Yeh… I fixed my game problem 😀 !!! HL, Q3, DS, and Unreal engines, as well as other games, all run now w/ absolutely no locking or blipping. None. How is this possible? Fuckin AGP-4x and shit, yo 😮 .
I just changed my BIOS’ AGP Mode from 4x to 2x (or, disabled 4x)… cause Snake and I’s NorthBridge chipsets don’t support 4x well at all. I had actually thought bout this before, but since it never posed a problem on my GF2 GTS, and enabling it, VIA 4X, and FastWrites w/ NVMax never did either, I hadn’t thought of it. But I figured that it couldn’t be a problem w/ my only-19-month-old mobo, and I knew games worked w/ Snake’s ViperII… so the mobo wasn’t the problem. So yeh… I kinda wasted $324 on a GF4 Ti4600 and $40 on new RAM (though the best video card available in the entire world isn’t exactly a “waste” to have 😛 )… and I won’t even bother to tell u all the other things I tried to get my games to work unsuccessfully.
So anyway, I’m back on the gaming scene. No more lockups @ Surges, and I can play any game in existence. This couldn’t’ve happened at a better time, either, since I just got my new 80GB HDD for unlimited game space 8) .
To initiate my gaming, I finished (almost) up an HL MOD I got off of the latest PCG disc called Half-Quake. It takes you through an insane asylum, and has some really int elements I’ve never seen in HL before. The menu screen text is all changed, so u have to basically guess as to what does what. “Die on…” is load game, “downstairs” is resume game, “internal error” is ok, and I forget the rest. There’s things like having to crowbar through 20 pieces of glass, maps where gunshots and creature sounds echo (making it quite scary if you’ve ever played a marines game like Opposing Force), and jumping through portals leading you to your seemingly imminent death. But above all was a level that made you the camera, onlooking a Barney guard (you) at a distance (modified 3rd person). You can still turn, move and jump… but you’re far away… it’s really int.

Problem is, if u save during this level and reload, u’re back to 1st person view until u leave a room 😕 . Well, out…