BladeRunner

Oh I have plenty of HD space. I could quite happily install 2GB of a game without any worries, but why bother. The DVD version will run plenty fast enough, BG1 on DVD did. Plus I've got all these other games to get out of the way first, so waiting a month will do me good Plus, once you guys have all finished it, I'll still be playing. ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Good morning, Need to make an 815 motherboard purchase. Which of the following should the hard erned company £££'s be spent on? Abit SE6 or Asus CUSL2 ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Phil, When do you need it for? I can lend you my Intel one. Not the greatest, it will need to be running under either Win98 or Win2000 (It's USB) and you really gotta use NetMeeting. I can bring it for you tomorrow, if I remember where you work - been so long since we worked together ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

With the DVD version, with any kind of luck I will be able to do a minimum installation and then run the whole thing without the need to swap CD's. OK, so the CD version will probably allow a full install, but I'm just thinking of HD space. Yes I have plenty, but why waste more than you have to? The DVD version is going to be no more expensive and it's only a month away.

Thanks guys, Asus board ordered and on it's way.

D'oh, Oh well, guess I'll have to import then. Don't want a level 7 character I haven't started from the ground up and I must admit that cool 'Orange Glowing flame sword' from BG1 (which my main character has) is pretty damn cool.

Oh, it's just I want to start this game with all level 1 characters. I find half the fun is getting Ep for them and watching them go up in levels. I don't really want to start with a level 7 character. I know that the game is supposed to be harder when you have higher level characters, I just fancy seeing things from level 1 upwards.

Are the current owneers of BG2 bringing in characters from the original BG or starting out a new? I have some great characters from the original BG, but I have no intention of importing them, I want to play BG2 from rock bottom. What about you owners? ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Yes it's bad that CL haven't sorted out all of their Win2k drivers. But like most companies they pour all of their resources into getting drivers sorted out for their newest products before bother ing with the older ones. CL aren't the only big name company who have serious Win2k driver problems. Hewlett Packard have been terrible. Still we are waiting for drivers for much of their range, and those drivers that have been released are beta. What amazes me is how many of these big companies think that this kind of thing is beneath them. Lets take CL as an example for a second. Do you remember one driver set for the SB cards ever showing as DirectX certified? No, they think they are so big they don't have to bother with sending their drivers to MS for validation. HP have pi**ed me off so much that I have vowed never to purchase their printers again. I'm working as a Sys Admin now and I do get the final say on all computer related purchases - I'll never sign off an HP purchase again without very good reason (they can do something that nobody else can) ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Pleased your all enjoying BG2. I've still got about a month to wait until the DVD version hits the shelves, but I guess that give me time to finish Planescape Torment, do some major pedestrial splattering in Carmageddon TDR2000 and pretend I'm Senna in GP3 Grrr, DVD better hit shelves in one month or I'll just be forced to buy that CD version ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Let it be!!!! Pop along to: www.intel.com & www.microsoft.com Do a search for ACPI and have a read up about it's features and abilities. Every single one of my devices sits on IRQ9 and everything functions very well. ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Not that many, and nothing really from the past year. Anything released now will be made Win2000 compatible because next years version of Windows is largely based on the Win2000 code. The only limiting thing about Win2000 is drivers. Creative seem to have their's sorted now, NVidia still seem to be having problems. Give it just a few more months and you wont be able to find a modern game that wont run under Win2k. ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Well isn't it obvious? Lets ask the question in the following way: Which is better of these OS's. WinNT 4 Service Pack 1 WinNT 4 Service Pack 3 WinNT 4 Service Pack 6a? I would have to say that WinNT 4 Service Pack 6a is the one to go for. It's the latest revision of the original OS, it contains the largest amount of bug fixes and it is the last of the WinNT 4 releases. Same applies to the original question. WinME is the latest revision of the original OS and will be the last of the Win95 releases. Oh, and I fully agree with the last post. This is supposed to be NT Compatible not 'small boys Windows Compatible' ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Sorry, not an answer to your question. I can't even try this out for you as Carmageddon2 refuses point blank to install under Windows2000. Well it installs, but when I try and run it I'm told 'Not supported under WindowsNT' and then it dumps me back to the desktop. Anyway, Carmageddon TDR2000 was released last week, gonna get it at last tomorrow, hopefull wont be any issues here. How did you get Carm2 running under Win2k out of interest? ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Simple answer: There is no way you can compare these two OS's. WindowsME - I wont dirty my HD again. ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

That's just it. When ACPI works it is excellent. No worrying about devices conflicting or worrying if that new piece of hardware will be able to find resources inside your PC. With ACPI the traditional 16 IRQ's is banished as everything quite happily displays itself as working on the same one. When ACPI doesn't work everything goes to pot - As you have seen. Pester your motherboard manufacturer for a fully ACPI BIOS for the board your using. ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Pop along to both Microsoft & Intel's web pages. Do a search for ACPI. You will find that the fact all of your hardware devices are sharing the same IRQ is not an issue, this is ACPI working correctly. However this can all go to pot if some part of your system isn't fully ACPI compatible, have you checked to see if there is a new updated BIOS for your motherboard? ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Well I confirm that there are certainly no issues with playing GP3 under Win2000. It really does sound like a video driver issue - suprise, suprise it's an ATI card. Have you tried downloading the ATI Win2000 drivers and using those instead of the more basic drivers included with Win2000? Follow this link and see if any of these drivers help: http://www.ati.com/na/pages/spdrivers/drivers.html ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

As the last post said. Don't bother dual booting your system unless you have some older games you just can't loose. Any game/application released from now on should be Windows2000 compatible. I've had to loose Carmageddon2, but with Carmageddon TDR2000 now less than a week away I'm happy to loose this. Performance in games is very similar between Win9x & Win2000, some games seem to prefere Windows 2000 (Ultima On-Line for example plays so much better in Win2k than Win98) ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

I'm trying to source a motherboard for a friend. What he really, really needs is a Athalon board but with on-board FireWire, do they exist? If not, can anybody recommend a good FireWire add-in PCI card and give us a couple of web links? Cheers. ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Bursar me old mucker!! Trust you to come up with an answer (Even though I said Athalon and you come up with a VIA Socket 370, but hay we can't all be perfect ) Asume your not doing much on this Friday afternoon then? Think the FireWire add-on card is the way for this guy to go. Cheers matey. ------------------ PIII 700E, Intel D815EEA, 512MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA100 30GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

No, not at all. If a hardware device doesn't have a driver built into Windows 2000 blame the hardware manufacturer. If the hardware device isn't support by Windows 2000 again blame the hardware manufacturer. It is not down to Microsoft if/how a company makes it's hardware devices or writes the drivers. The reason Windows 2000 is so stable is because it doesn't support dodgy hardware devices. That is where Win9x falls over, plug in some device install the half-hearted drivers and bang, it falls over. To get your device running under Win2000 you have to write the drivers to a strick model preventing failure and fall-over. Any OS you have to make sure your hardware & software are compatible before installation. BeOS for example, in it's early releases it supported Matrox video cards and Matrox video cards only - who's fault is it if I installed it onto a machine with an ATI card? You can't have an OS that will run all of the hardware or all of the applications or all of the games in the world, it's just not possible. But if you line of complaint against Win2000 is you have to download drivers for your printer, then I would say you are far better off running Win98 or WinME. I don't think your quite ready for WinNT yet. BTW - What printer and scanner was it? ------------------ PIII 650 Coppermine, ABit BE6-II, 640MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA66 22GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Are you telling me you bought a new computer/scanner/printer bundle and the company you bought it from hadn't bothered to install all the required drivers? Maybe you should have asked your computer vendor to download the drivers for you onto CD. Most new hardware is either directly supported by Windows 2000 or ships with Windows 2000 drivers. Hardware is NOT more difficult to setup under Win2000. At no stage did I say it was any easier than under WinME, but those that are thinking becaue Win2000 is WinNT that hardware is going to be more difficult to setup are wrong. Of course you are going to make sure all of your hardware is compatible with an OS before you buy it. With OS's changing more and more some older devices become no long compaitible. That's just the way it is. We are entering a phase with new PC's that make ISA devices and applications that run under DOS obsolete - is this such a bad thing? Time and time again people use the game argument for WinME over Win2000. As I have previously said there is only one of my vast collection of games that I haven't been able to run and that's only because SCI have a small program running that finds WinNT and tells you it's not a supported platform, finds NT assumes DirectX 3. Many game manufacturers have also stated that they will make their future games Win2000 compatible, they understand that this OS is just us much a games platform as anything else. From a compatibility and easy of setup point of view there are no major differences between WinME & Win2000. However, once you have finished your hour of installation and setting up that's when the differences start to show. After using Win2000 for a month without a single crash then you'll know what I mean. My Win2000 machine has been running more or less 27/4 since February. I re-boot it once a week, not because Win2000 requires it, but some badly written applications do eventually start to leak a lot of memory. This will all be academic next year, the next OS will be based on the Win2k code & Kernel, it will have an agresive roll out, and will fast become the OS of choice. ------------------ PIII 650 Coppermine, ABit BE6-II, 640MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA66 22GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Well I used to be totally up on all available chipsets. Just from the name of a motherboard I could tell you what CPU's you could fit. I used to know what chipsets supported what - seems I have let my knowledge drop. Can anubody confirm the following: On a motherboard with an 815 Chipset, even with a CPU with a FSB of 133mhz you can in fact still safely use PC100 DIMM's due to the fact that the memory bus speed can be set differently to the CPU FSB? Thanks. ------------------ PIII 650 Coppermine, ABit BE6-II, 640MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA66 22GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only

Thanks Wind, That's the answer I was looking for. ------------------ PIII 650 Coppermine, ABit BE6-II, 640MB PC100 RAM (Hyundai), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA66 22GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410. Windows 2000 Only