reith

I'd just like people's opinions on a simple fact of connectivity, stability, and speed on the aforementioned topics. I consider myself quite well versed in networking and computers, and although I am well aware that my nForce NVIDIA mobo is more suited to network as it provides a much better network management than any of the wireless plug in cards or usb adapters that I've yet to see, I always figured 56mbps was more than enough than what I would need for my internet connection (considering it's capped at 5mbps tops with the best of conditions). Even if it were operating at 30mbps having 3 computers on the wireless network, two of which are almost constantly on and playing games or what not (whatever my wife and I happen to be doing at the time) that would make it roughly 15mbps each when the two are on, much over the cap of my internet. Yet once I've switched, especially with two computer's in close proximity attempting to access outside, I find I get very laggy at times (confirmed to be network lag/connection and not graphics) that make little sense to be laggy at, ie playing Team Fortress two and things freeze and twitch for a second then suddenly speed up and resume, which is a very clear sign of lag in games. We are also avid MMO players and we play Final Fantasy XI a lot as well, and we will most often find ourselves in a laggy situation when going to populated areas. My torrents seem to rape our bandwidth something fierce as well, to the point that even after stopping and closing off all p2p connections, I will have to reset my router to clear out the cache and anything that seems to be clogging it up. Afterwards it seems to run fine, but then it seems to get bogged down again. I'm certain nobody else is on the network or hijacking it because I have incredibly good security on it and a monitor that tells me what IP and what location is on the network and only the three computers with their specific codes can get on, and no redundant codes are allowed. I recently got fed up, put the router in my room (it was in the living room between both sectors with computers) and hooked up actual lines to it rather than keeping wireless active. I've always had Excellent connectivity of about 95% or higher on both computers, so I'm not sure why exactly it was so laggy. But with it connected to my computer, everything is much noticeably faster, I'd like to say nearly twice as fast (when surfing the internet and downloading) but I'm not sure if that's correct because I've had limited time to actually test.I have a Linksys Wireless G router, a Linksys Wireless N usb adapter, and a Wireless G Belkin adapter, both of them USB, while the other computer is a D-Link pci card. Is it because they're USB? Prior to my wife moving in with me a while back I was the sole internet user and as such I never seemed to lag. There was the odd and rare drop in signal but it just never seemed to happen as much as it had lately, I feel jipped that I bought two USB adapters just to keep the wireless, only to have to link back up with it. Then again wireless is more annoying at times due to both computers taking a while to find and establish connections where as when it's already plugged in I'm ready to go from the start. Is there anything I can do to fix this, or am I sorta stuck until the technology catches up even more? I'm just surprised that it's been like this, when we used to be land lined connected in our old place we'd get 5mbps transfers over something like AIM (not direct network transfer) then with wireless it was maybe 200-700kbps very random and changed often with only that program being used by the internet. The router is good and never seemed to go bad, and I believe I updated it's firmware to most recent (which is like a year ago I think) so I'm fairly certain there's no problems there. It just seems to me that wired works so much better. I vaguely recall that fluorescent lights mess with the wifi signals, if that's true then that would be a prime cause why our internet is so slow, but the other computer is faster due to it not only being closer than ours to the router, but also having nearly no interference from those bulbs, of which there are about 7 on the way to our room, and even in our room.

Personally I've never heard of it, but if it was really well known enough wouldn't some kidnapper take off the kid's shoes and toss them somewhere? It just seems like if it were to be famous or even remotely popular then the said people who took the kid would probably look there. I never heard of this before, the only close thing I've seen to this was a chip that gets implanted under your skin and can be used as a GPS tracking device, and it also has all medical records and things to go along with it incase you come into a hospital unconscious without a wallet or any way to know medical info, they can just scan you and find out exactly what blood type you are and everything, avoiding potentially life threatening mistakes and costly complications. I would also like to know more about this shoe thing, though I suppose being a GPS and with today's miniaturizing technology you could put it into just about anything, a ring, a locket, waistband in pants, just have ot make sure somehow it's well guarded and protected from damage or else it's no good.

I know this question must get asked a lot but I have a fairly narrow field in which I should explain, being that the title didn't give much room to explain it and all. I'm looking for some of people's favorite games, it can be old, it can be new, I appreciate nostalgia just as much as I appreciate playing the newest thing. Just to mark out a few things, MP3 isn't one of the possibilities as it's already been beaten, Bioshock I'm already playing so I don't need anything about that, pretty much any Megaman or Megaman X game is covered since I'm a huge fan of those and have almost every single one. I'm looking for preferably a multi-player game, online RPG would be great for me and my wife, but not a necessity. WOW, LOTRO are out, as well as some of the other mainstream games, we already play FFXI so that's out as well. We also play private server RO, though we are desperately looking for Phantasy Star Universe private server, to no avail so far, and any link or information on such would be greatly appreciated. We're both avid gamers and it would be great to have a game we could jointly play, but we both understand that most games are single player and we don't mind watching each other play them. Personally I'm a fan of fps games, rpgs and puzzle type games, rts is okay but there doesn't seem to be very many good ones out atm, I've got starcraft and command and conquers and what not, any real new ones would be a good suggestion though. I've been looking for a fun MMO to play on the side that's more lighthearted and carefree rather than the more hardcore and stricter type of game that we're already playing / used to. Thanks in advance for any suggestions, especially any games that can be jointly played. I'd greatly prefer something new, that could take use of my PC's graphical power.

Does this mean the admins/mods don't know of the problem, or just that they have as of yet been unable to remedy it? I'd love to use Xisto's own solutions since they seem so much more simplistic and the ease of use is actually quite high, but if you do find another solution please PM me or something, I'll gladly help with any testing, my coding knowledge is limited but I'm able to do any testing or bug reporting and what not if you need any assistance. It's really too bad there's just not an easy to use simple chat that is free >.> things are always difficult with this sort of thing i fear. I'd use irc or some firefox add-on but they don't allow redundant connections (believe that's the right word) to where I can connect 4-7x to the chat and each connection runs equally as well. I wish I even had the homestead account information I used to use a very very very long time ago, because that may be an option now. I really hope the java/cgi gets fixed because for some reason it says: -- Connection to MELANGE CHAT SERVER at xx.xx.xx.xxx failed ! -- -- MELANGE debug: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect I didn't put the IP in case I wasn't supposed to, I know it's now mine b/c I know my IP very well. If a mod or admin needs the IP for any troubleshooting purposes though I can gladly PM it. Perhaps I'll try with another service of some sort, I just hate to have to pay for something that really shouldn't be too hard to set up. I'd even be okay with a LAN solution that allowed me to talk to various computers on my LAN while allowing me to log in under different names for RP purposes (as I own an RPG site and commonly control anywhere from 4-8 NPCs at any given time) instead of the typical 'can only log in from one location or only once from where you are etc. So far I haven't seen other solutions that work so far though ; ;.

I recently got hosted today, and was looking to put up a chat for my site that can allow multiple log ins from the same location, and while going through the cpanel I saw phpchat, configured it and logged in, but found that it seemed a bit laggy, and it flashed strangely when inputting new text, but the strangest thing to me was that the text was reversed, instead of new text coming from the bottom, and old up at the top, the new text came from the top and old was at the bottom, needless to say this was disorienting to me and without knowing how to reverse it, I turned to the java/cgi chat, and using the links it showed me, I put both into a page on the site just to check it out, and as I did the java loaded, but said it could not connect to the server, and so I couldn't test to see how that worked, and the cgi based chat had a form where I could input my nickname then go in, but it said the server took too long in order to respond. I figured there would be something to configure but there doesn't seem to be, I apologize if I missed anything, but is there anything I can do to make them work? If needed I can post anything that it said in order to help with getting this resolved, I seem to have few other choices to turn to at this point other than those two. Thanks in advance for any help, I appreciate it!

I'm well versed in html and the like, it's just it lists nothing as to actually how I am supposed to log into the chat, or am I blind as a bat? And for the users, do I input passwords for each user there, or do I just put it up there as is and each user somehow configures it for themselves? Most of it is still murky to me on understanding and comprehension though. And does Xisto have a tutorial or something of the sort for their phpadmin? I just got approved and logged in and am very impressed with how well the cpanel is made up, I've never seen such clean and easy to use functions, I'm glad - very glad I stumbled upon Xisto. I hope uploading my site via ftp and working through there like I normally do will be easy and efficient as I foresee it to be. Now that I have a site though I'll try the php thing out, just still have no clue how to access the chat, and the various other things since the instructions heavily imply that the user already knows some php and coding of which I know very little. The extent of my php is using php to load the same background/layout for each page so only one page is the actual layout w/ fonts css etc, but the actual pages are only that, and aren't loaded down with code that is repasted on every single page, making the pages much easier to edit as they only have content on them, but most of all have much smaller size which helps as well. I wish I knew more php and how to do this so I wouldn't be such a bother, and I do thank you very much for taking your time to reply to me and help me in anyway possible.

Thanks for the info on a free chat, << too bad I'm not that great with mysql and databases and the like. Having a heck of a time finding a guide for it, the install readme is really quite vague. And I can't try it out just yet since I don't have a site yet to test it out. There wouldn't happen to be anybody who can direct me to a good guide on mysql, and basically how to setup a database and all the things that phpchat would need would there? I need to change a few things around, and just in case somebody can help me I'll post the readme portion so that maybe somebody can make more sense of out it. The first I'm not even sure how to do at all <.<, I need multiple users to log in but I really don't want a bunch of passwords, or maybe they mean just for the chat pass, which would also be fine for me. The database I can't make and have no idea how to make it. And Table needs to be made, in which I downloaded phpmyadmin but have no clue how to use it but I'm going to read the documentation on it in depth more since it offers more help and more explanations than phpchat seems to. The 3rd sounds like i just copy the files that are in the php folder (it's one of the many folders that came with the phpchat download) and drop that into my directory on my site. But it doesn't say what to do with all the other files, and I'm not even sure how to code a page to make the chat show up on it, or if I can correctly get it to work, any help is greatly appreciated, and I apologize in advance if I'm asking for too much, any other possibilities I'm still open for. Notice from jlhaslip: Added Quote tags

I've been searching for quite some time for a free multiple person chat. I run an RPG site where I need a somewhat fast responsive chat in order to correctly RP to my members, and I need to be able to log in multiple times from the same computer (since I commonly RP as 3-4 NPCs at a time) all with different names. Most chats I've found were either incredibly laggy/slow, or did not let me log in more than once, and sometimes did not even allow me to change my name. I used to use Parachat and had to pay roughly 5$ a month which is quite a lot on a tight college students budget. I was looking hard for a free solution, I can make my own network from home and have my friends within network range in order to create a LAN chat or something of that sort, but I have no idea how to do it, and also have no clue what sort of chat solution would work best for me. I'd greatly appreciate any help at all, I'd of posted this in the internet forum but I can't since I'm still being screened yet and not approved / member lvl1. If this is in the wrong area I apologize but software seemed to be correct to me. Anything that isn't full of trojans, bugs, or otherwise huge security loopholes I'd greatly appreciate input/links etc. I recall seeing a homestead type chat a very long time ago, but other users could easily log in and disrupt whatever was going on. Though maybe that would be an option now, but anything really would greatly help me, and thanks a lot in advance for any help or suggestions.

For those of you who are still on the fence and deciding whether or not to get windows Vista for it's sleek and handy-dandy utilities, dx10, and other good tools that vista has over XP, I strongly urge you to get it, as long as you don't play FFXI. For those of you who don't know FFXI is a MMORPG that is fairly popular, though dwindling in the past years in NA, it's still a great game imho, but to each their own as some like WOW and LOTRO now. My point of this post is that if you own a newer NVIDIA card, namely one of the top of the line types, an 8 series card, FFXI runs at around 6-8fps when more than a few models are on screen (ie almost everywhere you go). It cannot handle shadows, it cannot handle hardly anything a five year old game has to throw at it. Yet the card and OS can very easily handle a new game like Bioshock or Lost Planet at full settings, but cannot handle a 5yr old game that a PS2 can easily handle. This has been a problem since February and has not been addressed or added to their list of problems to be fixed in the myriad of driver updates. It's quite sad that a 5yr old game can bring a really great gaming rig to it's knees. It may be because the game is still running DX8 (to be changed this December to dx9). But having the game being switched from a really crappy port to a more PC friendly port should of been done right from the start instead of shoddily porting it with some of the most horrific coding imaginable.I'd like to adamantly warn anybody who thinks of playing FFXI on vista with any recent NVIDIA card, even newish ones like the 7950s have horrible lag when it comes to bard songs, firaga spells and the like. I sincerely hope that anybody who has a fix or anything of the sort for this would post here, and if not maybe open the thread up to other games/programs that don't function well (game related please) with vista and/or NVIDIA cards. I've tried many new drivers, and tons of driver cleaning registry fixes the whole deal and nothing has worked so far. I actually bought vista to work with all my new games, and now find myself having bought an XP OS cd and going through all the hoopla that you need to do in order to allow a RAID mobo to work with an IDE drive despite it not being hooked up to a set of RAID drives for anything it would access. But my point was that XP runs much better, so if you're on the fence so far for os and you're a big FFXI player, I highly suggest you either keep your rig till christmas when not only sales go on for things you may want to buy, but WOTG comes out and they switch to DX9 which *may* fix the problems, but for now I'll have to keep my XP strictly for ffxi ; ;. I hope if anything I've steered one person away from making the same mistake as me.I would like to clarify, any ATI card even the newer ones as far as I know, work perfectly fine with FFXI and Vista and have nearly no problems at all. Seems to me NVIDIA is the best at making hardware, but horrible with driver/software, and ATI is just the opposite, damned either way really, though I would prefer good hardware as people can mod drivers to be much more efficient / better. However I'd like to see any suggestions or perhaps other games that would have a similar problem and how they can be fixed.

I'd like to personally warn anybody away from freehostingnow.com. I've had it for roughly six or more months in that time there have been two critical server failures resulting in a loss of all data, or corruption of all data. And some how recently, when I went to upload FTP (which is also incredibly buggy and half the time you can't even get in) it said my password wasn't correct. Upon further investigation it looks as if their login data server got corrupted and now I can't even log in to take my files down in order to try and bring them to a new site. It's a good thing I keep so many backups after being burned twice by that site.I really suggest that you find a better site than freehostingnow.com. I couldn't even get onto forums, get a help ticket, or request my password be sent to my email. It's just bad customer service, when I posted about what happened to the data files they simply said "hope you back-up" no sorry, no apologizes or anything. The server claims it has a lot of bandwidth but mysteriously it rises when you don't even have any hits to the site, sounds like a complete scam to me and I lived with it because my last site hostultra.com turned completely sour with their rampant use of flash and java adds that would get through to my site despite my repeated efforts to have them blocked, that coupled with their non-caring attitude about their freehost people, and the fact that myself and several other members of my site found that these adds were trojan horses.In my personal opinion finding Xisto.com was a godsend, all I need to do is be an active member of an already good looking community and I am able to get hosting. Seems far too easy to me, but I won't be one to look a gift horse in the mouth.