orappa

I get most of my stuff from eBay for two reasons: 1) PayPal actually supports my card (not many places do) 2) It's so damn addictive! You can generally pick up a bargain there. I say "generally" because it is an auction, so you can never really predict what the final price will be. But it's generally cheaper than most online stores because the sellers don't have as many overheads and they don't have to advertise (which saves a LOT). You've probably heard about some of the scammers on eBay, but I find that they stick out like a sore thumb. As long as you buy from someone with a high feedback rating who often deals with similar goods, you should have no problems at all. And remember that, unlike a high street shop, you cannot see the physical item that you're buying (remember that some photos are stock photos and not that particular item), so always read the small print and ask questions (whether you're using eBay or not).

I think Prokopis' example of "oxymoron" was better. I agree that flaming shouldn't be tolerated, but it's annoying if you use a word that happens to contain an offensive term (oxymoron) or if you use an offensive term in a non-offensive context (e.g. bitch to mean dog).

Yeah, 5.4 / 10 on Gamespot (XBox). It's not out for PC yet so hopefully some of the factors will be addressed. I was expecting it to get 7 or 8 from the preview, so that was disappointing. But I didn't for a minute think it would ever beat GTA.

Yeah, they changed it a couple of months back if I remember rightly. There was a topic somewhere. I think it's only the supermods that can change names (try PM-ing one).

How is he seeking attention. He's telling us that his VC disk is broken, so he won't be here for a while. That doesn't sound like attention seeking to me. You fail to see the point, you dont need to have a disk to be a member of the forum stunting community . Yeah, but that's not technically legal because he no longer has the disc (I presume you're talking about no-cd cracks).

I think autokicking is a bit extreme. Can't it just blank out the word or give the person a warning ("3 strikes and you're out")?

Yeah, that's a good idea. Also, I remember that Project Eden (on my old PC) ran really slowly due to the onboard sound, but reducing the sound quality was enough to make it playable - disabling it completely wasn't necessary. Finally, I personally cannot tell the difference between 44KHz and 48KHz quality, so I usually put sound quality on low or medium (even though I have an Audigy 2) to increase the framerate. There's no point in having extra processing used on things that you don't notice.

How reliable is this provider likely to be if they profit from your site being down?

I'm not sure that GTA 1 and 2 support multiplayer in the same way as MTA. I think (from what I remember) they use a lobby-based approach (common in strategy games) as opposed to what I call a "drop-in" approach in FPS games. So therefore, you'd have to arrange a game with someone over a LAN or using a matchmaking service or something, rather than just joining a random server. Strategy gamers will know what I mean

I thought we established that it was the sound I think that the CPU is playing the biggest part, so upgrading your CPU would probably fix the problem with the sound as well (it has to do all of the sound processing because it's onboard). So even if you can now get it running smoothly, Rival, that's probably with all settings on minimum.

Hmm.... interesting. They put ads on the error pages...

Nah, it only recently hit 90% as Dan said, but it had been on 80% for a fair while. It's impossible to say how long it will take because, although there is only 10% left, that 10% could take months or mere days to complete. I believe that the team are bug fixing at the moment, which (while not to mention tedious) can take a long time.

I think you've got the wrong dialog up. What you want is one which allows you to forward data arriving at the router on port 2003 to the IP of the machine that you're playing on. Although I also have a router, and I've never had to do that in order to play (although I would need to do that if I wanted to host). I think the problem you have is most likely due to a firewall. (Don't forget that some routers have built-in firewalls, as does Windows). If so, you'd need to allow MTA or port 2003 in your firewall's settings.

Yeah, use the API instead of the OCX. The DLL comes with Windows so nothing needs to be registered. Also, I think it uses less memory as well.

FX's are pretty good on games that have the "Made for Nvidia" logo on them (as you'd no doubt expect), so mine's great on UT2004 but not quite so good on GTA (although I'm beginning to suspect that it's not actually the card causing the juddering).

Hmm, never experienced lag with it over LAN... I might give it another go tonight if I have time, given the fact that it's a significant amount of time since I last played it, and both PCs have since received upgrades.

I don't know what exactly you remember about GTA2 multiplayer but I honestly think it's quite good. Although it's limited to 6 players it offers good multiplayer gameplay. I still play it now and then and it always ends up with lots of fun . Well, it had all of the peds and cars which was great, but it made it lag like anything, even over a LAN.

You need to forward port 2003 (UDP).

That's not a bad idea, but would it just loop the same mission over and over again?

The ATI drivers cause an exception error. This causes XP to helpfully reboot so that you can't see the message. (If you want to switch this off, go to Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced. Click on Settings under Startup and Recovery and deselect Automatically Restart under the System Failure section)

Could be a dodgy monitor cable... maybe a missing or bent pin on the connector.

I think he meant fix the bug that causes it to do that in the first place.

What about sound? When I had onboard sound, a lot of games would be unplayable unless I put the sound on low quality or off completely, at which point it would speed up dramatically.

Stanton, your optimism astounds me. Don't you realise that you are competing with MTA and so a good release for them will equal a bad release for you?

It seems quite easy to abuse...