Nihil:

Before my card finally gave up, this machine had a 128 MB Nvidia card which worked very well for what I was doing (I rarely play much games, so really as long as DooM3 and Quake 4 could work it was fine, I don't play many games and I'm in no way a gamer) and when I bought it, it was a decent card, and though DooM3 was choppy at times, it worked. This past few months have been me thinking of what I could do, since it doesn't work now.

Started out the way most do with the fan on the card grinding, which, I do keep them clean usually, using duster to spray off the dust and stuff that gets clugged, and adding extra fans to keep heat from killing off everything since I'm a total freak when it comes to machines running cool....

Anyway, it died and I had to go in the BIOS and switch back to the on board crap mobile the industry calls "on board" hardware, which I hate. Guess I just like REAL hardware better.

I also generally ONLY buy Nvidia. The cards have always been good, and the first machine I EVER bought back in 1999, came with an Nvidia card with 16 MBs of video RAM. It still worked until maybe two years or so ago when I noticed one day after waking up that when I moved the mouse around a menu, it was showing lines all the way across the screen.

I thought it was weird but didn't know it was the first sign of it giving up. This is mind you liek 10 years later, and the card does still work to an extent. The lines are a little worse and a GUI interface looks like crap on it, so instead of junking it or trying to find some old card on Ebay this thing could handle, I tossed in another HD, put Slackware on it without a GUI, and made it into my FTP server, and formatted the PC I WAS using for that and used it as a desktop system.

Right now, since I only really play idsoftware FPS games and the UT games, and a little Super Tux and TuxRacer here and there, I just use my Wife's Laptop. But I know I'd get better stats from a real card which would free up some RAM.

The only game right now I'm thinking about is Unreal3 which should be out, and Doom4 is supposed to be coming out, which of course is something I'd like to play. But I still play the originals. I've done a couple speed runs which, I'm a few seconds off the actual record (My record is about 25 seconds or so for one of the Final Doom Levels on Nightmare skill level, record is maybe 3 seconds faster) I enjoy them. I still play the original Quake too. I can somewhat speed run that one but not as well.

I'd really like an Alienware though. 12 Gigs or so of RAM, Dual giant Nvidia cards.... Mmmmmm.

Ron: Some people used to say on here that they thought of me whenever the leaves started falling and October was on the way, my own Mom has said that very thing lol.