When I setup my computer I had to change a BIOS setting before Vista could see it. I'm running a RAID setup though, but without those settings it doesn't work. Try poking through the BIOS and look for anything about SATA.

I didn't need to use drivers from a disc to install Vista, with XP it's a given that you do but I've setup 2 Vista systems and both just worked without any fuss with SATA drivers on floppys.

Hope this helps.

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I played Guild Wars for over a year, and while it's quite fun and there's plenty of things to do, It's just striking how much more there is to World of Warcraft. I've only been playing WoW for a few months but I'm certainly having more fun (so far). My main problem with GW was that in later expansions the missions just got so hard and you really needed to find a good group to play with, which I could never seem to find. With WoW I've had no problem doing this, I usually can't run around questing without bumping into someone on the same quest, and then team up with them for a while.

With WoW I like how open it is, you can be running down a road and see other people walking around, you only get this is GW in towns. But I guess there is less time wasting in GW since you can just click on the map to get to a place, while WoW you have to walk or spend money on being flown.

With GW it's really good how you can change your characters build easily and without any fuss, so you can have a bunch of builds to suite different situations like soloing or group missions. Where with WoW it costs you money to do this, and it costs more each time so you really need to pick a build and stick with it.

I think it depends on what you want, WoW has a superior PvE portion while GW has superior PvP. I can't say I'm a fan of PvP in either game but people that I know that have played both extensively say GW is better for PvP.

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I currently play on a projector that has a native res of 1024x768, it's not a bad res even on a 7 foot screen. But if I could get another projector with a higher native res then I would, but currently they're a bit too expensive.

With any LCD screen you really should play at the native res regardless of what it is. I've noticed that a few people have mentioned they play at higher res than their native res. What this means is your graphics card is rendering the higher res and then the monitor is compressing the image to fit the number of pixels it has, that's what the native res is. So the graphics card is doing more work than is actually being displayed. This compression can also cause some artifacts that make certain parts of the screen look blury or just odd.

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There's nothing wrong with Tetris! It's a great game.

Now, the general rule of thumb I use is never even try to open a laptop up. The way they are put together means you usually have to do a few things in the right order else you could break something. I'dsay it's far too much trouble to go through.

I might be wrong, but I don't think you can just slot a graphics card in like a desktop anyway. If I'm wrong then I'm sure someone will correct me.

But I'd say you are relegated to Tetris, you could try some Pacman too or even Space Invaders to spice it up a little.

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I think you need to rethink what you are doing. You're asking for advice about recording music on a gaming forum, you're in the wrong place. I don't know where you would get the best responses and advice but I doubt you'll get it here.

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While Mac gaming is becoming more polular, there is only iD software that truely supports it. I read about EA converting their back catalogue of games for Mac but heard nothing more about it.

To be honest I don't think there is much market for Mac gaming since gamers either play consoles or a PC, most Macs are used in artistic business roles (web design or photography) or by students that just need something for their studies. I guess the students would game if it was available but there isn't really a big pull for developers to go out of their way to support the Mac.

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Take Halo2 back, it looks and plays like a 3 year old console game, there are far better games for PC.

But if you really do want to play it for some reason, then you need a new computer. The Nvidia Geforce 7000M GPU that you said your machine has is a Geforce 7 series card and doesn't support DirectX 10, Halo 2 is DirectX 10 only, end of story I'm afraid.

Take it back, get something better like COD 4, I'd give Crysis a miss if I was you though as it won't be very playable on that system, and it's boring even on the highest.

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I'd say that system sounds ok, all except the 8800 GTS. GTS is a waste at this point since the GT is cheaper and faster. Don't get blinded by Crysis either, it's actually a boring game to play and performs badly. In my system I have 2x Geforce 8800 GTX and can only just run Very High at 1024x768 at playable frames, but every other game I play runs maxed out (including x16 ansiotropic texturing and x8 anti-aliasing)with 60+ fps.

If you have the option of changing the GPU then change it to 8800GT or GTX, check bench marks on www.guru3d.com to see what I mean when I say the GTS is a waste of time.

Other than that you should enjoy that bit of kit.

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For a start you'll have slightly better performance in XP compared to Vista all round. I don't know much about the DX10 in XP hack but even if it works you'll barely be able to tell the difference. Most games that boast vastly better effects in DX10 are artificial, like Crysis where the Very High settings are just hidden for DX9 but it's capable of doing nearly the same effects if you change the config files. There is another game, can't remember the name now, but the DX10 mode looks vastly better, but it's because it uses a completely different texture set to the DX9 mode.

DX10 really isn't all it's cracked up to be and I doubt we'll be seeing any benefits from it until developers are only working with DX10 and we're on to 2nd or 3rd generation of hardware that supports it.

My advice would be to go with XP and carry on withDX9, forget DX10 fornow,then when you buy your next system, go with Vista. Besides, by then there will only be Vista available if you want a Windows based system anyway.

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Well, Daemon tools adds a virtual DVD drive to your computer, for this it requires Administrator rights. Do you have Administrator rights on your computer? If not, then thats your answer I guess. If you do, then have you got the right version for your Operating System?

Beyond that, I don't think I can help you much.

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