Diogo Ribeiro

I'd flip the bird and walk away.

Vaporware sequel to the vaporware of the decade! A whole new ghost product for a whole new generation of hype lovers!

What's a video card? Something wicked happened; it isn't the first time it does although I wasn't expecting one to happen at this point. Still, it's common to get one of these every single year without exception. The computer was still functioning, at least the welcoming jingle of XP Home was heard when I turned the PC on and it reached the desktop. Problem is, nothing could actually be seen as the entire screen was black. After some quick testing with whatever I could test it with, I found out the only way to fix it was to format the main drive and reinstall XP. Did it, so it's all back online; fortunately I had made copies of some of the more important stuff last week. Problem is I can't get a hold of any other videocard at the moment. The arcane Voodoo PCI cards were no longer working at all, and the only other PC in the house other than mine used onboard graphics. I can't actually make decent testing because not only does the other PC also is plugged into another monitor of the same brand and model as mine, I seem to be lacking a cable that allows me to plug directly between any of the monitors and my mobo. If I had one, I could have also used that yesterday to try and solve the problem, possibly without formatting. I checked for problems and I didn't find any sign of damage on either the motherboard or the graphics card. I also doublechecked every fan, and they're working. Only thing left to check out is the power supply but I'm not entirely sure of what tests I could run with it.

Being clear and being expressed are two different things. The problem with pre-written dialogue is that you know how you want to develop your character's personality but can't always express it due to constrains in the limited forms of expression the game presents in that particular field; still, it's possible to eschew a personality type based on how you are allowed to react. On the other hand, with keywoards or topics you know how you want to develop your character but generally you're given no form of expression at all in that field; it's not just about being limited in forms of expressing personality - simply put, there is no hint of personality at all. Hence why I said I agreed with you regarding the inherent deficiencies of pre-written dialogue. Which is exactly why it fails to reveal personality, and to allow you to express it. A character can be persuasive trough charismatic manipulation, brute force, monetary rewards, threats and such. With 'wikitalk', most of the time you're unable to understand how the threat is made; different characters trying to approach a situation in any of the afforementioned ways won't ever feel different at all. What enables you to distinguish the silver tongue of a diplomat between the hamfisted threat of body harm from a barbarian if the threat is never explained, if the character never utters it? I find no merit in that; it leads to the support or advocation of using imagination in lieu of actual structure to the game's dialogue, which barely fits computer roleplaying games; much less roleplaying in computer roleplaying games.

There is no apparent damage to the card that I can see. Though there was an ungodly amount of dirt on the inside of the PC, which I promptly cleaned up. Your plan was going well until the "reinstall the card and update to the latest drivers" part, however; after uninstalling the video adapter and restaring the computer I can't access Windows. I mean I can, only the lack of drivers don't allow me to see anything. I like the strategy, though, it's like curing a headache with a severed arm; eventually the arm wound will hurt more than the head and therefore minimize it

Saw Danny the Dog yesterday. Bah.

How are you actually playing out your character's personality with keywords as the only verbal manifestation of any character attitude or personality trait? You may want to argue about how pre-written dialogue lines are not allowing for much character roleplaying as they are few and limited in style and function - which I agree with - but single keywords or topics are worse because they don't even hint at any personality at all. The illusion of choice in regards to roleplaying is heightened by familiar character traits one can ascribe to his or her characters found in these pre-written lines; you want to play the angsty type, there's a dialogue option that enables the character to express himself as such. Want to be just, honor-bound, uphold good? It's there. Maybe relay to others that your character will eat their livers with a nice Chianti and some fava beans? It's there. But what can you convey, character-wise, while choosing generic topics or words? The problem often found in that kind of method, and which was largely noticeable in games like Wizardry 8 and Morrowind, is that choosing topics or keywords will almost always generate a barebones question made by the PC that involves said topics or keywords, which the NPC will react in his or her own way. There's no personality at all in that; no chance to tell the gameworld "hey, this is how my character reacts or feels". At the end of the day, the PC comes off as an empty shell which doesn't manifest beyond goblin smashing or item fetching.

Additional info which I don't understand: VCore Voltage - 1.72V +3.3V - 3.20 +5 - 4.80 +12 - 12.90

Also, I checked my memory frequency as well and it's set to Auto too. Available values are 200, 266, 333 or 400 Mhz, the later not being applicable to my rig.

Oy, where to begin? @metadigital: Are the 6.2 drivers the most recent? My ATi Control Center reports I'm using the 0.63 Catalyst :ph34r: I'll try the Omega drivers though, see if something changes for the better. At least it can't get worse, right? Thanks @Fionavar: All those are fine, I've double checked them to see how things are and they're all well placed. It rarely seem to heat up; common temperatures for the motherboard are between 29 and 32

I've got one of them.

Let's imagine the system. The motherboard is an ASUS A7V8X. It's got 768 RAM into it. On the BIOS, the AGP Aperture Size is set to 256 MB, and the AGP Speed is set to 8x. The internal clock speed, while able to be overclocked up to 1.8 Ghz and 2.2 Ghz, is currently set to its default speed - ~1.3. Ghz. The graphics card is an ATi Radeon Power Color X800 Pro. Currently Catalyst version installed is 6.3; display driver is 6.4. The monitor is a Sony SDM S93 19'' (TFT). All is plugged in correctly, everything works; cables, fans, everything. No overclocking is being done. Graphical options are all set to maximum performance instead of maximum quality. All DirectX diagnostics report no problems whatsoever. The motherboard's BIOS version is not updated however, because the update provides no noticeable benefits to performance and locks certain options in the BIOS, such as placing AGP Aperture Size set to 32 MB and not letting me toggle it. But it's not enough. While playing there is a common problem; eventually the screen goes black and the monitor reports an 'Out of Range' message, or something else suggesting the PC is not turned on - but it is. While in this state, the game is still being executed in the background, and it is only a few seconds later that the sound stutters suggesting it locked, and only a push of the Reset button will 'fix' it. Lowering AGP Aperture Size or Speed in the BIOS does nothing to solve this; at best, it grants an extra minute or two of playtime before the same happens. Initially I thought it could be a problem with the computer's fans, but they are all working, even during this problem. The CPU isn't heating up otherwise it would shut itself down; and when I restart it the temperature shown in the BIOS is within standard range. Any ideas on what's happening? Is there anything that might be conflicting?

You need to find a camera in the game to begin with; there's one in C.J.'s house (upper portion, in his room) at the beginning in Grove Street. There's also several spread out across the game; in San Fierro many of the places where you can take pictures have a nearby camera, even. You use it like you use most weapons in the game: you activate it and just click on where you want to take the picture. Activate the camera and it switches to a firstperson styled vision, where you can look around. Then just press the attack or fire button - it will take the picture and save it to the folder. You can only take pictures when on solid ground; trying to photograph while in water or while flying won't work.

Why halo thar! I use the Print Screen button on my keyboard to take pictures; then I just Alt-Tab the game and open an image editing program (I use Photoshop), then create a new image with what's in its memory. Some pictures however, I take them with the ingame camera. When I take a picture that way - as was the case with the "God is playing with us" case - it is stored on a subfolder in the same folder as the game's save folder (usually GTA San Andreas User Files\Gallery).

Watch it bring you to your shun n,n,n,n,,n,n,,n,n,n,,n,n,,n knees, knees! Ugh! Auwha!

They should. Can't get more real than that.

I believe they call them features instead.

Apparently not going to see Munich today anymore. Hmm.

The tendency to keep bringing up past glories as if that somehow would matter to present-day concerns. If I see one more RTP1 broadcast with footage that's older than a decade, I'm gonna turn into Manuel Subtil #2. In fact, I pretty much avoid national television right now partially because of that; the only thing I watch their are series like Lost, The Shield or Dr. House.

And in the process do so in a way that does not fit their agenda. If it's assumed that somehow homosexuality or rather, those who express themselves as being homosexuals being in a repressed minority - which I disagree with, because what we're witnessing is prejudice against established social conventions which are wrongfully thought of as laws of nature, prejudice which apparently has no bearing on the affirmative action taken by increasingly more and more people (which in itself contradicts the essence of minorities as it is slowly becoming less of a minority) - it isn't beneficial to manifest themselves in a way that corresponds to common misinterpretations of them. They want to remove prejudices based on unfounded categorizations or beliefs of them; not to reenforce them. They can't celebrate that right if they claim they haven't acquired it yet; or is it a celebration that refers to every single successful step that promotes their agenda? Nonetheless it is a flawed therapy because the right to be open towards anything that goes against social conventions will always be met with bigotry and repression, wheter for good or bad and wheter we agree of disagree with it. To me, the right to be openly gay is a falacious issue because they have the right to be gay; they always had the right. They are not forbidden of being gay by no man or no law. However, the right to the expression of any person's mind, behavior or belief is not isempt of criticism or opposition. As such, people have the right to exercise free will and free speech - but they can't expect to be free of consequence. We can't deny someone's free will (in this case someone who would oppose homosexuality) because it goes against that of other individuals (in this case someone who supports it). We can, however, make sure divergences are kept in check and do not outweigh the concerns and integrity both physical or moral of either side. All I've done is said things how they are, although not all want to see them as such. I don't think this is necessarily utopian as I do not find it impractical as a standalone truth nor as a concept applied in a social reform. Curiosly, given our nature, I find the erradication of bigotry and repression to be much more utopian than the acceptance we're all human beings who are capable of loving each other. The problem is, in the eyes of those which are supposed to be made more tolerant of open sexuality, do 'gay pride' parades come off as meaningful opinion-changing vehicules or histrionic nonsense? While I don't mean to use anedoctal evidence, the fact is I've yet to encounter people who believe these parades to be anything but the later.

Tsk, tsk. You're way out of Kansas.

Haven't seen V for Vendetta yet, although it seems much of the positive aspects of it come from what was left intact from the original graphic novel. As an adaptation I suspect it will be bare bones. Recently saw War of the Worlds, today I'm going to see Munich.

And then we'd all embarassingly giggle when someone used the acronym three times in a row. It would be better than Dorothy's mantra.

Can you smell the despair of gaming publications trying to come up with new genre or genre definitions to try and stay afloat and remain relevant?