Brian Frank

Plus, the IRQ sharing would be there in XP/2k because of ACPI, and that is usually NOT the problem. You've fixed it, but that would be a driver issue most likely. The BSOD usually lists the culprit file, providing there is one.

Mmmm...Unreal 2. That and Serious Sam 2 are games I'm waiting for.

My first graphics were integrated SiS on a Venus mobo. I had 48MB total in that system with a Cyrix 300MHz (233PR), with 4 dedicated to video. Then I got an ATI Xpert 98, I noticed a major difference when I got that baby. After that Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Retail, V4 4500, GF2 MX, GF2 Ti, Radeon 8500. The last two being my most current, as per specs in the sig line. Currently, I have the Radeon 8500 (really? do tell), and it kicks much A$$! ATI has a few minor details to smooth out (refresh rate) with it, but as far as I'm concerned, there's really no reason to buy the GF3Ti500. The 8500 is cheaper on the same grounds (OEM, on-line, retail, etc.) and does the same in terms of speed as the Ti500. Also, if you so doubt me, check through my posts in the past: I've hated ATI. That right there oughtta tell you how much ATI has come around.

Well, it's close enough to the year's end, time to vote on something.

Well, I guess I'm the only one that voted Radeon 8500.

For the record, I don't like Quake 3 either.

NTFS has saved my A$$ a few times. When you lose power suddenly, you aren't as susceptible to data loss with NTFS as with FAT32, if I remember correctly. I'm not uber guru on NT, but NTFS does wipe the floor with FAT32 on saving your hide.

-I know it's gonna be long and a pain in the ***, but do yourself a favor and do a clean install on these machines. Going from 9x to NT will do a number on the systems. It's better to do it now when you plan for it, rather than when you're in a cruch at a critcal time. -I'd suggest taking a machine or two for testing purposes, and see how it flys for you. I can't guarantee all the software will work, so keep that in mind too. Check MS site to see if your apps will run under 2k. If they run under NT 4, 2k shouldn't be an issue. -Make sure you have at least 128MB of RAM on all of them too, 64 will run--just barely. -But first: Do your research on this. It may be better to just buy new systems than try to fiddle with them. Just look at all options first. -Did I mention to have at least 128MB of RAM? Good luck.

Welp, it's probably been easy to tell I haven't been exactly pleased with ATI in the past. Their major achilles heel, drivers, seems to be remedied for the 8500's very latest, not-yet-offically-certified, drivers for XP run smooth so far. I think that you guys will be very pleased with this card now that ATI has whipped the driver development team to at least put out drivers that don't suck A$$ everytime. The drivers dated Nov. 13 are good so far. 5800 3dmark 2001 default settings with an 800MHz CPU. w00t!

Up the voltage or hope you have an unlocked chip (yeah right)

No cover. Just the old lead pencil trick to unlock 'em if they aren't already.

I will upgrade, eventually when I can get a pair of 1GHz CPU's, but this is in 32-bit, and the GF2Ti I had in their before can't touch the 8500 in 32-bit, and just barely in 16-bit. I have hated ATI for sure in the past, but the 8500 seems to be pretty good this time around. ATI has done a 180 on the driver development here, and they've just got some minor details to work out. I don't know what happenened up in Canada, but ATI has gotten their act together in the past month and now can do what I thought was impossible: Make good drivers. If they continue like this, they can totally dominate the GF3Ti500, which the card can, IMO, but it's just a matter of, you guessed it, DRIVERS! I have been noticing Nvidia's drivers as a bit of a pain in the *** lately, especially under XP. Another thing I really don't like is the drivers that are only in an executable format, not zipped up. Half the time (actually, most of it) the drivers fail to install--which truly sucks.

It all depends on the Duron, pimpin' and how you approach the OC. The best OC is using the FSB AND the multiplier. My 800 can hit 1050, but not entirely stable, no matter what. The best combination I've found for me is 9.5x107. I've also jacked my ram speed up to 133MHz in BIOS, and the FSB increase has it running at 140-ish. Do note that all my RAM is at least 7.5ns--a big help. That OC for the 700 sounds about right. If you want to bust out the watercooling/refridgeration, be my guest, but your best bet is to just buy a faster chip and OC that. Typically, AMD's chips seem to hit an extra 200MHz on average. Tips for a happy OC: --Up the Voltage (don't over do it, tho) --Mix multipliers and the FSB for best results --Get that Ram running at 133MHz/266MHz --Get a GlobalWIN FOP-32, it's more than enough for a Duron. --Use some good thermal paste (Radio Shack's crap doesn't cut it) This is the poor-man's guide (abridged) to happy overclocking. If you have the dough, get watercooling or whatever. If not, buy a faster chip.

I am not making this up, but they might... Saw that over at [H]ardOCP today. They're right, that is just downright freaky.

As bad as they are about this, I'd have to say the 512.

Never had the live!, but if the Audigy is any indication, you should have something with Creative's mixer that allows 4-speaker output. I am going by Win2k, but I don't see how it would be any different in XP.

Works dandy on my VP6, tho changing the AGP drive strength from the defaults leads to intaneous lockups whenever ya try to run any 3d app or game.

Yes, so long as it will work in XP.

You'll have to get a crack of some kind, but I'm not a liberty to post info, nor know exactly where this stuff is. Y'know, you could always get XP final and save yerself the work...

I'm probably in the minority of people that don't like CS then. I want to frag around, I fire up UT--which is better than CS or Q3, IMHO. I've been partial to Unreal and UT anyway. UT has awesome multiplayer. I do play a little HL Multi, but that's not nearly as fun as UT. I haven't played Serious Sam Multi, but the single player is a blast to play. I'm sure multi would be toatally nuts. UT has better mods, tho Day of Defeat is very nice HL mod. UT is nice with everything it offers for one person to play.

This is really irritating to say the least. Random lockups on webpages, even when I'm designing my own. And this is a hard lock too. I haven't hit the reset button so often since using ME. I've done a reinstall a few weeks ago. So far, the lockups have ocurred in Front Page, at Anandtech, [H]ardOCP, and AMDMB. MS Knowledgebase doesn't seem to have anything. I thought I'd seen something here about ie6 locking up, but I can't seem to find it. I swore I've seen something like this before...

Went to Add/Remove Programs, and then to remove IE and ran the repair option. Everything is hunky-dory now. w00t!

Quote: ...with Pro you can't play A LOT of games because it's NT. Something that doesn't occur with Xp Home. Not to flame or anything, but YOU ARE A FREAKIN IDIOT. Once you move to the NT code, you realize that 9x does suck. NT's only real disadvantage comes when software comapanies decide to be an arse about it and not do or poorly do an implementation of it on NT. Oh, and whatever you're smoking---send me some of that!!

There's enough apps in systemworks to make it unattractive to me. WinDoctor and CrashGuard are ment to be good, but have only fu><0r3d my PC's countless times. I will never buy System Works nor any program like it. It "fixes" things, in the bad way.

I know there have been people with problems using the hpt370 and raid under XP. I'm happy to announce that my 2 40GB 60GXP's are working great under XP Pro 2600. w00t! Specs below, FYI. It's teh Samurai Pro.