Brian Frank

Hey, dude, we're not attacking you. We're just saying, yeah, most non-computer users are "stupid" in the pc world in general, but just keep those guys out of the mix here. I'd be very ticked too after what you just went through. Look, a couple of years ago, it was the "stupid computer" that was screwing me up...well, that can also be today too. Now its "Okay, now whats the problem so I can fix it and get on with life?" I can understand having someone who doesnt have a clue how much it takes to get one computer going, much less 12, and then be expected to get everything going that instant. A lot of people dont realize how much time it will take to make sure that the computer will run properly in the first place, but they figure they can tell you how to do your job. Anyone who tells you how to do your job and doesnt have a clue how to do it are the biggest idiots. End mindless rant with no purpose...

Weird, man...

Clutch is right, JJ32. You havent posted too much here, and at least half your posts are bashing on someone in part. And Im not talking about in this post right here either. Im not gonna say I know everything, cuz I know I dont know half of all of it. I do know that we cant all do everything perfectly. Thats what gives us all jobs. Feel free to come and help us out, as you seem to be a man of knowledge when it comes to computers, but please leave your frustrations with others outside the door. [This message has been edited by Brian Frank (edited 14 April 2001).]

http://www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com/ They seem to have the latest drivers for video cards. Be aware, these are in beta form, but I havent had problems.

I just helped someone with an HP Pavillion, and that thing is cramped. Their one HP was going bad, so HP tech support couldnt fix it and sent them a new one. They got a stick of 128 MB when they originally bought the thing and didnt want to ship the bad pc AND the ram back to hp. HP must really not want you to get to the ram, because I had to take out the drives and the drive cage just to get to the ram, so you pretty much have to disassemble the entire PC just to get to one little component. Of course there will always be those who complain no matter what you do. Have a few beers or a when you get off work.

You wish flames would never come up again, and so far its been pretty quiet here for the most part. But I dont think we'll be exempt from seeing anymore flames.

No problem. I do have some bios tweaks, but I dont know if they would be there for you. Try some bios settings and see what they do for you as something that might work for me may not be the best for you. Oh, yeah, the 12.00 Dets are out, and they're a tad faster.

JJ32, are all of use who dont like ME computer illerate here? And please explain MS logic by the controlling of appliances by the OS. Oh, wait a minute, its MS getting closer to world tion! *smack forehead*

Heres the link to RegCompact. http://www.pcworld.com/resource/redir/redirtoken.asp?tk=HS-041301X7718 Enjoy.

Yup, patches and drivers.

Well, I assume you're gonna overclock, and here's the best advice I can give you. Do it by both the mulitplier and the FSB. It helps a lot if you have PC133 SDRAM for this to work. You should be able to get a 200 MHz jump with a Duron or Athlon. Here's the way I have my Duron 800 set up to 1016MHz. The mulitplier is 9.5 and the FSB is 107, but Im willing to bet its because of the memory not being able to be pushed that high. Also, this plays a major part in my overclocking, I have the ram set to 133MHz in BIOS. Keep in mind that you may not be able to do everything I am with the Abit board youve got. I know this worked for me. Bandwith is everything if you want a hell of a machine, pimpin, thats the biggest part of my speed right there. Also, there's this little program called Reg Compact, and its basically a compresser/defragger for the registry. It makes it smaller, and if the registry is all together, your system will run better. I believe I got it from www.pcworld.com under the dowloads section. Of course, overclocking your video card does help. Just pay attention to artifacts, which may look like snow, if the memory starts getting clocked too high. Most GeForce 2 MX cards should be able to hit 220MHz on the core and 210 MHz on the ram w/o a problem. I suggest the Hercules Prophet 2 MX, dont go with the GF2MX 400 card though, as it only gives an insignificant boost over the regular MX and is at $150 while the plain old MX is about $100. Keep your hard drive defragged. Your virtual memory should be set between 1.5x RAM to 2x RAM. However, this is debatable, so some people might not agree with it. Its one of those things that you should go with what works for you. I have my hard drive partitioned and have a separate 1GB partition set off for my virtual memory. Also, grap Xteq Xsetup, as there's a ton of tweaks to be had in there.

Well, I dont know. Probably not, because usually mobo/cpu deals dont feature the highest performing mobo. I just thought of the board you might have: the FIC AZ11 or AZ11e. Unfortunately, FIC also has another mobo with a AMD northbridge/Via southbridge hybrid chipset combo. Please, look at the damn manual, kritical! It will at least tell you what the hell your chipset it. You can even look between the pci slots for the exact board it is. Just look dammit!

If you want a board to hold you over, get a Tyan Trinity 400. It is terrible for overclocking, but it is very stable. Also, it does use the Via Apollo Pro 133A chipset, so if you h.ate Via... Its easy to set up and the manual is good too, although Asus does have a slightly better manual in comparison. The board runs $100-$115 USD around here. And as for drivers the latest beta 12.00 Dets are out for all versions of Windows. They're a tad faster than the 11.01s. Also, Win2k is MUCH more hardware sensative than 98 or ME. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. I consider it a good thing, especially when it comes to overclocking. [This message has been edited by Brian Frank (edited 13 April 2001).]

Muwhahahahahaha! I can take all your souls and then dispose of them. Excellent! *evil laughter continues*

That'll take a while, unless all flaming posts get started here...hmm. * smile*

Damn! I must have really tweaked my system out! 8)

Okay, off the Serious Sam box, here are the minimum requirements: AMD K6-3 400MHz or Intel Celeron 300A 64MB RAM Fully Open GL compliant 3D accelerator 100% Windows compatible sound card Win95 OSR2,Win98/ME/NT4.0 SP5/2k 150MB HDD space Recommended: Athlon or P3 550MHz 128MB RAM GeForce 256,GeForce 2, Power VR Kyro,S3 Savage 2000,Voodoo5, ATI Radeon 450MB HDD space Creative Labs sound card David, if you'll look, your cpu is barely above the minimum for the K6 cpu, so yes, you will not have the best speed that a GHz+ rig will have. Its not lazy programming. In order to move forward in a fashionable way, the older technology has to be left behind, or you might have to get a game with several cd's when your brand in' new box needs only the info on the first cd. Heres the solution for smooth game play: Get a new mobo and cpu. Either that or shut up about this "lazy programming" crap! Do you honestly want programmers to support all the technology back to the 86 cpu (Intel 8086) era? I sure dont.

Post 600 for me. Only 66 more till I join the ranks of Satan's army.

Yeah, a cheap Voodoo3 3000. I will not give up mine, until it dies. It is old, yes, but one of the greatest cards made, and it works with everything Ive tried. Yes, its not really anything in comparison with a GF3, however, it runs with Win2k right out of the box w/o drivers, but if you're gonna play games you will have to get some though. Also, if you plan on running Linux, 3dfx cards at least right now are the best way to go. I havent had to get drivers for it, and it works right out of the box. It is still a very capable card today, so dont count it out. Even though 3dfx is gone pretty much.

Ahh, my 3dmark2001 score: 2970.

Had to drop my ram from 211 to 210, unfortunately. You sure its your hard drive there, eddie, cuz ive got a 5400 rpm drive too and I score in the 5500~5600's with my oc and tweaks. Maxtor drives are pretty fast in the 5400rpm range, according to this one pcworld article I saw. Of course that is one article, but it did put the Seagate drives as some of the slowest. Wow, I mustve done some serious tweaking to get this good of a score with what Ive got. I'd love to OC my P3 667 on my Tyan Trinity, but I dont think that board was ever intended for OCing. So, pimpin, hows your scores doin there?

Quote: <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by clutch: In short, the game runs very well on my machines, and on several other's that I know of. But I am glad that you have single-handedly narrowed the problem down to "lazy programming", rather than outdated hardware as being the problem. </font> Good one, clutch. I agree.

You have an i820 chipset with SDRAM. Oooh, thats not good. From what I understand, the Memory Translator Hub,MTH, is supposed to allow SDRAM in place of RDRAM. Unfortunately, this did not work out at all. It was one of Intel's embarassments last year, along with the P3 1.13GHz bust. Anyway, get ahold of SuperMicro and see if they will send you a replacement board with RDRAM for free. If not get another mobo. I to tell you that, but unfortunately, the only other option is to buy RDRAM, which is ungodly expensive and has very little speed increase over SDRAM. Once again, the problem is with the MTH of the i820 chipset, and while other things may be bad, that board needs to be replaced or you need to get RDRAM.

One tech guy Ive talked to said stay away from those ones, and Ive seen a few problems with Leadtek cards around the forum, specifically with image quality, and in one extreme case someone had to underclock their Leadtek just to fix the problem. In fact, their the only video card maker that people have complained about with GeForce/GeForce2 cards. [This message has been edited by Brian Frank (edited 12 April 2001).]

ROFL