alanschu

No that's not exactly what I was talking about. I was curious about the default placement of the kernel into main memory. Though it could be I was confusing it with the 2 GB max for a single process. http://www.support.microsoft.com/default.a...kb;en-us;555223 Though I'm not familiar with the situation you describe either. I've only had one class that covered cache, and it was rather brief. Though I would think that given a 32-bit interface, it shouldn't really have a hard time addressing a 1GB of RAM (as 32-bits allows for addressing of 4 GB of data). And even then, the caching would only be necessary when memory is actually used. No sense caching something that isn't used. Though I suppose I could see potential problems with once you start getting into set associative cache....though even then I wouldn't think you would

Never one to disappoint. http://www.flashplayer.com/animation/8bitdnd.html

Hehehe, I _hate_ that tech support response.

Tell that to George Zip! Bonus points if anyone can tell me the movie!

That's it? Just started a new game??? Oh well, sometimes it's the easy things that work the best

Heh, I chuckled about that too. On the other hand, at least Yzerman has shown that he still has sweet vision on the ice. Nice play to set up Schneider for the win.

Nope (not yet anyways :D). Though I have been spending a ton of time there as they have a games night once per week. Given I am also a tech-geek computer programmer, they either "forget" that I don't actually work there, or they just don't care. They don't go out of their way to tell me the dirtiest secrets and super inside information, but just in general discussion about things I'm pretty sure they probably say stuff that technically isn't "cleared" for someone such as myself. They probably also realize that I'm not an ass and wouldn't compromise my relationship with them anyways....given that the games nights are fun and I'd like to keep getting invited Plus it would ultimately leave my friend (as well as my new friends) responsible and I wouldn't want to see them get pooched over because of me anyways. Not about to go burning my bridges, so to speak. I did just start an internship on a project (ScriptEase) that does have a relatively close relationship to Bioware, given the nature of the project.

Everytime you quote Hudson, I like you a little more In any case, it's probably no longer prudent for me to actually comment anymore "

I think Fable's may have actually been cut content. At the very least, cut at some point, but perhaps not quite as much as KOTOR 2 in terms of finished product.

I'm hoping some sweet games are announced. Some more info on Spore would be nice too....it's really the only game I'm looking forward to. I am kind of curious if Bioware has made any substantial advances with respect to Dragon Age as well.

Hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up Task Manager, and click on performance. Once your Page File usage at? Also, while you're here, there's something else that may work. When you are running the game, open up task manager and find the vampire process under the Processes tab. Right-Click on it, and select Set Priority and set it to one level above normal (appropriately called "Above Normal" if it truly is a CPU load issue, this *should* fix it, as it will give extra CPU cycles to the Vampire thread if it needs it (which I'm sure it could use, since running games can be pretty strenuous). Note, whatever you do, don't accidentally click on Realtime, because it means that ALL of your resources will go towards Vampire. As a result, I'm not even sure if you'd be able to get back into the game as there'd be no resources to handle Alt-Tabbing back into the game....I don't even think your mouse will move. The only way your other processes will get more CPU usage is if the game doesn't require ALL of the resources....and I wouldn't count on that Though to be honest, I'm not too optimistic that that will work either. You mention that it's limited to speech only. Perhaps exploring new audio drivers, or changing the hardware acceleration level of your audio chip would net some additional improvements as well. I'm kind of stumped as your problem is pretty isolated.

I saw a bit of the game, and New York was taking them to the cleaners.

To be honest, going down to 2 Gigs shouldn't really make a difference. I'm just sort of under the impression you get limited gains from going beyond it. Though you did mention that going to 2.5 GB did make other things act wierd, so I don't know. Try a HD defrag What's your swap file usage while running the game?

I enjoyed the second one. It's the only one I've played though.

A classy one! Any chance to wear a tuxedo! *looks up his closest formal wear store*

Did someone just say that a computer game cost a mere couple of thousand dollars to make in 1996? And that it's not much more expensive today?

So why would they want to develop it in house? I'm not sure if the fact that they didn't provide much post-production support as being very solid evidence that they would want to develop it in house.

That may be true, but it's not how the memory architecture works. I doubt that that is how memory modules are sold as well, especially seeing as they typically follow binary patterns (you can buy 128MB, 256MB, but you can't just go to the store and buy a 200 MB module). Also, given the context of my statement, with respect to memory, 2 GB is indeed 2048 MB using binary notation. The interpretation I was under the impression of (and I could very well be wrong), is that it's not uncommon for upper addresses to be reserved for the kernel. The reason for this is because extensive memory managers that I've seen typically place the kernel near 0x8--------- for it's intial start. (This has always been wierd for me, because if you didn't have 2 GB of memory, technically you'd never hit 0x8------- because 0x80000000 is the start of the 2048GB......if someone else is more in the know, then please correct me).

It's something tha only a coder would most likely understand. There can be certain parts of code in a game for example that are so clever, and work so beautifully that it can be appriciated as being art, because it's been constructed with such skill, and such imagination. Yet the end user usually doesn't see this, and better still, the end user can't even tell that he's probably being tricked! As for that efficiant memory management algorithm, that works like magic, well nobody even notices. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I am a coder. Even still, this wouldn't explain why only good programming is considered. Especially if your programming is visible to the user, such as GUI programming. Yes much of it is hidden, but if you're going to include programming, then I'd wonder why only "good" programming would be considered.

yes, they were PRODUCED in-house. I'm talking about DEVELOPED and produced and with an LA employee writing the storyline. I'm not saying it should happen. I'm just saying that I believe a number of LA employees are pushing for that and that is one reason we haven't heard anything. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Err, couldn't you say that about any outsourced project?

Err, that's just because of the messed up binary system. A kilobyte is 2^10 bytes, or 1024 bytes. A megabyte is 2^20 bytes, or 1024 kilobytes. When people refer to 1 GB, they are referring to the 1024 megabytes, not 1000 megabytes.

I like the idea of steam. They just underestimated it for HL2 launch. I bought the collector's edition, and it was quite frustrating to wait upwards of an hour just for the game to unlock. Eventually it just timed out, said it would let me play on a provisional basis, and would ask for me to log in at a later time.

What happens if you cut back to 2 GB?

Did it make a good difference? EDIT: 2.5 GB of RAM?? Once you pass 2 GB, don't you start to see diminishing returns given how kernels (in my exceptionally limited experience) tend to reserve the upper block of memory exclusively for the kernel (given the 4GB maximum....assuming you're living in the world of 32-bits).

That would make sense, given that the first two KOTOR games were made in house. ....