XPhys71

Well, you can set up the drives in several formats. "0" lets you stripe 2 drives, alternating putting chunks of data on one then the other really fast, which I think allows a steady stream of data to be recorded as opposed to intermittant recording with just one drive. "1" allows you to have one drive as the primary and the second as a backup, so the second just copies the first one exactly. There's no speed gain here. "0+1" allows both the striping of 2 discs and a backup for each striped disc. Obviously, you need 4 HD's (or more). That's about all I know about RAID. I don't know exactly how much performance gain you would get.

Sweet. That'll be a rockin' system when you put it together! Are you putting all those drives into a full tower?

Yeah, go with the Pro, if you want really good performance but don't want to spend $400+ on an ultra. I may have to back dwon the memory speed on my card, at least until I get some RAM sinks myself. I was playing cstrike last night and I was getting some artifacts during play towards the end of my session. Does anyone know of a mobo-only site? I'm still trying to figure out the best mobo for my new baby (P3 733 slot1). Anyone heard of a DDR mobo chipset for slot 1's?

Well, if you RAID 0 the 4 GB's, that would be hella fast for boots. I guess if you use it only for the OS and system apps, that should be plenty of storage. Given my HD problems the last week, I like the idea of a complete HD backup. Hopefully, you'll never need it, tho . . .

I agree with Paragon on the vid card. I just got a Visiontek Geforce2 GTS DDR 32 MB and am overclocking it to 235 core/375 memory with no stability problems. Definitely a better deal than the ultra for the price. Paragon--so when you back up your HD with the old one, do you just slave the old one and transfer files via drag and drop? Using it as a backup is such a good idea--I wish I did that before my HD crashed last week.

Cool. What CPU/mobo would you use? I don't think I have many options with the slot 1 P3 I have. I'd like to get a mobo based on the 815 chipset but I only know of the Abit SH6 which doesn't support RAID. Any ideas on that?

Yeah, that's a good point about the RAID when I think about it. So you have 3 HD's? Why don't you stripe two to get a speed increase? Are they different sizes? Pretty soon, CD-RW's will go the way of the zip drive when DVD-RAM becomes affordable. What is it, 9 GB per side on a removable disc? Sold!

quote: That's excellent. Have you noticed a big improvement (fps, smoothness of 3d graphics)? You realize that a GF2 Ultra runs at 250 Mhz core and 460 MHz memory, and considering your card costs about a third of what the Ultra does, I'd say you're doing alright. I haven't run any benchmarks, though it would be good to do when I have time. I tested the stability of the system at each setting by playing a round of Unreal Tourney with everything maxed, 32 bit color, 1280 x 1028 res. Honestly, I couldn't really tell, but that's mostly because I didn't play at the default setting a whole lot before o'clocking. Oh, and compared to playing everything on a 16 MB TNT card, the Geforce2 rocks o'clocked or not!c> quote: Personally, I wouldn't endanger my card to the extent you are, but if you don't plan to keep the card for a long time, go right ahead. I was worried about that too but I pulled up an article on tweak3d which mentioned the o'clocking/longevity issue. It's mostly a heat dissipation problem. If you have enough cooling so the card's components don't overheat, you should theoretically be fine for years. Thus the BAF (big-assed fan). . . c> quote: About the fan, I don't know if that's the best method. They make excellent cooling systems for video cards which are compact, efficient, and quiet for about 20 bucks. I imagine your system is quite loud which has to be annoying. Yeah, the fan's kinda loud, but then I just turn up the pro's! I really don't notice it much since it's under the desk. Actually, it's nice to have a little breeze by my feet when I'm gaming. On the plus side, I get incredible airflow over the vid card, CPU, sound card, mobo, everything, for like $12 or something. There's nothing wrong with overkill, is there? I might get something like the blue orb to replace the fan on the GPU someday. I played cstrike last night for an hour and a half and everything worked great. c>

Uh oh. I have a WD 13.1 GB drive. Great! That means I should DEFINITELY get a new (and bigger and faster and . . . and . . . ) HD! Maybe I'll go for a 80 GB, that way I can RAID it in the future with another 80 GB when one 80 GB HD is too small for a home PC.

I've got the same one you do, Dman. I have the core at 235 and the memory at 375. I've been playing with it (carefully) and it's pretty stable so far. It only locked up when I took the core >240 and the memory >380. Mine's got a fan on the GPU and I took one side of the case off and have a 12" oscillating fan blowing into the computer.

Ha! I'm so stupid! Thanks Hofy! That was it. I totally forgot about the floppy. And I swear, the manual never said anything about the floppy when I read it before . . . :/ Dman, thanks for the instruction. I'm going to try it out now. I hope I don't fry the card.

Ummm . . . well, yes, but it's ok now. It's not worse off if it was reformatted is it? I'm thinking that I should get a new one especially if it's a good one for cheap. Go for the biggest one or are their disadvantages with a drive that's TOO big?

First, the good news: I got my new 733 P3 (slot 1) CPU from my cousin last week! So nice, but I need a new mobo for it. I thought it would be a socket 370 but it's not. I think the Abit SH6 is the only mobo that supports slot 1's with the 815e chipset. And . . . I got a Visiontek Geforce2. Woohoo! No more choppy TNT graphics! Now the bad: The problem was that I tried installing the 5.12 drivers and their must've been a conflict. I was getting lockup problems bad. It got to the point where I had to reformat the drive and lost EVERYTHING on it. Got everything back up to speed now re-installed all the components (except one, see #2 below), latest Detonator 3 drivers, no problem and the graphics are sweet! Unreal Tourney is much better on the new card compared to the TNT (1280x1028x32). Now I see why it's the GotY. A couple questions: 1) How do I enable the overclocking utility for the Det 3 drivers? 2) My computer won't let me install the drivers for my Creative DVD-ROM and DXR3 decoder card. I try to run the DXR3 driver install off the CD but the computer says the card isn't installed. The card IS installed and is patched between my vid card and monitor, just like it was before the fateful crash. If anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate them. Thanks!

Hehe, my brother-in-law works for Quantum. I having my sis check into what kind of deals he can get me. Seb, or anyone, any recommendations on the minimum HD size for non-video editing apps (general use, gaming, etc.)? I have 13 GB now but it's clearly not enough, so what's a good number these days?

Hofy, I have a question now. I'm going to put together a "new" system with a faster CPU and mobo but I want to use my vid card, HD, audio, etc. So what I'm getting is that I can just plug my old HD into the new mobo with maybe the vid card on it and start it up no prob. Is that correct? or would I want to plug in the PCI devices too, since all the drivers are already on the HD?

Let me see what I can do . . . he did say they had "a few lying around." Not sure what that means, exactly, but I'll take it! So what do you think of RAID? I wonder if I should get the SA6R just to have the built-in controller. I'm just not sure if I will ever need RAID, though, for gaming.

Hey everyone, my cousin (who works for Intel) is getting me a P3 733 CPU so I need to get a new motherboard since my current one doesn't support 133 MHz FSB or memory and it's not socket 370. So my question is which one is the best for gaming stability with overclocking capability? I've been looking around and the Asus CUSL2 seems to be popular, the MSI i815 E Pro looks good and is cheap, and the Abit SA6R is RAID capable (though I don't know that I need that right now.) I haven't seen any reviews of the Apollo Pro 133A so any thoughts on that one? What about the DDR SDRAM boards starting to come out? Initial impressions aren't real positive. I just don't know, please help! Thanks! ------------------ This is my body. And I can do whatever I want with it. --Lance Armstrong

Wow. So many bad songs out there I don't even bother listening to the radio. Instead of specific songs, I like to categorize bad music by group or artist. Definitely agree with any of the boy bands--nsync, backstreet, 98 degrees, (ironically, as I write, 98 degrees is playing on tv). So how 'bout the girl bands? Spice girls, Alanis, Britney Spears, etc. OMG, 98 degrees is on again . . . I'm going to the bathroom to shoot myself . . . ------------------ This is my body. And I can do whatever I want with it. --Lance Armstrong

Ray, I'd recommend getting the fastest reliable burner you can find. I have a 4x and it's painfully slow, about 15-18 mins. for a copy. The newer 10x and 12x burners clock in around 4 or 5 mins, I think, and are reportedly just as good quality as long as you have the buffer (about 2 megs). I'd also recommend www.gamecopyworld for their articles on the topic. Interesting facts about different media dyes and longevity. I always thought CD's were forever . . . ------------------ Next season begins today.

Did anyone else like Charlie's Angels? I thought it was pretty good brainless entertainment, especially with the gratuitous *** and cleavage shots of the Angels. With Cameron and Lucy, who needs a solid plot? I thought the action sequences were also pretty fun, though they were a direct ripoff from the Matrix and MI:2. Ummm . . . did anybody else notice that Cameron Diaz has a really nice body? ------------------ Next season begins today.

Dman, You should check out the "general computer questions" part of this BB. There's recently been a few parts-related posts by Kblair and Tekk on mobo's/processors, vid cards, etc. I personally like pricewatch for computer parts. GF2 GTS DDR for around $157 last I checked. Good prices on memory and processors and mobo's too, I think. Hope this helps!

OK, here's a question: if the two DDR cards were similarly priced, do you think the Radeon still wins for quality and techinical longevity? I know about the DirectX 8 hardware support and the 3 texels per pass vs. 2 per pass and the other technical innovations that the Radeon has. But I'm just wondering how much of that stuff will really get used. It seems that if game designers start maximizing the Radeon's capabilities, then it'll kick the Geforce2's butt. Oh, and what about the ATI drivers? Never had an ATI card but their rep is not as good as nVidia's. FYI, on pricewatch , the Radeon SDR is $133, DDR is $157, and the Geforce2 DDR is $156. ------------------ Tuna from a can is good. Fresh tuna steak is better. Things that are not tuna but smell like tuna are bad.

Hey Kimber, I was wondering if you considered the Geforce2 DDR at all. I'm thinking of getting either that or the Radeon for Christmas, so just wanted your thoughts on that issue. ------------------ Tuna from a can is good. Fresh tuna steak is better. Things that are not tuna but smell like tuna are bad.

Just checked www.pricewatch.com and Geforce2 GTS DDR's are $175! Radeon DDR's are $157. I think the Geforce2 has the edge from what data I've seen, especially at this price! ------------------ Tuna from a can is good. Fresh tuna steak is better. Things that are not tuna but smell like tuna are bad.

Try www.pricewatch.com for good prices on vid cards. ------------------ Tuna from a can is good. Fresh tuna steak is better. Things that are not tuna but smell like tuna are bad.