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Check if they were also using some handy little "chat" program that installs handy little "web toolbars". I'm constantly having to clean up my sister in laws family PC from all this sort of sh*t, despite (constantly re-)installing spyware/malware/adware and virus blockers - which the idiots TURN OFF because they don't like the annoying nagging screen that pops ups telling them that something wants to ass-f*ck their computer and it might be a good idea not to let it. Get sol

As you are in the UK, I can recommend [link="http://www.metaboli.co.uk/"]Metaboli[/link] This is a Games on Demand service with over 250 games constantly available for about £13 a month. Have a look through - browsing what games are available is free. It's a great way of experimenting with new genres if you are in the mood for a change and unsure what you want. I've been using it for over a year now (don't worry StarDock, I have GC2 DL & DA and Sin too).

Some updates break existing saved games, and there isn't always a way around this, so I personally prefer to know when they are happening and choose when it is convenient to me.

The Witcher isn't on Steam yet but it is on Metaboli. Metaboli is UK/Europe only tho'.

[quote]Brad said that Stardock is not for sale (Thank God, may I add)[/quote] Oh rats! I'll have to put the coins back in the piggy-bank. Probably just as well, I can only afford one software company a month.

I have trouble hating anyone - I'm just a big softy. Well, maybe Microsoft, for inflicting Visual Studio 2005 on the world. For games I'm looking for entertainment not perfection. EA are huge and are responsible for the distribution of a vast number of games - they are not all bad, and they are not all bad BECAUSE they are EA games. The same thing happened with the movie industry with the creation of the mega-studio's churning out formulaic easy big-buck mass market movies

[quote]I'm assuming you use Windows, but do you mean copy and paste or drag? I need to know if I need some software to drag highlighted text.[/quote] Drag and drop - in Firefox (in Windows) you just highlight the text, let go, then click and hold inside the highlighted area and drag that up to a blank bit beside the tabs at the top then let go. Bingo it'll do its best to find what you dragged and put it into a new tab. I knew it worked on full links but not on random bits of text.

Well b*gge*r me if Firefox isn't the canines danglies! I highlighted "pcdecrapifier" in the above post, dragged it up the tab area to create a new tab and it went straight to the right web site. gawd I love technology when it works - it reminds me why I got into this business.

Basically - I agree with what Alfonse says and would add ... PC's are now sold in supermarkets and laptops are given away free with mobile phone contracts in the UK. They are, wrongly in my mind, treated as appliances and the current generation of users get frustrated with the inevitable problems that crop up as soon as they try and use them for anything more than email and browsing - heck they even break doing that if you don't "know what you are doing". Add on the frustratio

Most strategy games are designed for fighting - for online short games. How about management games like Sim City (suggested above) or the various "Tycoon" games - or something daft like Evil Genius.

di55ec7ion, Living in a (truly) democratic society gives you the right - almost the obligation - to question the rules and laws of that society - and those who you elect to govern your society. It even gives you the right to protest and campaign to change those rules and laws you think are wrong - from simply changing your vote through to more vocal campaigns and even standing for office yourself. This is true no matter how intelligent you are - lets all point fingers at our favourit

Buying after testing is a good principle - which is why you can download a full demo of the game from this very site - [link="http://www.download.com/Galactic-Civilizations-II-Gold-Edition-Demo/3000-7493_4-10696264.html"]demo download[/link] which you can get to from the "Downloads" link on this page. Note that it is a demo of the Gold Edition too. [quote]But the game is relatively rare in germany and theres only DL, not DA to my knowledge.[/quote]This is a simple question, which I hon

Well di55ec7ion what would you like - a pat on the back - a free parrot to go with your eye patch? You have just publicly admitted to a criminal offense and think that thanking the victim of that offense and finally getting around to actually paying them for their hard work after you have been illegally using their software (for how long?) makes it all OK. Are you going to send them the interest they would have made if you'd paid when you should have? You also seem to be implying that

OK - I've been doing some testing and I am no longer sure that CPU-z is accurate. One thing is for sure, the figures given in the version I am using under "Timing Table" are accurate as far as the latency values etc are concerned BUT they relate to the timings to use under different frequencies than the ones shown in the same column. For my system anyway. SiSoft Sandra reports the timings correctly.

I don't know PC Pitstop (I'll need to check it out) - another useful tool is SiSoft Sandra. In CPU-z you need to also look at two tabs: "Memory" - The "Timings" section gives the specific BIOS timings currently being used by your system. "SPD" - The "Timings Table" section gives the BIOS timings that your RAM reports as supporting. NOTE: There is a separate set of timings given for each bank of RAM - and they can be different and each bank may support more than one se

You really should try to ensure that the new memory uses the same BIOS timings as you old ones - even if they are not directly paired with them. Download an application called CPU-z and it will tell you what your current timings are. Either to ensure that you are not wasting money on high speed (low latency) RAM that you wont get the benefit of - or, worse but less likely, slower RAM that could slow your system down. Sorry, if you already know this.

Your quite right to concentrate on the most probable cause of her problem - and try to help out with that. She has already stated that her "blaming" the game was largely tongue in cheek - it was just the last thing to touch it when it went - if it has in fact gone. But I got a little off topic there - sorry. But I still take issue with calling people clowns and idiots (and no, it's never happened to me in 25+ years of software engineering) for issues that can and do happen which are la

Zydor, [quote]For software to directly, and be the sole cause of, hardware damage, it would have to be written by an incompetant idiot - and/or be written with malicious intent...[/quote] I agree with the "sole cause of" bit but not the "incompetent idiot" etc. bit. Software is designed, implemented and tested on only a small sub-set of possible system configurations (both hardware and software configurations). Those possible configurations are also expanding hourly as new h

[quote]I have 11 running in my system tray. So, maybe, 10 - give or take 2.[/quote] Well, you definitely need to get rid of a few :) It really boils down to this (for each icon): - do you know what they are and what they do? - are they serving either an essential or useful purpose [B]at this time[/B]? If the answer to either of the above questions is [B]"no"[/B] then they should not be there. [quote]Well, that all depends on the manufacturer, ...[/quote] Almost all P

Moosetek13, [quote] A game will not kill ram. Period. A game can put a stress on the system, to be sure. And, to be sure, GalCiv does this because of the intense AI. But the ram (or any other component) will not fail unless it is weak or faulty to begin with, or has inadequate cooling. [/quote] Hmmm - I don't think I totally agree with this statement, this might be splitting hairs but ... Hardware components (RAM, CPU, GPU etc.) are all designed and

"Pain Amplification", "Agony Coordination Grid" I don't normally bother with Beta's (too many games to play, too little time) ... but for that I might just change my mind. I have just have to know what follows on - "Technology T...". No, don't tell me - my mind is going into overdrive - and after the day I've had at work, it's placing certain people into numerous nefarious devices. Gnash, gnash ...

Here is some general advice. Work out your budget - it all boils down to money. Scan the reviews of the processors and graphics cards - Toms Hardware is a great site for this (hunt out their performance comparison charts for both). I'd recommend picking at least one notch down from the top in both processor and graphics card to reduce the cost by a large amount with a tiny amount of performance loss. Find someone that lets you pick a P

Gothfather, Its utter nonsense to expect people to go through hundreds of games and while playing hundreds of games, record data on the random events and then "get back to you." Is it any less nonsense to expect the devs to code a game anticipating that someone would play the game by starting from exactly the same first move every time? And do this for a game which gives you almost complete freedom of choice over the game starting configuration

Sorry Godfather, I wasn't meaning to have a go at you and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I was merely trying to point out some alternative reasons that *might* cause the results you are seeing based on my own knowledge and experience. You may still be correct and it may be a bug or at least an undesirable feature, but it could be caused by other factors - only the devs know (or at least have the ability to find out). I realize no-one wants to play 100 complet

As a developer of simulation software I can tell you that you have made one potentially fatal mistake in your sampling technique. You have assumed that the history of the game has no impact on the choice of "random events". This need not be the case for several reasons including the two most obvious: 1) Firstly, and I base this on our software not Gal Civ, the randomness may well be based on a pseudo random sequence which is primed from an initial "seed value". This seed valu