snorks in space! (noob w. old hardware, gamepad, questions)

[CheeseRedux]

And for now I do not dare customise Oolite control keys, because then I would be incongruent with the Oolite documentation. Sounds like a sure bet to end up even more confused.

This thread might give you a couple of ideas on how to battle keyboard confusion. I especially like ClymAngus' origami sheet at the top of page 2.

[Diziet Sma]

Sounds like you have your machine pretty well sorted, all right..

About the only thing I would suggest then, is that since Adobe Acrobat Reader can be a bit of a resource hog, you may want to consider using Foxit Reader instead. It does everything Adobe's program does, but is much more lightweight.


Oh yeah, when you buy your new notebook, if you want to play Oolite on it, do not buy one with an Intel or ATI graphics chip. You will save yourself a lot of grief re OpenGL graphics drivers that way.

[Svengali]

Edit the oxps ogg-vorbis files if you feel the need. It simple and there are a lot of editors out there (like Audacity).

I never edited ogg audio files before, but I guess it's the same as with mp3 files - make it wav and after editing reencode.
Well, OK, I guess I'll do that and host them somewhere in case someone else feels about this as I do.

Right. It seems you're quite familiar with computer related things, so this won't be a problem for you. And the WIKI tells you a little bit about editting files with Audacity (it can handle ogg-vorbis) Hyperradio_Howto_Musicpacks

- Hyperradio + 2 musicpacks (unused, too expensive for now, 12,000 credits )

The most important reason (for me) to set the price to a high value was that the game reaches very fast a point were credits doesn't really matter anymore. So a player can spend some credits and gets a nice feature. And that again and again, because it's just a limited licence. I've also thought that other oxpers would create some kind of 'pirate stations' with free radio programs. The whole thing was always meant as a starting point and not as a monopole thingie. And I didn't wanted to do everything on my own, because I'm lazy (good point, eh?). But a lot of time has passed by now... so I'll have to think about it again...

[snork]

This thread might give you a couple of ideas on how to battle keyboard confusion. I especially like ClymAngus' origami sheet at the top of page 2.

Thank you - that is so good an idea. And one of those ideas I would have never come up with myself.

Reminds me of how a bag full of good quality old IBM keyboards got "lost" in my last moving homes. One was even US layout.

btw - your's is the strangest username I have seen in a while. nice.

------------------------------------

Right. It seems you're quite familiar with computer related things, ...

Sounds like you have your machine pretty well sorted, all right..

I wish this was true. I am a very eclectic person anyway, in the swiss cheese meaning - more holes than matter.
And whenever I did learn something computer, more often than not it became obsolete shortly after. (I still know the LILO manpage/faq by heart.)
(well maybe not really anymore.)

Adobe Acrobat Reader can be a bit of a resource hog

You tell me (note the 5.0 ^^)
But your post made me look this up again, and now I intend to use (open source) Evince instead. (Wikipedia : Evince)

Oh yeah, when you buy your new notebook, if you want to play Oolite on it, do not buy one with an Intel or ATI graphics chip. You will save yourself a lot of grief re OpenGL graphics drivers that way.

well, DANG!
All the time I am trying to convince myself to go for an IGP solution, preferably Intel 4500 HD, or the then Intel HD (said to perform at roughly ATI 4200 level, 3d-wise).

Well, maybe I can get one of those where you can switch off the extra graphics device and run on intel IGP, when nothing 3d is needed. Though I doubt I can afford such one.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

You're talking a gaming machine?

IMHO, I favor an Athalon processor on a mobo with an nForce chipset, a soundblaster, and a Geforce graphics card. Generally a solid performer with few if any driver headaches. It's a win-win. I lost mine to a flood.

Currently playing Oolite on a 10 year old klunker, Athalon Thunderbird based with a Soundblaster and Geforce. Amazingly, that old heap flat refuses to die, and plays Oolite quite well.

[allikat]

Amazingly, that old heap flat refuses to die, and plays Oolite quite well.

Sounds like the lizard pilotting it

You're talking a gaming machine?

IMHO, I favor an Athalon processor on a mobo with an nForce chipset, a soundblaster, and a Geforce graphics card. Generally a solid performer with few if any driver headaches. It's a win-win. I lost mine to a flood.

For a lower cost solution, the AMD chips just plain rock. The lowest price chip out there (new) is the one I have right now, the AthlonII x2 240, and it's a little screamer Mine's clocked up to 3.4Ghz on a dirt cheap board.
If you do go for an AMD chip, and it's you're buying a good one, get the AMD chipset board, you won't regret it. And you certainly can put a single Nvidia board on it quite happily. The only thing the AMD chipset won't do, is run 2 Nvidia cards in SLi.

If you're going for it on expenditure, then Intel's i7 is about the best chip out there.

[snork]

Currently playing Oolite on a 10 year old klunker, Athlon Thunderbird based with a Soundblaster and Geforce. Amazingly, that old heap flat refuses to die, and plays Oolite quite well.

hehe, welcome to the club. I would not have thought that the thunderbirds would live that long - nice.


Well, would I want to buy/build a PC, no problem (but the money). I would still go intel, though, not really that expensive anymore and AMD hasn't quite kept up with intel in the performance for money dept., from what I read.

But I want a notebook.
The idea is that in the long run it will pay for itself.

Currently PC = 105W and 21" CRT screen = 100W
notebook : 35 to 50 W, 15" screen included.

Now, the PC is running 24/7 and the screen maybe 12 h/day (I abuse it also as TV replacement and music jukebox).

Over here a kWh costs ~22 cents.
An average 2.4 kWh economised each day, that's about 15€ per month. 180,- a year.
(~250,- US-$, ~150 pound sterling.)

This is the main reason why I do not want a fat graphics thingy in the notebook.

Reminds me I need to print out that "trumble inside" Logo.

re Oolite :
I just replaced the harddisk containing the windows. Oolite was on another harddisk, and still worked out of the box in the new windows (xp).
Only the next day (installing winamp) I realised I forgot to install directX. ^^

I am a bit exhausted - I feel that ever since I got ranked "competent", I started acting not that competent, playing-wise.
And yesterday late late evening, after flying around for quite a while with 251 hits*, I finally got the 256 hits, only to discover that I am still "competent"until 512 kills are achieved. Damn.
And still about 300,000 credits short to go change ships. I tend to get the mil.shield enhancement and the shield boosters damaged.

------------------------------

*those anarchies, dictatorships and whatever are not that reliable after all in being pirate hideouts.
Often I would arrive after what must have been epic battles, lots and lots of cargo flying around, but no pirate nowhere.

Ah, well, now I have this mission (constrictor) to keep me busy. *off to play*

[JazHaz]

Reminds me I need to print out that "trumble inside" Logo. *

Oooh! Like one of these!

Reminds me of the days when I used the Motorola 68030 processor (in my Atari Falcon030) and had an Intel Outside logo....

[Cmdr Wyvern]

I would not have thought that the thunderbirds would live that long - nice.

Tell me about it! I certainly squeezed my mula's worth out of this thing. Though hardware that'll work with it is getting harder and more expensive to find; soon it'll be too expensive and difficult to replace failed drives and memory, and that's when I'll write it off as given up the ghost, and recycle the case and p/s in building a new one.

[DaddyHoggy]

I would not have thought that the thunderbirds would live that long - nice.

Tell me about it! I certainly squeezed my mula's worth out of this thing. Though hardware that'll work with it is getting harder and more expensive to find; soon it'll be too expensive and difficult to replace failed drives and memory, and that's when I'll write it off as given up the ghost, and recycle the case and p/s in building a new one.

My boss has been running an Athlon 1700 o/c'd as a 2400 (I think on some 1700s this could be done simply by running the 266 FSB chips on a 333 board because there was no frequency lock if you got the right cpu/mobo combo) - he never turns this machine off and he's owned it and o/c'd it from new!

My own box is an Athlon 2800+ running on an nForce2 mobo and I've been very pleased with it since I built it from spare parts a few years ago.

[snork]

Hej folks,

Say, one thing I miss around here is a kind of general smalltalk topic, like a general pilot's lounge or something.

You know, for the kind of stuff not worth it's own proper topic.
Be it Oolite related or not.
Small progress notes (player), a warning to NOT try out Opera 10.5 BETA unless you have sth. around to be kicked at. Or links to funny or amazing stuff, but not that funny/ amazing/ space-or-SF-related it would be worth a topic of its own.

I would bet this idea has not appeared in my brain first, so maybe you already discussed why you don't want such topic ? Or maybe it exists, but buried in the unfathomable depth of outworld ?

Or does everyone use the chat so much ? (have not looked into that yet.)

well, whatever - happy sunday.

PS - Do not forget : 8 pm (@ GMT+1, figure out for yourselves ) Biathlon - Sprint of the men. Hanevold, go!

[Corny]

Or does everyone use the chat so much ? (have not looked into that yet.)

At least I can answer this one for sure: "no".

[Kaks]

Well, I normally use outworld itself (not too often, actually) as a general pilot's lounge, though for a moment I thought 'what if the pilot isn't a general'... <groan>

[snork]

Well, I guess it doesn't seem like, but I do find opening a new topic more intimidating than just adding a post to some chit-chat topic.

At least I can answer this one for sure: "no"

hehe, I remember.
But maybe the pilots from other timezones do gather, just at unconvenient hours (for Europeans).

[Cmd. Cheyd]

There's a trio of us who regularly hang in the Oolite Dev channel. And... Yep, the trio. That's about it.