VT-Vincent

Heh, in all honesty though the Virtual Boy never bothered me... way back in the day, I could play it for over an hour without any issues. The two things I found that helped the most were playing it in a dark room and ensuring it was calibrated as accurately as possible. Just about everyone I know hated the thing though and had similar experiences to Inky. I remember when it was released, NoA hyped it up way too much... borderline false advertising. They hailed it as their first 32-bit, 3D portable. In the very early material, they even tried to claim it was in color! While these things may be true if you stretched the definitions as far as humanly possible most gamers didn't see it this way and felt cheated.

When did I ever say I was sane?

I think I might pick up a Virtual Boy soon. I really miss that system.

Ah, that's good to hear... the two big companies in my area, as well as all of the cellular companies suck completely. Luckily, I managed to get a fiber connection from a local ISP. Since they are small, they actually care if their customers leave or stay.

As of late, I've found myself wanting to buy a lot of retro hardware and as such, I've been browsing around eBay to see what is still out there. I have to admit, I am amazed at what I've seen... sealed copies of classics like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger, sealed consoles of virtually every generation and even some obscure peripherals I thought would've died off a long time ago. Just a few days ago I actually found a brand-new first party Sega Saturn S-Video cable. Up till now, I've been using the cheap generics that fall apart after a couple of uses. If I had the money though, there is so much more I would buy. So what has everyone else been buying/eying up?

Out of curiosity, have you tried calling your ISP? I know they can be a pain in the ass, but they should at least be able to support their own software and tell you where the option is.

Ah, I see. I take it you're on a cellular connection? If that's the case I would search for anything speed and/or compression related in your ISP's wireless manager software and disable it. I've seen this type of technology used before with one of our carriers here - Verizon has this enabled by default on their wireless manager software.

Emsley, it sounds like your color depth may be set to a low setting. It should be set to 16-bit color or higher. You can check what it is currently set to and adjust it here: On Windows XP: Cick Start > Control Panel > Apparance and Themes > Change the screen resolution (Will be listed under Color Quality) On Windows Vista: Click Start > Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization > Display Settings (Will be listed under Color Quality) On Windows 7: Click Start > Control Panel > Adjust screen resolution > Advanced Settings > Monitor tab (Will be listed under Color) If it will not let you change it, this is a sign that your video card driver is not installed correctly. You'll want to check it in the device manager and re-download it if needed. Lastly, if it is already set to 16-bit color or higher, there is either a software issue going on or a bad connection between the monitor and PC. A good way to determine which it is would be to take a screenshot and post it here. If we can see it too, that means it's a software issue. If not, it's a connection issue.

That's a nice list indeed. I need to pre-order my copy of Final Fantasy XIII soon, although mine will be on the 360.

I'm addicted to junk food... I usually eat fast food for lunch, and as of late Nestle's "Ultimate Chocolate Chunk Chocolate-Filled" cookies have been doing me in.

I think it's definitely bigger and more unique. The DS New Super Mario Bros. was nice, but I think in a lot of ways the scope was too small and the game was too limited. Playing multiplayer on it is a blast.

A friend recently got me New Super Mario Bros. Wii as an early x-mas present, and I am absolutely loving it. They've taken things from every Mario game and have masterfully integrated them into a new, modern 2D platformer. It's amazing that after all these years Nintendo still has it and can churn out great games like this.

Shiba, I would agree with the VGA box suggestion. Back when the Dreamcast was on the market, I actually used to have a VGA box for it and had it paired with my 19" CRT monitor. The clairty and smoothness was unbelievable. I'd love to see what one would look like today hooked up to my TV. Krosigrim, Saturn emulation has definitely improved by leaps and bounds. Download and fire up a copy of SSF - it even emulates the BIOS at this point so all you need are some good games. I have been tinkering with SSF over the last week or so and virtually everything I own runs on it at full speed with few to no glitches. Some parts of the emulator are still rough around the edges, but overall there's no doubt that it's the front runner in Saturn emulation. Looking back at it, I wish I would have held on to a lot of the consoles I sold. The Virtual Boy and Nomad in particular are pretty high on my list of things I regret selling. Those two systems were awesome.

It's not impossible, if she became infected it could spread to other computers on the network. An infection could also be using the resources from her computer and in turn, slow down the overall connection.

Does your other computer have the same issue?

My first question would be, do you have any firewall software running? If so, try to disable it and see if the issue persists. Do you have another computer connected to your network that you can try? If so, this will at least let you narrow it down to an issue with the computer itself or an issue with your network/ISP.

Setup would be the correct place to go. While it's considered the BIOS utility, it is usually not explicitly labeled as such.

You shouldn't need to worry about the Dual Channel setting. Dual Channel mode is typically enabled and disabled automatically by the BIOS depending on the configuration of your memory. It's also worth noting that simply having 2 or 4 DIMMs does not guarentee your memory will operate in dual channel mode, some motherboards require the two DIMMs in question to be completely identical. If one has a different density or latency, it may prevent your computer from operating in dual channel mode. As a general rule, I would say that you're better off with more memory than less in dual channel mode. While it does provide some speed improvements, RAM is not often the bottleneck of your computer thus speeding it up will have a limited effect on overall speed of the system.

It could be a couple of things unfortunately. The first issue that could happen is the density could be too high for your motherboard, but since your on DDR2 and it's only a 1GB DIMM, that's likely not the issue. It could be a brand compatibility issue between either your motherboard or your other sticks of memory. The first step would be to ensure the memory is properly seated. I know this may sound obvious, but a lot of DIMM slots can be very ridgid and take a lot of force to properly lock down. I would remove the new DIMM and snap it back in place. The force applied to the top of the DIMM should cause both of the clips on the side to audibly snap back into place. The next thing I would do is remove all of your other RAM and try to boot using only the new DIMM. If that doesn't work, try to move the new DIMM to a different slot (while the other memory is still removed). If you still can't get the system to boot with the new memory, you will want to check your computer/motherboard manufacturers website for any BIOS updates as well as the owner's manual to confirm what memory is compatible with the system. In terms of compatibility, another thing to ensure is that you are not mixing ECC and non-ECC memory. Non-ECC is most common in any consumer computers and is typically the only supported type in consumer computers. If your new memory is ECC, it will likely not work in your computer. If you have a workstation-grade computer, the reverse is true. Lastly, if after all of this you're still stuck with the same issue - I would recommend returning your new memory and visiting a site like Crucial.com and buying the memory from them using their memory advisor. It will show you all of the compatible memory for your particular computer or motherboard and their RAM is known for having exceptionally high compatibility.

Today I was in the process of reworking some of the wiring on my home entertainment center and in the process of testing everything, I turned on my Sega Saturn and couldn't help but play it for a while. Despite the fact it's over 14 years old, I still keep it as an active component of my setup. Aside from that, all of my systems are of current or next-to-current generation. I used to own many older consoles, but I eventually ended up thinning out my selection as emulation improved for each platform. As a general rule, when the platform was near fully emulated, I eliminated the physical hardware and moved the library to my media center. With SSF's progress over the years, it is looking like my dear old Saturn will be up next on the chopping block. For some reason though, I can't really bear to get rid of it. It never had an impressive game library or a long run (at least not in North America) but it has always been a favorite of mine. I have a plethora of accessories for it (including two new-in-box 3D gamepads) and I even had this particular unit modded. I think the reason the system is so special to me is that it's one of the few consoles I was very excited to get in my childhood. In a way, playing it takes me back to those days. What old consoles do you guys still keep around, and why?

I actually own the DGL-4500 and I have to say, it's one of the finest routers I've ever owned. It has everything you could want - tons of options, gigabit ethernet and wireless N. I don't use it's GameFuel technology nor do I find the display on the front to be particularly useful, instead I bought it for the reliability, the gigabit connectivity and the features. In the past, I used to prefer Linksys but since they were bought by Cisco, everything they have made since then has been garbage. I've always avoided Belkin and Netgear as well. Regarding your connectivity issues though, my personal recommendation would be to go to a hard-wired connection. For any uses where a persistent connection is critical, I have found wireless to be far too unreliable. Issues can be intermittent and can stem from any number of causes. I would only use wireless for casual use and set up a hard-wired connection anywhere you know you'll need one.

I actually ended up buying Sonic the Hedgehog 1 on the iPhone... morbid curiosity got the better of me, and my wallet paid the price. The emulator is utter crap. The framerate looks like it's hovering a little under 30fps, the audio breaks up, and the on-screen controls are worthless. It was pretty much what I expected, but somehow I was hoping that Sega would've done better than this. It's certainly not the first time they've let me down and it won't be the last.

Actually, black friday is the day after Thanksgiving - the 27th. In the US, it marks the official start of the Christmas shopping season and all retailers have insane doorbuster sales on this day. The deals are so good a lot of people will pitch tents outside the stores the day before just so they can be first in line for some of the most prized items. I've been through black friday five times as a Circuit City employee and twice as a customer, I have to say it's quite an experience.

It's strange... this is the first black friday that I won't be working retail. Looking at the ads, I really wish I wasn't broke right now... Best Buy has an great deal on a Samsung LED TV.

Thinking back on the last 5 years of gaming, I can say that there are some games I would probably go back and play in 20+ years, but I would certainly agree that it would be a much shorter list than from back in the 16bit era. One of the big reasons is that a lot of today's games you play them and they are finished - there are no meaningful extras or anything else that would keep you coming back. It seems that despite the technological advances, games have actually become more linear and scripted.