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Kind of fragile idea to spent money for a system - meant to but get an old game to work. Portal might be still fresh, but Source engine is not. But if that's what you want, my best wishes to you.

Sadly (as a PC gamer) I have to say that if you want to play Portal at anything like the quality it needs to not suck very very horribly, you can find XBOX 360s for £120 or so. Your only other choice is a brand new computer (for about £350 if you don't include the screen).

Huh? I always detested new age consoles because they are EXPENSIVE, leave no room for piracy or demos. Also, there's no freeware or ways to do anything if you happen not to have either money or games that still excite. Modern gaming has gone down too, the days of spending MONTHS on SimCity or <insert loveable played-crap-out-of-it old game name>, new games last only as long as you complete campaign, multiply with four(teen?) if it's a multiplayer game.

Except World of Warcraft and those few solid RTS games like Company on Heroes, etc maybe.

Increator, the implication that his current system is junk is a bit harsh. It isn't junk except for the fact that the built-in Intel video card is just too weak for any 3D game more recent than 3-4 years.

Actually, I find it quite difficult to classify any system nowadays. Mostly because games vary so hard on system requirements and what you get for those.

People might find - for example - Crysis - a demanding and top-of-the-art game, but while it runs fine with everything on full power on my machine, much older Tom Clancy's Advanced Warfighter reduces my machine to a crawl and what makes GTA4 with those horrid shadows and low draw distance restrict all power to under 30 fps, I don't know.
Maybe because world is upside down, and games are made on PC, then sold on console and then somehow PORTED back to PC, leaving a heavy mess of bad code and lag. As I said, I don't like consoles much...

While voh's post sounds really good and I've heard alot of high-end cards being cheap as dirt, it's still a bit too good to believe.

I personally wouldn't go for wild adventure of trying to make junk fly - I never had money when I was smaller and no monetary support for my computer love, so I have been doing doing crazy tricks with wrecks of a computer all my childhood. Like installing windows xp to a 486/33MHz and so on. My current policy is simply buy a brand new system in every 4-5 years and increasingly try to pump more out of it as technology advances. Maybe add RAM or newer video card, but nothing more during this time.
Upgrading seems to be a bit money and nerve costly for me today and in this time I use machine, I can collect for new one or afford monthly payments, instead of wasting it bit-by-bit on quickly expiring parts.

But through my experience, I know that with hard searching, solid driver/cooling/software/bios setup and little money you can run almost anything on almost everything. Just be sure not to buy something that doesn't fit your system or which' cost-to-improve rating comes way worse than simply buying everything new.

Also, buying a video card? Video cards expire quickly, since technology advances really fast. Which means people change them ofter. Why not look out for used one? Someone bought it, played few months, new game came out and bam!, the card is useless. But it might be in perfect shape.

Same applies to getting a whole new rig too. Used machines could cost really little, especially if owner has no real idea of the actual cost on market.

Another tip I learned was there's nothing better than hooking up with an IT guy at some bigger company. Almost brand new machines often simply go to junkyard and having a friend at correct position might get you whole new machine for few beers or hundred bucks. My own company even installed 8800GTO cards on machines mostly used for Excel spreadsheets and reading PDF files. Old cards were GF8600 ones and guess what? Techie simply took em' home and sold them for pocket change, because boss doesn't really care what happens with "outdated" technology.

Don't want to do propaganda or initiate a debate (please don't), but I'd avoid older ATI (especially 9xxx series) cards like a devil.

Man, snake!
you're talking about ancient history in computing.
This energy you're using to upgrade stone into bronze - if put into - let's say - AGS christmas lottery - would get you a modern machine and quicker. Or making a simple, addicting, commercial game piece.

If I were you, I would concentrate on money first, getting something for it - next.

To my eye, those look like standard PCI slots.
PCI-E is alot newer and comes after AGP in technical history.



ISA > PCI > AGP > PCI-Express
...as far as I can remember

It's quite simple to remember than ISA is black, PCI is white, AGP is ugly brown and PCI-E is random color, yellow, red or blue. It's not 100% solid theory, but applies to most cases, I think.

So your machine is about 3 levels behind modern ones

Anyway, I didn't know PCI graphics cards for this level and speed do exist. Even my old, long-trusted workhorse Geforce 5700LE was for AGP slot. And boy was this card weak... But I played all the games I wanted. With lowest settings and ton of lag. Including HL2. All until Crysis came out. I believe 6200 should handle Portal just fine.

Jumped to 8800GTX and never looked back.

...which is something that terribly needed change in the first place, since character was otherwise okay.

Maybe I'm too sensitive, but looking at this sprite, my own eyes start to itch and big neon "incomplete" sign blinks in my mind and it's seriously irritating...

Upper image terribly strikes me as Team Fortress 2 shading.
Especially desks far left.
It's helluva similar.

Anyway, not so nice that someone thinks he's only one ever picture-googled for "office" as it's always first result for last 4 years or so. Ages ago, I used this pic to illustrate my request for transparent textboxes for AGS.

About microphone usage: FL Studio has quite solid wave editors and possibilities to record either on-the-fly or not.
But I prefer Goldwave for record handling: It has all kinds of cool features like really sensitive equalizing, noise and hiss reduction, easy editing and time compression/fix and so on. If you ever gonna need superpowerful external wave editor, I just named it. But there's many of them, AND free.

A popular one is FruityLoops (FL Studio), but that's gonna set you back at least $49 if you go for the Express option.

...But which is only one you need if you're ever gonna make some music. The quality and power is enough to become a professional artist! Infact, many of nowaday music stars, especially hiphop or digital genres - own their fame to either FL or Reason.
If you could try out 10 different programs or use same time to learn FL, the latter is most likely way better spent time.

If you decide to go for FL, don't forget to google and youtube for tutorials to get a kickstart. It isn't very hard to learn to make something decent. Youtube videos are quickest way to see how things work.
But as you explore, you will be amazed how endless the learning curve could be and you could learn whole life, and still not know everything.

The plot thickens!

Maybe devblogs are girlish? 
Isn't development blogging >> diary writing >> girly thing?

Then again, what would the analyzer say about a ship log written by one truly manly captain?

Music tutorial? Flash all the way. Simply because you can add nifty play buttons and music pieces everywhere and no external player/opener will be needed.

A powerpoint-kind of slideshow tutorial - "like click on little arrow to go to next page" is super easy to make in Flash.
Adding music wouldn't be too difficult neither.

Hosts file cannot be renamed or modified much, so I probably can't help here.

But for regular files, simply changing file type does wonders usually. Like renaming jpg to a dat/mp3/whatever file or something.

For more secure protection (work mostly), I use AxCrypt, truly wonderful and free 128-bit security tool.

Anyway, I'm still wondering why over more than 15 years, Microsoft hasn't integrated simple (and working!) folder & file password-accessing into Windows. This should be so... essential?

Run?
I've been always able to run.

Once I dreamt about being in my grandmother's kitchen and one angry and big tiger chased me... I ran around and ended up jumping onto a cupboard. I don't remember if tiger caught me or not.

But mostly, my worse dreams are about being in a car and car starts rolling downhill, towards the river and I can't do anything about it. It's always in my country house, we have river on one side of the property and it's lower than house.

It's very likely connected to car accident I had when I was 4. I climbed into parents' car (ZAZ like this) and crashed right into house. Broke my nose beyond recognization, and still have little scar to remind it. That event has given me hundreds if not thousands car dreams/nightmares...

[geometry]

A brave attempt! Not bad, neither.

I noticed that ghost trap thing instantly too. It's way too familiar to the real one...

But for background, i think that cel-shading is a bit too obvious. And there's too much colors, it all renders one mess that's hard to look at. I suggest tuning down contrast on shades a little, make color interpolation smoother. It's been suggested already too.

Also, add surfaces. It looks like a cardboard cutout right now. Raise or lower that glass panel thing into floor a little, give chamber things walls some thickness, make pipes corners rounder, add all kind of extrusions into panels and walls and everything. So there'd be more surface than simply walls of things. Hard to explain, simple version would be "your geometry lacks detail" and detail in geometry, not texture. It's all boxes and cylinders right now. And it's boring.

Modern HDD-s are out of my area of knowledge, but I recall my machine coming with a floppy (!) with SATA driver stuff on it. I was quite amazed about that - hard drives never came with driver disk in past. Then again, I never needed the disk and I usually disconnect floppy drive to save a bit on startup time, because I haven't used floppies for ages.

The fastest way towards the model describing our universe best is to question everything; and Religion is a fat road block right in the middle of the street.

I couldn't express this better.
Amen!

Nacho suggested that the people who DO take every word of the bible literally were "stupid", and he's been trying to defend that statement for 11 pages.  If you really beleive that Jesus actually turned water into wine, that he fed 5000 with two loaves and a fish, that Adam and Eve were tempted by a talking snake... then you certainly can't be called 'intelligent'.  But just because the word 'stupid' might be a slightly harsh term doesn't make it untrue... it VERY true.

No, damnit, no no.

Want to know what's stupid?
Taking an old book and saying that you have to do whatever book says.
Decide over good and bad, people and things over this book.

I see NOTHING harsh in saying that doing this is stupid, if you're really obsessed with idea that every single word is pure gold. In case of Bible.

But it's not all black and white. Humans have always set themselves a "book" to live by. What about constitution? Laws? We all follow some book.

Now, believing into greater forces than man, I see nothing stupid here.

Modern science classifies as a religion too. At least in terms of believability. The more you learn chemistry, physics or whatever from same area, the less you see holy aura of "very important and concrete" and much more than it's all so theoretical and every law is actually relative, and there's more exceptions than proof in any scientific base.
People who say "science knows all" are stupid also. No, I don't think the bible knows it all - but neither does any alternative. Like science. Simply, one has more to touch and feel, so I chose this one.


I'm personally not against religion or following the Bible or whatever book of that matter. From my rock, people who live in wonders of modern era and still think that god took 6 days to create all matter, damn, be as offended as you want, I think you have a screw loose. I think so. I don't ask you to like me or be happy with this, I don't hate your or try to change you or anything. This is simply how I feel. Look, sorry, ok? If you don't agree with me, do whatever you like and be happy as you want.

But for my hysterical post above, well. I took random "oh god I'm so offended, must protect my almighty lord with my wise and angry word over internet"-type of religious poster here and replaced <insert religion name> with "science".
Sarcasm? Likely.
There's a bit truth in it anyway, I feel. And addressed anyone who would go for idea that me (and similar thinkers) being not politically correct over the issue is being a "dickhead".

As I said in first response in this thread, a grand soap opera is default way those threads tend to play out.

For my math and logic posts, to be honest, I tried to bring some fun into this really long and unreadable thread...  : and sabotage Nacho's crusade 

But I can take advantage from this now saying that from this simple scientific standpoint, I don't see heaven as a possibility. From higher science, it's actually possible I think... how many dimensions we know exist?

So to suggest anything, take it less seriously, please. No internet word could stray a true believer and if I was religious, I wouldn't really give a damn what atheists say. I would still argue, argument or joke about it like I do in whatever debate, but for exploration and pure fun of it. Not to change people or world or something.

Bible works wonders, calming down people and giving them a reason/guidance/confidence to live. Whatever is written there, however absurd it wouldn't be, important is that it works. So does religion.

...When it works.

But when it doesn't...

...believer starts to associate himself with his/her god.
"How dare you--..."

Like I can't like you if I don't like your god at same time?
Are you god?

Basically, here I am saying: how dare you call me stupid or less of a person because of what I believe. How dare you lump us all into one category and condemn us for ignorance. It is your arrogance that will always trump the shortcomings you find in others.

You don't know what I believe in or don't believe in. And if you do, and you still have a problem with it, then that is just it: you're problem. Leave me out of your inferiority complexes and your need to put others down. The day I choose to judge others for their personal beliefs is the day you can judge me for mine.

THUS I SHALL BURN IN HELL FOR ETERNITY!!!1

How dare you...blah blah.

People dare to judge themselves and others on daily basis.

To any matter, I can apply whatever approach I want. I believe in.

I believe in physical world, what I can see, hear and touch -- therefore laws of physics.
This gives me hope and sense of security dealing with world and life. This keeps me safe. Like your religion keeps you.

How dare you to tell me I cannot have my beliefs and explanations?

Don't I deserve way to understand and deal with matters I cannot understand fully? Don't I have right to deal it with my way to not be lost in a world of things beyond our comprehension? Am I forced to follow the way Holy Bible explains those things?
What if my Bible has "Physics for 8th grade" written on its cover? Are you saying that my beliefs are worse than yours?

So my religion renders yours highly unlikely. Does that mean I'm judging you?

By not believing what you do, and calling it impossible or stupid, I'm practicing my religion.
EXACTLY what you do when practicing yours, denying all science.

How come you can do that, and I'm automatically a dickhead and evil when I dare to do this?

I am so, SO terribly offended.
Heartbroken.
I won't post in this thread anymore.

:'( :'( :'(

I must base my logic around known things.

You know, people believe Bible and such. Whatever craziness is there, they believe because it's written so.
And listen to holy men.
Holy men say heaven is above our heads.
If they say so, it is so. Not believing would be a blasphemy!

So maybe I got my math wrong.

Assumption 2:

* Heaven is not beyond visible space.
* Heaven surrounds earth at the height of clouds. We simply don't see it.

- This gives us a sphere slightly bigger than Earth
- Christianity is what, 2000 years old? More?
- if heaven's full of good Christians who have gotten there and live eternal, died during last 2000 years, boy... should be quite crowded there... All on a sphere almost as small as earth...
And more to come? Wiki says in 21th century, there's 2 billion people on the list?

So I don't want to get there anyway. It's even soulless desert (version 1) or crowded market(version 2)

[HUGE]

This thread is way too long.

I think idea behind Christianity reminds any random national epic very much. People doing big, unbelievable things, walking through sea and so on.

What I don't buy is "meeting your homies in heaven after you die" part. My reason for skepticism...

Look--

1) Where is heaven?

* Priest in Russia points skywards and says "up there"
* Priest in Africa points skywards and says "up there"
* Pope in Vatican points... so on.

Okay.

2) Facts:

* we cannot see heaven, guess our telescopes are not up to task
* we've been in space. There's no heaven there!
... So it should be so far we cannot see it
* farthest known point in universe is something near 10-20 billion light years away (according to quick and messy google)
* since Earth is round and heaven is always directly upwards from earth's center, by logic, Heaven must be a sphere around earth, with radius of 10-20 billion light years and its center point being the center point of Earth



That puts heaven far, far away.

Now, let's assume you die and be buried.

* Your relative gets buried near you, 1 meter away.
* Both go to heaven, using this superlong vector
* Since earth is round, and offset is 1m, the vectors don't traverse to exact same point in 3d space
* At first, you will be travelling quite close

3) How far are you from each other when you finally get to heaven? It's quite simple school math to calculate the arc that comes between you...
...it'll be HUGE

4) So you've both arrived. Time to meet!

5) How do you travel in heaven? Walk? Get wings and fly?

Since walking is out of question, let's assume you fly.

6) How fast would you fly? twice walking speed? triple? Let's say 60 km/h. Really quick flying for a human...

Even at this speed, how long would it take to actually meet?
One year? Two? Trillion? Way-way-WAY longer than you lived, being good and worshipping God to get to meet your buddy?

Ain't that a bad deal or what?
.......
* anyway, this is even without considering travel time of your soul to the heaven...
* what if your relative/buddy lives on opposite side of earth?