Posts by pcforce

  • help

    If just the drive is fucked up and windows instalation (windows os that you are using) should still keep the ID in the register.


    Go to Start Menu -> Run, type regedit


    Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer


    One of the regs there keep the ID

  • Character body type



    Well you and your friend, let me know if i can help you with something.

  • opinions

    PC consume much less than power then ppl think. A "Top Gun" setup with two video cards and the stuff you can think about consume about 300-350W. You can run the setup with noname 250W PSU if you want to. Point is that quality PSUs deliver the power they are rated for even beyond it (as example toms hardware has tests on some PSU including the one i use from several years which is rated at Fortron 350W so they pointed out that it can be overloaded to 420W; i'm running the pc in my signiture with this), also quality PSU have better protection from electric network varietys. If the PSU is crap or cant supply enought power then main circuits values will be out of range (check +12V +5V +3.3V values) and it might crash, reboot, shutdown under load.


    As a conclustion, check the values, check your PSU manufacturer and if evrything is ok and you dont need a new one.

  • Ships like Elder

    What i remeber from the old tests i did. Damage is like from a ppc shooting at 4.00 rate and 1K range. Dont use energy when shooting. So it does good its job as its written in ship description - an anti-battleship vessel.

  • Lag Advice

    Its not the same when pinging the server address and FL server on it. Thats why there are special tools to ping a FL server.

  • Impressed

    As far as i know its not compression or something like it.



    Its file with simple and repeating information or empty file which report bigger size than it really is.



    I had similar crack for a game - small but when unziped its whole DVD (full size). DVD itself is empty, or have just few files which are needed to lie the game launcher that the game's DVD is insearted.

  • Lag Advice

    Quote

    Originally posted by Doppleganger
    this may be a totally rediculous question/suggestion, as you know im probably the most un-knowledgeable guy on CF as far as computers are concerned!!!!


    but would it make a difference if you carried out over regular disk clean ups and HD defrags, deleting all the temp. internet files etc....? just that i notice my pc slows down a hell of a lot if i dont do it more than once a week.


    try not to laugh too much at the above if it is absolute rubbish!!!! :D



    Yes, on paper it do helps, cause helps the OS runs a bit better and easier.

  • Lag Advice

    3D sound dont concern ppl with non-onboard sound (means additional sound plugged) so they can use it without crashing the game. There are some exceptions with good onboard sound that should work aswell and i think that would be SoundStorm, Realtek HD and some others.




    Gunny is right about the drivers. Old games -> older drivers better. For ppl with with new hardware (means even 2 years old hardware) several fps plus or minus wont matter and they should be careful cause putting an old driver might screw something - the rest of the games they play or their hardware would be unsupported.



    Something i discovered several months back, when my game was running awfull but i had high fps so it didnt make sense. Problem was caused of npcs and some other static effects (like planet or something). When the number of ships you see changes and/or increase cause a sudden drop followed by increase and drop again of the frame rate cause evrything moves fast or the number of ships you see changes fast so if you had 120fps and it drops to 60 (even when 60 is more than enough) is a big gap which cause games run like shit. But if you enable Vertical Synchronization (in your video driver) FPS will be limited to your monitor refresh rate (85-100Hz for CRT and 60-75Hz for TFT where 1Hz = 1 frame per second) which enough for smooth gameplay and you wont have any sudden FPS drops. Aswell as evry frame will be synchronyzed with the monitor, means all frames rendered by the video card will be shown on the monitor. When video card try to send mroe frames to the monitor than he can show you soem frames wont be shown and would be missed so there would appear another gap too.

  • Lag Advice

    Thats one of my points but is only for a verry slow computers and if there are some here, probably they count on the fingers of one hand. FL is old enough game, plays well on most machines. Whats the point lowering the settings when your frame rate is over 50-60 (usually ppl should be playing at 120+) using max quality settings.

  • Lag Advice

    I cant agree on that. Each player, graphic settings have nothing to do with network (online) gaming, cause each player see all the details he set for his game, not the settings that others use.



    Usually when playing a game online (nomatter what the game is) FPS (frames per second) drop more or less and cause problems to the player but this should not interfere server itself cause he keep its own track where each player is. Server will be interfered only if connection is bad (have lost packets) or game is running so bad that it cant send required information to the server fast enough (verry unlikely).



    So if player is jumping there are several reasons for this:


    1) your connection is bad (lost packets or too slow)
    2) the other player's connection is bad (lost packets or too slow)
    3) server load increased - cant send possitioning information to the players fast enough.

  • How to set home network

    Few months back my cousin, moved to live at home so second PC came at home and i had to look how to setup a HAN (Home Area Network :D ) and share internet illegally. There were two problems - first, i was doing it for first time and second, if i could not to spend any money for additional devices.



    Long ago when i drop from dial-up to internet over LAN i had to buy a PCI LAN adapter (those times, build-in network adapters were more as extra than standart part of modern mobos). Now, several years later with upgraded mobo you always get network adapter, its just like the build-in sound device - its always included in the mobo. So i found myself with my old LAN adapter and a build-in gigabit adapter that i havent used so far. Then i just needed a cross-over cable that i found in my cousin old flat cutting it with a kitchen knife from the wall. So i only had to buy few RJ45 connectors which are cheep.



    Now i had 16m long cable (cause the second pc is at the other end of the flat), build-in gigabit adapter enabled and computers - connected to each other. I had to find a way to hide the second pc from my ISP - you know they want you to pay to be able to connect a second pc at home to internet. My current internet provider have connected me in a huge LAN and through additional PPPoE each pc in the network connects to their server which assign an IP for it over internet. So point is to mask the second pc, and whatever it does it would be like my (first) pc is doing it so it would looks legal and second pc - hidden. For the purpouse first pc have to be configured as gateway and share its own internet connection to the second pc (and others pc if there are some). This way the connection wont be shared equal to all pcs - it would be dinamically split depends on need. You wont need any additional software aswell. I wont look at ISP-required settings for LAN and internet connection cause they are ISP specific settings. What we are interested in, is the network configuration at "the other side" - setting the home LAN. Here is a list of connections on the first pc that i gonna call Gateway (afterall, we want it to act as such)



    Dont look at hamachi network that have nothing to do in this case and its just software not even using a physical network adapter. "LAN - Isi" is the network for the second pc (which i gonna call client) that we want to connect to internet and stay hidden aswell. "LAN - Sofianet" is for the ISP.



    Settings for LAN - Isi or with other words - the home network we are about to set, dont really matter - they can be completely different from those for your ISP LAN settings. Still i decided to keep the same subnet mask. As for computers IPs i just chose addresses that would be easier for me to remember. As for Gateway, i set 155.55.0.1 IP for the first pc and 155.55.0.2 for the second (client). Again i remind this dotn real;ly mater as long as you remember the IPs you choosed and dont set one and the same IPs for both pcs. As gateway address set 155.55.0.1 for both pcs or with other words - the gateway address is the address of the pc that would act as gateway. For the first pc (gateway) leave DNS fields blank and for the client - set the same IP address written for gateway which in this case is 155.55.0.1. This is important cause if you leave DNS blank or enter wrong address in client settings for it, internet connection from the gateway wont be accessible. Here is how client comoputer, LAN settings looks like:




    Gateway pc have the same settings except its own IP - 155.55.0.1 and DNS fields - blank.


    Warning: dont not use similar IPs to those which your ISP assigns you. As example i have IP assigned from my ISP which i enter manually and it never changes - in my case 90.1.0.199. This address can be automatically obtained from the network - in such case just check your current one at the moment and use different class IP for the internal network. Here is network addresses for the gateway:



    Now you only need to share the internet connection to your home network - in properties of your internet connection on the gateway you have a share option which allows you to share the connection to specific network, so you choose to share it to your home network - in this case "LAN -Isi". If you make a mistake and share the connection to your ISP LAN then alot of users will see it including your ISP so its like ring the bell to evrybody which is not a good idea :D



    Now you have your home network set and internet - shared. However this is far from perfect. Both gateway and client are not verry "friendly" to each other and communication is limited just to the shared internet. To fix this you need to fix ICMP settings in Windows Firewall (nomatter are you using it or not). The following need to be set for both client and gateway, despite soem of them are only needed for the gateway:



    Now both computers are far more comunicative - as example they can ping each other and client can trace throught the gateway:



    As first hop will appier the first pc (the gateway).



    Gateway also take care over the protection of client cause the gateway's firewall (in my case Windows firewall) filter the trafic. So the firewall on the client would be a bit useless (in my case - Zone Alarm) except in cases where gateway's firewall miss something.



    (internet status on client)




    This is what you need to do in common to share the internet and share the internet with another PC at home and keep it hidden in same time. In case there are more pcs that need to be connected and hidded and you can afford spending money for additional equipment, the intelligent way is to buy a router+switch (two in one) device - smart, flexible and simple way to build your home network and share internet. Definatly dont buy only switch cause you will expouse all pcs to your ISP network while router will represend itself as a specific computer in your ISP network and route the traffic to the right pc in your home network.


    Additional problem would be the cable work - its usually hell:



    (back of the gateway)



    Additional power connectors are always welcomed.



    (the gateway)





    In case the pcs become 3 or more cables becomes even worse:



    (client pc on the right and temporally 3rd pc on the left)