oohhh fresh meat! I call dibs on the meat Minty! >:-P

..................what up....i'm new

Kacey, Download this http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php . It's called SpeedFan and whenever you crash/have a crazy lag spike go on this and see what temperature all your pc stuff is, because it might just be the problem of overheating as you say it happens over time. I've got an i7, GTX275 etc and my computer gets pretty heated up when playing for a few hours of Alien Swarm so I tab out, open SpeedFan and wait until I see it all cool down abit. The average for just normal use (no playing games) is GPU: 55C, Temp1: 40C, Temp2: 44C, Temp3: 53C, Temp: 0C, HD0: 39C, Core 0: 32C, Core 1: 30C, Core 2: 34C. You may not have all of them but you should have most of them. & Dont wory it'll make sense when you get it.

Honestly not really sure, the only thing I can possibly think of that might cause that is blocked ports for the game itself, but it goes through steam from what I understand, so not really sure. For the moment likely stuck or just join up with friends. I often hosts games, just message me if you see me on and I will invite you in with me.

that last thing, about selecting a game then sitting there? that is exactly the problem I'm having.any clue how to fix that? or am I stuck?

I've had many times where loading up is fine, playing is fine, then suddenly bam lag hits so bad its a full wipe. Or it glitches where my camera starts spinning around on its own (without me twirlin my mouse around for giggles). Other times I can go quite well for a good while without a single nitch of lag and connect to games just perfect. Now what is really annoying is when using the regular "find game" and you select one from the list like "Landing Bay - Hard" and it says there are 4 - 6 (which I think is how many games) but when you go Join you just sit there until either crash or loss conn. to host

Same as Kacey

At times yes, others no

is anyone else here having trouble connecting to games?