COD Modern Warfare 2 - wrecked my PS3

There's your problem....

PlayStation.com

Why not? I can hook up my laptop to my tv using a hdmi cable. The video card shouldn't have a problem running 1920x1080. You are right about the cost though.

Same here. A mouse just makes aiming in a FPS sooooooo much easier for me. According to all of the spec sheets on games, I SHOULD be able to play most current games pretty well, but for whatever reason (I'm thinking it's my video card, it's outdated by at least a couple of years), any new game I've ever tried to put on here just baaaaarely runs.

That, and the whole Steam thing have been kinda keeping me away from PC games lately. I dunno, now that some of them are getting cheaper, I guess I might be able to afford the risk of getting a game that's on Steam. I just don't like the idea of paying for a game BOX, then coming home and having to download the damned thing, and then possibly getting screwed out of your money when Steam decides to void your copy and make it unplayable because it thinks it's a duplicate or whatever.

You know all you had to do was pull out your hard drive and reformat it. Then put the hard drive back in and reinstalled the operating system with a thumb drive.

I'm not so sure you understand how steam works. You don't even get a box. Just install steam, and download the game. FWIW, it will play on any computer that you have signed into steam with. If you want, you CAN back up your games to disk I think. In the time I've used it, I haven't had any problems. Also, steam runs specials if you keep your eyes out. You can score some killer games for 5-10 dollars while they are on special.
Give it a shot and try it for free. Install steam, and download/install L4D2 demo.
I think your video card should work Ok. Maybe do you have a problem with your install? I have a million legitimate vista keys(msdn) if you want to reinstall your os.
What GeForce card do you have and what drivers are you running? Might be worth trying dox drivers(hacked and optimized for game performance)
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/24003-forceware-185-85/
On second look, it appears dox drivers are laptop only.
Here is where to go for the newest desktop drivers.
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/159-19x-series-geforce-driver-releases/

Just b/c I dont say anything bad about them does not mean I dont acknowledge that they have problems here and there..big difference.

I wont need to come back after my system takes a dump b/c it never will. No Sony gaming system I have ever owned has given me any issues whats so ever. 1 PlayStation, One Play station 2 and 2 PS3's

This...

BTW, do you know if you can have a ps3 join a domain? I've been working on setting up a server in my house using server 2003. It is configured as a domain controller, and I am still working out the small bugs. Like logging into the domain. However, I'm not sure if I can make a ps3 log into a domain, or just a workgroup.

Oops!

Actually with a FPS....the consoles are easier to aim. Less precision required it seems once you get used to it. Realized this after playing Modern Warfare.

The specs listed on boxes are generally full of crapola. Seems like my machine can only play about a 1 year generation of games at full blown settings and high res.....then after that I have to start turning down settings and what not. Its tough to keep up if you want it looking the best.

At least with the PS3 games....I know I don't have a choice.

Ah, see, I don't play strategy games. I have played games on PC, and I agree that the mouse is nice, but I hate playing games with a keyboard, so there's a trade-off there, too.

Do you play with the laptop/mouse in your lap, then, or do you have a game controller for your PC? I understand that you can hook a computer up to a TV, but it seems like it would be inconvenient.

No. The laptop and the mouse go on the coffee table in the living room. I go in front of the laptop on the coffee table. The downside is the cable running across the living room floor.
I have a 17" laptop, so usually I just game on it without hooking it up to the tv. However, I get better resolution on the tv and have a bigger picture, so it's fun when I hook it up. My laptop screen is 1400x900. TV is 1920x1080.

That's something I was kind of wondering. When I was playing head-to-head against Lynn's newphew on the first Modern Warfare, I was getting my arse kicked for the most part (the kid plays 24/7 nonstop), but in that Nazi Zombies game, I was actually doing pretty well - head shots and all that fun stuff. I don't know if it's a difference in the controllers on the Xbox 360 vs the PS2, or if it's the aiming sensitivity in the games that's evolved, or if they just make console games much more forgiving when it comes to exact aiming. All I know is that I have a HELL of a time trying to hit ANYTHING on Medal of Honor: Frontlines on the PS2, but I can hop right into just about any FPS on the PC and start whoopin' arse. Maybe it's because my job has me using a mouse and keyboard all day, so I'm used to that format, and my aim with a mouse pointer is a lot more well-rehearsed...?

I forget which model exactly, but it's a GeForce something-a-rather with a measly 256 MB on-board RAM, which ain't squat. I can rock Sims2 on full settings pretty well, but anything else ... not so much. I'll try the demo sometime this weekend and see how that goes.

Alas, some of us are still rocking old-school hand-me-down non-HD CRT television screens in our living rooms ... TV's which, sadly, aren't much larger than our equally old-school CRT computer monitors are. My video card can output to a TV, but the resolution would be total poop. Otherwise, I'd be all over that. If I had some kind of badass widescreen HDTV, then I'd have more incentive to invest in a PS3 to get newer games for that rather than on the PC. For now, though, PC's the only way to go on the cheap. My system's not all hardcore top-of-the-line by any means, but I'm content to play a game with scaled-down settings rather than not being able to play the game AT ALL.

With console games, what you get out of the box is pretty much how it's always going to look and play, whereas with PC games, things just get better and better as you upgrade things here and there as you can afford them. Cost is roughly the same nowadays, since new console systems are so absurdly expensive, so the choice is either paying about $400 to $500 in "payments" (upgrade components, piece by piece) over the course of a year or two, or dropping the same amount all at once on a new system. I dunno. Comes down to personal preference, I guess. I kinda prefer the chair in my office than sitting on the floor or couch in my living room when playing a FPS game, myself. Only exception might be a hardcore laptop, where you have the option of playing the same stuff wherever you damned well please ... although they're a bit tougher and more pricey to upgrade.

Also, most PC games seem more open-ended and customizable than most console games. I've seen some "hacks" and such for the new MW2 that do some wild crap, already, and the number of home-brewed add-ons and such for various games makes the replayability of some titles last for years. Obvious downside is then you have to deal with cheaters in online multiplayer, but you get that problem on console systems, too.

Again, all comes down to personal preference, I guess.

I know all about the old school computer stuff. I finally got my server setup running. win 2k3 server r2, p3 1 ghz processor, 512k of memory, and a 40 gig hard drive. Now that I have my active directory domain up and running, I'll add a drive and enable print server and file server.

IIRC, sims hits your card pretty hard, so you might be ok with l4d2..

Link and screenshots please. I don't have access to whs in msdn. Just server 03, 03 r2, 08 and 08r2 in all flavors. I am trying to get 03 r2 to be as friendly as what i've read about whs, but so far, I understand why there is a need for IT.