DosFreak

No matter how poor a person may be, pirating a game is not supported by this site. Playing a game is a WANT not a NEED. To make things simpler just don't mention how you aquired the game. I would go to the http://www.patches-scrolls.de/ and download the patch.

Are you guys using WINS? Verify that WINS IP's are correct in eac computers configuration. If so then check the "Computer Browser" service and verify that it's Automatic and started. If still having the same problems then go to your WINS server and delete the computers from the WINS database. Now reboot both computers, may also have to restart the computer browser service again.

Hmmm, either include the drivers for your new controller in Windows or switch your IDE controller to a generic/standard controller.

Yes, just recheck the boxes and you'll be set. Next time you defrag just reboot into safe mode (Hit F8 before the Windows logo appears on bootup), then choose Safe Mode.

Well, it's never helped that we have 2 Gaming forums...there really isn't that much difference between NT4/2000/XP/2003 to justify different forums. This seems to cause confusion for first-time posters. I remember a loooong time ago suggesting a new forum arrangement but right now I cannot find it, it would probably be too much work anyway. The best solution right now would to probably merge the NT4/2000 forums with the XP/2003 forums, and also stick the General forums above the new merged NT4/2000/XP/2003 forums. I love the logo! The Sims 2 has been a PITA for me. I've purposely stayed out of the Sims 2 posts but sometimes I can't help myself seeing all those people with games they cannot play so I offer a few tidbits of wisdom. I came down to visit my Parent's and found out that my sister bought a copy for her Compaq K63-400 with a Geforce FX 5200. Unfortunately she didn't know what a DVD drive was so she couldn't even install it! I shudder to think how it would have played on a K63-400 anyway....which is probably why I'm going to bring down my DVD drive when I come by for Christmas.

So you tried an IBM and a Maxtor on your USB and they both exhibited the same behavior? You said you could connect both HD's to a computer on the IDE Controller and they both worked fine? Could be incompatibility between the USB/ATA chipset in the enclosure...but I would run diagnostics on the HD's first.

Check the jumpers. Some external enclosures work fine with CS some require the jumper be set to Master. It also depends on the hard drive.

Looks like if you buy the retail ver you'll have to have the CD in the drive AND authenticate with Valve. Brilliant. From my web surfing and talking with friends it seems that almost everyone is willing to sell their souls for Steam. Good going guys. Thanks. Looks like the activation crack so far involves actually downloading the full game (4+GB) with it included....unsure if an actual cracked executable will show up any time soon. (Doubtful what with steam involved) Went to BB today and saw the CD ver of Half-Life 2 sitting there (5 CD's!!!)....plenty of copies too. Took a peek at the requirements and "Internet Connection Required" is listed on the box. (Doesn't say what for tho. ). Still no Bloodlines .....I did pick up Buffy Season 7 tho (and I didn't even have to authenticate it!!!) so I'm happy. For those with no Steam problems and no souls I'm happy for ya! Your probably playing the best FPS ever created so enjoy it until Valve no longer exists.

Single-Player Half-Life 2 Multi-Player Halo 2 (Since Counterstrike isn't an option......)

Well, so much for Steam. Good work Valve. Activation has been cracked. http://www.izonews.com/release.php3?releaseid=93951 Here's a thread on Ars with problems: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=39309975&m=643001857631 Disclaimer: Mostly only people with problems will post, blah blah blah. Here's a poll: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb....owpollresults=Y There should be 0 problems with authentication, but looks like Valve's servers are overloaded....the theory is that they have the bandwidth but their servers cannot take the load. Brilliant move for release day....hopefully these problems continue and we can expect a patch for single-player no auth very very soon. I doubt it tho....they've already sold the game in retail boxes requiring authentication and their whole Steam system needs to prove that it can work....but this whole fiasco shows that it doesn't work as well as they hoped. Now my only dilemma is if I buy the game and use the crack, I'll still be supporting Steam since the money I bought the game with with go into Valve's statistics for steam usage....or will they just use Steam logon authentication. Wish I knew if they use retail statistics, steam statistics or a combination of both? I have no problem with online distribution of games but requiring activation for single-player when Valve themselves stated that you would be able to play the single-player without activation (and then reversed their decision) is just wrong. That kind of backpedaling is just so....WRONG! For those of you who are playing HL2 single-player can you post exactly the hoops you had to go through to play?

Time to play devil's advocate.... Originally posted by cybergenx: I believe PC is better. My reasons: Quote: 1. Better graphics Depends on the computer. It's safe to say that anyone with a GF4+/9700+ has graphics equal to or better than the XBOX...but how many PC's in the world have that configuration and surpass the XBOX in # of boxes in the household? Quote: 2. More titles PC's have greater number of games but most PC games do not tap the full potential of the PC, wheras most XBOX games pretty much do...well realisticly into the 1-2 year of the XBOX. This of course is also the limitation of the XBOX. Quote: 3. Higher resolutions / FPS True....depending on computer configuration. Quote: 4. More options - MODs, console commands, etc. True. Quote: 5. FREE online play for most games Yep, Advantage of PC's owning in internet for the past 30years and being more "open" than LIVE. Quote: 6. Better sound, in most cases Wrong. IIRC, The sound card in the XBOX is better than even the Audigy (which isn't saying much.....) Quote: 7. In game chat huh? Do you mean keyboard or something? You can do this via the XBOX controller but it's a PITA. Quote: 8. Better controllers Uhhh...A gamepad is a gamepad is a gamepad....unless it's a playstation controller and then it is a GAMEPAD. Buy I know what your saying, keyboard/mouse is where it's at. Quote: 9. Upgrade ability for improved game play and performance Yeah, but that's also the cause of the incompatibilty/instability of the PC and why games take longer to be developed for it. Quote: 10. Same price overall for titles ??? Quote: The only thing i can think of that consoles have over PC is the bigger screen (for some, lol). PC's can be connected to the big screen just as consoles can.... Now before and around the age of 10 I would play my NES very heavily until I got my first PC, a 286. After that the NES never really held my interest much anymore. The amount of PC games, BBS's, and stuff I could learn was just amazing. I've tried out every console since then....all the way up to the XBOX but the PC has always been my main gaming fix. Recently I went over to a friend's house for about 2 days and we played Halo 2 pretty heavily over Live. All I could think while playing Halo on his big screen was how FUGLY Halo it looked. No AA, No Ansio. Graphics looked the same as Halo 1. Occassionaly we experienced Lag, which also affected voice communications. The training matches took waaaayy too long to find matches. Playing split screen on a big screen is a pain in the ass too....reminded me of why I like my own screen, I hate sharing! It pretty much goes to show that those who play FPS on console on Live have just never played a REAL FPS (computer) over the Internet. I bought an XBOX for my bro and sis when it first came out because their computer is an ancient POS. So I usually but games for them when I come and visit....or I buy the games, play 'em for awhile to test 'em out on my XBOX and them give them the games. I don't have any XBOX games myself because I have waaaaaaaayyy too many PC games to beat and I love the sharpness/graphics quality of my Sony CRT 21" Trinitron and my Radeon X800.

Waiting for the activation crack. Until then I'll be buying and playing Bloodlines.

The GeForce4 440 Go is basically a Geforce 2. So I am not sure if MOA:PA supports that video card or not. I would say not considering that the specs you listed do not list the GF2 but I have not personally tested the game myself so I cannot say for sure. I have seen posts from people with better specs than you and far better video cards saying that the game is very slow, either from an unoptimized engine or it's just pushing the envelope. Considering that it's an EA game it was most likely pushed out way too early and is unoptimized.

If there are memory settings in the motherboard bios, check to see if they are using SPD or some other configuration. Use SPD first, if that doesn't work then try setting higher values for the memory config. I usually do this with Memtest to get the best configuration for my memory.

You will need to buy a new graphics card. Your current graphics card is not supported by the game.

Was surfing the net last night, I looked over at my IPOD and noticed that my display was blank. Took it out of it's cradle, tried to reset it but there was no display. Can't even go into diag mode because the Apple logo doesn't even show up. The only sign that I am getting any activity out of the thing at all is when I hold down the PLAY button, I hear a click after about 5 Secs...just like you do when you turn it on. Went through all the stuff on the Apple web site but I already did all of that stuff last night. So....I bought my IPOD from Best Buy on Dec 2003. (So I have 1yr left for Apple warranty) I also got the Best Buy warranty plan. Now I've heard that the current policy for Best Buy and IPOD owner's is that they do not offer replacement IPOD's....they just send 'em in for repair....and they are not too speedy on the return. Whereas supposedly if you ship yours straight to Apple you'll get it returned alot quicker. So I was wondering has anyone had experience with IPOD and Best Buy\Apple warranties? I'm going to call up Best Buy\Apple tommorow and see what they'll do for me. Hopefully I can get a 4G 40G out of all this.

For anyone that cares.... I finally got around to bringing my IPOD into Best Buy about 2 weeks ago. Was told that I should get a response in about 2 weeks. Well I waited a couple of days after the date they gave me and called them up. Turns out that the cost to fix the IPOD would be greater than getting a new one. (Yeah, right. Give me the new battery or HD and I could fix it myself). Anyways they told me to come in to get a new one, so I did. I come in, fill out the paperwork and they gave me the new 4G 40gig! Alright! I should have waited longer so I could have gotten the 60! Most likely though the 40g will be in stock for quite some time, so here's to hoping my IPOD dies in another year!

Oz was scrapped...that's why McGee went to help out with ScrapLand. LOL! What irony. Supposedly OZ was pretty much finished but the publisher backed out.

Go to maxtor website and download their diagnostic program. If using cable select on the drive, set it to it's proper jumper setting either Primary or Slave. Is the hard drive on the same IDE cable as the primary HD? Might want to try sticking it on the secondary controller. You said you updated the drivers....You mean the IDE drivers right? Sometimes they may not update correctly, so go into Device Manager and verify that the proper date/file version for those drivers. The actual wattage of the power supply doesn't matter, what does matter is how much power is being supplied from the power supply to your devices. I doubt it's a power issue anyway, what you listed is more than enough for that system.

Never attempted to play Halo on a GF2 before....that's like sacrilege considering Halo was designed to run on the XBox which has a Geforce 3 (3.5 if you want to call it that). It's likely that since Halo makes heavy usage of shaders and that your graphics card doesn't support them that the game won't run. Not sure if Nvidia drivers can emulate shaders or not...you may have to upgrade to at least a Geforce 3...but if your still running Windows 98SE and a GF2 I doubt you have the CPU power for Halo....if you don't you might as well but a $150 XBOX and $50 Halo 2 or a $30 copy of Halo. Would probly be much cheaper. That would be the best route if you could stand no AA/Ansio, horrible FPS controls with a gamepad, and blurry image quality.

Updated the list again. If you care about gaming in Windows NT4/2000/XP/2003, I suggest you give it a look see. Don't want to sound too arrogant but it's quite possibly the best info you're gonna get on how to best play your games under those operating systems. Finished my XP list (well as finished as it's gonna get for awhile). Now I'm working on 2000 compatibility testing again and then after that Windows 2003 testing. The list will never be finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wish we had someone who's in the know at Microsoft about this. Would be nice if they could give us the right answer....I do know someone at Microsoft that used to work at Connectix and now works on Virtual PC for them so I'll see if he knows.

Originally posted by Alec§taar: Quote: P.S.=> What exactly is WinPE/BartPE? Don't use it myself, so it cannot hurt to ask about those... apk WinPE or WINdows PrEinstallation Environment was corrected by Microsoft for troubleshooting and installation of XP/2003 systems. The WinPE CD is created by running a Microsoft program that extracts the files that it needs off of your XP/2003 CD which then creates the WINPE CD. The WINPE CD is a stripped down bootable version of Windows XP/2003 and is only limited by what you add/remove to the CD. You can compare it to the "Live" Linux CD's except it's for Windows. Now the thing is. When WinPE initially came out you had to use Microsoft's program to built the CD....and it isn't legal to distribute this program. So Bart Lagerweij http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ created BartPE which replaces Microsoft's program to built the CD with his own program that is MUCH better. Using his program you are able to build "Plugins". These "Plugins" are whatever you wish them to be. Video, SCSI, USB, Firewire, SATA, etc.. and whatever program you can find that will work off of a bootable CD. I haven't mentioned BartPE on this site before because it's kind of one of those "Gray" areas where legality and Microsoft kind of bump up against each other. BartPE is legal to use though, as long as you use your own copy of Windows XP/2003.

The Dos version can be run in Dosbox with full network support. The windows version can be run in XP but it requires a patch. This patch disables network capability. For network capability you will have to use the Windows version in Vmware/Microsoft Virtual PC.

Hmmm, Ghost32 on Winpe/BartPE should theoretically support Silicon Image controllers assuming that you include the drivers. As for the Dos based versions of Ghost it's unlikely unless SI has Dos SATA drivers. Supposedly the latest version of Acronis TrueImage Build 774 supports SI controllers, I tried TrueImage a couple of versions back and it didn't work but according to the rumours this latest version does.