DigeratiPrime

I've never heard of it assisting in 'encoding' video, only in decoding hence UVD (Unified Video Decoder). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Video_Decoder Same is true for Purevideo. There is software like Nvidia Gelato which uses the gpu for rendering though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelato_%28software%29

so your new rig is slower at 3dmark03 than the older one? is that score 20580 for the 8600 GTS? Can you give us the rest of the info on that score, that is the shader score, pixel fill score, etc.

My advice is to buy what you need for now instead of trying to future proof in which case then you are paying for capability that you cannot use until the future when stuff will be cheaper. In other words I'd recommend buying a 8600 GT/GTS or HD 2600 XT and with the money you saved you can buy a better card later and much sooner than if you buy the 8800 GTS.

First I would stop using that hard drive if you have not already to prevent data from being written over. For recovery I recommend R-Studio but you should also look through this topic: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=98522

If you are interested in a "HD Ready" video card then you dont want an 8800 series card, the 8600 series is actually superior for HD video. http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_hd.html Problem with Purevideo HD is it only works on Vista atm, nVidia is taking too long to get it on XP. AMD/ATI UVD for the Radeon HD 2000 series is better than PureVideo HD. UVD already works in Windows XP, has full support for VC-1 decoding, and all HD 2000 cars also are required to support HDCP and HDMI and have 5.1 sound.

Thats a waste imo, you don't need that many watts. You're overlooking Quality and Efficiency. That whole system you described including the 8800 GTS, which you also probably don't need, would only need 300-400 watts at most at load. also as brucevangeorge points out what are you using the pc for? If you are not a 'hardcore gamer' whatever that means, why do you want a 8800 GTS? That can only be justified for gaming at large resolutions, think 22" monitors and up. 7 120mm fans is just overkill, I bet a lot of the fans are fighting against each other just wasting electricity and making noise, you could probably cut that down to a few fans and it would probably help it cool better or same with less noise.

I remember I almost did a report on a program like this in college, I decided against it when I realized it would not work against a hardware keylogger which intercepts keys before they get into the computer.

somehow i missed that poll and its only a couple months old really :-)

Added Picasa as a poll option and made the poll multiple choice. Also I guess I cannot vote (for XnView) since I created the poll. Btw I am using the minimal version with the Mezich skin. Options: dont show tab bar when only one tab, arrow keys for navigation, associations. I like it because its free/opensource, updated often, renders fast, zooms with the mouse wheel, and more.

Yes FLAC files are larger (because you are not removing parts of the audio) and is not as pervasive as mp3 (nothing else is). The first is a problem of storage capacity which I see as increasingly irrelevant as time goes by. The second is a problem of awareness, the point of my first post. I predict that eventually people will demand lossless audio, because they will want quality that is par with cds and something their sound systems can take advantage of. I say start using FLAC now and in the future you will not have to re rip your cds or purchase your music all over again.

I am curious what image viewer software people are using. I was using the default 'Windows Picture and Fax Viewer' for XP until a few days ago when I switched to XnView. What prompted me to switch was trying to find a replacement for the new Photo Viewer for Vista because it was slow, did not support animated gifs, and consumed a lot of space on the screen.

just an fyi mp3 is now more than 15 years old, there are much better formats with better quality, features, performance, and some that are license free. Unfortunately mp3 has become synonymous with "music file" for most people and while this has been good for adoption and compatibility it's time to move on imo. I recommend FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). One of the great things about going 'lossless' is you can transcode without losing quality and can easily upgrade to better encoders in the future without having to rerip everything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flac

Considering the # of Vista hotfixes available so far, and the # of post SP2 hotfixes for XP it doesn't seem right. MS is really trying to hold off XP SP3 imo, at least give us a rollup. Anyway looking forward to SP1 for Vista, looks like it will fix some big problems.

there is probably an option in the bios to disable "press a key to continue on error" or something similiar.

I think JPEG has got to go, it is so poor I don't use it for anything anymore; instead I use PNG which is lossless. Unfortunately most digital cameras are using this poor image format because of its popularity, much like 'mp3'. Moving to modern compression schemes is really the best way to improve fidelity for image and audio imo. Ultimately for 'professional' digital cameras a format that supports RAW is the best because it is the original data "undeveloped" and permits for powerful software to develop and edit the photos.

thanks jcarle looks like a nice inexpensive keyboard, might pick one up.

which keyboard is that jcarle?

heres a list of links, sorry if this is already posted: 90830-V1.31.exe KB929123-x86.msu KB929916-x86.msu KB930857-x86.msu KB930955-x86.msu KB931099-x86.msu KB931213-x86.msu KB931573-x86.msu KB931836-x86.msu KB933928-x86.msu KB935280-x86.msu KB935652-x86.msu KB935807-x86.msu KB936824-x86.msu KB936825-x86.msu

alot of these answers can be find in the Skype Knowledgebase http://support.skype.com/?_a=knowledgebase...subcat&_i=5

We really need more info on what else is going to be in the pc. I recommend this one though, $50 shipped at EagleBit, I got one from them a couple weeks ago, shipping was slow but an excellent deal. Seasonic S12 330W P4 Prescott & Athlon 64/64FX ATX Power Supply http://www.eaglebit.com/Seasonic_S12_330W_...b-460-00102.htm Its over $65 shipped from NewEgg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817151021 here is a good product review http://www.silentpcreview.com/article596-page1.html

There is a patcher here, not sure if it works on both 32bit and 64bit though http://www.kood.org/terminal-server-patch/ There is a patch for Vista 64bit http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?opt...&Itemid=232

only one registry key is needed to skip the initial WMP11 wizard, this makes WMP11 open instantly the first time with default settings Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences] "AcceptedPrivacyStatement"=dword:00000001

correct me if I am wrong but so far 'Ultimate Extras' is just an additional two wallpapers. http://windowsultimate.com/files/folders/u...ds/default.aspx more themes would be good; Aero is ok, and Basic is fugly imo.

nice detective work nuhi

I thought that 'Windows' was being dropped and future OS's would have a different name? Not that it really matters. It should have some inspiration from the Office 2007 ribbon: http://apcmag.com/6741/new_ui_for_windows_7