Misadventures In Paragon City: February 2009

I really, really hate to jinx myself after all the problems I had with the computer, so I hate to even make this post, but I'm back. And have been for over a week. But after all the problems, I kept waiting for a "Kaboom!" and a tiny puff of smoke. So far, that hasn't happened. So far.

To get the virus cleaned, everything had to be wiped out of my computer. Everything. Pictures, programs, music, screenshots, chatlogs, everything. (I backed it all up on my laptop first, but I'll get to that in a minute... ) Even though that process cost more than I was happy about, I was happy to have the computer back, working, and not shutting itself off every five or ten minutes. Until I went to load the game and got all kinds of error messages and/or a black screen. Apparently the new drivers made my combo video card incompatible with the game. It went back to the computer shop for a couple of days, but they couldn't find the old version or a new version that worked, so my only other option was a new video card, which again cost more than made me happy. But, I got it back and it worked great, except for a couple of very, very small oddities that I never thought anything about. For example:

The bricks were weird colors. (Top is Peregrine Island, bottom is Cap Au Diable) But, so what, right? Everything else looked great.

For a day and a half. Then, in the middle of a Statesman's TF, the screen went black. I shut the game down in Task Manager, and restarted. Screen went black, and I couldn't get the Task Manager to come up. Manually restarted the computer, got error messages when I tried to enter the game. Restarted the regular way, got error messages. Restarted again, and got nothing but a black screen for anything. I finished the STF on my laptop, which made me all but useless. The laptop runs the game just fine, as long as you don't want to move, use powers, or see details. (There was a lot of sit-in-the-base-and-RP in the on-and-off 2 weeks that I didn't have my desktop.)

That was Saturday. I took the computer back to the shop on Monday, and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. Tuesday, they still couldn't find anything wrong with it. Wednesday, they gave up and put yet another new video card in it. And everything still seems to be working with that one. At the moment.

In the meantime, though, the fan blew out on my laptop, and the laptop overheats about 10 minutes into the game, or about a half hour into watching something on Hulu. I haven't tried to transfer anything back to the desktop, because I'm afraid it will melt into a large, vaguely laptop shaped puddle, although playing the game without my music is... different. I've heard game sounds that I didn't know existed, and some that I can live without, but I also seem to have more trouble concentrating, probably because those pesky RL noises intrude.

I've had trouble picking in-game settings for the new card, and I'm probably being overly cautious, but it still looks way better than it used to look. Costumes... wow. Like I didn't already spend enough time at Icon? In real-life, I'm un-stereo-typical, and I do not have a shoe obsession... much. But in the game, the shoes suddenly fascinate me. At least, way more than they did. I can read all those goofy little warning signs and things now, too. And Nemesis Warhulks and Fake Nemesis? I had no idea those things were so cool looking.