Letters @~Any letters or e-mails received on an adventuring-related topic @~may be reprinted in here unless marked 'not for publication'. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~First some letters from the winner and runners up of last issue's @~Contributor of the Year awards. Bev Truter, Carnegie, Australia Thanks so much for giving me advance notice about the Contrib. of Year award (the COTYs, like the Oscars, or our Aussie Logies??) - I'm thrilled! Honoured! Ecstatic! I really did think Alex would pip me to the post this time, and was expecting a commiserating e-mail about being runner-up to Alex this year. I feel honoured to get it again, particularly since I have been a bit slack in the contributing department for the last few months, since the advent of Settlers! The "egg" and SynTax were delivered by Postal van [this] afternoon. Thanks so much for picking out such a gorgeous Myth & Magic figure/s - the 2 halves of the egg had Jess baffled for a while; she insisted they wouldn't fit together to form one egg. But yes, they do! Again, the dragon I'm sure is female, as the crystal she's clutching to her tum gives her that maternal look - haven't thought of a name yet though. Anyhow, I've put her together with Grendel's Mum on the mantlepiece in the dining-room, next to my computer, and the morning light coming through the windows facing east sparkles and glitters beautifully on the crystals. So thanks again for all the choosing, posting, packing and sending. I'm glad to hear you are cutting down the annual awards to 3 per year, as I know it must have been costing you a small fortune to buy and post them out each year. Have you thought about perhaps omitting the awards altogether, and just having the free issues of SynTax as a "prize" for the top 5 contributors? You're spoiling us, Sue! Oh yes, congrats as well to Alex, and the other runners-up too. I was so positive Alex was going to come in by a nose at the finish. ------------------------------------------------------------------ From Vic Horsley, Haverfordwest I was a little surprised and thrilled to be a runner up in the SynTax contributor awards. I had not checked the points list of late and didn't realise I was up there challenging. I accept the award with many thanks to you and, of course, to SynTax. It will take pride of place close to my computer. @~Vic also had a query about his computer - first some background @~info: In my last letter I told you I was upgrading my computer. In fact I bought a new machine, only keeping my monitor. I purchased it from a supplier called Protek. It's a really good deal for a computer with a TX 100mhz motherboard, AMD K6-2 380mhz CPU, 32 mb SDRAM, 4.3gb hard drive, 40 speed CD ROM drive. I had a small problem with a faulty graphics card (4mb MPEG) and had to return the computer to base. This was not a good idea as it took three weeks to get it back, their excuse being that they don't look at warranty work until it's been at the depot for ten days (stupid answer). Oh, and their telephone line is 'catch me if you can', it's always engaged and takes ages to get through. This all said and done cost me under œ300 and that included VAT and delivery, after a couple of minor glitches it's now running great. I have one small problem since installing my new computer and would be grateful to anyone who could put forward a suggestion to correct this. When printing out on my old 486 computer, the colours were very clear and bright, but now they seem drab and dull. Bright yellows are now very dull, almost khaki. My printer is a Lexmark 1000 series. @~Can anyone help? If so, please let me know and I'll pass on any @~info or suggestions. ------------------------------------------------------------------ From Julian Gregory, Poole This is just a short letter to thank you for the lovely Myth & Magic figure you sent to me as a runner-up in the recent points competition. It has pride of place on top of my computer and every time I look at it I think of you, well it is a dragon!! Thanks again, Sue. @~Thanks again to all of YOU for your contributions. Sorry that I @~am going to have to reduce the number of awards in the future @~but they've got dearer each year and I thought, better to give @~three good prizes than five tiddly ones! ----------------------------------------------------------------- @~Following Carolyn's comments on problems she had experienced @~with Baldur's Gate, here's part of an email on the subject from someone else who is having problems. From Brian Burke Tales of the Sword Coast also arrived and the box this time carries both the Map, Quick ref card and Spell list that BG lacked. Like the lady in SynTax described I've had some lock-ups & crashes in the game. The most serious was when flooding the Cloakwood mines, my Matrox Millenium didn't want to play, despite installing the latest drivers and noting Inteplay's advice. Luckily I have Dave Booth handy & he ran the scene for me on his computer & saved immediately so I'm back on course. @~Then later Brian wrote: My Sword Coast problems continue I'm afraid. I've had to lose 3 weeks of play-time (9 game days) as I reached a position where the game crashed whenever my mouse cursor hovered over the Cloakwood Mines area, and locked if I tried to access the middle-west area of Baldur's Gate. After some investigation around DirectX 6.1 I discovered some Cabinet files were either corrupted or missing and re-loaded them from the WIN98 CD. I also obtained the latest Soundblaster & Matrox Millenium II drivers. This latter is the route of my problems I think as it doesn't appear to support Direct Draw. I still get Kernel 32 error messages & continue to try & solve the problem. Meantime I've restored the game that Dave Booth saved for me & have re-entered Baldur's Gate town without converting the game in the hope that I can at least finish the original game before moving onto TOTSC. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Following the info last issue on 3D cards, here's part of a @~letter: From Thomo, Middlesborough I would like to thank Steven Chapman, Andrew Wielochowski and John Ferris for their replies to my query regarding graphic cards. John's letter was a very interesting read, however he was unable to state whether AGP and PCI can be used together. It now all seems irrelevant as graphics cards are usually 2D/3D and either AGP or PCI and _better_ ones are appearing practically every month. I did settle for a 16mb 2D/3D Diamond Viper 550 AGP, a very good card. It has already been superceded by the Viper 770 with 32mb and I see that the Voodoo 3 3000 is being superceded by the Voodoo 3 3500. How long before we reach 64mb cards? @~It's almost impossible to keep up, the way computer technology @~is progressing! At the moment I am still tinkering with Starship Titanic. I definately like the option of being able to put the whole game onto the hard disk to save CD swapping. Why don't all games offer this? AND I have tried IMSI CD Copier for the game, but can't get Zork Grand Inquisitor to work, every time I am asked to insert the CD Rom. @~Can anyone help? Is it a copy protection thing? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, some suggestions wanted From George Rawson, via email I used to like strategy games when I had my old C64, and I also like War Games but I have not tried any since I've got my PC - can you recommend any? @~Can you? Please write in if so. - o -