Online Gaming Question

OK, I just got a copy of Half-Life Counter Strike. I decided to download Steam and play online. In order to do this I had to tell ZoneAlarm to let a lot of stuff through. How much of a chance is there that I will contract a virus/trojan from playing these games online? I am not to concerned about spy/ad ware.

 

Pretty slim. To be honest, I haven't heard of it happening.

If the servers are run by the company that released the game, the chances are even slimmer.

 

Cool. Do you know if this site(MG) was having some issues earlier this morning? Some smilies were not smilies, some of the avatar's said the name instead of the avatar? this is why I am asking about the gaming online. I did not have any problems like that until this morning, after I had downloaded all the game stuff.

Also, does anyone know if a good site that will help with some of the ins and outs of Counter-Strike? I was watching people rappel all around me and I was lead footed on the ground. Of course, no in game help.

 

id been playing on steam for like 2 years.. im not addicted so i dont go one like 10hours a day.. but ive been there long enough to tell YOU ARE NOT GOING to get a virus/trojan/spyware etc..

 

Thanks for the answers. Glad to hear I can be an early a.m. addict again, like I was with Quake 2 a few years back. Appreciate the feedback all. MA, sorry to hear about the problem..see what happens when you decide to point everyone towards the best freeware.. . Hope it works out easily for you.

 

Could still use a small amount of help with this one.

 

I trust it perfectly well, been playing it since I was a wee lad of 12!

 

Thanks MA.

 

I dont know, I was there this morning and I was whomping some serious butt on two people. I was there earlier this week in Deathmatch and I was really kicking arse, then I realized they were bots. I appreciate the challenge. I have been coming in second on each server I have been at. There is always that one person that does nothing else but play the game and usually racks up 135 kills and only dies twice. I looked into Americas Army, that is a huge download. considering it though.

not too shabby at the games, for an old guy.

 

yeah counterstrike is hard to get used to, it is dominated by really good players.

 

I cannot believe the size of the America's Army download. 903Mb. Damn. This better be one hell of a game.

 

thats about how big all games are. its a full game.

 

i wish i could download AA but atlass i am on dialup and it would take years

 

Only took me 20 minutes, and that was nowhere near full download speed.

 

That's because you've got Woot.


I wish I read this thread earlier. I was having all sorts of problems connecting here, and thought it was cookie or temp file related.

(or Adrynalyne and MA had blocked me )


I personally didn't like America's Army, but that's just me, and it's free.

Everytime I blasted the instructor, the game ended.

 

It only took about 25 minutes to download. What really pissed me off is that it locked up my system when I clicked on the .exe. I waited and waited and waited and waited and nothing happened. Tried it twice and got the same result. Must have been a download, or it got corrupted on my end (not that I was browsing or playing in the arcade when it was downloading. I deleted it. I am considering paying the shipping and handling for a CD copy once I get bored with Half-Life. And I have been a hankering another run at the old Far Cry.

 

O.k., I decided to go with FarCry because Steam just plain pisses me off somedays. I downloaded the game, let it set the settings, watched the opening movie scene and started getting itchy finger when the download bar showed up. Well, I was disappointed. As the "camera" goes down into the hole the water is all screwed up. color shifting, not blue at all. So I figure no problem,I just need to up the options. Well, I had everything on the screen crystal clear and beautiful, except for the water. The closest I got to blue was a black color with white sparkles in it. There just has to be a way for me to fix this. I have played this game on a much worse machine. I will post system specs when I get home from work. Just thought there might be some ideas before then? Thanks in advance.

 

First thing to do is download the latest Far Cry patch.

1.33 I think it is, or used to be.

Then update your video card drivers.

 

Off the top of my head latest drivers for the video card comes to mine, some older nvidia drivers had some issues with that and even bf 1942 (original).

 

Video card drivers are all set. I downloaded the versions that Ubisoft said I should. Everything was in, I rebooted, and when I clicked on the icon the config screen came up. I set everything to medium. I tried starting the game. The little screen with the guy and gal popped up and went away, then my desktop flashed once very quickly, then nothing. I checked the processes and FarCry is not running, nor is anything else that is not usually running. I click the icon again, same thing. I have uninstalled it completely, went in to the registry and removed all signs of Ubisoft and FarCry, and I am going to try again another day. Time to study for the mid-term on Wednesday, and finish the two reports for English. Gotta love school at age 34. Thanks for the tips, I will try again Friday and let you know if it works out or not. (Or tomorrow morning if I drag my butt out of bed at 5am). I have included my specs just for grins, see signature.

 

O.k. I just did everything I listed in my last post again. The same thing keeps happening. When I click the icon to start the game I get the guy/gal screen and then nothing except a very quick screen flash. Nothing running in the processes. Any ideas?

 

Bump

 

Farcry minimum system specs:

• Supported OS: Windows® 98SE/2000/XP (only)
• Processor: AMD Athlon™ 1 GHz or Pentium® III 1 GHz
• RAM: 256 MB
• Video Card: 64 MB DirectX® 9.0b-compatible graphics card
• Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0b-compatible PCI card
• DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0b (included on disc)
• CD-ROM: 4x DVD or 16x CD-ROM
• Hard Drive Space: 4 GB
• Multiplayer: Broadband with 64 Kbps upstream to play (512 Kbps upstream to host 8 players)

You're using onboard video, which is likely the reason you're having graphics issues. Onboard video is generally a very bad idea for any kind of gaming. Counter Strike's minimum specs are much lower than Farcry, which is why you're seeing issues you didn't see before.

 

See if you have an AGP slot and get a decent video card.

Onboard is only good for basic use, not 3D gaming.


You can try updating your video chip and motherboard drivers, but I doubt that will make the game run.

 

I do not have an AGP slot, but I can install a PCI card. I am not sure of the difference but I am assuming that there is a good enough PCI card I can use that will allow me to play Far Cry?

 

Bumpbumpbump

 

If my rig has PCI slots, I can use a PCI-e card right?

Also, the game ran fine (except for the water graphics) until I installed the patches. I am only looking to upgrade the graphics if this will help the water problem. When I played it before I did not have to download any patches. And that was on a machine two years older than this one, though it did use AMD products. Ehh, whatever gets this game running on my rig. I assume that a new PCI-E graphics card will eliminate the need for the patches?

 

bump

 

PCI and PCI-e are entirely different. As far plain pci video cards, thats gonna limit you a bit, but this should allow you to play farcry at a fairly decent fps, ATON Geforce FX5700LE or Apollo 5200 128MB PCI Geforce FX5200 128MB would be alright.

 

Is this card good enough for Far Cry?

GeForce FX 5500 256 MB PCI Graphics Card Features: Digital Vibrance Control™ 3.0, Vertex Shader 2.0, Pixel Shader 2.0 Device Type: Graphics Card Interface Type: PCI Min Hard Drive Space: 35 MB (50 MB for full installation) Min Operating System: Windows® 98 or higher/ME/2000/XP/NT4.0 with SP5 or SP6 Min Processor Type: Pentium® III, Celeron®, AMD®, Duron™, Sempron™, or Athlon™ class processor or higher Min RAM Size: 128 MB System Requirements: 250 W System Power Supply, CD or DVD-ROM Drive Graphics Processor / Vendor: NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5500 Video Memory Installed ( Max ): 256 MB DDR API Supported: DirectX® 9.0 and lower, OpenGL 1.5 and lower for Windows® RAMDAC Clock Speed: Dual 350 MHz Port(s) Total (Free) / Connector Type: 1 x VGA / 1 x S-Video

 

bump

 

Yes,

 

Thank you very much for your help. I think this is about the best one I can find on Dell that will work with my system. I anyone knows of a better one that I can get from Dell that will work on my rig, please do not hesitate to let me know. Thanks!

 

well that 5700 is a better card.

 

And why does it have to be from Dell, any retailer will do that has a PCI video card.


BTW, that 5700 is an LE, which is slower than normal.

 

Yes but its still better then that 5500.

 

Why does it have to be a choice between those two, don't they make other PCI cards?

 

I am looking for the best PCI card available that will work with my computer. I was looking for it to come from Dell because I already have a line of credit with them, interest free. I am willing to go somewhere else if their PCI cards are better. I am browsing myself, but I cannot determine which are better, which are compatible, and all that good stuff. You all seem to have more experience so it seems easier to ask the question here and draw from that experience.

Thanks all.