Well... I liked the Nickelodeon cartoon, "The Angry Beavers", quite a bit at the time I made the account.

@Chatch09@insane_metalist

Thanks for pointing out something that should have been obvious to me. I'm not used to anything having lifetime warranties, so my brain didn't register the fact that these sticks have one, despite having read the words on the page.

That said, I don't have any spare DDR3 DIMMs to use if I RMA these to G.Skill. Have any of you heard of the issue I described before? Since writing the original post, I've tried the other two RAM slots on the mobo, and now I'm trying each stick individually. I haven't had a crash while using a single stick yet, which is curious, considering the sticks are identical.

@neatfeatguy I was wondering about that, considering that RAM frequency is never mentioned for either a game's required or recommended specs. It just sucks having to hold my RAM back because they don't play nice with the mobo/CPU for some reason.

This issue has been occurring since I first got my RAM and CPU+mobo several years ago, but I never did find out what was going on. Stock frequency, timings, and voltage are 1333 MHz, 7-7-7-21, and 1.5V respectively, but the computer is only stable when the memory multiplier is lowered and -- if I recall -- the timings increased. It's been stable for years running at 1066 MHz with 9-9-9-24 timings, but I'm wanting to see if I can get it working properly in anticipation of The Witcher 3. Upgrading my CPU, mobo, and RAM isn't an option right now due to funds (especially since I just got a GTX 970 for Arkham Knight and Witcher 3), and because of the mobo model/age, I'm pretty much stuck with the three components I have until I can upgrade all three at once, unless I waste money on better RAM that I can't use to its potential for a while.

I've messed around with the frequency and timings of this RAM, but to no avail. I'm hoping it's not a mobo/CPU issue, but as with all things computer-y, it's sometimes hard to tell. What does everyone here think? My specs are as follows:

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K @ stock 3.3 GHz (or 3.4 GHz -- my computer says conflicting things, but stock is 3.3)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3P-B3 rev. 1.1 (BIOS F1 -- original version of the BIOS, not sure if updates would resolve this particular problem)
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) of G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333 PC3 10666
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 (haven't installed the upgrade yet -- this is what I've been running)
PSU: Corsair TX 750 Enthusiast Series (750W)

Thanks in advance for any advice. And btw, CPUID Hardware Monitor and CPU-Z leave all the RAM-related boxes blank that I've been wanting to look at. No idea why.

I am so incredibly tired of the Golden Sun series getting shafted -- both by gamers and its own developer (see Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, the nearly abyssmal third game in the series that we waited 7-8 years to get). There is no way I am not voting for Isaac.

Have you heard the good news? Isaac cometh, but only if you ACT NOW!

And I only know K. Rool from DKC1, so I have no big attachment to him.

Now Isaac! Isaac... can use a sword or axe, special sword/axe unleash attacks, magic (a.k.a. Psynergy), and elemental summons of varying strengths. For those not in the know, he has a huge amount of magic moves that revolve around rock and plants (which is why he's called an Earth/Venus adept). For such a huge number of moves, the fact that Smash 4 has two alternate moves per attack command is an incredible boon!

Time to evangelize for Isaac!

Imagine:

Normal attacks: Sword/Axe (like Link)
Smashes: Weapon unleashes, Djinni-enhanced strikes, or Venus single-Djinni summon
Recovery: Vine tether, Retreat (which would be like Palutena's/Mewtwo's recovery), or one of his hand-based utility Psynergies (could even borrow Grip from GS: Dark Dawn)
Neutral Special: Ragnarok/Odyssey Psynergy, Megiddo (unleash)
Side Special: Spire/Rockfall/Growth Psynergy (whatever intensities fit best)
Down Special: Gaia/Thorn/Quake (whatever intensities fit best)
Roll: Sand Psynergy (turn into sand and "burrow" along the surface)
Grab: Catch Psynergy
Pummel: Tremor Psynergy or sword attacks
Throws: Carry Psynergy
Final Smash: Judgment, Dullahan (bwahahaha), Megiddo (if the latter is unsuitable for a plain old special move)

I doubt that any other character has such varied possible movesets, and Isaac would be incredibly exciting to play as! Plus, he was demoted from an assist trophy in Brawl to nothing in Smash 4, so he needs to be in!

Vote Isaac!

(Amaterasu, from Okami, would be my second pick.)

The following is just talking about my game collection in general, including games that were not bought (but still legally obtained, btw).

Some of the time I buy on impulse, mainly because the game is cheap or seems like it will be too hard to get later. An example of the first scenario: in Steam deals, I've bought games in genres I have no or little experience with, justifying my trial of the genre by the low price of entry. Instead of playing these games, I just go on back to Minecraft, Elder Scrolls, the latest Fallouts, or replaying old games. In these cases, I think it's just a case of buying obsession, with games being the target object. Advertisements really do not help.

Other times, I buy games I know I'll like and that I've been anticipating, such as The Witcher 2, and then go on back to the previously-named games, playing them for countless more hours, while the new games just sit there. In this case, the longevity and replayability of older games hurts the prospect of the newer ones being played in a timely manner.

Some games I just get because... they're part of a series I usually enjoy. "Series completionism" would be a good description.

Some of the games in my digital backlog came bundled with ones I wanted, so their presence is mainly just clogging, say, the Steam user interface (so I tend to only look at the list of installed games). I'll likely never play many of these games.

Others are classics that I got for free or that came bundled with the most recent iteration in their series. The first two Elder Scrolls games were free on Bethesda's site a while ago. I've barely played them, mostly because their beginning sections are too difficult.

Due to all of the above, I have a hefty backlog. Some people have far bigger backlogs, which boggles my mind. I actually just made a list today of games I should get rid of. It's probably smaller than it should be, given that I'm not likely to plug in my older consoles again any time soon, and I feel attached beyond warrant to some of my games, so they didn't make the list. But there's one problem with getting rid of games: often, they sell for next to nothing, which makes it seem a greater value to just keep them, despite their practical lack of utility and the fact that they (boxed ones) are a waste of space.

The Mayflash stick and BlazBlue were just delivered! I'm not sure how good this stick is, though. How wobbly should it be, you think? This is the first time I've used a stick for fighting games, but I'm thinking it would probably be easier to do double-taps in the same direction with a d-pad than with this stick, anyway -- not sure about sticks in general. I'm a bit worried about not being able to consistently or quickly do air dashes and running/ground dashing.

On a slightly less important note, is there any particular button-mapping configuration you would recommend? For example, "map the 360's A button onto the stick's 1 button".

What I'm getting from the MAME site is that it's only legitimately for the old games that the site has legally downloadable ROMs of. Is that correct?

Just ordered the Mayflash stick and, hopefully not naively, BlazBlue for PC. Now I'm reading that there were lots of bugs in the PC port and that Arc System Works wants to "forget the port ever happened" because of that and the PC sales numbers. Does anyone here know anything about the bugginess of the BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger PC port? I'm a little concerned.

Ok, I'm thinking I'll probably go back on what I said earlier and get a stick for the sake of longevity and starting off "right". I can't afford much, but what I'm thinking about now is getting that $30-$40 Mayflash stick you linked to in this thread, Zubinen, and modding it later, probably with Sanwa parts, when its parts fail or get bad enough. Does this sound like a good plan?

I'll definitely try out that Saturn pad! If I have a good time with Guilty Gear X2 #Reload, I'll probably go ahead and get BlazBlue, and then maybe try an arcade stick. Many thanks for all the recommendations, Zubinen! :)

Thanks to everyone else, as well!