SDirickson

Good deal. Glad to see you on the staff.

My friend has had a boatload of problems with his PC, mainly with glitching and artifacts problems when playing games. His 3D apps always flicker and never display as crisp and fast as they should. I've installed the latest GeForce drivers and DirectX, tried different display settings, everything, and I can't fix it for him. I used to have the same problems with my older Ati 8500, actually. Just wondering if any of you guys had these same problems or know how to fix them.

Not really grasping, the heat issue could be it. We don't exactly have our PC's in a very good spot here, room in the barracks being small. Ours both sit on the floor, with lots of dust and poor venitilation. I'll have to check that out, make sure the card isn't lodged against any other hot items, etc.

Yeah, I keep telling him to get Alienware to replace the card. I don't know if thats the whole problem though. I used to have the same problems with my Radeon 8500.

Well, this is about the fourth time we've formatted his HD and installed fresh everything. We've tried the original drivers as well as the new, and his PC isn't overclocked at all. The real shocker is that his PC is an Alienware, and we've tried all the support software they've sent and still haven't licked the problem. We're both getting kind of fed up with Alienware.

bump

I'm on the short list here: -Made advertisements for beer and wine distributerships for two summers. -Mowed lawns on and off. -Went to Ft. Knox, made E-5 pay for a summer at LTC. -Currently a MDSN 4th Class, making $250 a month.

Well, I guess I'm the lone voice here, but my squad mates and I have had a lot of fun the past two days with the demo. We haven't had any serious crashes, our computers run it fine and we've been able to get most everything to work. I'm looking forward to see it cleaned up and polished.

The reason the reticle isn't able to be seen in the normal view in German aircraft is because the gunsight in German aircraft was designed to be looked through only by the pilot's right eye. Therefore, by pressing shft-f1 it simulates the pilot leaning forward a bit, and concentrating his right eye on the sight. Its not just for the German aircraft either. I have it mapped to a button on my stick because it can be useful in just about every aircraft in Il-2. It doesn't change the magnification of the target, like the gunsight view does, it merely changes the point of view within the cockpit.

Ha, oh, and both of the folks drive WRX's. Mom has the silver 2002 automatic wagon, dads got the 2003 yellow manual sedan.

'95 Ford F-150, cream with a bronze stripe. Last year they kept the old body styles. Single cab, standard size bed. Excellent condition. I love that truck. Over 100,000 miles on it, and that V-8 still puts out hardcore. Posh interior too, clean, always Armor-all'ed. And custom speakers and cd/mp3 player. Damn its pimp.

http://maddox.xmission.com/beat.html 'Nuff said

And for anyone at the Citadel, 11 days and a wake-up till the break. Been over ten weeks since I last saw my family.

The chaplain here at the Citadel bought tickets to an entire showing at a local theater, so around 200 cadets, myself included, went and saw it last Wed. I can't say it was a good movie, and it certainly wasn't bad. Mel Gibson did justice to the scripture, and thats the most anyone can expect. You just have to see it for yourself.

Yeah, I checked over there. Couldn't find any info on getting the trees enabled, but I did get the sim running.

I hate to see a forum with as little action as this one. I for one would love to see an accurate WWI simulation, especially now that we have graphics as good as Il-2.

That looks too familiar for comfort, haha. In fact, that might be me right in the center. Look for the guy with a shaved head, full dress uniform wearing cross webbing undr arms and a shako.

Just wondering, hows the black layout coming? There an ETA yet?

PG, one thing I've learned when dealin with the 'rents. Any time they ask a question like, "Why didn't you ______" just say, "Sir/Maam, no excuse, sir/maam." Repeat as necessary. They can't argue with it.

Aside from the fact that he used the word "gooder" four times, it was a good speech with a promising message.

Ahh, wonderful 19. Privaleges unlocked? None. Though, best part of turning eighteen is being able to renew your driver's license for six years, lol.

"Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for." - Mike Nichols "And Adam ruled, for he was the king. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats." - James Clavell's King Rat

The intro and ending to Proof of Life. Killers. Boondock Saints. Any scene with a shotgun in L.A. Confidential. The Bourne Identity.

Every five minutes in Band of Brothers.

Now that I've played Vietcong through approximately five missions, I can definately recommend this game. Therefore, consider this a mini-review. Graphics: The environment of the game and the weapon models are the primary focus in the graphics department. The flora is diverse and provides varied and ample cover for an FPS environment. It looks much like Operation Flashpoint on Miracle Grow. THe weapon animations and models are superb, especially when using the weapon's iron sights and when reloading. Character models are a little light, but do the job. Little touches like mouth animations and vaulting over logs and trees are interesting at first, but get a little old after a while. Vehicle models are decent, again much like OpFlash with better textures. FPS is excellent and overall the varied colors and excellent recreation of actual plantlife make camoflouge actually work. You'll spend a lot of time moving slow and checking for anything out of the ordinary. I run at maximum graphics levels, 1280 x 1024, no FSAA, 4x AA and I never get below 25fps even during massive firefights. Audio: The environmental effects are very immersive. Insects chirp, monkeys howl and canyon's even echo. Fire your .45 in a tunnel and it'll definately set off the subwoofer. Weapon audio is excellent. The sounds of footsteps accurately reflect the surface you're on.The only bad mark is the generic character taunts and responses. The scripted audio is good, but the remarks your teammates make during battle can be extremely annoying. Gameplay: First off, the campaign system is immersive, fun and fast paced. The missions are scripted, and play in much the same way as Call of Duty or Medal of Honor, with grand themes seemingly straight from all the movies and books you've ever read on Vietnam. Crawl through tunnels searching for VC with a flashlight and a Colt 1911. Travel down brown rivers manning a mounted M-60. Track VC platoon's, rescue a Montagnard village and make it back to your LZ. Protect your firebase fram a NVA attack, then try and find where the enemy infiltrated from. That's only a bit of the first four missions. And, listen carefully: Missions are long. I'm talking well over an hour to finish one. But, unlike COD and MOH, you won't be mindlessly mowing down hundreds of VC. Many times it is necassary to stalk through the undergrowth just to eliminate a mere squad. Getting killed is easy to achieve and you really have to rely on your squad. The AI is average. Enemies don't seem to work together, but they do use cover to their advantage. Teammates will support and follow you, and will during a firefight seek cover, spread out and engage targets in other areas. The weapon count in the game is larger than most FPS's. Varieties of handguns, rifles, shotguns and automatics are at your disposal. Even when you begin to find NVA soldiers with AK-47's you'll often rather keep your Thompson or SKS. All the weapons behave like they should and you can't expect to kill with a handgun from 300 yards or empty an entire AK clip accurately without going prone. Finally, for those players who really want to experience how it was, they can choose from a "Vietnam" playmode for the single player campaign. No saves, no lives. You die at any time and its game over, start from the beginning. You'll definately be more cautious peeking over that log now. Multiplayer: The game boasts multiple types of gameplay, and a maximum of 64 players. I haven't played it much yet, instead mainly keeping to the singleplayer. But, soon I'll be getting some other friends in the company hooked up and we'll see how it goes. I've play a couple duels with a buddy a couple rooms over, and it was fun even 1 vs 1. Pros: Over 20 gigantic and very immersive missions. Over 30 individual weapons. Fast running and varied graphics that really look like they came from Platoon or the Deerhunter. Excellent audio effects. Lots of multiplayer potential. Even an expansion soon to be released with even more maps and weapons. Cons: Bad character models. Constrictive map design with annoying "vegetation walls". Predictable AI. Worth picking up, especially when you can find it for near $20 now. System Specs: 3.0 ghz P4, 800mhz FSB Radeon 9800 256 RAM 1 gb PC-3200 RAM SB Audigy 2 Windows XP DX9 and Cat 3.10's