Advil

Well, that's the first I heard of the ve3d.com address. Go figure. I just figured they went down for good.

Just applying an update from www.2cpu.com Check this out, In case my links don't work or you can't find it later, the article is called 'ATI: Be Like the Borg and Adapt...' from Tuesday, Nov 27, 2001. [ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Advil ]

Nvidia leaks drivers like crazy. I think it's their version of "totally unofficial" beta testing. Anyway, go here, they have them all: www.guru3d.com files section

The GF2 TI is not an MX400. It's the same or a tiny bit faster than a GF2 Pro. Mucho faster than an MX400 card.

I'm not so sure it's that serious. If I remember correctly, your CC shields have to be down as well to be towed correct? And the shuttle's definately do. So if you use this method very often for anything other than dire need, sooner or later it's going to get you and your crew instantly killed. Eventually you're going to get towed right past a cloaked enemy that's going to rip through your shieldless hull in about five seconds flat. [ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: Advil ]

Sound cards should eat some of your resources but not that much. If just the sound is chewing half your frame rate, I'd say there's a 90% chance your problem lies with your sound card and/or sound drivers. How do other games work on your system? Have you tried them sound on/off to see if they get a huge jump as well? Check the usual suspects. Look for updated sound card drivers first. Reinstall DX 8.1. Still not working? Look for IRQ conflicts. Try a different PCI slot for the sound card. Finally, if all else fails... Do you have another sound card? A Live 5.1 is under $40 now, a PCI128 under $30.

I think I know what you're talking about. When your mouse is on the top bar, but not on the right section for the pulldown, there's this sound effect that is kind of a repetitive stuttering computer sound. It's just an effect. I think you just don't have the mouse pointer in the right place. Play with it a little. It took me a while initially to figure out that it was supposed to make that noise. [ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: Advil ]

I got one! Rebate went out in the mail today. Hell, I may own a comp store, but you can't buy those things wholesale for much less than $175. If they want to lose 40% selling vid cards, I'll take one. And you don't want to know what the line was like. I got there just after 5am (opened at 7) and was about #20 for the door. By the time it opened there were at least a few hundred more behind me. It was nearly a literal brawl to get in, and there were only about 4 cards left when I grabbed one. (30 seconds after the door opened) Now I get to see if they pay up on the rebate or not.

I don't know if you've ever listened to Art Bell on the radio or not, but he kinda went through a couple situations like this. He's a public figure that tends to have weird people in contact with him. Well, some paper (I believe it was Jamaican?) Printed this false email supposedly from him HATING them as a race, and all these things he never said. The end result was a large number of very serious death threats. He took legal action against the paper and eventally got a retraction printed. I think your situation is similar in the following way: If you think that you have taken any provable personal damage, or have had your reputation permanently damaged by these people from outright lies, then you have a case. But the damage has to be serious enough to make legal action worthwile. You have to have a reason the think that a ruling in your favor would somehow aid your position with the public. If yes then go for it. If not then what's the point?

Also, I noticed where you got the video drivers from so I thought of something else. If your system is overclocked, unoverclock it while trying to figure this out. Also, you can get every Nvidia driver known to man at http://www.guru3d.com

A truly enjoyable movie, even for the older crowd. Somehow, they managed to avoid total stupidity. It had imagination, I still can't believe it. The story was even entertaining. From some of the reviews I read I was NOT expecting much. It was really very good.

Back when I used to sell games, I intentionally picked up a dual pack of Ultima Underworld 1 & 2 for about $2 from my distributor. I knew someday, someone would want it. I had it on the counter for over a year for $15 just for fun. Finally one day this die-hard Ultima fan walks in and says, "OH MY GOD! I WANT THAT!" He then proceded to buy the last few parts he needed to put an old DOS computer together to play it. Some games stand the test of time.

I saw it too. Had to put on the snowboarding gear I havn't used in years to stay warm. Incredible show, and that was even with the light fog that obscured most of the horizon. Awesome. I'm only sorry that I didn't drive out to the other side of the state where it's darker to see it better. It would have been worth it.

That's how the AMDs get destroyed every day... Listen up, most AMD heatsinks are rectangular or square, and most are larger than the socket. If you look at the bottom of the heat sink and it has a little indent along one side, use your head and think about which way it goes. If you put the heatsink on 180 degreen backwards, it may end up resting with one side up on the plastic of the socket. Which means it's leaning against one edge of the CPU core, and has probably already cracked it. You only get 1 screw up with these things, so double check. I run a computer store, and believe me it breaks my heart every time someone comes in with a damaged CPU. No one can or will take them back, because AMD doesn't warranty any physical damage. Just double check and be careful.

I will usually recommend against the combo drives for one reason. Look at the numbers. If you follow that link you can see the drive is a 12x10x32 with 8x DVD and sells for $170. You can buy a TEAC 24x10x40 drive for about $110 and separate 16x Toshiba DVD for about $70. Roughly the same price, and twice as fast burning CDs and reading DVDs. If you NEED to save the space, then by all means get a combo drive. We make this tiny micro PC that only has one 5 1/4 bay, and for that a combo is perfect.

Guybert, you think that's bad. You should see the local news here in Portland, Or. We measure snowfall in the valley here in the inches every year, if any. If there is news that we might get an inch of snow or more on the valley floor overnight, there are reporters standing on the West Hills live all night. If they see flakes, schools get closed, business open late, busses go on snow routes... its absolutely insane. A couple inches shuts the whole city down.

When you have replayed a mission 30 times in the last 5 hours and finally you get a lucky break and are going to beat it, when the **** game locks up. And of course you have no save. [ 11-14-2001: Message edited by: Advil ]

I feel like I'm responsible for this mess. I worked really hard to keep the file sizes down on the ones I did. I thought 30-40k was on the upper end of reasonable. Unfortunately, I think I let the genie out of the bottle. If one is big, someone will do one bigger. I think I'll redo my logo without the animation... just to set a good example. Ah well, I did it for the fun of learning anyway. Also, I didn't see this logo thread at the time. Feel free to delete that other thread I made and leave this one. Sorry for the mess. [ 11-14-2001: Message edited by: Advil ]

Since I made the few animated sigs for us Gammulans, I've seen them popping up everywhere! There are some really good ones that really add to the atmosphere around here. That said, I want to remind all of you (and myself) to keep track of how big those sigs get. I've checked a few of them by right clicking and getting file size. Some of these things are 120k or larger. And some sigs have multiple animated gifs that are each about that size. Consider a couple of very important points: One is that anyone on a modem is going to be downloading that sig for a very long time. A decent modem connect will pull around 4k a sec, so it takes them 32 seconds to download a 128k gif. The sencond thing to remember is that you are probably hosting that file off your personal web space, or that of someone you know. Remember that when the game goes live thousands of people may download your sig over a few weeks, thereby exceeding your (or your friends) bandwidth limit to the site hosting it. It adds up fast. Suggestions for streamlining: I've been using Ulead to make the few sigs I've done so far. First thing, remember that you can make each individual frame last as long as you want. So if nothing's moving, make that frame stay put longer rather than showing a bunch of frames where nothing happens. Huge savings in size here. Second, when doing effects some frames (like the first, or last couple) don't show much change. Remove them, since when the gif is animating you won't really notice them missing. A gif animation is a little jerky anyway... after all it's not a DVD movie. Along these lines are doing effects like the "screen off" effect I use in my sig. I originally made a 40 frame transition to do it, then I threw out the last 30 frames that are all black anyway, and only used about every other frame of the first 10 that actually had the effect. There's only about 4 or 5 frames of effect before going black this way, which is all that's needed to make it look right. The last thing you can do is PLEASE use the optimization features if your program has it. Ulead is VERY good at this. It condenses the color pallet to a smaller size. You'd be amazed that you can actually pull 20% or more of the color pallet out and barely see a difference in the end product. This isn't a rant at all, just some friendly advice to make those great sigs even better! I have cable and don't care how big your sigs are, I'm just trying to offer ways to make them more efficient. Good luck and keep those sigs coming!

Virtually every AMD motherboard has a BIOS option to monitor the CPU fan RPM, and turn off the system if the fan dies. They also all have a temp alarm or shutdown in the BIOS. The only time these don't work is when you do something STUPID like what TomsHardware did, run the dumb thing with no heatsink/fan on it. Then it burns up before the thermal monitor can catch it. As long as you are a competent builder, this will never be an issue. If you have doubts, have the store you get it from install it for you. Now, just so I don't sound too up on AMD, I actually do not like the way their CPUs can burn up if you screw up, and I REALLY HATE how easy it is to chip the core when installing the heatsink. It's not a good design compared to the way the Intel's self regulate the P4s temperature, and build the metal heat transfer plate which can't be chipped. But you can't deny the price to performance ratio of the AMDs.

Nice Sig Razor.

It sounds to me like the Patrol Group will be seeing action from the humans soon, assuming any of you survive the Diplomats. Excellent. They need some target practice occasionally. Why do I doubt you humans fight half as well as the Falkeries? [ 11-07-2001: Message edited by: Advil ]

Rtoolooze, get me a photo of yer head. I can work with most photos, but here's what's best: Black background Looking straight at you No big toothy smile, although I can probably make it work. ICQ or Email it to me, and I'll morph you up one of your own. Sooner the better, since once the game comes out I won't have much time to do as many of these.

JOIN THE GAMMULANS! /rp Due to possible imminent military activity that may result in moving the Diplomatic fleet farther from home, the Gammulan Patrol Group is now expanding it's ranks. Come help defend the honor and territory of the most powerful race in the galaxy. Sign up now at: http://members.home.com/gammulan/main.htm Those humans have overconfidence down to an art form. I don't think they fully appreciate the might of the Gammulan war machine. /rp