taks

it's not an NWN2 option. only through your windows control panel can you set it. right click on your desktop. click the "Settings" tab. click the "Advanced" button at the bottom. one of the tabs will be either "GeForce <whatever>" or something similar for ATI. if it's a GeForce, click that tab and a little sticky will pop up on the left. the top option will be "GeForce FX <whatever>". click that and then "Performance & Quality Settings." there will be several things on the next screen, including a scroll-bar list titled "Settings" under the "Global driver settings" box. scroll down to "Vertical sync" and click it. at the bottom, a slider will appear with another check-box that says "Application-controlled." uncheck that box and move the slider to the left (or wherever the "off" position is). taks

all those problems existed looooong before rumsfeld. the new era of journalism simply found it out. i wouldn't call rummy a war-monger, either. his goal was a small, light, and fast military. i.e., he wanted as few troops as possible in iraq. unfortunately, i think we needed to be a HUGE presence early on to discourage the so-called "insurgency" from neighboring countries and from within the various opposing clans in iraq itself. lessons learned that i hope we don't forget. taks

i agree, btw, that rumsfeld should have resigned before now. his plan has now had enough time to be seen as a failure, or at least not a success. taks

true, though the "win-at-all-cost mentality" not only creates, but also attracts power hungry politicians. that's the biggest problem with politics, IMO, as those that have the substance to deal with the political rat-race, typically are not the sorts that average people would care to have over for dinner. taks

ayup. they need to default v-sync to off, IMO. many, many posters have seen the same improvements from this. taks

that also represents the most populous areas... and most of them were a dead even split (as with most of the country) during the last election. this was definitely payback from the "swing vote" which is, by definition, very moderate and, not surprisingly, the majority of voters. taks

unfortunately, if the voters decide to "re-teach" the GOP in a couple years, we'll likely end up with more of the same, just a different party doing the filching. jacob sallum has a good opinion piece in the gazette today. during unified control, gov't grows by 5.3% (on average) per year. during split control, only 1.7% per year. eisenhower and clinton both served during splits, and both got credit for low growth, though it was ultimately due to the fact that nothing gets passed as a result of party differences. perverse as it may seem, it tends to work for the better. in the end, it is politicians to blame, not parties. anytime one mentality/ideology gets total control, the people suffer at its hands. taks

oops, i may have my frames numbers backwards. i can't check at the moment. i know for sure, however, that with complete minimum settings, there's a point in act 2 where you're in a water filled cave. i got 15 at best in there. fortunately, there wasn't much going on in said cave. taks

have you both checked your control panel option for v-sync? that doubled my performance immediately. i think v-sync is good for FPS games where tearing is an issue, but not with this game. also, turn off shadows and cut your lights down. i have mine set to 3. another issue i've commonly seen is with games running in the same resolution as your normal windows settings. conflicts from running any game with different settings seem to cause problems. taks

both. taks

uh, that still hinges on VA or MT, right? dems need both i think. i was surprised, btw, that jim talent lost in MO. i got the impression he was well liked there. it was a close race, however. taks

i think they've already done that... howard dean is proof they may stay _fairly_ moderate, however, because they want hillary in the president's seat in 2 years. she's moved center to attract the swing vote, so we'll see. taks

sit at home drinking and smoking. hehe, but no, they aren't going to go in just to bitch about the ban. it has measurably hurt every bar i've been in (across the country) where smoking is not allowed. yes, believe it or not, i ask, and i do get around the country due to my job. some, yes. but by nature, these aren't big drinkers, either. the bars that get hit are the types of places where very regular crowds go. demographically speaking, they are big drinkers and smokers. over time that may change, of course, it's only been 4 months so it is hard to say for sure. taks

no kidding. i tell you what, if the republicans lose the senate, too, it will be interesting come the next presidential election. should the democrats wind up with the same level of dominance, things won't get any better. they'll have free reign to spend. kyoto money pit here we come... ugh. taks

actually, it does. not larger bars (i.e. nightclubs), but the smaller mom and pop bars are the ones that take the hit. the biggest hit being the day crowd that comes in to have a few beers, smoke a pack of cigarrettes and relax after a hard day of watching soaps. unfortunately, that is not really the case, either, at least from what i have seen. the people that supported smoking bans simply aren't bar patrons, either. taks

true they tend to be of the wacko sort often, though i don't agree with the comparison to socialism. libertarians are diehard capitalists that agree with most everything else that would be labelled "liberal." (technically, "liberal" w.r.t. economics is capitalist so they're truly "liberal" in every respect). taks

i wish they had put in a count capability for purchasing stackables. i hated that in NWN1 and likewise with NWN2. early on, there are not many cure potions above moderate, so you have to buy 10 or 20 for each of your combat buddies. takes a while in the store... taks

yes, it would. probably most actually. otherwise, it is an improvement over NWN1 in my opinion simply because you have full mouse-look (er, of sorts, "mouse-look" is usually a first-person term). taks

which patch? i have both 1.01 and 1.02 and no issues so far. they pulled the 2nd due to MP server issues and i haven't checked to see if it has been reissued. so far, no crashes, very few real bugs, and a lot of fun on nearly 25 hours of play. there are minor bugs (like my selected character running towards a selected item and suddenly jumping back 20 feet), but nothing game stopping and nothing that causes problems. my current settings are: low shadows, no water effects, medium textures, no bloom, no "normal texture mapping" (or whatever that box is), 1024x768 @ 85 Hz (i assume 85 Hz as that's my normal for windows), linear on all the filtering. 45+ fps outdoors and nearly 60 fps indoors except around water which seems to be a hog even with effects turned off. fortunately there isn't much water to worry about. oh, v-sync is turned off in the nVidia control panel. taks

a federal court just ruled that such bans are an unconstitutional meddling into private business rights (i think in texas, which is the 5th, or 3rd district?). anyway, that precedent will be hard to get rid of and may result in many of these bans being overturned. colorado's included, which is soon before our federal courts. taks

my sentiments exactly. well, mostly. i don't think the monroe doctrine really holds anymore with such global interaction, but there are certainly alternatives to the way it has been. the good thing about democrats in the house is now we have a power split. nothing will get passed. that means even the new-age "tax and spend republicans" will not get to spend money like water (which has been the case). face it, tax revenues after the tax cut are up incredibly, much more than the so-called "experts" predicted. that's what a booming economy does for tax revenue. unfortunately, the republicans have taken it as their cause to spend all that revenue rather than concentrate on eliminating debt. ugh. taks

first guess would be power supply. PS failures would not be caught by winders, others sometimes are and a note appears during reboot. e.g., when my 8237 HDD controller chip died, i got a read failure notification on startup. i switched to the other on-board chip and it went away. the LAN Mac addy and DMI issue on immediate reboot, however, is a puzzle. i wouldn't think a PS failure would do that. i say PS otherwise, because 425 W is cutting it close with the HW you have under load, particularly since many of those watts are dedicated to supply rails you probably are not stressing. oh, what happens if you load a large file into something like adobe or office? taks

did you play hardcore, or normal rules, alanschu? i'm guessing hardcore is a bit of a pain for a spellcaster given the swarm mentality of the enemy AI. taks

i've put in around 20+ hours so far and i just started act 2. assuming this act is as long as the first, and the third is the short one (typically the case), i'm expecting in the 40-50 hour range. about half the time i click through the scripted scenes, btw. taks

neeshka has some really funny banter with khelgar... "oooh, me stomach feels funny" had me rolling... anyway, i'm at level 12 i think (haven't played since sunday, fell asleep on the couch last night). just started act 2. traps are actually deadly enough for lowly mage HPs, volourn. indeed i'm the fool for rushing headlong down every corridor, but hey, i've got places to go, baddies to slay, etc. i'm definitely going to play a different combo of NPCs next time, however. i'm also going to go about this differently from a plot standpoint. i've worked myself into some law-abiding do-gooder striving to join the 9 i think. hehe... taks