Bursar

Most of them aren't desperatly good. You're best off just going by how it feels, and what your download speeds I like. I generally get around 70k a sec on my 512k/b Cable connection. If you have a proper 1m/b connection, you should get twice that (providing you don't have bad weather interring with the signal).

If you just have a dial-up connection to the net, I wouldn't bother a firewall. If you have a permenant connection (Cable, DSL and so-on), then I would suggest one. The main reason is that with a dial-up you are likely to get a different IP address each time you connect. An always-on connection is likely to leave you with the same number for a long period of time. Your machine is then more likely to become a target. If you're good about anti-virus updates on your PC, then you probably won't have anything to worry about with remote control programs like BackOrifice. What you will have to worry about a little bit more is denial of service attacks where your computer is just flodded with packets. Free firewalls like ZoneAlarm don't affect performance much, and when an application tries to access the Internet, it asks you if it is allowed to. You say Yes to stuff like IE and Outlook, and No to applications you don't want to get out. Games are the same. As soon as it tries to connect, ZoneAlarm stops it, asks if it is allowed to, and then carries on when you click Yes. Backups are all very well, but if you have something like BO on your machine, then restoring the drives will also restore BO.

What's wrong with FA? It's one of the best mods out there! Beats the pants off of CS - Oops, what I have I started now?!

I've just had a Cable Modem installed, and am having problems with sharing the connection. My main machine (full specs in signature) uses the onboard Intel NIC for a LAN connection via a hub. A second 3Com NIC is connected to the Cable Modem. For the LAN, my main machine has a fixed IP address of 192.168.0.1, and hands out a DHCP address to the second machine. The 3Com NIC uses DHCP in order to obtain an IP address for the Cable Modem connection. The second machine runs Win98SE, and ICS was working fine when I had a 56K dial up on my main PC. The LAN is still working, and I can ping each machine from the other, and can browse hard disks and so-on. The ICS stuff just isn't working though. I have checked the 'Sharing' box on the 3Com NIC in order to share that connection but it still doesn't work. I'm running ZoneAlarm on my main machine, and am wondering if that is the problem. There are no alerts in ZoneAlarm relating to my second machine though. I tried adding the range 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.255 to my local network addresses (in ZoneAlarm), but that didn't work either. I guess I need to do some more tweaking somewhere, but I'm at a bit of a loss. I really don't want to buy a hardware router, as I'm a bit skint at the moment. The only info I can find basically says, set the LAN IP address to 192.168.0.1 on the Win2K machine, and enable sharing on NIC connected to the CM. On the other machine, make sure the DNS and gateway addresses are set to 192.168.0.1 I don't think I have specified a DNS address on the other machine, I'll check that tonight though. Any advice would be appreciated. ------------------ PIII 800EB FC-PGA Intel D815EEA Motherboard Intel® PRO/100 Integrated NIC 2x256MB PC 100 RAM Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Maxtor 52049U4 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra 64MB AOpen 52x IDE CD-ROM Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer USB Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro US Robotics Sportster Flash v90 External modem Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17 Adaptec 2940 Ultra Wide SCSI controller Sound Blaster Live! Value (LiveWare 3) Windows 2000 Professional (SP1 + all updates) [This message has been edited by Bursar (edited 08 December 2000).]

Right, I've got things halfway there now. My second machine is going out to the Internet, but ZoneAlarm is stopping the information coming back through. I've added the IP address of the second machine to the Local Zone but it doesn't help. Still lokking for advice...

I know he said purchase. I still don't think you'll find many ISPs nowadays that are prepared to give/sell static IP addresses. And whilst I'm here, it turns out that my ICS no longer works I've posted the full details in the Network forumn, so if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it. http://www.ntcompatible.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000268.html

Have you got SP1 and the various other updates for Windows 2000 installed? If not, grab everything and try again. Also update to DirectX 8 if you haven't already as that may well help. Otherwise, it might just be a case of your CPU not able to play video smoothly enough.

I would suspect that it isn't that easy. Most ISPs are not likely to give out static IP addresses. You're likely to have to use DHCP in order to obtain an IP address for the Cable Modem. If this is the case, then plugging into a hub isn't going to work. You're going to need a router, or you're going to have to fit to NICs in one machine.

I know this isn't much help, but it looks fine on mine. What speed is your CD-ROM? ------------------ PIII 800EB FC-PGA Intel D815EEA Motherboard Intel® PRO/100 Integrated NIC 2x256MB PC 100 RAM Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Maxtor 52049U4 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra 64MB AOpen 52x IDE CD-ROM Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer USB Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro US Robotics Sportster Flash v90 External modem Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17 Adaptec 2940 Ultra Wide SCSI controller Sound Blaster Live! Value (LiveWare 3) Windows 2000 Professional (SP1 + all updates)

I've just had cable installed, and am running ICS on one NIC and the CM on the other. I haven't actually checked to see if the ICS is working on the second PC yet, but I see no reason why it shouldn't. It was fine with the 56K dial up. My OS's are the same as yours (Win2k with 2NICs and CM, Win98SE 1NIC).

I have occaisional problems with this (not sure of my version of LibveUpdate). It only ever does it at home on my dial up. My leased line connection at work never has problems. I presume it's something to do with the dial up connection. If I disconnect and reconnect again, everything normally works fine. I usually find that when I have this problem, I also have problems accessing websites. A bit like the DNS/DHCP servers aren't working properly or something.

Paint Shop Pro has a batch convert utility. It should be able to open WMF files. Download the demo and give it a go. http://www.jasc.com/download_4.asp

Oh, and don't forget Blackcombe. The codename for the OS after Whistler. That's going to be the 'true' melding of the 9x and NT families if you believe the rumours.

I think Cairo was the codename for a Win95 front end to be bolted on to Windows NT 3.51. In the end MS canned it and we got what is now NT 4.

Also, Cisco overtook Microsoft as the most highly valued company. Not sure if that situation is still true, but I think it is. Cisco products are very good, and if you (or your company) are looking to buy, you can get good discounts from resellers, so push hard for them. My company is a charity, and we got about 60% discount!!

I haven't experienced this, but I use Download Accelerator on my home machine and GoZilla on my work machine. Maybe you could try one of these programs and see if it helps.

You need the full Acrobat product. When you install it, in sets up a dummy printer. All you need to do is 'print' your file to the PDF Creator and it will do the rest. I think Distiller will do it (I haven't used it for a while), but it's not free. You'll need to buy it. PDF is a fairly open format, and there are other products that will create PDF files. You should be able to find them if you search around.

When you reinstall Windows 2000, it automatically trashes your entire Winnt directory. It removes your whole registry, and any user profiles you have created - oh, and the My Documents folder is trashed as well. So, to all intents and purposes, you end up with a clean system. You can then just manually delete anything that gets left over.

Fixes from v432 include: - fixed joystick button handling code (thanks Chris Carollo). - hack fix for bad playerstart in CTF-Coret. - fixed crash for servers with more than 255 characters worth of server packages. - fixed problems with single player ladder than cropped up in 432. - Server now report to clients whether or not they are password protected. - Fixed incompatibility in ChallengeHUD that caused problem for some mods. - In the editor, the "TextureLock" option should work 100% now. - Fixed the editor crash that some people were getting when docking a browser and getting a crash when trying to restart the editor. - Rewrote "UEditorEngine: :polySelectMatchingBrush" because SHIFT+B was crashing at random times in the editor. Should be stable now. - Brush clipping was merging faces on the resulting brush in the editor. - May have fixed the random "WinMain/message pump" crash in the editor. - Pre-432 spectators not allowed to join 436 servers (because of incompatibility).

I recently turned on FSAA on my GF2 Ultra whilst playing HalfLife in OpenGL. At the max res (1152 x ? IIRC) there were quite a few jaggies along the tops of walls. I turned on max FSAA, the jaggies vanished, and there is no visible hit in performance. ------------------ PIII 800EB FC-PGA Intel D815EEA Motherboard Intel® PRO/100 Integrated NIC 2x256MB PC 100 RAM Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Maxtor 52049U4 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra 64MB AOpen 52x IDE CD-ROM Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer USB Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro US Robotics Sportster Flash v90 External modem Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17 Adaptec 2940 Ultra Wide SCSI controller Sound Blaster Live! Value (LiveWare 3) Windows 2000 Professional (SP1 + all updates)

The 3.02 software doesn't run under Windows 2000. You need the v4 software. Unfortunately, Microsoft haven't made this available for download (it's only on CD if you buy a new SideWinder product). If you browse the more seedy corners of the net, you might find it available somewhere.

My install went fine. I would suggest that you reinstall your video/sound card driver, and then redownload DX8 to make sure it wasn't a duff download. You'll probably find it will then work properly.

DX8 and Dets 631, no probs here either. ------------------ PIII 800EB FC-PGA Intel D815EEA Motherboard Intel® PRO/100 Integrated NIC 2x256MB PC 100 RAM Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Maxtor 52049U4 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra 64MB AOpen 52x IDE CD-ROM Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer USB Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro US Robotics Sportster Flash v90 External modem Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17 Adaptec 2940 Ultra Wide SCSI controller Sound Blaster Live! Value (LiveWare 3) Windows 2000 Professional (SP1 + all updates)

I'm thinking of getting one of these games, but I can't decide which one. I know both of them have a large following, but let me tell you what I'm after from the game before I ask for your opinions on which one to go for. I know that they are both primarily online games, and that they have bots for offline play. I've played demos of both games, and I loved the pace at which Q3 ran at, but I think the bots in UT were better, particularly in some of the CTF scenarios. I've also played them both online, and Q3 was blindingly quick, but I suffered an amazing amount of lag with UT (56k dial up in the UK). Have the various patches for these games made a great difference to the way the demos played? For instance, have the physics changed? Is there less lag in UT now? I like playing TFC and FireArms mods for HalfLife, so is there anything similar for either of these games? My system should be more than capable of playing both games with all the eye candy, so that isn't a major problem for me. Your opinions would be welcome. ------------------ PIII 800EB FC-PGA Intel D815EEA Motherboard Intel® PRO/100 Integrated NIC 2x256MB PC 100 RAM Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Maxtor 52049U4 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra 64MB AOpen 52x IDE CD-ROM Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer USB Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro US Robotics Sportster Flash v90 External modem Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17 Adaptec 2940 Ultra Wide SCSI controller Sound Blaster Live! Value (LiveWare 3) Windows 2000 Professional (SP1 + all updates)

Thanks for the thoughts. I've erm, err, 'acquired' UT, and have been playing the bots with it. It's smart. Just need to get some decent mods once I've got some practice in. I've got one ot two slight graphical glitches, but that is probably down to my copy rather than anything else. Some of the sounds are a bit messed up as well (particularly in the CTF tutorial when the womans voice goes at about 20x normal speed). I'm sure if I get the proper version, those problems will vanish.