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Red Alert: A Path Beyond Update Apologies for the long wait, but what can I say, there's been a lot going on... General Added the console command hud_during_screenshot (or hud_d and then hit enter to autocomplete); toggling this off will cause the HUD to not appear in any screenshots you take. Very handy if you like to take screenshots (or if another screenshot contest happens) and don't want the HUD to get in the way but don't want to have to disable it manually every time you take a screenshot. Remember that this also hides the chat window; if you need to screenshot someone's chat for whatever reason and don't want to keep enabling/disabling the hud, bring up the chat history with U and screenshot that, as chat won't be hidden there. Texture Detail setting (Options -> Configuration -> Performance) now works properly. Fixed stealth effect (and a few others) being recompiled for every single object instance. This fixes second long lag initializing a (mobile) gap generator and some occasional stutter throughout the game. Nukes Tweaked Signal Flare shading and smoke effect to make it easier to spot the source. Reduced damage radius of both from 120 to 100 metres. Demo Trucks now use the same method of calculating damage that A-Bomb flares use. Damage to ground units increased by about 25%. Infantry You can now set crouching to be a toggle (Options -> Controls -> Movement). Among other things this can be helpful if you want to remain crouched while typing. Fixed a bug that was causing crouching speed to be affected by factors that shouldn't affect it. Previously when crouching, you would move at 46% of jogging speed when moving forward/backward/sideways, 53% when moving diagonally, and 65% when moving while holding the jump key. Now, crouching speed will always be 50% of your jogging speed. All infinite-use tools with cooldowns (Binoculars, Medic Kit, Shovel, Repair Tool) are now consistent in their cooldown behaviour; swapping from Binoculars/Repair Tool to another weapon and back will no longer instantly reset their cooldown (which would allow you to repair faster than normal or spam radar markers everywhere), and Medic Kit and Shovel no longer require you to have them equipped to reset their cooldown - all of them now have a fixed cooldown that you can't reduce, but you can use other tools/weapons while you wait for these to recharge. Rifle Soldiers AK-47 alt-fire is now "semi-auto" fire, like in .9935, instead of some unexplained thing that magically fires faster than full-auto. Compared to the primary fire, rate of fire is halved, but accuracy is improved, giving it a situational use similar to the M16's burst, instead of just being a point-blank prayer to the RNG gods. Damage to vehicles nerfed; takes 20% longer to kill unarmoured vehicles, 40% longer to kill light/heavy/mammoth ones. Want to kill vehicles? Shell out that money. Even if it's just for a captain. Damage reduction against ground vehicles' armour is now -60% instead of -50%. Takes 2.3% less time to kill buildings at MCTs. Shotgunners Weapon now takes 0.5 seconds to ready after sprinting/switching, just like every other non-Volkov weapon, instead of 1 second (it couldn't have a shorter ready time previously due to an exploit which is now fixed). Damage to vehicles nerfed; takes 20% longer to kill light and unarmoured vehicles, 7% longer to kill heavy ones. Mammoth vehicles are unchanged. Takes 3.1% less time to kill buildings at MCTs. Officers Damage to vehicles tweaked (mostly nerfed, but not as much as the other guys); takes 2% less time to kill trucks/planes, 9% longer to kill light vehicles/helis, 6% longer to kill heavy vehicles. Mammoth vehicles are unchanged. Damage reduction against ground vehicles' armour is now -33% regardless of type (was -20% against light vehicles, -25% against heavy, -33% against mammoths.) This is factored into the above change, so basically vehicles without their armour take about the same time to kill as before; it's against armour that the nerfs really hit them. Engineer Shovel now causes mines to be disarmed safely instead of just blowing them up. Allied Engineers will still want to watch their step to avoid actually triggering them, but they won't have to worry about being killed by their own minesweeping. Shovel charge time down (2 -> 1 second). Shovel no longer affects explosive barrels (it used to make them blow up as well, which was not particularly helpful). C4 now only does 90% damage to minor base defenses instead of one-shotting them. Grenadier Direct damage up (45 -> 50). Splash damage up (40 -> 50). Flamethrower Damage to vehicles nerfed; takes 11% longer to kill light/unarmoured vehicles (except aircraft), 32% longer to kill heavy vehicles (which for the Allies is basically just medium tanks), 20% longer to kill mammoth vehicles. However against mammoth vehicles the difference between health damage and armour damage is greatly reduced, so their damage will start out a bit better than before against a mammoth vehicle with armour. Takes 1.5% less time to kill buildings at MCTs. Each magazine now holds 50 "shots" instead of 10; it still takes the same amount of time to empty the magazine and the damage per magazine is the same, so this just means you have more chances to hit whatever you're aiming at. Splash damage down (35 -> 30). Splash radius down (7 -> 6m). Don't worry, the greater shot granularity makes direct hits much easier. Medic Medic Kit cooldown increased from 2 to 4 seconds. Remember that you don't have to have it equipped anymore for the cooldown to wear off! Combined with the 1 second charge time and the 5 second healing duration, if you keep using the kit you'll still heal the same amount over time as before, but your efforts will be more easily disrupted by Flamethrowers and other things that cause burn effects since you can't reapply your healing as frequently. Damage to vehicles nerfed; takes 20% longer to kill unarmoured vehicles, 40% longer to kill light/heavy/mammoth ones. (Uses same warhead as riflemen.) Takes 2.3% less time to kill buildings at MCTs. Shock Trooper Range down (80 -> 75m). Direct damage to infantry down (25 -> 22.5). Volkov Weapons now take 1.5 seconds to ready after sprinting/switching instead of 2. Vehicles Wheeled vehicles (Ranger, V2 Launcher, Mobile Gap, anything with "Truck" in the name) can now apply brakes by holding the space bar or crouch key. If you need more precision than just tapping reverse. Ore Truck Fixed a random bug that, once triggered, would cause a team's AI Ore Truck to never spawn even after changing to another map. AI Ore Trucks now take 30 seconds to spawn from a dead War Factory instead of spawning instantly. Destroying an AI Ore Truck almost instantly after its construction will no longer prevent the truck from being rebuilt on that map. APC Damage to planes up (1 -> 1.25). Artillery Fixed armour class (was unintentionally using the Mobile Gap's "extra weak to tesla weapons" one). Light Tank Can no longer dodge Flame Tower shots reliably. Reload time up (1.2 -> 1.25 seconds); DPS down 4%. MAD Tank Now also uses the A-Bomb Flare method of determining if a building is in range to do damage, and their damage radius is reduced slightly to compensate (250 to 225 metres); really they can still hit most main buildings from about the same range as before, but this also means their "rangefinder" weapon (letting you get target boxes on anything in its damage radius) is more accurate - if you can see the target box of a main building, you WILL damage it when you deploy. Phase Tank ROF up (3 -> 3.2 shots per second); DPS up 2.6%. Splash damage radius up (9 -> 10m) Naval All naval units except the LST now have multiple lock-on points for homing weapons. Destroyer Range back up (140 -> 160m). Turret tilt restriction loosened (15 degrees up -> 45 degrees). Damage to buildings up (0.375 -> 0.4). Damage to base defenses down (0.375 -> 0.3). Turn rate increased. (Now takes 11 seconds to do a 90 degree turn instead of 15) Missile turn rate increased. Cruiser Turret turn restriction loosened (135 degrees each side -> 150 degrees). A two-man cruiser should have an easier time lining up both turrets to hit something now. Damage up (125 -> 150) but reload time up (7.5 -> 8.5); slightly improved DPS overall The Seamist "fake cruiser"'s global firing sound is now used if you're too far away to hear the main firing sound. Attack Sub Range back up (130 -> 140m). Projectile velocity up (40 -> 50m/s). Missile Sub Damage to buildings up (0.375 -> 0.4). Damage to base defenses down (0.375 -> 0.3). AA secondary is now tracking, but doesn't have a huge projectile size anymore. Speed down (11.5 -> 10m/s). Missile turn rate increased. Helicopters Now use mouse steering. Longbow Damage to planes up (0.6 -> 0.8) Projectile velocity up (75 -> 100m/s) Hind Gun now has horizontal turn restriction of 90 degrees to either side (though this doesn't matter much due to the mouse steering) Planes Has something more resembling fixed-wing physics, instead of just being a VTOL that is forcibly propelled forward! Your direction is now controlled by the mouse (when using basic controls). With basic controls, W/S control throttle, A/D manually roll, Jump/Crouch manually pitch, Q toggles he landing gear. With advanced controls, Jump/Crouch keys control throttle, A/D manually roll, and the arrow keys control pitch/rudder. No longer have enlarged hitboxes while in flight - they will be harder to hit. Death explosion no longer uses the heli death explosion sound. Instantly explodes if it dies from collision damage (this ensures that it will actually damage helicopters) Thrust is now manually controlled, instead of always being forced to maximum outside the Airfield. Holding W increases your throttle up to a maximum of 100%, holding S decreases it to a minimum of -5% (for reversing on the Airfield). The higher your throttle, the faster you move and the easier it is to stay airborne. Once you're airborne, letting go of W/S will keep the throttle at whatever you set it to (unless you go over the flight ceiling), providing similar "cruise control" to what the previous version of planes had. Of course, you'll pretty much always want your throttle to be at the maximum while traveling or fighting, but being able to slow down before you land on the runway (and not instantly losing all your throttle and faceplanting in the process) helps a lot with making a safe landing. Can now fly higher than helicopters; their flight ceiling is set at 125m, versus the 75m of helicopters. If you exceed 125m, your throttle will decrease to 0%, and you will not be able to reapply throttle until you start losing altitude, which may make you a sitting duck for Longbows if you've gained so much altitude that you go into freefall. Instead of dying from low speed, you now die (or take massive damage) from colliding with things (this includes trying to land at too high of a speed/steep of an angle that your landing gear can't take the impact). Just like how being at the Airfield used to save you from the low-speed death threshold, being at the Airfield will now allow you to collide with other vehicles safely. Landing gear is no longer just a simple animation; it's something you can manually toggle with Q that actually actually affects your flight. Having your landing gear out reduces your maximum speed slightly (40 -> 35m/s in a Yak, 50 -> 45m/s in a MiG), causes your plane to pitch backwards a bit (which can make it harder to hit things below you as a Yak), and allows you to land safely (you will die trying to land without it). You can now land and eject your plane almost anywhere, not just the Airfield. However, you must deploy the landing gear and bring your plane to almost a complete halt before you are able to eject, and trying to land anywhere with difficult terrain, a lot of obstacles, or enemy units is not recommended as all of those are likely to destroy the plane (and you since you're inside it) before you can slow down enough to eject. If throttle is very low, the Yak's propeller will turn more slowly, the MiG's exhausts will stop spewing, and boths' engines will sound "dead". This is not a 100% indicator of the plane's ability to keep flying, as depending on your control you may be able to barely maintain altitude at a middling-low throttle - but if you notice any of these things and you're not trying to land, it's a clear sign that you should throttle up again before you do fall out of the sky. Yak Range up (105 -> 200m) Rate of fire increased (7.5 -> 10 shots per second) Splash damage no longer pierces cover. Damage to naval units reduced slightly. Damage to heavier ground vehicles reduced. Damage to aircraft increased. MiG Health up (200 -> 300) Range up (100 -> 150m) Missiles' initial path is now directly ahead of the MiG instead of "dropping" directly beneath it; you will have to fly it like a Yak now instead of "bombing" things from max altitude. High reload time between salvos, so now it must make two passes to use all of its ammo, just like the Yak. If you fire your missiles less than 0.5 seconds after you stop aiming at a unit, your missiles will still lock onto that unit if you got a lockon indicator. This will make it much easier to hit all the non-naval vehicles which are much smaller targets. Now only has 4 missiles (total base damage is still the same as it was with 6 missiles though) Damage to naval units reduced slightly. Damage to aircraft reduced (can no longer kill a longbow in one refill). Damage to heavier ground vehicles increased (is now the same as the damage dealt to light vehicles). Buildings Interior lighting is brighter. AA Gun Damage down (60 -> 50). Now stops shooting a unit when it starts "crash landing". Barracks Removed some of the random smatterings of floor props, added more gear shelves in their place. Flame Tower Damage to vehicles tweaked; takes 10% less time to kill light/unarmoured vehicles (kills light tanks in one less hit!), 8% longer to kill heavy vehicles (which is basically just medium tanks). Reload time up (2.75 -> 3 seconds). Naval Yard Reduced amount of props. Radar Dome Added a second light in the basement, between the purchase terminals. Refinery Since the MCT-side staircase up to the top floor was often unusable due to infantry hitting their head on the walkway to the rooftop, that staircase been removed; now only the purchase-side staircase remains (but wider and with added guard rails) and there is a walkway connecting the two sides of the top floor. Guard rails no longer block bullets. Silos Gem Silo now gives 5 credits per second, instead of +1400 start credits and 2/sec. On Hostile Waters this should allow an earlygame where LSTs have more purpose. You'll be poorer early on but after about 10 minutes you'll have more money than you had in the last version. "Double strength" and "triple strength" ore silos have been axed; Wasteland just has a gem silo and Soviet Seamist has 3 ore silos. Sub Pen Infantry no longer have seizures when looking at the big crates. Tesla Coil Range against naval units increased (150 -> 180m). No longer outranged by destroyers! Unit-repairing buildings Repairs now happen automatically when a unit is in the zone instead of needing to press a button. This happens on a 1-second delay so you have plenty of time to sell if you don't want to repair. Repair zones now take 10 seconds to fully repair instead of 8. Service Depot help text now also mentions that it can automatically reload Minelayers. Naval factory repair help text now also mentions that you should surface a submarine before selling it (since infantry drown when ejected underwater). Naval factory repair zones will no longer fail to show their text for Destroyers/Cruisers. You can no longer sell the same plane multiple times. War Factory Overhauled interior props; instead of random shit scattered all over the place, some of which wasn't even relevant to the war factory and some of which was easy to get stuck on, it's now mostly on shelves and there's a wider variety of stuff, such as some mid-assembly vehicles and vehicle parts. Added guard rails to the catwalk leading to the MCT room, so you can dodge around without falling off (and also so bots don't dive off the catwalk onto some prop and then go braindead because they can't pathfind anywhere else from where they landed) Guard rails no longer block bullets. Main door trigger size greatly decreased; it now won't open because of infantry units on the ladders or at the purchase terminals, and it won't open for purchased vehicles until they're near the edge of the construction pad. Aesthetics FPS is now capped at 300, so you won't get any more of the animation hiccups that happen at 1000 FPS. Improved sun flare effect. All metal features on units and base defenses now have a specular lighting effect. (This isn't working for stuff that uses baked lighting, like main buildings, yet.) Tweaked stealth texture to look a bit more like the RA1 stealth effect. Re-exported some textures (mostly vehicles and base defenses) that were suffering from artifacts, they should look crisper now. Made the pulse effect on radio command emoticons smoother. Grenades, depth charges and siege cannon shrapnel now visibly tumble in flight. Ejected bullet casing effects are somewhat less limp; velocity is slightly increased, randomness has been added on weapons that lacked it, and casings now bounce once. Wheeled vehicles' wheels now visibly switch direction more smoothly. While using a vehicle's first-person camera, you will no longer see your own name floating in front of you. M16 now ejects three bullet casings when using the three-round burst. The Colt and Makarov now have slide and reload animations in first person (shamelessly recycled from the Beretta). Remington's first-person ejected shell now uses the correct texture. TOZ-194 actually ejects shells now (in both first and third person). TOZ-194's muzzle flash no longer produces dragonsbreath sparks. Both shotguns and the Enfield eject their shells/casings in sync with the pump/bolt action instead of doing so instantly when firing. Colt now ejects casings in the correct direction in third person. LPO-50 flamethrower has a new firing effect. While climbing a ladder, your weapon will now be stowed on your back instead of staying in your hand and clipping through everything. Vehicles with machineguns (Ranger, APC, Hind) actually eject bullet casings now. Missile Sub has a new firing sound and projectile model. Chrono Tank now has rockets in its rocket pods. MCV and Ore Truck now have interiors. Ranger's M60/PKM now has the same (smaller) muzzle flash as the handheld one. Helicopters now use the same "crash landing" logic as planes, meaning the falling husk will retain the momentum that the helicopter had when it died. Unlike with planes though, the helicopter's pilot will still be ejected in mid-air like before. Fixed "smoothness" problem with the Yak's landing gear when retracted, it shouldn't be lit so weirdly anymore. Fixed some visual weirdness with the cracks on the destroyed Service Depot. Fixed texture stretching on the insides of doors. Tesla Coil now uses the same glowing effect as the Tesla Tank's dome while charging up. Animation of Barracks flags has been improved. A-Bomb terminal in Missile Silo no longer displays anything when the building is destroyed. Soviet Construction Yard now has the correct texture on its purchase terminals. Added some depth to the building props that use A4R91N's new textures (fuseboxes, power panels, WF crane control, random electrical equipment in the PP/Dome). AK-47, M60, PKM and Makarov are reverted to their Gamma firing sounds. "Extra Crispy" voice now belongs to the Flamethrower instead of the Shock Trooper. Added the rest of the missing RA voice files for generic infantry ("vehicle reporting" is just cropped down to be another variant of "reporting"). Weapon firing sounds no longer cut off previous instances of the same sound, so rapid-fire weapons will just sound better. Most sounds now play at slightly random pitches (this functionality was broken for a long time). Bots Bot support has been added to the maps Complex and Pipeline. (Though they won't capture oils on Pipeline.) Infantry bots on River Raid may now use the infantry-only side routes. Bots now grab their vehicles faster. Instead of there always being 1 engineering bot, 2 defender bots, and the rest being offense bots (which resulted in nothing happening with very small bot numbers), all bots are now offense bots by default, and some will change to engineering/defender roles while main buildings are under attack. Using the "Building needs repairs" radio command will further encourage switching to engineering/defender roles. Defender bots now hunt down the units that are attacking a building wherever they are instead of just hovering around the engineering bots. Bots now detect enemies on radar. Infantry bots no longer bunnyhop unless they are a Sergeant, Starshina, Tanya or Volkov (the first two get very close to their targets and the latter two have very low accuracy penalties, so with these units bunnyhopping is not be a total offensive disadvantage for the situations bots get into). Infantry bots actually open the War Factory main door now instead of phasing through it. Fixed infantry bots not wanting to go into buildings at all because they saw building exteriors as a target that must be dealt with before they can proceed. Now they will completely ignore building exteriors and only shoot the MCT (if they manage to reach it) - unless they're a Rocket Soldier/RPG Trooper/Grenadier/Volkov; those will still shoot buildings from outside since they don't get bonus damage against MCTs. Music Replaced the rest of the low-quality TD/RA1 music tracks with higher-quality versions (Depth Charge, Creeping Upon, Big Foot, Fogger, Hell March Remix, Journey) Chicajo's remix of the RA1 map selection music is now used during loading screens. Tweaked a bunch of jukeboxes: Bonsai no longer has Afterlife or Bog; with the change in sky/weather the map isn't gloomy enough for those anymore. It now has Mud and Mud Remix instead. Canyon River no longer has Trenches, Fogger or Mud; instead it has Afterlife, and Bog so it doesn't go unused after being removed from Bonsai. Coastal Influence no longer has Chicajo Drone. Added Hell March Mix Electronica (a previously unused Chicajo piece that some may remember from Hourglass in Gamma 2.1.4.6) instead. Complex no longer has Journey. Added Backstab instead. Dream Sleep and Floating have swapped maps; Dream Sleep is now on Metro and Floating is now on Complex. Metro's signature track is now Eaten Alive, like it was in Beta. Pipeline no longer has In Trouble, its quality sucked. Added In the Line of Fire (Tiberian Dawn) instead. River Raid no longer has Renegade Jungle. Added Crush Remix (Retaliation) instead. Rock Trap now has RenAlert Jam (Chicajo) and Hell March Remix (Retaliation) instead of Ammo Clip and Smash. Siege no longer has Trenches. Added Twin Cannon Remix instead To the Core no longer has Twin Cannon Remix. Added Smash instead. Zama no longer has Drill, Radio 1 or Techno Babble. Added Groundwire, Mud and Radio 2 instead. Now finally EVERY RA1 track is being used! Lunar Paradox... well, hear it for yourself. New map (see below) uses Trenches, Afterlife, No Mercy Remix and Snake. MapsSeamist Fixed trenches being considered as part of the water. Bonsai Reduced amount of rocks. Fixed a plateau near the Soviet Refinery that had just slightly too shallow of a slope, which let rocket soldiers get onto it for a cheap ref/ft attack spot. Complex You can no longer walk through the foundation of the Allied Radar Dome. Sky redone to more resemble the Beta version of the map. Guard Duty Added a guard shack and gates to the back of the base, taken from the Beta map "Slow Down" and slightly prettied up. Lowered various mountains to give Yaks more room to maneuver. Reduced amount of rocks. Hostile Waters Economy is different (see Silos). Rearranged anti-boat/infantry defenses to better cover the naval factory while leaving more of the base exposed. Allies no longer have a Pillbox near their Missile Silo, and instead have a Turret perched on the south-east end of the Naval Yard. Soviets no longer have a Tesla Coil near their Missile Silo, and their remaining one is moved closer to the Sub Pen. Allies now have a Refill Pad. Removed some AA defenses, particularly on the Allied side. Added some props to the bases. Flares can no longer be placed in Construction Yard basement or the top floor of Missile Silo. Supply Truck no longer respawns. Lunar Paradox Allied arsenal is now joined by Long Artillery. No gravity and 400m range so it can be pretty ridiculous at sniping, but its gun elevation is almost nonexistent, its splash is much weaker than the real arty, and the terrain layout provides very few outlets to make use of said range. Mess around with it anyway. Soviet arsenal is now joined by the Ground Yak. It's basically the equivalent to Long Arty in role; fixed gun, long range. Soviet arsenal is now joined by the Lunar Hind, the equivalent to the Lunar Longbow. Just like the Lunar Battlefield one, it shoots fireballs. Various "balance" damage/health tweaks to various units, details don't really need to be elaborated for a map like this except... Guided V2 now uses the reworked plane physics instead of behaving like a VTOL! Guided V2 no longer has manual detonation; let the collision damage do the work of detonating you. Removed the cover from the front of the MCT room, now some units can fire into it from below if the WF door is open, hit the MCT and kill repairers. The Earth is no longer mirrored. North by Northwest Removed all rocks on the corner hills. Made corner hills more accessible from the defender's side. Lowered the southwest corner hill (near Soviet WF) 3 metres. Removed a pillbox and a turret on the front. Pipeline Replaced the hedgehogs behind the Soviet War Factory with a guard shack and gates. These actually prevent you from getting in/out of the base from this direction. Removed the invisible barrier in the out of bounds behind the Soviet base, it's no longer needed with the new visible barriers. Reduced amount of rocks. Ridge War Expanded the fencing behind the Soviet base and added guard shack and gates. Siege Moved a couple of lone trees that were very close to the Airfield and interfering with landing planes. Added more out-of-bounds trees. Moved map boundaries inwards in most parts, but outwards near the Airfield so you're less likely to scrape the warning zone while taking off or landing. To the Core Reduced amount of rocks. Under The destructible rock arch has been remastered; in addition to looking better, it no longer causes instant death in a radius that may affect things outside the area it's blocking off - instead, it causes instant death to anything that the rocks themselves hit (and to anything that happens to be stuck between them afterwards), so you have more time to get away. However, the fallen rocks now block off the entire area under the arch, so infantry will have to circle around the back of the island through the shallow water if they want to continue using the island as an avenue of attack. Volcano Is now back in the game, redesigned as a full combined arms map - in addition to the original infantry/vehicles/helis, planes and naval also make an appearance. The volcano is actually dangerous now. Infantry standing around the rim will take 1 damage per second, and anything that falls in is dead. Zama Reduced amount of rocks. [thumb]thumb_apb.k.png[/thumb][blurb]A mega-update 4 months in the making; new plane physics, specular lighting, cleaner building interiors, safe mine disarming for Engineers, Volcano in island form, and more![/blurb]

Nice. Well then I'll start by recommending Asus for a motherboard manufacturer. Yes there are alternatives, and yes the alternatives can work just as well, but after ~10 years of being in the computer repair field, I can safely say that Asus has a leg up vs other manufacturers. Good stuff. Also found in many HP and Alienware machines just re-badged 😉 Same for the GSkill brand of memory, though I'm a little less attached to them. I did see my first ever failed memory stick of that brand last week though. Crucial, Kingston, Mushkin, Samsung, all are good brands of memory though fairly speaking. For a CPU, just get something you can afford...lol Power supply, any "80+" certified unit is good, I highly recommend the Seasonic brand, but Thermaltake and others are fine too. Just make sure it can drive everything you have. GPU....again, whatever you can afford. For OS drive, I highly recommend Samsung SSDs, highly discourage buying A-Data SSDs. Other major brands are fine, but I've been selling Samsung to my customers for years and I've only ever had one to fail and it was physically damaged somehow. If your board has the option for a NVMe or m.2 then definitely go that route. For storage, definitely recommend Western Digital. Anything works, I've just seen long life and reliability from the WD drives. I think thats about everything....all the high points anyway ^.^

@Goliath35 Do a google search for deleting drive limits in the registry. Its difficult to explain, but basically sometimes you can get a temporary/leftover/incorrect/other registry value that affects how your disk drives work (any drive), and it can cause the type of issue you're seeing. Be very careful performing this process, because you can make your computer not bootable if you delete or modify the wrong value. Good luck!

What? I'm torn between human and robot here.