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Old January 7th 05, 05:24 AM
LAH
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My son has an X-box which he loves. The computer becomes my daughter's
second choice because it's so hard to get her brother off the X-box. We
muddle along here fairly well as long as no one gets any unrealistic
expectations about what this old computer can do. Anyway, it gives them
just one more thing to fight about. Oh, the joys of parenthood!

"Dan" wrote in message
...
Another consideration could be a video game console because the price is a
lot easier on the wallet if only games are the concern. :

"LAH" wrote in message
...
I hear what you are saying. However, most of the problems I've run into
with playing games is that my entire system is just not big enough and

fast
enough. A case in point: For Xmas my daughter received SimCity4 which

is
compatible with Windows 98. However, closer inspection reveals it

requires
500 MHz and Pentium III or AMD Athion. I have 400 MHz and Pentium II.

The
game doesn't work on my computer. If I were to upgrade it would

probably
be
to replace the entire system - computer, scanner, printer,etc. However,

my
bank account tells me this will have to wait. In the mean time if my

video
card should go belly up I will definitely keep your post in mind.

Thanks,
Lois

"jazz" wrote in message
...
You card graphics adapter doesn't really support directX9. the driver

has
a
responce in it that makes the directX9 features render in software

mode
instead of directly with hardware. I'm only mentioning this because

with
this type of compatability you won't experience the direct benefit of

having
a directX9 aplication running. Most should work but might be a little

slower
then if rendered directly from the video card. My uunderstaning is

that
the
major differences between directX9 and 8 is basicaly the ability to do
shading and a couple other festure directly thru the video card

instead
of
software rendering then piping the resulting display out to the video
adapter.

Of couse if your using a Rage Pro Turbo, you arent probably playing

many
games that would use the directX9 feature anyways. You might want to

think
about upgrading to a used gforce 2 or radion (or better) if you can.

They
should be verry cheap and should give you the feeling of having a new
computer when playing some of the modern games. One of the bigest
advancments in windows gaming was letting the grapgics card do alot of

the
work that the proccessor usually does when playing a game. also the

Gfoce
2
(and radion i think)cards will have a built in dvd decoder chip

making
wathing dvds a littler more enjoyable. It is just a thought.

"LAH" wrote in message
...
Just a few days ago I was able to update the graphic adapter drivers

on
my
old HP Pavilion 8380 ( Windows 98). The display adapter is a Rage

Pro
Turbo
AGP ( ATI). The update was made available in 2002 but I only now

found
a
need and more importantly, the nerve to try the update. This update

was
not
available through HP. I had to go directly to the maker of the

video
card.
I had Direct X 9 and then 9 installed but they never really

functioned.
After the update things are working great and dxdiag tells me that

DirectX
9
is now working. If I could find an update for this old machine

perhaps
your
can find one for yours - at least there is hope.

"Butterfly" wrote in message
...
I was downloading The Sims 2 and everything was going smoothly

until
an
error
message popped up saying "Failed to find DirectX 9.0c compatible
graphics
adapters in this system! Please make sure you have a Direct X

9.0c
compatible graphics adapter and the latest drivers provided by the
manufacturer. The application will now terminate." Well, I

figured
it
must
be that I have an outdated Direct X, so I downloaded the Direct X

9.0c
from
microsoft, but when I did I still have the same problem. Please,

if
someone
has any suggestions, email me at . Thank

you!