Polarman

If you are using PeferctDisk 8 (like me), there's a new build out. Press update within program because it's not on website yet. What's new in PerfectDisk build 8.00.66: PerfectDisk Command Center: Setting License Key Wizard in non-wizard mode (Tab Mode) did not work correctly. This has been fixed. We corrected a bug in thread pool on console which could have caused the Console to crash in high activity conditions. PerfectDisk Client: When Bitlocker was enabled, boot time defrag passes would abort since bitlocker prevented updating certain files. PerfectDisk has worked around this issue. We corrected a bug in memory allocation when performing boot-time defrag passes on X64 processors. We changed the boot-time defrag Verify stage to allow the bad cluster file to point to cluster which do not reside on the disk. This can occur if the volume was resized after bad clusters where identified. PerfectDisk will no longer display drives which cannot be defragmented. We will only display fixed drives formatted NTFS, FAT, or FAT32. We corrected a bug in the file exclusion enumeration. In earlier versions we would have attempted to move files in the System Volume Information folder even though they were excluded. This was do to the fact that these files did not allow the LocalSystem account to open them so the name could be converted to a File ID. This bug has been corrected.

I may have found a bug that i can reproduce in Vista. I had Windows Media Center open watching TV, IE7 viewing stuff and i opened CPU-Z(141) to look at something and the computer froze. Retried 2 more time with same condition and i had the same results. To reproduce this bug you need Vista and a TV decoder card (i have a TVWonder650). If anyone can make the same test, i'd like to know if you had the same problem. If results can confirm my bug, i will report this to M$.

I bought Titan Quest (Gold Edition) yesterday at EBGames. For 29.99$(Can), you have the original game plus the expansion on a single DVD (english). On top of that, you get the original game (french) plus the expansion (french) both on CD including a soundtrack CD. All patched to the latest version with manuals in english and french. Pretty good deal i'd say. Everything installed fine. Started Immortal throne and ajusted my resolution at 1680X1050 leaving the settings at medium for now and started caracter. The game loaded and as soon as i talk to the first NPC in sight, the game froze with a high pitched sound. Could not stop it, so i rebooted. Tried again. same thing. Tried diffrent ways with same results. I shut down my pc and took out my Audigy 2ZS and uninstalled everything relating to creative labs. Then i got the realtek HD enabled and installed the 1.80 drivers. I retry the game and success. But the success was short lived around half an hour of gameplay later... Game freezes again but without the high pitched sound like the audigy before. Tried again changing some visual and audio settings reduce with the same results (~30 min of gameplay). This is using Vista Home Edition 32. Clean install + all recent drivers + November DirectX. I did this saturday. TQ was the second game that i installed. First was Heroes 4 and that one works. I'm going to email them about this issue. But i'd like to know if there is any of you out there using TQ on Vista? Any problems? Solutions? Fixes? Comments?

After a month of poking around Vista 64 bit, i finally made my decision. This a quote from Paul Thurrott's Supersite: Final thoughts Unfortunately, I have to give the same basic advice about Vista x64 that I provided last year: If you have to ask, if you're unsure whether you should be using Vista x64, then the basic conclusion is still the same: You shouldn't be running Vista x64. That said, Vista x64 is considerably more viable now than it was a year ago. And it's moving quickly into the mainstream, though it's not quite there yet. For the coming year, gamers, digital content creators, CAD-CAM workers, science and engineering users, and other power users who will run into the 4 GB ceiling in 32-bit versions of Windows are ideal candidates for Vista x64. These types of users understand the risks and the limitations of the x64 platform and don't really need my advice anyway. Enjoy the headroom. Typical consumers, however, should stay away from Vista x64 for now. Though hardware and software compatibility has improved dramatically in the past year, normal users will get frustrated by the one or two incompatible applications or devices that are likely to occur. It's just not worth it. Not yet. Maybe next year. --Paul Thurrott October 24, 2007 I had made my decison way before i read this article. He's right anyway. Vista 64 bit is not quite there yet. So here i am now running the 32 bit version again. And everything is working to my likings. Of course, Vista is only reporting 3071MB instead of 4095MB that i have installed. I don't care, i can live with it. Like i said in a previous post, If all your software,hardware and games are 32 bit, There is no real reason to install 64 bit.

1.77 GB download. Ouch! I'll pass and wait for the real deal.

I'll put this one on my "will buy list"

I got 2 Antec Smart Cool fans. One in front and one the side. They turn on when they need too. Extra quiet. More expensive. http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=75008

Custom built web page with all my usual links and drivers.

Coke here (Cans only)

As of today, this add-on cost 1.89$ Hope you got it before.

Wrong area, go in vlite plz

Found this tip on VistaX64.com How to Fix a Slow Scan with the Software Option in a Registry Cleaner Program for 64 bit Vista WHY: The Software scan option for your registry cleaning program is extremely slow (taking hours) and generating large incomprehensible results. CAUSE: The registry has a second Wow6432Node key entry that is a blank duplicate causing this problem for the software option. It should not be in the registry. NOTE: You should check for a update for your registry cleaning program to see if they found a solution to make their program work with this problem. CREDIT: Credit belongs to BOWEN and bugfree at this link: http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPo...1&SiteID=17 Here's How: (As a precaution you should create a system restore or backup the registry) 1. Open the Start Menu. 2. In white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter. 3. Click Continue button for UAC prompt. 4. In regedit, go to this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Wow6432Node 5. In left pane, right click Wow6432Node and click Delete. WARNING: Make sure you only delete this second Wow6432Node, or you will trash your system. 6. Click Yes to the confirmation 7. Close regedit I have personnaly tried this fix using RegSupremePro 1.7 and it solved my slow scan issue. It only takes a minute or two now. This could work other regcleaner too.

I downloaded Hellgate London Demo to try it out. It's big 1.45GB This is suppose to be the next Diablo-ish RPG but more in FPS style from the original creators of Diablo. Since it's only a demo, i had some mixed feelings about it. It's interesting in way but it lacks in others. I played too much D2 i guess. The levels in the demo felt a bit claustrophobic and bland. It would have been more interesting to be more open ended. Same tileset repetion. Choose your weapons... Guns or Swords. I hope the real game has better choices. The sword killing action and the overall movements did not feel convincing. The action would have been pretty awesome if it was more like God of War. Palladium = Gold. Go figure. Where's my loot chest? How about that! You can walk trough any NPC's! You can even get Wirt's Leg? To bad the demo did not have a tome of TP's to open the cow level. NPC's are bad actors. Apparently, the real game has a level cap of 50. This seems small, I like 99 better. I reached level 5 in the demo. I don't know how much time you have to invest to reach 50. Online MP at 10$ a month to get updated contents once in a while. Mmmm... In my opinion, Unless the real game (not the demo) can influence hardcore D2 fans, they will not jump the guns that easely. Going from Isometric view to FPS view is a big gamble. I remember when ULTIMA 8 came out. Fans were outraged! I have a hard time to imagine PVP in this game. Bill Roper and his crew should have focused more on a real Diablo 3, because that what every fan has been waiting for since 1998. When Sacred came out in 2004, it was regarded as the next D3. But too many flaws and the D2 die hard fans kept it from reaching a golden status. I have Sacred Gold and it's a fantastic game. I really hope Sacred 2 can recapture more of the lost glory. I'll give the Hellgate London demo 6/10.

Another recent article here: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2160 It's basicly the same results. No real improvement.

Vista runs slower with PAE Mode enabled because of the new page-translation system. By default Vista uses 2 cycles to address memory, and it will use 3 when Physical Address Extension is enabled.

All i have to say is: BUY ONE WITH A MANUAL MODE! See picture for example: Las Vegas Night shot from Top of Eiffel tower, Paris Hotel (f2.8, 4sec using my Kodak DX6490)

The latest bios 1.7 (for my mobo) is set by default to see 4GB. Earlier bios like 1.5 was worse. PCI devices always "steal" RAM, even on a system with less memory. You just don't notice it because PCI devices are usually sitting at an address beyond the end of physical memory. Most PCI devices are memory mapped. This means they are mapped to a memory address. If the CPU wants to talk to your Sound Card, it reads and write to a certain memory address, which happens to be where your Sound Card is listening. The memory address that your device uses is determined by the BIOS at boot time (the operating system can remap the device later). The device can claim anywhere from 0 to 6 memory regions, and they can be just about any size. Exactly how many memory regions, and their size can vary greatly by the device. Ethernet cards tend to use very little. Graphics cards, however, can use a lot. Graphics cards have a lot of onboard RAM, and that RAM can be often addressed by the PCI bus. If you have a video card with 256MB of RAM, it may claim a 256MB window on the PCI bus. Some controllers claim a lot of address space as well. If you want to see the addresses claimed on your system, go to Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager. Click View - Resources by Type. Expand the memory selection. You should see all the memory-mapped devices in your system, and what they claim. If you have a 4GB limit, your system needs to make all of the devices, and your RAM fit. That's why you see less RAM. If it didn't allocate enough address space for your hardware, the device wouldn't work (which would be really bad). So, it does the safe thing, and give you less ram in the process. Remeber that most PCI devices are 32-bit only, so they have to live at an address below 0xFFFFFFFF. There are also 64-bit PCI devices that can be mapped to addresses above 4GB, but that's another story.

Even if i'm not an Nvidia user, here's my opinion anyway. For my part, i use Crossfire. The 2 cards (X1950pro) were pretty cheap when i bought them and it does work good in Vista. The 8800 GTS is/was more expensive than mine. I do know that your single card is about the same performance as my Crossfire setup. So you have a pretty good GFX card. I have excellent playing power with my stuff, so i don't think yours is any slower. I don't think SLI would improve your gaming experiance very much. I don't know if Nvidia managed to fix their SLI problems with Vista. You'd have to check that out. Of course, I you go for it, you would have to purchase a SLI capable PSU. Spending spree!!!

It's not a trial. Google "Fighter's Stronghold" and see for yourself. "Bethesda Softworks announced today that they will release the latest and last downloadable content for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Monday, Oct. 15. Called Fighter's Stronghold, the content will be free for one week via elderscrolls.com (for PC) and Xbox Live (for Xbox 360)."

Beside using a 128MB and a 512MB for my digital camera, i don't have a USB key. I was curious about if any users out there uses those things and to find out what experiences they could share. This might help anyone willing to invest in a USB key. Like me

According to my bios (see picture), i have 4096MB and Vista 64 reports the same. So far so good. But the bios is reporting that my actual usage memory is only 3072MB. Apparantly, The reason for this is that the decreased memory is distributed to PCI bus by the chipset. So Vista 64 reports 4GB but still only uses only 3GB or does it use it all? Can you shed some light on this?

Just saw this for Oblivion. Bethesda has released the Fighter's Stronghold official plugin for Oblivion. This plugin is completely free for one week, after which it will require purchase. http://elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_...stronghold.html

i Remeber in 1993 when i bought my first 386. 1 MB of ram = 70$ (Can) Today you can have 2GB for less.

Most of the 64bit software today are marketed more towards high end applications for large businesses and such. They possess a lot more $$$ than a average joe like me. So they can actually pay privately some company to develop 64 bit specifically for their purposes. The only true 64 bit software left for the small time consumer are few. I could be mistaking here. And even if i were, would you re-buy all those apps that already work in 32 bit just to have them in the 64bit flavor ? I would'nt. I already spent enough and they work fine. I remember Half Life 2 and Far Cry 64 bit version. OOUU! AHH!! Even if it was released in 2005, the reviews showed virtually no improvements over their 32bit counterparts. Upcoming 64bit titles will have a hard time too. I know that 64bit systems offer better multitasking capabilities. So if you would have a 64 bit system with lets say 128GB of ram. Multitasking becomes easier because the OS allocates 2GB of dedicated ram for each application you open (unless specificaly written to take more). So you could open a whole bunch without putting a performance dent in the OS. This does not apply in my case. Like most people out there, i multitask up to a certain point, but never to the point of dragging my system in the ground. I usualy don't do heavy multitasking when i'm gaming either. Sarcasm: I have 64 bit windows. I can play Crysis, COD4 and Hellgate London all online and at the same time. I just use multitask to switch between games. YEAH RIGHT!!! Yes... 64 bit is here and available! But i sincerely don't think that the average PC user will quantify his/her experience for the time being.

Eventually! We may see even more in the future 128bit, 256bit like when i retire or something. But not today. I should make a poll asking how much 64 bit software people are using right now. I know i'm not. All my software that i purchased online and at the store are all 32bit and i spent more on those than games. Can you tell me where i can purchase 64 bit Adobe Photoshop please? I have not seen a single game out that are true 64 bit. Like i say, the 64 bit thing is still at an early stage. Maybe in 10 years, 32bit will probably be obselete. But not today.