CraigHB

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]i only plan to have 1 internal HDD, but i've got 5 USB devices i keep plugged in regularly now:[/quote] Yea, with that many devices, you may need the extra USB ports the P35 provides. [quote]i want to replace the keyboard/mouse with something that has a charging station (the AA batteries in my current mouse die every couple of months), so i could look for a PS/2 connection for that[/quote] You can pretty much consider PS/2 ports as obsolete these days. The current gene

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]i'm looking at the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L . while i'd prefer to stick with Asus, Gigabyte seems to have pretty high customer satisfaction rate.[/quote] I've actually got the P31 version of that Gigabyte board in my wishlist. The only difference between the P35 and P31 boards is the number of peripherals they support. Speeds are the same. Since I only run a couple hard drives and only need a couple USB ports,

Reply to cracking sound throughout the game (GC2/GC2DA) in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I have a Realtek HD sound codec. I get crackles when the CPU is heavlily loaded. However, this makes sense to me since these audio codecs are processor reliant. If the CPU is at 100% utilization, sound will suffer. In the old days, sound was handled by an add-on card that had local processing. Now, motherboards always come with a codec chip on-board. Even newer add-on cards use codecs that rely heavily on the CPU. I liked the old add-on cards better.

Reply to Done with GC2 for a while - metaverse error 12 yet again in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]kyro, good point - I'll try that, but understand I have little hope of getting this particular save game working, so if it's still a situation of "try a new game and see what happens", I'll probably still be taking off for a while. [/quote] I've been there. Before DA, I ran into a problem submitting Metaverse games (don't remember if it was error 12 or what). In any case, I tried two games with failed results and couldn't get any resolution on the issue. It really took the wind out

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

[quote](no offense Craig )[/quote] Hehe, none taken. One of the things I do that me keeps from spending *too* much money is to sell the old parts on eBay. For instance, I'll probably get a couple hundered for the 8800GTS so I'll only need to dish out about a hundred to make up the difference for an 8800GT. eBay usually does pretty well for computer parts if they're not too old. If that wasn't the case, I'd be doing these builds only once every few years. It's worth it for me to have th

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]as far as video cards go... those GeForce 8800's are just so dang expensive. i'll probably just stick with an 8600GTS, they're about half the price on average. i can always upgrade down the line.[/quote] Yes, they are. I always give the video card top billing in my builds. I usually skimp on the processor. However, next build, I'm going to skimp a little less on the CPU. I dug in a bit too deep last time. Just wanted to clarify, the 750W minimum power supply is only requi

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]definately can't afford DDR3 but with the nvidia chipsets DDR2 800 was the best available from what i could find.[/quote] You sometimes have to be sure about the benefit when going for the latest and greatest stuff. I've gotten burned that way before. For example, as Kryo mentioned, I sort of went out of my way to upgrade to SATA 3.0GB some time ago and found I got no increase in disk speed. It turns out that disks can only fully utilize SATA 1.5GB speeds anyway. Another example,

Reply to How to Play in Gigantic in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]P.S. I still sit on my butt all day and play video games but who cares [/quote] Hehe, I hear you man. Somtimes when I'm playing a gigantic map, I think, "wow, what a colossal waste of time." But, when you get those massive amounts of "stuff", it's pretty cool.

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Here are my opinions about your build for what it's worth. Hopefully you'll find them helpful. Generally speaking about video cards, I have a Radeon GPU in my laptop and my have run a few generations of GeForce GPU's in my desktop. I have to say I like the nVidia products better. Cost to performance, you'll get more value with a Radeon, but with the higher end cards, GeForce is going to provide the best performance. If that's what you want, go for GeForce. If you want value and are

Reply to How to Play in Gigantic in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]One thing that I do not like about the way that I play in general is that I am not aggressive enough and do end up turtleing by protecting my space with overwhelming force of 2 Medium sized ships. [/quote] I don't concern myself with being able to defend every planet. I'll often sacrifice a few here and there for the sake of getting more later. Putting those ships on the hunt will usually get many more planets than the number lost by taking them off defense.

Reply to T h e - C a r i E l f - f a n c l u b in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks for fixing those bugs I sent in. I was pleased to get a personal response from you. The latest version of DA is running nicely for me now. You are the best!

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]i think i'm going to post a list of the parts i'm looking at shortly. [/quote] Yea, show me your wishlist, I'll show you mine I'm already planning my next build and the current one isn't even 6 months old. I think I may be obsessed

Reply to Help Kinda Newb at this wonderful game in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

The very first techs I go for are Sensors, Ion Drive, Diplomatic Relations, and Trade. Then I hit one line of offensive weapons tech, usually beam, but sometimes missle. If playing Dark Avatar, I work the extreme colonization techs pretty quick. You can build planets in different ways with good results. You can either specialize or generalize them. Personally, I concentrate higher class planets on production (mostly factories) and lower class planets on making money (mostly econ bui

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Hehe, I think you may be right on that one. However, once you find a good one, it should last for several builds. I've done several on mine. That's the one thing that hasn't changed for a long time. I really like mine so I hope it doesn't become obsolete any time soon. I don't think you'll always find the lowest prices on Newegg, but the service is prompt and reliable. Also, they're good about returns. That's important to me. I've often tried a part and decided it's not going to

Reply to Another Newbie :) in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Yea, once you start getting up there in difficulty, you can't out-colonize the AI. That's their strongest skill in the game. Though, you can easily out-fight them, even on Suicidal. That's where you have to concentrate your efforts. Basically, grab as many planets as you can during colonization, then invade or flip them after that. Economy is really tough in this game. Dark Avatar is brutal. You might start with Dread Lords, it's an easier game economy wise. One trick is to get

Reply to computer technology chat in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

I've been doing my own builds for quite a long time. You don't really save money over buying an off-the-shelf system, but you get to hand pick the parts that comprise it which can make a big difference in performance and reliability. In my experience, I have not often had any trouble getting things to work right, but there's that occasional instance where you end up with a defective part. It can be rough when that happens so you just have to be willing to deal with it. Using qualit

Reply to ASUS EEE PC in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

If you decide against that unit, I recently bought an inexpensive Acer Aspire 5670 laptop from Newegg.com that runs the game nicely. It has a Radeon X1600 GPU and a Core Duo processor. I thought it was a great deal. My only complaint is the display isn't the highest quality. I have trouble seeing it outdoors, but it's fine indoors. Hope that helps.

Reply to How to Play in Gigantic in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I've been playing gigantic for a long time. Aside from dealing with the huge number of planets, it's actually an easier game. You have lots more planets to make money, build ships, and do research. Hehe, I'd probably get my behind handed to me on a small map. I'll have to try playing one sometime. I'm sure it will feel like a totally different game. To answer the OP's question, you can stop colonizing when you feel you have enough planets to compete or you can stop when there are

Reply to Scores on MetaVerse in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]There really are no secrets, but what really separates the men from the boys so to speak is how early in the game can you accomplish these things. [/quote] That's really the key isn't it. I was doing the right things, but not until I did them faster and bigger did my scores really go up. I'm not into playing *too* much just for score. I like to keep my games short as I can, but I've been milking it for the last game year or so. In other words, a year or so beyond the point at whic

Reply to How do you use your High-Class Planets? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]As far as using these kinds of planets for manufacturing I find them to be overkill. Also I prefer to have a core of good production planets that all produce at about the same level, usually around 400~600 MP's per week. The very high PQ planet isn't necessary to achieve this level.[/quote] Yea, me too. When playing with a lot of planets, it's easier to manage things when planets have similar MP. I usually put a number of factories on ultra high PQ planets, but otherwise, stock mark

Reply to lack of planets/ habitable planets v1.8 in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]It's those who pushes the games to the max with powerful PC will more likely to hit this 2gb limit. [/quote] I hit the limit on occasion. The only thing that ever really bothered me about it is the way the game would blow away the old save before failing to write the new one. But, that's been fixed. So bascially, it doesn't really bother me. I just restart the game from my last save. I don't know if this is something easy to do or not, but a warning would be sufficient.

Reply to lack of planets/ habitable planets v1.8 in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]If you guys don't want any more free updates, you're doing a good job in making that case. Let me be clear: We don't have to do these updates. We don't need to even do the expansion packs. We do them for you because we care about the game and the community and we like doing them.[/quote] That's quite a loaded statement. As far as updates, in the least, they're necessary to resolve playability issues. If Stardock were to develop the game to a point where there were very few issues

Reply to lack of planets/ habitable planets v1.8 in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I just played a gig/abun 1.8a game for several hours. It looked good to me. Since the number of habitables was greatly increased from DL to DA, I wouldn't be particularly upset if the number was reduced somewhat, but in that regard, 1.8a doesn't seem to be much different from the previous non-beta release. Stardock needs to be more careful about making drastic changes like they did in the 1.8 release. It can really alienate the users. I've voiced my opinion plenty about this kind of

Reply to GalCiv II: Dark Avatar 1.8A released in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

It's looking good to me. It's also running much better than 1.6 did for me. Though, one little glitch, the colony list in the civ manager fails to update. I have to exit and re-enter for it to reflect changes. That's the only problem I've run into so far.

Reply to Request: animating ship components! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Yea, that ship editor is really something. That alone makes the game stand out above others. Otherwise, I don't have a real strong opinion on animated ship components. I just wanted to say how much I've always enjoyed the ship editor. If I were to to have a request regarding that, it would be for expanding the already large collection of non-functional components and hulls, animated or not.