Specter

That 128bit memory interface will hogtie that card and be slower than it should be. Don't bother with it. ← He's right about that one, but you can get the Leadtek 256-bit interface, and it will rock. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....ype=Refurbished

Yeah, but you can get a 256MB 6800GT from newegg for 200.00.

Actually, AGP isn't out yet, not by a long shot. Both major GPU makers are making new versions of their high performance cards for AGP. One thing you can do is see if you can get a BIOS update for your mobo that will update your AGP to 4X/8X. Then you can run the latest AGP cards. Failing that, you can get a Radeon 9800 Pro with either 128RAM or 256 RAM for 170.00-250.00 US. The 9800 Pro will run on AGP 4X.

I use Ghost or PowerQuest Drive Image. But since Symantec now owns both, it's a moot point.

I always install Winblows on it's opwn drive, with nothing but MS Office and Visual Studio on the same drive, as those two apps seem to work without error on the C drive, especially VS. Yes, the image can become a bit outdated, by restoring the image is still faster, as you already have most of the mneeded updates in the image, and usually only have to get a couple more, if there are any recent ones. Especially now that the updates for XP are starting to slow down, with Vista on the horizon, and no major updates for XP coming out for a year or so. Imaging will also, in most cases, sav

What expansions and/or mods are you using? What version are you patched to? I wasn't making an accusation, bud. It's just that most frequently, that issue is the cause of that error message. I was just giving you a heads up, is all.

I was also thinking about moving outlook storage to a seperate partition, because I find I regularly have to defrag the windows XP partition even though there shouldn't be much writing going on in that partition. Then I thought about all the hundreds of emails every day, so that's probably the reason for the fragmentation there. ← I keep all of my OE email in it's own folder on a seperate drive. One, when Winblows FUBARS, my mail is safe without having to keep it stored on the mail server, two, it does reduce fragmentation on my C drive.

Huh. Oh well. I just told it whic files I wanted it to play when I installed it, unchecked all of the boxes, and told it NO when it wanted to become the default player, and oila, no problems, no invasion, no extraneous crap.

It sounds like you aren't using the retail CD to boot, but maybe an altered .exe? What that means is you have a version conflict somewhere. That error frequently pops up with [Thing that should not be spoken of here IAW Forum Rule 3.7] keys, which we CANNOT support here, nor can we condone their use. Post your IKE.log and IKECRASH.log for us to look at, from the main GR directory. If this is a legit copy of GR, we should be able to find out what's up. If it's a cracked EXE, I'm sorry, but the help here will have to end here.

This PC will NOT support any modern graphics cards, or any graphics cards that will give you the required performance for today's games. It is PCI only. The best PCI video card you can get, if I'm not mistaken is only 32MB, and at that they don't make them anymore. You would have to find someone like me that has several that would send one to you. However, even that 32MB card will not play any games that are recently out. All the newer games require Texel Shader 2.0 Technology, which only comes in AGP 4X/8X and PCIe(Pci Express, the new standard) video cards. RAM and sound card upgra

XP runs the4 best when the page file is set to about 3200MB. It's best to set the minimum and maximum to this number, so that Winblows doesn't use all of your remaining drive space to scatter 3200MB worth of files over. You can also boost performance, by defragging, which you already knew. Twice a week is usually good. One of those times a week, make sure to defrag the page file also. It will take a good bit more time, but is worth it in the end. I use Vopt for XP. It has some amazing options.

?? I can do both on or offline. The Firewall activates as soon as NIC drivers or dialup drivers are loaded. The Firewall itself is installed when XP is. But it can be activated or disabled at any point in time, whether online or offline.

It would actually be good to see about adding at least one, maybe two if you can.

I'm currently running the newest version, and I have nothing running in the background, and no miscellaneous apps that I didn't want were installed with it. I simply configured it as I installed it. It never tried to instal an IM client, and I unchecked the selection boxes for the other apps. I have never had anything but good luck and ease of installation with Real Player. After I read this last night, I uninstalled it and re-installed it to see if I could duplicate what you mention, and I can't duplicate any of it. This is strange.

Guess I should have checked out Real Player before I installed it as your statement is 100% correct. ← I have never had issue one with Real Player, or with having it want to install a bunch of miscellaneous crap. I have been using the free version for years and years, and have never seen what you guys describe. I wonder what we are doing different?

In the immortal words of Al from Home Improvement: " I don't think so, Tim."

I would still say Video card and RAM, even if the proc is a 1.8Ghz or higher. Especially for AMD. I wouldn't worry too much about the proc unless it is below 1.8Ghz. But For lower than 2.0Ghz on the Proc, I'd go a GB of RAM, and 256MB video card, either AGP or PCIe.

Ok. yes, you can expand to (2) 512MB sticks of RAM to come to a GB. Just make sure they are the right specs when you do. Right now, you are running integrated sound and graphics. . In your particular PC, you can't install anything but a PCI video card. that's right. Sadly, no AGP graphics. What you have here, is basically a very low-end, budget machine that you can't really do much with from a gaming and entertainment point of view. It was built basically as a workstation, nothing more. With this particular PC, it is my advice that you don't waste any money trying to upgrade it

REPEAT: Post your DXDIAG report and mobo model, so we know what kind of advice to give you. At this point, we can't even really give you an educated guess. We need to see what you're working with.

It's still free. In fact, ! installed it just yesterday.

The video card. the processor won't be that big a deal.

No adverse effects at all. Just make sure the speeds match.

I didn't know that DXDIAG told you about how many RAM and PCI slots you have. ← That it doesn't. But it will give you all the other info. Mobo model will do the rest.

I'm strictly a hardcore co-op and TACTICAL tvt player(meaning that i play on teams against other like-minded, serious tactical teams. After 5 years of GR, I never even got past the second Sp mission. Once i started playing co-op, never went back to finish SP. And all that running and gunning crap just isn't my style.

Go to System Tools, and System Info. Easy way, run DXDIAG, save a report, and copy and paste it here.