Wally's World

I don't use the extractor that comes with XP. I use good ol' pkunzip. Never had a problem with it.

Like DesertFox wrote, a better video card and more RAM will help when viewing the battlefield, but not when calculating turns. When I had my original GeForce MX420 card, I got quite a bit of choppiness when viewing the battlefield, but after my upgrade to a new card, no choppiness at all. Unfortunately it appears that your machine is at the point where almost everything has to be upgraded in order to see the full performance improvement that any one upgrade will make.

Regarding my motherboard upgrade, the difference in CMBB is when I 'fly' over the battlefield. With the old ASUS, I would have some jitters, but not with the new Epox. I also must admit that the ASUS boards I had were really stable compared to the Epox. But then again I was told that the Epox 8RDA+ is known more for its speed than stability. I plan to upgrade the CPU and video card within the next year or so. Maybe sooner. But both seem to be able to handle everything for now. I don't think I'll upgrade the CPU without upgrading the video card because I think I'm maxed out as to what the GeForce3 Ti200 can handle. [ July 21, 2004, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: Wally's World ]

Jack: You didn't see a big increase in your performance? I'm surprised because I did get a 50% increase in my 3dMark score from the A7X8X to the Epox 8RDA+ board.

Well in my case, I went from an Asus A7V8X-X (KT400) motherboard to an Epox 8RDA+ (nForce2) board and by keeping my Athlon XP 1800+, saw a 50% increase in my 3dMark score. I also increased my RAM from 256 to 512. So just by changing the motherboard, my machine speeded up quite a lot. And the bigger CMBB scenarios do play a lot better. I hope you have a good video card because the increase in performance that an upgrade in the CPU and/or MB will do may not be as much noticeable without a good video card. My GeForce3 Ti200 card is getting a little long in the tooth, but it still does the job. When I do upgrade my CPU to something around 2800, I'll be getting a new video card to go with it. [ July 21, 2004, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: Wally's World ]

I had the same sort of problem. My PC (Epox 8RDA+ MB) would restart itself almost at random. So I tested each RAM chip individually and found that the problems were gone if I just used one of them. Before going out and replacing the one chip that seemed to causing the problems, I decided that instead of using slots 1 and 2 for the chips, I would try slots 2 and 3. It seems to have worked and my random restart problem is gone. I too thought my problem was heat related or a problem with my power supply.

Howdy! This isn't CM related, but since I've gotten good advice here before I would post my problem here. For the last three or so weeks, I've be getting random power shutdowns and reboots on my machine. No blue screens of death, just a quick power down and reboot. I can't seem to find any sort of pattern. I thought it might be an overheating problem, but the power downs sometime even occur during the initial boot and Windows load. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing on the PC at the time of the power shutdown. The PC will power down right away at bootup or run for hours at a time with no problems. Someone told me that this sounds like a power unit problem. I have no idea what my power unit (about 1.5 years old) is since it came with the machine, so I assume it's some kind of a generic thing. I had changed my motherboard from an Asus A7V333 to a Epox 8RDA+ about three months ago, but this problem just cropped up about three weeks ago. My CPU is an Athlon 1800+. I do have both CPU fan and a case fan so I don't think it's a heat problem. Please, any advice? Many thanks for all replies!

Jack: What you're doing is almost exactly what I'm doing. Going from Windows 98 to XP has been quite the experience for me. I disabled my onboard sound and went with my Fortissimo II card. I just like the sound from this card. I am also using the 56.72 drivers for my GeForce3 Ti200 card. And yes, my boot-up time is really short compared to the old ASUS A7V8X I had. I did load the latest nVidia unifed drivers and installed them, but then uninstalled the display and sound drivers from my machine in favour of individual display and sound drivers. I was getting a lot of Blue Screen of Deaths for a while(especially at boot-up time), but I seem to have gotten this thing stablized thanks to advice from Schrullenhaft. One thing I did do was load the Aggresive BIOS settings instead of the Optimized settings. Read somewhere about someone else having BSODs with the Epox 8RDA+ board and by using the Aggresive settings, it seems to have gotten rid of the problem. I upgraded to DirectX9.0b with no problems. Everything seems to running smooth now. Good luck and keep me informed on how you're doing.

Jack: How's the on-board sound? Are you going to use it or your Audigy Gamer?

Thanks Schrullenhaft! I got everything going nicely including the 56.72 drivers. Thanks for your help.

Howdy! Just trying to figure some things with my new Epox 8RDA+ motherboard and this Windows XP thingie. If you don't mind, I have some questions for my fellow CMers. I'm using the unified drivers(2.41) that came with the MB, should I upgrade the complete unified drivers to 3.13 or can I just upgrade the display drivers for my GeForce3 Ti200? I tried the latter and the drivers updated correctly, but I lost my sound drivers for the on-board sound. Shouldn't a person be able to update just certain drivers without updating the complete unified driver package? One other thing, with this unified driver I can't seem to find the screen to set the anti-aliasing and other video card settings. Am I losing my marbles or not? Sorry, but I'm still trying to figure out this new chipset and Windows XP as compared to my old Windows 98. Many thanks to any and all replies. [ April 24, 2004, 05:09 AM: Message edited by: Wally's World ]

Actually my new Epox board has the onboard sound and it's actually very good. I downloaded the latest sound driver from the nVidia site. I think I'll use it instead of Hercules Fortissimo II card. By the way, omparing the new Epox 8RDA+ board with my old ASUS A7V8X-MX, I picked up about a 40% increase in my 3DMark2001 score. As for Windows XP, I don't know if I like it any better than my old Windows 98. It almost seems slower to me not wtihstanding the increased 3DMark2001 score. Maybe I just have to get used to it.

Thanks very much for all replies. I appreciated them!

Howdy! I'm just in the process of upgrading my motherboard to a faster and newer board (from an ASUS A7V8X-MX with a slow KM400 chipset to an Epox 8RDA+ board) and the technician just told me that my Windows 98 First Edition will not work properly on the newer NForce2 board. That Windows 98 does not want to recognize the add-on cards that I have installed and that the system will be unstable. He recommended I upgrade to Windows XP. I have a Athlon 1800 CPU, 512 MB PC2700 RAM, GeForce3 Ti200 card and a Hercules Fortissimo 2 sound card. The questions I have are: 1) It is worth it to upgrade to Windows XP? 2) Will the system run any slower or faster on XP as compared to Windows 98? Many thanks to those who reply.

I saw it at the Macleod Trail Future Shop.

The AI does a better job at defending rather than advancing. I think you'll find it more of a challenge if you take the attack role agains the AI.

I've always handled mods manually. I've never used CMMOS. CMMOS is good for people who like to change mods often. If I see a mod that I like, I copy it to my CMBO folder and stick with it. That is until (if and when) a better mod comes out to replace it. [ April 15, 2003, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Wally's World ]

Should be no problem ordering it from Canada and Canada Customs isn't all that bad. I got mine within 10 days.

Should be no problem ordering it from Canada and Canada Customs isn't all that bad. I got mine within 10 days.

Flames cause casualties. In a recent PBEM, I've had to 'skedaddle' my troops out of the fire as fast as I could. Flamethrowers can be a pain in the neck if allowed to get in close. [ December 10, 2002, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: Wally's World ]

I just started using Strontium Dog's grass mod in the PBEM QB that I'm playing with him. Correction! That I'm winning over him. And I must write that I really like the scattered rock effect and the more subtle scattered tree areas. The only thing you have to watch out for is to make sure that your units are being placed in the scattered tree area and not in open ground. A nice job!

Scrontium Dog has plenty of time on his hands to do his great mods. After my artillery put a beating on him in our PBEM QB, he probably has hardly any troops left to move.

Darn it! You beat me by seconds, Tanks a Lot! [ November 28, 2002, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: Wally's World ]

With my CDRW, there's no formatting to be done with the CDs. Just pop them in and start burning. The 700 MB refers to the capacity of each of the CDs, not the total of all of the CDs combined.

I've played CMBO for over two years and I didn't know that TRPs increase the accuracy of anti-tank guns. Is that true? I know that it does for artillery and mortars like Dook wrote but I don't remember reading or hearing about anti-tank guns. Maybe I learned something today about CMBO. Can anyone else enlighten on this subject? Alsatian is right about the 'star' showing up in Valley of Trouble. Consider it the last known sighting of an enemy's unit and that the unit (either armor and infantry) may have moved off out of sight or it remains hidden close by. [ November 25, 2002, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Wally's World ]