BladeRunner

Well if I'd know your budget was $140 and not the originally quoted $100 then I too would have made such a suggestion Near 50% increase in budget does kind of make your choice wider.

Currently I'm actually using a RAID array that actually offers redundency *Shock, horror* My RAID 0+1 array can cope with any one of my drives failing and most combinations of two before data loss - What are the chances of me loosing two or more at once? Plus all major non-replaceable data is burnt to CD. You can never have too many backup's!

Dunno mate - It just works. Insert CD Install GTA2 Install patch (not WinXP specific patch, performance patch) Run game normally (do not use compatability mode) Play What error messages are you getting? System specs?

I'd take the GF3 Ti200 over any card with MX in the name. All of the MX's are gutted, all the best parts of the card removed so it is sold as a budget solution. The GF3 Ti200 is a full blown card. I'm sure others will offer different suggestions though.

and why would "M$" (to quote you, funny haha) do that?

Unfortunately I'm still a dial-up user, my trusty External USR 56k modem is still doing its job. Was pretty nice to see that my modem is flash upgradeable to the new V92 standard and as my ISP has said "V92 upgrades coming shortly" I decided to go for it. USR make you go through hoops getting the flash update, installing a GUI that automatically goes off and collects the file rather than allowing you to simply download the upgrade. Towards the end of the automated process, the firmware downloaded and flashing about to begin it automatically displays a Readme message. Here it is, honestly a cut & paste job, please not the part in bold at the end: ************* U.S. Robotics Modem firmware update ************* The flash modem process will automatically begin upon the completion of the current download process. After the modem is done with the flash process, you will need to exit ControlCenter and uninstall your current modem and have Windows redetect the modem. You can do this in Windows 95/98/ME, by going to "Modems" in the "Control Panel". You can do this in Windows 2000 or XP, by going to "Phone and Modems" in the "Control Panel" Once you are in "Modems" or "Phone and Modem Options" you can remove the current Modem, "U.S. Robotics 56K Fax EXT". After you have removed the modem click on "Add", And let windows detect the modem. When Windows prompts you that it found new hardware, point it in the direction of the install directory that you installed ControlCenter. Path based on default install of ControlCenter is as follows: "c:\Program Files\U.S. Robotics\ControlCenter\xx56300x". The INF was downloaded to this directory to install the new hardware windows has found. Note: In rare cases modem or other hardware may blow up, but as the probability of such a bug is low we will not fix it, because this is not reasonable for us. Now am I the only one rather scared by such a message, especially as the flash process is already running by the time you get to that part!! Side note, nothing blew up and all is working as it should do

So now that all the hype surrounding the new 40.41 drivers seems to have died down a little bit (I remember the days when a new software release generated excitement, not a new driver revision) can we now conclude that NVidia are simply up to their old tricks again? So NVidia suddenly, out of the blue release a new driver set that they claim can show up to a 25% increase in performance. They aren't wrong, I've seen those kind of percentages being bantered around with 3DMark2001SE with the average increase seeming to be around 10%-13% The problem is that maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't seem to be able to "play" 3DMark2001SE, it seems to be a sit back and let it play on your behalf kind of game /sarc So we take a look at "real world" benchmarks, taking the most popular games and game benchmarks and see what these all new, all singing, all dancing drivers can really do. Suprise, suprise, the old 28.xx drivers seem to be actually out-performing the new drivers in numerous tests. In fact where the new drivers are giving improved performance in games we are talking 1-5fps increase, hardly blistering I'm sure you'll agree. So why have NVidia waited until now to release these amazing drivers that unlock an extra 25% of performance? Sure, a GPU revision or hardware change could give us these kinds of increases, but a simple driver revision? If the drivers were very immature then yes, I could understand this. The new Matrox card has been coming on leaps and bounds as new drivers make an appearance and there is high hope that future driver revisions will give an even higher increase, but the Detonator drivers are extremely mature, how come this amazing increase now? Well even if it was true, even if all gamers were suddenly experiencing a massive increase in frames per second in games then NVidia are surely guilty of puposely holding back the full potential of their hardware for some unknown reason. However we need to look at the bigger picture here, their rivals, namely ATI. ATI have been slowly shipping their new GPU for a little while now and within a month it will be available en mass. 3DMark2001SE has been showing some pretty amazing scores for this new offering from ATI. NVidia were bound to loose a lot of customers, what with the NV30 being pushed back to a probable 2003 release, a lot of people were going to go and buy the new ATI card. Most in turn would not have bought the NV30, people do not buy two £300+ cards in a matter of months, surely NVidia realsed that their market share may take a bit of a hammering over this. Even if the NV30 is a lot better that the ATI card people would not shell out another £350+ to NVidia just to have yet another card. NVidia's reply to this potential problem? A new driver totally optomised for 3DMark2001SE. Suddenly a lot of people who were waiting for the ATI card are thinking "Oh, 25% increase in performance, think I'll wait for the NV30 now". Too many people are putting too much faith in the benchmark known as 3DMark. I've seen numerous posts on many forums telling the world how great NVidia are for releasing a driver that unlocks an extra 25% performance out of their cards. No, they have released a driver that performs amazingly under 3DMark and offers a nice new interface with a few new options. Go and fire up your favourite game benchmark and then come back and tell me that performance has increase by 25%. Hell tell me it has increased 10-13% (as it has under 3DMark2001SE) and I'll show you a liar. This is not the first time NVidia have done this and I cannot believe that so many people cannot see through the gloss NVidia have thrown up. These new drivers will give you the same kind of increase in games that all new NVidia drivers do - a little here and a little there whilst a drop in performance elsewhere. These are not some magic drivers that extend the life of your current card, this is hype and usual tactivs from a company scared to loose market share. Tactics from a company forced to push back the release of their own new GPU and are scared that their rivals may just get a foothold in the market. You cannot really blame them for this, every company wants to be successful, to make money at all opportunities. Usually this is by releasing a new product and watching the money come rolling in. On this occasion they have decided that potentially money not rolling into ATI is as good as them making money themselves. Please see past the gloss over this driver release, check the FPS on your favourite games, the ones you actually play and don't sit back and watch displaying pretty pictures. Then too you should be able to see exactly what these drivers are all about.

I of course expected a few replies along these lines, I think some of the original post could have been written better, but the points which aren't clear or unclear I'll just re-write. This post is not an attempt at an ATI Vs NVidia thread. I am more than aware that both NVidia & ATI have done similar things in the past and I'm sure this is not the last time it will happen. The truth of the matter is that I'm reading people almost wetting themselves over these new drivers. How they are thanking the mysterious NVidia for these wonderfull drivers that are about to make their whole computer and gaming experience better. How because their 3DMark score has increased by 1000pts that every single thing they run on their machine will have a similar increase too. I've said it before although some people just don't want to understand, a good 3DMark score does not a good release make. Win2k SP2 is released - Posts such as "SP2 suxs, 3DMark score dropped by 200pts" make me mad. It's almost as if half of the computer world has gone into some senseless sheep following and has decided that the be all and end all of computer performance stops at 3DMark. Maybe my initial post could be considered an attack on Madonion rather than NVidia or ATI - With so many mindless people assuming high 3DMark score = best performance for everything maybe you cannot blame the graphics companies for "fixing" their drivers to give the best possible score in a benchmark program. The 25% performance increase claimed by NVidia is only evident in 3DMark, no other application or game is showing anything like that kind of increase. With every new driver release you get an increase, usually around 1-3fps in your average game, this is exactly what these new drivers are giving. The main reason behind the post is please don't be sucked in, either by the Madonion crowd who spend 23hrs a day trying to get a few more points on their system and the other hour eating pizza nor the graphics company who are in effect saying "Don't even consider our rivals product, look what we can achieve with a single driver release".

OK, all monitors "remember" their screen positions. Your monitor has probably got an OSD (On screen display) that enables you to expand the viewable screen, shrink it and move it. Notice the buttons on the front of your monitor? Well pressing one of those will bring up your menu and then you'll be able to find the controls that move your viewable area around. But wait, before you do this..... If you are running at the same resolution you were before your monitor should have remembered it's correct position. So what I'm guessing here is that your refresh rate has either dropped or increased. Is your monitor flickering slightly? Go to your "Display Properties" then "Settings" and then the advanced button. Now click the monitor tab. What is your screen refresh rate set to? Try changing this as I'm guessing this has changed during your driver update. 60Hz is a default value and far too low, try 75Hz and 85Hz and see if the screen re-positions itself correctly, i'm guessing one of these settings is how you had it before and once re-selected all will be as it was. If this fails, it's back to your buttons on the monitor and time to shift your screen around I'm afraid.

Just tried to use RivaTuner to temporarily overclock my card for a 3DMark run (like everybody else seems to ) Anyway, warning comes up about "If you are sure the card isn't overclocked click on detect now" which I do, it then promptly unchecks the enable driver level hardware overclocking box and I cannot do anything. Any other tools out there that do support the new drivers?

Ah, well the young lady in my life does like me to prepare the food now and again, although just recently she has offered to do all the food preperation. Now I realise you've actually got to cook food things might be different. Maybe next time I serve chicken and rice I wont have to wrestle the uncocked rice out of the chickens beak as it pecks it's way accross our plates.

It's fine...... Wait a second, are you supposed to cook food?? Suddenly the greatest mystery in my life is solved, now I know why I am violently sick after I eat anything, now I realise you are supposed to cook things!!

I can't remember the link but GTA2 was available on a web site for free. Full version, and not on a ***** site. It was there for like a week or 2. I did try it but it was running so slow on my pc! Anyone you might get lucky and find that site again! Just because it wasn't some specific warez site does not mean what was being offered was not still illegal. I'm sorry, but if DMA are still charging for the likes of GTA1 & GTA3 and that if you check around enough games retailers you'll eventually find GTA2 for sale I highly doubt DMA have suddenly thought to themselves, lets offer it for free. If they had it would be on their official site, it isn't, hence what you saw was a scum/theft illegal download.

P4 2.26Ghz @ 2.26Ghz. If 2.26Ghz is not enough for everything I need and want to do on a computer system then I'm about ready to give up!! I'm sure overclocking is great if you've got older equipment or you are running on a tight budget. However when I made my last upgrade I simply purchased the fastest CPU I could afford. Sure I could have bought a 1.6 or 1.8Ghz P4 and over-clocked it, but for those few £'s more I can have high speed and everything within specification.

Oh I'm sure the NV30 will beat ATI's current offering. However you have to ask - at what price? NVidia release cards and charge a fortune for them. Your best bet maybe to wait until the NV30 is released (2003 by the looks of things) and then pick up a GF4 at a knock-down price. I'm not 100% convinced by ATI's drivers, but once the card becomes more widely available, especially here in the UK I'll take a very close look at it. Personally for work I'm buying in 6 of the nice new Matrox cards. Sure they do not offer the sheer 3D performance that ATI & NVidia offer, but you've gotta love that 2D and general image quality.

Officially Alice does not support Windows 2000 or NT 4.0, says so in the manual, however the game will let you install on 2000 unlike some games made by other companies. [Yeah EA I am talking to you.] You did know that Alice is distributed by EA? It is in essence an EA release, so it was a very nice suprise to find it does run under Win2k - I was already with my EB receipt to get my money back when I bought it

Professional to Server is not a valid upgrade path as the two products are aimed at totally different markets. Wipe and reinstall time - Why run Server on a workstation?

Well there is nothing to stop you buying Exchange 2000 licenses and then running Exchange 5.5 as MS licenses are downgradeable. Personally I love Exchange 2000, I'm not saying it is a walk in the part setting up, configuring and looking after it, but as with most MS products the menus are very easy to follow and sinple trial & error will get most things up and running. I've been running an Exchange 2000 server at work for coming up to 18 months now and it's been flawless except on one occasion. One of my assistants noticed one of the partitions on the server was running out of space and he deleted some of the transaction logs - this was bad as the databases could no longer initialise. But then again, a quick trip to MS Knowledge base and about two hours later I was back up and running.

I think I may have given you a little bit of flase information. Mainly because I've been playing around with domains, hosts and the like today and I think I have some further information for you OK, when you registered your domain in the first place, one of two things happened. 1. The domain is yours, it is in your name, you are listed as the administrative contact, it is yours to do with whatever you like for as long as you continue to pay the fee's - Most likely 2. The company you registered the domain with kept ownership of your domain, they are listed as the administrative contact - Less likely, but certainly possible. Now, when you first registered your domain it was probably a little on the expensive side, costs have been reduced by a lot over recent years. Of course the company you originally registered with will continue to charge you what they always have done, they make it look like you have no choice, but as long as you own the domain this is not true. Firstly you can ask your current hosts to change the IPTag on the domain, transfer it to another company and it will then be their responsability to charge you the yearly fees on the domain - choose the right company and your fees will be reduced greatly. Now your current hsts probably don't want to let the domain go, they are making money out of you after all. So, you can request that the new hosts more or less "take" the domain from the current hosts. Now if they are listed as an administrative contact that isn't so easy as all they have to do is reject the transfer request. However your new hosts can then get involved with the naming authorities on your behalf and get things moving. If you are the administrative contact you will receive the e-mail saying "Do you wish this domain to be transfered?" to which you can simply reply "Yes" and you are on your way. Your current hosts may have written something into their small print that says there will be a transfer fee should you wish to move the domain, not all companies do this, but some do, so you might want to check this out before you proceed. For example, I'm currently in the process of moving some of our company domains to www.123-reg.co.uk I've opened a free account with them, logged in and then listed the domains I wish to transfer in. Now all I should need to do is sit back and allow the two hosts to fight it out, I'll await the e-mail asking if I wish to move and reply "Yes". End result, all my fee's will now be paid through www.123-reg.co.uk at a greatly reduced price. Hope this helps.

Ah, this actually confuses some people. The place where your domain was first registered is who you will keep paying money to until you decide to release the domain. It doesn't matter who you are using as a web site host, the company which first sold you the domain will be the company collecting your yearly fee's. There is no way around this as far as I know, at work we have a few dormant domains, however we are now using a totally different company to host our sites. However the initial registrar is the company who take our renewal fee's. If somebody stops paying the fee's the domain shouldn't revert back to the original registrar as such. It becomes a free domain, but it takes ages for the domain authorities to clean them up and mark them as available domain names again. They have to go through certain procedures, attempting to contact the domain administrators and checking that they don't want to continue. A year or so ago www.shopping.co.uk became "detagged" and it took a further six months before naybody could re-register it.

Yer marvelous, you ripped off MS!!! Nice one...feeling all big and clever? Good, pleased you are happy.

Sounds like a video driver issue. The reason I say this is because that very same game under Win2k was totally unplayable when I was using my Matrox G400MAX (Even though there was a specific fix for that card) no matter which driver I used. Once I'd upgraded to an NVidia GF2 Ultra all the problems went away. I've used it under Win2k with my NVidia based card just fine, so I'm pretty convinced it is not an OS issue - might be worth dropping ATI Tech an e-mail, don't bother e-mailing EA as they refuse to acknowledge Win2k exists as a gaming platform.

Let me take things a level further. FPS to the PC are like fighting games to the consoles. The PC market is too saturated in FPS's, every other game seems to be a variation on the said genre. FPS's are boring, they are the same thing over and over again with the exception of "What you must kill" and "What you use to do your killing". Yawn!

I'd just like to say that although this is true for much first line/home user support this is not the case for most second line/enterprise support people. The idea of first line support is to catch all the "So, which slot do my CD's go in" and the like whereas second line support deal with the more serious issues. I use Dell for all my servers for the very reason that their server/enterprise support people are extremely knowledgeable - every single time I've had need to call them we've gone through various things over the phone and if it hasn't been a physical hardware failure they have always managed to get things back up and running.

...includes 'Mother Microsoft's' own spyware (auto-update junk)...better to wait awhile on SP3 as it's *reputed* to have bugs. I can't validate the source of the bug data but since SP2 is ok, why rush into a dark room, so to speak? Yawn, and another fashionable MS basher adds their words or wisdom. So lets hear it then, please tell, please share with us all. Please list me all the "spyware" that is included with this service release. You see, with automatic up[censored] I see this little check box that starts with "Keep my computer up to date" and if I uncheck it, guess what? No automatic up[censored]. Reputed to have bugs would indicate that some alrge companies have had problems with this service release. All of the reports I've read have indicated just the opposit, but once again please hit us with the information, I'm sure we'd all like to hear it.