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Geek Culture / System requirements and "law"

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James H
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Posted: 19th Mar 2015 21:51 Edited at: 19th Mar 2015 21:56
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Hey all,
I have Battlefield 4 and it is crashing at various random points in game, has been from the day I bought it and I have tried pretty much everything I can to ensure my system is not at fault. It meets minimum requirements, have even gone through clean OS install among many other things and no matter what it will crash. I have made posts on both the BF4 and EA sites but had zero response most likely as there is no solution. My reason for posting is this - what are the laws on the sale of a software product when it comes to minimum system requirements when said product does not work on a system that meets the minimum system requirements? I have read a few posts for example where EA have refused refund due to the user having several hundred hours of game play(like me) - even though we are sat here waiting for fixes in hope the next patch(which are months apart) will fix our issues. Surely they cannot state minimum specs then the thing doesn't work with minimum specs. I bought a graphics card after reading the specs on the box in ASDA and bought the card specifically for this game as having read the requirements the rest of my system matched the minimum specs. Obviously it takes a lot of game time to test whether the game and every change made to the system software for possible fixes - is working, now I am just at the point of throttling the first EA employee I come across, well ok I am not about to do that but still I would like to know what can be done about this, not just for me, but for the many many users who have been duped by this. Am I to no longer trust minimum specs for a game - in essence should I just not risk my money any longer on games purely because companies cannot be held accountable for what I perceive as misleading information and therefore false advertising? Is a software product governed by the laws of the nation its being sold from? I am angry and confused I must admit, but I have had the game since last summer and to me it should still be in beta phase, even if you ignored the issue I mentioned, not much works as intended, can never trust kill cards to tell you the truth, the kill log doesnt always tell you how you were killed so can't really trust that either, not being given reason from servers for kicks(we rent our own so we know when its an auto kick as opposed to admin kicking for a valid reason), major drops in frame rate all of a sudden, loss of and corrupt sounds, "in combat" spawn cam failing, the list goes on and on and on...anyway here are my system specs should anyone be interested enough to see

xfx 680i lt mobo
core 2 quad q6600@2.4GHz
4Gb RAM
750 GTX graphics 1Gb VRAM
using an HDD not an SSD(if I bought an SSD there is no guarantee this will make a difference)
Win7pro 64 bit SP1
*latest direct x
*latest vc redists
*punkbuster fully updated
*also tried port forwarding and switching virgins superhub2 router into modem mode
*tried all the profile removals, ensured control panel settings for nvidia are correct, tested all the .cfg file commands
and of course here is the official requirements:
http://www.battlefield.com/uk/battlefield-4/pc

For the record single player works just fine, no errors whatsoever on medium quality, multi-player however throws the crashes whether I'm on a full or empty server with the lowest possible settings available, yeap I did say on an empty server!! The crashes are the only consistent thing about this product since day 1, its very frustrating indeed, especially if you like to play large ticket games because when you rejoin of course you lose any progress on your stats.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 19th Mar 2015 21:54
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It's going to depend on where you live. You're probably subject to the eula and have no recourse.

My recommendation, never buy from EA. They churn out crap nowadays.

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mr Handy
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Posted: 19th Mar 2015 21:58 Edited at: 19th Mar 2015 22:02
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Quote: "what are the laws on the sale of a software product when it comes to minimum system requirements"


I am sorry, dude, but you are wrong.

The amount of PC hardware and software combinations is significiantly high, so the EULA is always has a part like "we don't guarantee the work of our software", and that is fair.

If you want games with no sys reqs then buy a console. Sad but true.

P.S. FYI, not only the GFX drivers can cause the problem, but even MB firmware (encountered fact).

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James H
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Posted: 19th Mar 2015 21:59
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I am in the UK. EA are not getting a penny from me ever again, the only reason I have BF4 preium upgrade was because I managed to get a free key. Am sorely disappointed with this being BF franchise though, BF2 was a favourite for me
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James H
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Posted: 19th Mar 2015 22:03
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MrHandy I hope thats not true, tbh Im not that interested in the money just at a point now where I want to hit back at EA somehow. If that is true though then I suppose in the years to come reputation will be how we decide who gets our money but then again we sort of do that now dont we? In which case with no laws backing us up then whats to stop every software company doing this?
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mr Handy
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Posted: 19th Mar 2015 22:08
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FYI, there were fun feedback messages for Far Cry 4 on Steam. The game refuses to run if you don't have a 4-core CPU, so many guys "enjoyed" black screen, one guy did it for hours.

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James H
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 04:13
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Lol I can imagine! I knew mine was "fake" quad ie 2 dual cores so wasn't gonna risk getting farcry anyway. I can see now that in future I should not buy any game that has promises of fixes which would mean waiting beyond the length of time they give for returns, as well as avoid EA products like the plague!!
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Indicium
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 04:24
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Your CPU is a true quad-core.
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 04:39
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Quote: " I knew mine was "fake" quad ie 2 dual cores"
Lol, not sure I have heard of that before. Pretty sure it's just four cores.

I had a triple core processor once. Probably a quad core that either one core failed or deactivated, and sold as a triple core.

"Sorry, you can redo your sig...Stupid Mod pressed the wrong button." - JLMoonDog
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James H
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 07:35 Edited at: 20th Mar 2015 07:37
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Yes and no to some degree, I put speech marks around the word fake for a reason - the core to quad series are not native cores like there AMD counterparts although they do out perform them based on benchmarks from software in use around the time the comparisons were made - bare in mind my rig must be more than 7 or 8 years old now and back then there wasn't that much support for multicore in games from what I remember. They are 2 true dual cores in 1 package, so yes there are four cores but in a 2x2 arrangement which according to architects at that time meant they were not true quad cores, true quad cores are four cores on 1 die, core 2 quads are 2 pairs of die's each with 2 native cores(my q6600 is 2xE6600's according to the guy in our local store that helped me order my stuff through scan.co.uk - which used to be a decent place to go), what that means for gaming like in the case of farcry 4 I am not certain of as the min spec details i5 as minimum, I am not up to date on newer technologies(or even older for that matter!) so I have no idea how different the architecture is or how that translates across to newer software, what I do know is that the price of that game is a lot to me as I am on sickness benefit and will take me many weeks if not months to save up for so I am not about to risk it all on something that is not clear. I was looking at Arma 3 as its slightly less than the min spec for BF4 but now I am rethinking as that could just leave me in the same position as I am in now with BF4, it would mean I would have to spend every waking hour for the first 30 days testing it as each round/match can last for very very long periods of time and if I'm not happy it works on my system then I want to return it(assuming they give 30 days for returns and assuming I can return and test within 30 days) havent much looked into it yet though.
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The Zoq2
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 11:09
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Quote: "Lol, not sure I have heard of that before. Pretty sure it's just four cores"


A lot of cpus have x amount of physical cores and twice as many "virtual" cores. A lot of i7 processors do this, if you look in the task manager, you will see 8 cores but in reality there are only 4.

I don't really know why you would do that since multithreading is really uncommon in most programs but I guess it must have some kind of advantage

Say ONE stupid thing and it ends up as a forum signature forever. - Neuro Fuzzy
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bitJericho
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 11:15
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Quote: " I don't really know why you would do that since multithreading is really uncommon in most programs but I guess it must have some kind of advantage"


Multithreading is common in modern games. A Q6600 is a true quad core CPU, although it's a bit lowend by modern standards. I run a Q9450 which is not top of the line but getting close when it comes to the core 2 quad line. Of course the i series CPUs blow the older core 2 series out of the water. That said, I haven't really found many games that it can't handle. I'll be interested to see how GTA5 runs on it.

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mr Handy
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 13:34
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Quote: "Multithreading is common in modern games."


Please, tell this to Lee. DB can't be Pro with single core support only.

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Indicium
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 16:17
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Quote: "They are 2 true dual cores in 1 package, so yes there are four cores but in a 2x2 arrangement which according to architects at that time meant they were not true quad cores"


He was wrong. This is a true quad core. The only information that I've been able to find that might suggest why he thought otherwise is that if you plugged the two separate core 2s into separate CPU slots they'd have more bandwidth. It doesn't make it any less a quad core though.

Quote: "I don't really know why you would do that since multithreading is really uncommon in most programs but I guess it must have some kind of advantage"


Call yourself a programmer, pffft. Compiling software maxes out both my physical and logical cores on the i7. Applications can be spread across multiple cores, multitasking y'know.
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James H
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 19:58
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First of all I never said he or she - second of all I used a plural term, as pedantic as that seems I felt I had to point that out. Its a matter of semantics, yes there are 4 physical processors but no the architecture is not true by design, core 2 technology replaces the old pentium dual cores which uses two single core dies bonded on 1 chip carrier - widely considered as a bit of a cheat, core 2 duo are true dual cores ie they are on one die on a chip carrier, core 2 quads are 2 of the already existing core 2 duo dies bonded onto 1 chip carrier, so no we are not talking about 2 separate dual cores in 2 different sockets on the motherboard. The phenom series however are 4 cores on 1 die put onto a chip carrier. Take the casing or IHS(integrated heat spreader) off the core 2 quad and you will see two separate dies - not a single one. Take a look at these images and see for yourself;
Intel's Core 2 Quad
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=64995&stc=1&d=1211601560
AMD's Phenom II quad core
http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/1297821/16414383/0/1287992256/AMD_Phenom_II_Quad-Core_N930_HMN930CR42GM_S1g4_638_pin.jpg
Now once again my q6600 is not a true quad core, yes its a quad core and does not make it any less of a quad core(the opposite in fact as it outperforms true or native quad cores) but you might note they didn't label it a Core 4 Quad, the clue is in the way they named them, if you still think this is nonsense then ask yourself why bother call a true dual core a Core 2 Duo and not just core 2 - because they had plans to market/manufacture them in a similar fashion to the old pentium dual cores(not true dual cores which is why they named the next series Core 2 xxx(x)) for a number of reasons, its easier to bucket sort matched pairs else the processor would have to be shipped at the lowest core frequency, yield for 2 dies is better than 1 for those specific sizes, the dies are identical which means that the manufacturing lines are the same, was very quick to market by comparison so they could get a significant head start on their competitors. In addition to this have a think on why there is no Core 2 Trio even though there is a Core 2 Solo - there is also the Core 3 Trio knock-off to consider which is not intel. So it looks like we will have to beg to differ on this one I think.

As for virtual/logical cores - that's hyper threading technology which is simultaneous multi threading - for each physical cpu the OS assigns 2 logical cores and shares the load between them when possible to improve parallel processing ie multi tasking but the OS needs to support this and it will definitely not outperform a cpu which has the same number of physical cores as the number of logical cores of said HTT processor.

I would be guessing that the folk MrHandy referred to all had i5 processors that showed up as 4 cores in task manager but in fact they were dual cores with 4 logical cores or even a Phenom II x2 treated in a similar fashion?
If the min spec of farcry said 4 cores with no other limitations then yeah my machine would run it in theory if I OC'd but the min spec is i5 with 4 physical cores(they specifically name the i5-750 @ 2.6GHz) or the Phenom II x4 955@ 3.2 GHz. Besides I would be mostly interested in multiplayer and based on the fact that BF4 single player runs sweet for me but the multiplayer does not then I suppose there is every chance other games might perform with similar results. If its free I would give it a go but I'm not going to risk money that is exceptionally difficult for me to save up for. Now we are way off topic I think, not that I mind but after the first few posts I would say the topic has probably been covered? In short boycott EA products for the immediate future is all I can do as an individual. As for most of the information above - my source is a freind of a freind who I happened across this afternoon at a local cafe who teaches computer science(and was my freinds professor at university). If any of you have sharp memories you will note at one point I posted a thread and in that thread I thought the frequency of cores were added together!!!! In this post I have taken the notes I made from my chance meeting and put it into my own words, so any inconsistencies will be down to my translation and understanding of the information discussed so please feel free to point them out What are the odds I would make this thread and bump into this guy?!! Thanks to all for their input
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TheComet
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 20:51
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Please use more paragraphs, your posts are giving me a headache.

To me it sounds like it's something network related, since you said it works perfectly fine in single player mode. Can you diagnose your network drivers to see if they are having issues?

What's the error you're getting? Does it just crash, or does it give you an error?

Does Origin keep running after the game has crashed? Does the browser give any indication on what went wrong (since you have to launch the game from within your web browser)?

Do you generally have internet issues? Long ping times?

Need help with C/C++ game dev? PM me or add me on skype: the__comet.
Current active project: Light Ship
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Seditious
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Posted: 20th Mar 2015 21:19
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Give both speedtest.net and pingtest.net a try and post the results; that will help us determine if it's connection-related.
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Dar13
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Posted: 21st Mar 2015 12:05
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Battlefield 4 is notorious for using a lot of CPU power during multiplayer. What's your CPU usage during multiplayer?

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 21st Mar 2015 12:16 Edited at: 21st Mar 2015 12:18
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Almost every game I've ever purchased randomly crashes on every system I've had, routinely for some games/systems but more commonly only after several hours of continuous play. It doesn't seem to be EA related. I accept it as a fact of life and live with it.

Occasionally a reboot fixes the problem but some games on some systems predictably fail after a few hours of use. In some cases it's probably a simple case of something like a memory leak somewhere which is why a game might work on a newer system but fail after a few hours of use on an old machine.

Quote: " I have read a few posts for example where EA have refused refund due to the user having several hundred hours of game play(like me)"


Sounds like you can get a few hours of play before it crashes. Is that the case? If so then it's hard to see an obvious problem with your machine specs.

Edit

Quote: "Please use more paragraphs, your posts are giving me a headache."


+1



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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 21st Mar 2015 14:23 Edited at: 21st Mar 2015 14:42
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There seems to be a culture of this, "I'm not happy, I'll seek legal advice, let's see how you like that", but it is often a fruitless exercise because people typically have a high sense of self-entitlement, but is no true reflection of what they really are entitled to.

Due to the nature of computers, a "minimum requirements" cannot be 100% accurate, because there will be exceptions to the rule. As Mr Handy says there's likely to be a clause in the EULA to cover their butts on this. It could well be people who meet the minimum requirements can run it, but not necessarily everyone can. This is why it is better to try and meet the recommended requirements, because well...that's what they recommend - even then, not every game is guaranteed to run properly, because hardware is not the only variable. Heck, even hardware below the specifications can get away with it, for instance, I used to play SW:TOR on my ThinkPad, which has a basic Intel GMA chip for graphics.


Perhaps your best argument here is the Sales of Goods Act, bear in mind that I am not a lawyer, but you are asking these questions on an internet forum, so I suspect you aren't asking for professional advice from a legal representative (I guess forums are free, but legal advise isn't, but unfortunately, forums can be a place of misinformation, even if unintentional). But the sales of goods act is something people make a lot of errors with - unless you bought it from EA directly, it will not apply to EA, due to the keyword 'sales', it applies to the seller.

Like the people who make the product, any stores also like to cover their butts too - normally for this they'll have a returns policy, for any faulty goods and anything they deem not fit for purpose.

You /might/ try to argue with the retailer that the minimum specifications listed don't make the item 'fit for purpose' but generally, it's the court who decides whether it's fit for purpose or not.



You can try trading standards, watchdog, the ombudsman and the citizen's advice bureau, it'll most likely be a waste of time, but they're the ones people usually threat any customer services people with and chances are customer services people will see through it and not be scared in the slightest - so making any threats of taddling on them will do nothing, because chances are they've heard it a thousand times and trading standards have yet to come knocking on the door.

However, they might give more factual information than an internet forum can provide.

As for trying to get back at EA, you will struggle, chances are, a good deal of people won't care. Fortunately, a lot of people don't like EA, so you can join that crowd of people who don't like them and just hope that crowd continues to grow. I remember old rants on the forum and Jeku would step in and say "speak with your wallet", which I better understand now, if you're unhappy, don't spend your money.

If enough people agree and stop spending their money, then businesses are more likely to adjust, because at the end of the day, they're there to make money and not to please everybody. It's unfortunate, but sometimes you will find yourself in that band of "people they cannot please."

I do my best to not buy EA or Ubisoft games, but from time-to-time they make something I really want to play and that I am happy with. I see nothing wrong with buying that, because it's telling them, "hey, look here, you did something right".



Quote: "I have read a few posts for example where EA have refused refund due to the user having several hundred hours of game play(like me)"


Actually, that sounds reasonable to me. As Gandalf suggests, this doesn't sound like a spec issue. Sounds like a bug, which are an inevitability - some people get it worse than others. Mass Effect 1 on PC had a memory leak on my old laptop, my laptop met its requirements and ran smoothly for a period of time. I never tried to return the game, I just accepted it and completed the game and updated it every time a new patch came out, hoping they have addressed the memory leak - and I also have tried numerous workarounds.

I would say if it was THAT bad, then you would have tried returning it BEFORE ranking up several hours of gameplay. Instead, you wanted to play them game, regardless of its annoying bugs.


This is all coming from somebody who's worked different customer services jobs and come up against these arguments a lot. People are entitled to a lot less than they think they are and a lot of what people come to 'expect' is not because a business is legally required, but because they're providing a customer support. For example, if you sign for damaged goods, you are agreeing that you accept the item as it is, but many customer services will help you regardless as long as you report it within a reasonable time scale.


[edit]

Quote: "For the record single player works just fine, no errors whatsoever on medium quality, multi-player however throws the crashes whether I'm on a full or empty server with the lowest possible settings available, yeap I did say on an empty server!! The crashes are the only consistent thing about this product since day 1, its very frustrating indeed, especially if you like to play large ticket games because when you rejoin of course you lose any progress on your stats."


Then this isn't a minimum requirements issue. IIRC BF4's Multiplayer was very buggy on release and sounds like it still is, even I used to have problems, but I didn't bother.

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James H
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Posted: 21st Mar 2015 15:14
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Quote: "Please use more paragraphs, your posts are giving me a headache."

Quote: "+1"

Understood, my apologies. Communicating is not something I do well! I will strive to do better in future
Quote: "Can you diagnose your network drivers to see if they are having issues?"

Not sure how I would go about doing that, according to device manager no issues detected. I have the latest available from nvidia which should be fine as my mobo is old, I also have the configuration in nv control panel all set to the correct settings to my knowledge. I have also completed the tests as per Seditious requests and all appears fine to me.
Quote: "What's the error you're getting? Does it just crash, or does it give you an error?"

Almost all of the time the game hangs on whatever screen/frame that is current with the mouse icon only visible in a relatively small area around the centre of the screen. Movement outside of this area and it disappears. When it is visible I can then exit to desktop but only if I press space bar, otherwise the only other way would be cntl+alt+del. By the time I get to the desktop I can see for a fraction of a second that a windows error window does pop up if I don't cntl+alt+del as I think hitting space bar is what ends it. Using cntl+alt+del I can view the error but I mostly use the other method otherwise I have to wait a while for my machine to recover resources. I can view these same error reports using the reliability history.
Prior to the most recent game patch I would occasionally get this error:

Most of the time though I would get this error:

Since the latest patch the frequency of this last error is every game when I run the x86 version of the game, so now I run the x64 version but this causes barely playable frame rates and more frequent crashes than the x86 version prior to the lastest patch. In all cases it makes no difference whether I am in a near empty server or a full server.
Quote: "Does Origin keep running after the game has crashed?"

Yes it is still running - every time.
Quote: "Does the browser give any indication on what went wrong (since you have to launch the game from within your web browser)?"

Rarely. If an admin(not auto admin) has kicked me for a reason they wished to share with me it will say but that hardly ever happens. When a crash occurs I get no message at all let alone a reason. Prior to the latest patch closing the browser once the game is launched has helped reduce the number of crashes.
Quote: "Do you generally have internet issues? Long ping times?"

No, unless of course the server is far away but I don't join those servers.
Quote: "Give both speedtest.net and pingtest.net a try and post the results; that will help us determine if it's connection-related."

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4230631856
http://www.pingtest.net/result/119594587.png
Quote: "Battlefield 4 is notorious for using a lot of CPU power during multiplayer. What's your CPU usage during multiplayer?"

Has never gone beyond 91%(I use cpuz to log) and temps never beyond 80 degrees when at this load. When crashes occur they can occur when cpu usage and temps are much lower.
Quote: "Almost every game I've ever purchased randomly crashes on every system I've had, routinely for some games/systems but more commonly only after several hours of continuous play. It doesn't seem to be EA related. I accept it as a fact of life and live with it."

I also accept this else I would not have put up with this for so long.
Quote: "Occasionally a reboot fixes the problem but some games on some systems predictably fail after a few hours of use. In some cases it's probably a simple case of something like a memory leak somewhere which is why a game might work on a newer system but fail after a few hours of use on an old machine."

I reboot every time I have exited the game to join a new server. Typically I play for just a couple of hours at a time - crashes permitting! After a crash I will also reboot.
Quote: "Sounds like you can get a few hours of play before it crashes. Is that the case? If so then it's hard to see an obvious problem with your machine specs."

Yes and no. Sometimes I can join a game and play 5 mins other times a couple of hours, on rare occasions several hours. Stability has been different between various patches. When I had BF2 I never experienced a single crash not even after many hours of playing.

These are other things I have tried methodically;
Disable origin in game along with any auto update checks
Ensured battlelog is up to date and ensured animated background is off
Malware scan(no errors/objects found)
Scan of system via command prompt for OS(sfc /scannow : no errors)
Latest drivers for mobo and gfx card
Checked my HDD for errors - none, condition is very good
Checked my RAM usage as I run 32 bit(x86) version of BF4 exe due to the fact that the 64 bit version stutters with cpu spikes at an unplayable frame rate(although less spikes since latest patch). RAM usage in total is always never more than 3.5 gigs total, page file unused beyond normal operation(around 300 mb for my system).
In game settings are all set to low/off.
Removed profile from BF4 in user directory.
Killed all nv stream processes for SHEILD
Repair of BF4 installation followed by punkbuster update(completed after every major change/reboot) *notably punkbuster will say its up to date even when done manually unless the repair installation option in origin has been used*
Both Visual C redistributables from installation as well as latest version from microsoft site(these I have done on separate occasions, the latest version being my latest attempt after trying everything else)
Direct X redistributable from BF4 installation as well as latest version from microsoft site(these I have done on separate occasions, the latest version being my latest attempt after trying everything else)
Fresh installs of both OS and game.
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TheComet
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Posted: 21st Mar 2015 15:24
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Yeah, it doesn't seem to be an internet issue, but an actual bug in the game.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17168982/exception-error-c0000005-in-vc
Quote: "Exception code c0000005 is the code for an access violation. That means that your program is accessing (either reading or writing) a memory address to which it does not have rights. Most commonly this is caused by:

* Accessing a stale pointer. That is accessing memory that has already been deallocated. Note that such stale pointer accesses do not always result in access violations. Only if the memory manager has returned the memory to the system do you get an access violation.

* Reading off the end of an array. This is when you have an array of length N and you access elements with index >=N."


There's not much you can do there, other than try and generate a crash dump file along with that crash report above and send it to EA to fix.

Need help with C/C++ game dev? PM me or add me on skype: the__comet.
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mr Handy
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Posted: 21st Mar 2015 15:29
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Oh god. That makes a solid sense for existence of PS4 and XBO. You simply can't fail to play the game.

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James H
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Posted: 21st Mar 2015 16:50
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TheComet
Already part way there, will continue later today, I have altered regedit to generate a full report but the viewer I have shows the file as empty although each dump file generated is slightly different in size(very small files though) so have to get that sorted, then I just need to find the right place to send it as EA site doesn't have uploads, plus I can not be sure they would even look at it given I had no response with threads on BF4 and EA forum. Will get back onto it later today I think.

MrHandy
Actually every platform for BF4 has crash issues, it may well be the case that in more recent times there are relatively few occasions for consoles but this game is about a year and 5 months old now and I still see threads/posts for all platforms detailing freezes and crashes as well as multitudes of bugs and lag or fps issues. The further back in time you go towards the release date the more frequent you see these threads/posts. Your not immediately going to see them when looking due to the many threads made with other issues. The newer the hardware the less common for sure but there are no guarantees although it would appear consoles are much less of a gamble.
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Dar13
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2015 03:59
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91% usage of the CPU probably isn't helping matters either. Is that average usage across all four cores or just one core?

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James H
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2015 05:15
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Dar13 - that would be for 1 core with the others being less and the crashes can very often occur with the highest usage of any core being much lower than that(for example when I am in either an empty or near empty server).

Seppuku Arts - somehow I missed your post, probably because it took so long for me to write the post immediately after yours and have not since checked the entire thread - a bad habit I seem to have(among many). I agree with pretty much all you have stated but simply have not thought it all through and nor would I had I not made this thread and read what yourself and the others posting here have said.

MrHandy - in your first post I noticed some bold lettering which I missed before, is that intended or is my browser messed up? If it is intended is it supposed to mean numbers needed to treat to coincide with the subject of many hardware possibilities? Just curious is all.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2015 08:11
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Nah its just an annoying habit he does when he corrects typos.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2015 20:44
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Quote: "Seppuku Arts - somehow I missed your post, probably because it took so long for me to write the post immediately after yours and have not since checked the entire thread - a bad habit I seem to have(among many). I agree with pretty much all you have stated but simply have not thought it all through and nor would I had I not made this thread and read what yourself and the others posting here have said."


He he, s'all good man (Saul Goodman?). I tried to stop my inner customer services agent rant mode kicking in. I think it's a cultural issue, it's that annoying phrase "the customer is always right" when actually, they often aren't. Because if that were true then a) many people would go out of business and b) well, if I said the things customers sometimes accuse customer services agents of being I'd lose my moderator status and get noob-slapped.

Given I tend to write essay sized posts (Raven left years a go, somebody needed to take his place), so the fact you read it is something.

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