well a while back i had some kind of spy ware. it messed with some settings and the pc has never run right since... its operational, but i cant run certain games, windows media player or even IE without major errors. I just want to wipe the slate clean and reformat the hard drive w/ reinstalling windows and erasing everything.... but i dont have the necessary software to do it... i have a dell dimension 2400 (hold your laughter) if that makes any difference... if anyone could come out saturday morning/afternoon before 4 that would be great. or anytime for that matter. ill buy your lunch or something

do you have your system recovery disc, i could help you with that, i just don't have an OS sitting around.

you could wipe the hard drive and reload windows. i know what your going through the same thing is happening to mine. my spyware detector found like over 600 spyware programs. and it sucks.

thought you both got/have girls???

lol

ha ha. as you pointed out i have a girl friend so i dont need to go to those sites. i got mine from game sites that arent exactly secure, unfortunatly. it sucks cause they have good games but you can get spyware from other users.

that's what all the pervs say

what?

lol

i do and dont have a girl, long story. but no comment on where the spyware came from lol. i doubt i even have the system recovery disc, i dont think my pc came with one...

honestly my pc is at least 6-7 years old, i am really thinking hard about ordering a state of the art "gaming" pc from dell and making payments on it.

@jarred- is there a way to hook up two computers to the same cable line without sacrificing internet speed and slowing each other down?

yes, and forget making payments on a pc....save around 500-1000 and we can build you a state of the art machine for gaming...knock some of the price off if you already have a moniter and misc bits.

hmm, never thought of that, i guess i could build a pc cheaper than buying one... i will have to look into that with you, and i know byran will want to help (i think)

If your PC is already fucked, you won't lose anything by giving Linux a try.

Food for thought, it's completely free. Send Godzilla a PM, ask him about it.

dont listen to the dark side




evil, evil!

windows > linux

Linux kicks major windows arse! A nice ubuntu OS and you will be set

not if your a gamer, then linux sucks major arse!

hmmm, I think there are some gamers that disagree

maybe so, but considering what windows OS has over linux programming wise, linux isn't even competition. Linux is supported on some games, but 80% of games out there aren't , and yes you can get them to work..but to much hassle, and you'll run more ram.

Why do you think Linux sux so bad? I know I am new to this but I would rather have my junkass linux computer!

linux is good for hardcore processing, servers, coding, web developement. There has yet to be a linux version that can keep up with windows for running video games. To make it blunt, linux lacks the support from game makers, and developers. BUT they do have the support for game servers, which only do processing and dont show actaul graphics. If someone is wanting linux and games on the same pc, I suggest duel boot.

*sigh* I'm getting tired of this damn debate. The only game that doesn't run as it should, on Linux, is CounterStrike 1.6 ... mostly because Steam won't play nicely. Projects like Wine(X), Cedega, and Crossover Office have mimiced most of the Windows API, allowing for native Windows system calls, on Linux. Because these functions are handled by the native kernel, they run at at least the same speed they do in Windows. Period.

Any game with an OpenGL rendering mode will run fine in Linux. Games that require DirectX are emulated by Cedega, and they (mostly) run fine. Unfortunately, Microsoft does not release many of the spec sheets for DirectX, so the Cedega project has to reverse engineer it. It is fine for older versions, but the bleeding edge ones are tougher to emulate.

Most newer games run fine on Linux, and a lot of them have native Linux ports.

*shrug*

linux sounds good but for my racing games i have to run windows. league rules... glad to see this debate and it has its pro's and con's...

anyways, yeah, i would like to start building a pc, here is the list of basic parts i will need:

hard drive
RAM
video card
sound card
power supply
motherboard
processor
CD/DVD burner
a monitor
mouse
keyboard

anything obvious that i missed? and im sure i missed some technical stuff

*Edited list*

Turbo project?

And, show me in the rules for your racing league (wtf?) where it mandates Windows. There should be a way around that, that's pretty crappy. As far as any games are concerned, Wine is Windows. You can even run Windows Update on Crossover Office :)

nothing like trying to run something thats meant not to be run, so lets have a program the emulates windows because linux can't do it.

I'm sorry but any true hardcore gamer isn't going to want to emulate anything.

CS doesn't run on linux for a reason, along with alot of other games...
and cs isn't the only game that doesn't run on it, alot of FPS are based of the same CS engine.

Kyle, take of USB and Ethernet port ...those are on the motherboard

CS:S and CS1.5 will run fine on Linux. It's Steam that doesn't play nicely. Is it because Linux is inherently more difficult to code for? No, it's because of one-track, lazy developers. Cross-platform applications are nothing new, and have been around for awhile. Unfortunately, developers for whatever reason will not even attempt to try it.

Really, if you haven't run Linux, you don't know the gaming situation behind it. Here's a list of recent, big-name games that run natively on Linux:
* America's Army
* Halflife 2
* Decent 3
* Doom3
* Quake3 Arena / Quake4
* Return to Castle Wolfenstein
* Soldier of Fortune
* Unreal Tournament 2003 / 2004

Of the remaining big names, here's a list of games that run flawlessly under emulation:
* Battlefield 2
* Civilization 4
* Serious Sam 2
* Guild Wars
* Call of Duty 2

Both of these are very abbreviated lists. It seems to me that you associate 'emulation' with "pain in the ass" or "slow". Neither is true. On Windows, when you shoot a bullet, the game makes a call to "PlaySound( bullet )". Windows takes this, loads the bullet.wav file, and sends it to the Windows audio driver. On Cedega, when you shoot a bullet, the game makes the same call to "PlaySound( bullet )", because this is all the game knows how to do. Cedega takes this call, loads the bullet.wav file, and sends it to the Linux audio driver. It doesn't do anything more complex than that, which is why the game will run at the same speed.

The Cedega installer is a very friendly walkthrough to the game, basically you launch Cedega itself, pop in the CD, and click "install". It then launches the Windows installer. Cedega creates a virtual Windows filesystem for you, and the game installs normally, because it doesn't know the difference (in reality, there isn't a difference as far as the API calls are concerned).

You are right in thinking that two-three years ago, gaming on Linux was limited to cheap Solitare knockoffs. however, it has progressed leaps and bounds since then, driven by a cooperative effort of thousands of OSS developers and garage-hackers, and even cooperation from ATi, nVidia, SiS, and Intel. All the big-name video card vendors have released free drivers for their video cards, that are every bit as powerful as the drivers for Windows, thereby exposing the same acceleration and features. Combine a native 3D driver, with a transparent emulator, and it's easy to see why people are able to play games in the same capacities.

One big reason for vendor support in this capacity however, isn't that Linux people were whiny and wanted games. It's that Macintosh people wanted games. Mac OSX runs on BSD, a clone of Linux (some might say Linux clones BSD, but that's another thread). A side effect of making a game run on OSX means it will run on Linux without modification.

half life 2 online shouldn't work, its a valve based game.

And I use to run linux, you know that. I ran it while I was in college on a home server, ran fine. But xp ran the same server better (which we found out )

wow, shouldnt this be a pm converstation?

what about the turbo project?

ever hear of online racing?

Naw, keep it here I find it interesting to see both points of view, I am leaning towards Linux on this one. When I first added Linux to my pc I had dual boot capabilities but have since completely gotten rid of any windows OS

yeah but each his own i guess. it all depends on what you need your pc to do. some things linux just cant match windows on, and others linux is slightly better suited. thats the arguement and it will never change.

i personally will stick with win just because itsthe only thing i have every used/know how to use.

Personally, I like Linux a lot better, but I don't really play any games on it. Except for free online ones. Those don't really count though.

- Zacharias