8/22    I just got a new computer and I wanna try out its capabilities
        (I got 3GHz, 2Gig RAM, and a Radeon 9800 vid card). I want to
        try out games where you see a LOT of blood and body disfigurement,
        preferably where you're a general or a gunner trying to get rid
        of a swarm of inferior army. What are some games that'll satisfy
        the above requirements?
        \_ Watch Al-Jazeera
        \_ use your imagination.  http://games.yahoo.com/go
        \_ Quake 3 alpha?
        \_ In Civ1 you run a vast civilization and destroy entire races.  I
           think you're looking for civ1.  On the other hand, anyone who spends
           a few grand on parts they don't need probably has a of more spare
           cash around.  I'll be your "Game Consultant".  I charge $250/hr or
           per question with a minimum charge of 4hrs/4questions and you pay
           in advance.
                \_ civ1? As in Sid Meier's Civilization? I played that on
                   my 386 game. Pretty cool. No blood though.
                   \_ Yeah, but think of the blood involved in wiping out
                      multiple enemy civs that might have a few million people
                      _each_!  That's more blood per turn than all the Quake,
                      Doom, RTCW, etc, games ever played combined!
        \_ Serious Sam
           \_ And SS2. These two harken back to the Doom/Doom2 days when
              there were a shitload of monsters all coming after you all at
              once. This one outdoor level with two pyramids took me ten tries
              to pass (but my oh my, how high the death count was)
        \_ Half-Life 2 is what you'll want next month. There's nothing right
           now to really push your system. For relatively recent action games
           try Jedi Knight 2 or Battlefield 1942 (online only).
        \_ Gunmetal (http://www.nvidia.com/object/game_gunmetal.html brought my
           Athlon 1700 + GeForce 4400 to its knees, and not even at max
           graphics quality.
           \_ his machine is over twice as fast as yours btw
              \_ It's all about the graphics card, not the CPU on these sorts
                 of games.  Stick in a 100000ghz cpu and a shitty GPU and it
                 won't run any faster.  Bottlenecks, kids.  Think bottlenecks.
                 I guess bottles aren't shaped like that anymore.
                 \_ cpu is still important. 100000ghz cpu would probably do
                    much better than any existing gpu, assuming software
                    rendering support.
                    \_ yeah plus that 9800pro is a lot more powerful than 4400.
                       easily 2x fps with anti-aliasing and aniso filtering.
                       with fewer features the games become CPU-limited.
                    \_ Bottlenecks!!!  Your memory and system bus can't feed
                       your infinite mhz cpu.  So no, it won't go faster due
                       to software rendering without some incredibly rebuild
                       of all the buses *and* hey guess what?  Your monitor
                       is hooked up to your video card (shocker!) and again
                       you're stuck with whatever copy-to-video-ram speed
                       your video card can do.
                       \_ *sigh* I had just bought the Athlon+GeForce last
                          year, and though it's plenty fast, I'm dreading
                          seeing how HL2 or Doom3 performs. Thus far, only
                          Gunmetal chokes my system... well, that and that
                          ATI-happy benchmarking program, 3DMark2003.
                          \_ I still game on a P3-700.  Until very recently
                             it was a p3-450.  The 700 was an upgrade.