk exposure to enemy fire to revive fallen squadmates. They spot enemy snipers, refrain from throwing grenades when allies may be too close etc.

Obviously we all want to play with the good guys, and not with the jerks, but we have a hard time engineering this. When I look at the server browser, I can see (if needed) a list of everyone on every server but without a fantastic memory, the information is useless.
What's needed is a method by which in a game, I can 'tag' someone (maybe aim at them and press a certain key) as a 'friend' or 'foe', and have the central account server remember my choices. Then, in the server browser, each server can, together with its ping, have a ranking showing how many friends and foes are in that game. To avoid abuse, you would have to keep all this info private.
Is there a system that does this? if not, why not?