Acid for Blood

This post has moved to http://acidforblood.net/2005/07/31/video-game-music-link-dump/.

Cheers!

Last night, in a quiet corner of Ascalon City, I decided to take all my (character's) clothes off. I was curious, all right? Don't tell me that you wouldn't be curious to see if your game character had any undergarments on! How would you know if you didn't look, right? I wasn't actually paying attention to this when I was upgrading Khirsah's armour last week, and it didn't occur to me to look until last night.

Guild Wars characters do have undergarments, after all. Curiosity assuaged. Not only that, it seems that different Professions have different styles of undergarments.

My Necromancer primary has a fairly simple (yet nice) grey strappy tank top and matching underwear. At that moment, I saw a male Necromancer run by in nothing but his guild cape and grey shorts, so I guess grey is the Necromancer thing.

Dyannamika's Elementalist primary has some sort of white lacy lingerie type outfit on underneath.

Now I'm curious as to what the other Professions have on underneath their armour, but I don't think I could seriously walk up to a PC and say, "Excuse me, I'm a n00b, and I simply must know. Would you take your clothes off for me? I want to see what you've got on underneath."

Politicians are insane. They get in an uproar over non-pornographic depictions of consentual sex between adults, and yet they don't react with as much fervour to depictions of violent crime in all sorts of media.

Game Girl Advance puts the Hot Coffee scandal (and now the brewing Sims hoopla -- no pun intended!) into perspective (N.B. -- The ages listed correspond to the "M" rating, games suitable for people aged 17 and older, and the "T" rating, games suitable for people 13 and older.):

What's okay in GTA (the series) for seventeen year olds:

Assault with a deadly weapon.
Battery
Murder
Assassination
Vehicular homicide/manslaughter
Grand theft auto (duh)
Sex with prostitutes (tastefully hidden!)
Racketeering
Drug trafficking

What's not okay in GTA (the series) for seventeen year olds:

Consentual softcore sex between two adults, one of which is fully clothed.

What's okay in Sims (the series) for thirteen year olds:

Removing a ladder from a pool to induce drowning.
Locking someone in a room until they die from exhaustion.
Intentionally getting sims to wet/soil themselves.
Voyeurism (Sims taking showers)
Tricking people into setting themselves on fire in a kitchen.

What's not okay in Sims (mostly 2) for thirteen year olds:

Consentual implied sex between two adults, nudity mosaic'd out and they basically play under the sheets making monkey and dog noises.

In this post on Game Politics, one mod community argues in a letter to Clinton, Yee, and Thompson that there have been far more contentious video games released with an M-rating, which have not received the flak that San Andreas has gotten:

In recent statements by the ESRB, they have accused the mod community of undermining their ratings by putting sexually explicit material into PC games, namely San Andreas, which was already rated "M". However, if you look into a game by the name of "Singles - Flirt up your Life", it becomes quite clear they are doing a good job of that all by themselves. This "M" rated game features full frontal nudity (and not androgynous "barbies" like The Sims) and characters engaging in interactive sexual scenes.

More from the mod community on this issue. [Via Cathode Tan]

The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games is an interesting article which compares US Government Statistics on youth crime to the release dates of Grand Theft Auto games and launch dates of the PS1 and PS2:

US Department of Justice report: "Recently, the offending rates for 14-17 year-olds reached the lowest levels ever recorded."

The lowest levels ever recorded. In other words, the Playstation era has, in fact, produced the most non-violent kids ever.

[Via Pixel Kill]

More voices of reason, from Reality Panic.

I know. I wasn't going to say anything about Hot Coffee, but this whole situation is frustrating, and I couldn't contain myself. Fluffy Guild Wars posts will resume in due course.

We finally crossed over to Post-Searing in Guild Wars. In other words, we left the massive tutorial area, and emerged into the game world proper. The change in landscape was incredible. Everything in Ascalon is in ruins. The skyline is a red, hazy blur from all the fires that the Charr had set. Moderately powerful monsters, which had previously been found in the wilderness or in remote areas, roam very close to the city. All the beautiful trees, grass, and clean water are gone. The place is a complete mess.

When Dyannamika and I had been completing the quest to find and escort a Ranger who had been trapped beind enemy lines (Across the Wall), we had our first encounter with the Charr. We had to go beyond the Great Northern Wall, the structure that kept the Charr out of Ascalon. I knew this was meant to be more like a sneaking mission -- don't be seen, don't get caught, or all is lost. We were out numbered and under-powered. We died on several occassions. The Charr are vicious, powerful, and well-organised beasts. We got our asses kicked a few times before we found a safe route to the Ranger. Since the Charr have an affinity for fire, I eventually thought that we should look for a route near water. I don't know whether that was a logical deduction to make, but it turned out to be a good one. The Ranger was, indeed, reachable by going through some ponds. Bloody Ranger!

Those failed encounters with the Charr left an impression. I'm looking forward to when our characters become more powerful, so that I can kill some Charr. They're going to be sorry for what they did to Ascalon, the bastards. My character is going to enjoy raising them into undead servitude in order to kill more of their kind. Ha ha ha!

Perhaps I am behind in experiencing the quality of PC graphics, so bear with me if gush over things that PC gamers are used to seeing. In my opinion, Guild Wars has brilliant graphics. Many things, like the sun shining through the clouds, glow with bloom lighting effects. The world is just so beautifully made. In the months leading up to the release date this past April, I'd seen promo trailers for Guild Wars whilst working at GameStop. Of course, all you can really experience by watching trailers is the graphical aspect. The trailers were astounding, but the in-game experience can be breathtaking.

The other day, we were exploring Wizard's Folly, far to the southwest of Ascalon City, in search of Foible's Fair. Soon, we found ourselves going higher and higher into the mountains. It begain to rain, and then there were some light snowflakes. We encountered massive, hulking creatures of glittering ice and stone, which we dispatched with a bit of difficulty. The scenery was amazing. The snow and ice caves were so gorgeous and different from the golden trees of Regent Valley or the pretty waters of Lakeside County. The reflections of light dancing on frozen ponds and waterfalls were beautiful. We leave footprints on the ground, and not just in the snow. The water in Lakeside County was so cool and water-like. That sounds lame, but it was still impressive.

Not only is the scenery nice, but the graphical detail on the characters is wonderful as well. I have a character whose Primary Profession is that of a Necromancer. She started out with this wonderful full-body suit of leather armour. I wasn't too pleased that a Necromancer's starting armour is green. Once I was able to afford dye remover, I was pleasantly surprised that removing the green dye revealed red. After I collected the items required for an armour upgrade, Khirsah was looking even more sexy than she had been before. When I zoom in on her, I can see that some parts of her new armour shimmer and reflect the light. I love little details like this. I still think that we should have more options in terms of differentiating character appearances.

The music in Guild Wars is pretty unobtrusive. I recognise certain musical pieces, but the music doesn't change when we're battling (not that I have noticed, anyway). The music is not overly remarkable, but it's not crap, either.

Dyannamika and I quickly discovered that the International Districts are always less crowded than the American Districts. We agreed that it was more pleasant with fewer people running around in the common areas. We took to going to the International District after logging on, rather than stay in the American Districts.

After The Searing, one of my friends in the Wheres the Dice guild, who had started a new character, met us in Ascalon City. Since he has been playing the game longer, and already had other characters, we asked him for the location of the Guild Emblemer in the city. He ran around for a while, and after not finding key people, he suggested we go to one of the American Districts. We found them there.

We were puzzled as to the lack of certain NPCs in the International District. There shouldn't be a difference, should there? There was no Guild Emblemer or NPC selling item storage accounts, but in the American District, they were there. I'm going to have a look on the Guild Wars website to see if they have an FAQ that addresses this...

Talking to the Guild Emblemer revealed that it would cost 2 Platinum Pieces (2 000 Gold) to make a cape for our guild! What a fucking rip off! In Pre-Searing Ascalon, the prices were not quite so atrocious. I suppose it stands to reason that a huge disaster like the breach of the Great Northern Wall and the invasion of the Charr would make prices skyrocket. We have a lot of hard work cut out for us to get capes.

Dyannamika and I formed a guild! It was either going to be named the "Legion of Dynamic Discord" or the "Callers of Cthulhu". Neither is relevant to the world of Tyria, but I think they are much better options than a dumb name like "Wheres the Dice" (tag: WTD), which is the guild that my friend formed with his other friends. We couldn't decide which one, so we decided to flip a coin. Neither of us had coins handy, so I rolled a d20. Evens for "Legion", odds for "Callers". The roll resulted in an odd number, so we are now the Callers of Cthulhu (tag: Cthu).

I don't have any PvP ambitions for the guild at this point. At the moment, I don't think we are thinking of making a recruiting effort. Perhaps our aims and playing style will become more definite as we continue to play. Who knows. That said, I don't think we would oppose new members, especially if one of us knows them from somewhere.

I'm not super keen on a cape, mainly because a cape would obstruct the view of my character's body. She has really nice armour, despite having just the first armour upgrade. However, I'm not strictly opposed to capes. Capes are nice because you have a common team symbol, and it's nice to be able to have that.

I posted earlier about beginning my foray into Second Life. When I arrived in the Second Life world, there were free copies of this book floating above a decorative column near the welcome areas. Free book, so I took one. I didn't know it at the time, but apparently the virtual copy of the book will be signed by the avatar of the author, Cory Doctorow. Despite reading Wonderland regularly, I didn't pay much attention to Second Life posts, because I didn't have the game. The book signing is going to take place this Sunday in Second Life. Now that I've got the game, if I'm not doing anything, I may fly over and see what the fuss is about...

I have to say, I haven't played Second Life much since the first weekend I installed it. It's a bit boring. I can kind of see its appeal, but Second Life has thus far failed to grab me. Customising my avatar's appearance is loads of fun, but beyond that... Meh. The monthly fee puts me off, so whilst I would ordinarily be interested in buying land and building an awesome house, I'm not excited about Second Life because of the "first life" monthly financial outlay.

I am a bit careful about trying these sorts of "non-games". A few years ago, I played The Sims quite a lot. I was living at a friend's house during the last couple of months of my stay in London. The game belonged to her. After I moved out, I decided never to play it again, because it was totally addictive. It was fun, though... :-D I have also banned Animal Crossing from going anywhere near my GameCube. Animal Crossing looks like such a great game, but I have to stay away. I can be strong, though. I have too many other games to occupy my time.

Having said that, I will be getting a DS (when the US gets better colours) and Nintendogs... Can't stay away from having a cute German Shepherd puppy that never grows up, doesn't make a mess, and that you can ignore at your convenience. And, and doggies are cute!

Saw this the other day, but didn't get around to reading the full text till just now. An excerpt from "If World War II had been an RTS":

Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys

Mike at Game Girl Advance has some interesting observations and comparisons in regards to women gamers.

Firstly, he states that there is an idealised notion of a girl gamer perpetuated by the media and by marketing campaigns. This creation is the "lipstick gamer". She is extremely attractive, skilled, and a hardcore gamer. She wants guys to know they've been beaten by a girl. She is the girl gamer that guys want as their girlfriend.

In the Game Girl Advance post, a comparison of this idealised girl gamer is made to the lipstick lesbian -- another ideal which is glorified by the media. The lipstick lesbian is unequivocably attractive, "straight-looking", femme, and very fashionable. The lipstick lesbian is drooled over by guys who cling to the fantasy that A) her sexual orientation applies in all cases except for him, and B) she would be up for a threesome starring him, her, and her girlfriend.

Many lesbians are uneasy or uncomfortable with the image of lipstick lesbians in the media. They argue that lipstick lesbians are marketing cash-ins that take advantage of male fantasies to sell product to men. I think most people are familiar with many lesbian sterotypes -- enough to know that, in a room of 100 lesbians, probably less than half would be lipstick lesbians. It's this deviance from reality that "average" lesbians also dislike about the media image of lipstick lesbians.

Are there enough women in the gaming media to confirm the existence of the lipstick gamer? I think we can certainly point to some examples. We've seen how much men gamers salivate over manufactured girl gamer groups like the Frag Dolls or solo operators like the PSP-licker. We've seen how the gaming media has catapulted these women to fame. We've also seen how, unsurprisingly, the reaction from women gamers (and many men gamers) is not as exhuberant. Just as the lipstick lesbian is paraded around men's media (mags, websites, etc.), and is a creation for the male fantasy, the lipstick gamer was created by the media or marketing groups primarily for men, not for women. I believe that this is what many women (and men) gamers have a problem with.

It can be a matter of perspective though. On one hand, they can be seen as highly successful marketing gimmicks created for men and to attract men. On the other hand, they can also be seen as empowered women who are getting out there and showing the gaming public that there are women gamers who are as skilled and passionate about games as men gamers. I doubt lipstick gamers see themselves as media/marketing pawns or as booth babes who can play a good game.

Whether the population of lipstick gamers is large enough to be a stereotype akin to lipstick lesbians is up to speculation. Lipstick lesbians certainly exist, even without being glorified by the media. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility to suppose that lipstick gamers exist in real life. I don't think the difference between lipstick gamers and "real" women gamers is as pronounced as the difference lipstick lesbians and "real" lesbians, though.

Like the population at large, women gamers are a diverse bunch, with diverse tastes. The average girl gamer would probably say that lipstick gamers are not representative of them, just as the average lesbian would say that lipstick lesbians are not representative of them, or the average woman would say that the women in fashion magazines are not representative of them.

At the end of the day, the media will continue to do what generates attention for their outlets and marketing campaigns will continue to do whatever it is that generates attention and exposure for their products. Attractive and sexy sells, regardless of industry.

Christian evangelical types are making video games to spread their message, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before white supremacist groups decided to make games as well. National Alliance's Resistance Records produces the game, entitled Ethnic Cleansing.

From the Review section on their site, comes this gem:

"...I believe this game is going to be extremely popular -- and it will touch the hearts of thousands of White people because it's not intellectual -- it's entertainment, and that's why it delivers a very powerful message. Every young elementary school kid who plays this game will have visions of killing Ariel Sharon while sitting in class! When their history teacher asks the class if they've ever heard of Israel or Ariel Sharon, the White kids certainly will have!"

"...If there isn't already one being planned, I wouldn't be surprised if an "Ethnic Cleansing Fan Club" starts up on the internet. Many players can compare notes and strategies in one of these clubs. I wonder if there is a special combination of keys that when pressed, gives the player supernatural powers?"

"...I guess I've gone over the edge. I have become an Ethnic Cleansing junkie, and if you sold T-shirts with the Ethnic Cleansing logo, I'd buy one."

- Rob M."

And the game not without its detractors:

"You should all go to hell for even creating such a disgusting piece of shit. I can't believe people are still around who are so shallow and create things like games to kill jews and blacks! People can't choose what race or religion they are at birth, and they shouldn't be discriminated for being a different color. Whites are the minority, you know! And what is with your kill-the-jew concept? Just because jews don't agree with some things, means you should kill them off? You people are disgusting! And it makes me even more angry because I am a jew. You should be ashamed for even making a site so repulsive. So go and fuck yourselves, you disgusting bastards.

Love,

Helene"

The internet can be a scary place...

I am just posting this so that all the relevant entries are easily accessible in case, for some reason, I need to reach them in a convenient fashion.

Guild Wars, Soon -- I'm getting a new computer, and my friend is going to build it for me. W00t.

Parts Shipped -- My computer parts are shipping.

Brin the Builder -- I'm building this thing?

Easier Than I Thought -- That wasn't too bad.

More Sexy Bits Arriving Soon -- All the basic parts have been assembled.

I Would Scream But I Prefer to Seethe with Barely-Controlled Rage -- I've hit a snag!

It Was a Difficult Labour for Them Both -- Phew, it's working now.

She Has No Voice -- No bloody audio!

Option 5 -- Screw this nonsense, I'm getting a sound card.

She Speaks! -- Sound, glorious sound.

Don't Do This to Me, Baby! -- Please don't make me reinstall Windows again.

Speakers -- Woo hoo! Decent sound!

[Edited 07 September 2005]

Right. GTA: San Andreas. Hot Coffee. Rockstar. The ESA. The ESRB. Senator Clinton. Jack Thompson.

Not going to comment.

Oh my God. I almost had a fucking heart attack.

I was installing a rear exhaust fan, and when it came time to power everything on, I got a Disk Boot Error. Shite! I just about lost it. With everything I had to put up with in getting this machine running, I didn't want to deal with this nonsense again! It was asking me to boot from the CD, so I dutifully, but reluctantly, put my Windows XP CD in. The computer said that it couldn't detect a hard drive. WTF? I looked inside the case. The SATA plug did look ever so slightly crooked... I opened it up and made sure the SATA cable was fully in place. Check. Power up. Still wouldn't boot up. I very nearly cried. Instead of crying, I pleaded with my computer (aloud). Then I looked inside the case again. I thought, "It didn't detect a hard disk. Why would that be? What about power?" I checked the power, and... The power cable wasn't plugged in!

I didn't remember unplugging the power supply from the hard drive when I was installing the fan. However, my father was helping me rearrange the wires inside my case, using those plastic ties to make everything neat and orderly. He might have removed the power plug from the hard drive when I wasn't looking.

I plugged the power cable into the hard drive, and everything was fine. I didn't even have to reinstall anything. What a relief! Geez!

If I improve my typing skills, maybe I will get used to gaming on a keyboard. To that end, I will dig out my copy of The Typing of the Dead and start practising. I am a fairly lazy typist, I will admit. I think any practice at all will be a good thing, even if my PC gaming skills don't improve. Besides, killing zombies through accurate touch-typing is awesome.

I started playing Guild Wars last night with Dyannamika. The experience for me was mixed.

I haven't played many PC games before. Really, I've only played some point-and-click adventure games, some RTS games, an FPS (Doom 2)... That's about it. So, this fucking "WASD" malarky was frustrating and relatively new to me. I know that the keyboard and mouse combination offers more control options than a controller, however until I get used to it, I feel like a complete fucking tool as I run around, unable to dodge the fucking Plague Worms' missiles because of my lack of keyboard skills and the fact that I'm completely not ambidextrous and am right-handed.

I was desperately searching for some kind of lock-on-the-enemy-and-strafe-at-the-same-time n00b function. I asked one of my friends, and he said you can't do that. I guess it would be too easy.

I do not like the colour of armour that Necromancers start with. Green. Eugh. As soon as I'm able, I'm changing it. The character appearance options seem a little limited. I don't know about the other professions, but the Necromancer hairstyles all tend to be on the short side, which is fine, but it would have been nice to see more options. I'm relatively happy with the look of my character, though.

As soon as we arrived, we turned off Local chatter. It was too distracting and annoying. We're definitely going to use some sort of voice chat programme to co-ordinate our activities. It would be so much easier to talk rather than type, especially when fighting. Maybe for in-character stuff we could type, and then OOC stuff we could speak?

I saw a lot of people wearing guild cloaks. I'm not sure I like them; the cloaks I mean. Some of them have nice designs, but they also take a little away from the characters' overall... Impression. I don't know. Maybe if we had a cool design, it wouldn't be so bad. But a cloak would cover half of my character, and I mostly see her backside. If I'm not going to see my character, it seems a bit of a shame. They're also too short to look as dramatic as I would personally prefer.

On the positive side, I enjoyed playing with Dyannamika. We didn't get much role-playing in, because we were focusing on aclimatising ourselves to the controls (especially in my case), the game world, and on killing things. Still, it was good fun, though I couldn't play as long as I wanted.

Role-playing in Guild Wars is obviously different from table-top, online forum-based, or live-action role-playing -- all of which I have engaged in at one point or another. I haven't really got a background for my character yet. The world is still a bit vague in my mind, despite having read the manual for general information. I'm the kind of person who likes having involved (or at the very least, fleshed out) backgrounds for my characters. Maybe it's not necessary in Guild Wars. I'm not really sure. MMORPGs (or CORPG, as NCSoft calls Guild Wars) and online gaming are very new to me. Like many of my previous characters, I'll figure this one out as I go along. From what I could tell by reading others' character and guild names, loads of people don't seem to be into the actual role-playing side of things. Maybe role-playing lite is the way to go?

One of my friends IMed me and told me to tell him when we got past the Searing so he could send us a guild invite. I have neglected to tell him that I don't want to be in his guild because the name he and his friends chose is fucking lame. It's too much of a meta-game, out of character name. I can't abide it. Dyannamika agrees as well. I don't know what we're going to do about that.

He wasn't too keen on the name that Dyannamika and I had come up with. Neither was one of my other friends, who said it sounded like a "queer super hero group". Moreover, he actually liked the crap name that my other friend had decided upon. Bollocks to them! We thought of a good name, and it was suitably geeky without being too out of character.

Oh yes. My character is Khirsah S., Necromancer Primary. I'll most likely take Mesmer as my Secondary Profession. I am leaning towards specialising in Curses, since that seems uber hardcore. I know it is a bit tricky and one needs to strategise during battle, perhaps moreso than other Necromancer combinations, though. For the Memser side, Domination magics look ace. I'll see how it goes.

I stayed up later than I should have. I can't let this happen too often because I dislike being tired and groggy at work. Also, I'm trying (trying!) to commit myself to at least eight hours of sleep per night. Must be more disciplined.

I read on Wonderland that Second Life are offering free basic accounts until the 13th of July. I've been curious about this game, so I joined. Basic accounts can't own land, but you can change your appearance as much as you want.

This is my character, Torvus Overdrive:



Cool, huh? I'd like to give her claws and fangs. I would have to buy those from someone who makes them... I bought this outfit you see her wearing. It also came with another top and trousers. Good deal!

It's incredible. I was in this store and they were selling bodies for your avatar, and I don't mean clothing; I mean the naughty bits. They sell complete body and clothing kits, so you can change everything in your appearance all at once. Amazing! I've seen furries walking around. There was this little racoon and some foxes. I also saw Jedi with light sabres as well! Some people are even walking around naked.

I'm probably not going to play this game intensely, but it is interesting. I haven't really chatted to anyone in-game, though. I'm kind of shy! Anyway, I flew around a lot and had a look around. It's a pretty cool world, but I don't know if this is my cup of tea. It all seems a bit aimless, since I can't own land, but changing my appearance is still fun.

Hells yeah! I have sound! My sound card arrived today, and I just installed it.

I'm listening to the soundtrack of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night! Hooray! I'd ordered the Metroid Prime/Metroid Fusion soundtracks from CDJapan.co.jp as well. Both arrived today. I'd actually ordered these a few months ago, but I also ordered a hard-to-find anime soundtrack. Sadly, they were unable to locate this CD, so they just shipped the rest of my order.

Anyway, now I am rocking and rolling. Guild Wars, here I come!

Just to make this vaguely related to gaming, since this is a gaming blog... I emailed my former DM who continues to run the D&D game I participated in when I lived there. He and everyone in the group are fine. One of my friends, whom I met at the Trocadero arcade playing DDR, is also safe. My other friends have checked in and they're fine as well. I'm so relieved.

I'm really proud of London today. From what I have been reading, everyone has reacted calmly and admirably, considering the circumstances. My thoughts are with everyone there.

Two games that make a commentary on terrorism are worth mentioning: September 12th and Madrid.

My Prologue and First Play (the first in series of progressive reviews) of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater are up on The Game Chair. The Prologue simply gives a short history of my experience with the previous Metal Gear Solid games, particularly Sons of Liberty. They made me write a bio, which was very hard. I don't really like writing bios. :-P

Option 5, which was suggested to me in the comments to my previous post, is to to get a sound card. Part of me wants to continue the fight, to figure out what the heck is wrong with my onboard sound chip, and to get it working. This is the part of me that refuses to lose to a machine. Also, I want to know why it's not working. The other part of me just wants sound, full stop. This is Week 2 of building and troubleshooting. It sounds like a long time, and I think it was: weekday evenings after dinner, and three full days at the holiday weekend. Everything is working, except for the sound.

Last night, I tried Option 2, which was to uninstall Service Pack 2, uninstall the Realtek Audio Drivers, and then reinstall Realtek before finally reinstalling SP2. Things didn't go so well, and I had to go to Option 3: a fresh Windows XP install, which also involved fresh installations of everything else. Still no sound. Now I wonder whether it's worth it to go to Option 1 (update the BIOS) at all, rather than simply buying the sound card.

I was reading up on sound cards last night and this morning before work, so I think I'm pretty much set on buying one. I haven't bought speakers yet, because I wanted to focus on the core parts first. So for now I'll be using my dinky, 2 watt monitor speakers and my decidedly more awesome Sennheiser PC 150 headset.

I can’t get my onboard audio to work. My board is an MSI K8N Neo Series MS-7030 Ver. 1, based on the NVIDIA nForce 3 Chipset. The sound chip is by Realtek. The Realtek AC97 Audio Drivers were installed along with the mainboard drivers.

The Device Manager says that Realtek AC’97 is functioning properly. I had a look at the Audio Codecs (which listed various ones, including stuff like Windows Media Player codecs), and they are all working properly.

My task bar as a little volume icon, and I’ve turned the volume all the way up for everything (Master, Wav, CD, etc.). When I play an MP3 in Media Player, I see the sound indicator moving, and the file is playing all right. MSI included an audio optimisation utility in their CD, which I installed, and I did a sound test.

I plugged the speaker plug into each audio port connector, as the music played, because my friend said that maybe the manufacturer made a mistake and put the Line Out in the wrong coloured port. I plugged the speaker plug into the front audio port as well. I also tried my headset.

I haven’t jumpered my front audio pins because I do want to be able use the front audio header. I made sure that the plugs went into the right pins.

I checked the BIOS for the AC97 Audio, which allows the mainboard to detect whether an audio device is being used. According to the manual, if an audio device is being used, then the onboard Audio Codec 97 controller will be enabled. If I wanted to use a sound card, I’m supposed to Disable this on the BIOS. But since I want to use onboard sound, it was Enabled.

I checked the Realtek website for updated drivers, and downloaded those. I removed the older driver, and installed the most updated version.

I browsed the files on the included driver/utility CD, and there were NVIDIA Audio Codecs there. I tried uninstalling the Realtek Audio, and installing the NVIDIA Audio Codecs.

After all that, I still haven’t got sound.

From doing some research, I have the following options to try:

1. Update the BIOS.

2. Uninstall Windows Service Pack 2. Uninstall the Realtek drivers. Then reinstall Realtek drivers and reinstall Windows Service Pack 2.

3. Fresh installation of Windows XP, nForce drivers, Realtek drivers, and then Windows Service Pack 2.

4. Cry.

For Options 2 and 3, my situation was such that I had installed Windows, then the drivers, then SP2. But over the course of troubleshooting my continual restart problem, the Realtek driver had been uninstalled and then reinstalled, without SP2 being removed. According to one message board, the drivers should all be in place before SP2, which makes sense, of course, and that's what I did. However, I can't be sure whether the sound was working last week, when I had't installed SP2, since my main focus was on keeping the computer from crashing and solving the restart problem.

I think I am going try Option 2 first, then Option 1, then Option 3. If none of that works, I’m going to go for Option 4. What else can I do?

Oh my God. She's alive! I'm typing this from my new computer. I'm so excited!

This was the problem: After the BIOS screen, I got a screen stating "Windows did not start successfully" and "A recent hardware or software change might have caused this". Then I tried to start in Safe Mode, but more often than not, it would just go back to restart or it would crash. If I managed to start Windows, and install another driver or something that required a restart, it would get stuck in that cycle again.

After ruling out many possible problems, my friend told me to look in -- I forgot what it's called, but it's that place where you can see if there are System or Application Errors. I IMed to him some of the error messages and he figured that something was interferring with the IDE drivers. I talked to one of my other friends (on Messenger as well), and he said there was something to do with NVIDIA IDE that messes with the the ability to copy DVDs. Anyway, I poked about on the net (on the other computer) and I found out that the continual restart problem was a result of installing the NVIDIA IDE SW driver:

Now about that NVIDIA IDE SW driver thing. It's pretty weird that it would prompt for something like that in the middle of the install, but whatever. I did first try responding "Yes" to have it included in the install. But after the install was complete and the computer restarted, it would get stuck continually restarting. Shortly after the BIOS screen, I would get this screen stating "Windows did not start successfully" and that "A recent hardware or software change might have caused this".

Well thank goodness for GoBack. I just restored the hard drive to the point before installing the drivers. I got this same error on two different versions of driver, v3.13 and v5.10. Then I read the NVIDIA IDE SW informatory window box carefully and noticed it says things like "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver replaces the ATA drivers (that come with windows) with drivers that are optimized for nForce2-based desktop computers", "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver is not a requirement for your operating system to work", "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver is provided as-is to the end user", and "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver may contain design defects or errors....". Hmm, this isn't sounding so great. What happens, I wonder, if I do the install without including the NVIDIA IDE SW driver. Oh, it all works. I guess that part about the "...defects and errors..." is right on the money.

Uninstalling the NVIDIA IDE SW driver caused the reboot problem to go away.

I installed the wireless card with a few little hitches, and finally connected to my network, so here I am!

I transferred all my files, though sadly not through the network, because I somehow fucked up the network connection on my laptop. It won't connect anymore, but I'll figure out what's wrong with it later. My brother doesn't get back from out-of-town until August. So to transfer the files, I just burned them to CD-ROMs. I didn't have that much data to transfer, just 2 CDs worth. I deleted everything on the laptop that my brother doesn't need, because he gets to have it now.

Most of the programs I need have been installed. The problem is that I lack the original installation CD for a particular program on my laptop, so I might have to install an older version of it, because that's the version I do have a CD of.

The only remaining major (-ish) problem with the new computer is sound -- the lack therof. The audio drivers have been installed and the computer says everything is working fine, so I'll have to check the hardware... But that can wait until tomorrow. I'm just so relieved and happy that the most important parts are working now!

Thanks, Corvus and Josh, for your offers of help. :-D Luckily we were able to get it sorted! I'm crossing my fingers for continued stability. :-P

I did allude that I don't know the first thing about setting up a computer. I honestly didn't know the first step. I just follow instructions. If I miss some steps, it's because there were no instructions. That's how clueless I am about this. I'm an intelligent person, and I am experienced with using computers, but that doesn't mean that I have the knowledge to do something like this. This is not an intuitive process.

I feel really dumb. I don't know how to fix what's wrong. My friend tried to help during the week via Messenger, but the problem remained. The theory now is that the motherboard driver is, for some reason, not good. We'll see if that theory pans out. Unfortunately, if this isn't fixed by Monday, I won't be able to count on my friend to help me, since he'll be on business travel for a long time. I really want this to be over by tomorrow (today)!

This weekend is meant to be the weekend to sort this all out. At least I'm learning stuff, but learning through trial and error is frustrating. I'd have more of an idea as to what I could do about the problem if I actually knew what all the technical lingo meant, what things were for, and what I should and shouldn't do.

Oh well. Tomorrow's another day. I know seething is not good, but screaming wouldn't work any better.

Can't. Stop. Laughing. The Chronicles of George. Not game-related, but it is computer-related. A bit old, but new to me.

I'm havening a slow day at the office. Yay long weekend!

[Via +Pikuru]