Specter

More on the MS monopoly machine concerning new Office releases. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,19277...606dtx1k0000599

Actually, DirectX is part of Windows that provides drivers for OpenGL and Direct3D. Definitely Direct3D. OpenGL was used alot in the 90's when video cards were making leaps and bounds, but you don't see it much anymore. Direct3D is the hot stuff, and has been for awhile.

Seemed like a pretty reasonable discussion to me. And with a computer, there is always something that can be misdiagnosed. In fact, it's very easy to do, especially where hardware is concerned, particularly sound cards and video cards. That's where experience comes into play.

I agree. With that card priced at the mid-high/high end compaqred to a video card, MOST people won't be able to afford both. Then you also have to look at the practicality of it, especially if it's something that isn't flashable or upgradeable, only replaceable. That is going to leave a great many gamers without a physics card. If it came down to choice, definitely the video card. After all, you NEED that for alot more than you'll ever use that physics add-on for. Granted, the physics card would be nice. I'd love to have one. But right now, there just aren't enough uses, even gam

Try re-installing the nVidia Drivers. If that fails, do a Winblows update, and Update should list the latest core nVidia files for you for XP. DL and apply them. Validation and Genuine Advantage not required for this. You can try a System Restore, but generally, once the registry has been altered, either by hand or a program like Driver Cleaner, alot of times it won't restore. If all of this fails, you will be better off popping in your XP CD, do NOT format, and don't use the repair console, but select Repair Current Installation, and it will re-install the XP system files without o

I do NOT think you'd have to be running at 12FPS to drop to less than one. I think that's where you'd have to be for ONBOARD SOUND to cause you to drop to less than one. If you were truly going from smooth frames to suffering pauses of 2-3 seconds and adding an Audigy fixed it, that's not a normal difference of the two in terms of the resources they used, that was either outright faulty hardware that you took out of play, or else bad drivers causing system instabilities and hanging the game. No properly functioning onboard sound is going to drop a system from 40/50/60 fps to less th

Ok then ... yes or no ... you would kick her out of bed???? ← Afraid I'd never take her to bed in the first place. Not my type. Say what ya want about me, but she just is not attractive to me in the least.

Actually, being able to act is what will really matter. @Rocky, It isn't that I was looking at her neck and concentrating on it, it's just really hard to NOT see it first thing. That and the fact she has absolutely no waist. She just looks incredibly out of proportion. I just happen to think that there is more to making a character than trying to match them to cover art.

Biostar has been around a good while, and while it isn't a DFI or other hyped up board, is should be a good one.

Great. More of the "Versioning" us to death BS, and prices that are highway robbery. Time for people to start seriously looking at Open Office, and Crossover Office, and stop being robbed. For crying out loud, how will Microsoft stick it to us next?

Can't say as I've ever run into that. Especially 2-3 second pauses. That's awefully long. You must have had some really off the wall, really crappy onboard sound. If not that, then you must have had alot more process than just the OS and the game running, to max out a CPU so bad that the sound stuttered like that. Especially that badly. Or very poor drivers. Because that just isn't the norm, unless you have gone ultra cheap on the mobo, or there is more to it than just onboard sound. Heck, I have had HP's and such that literally had cheap onboard sound that never acted that

No. The default setting, is usually around 248, like Prozac has. You want to change that to 32 or lower. When you first start the utility, it shows the default settings. Most of your hardware isn't even configured. Video is set way to high right of the bat, as denoted by the 248ms above.

Right click the componenet, then choose Change Settings. Then go up to Settings, and choose Apply, and also check mark the Apply Settings on Startup option. I have my video set to 0. Some people say try 32 or 16. I have the same video card, and it runs very well at 0.

And no waist. It looks as though her hips just got nailed to her rib cage, and they blew her chest up like a balloon. They may be real. But she just looks funny and very out of proportion. And her head looks really small compared to that neck. She is just soooooo NOT Lara Croft, and never will be, I don't care what the new character art for the new games looks like. This will be like trying to make Timothy Dalton fot the James Bond persona. Or Rob Schneider into Superman. Or Roseanne into Mary Jane on Spiderman. NOT ! ! ! On so many levels, NOT ! !

All neck, she looks like a giraffe ! ! No waist. Too soft to be Lara.

correct... is it true that clancy sold his name out to someone? ← Well, we know he sold rights to his name to Ubi, and I'm sure since all these authors are writing books and using his name to sell them, that he has sold rights to his name to print publishers as well.

I was just using those as an example. I don't keep up much with video cards until I'm ready to buy one. My onboard nForce supports EAX, and I haven't noticed any detriment to any of my games, and the sound is great. But I guess if a couple frames a second will really drag the game down that much for you, then you need to get the extra money to get the card. But unless you are running 6 channel surround(which nForce supports, BTW), there is really no need. If you need to break it down by budget, think of it this way in priorities for gaming: Mobo with good onboard sound doesn't

I agree, the films were pathetic... This new lara has killer looks! ... ← Actually, what I meant was, no one can replace Angelina Jolie, and do the role any justice.

Na. Once Angelina took the role, she ruined it for everyone else.

I don't think that the Splinter Cell books were written by Clancy. I think they just fall under his franchise, like these games. They are actually written by a man named David Michaels.

A new generation middle of the road card now will be as powerful as the last generation's top of the line model, and will give you about a year's longer service than the top of the line from the previous generation. So basically, if you are on a budget, it is better to buy a midline current generation card than the high end card from the last generation. So, for example, with ATI, the high end last generation card was a 9800 XT. Fairly cheap now. The current middle of the road card would be like an X800 maybe. It would be better to buy this one than the 9800 becuase it will give you

You might try switching to de-cafe mate!. ← Decaf Low fat is more like it. And lay off the sugar, too. Jf the genetic designer. heh. One of my favorite movies, Bladerunner.

Microsoft and security in the same sentence? That's a good one ! !

He wasn't, that I'm aware of. In fact, I don't think he has ever been in government service. Although back when The Hunt for Red October was made, the government tried to shut down the movie, I don't recall if there was a stink over the book or not. It was rumored that The Hunt for Red October STRONGLY resembled an actual classified incident.

It depends on the onboard sound type. Even a sound card uses the CPU. It depends on the mfr. and configuration. Most decent motherboards these days have really good onboard sound, where it doesn't use any more resources than that high dollar sound card.