Posted by Scott Lee AKA Rnswithscissors at 12-223-211-192.client.insightbb.com on June 04, 2003 at 05:48:51:
In Reply to: Trackball the sequel. posted by Bob301 on June 04, 2003 at 05:44:16:
From reading that? Geeez Mr. Bob. Go write for harlequin! LOL
I'm gonna have to read more of your stuff!
: In my original post, I shared with you the tragidy of losing a good trackball, the drudgery of a mundane 2-button roller-ball relic, and the joy of a brand-new trackball. In my sequel, I bring to yuo frustration and triumph. I suggest you hit the link at the bottom and read the first part before the rest of this post. I'll wait.
:
: OK?
: You are at your computer, trackball nestled comfortably in your hand. You have just hit enter and posted your last reply to the board for the night. You use your programmable button to refresh the page as you wait, maybe 10 seconds or maybe 10 minutes, for a response. One person answers, and you feel vindicated. You have not gone unnoticed on the mass information exchange known as the Internet. You sign off the internet, but hesitate to leave the computer. The Nazis in Wolfenstein are just waiting for some hot lead, and you want to give it to them. It starts off as idle curiosity. "I wonder what I can DO with 4 buttons and a scroll button?" Perhaps you can program one button to scroll your weapons while another reloads. Maybe you want to jump without touching the keyboard; possibly you'd rather duck. The button configuration seems endless, but you know you can find the perfect one. You give in to the desire, and double-click the RTCW icon. Wolfenstein, here you come. Then, horror- an error message appears. It seems your OpenGL subsystem cannot be loaded. The wha? You close the window and try again. The error messge reappears. Was it smirking? You calmly restart your computer. "It could be one of those pesky problems that goes away after a restart," you hope desperately. The Desktop reappears, and the RTCW icon beckons you. Or does it taunt you. Hesitantly, slowly and with care, you move the cursor over the icon and again double-click. The error message appears again, and this time you know it has an agenda. It has a vendetta, and you're it. But you are going to outsmart this error. After all, you have the power of the Internet, a veritable cornocopia of people and databases dedicated to hlping you, right? You dial up your ISP; like enough, you have an always-on connection. You type "Google" into your browser, or use the integrated search feature to do it for you. The input bx beckons you, daring you to ask a question it can't find the answer to. Answering the challenge, you put in the main phrases that RTCW has been hurling at you: Wolfenstein Windows XP OpenGL subsystem error". Afraid of finding nothing, but even more afraid of never shooting another NAzi, you hit enter and watch as Google obediently displays 1-20 of 20,00 possible answers. "Aha!" you exclaim, only to realize that they are all in German. What do you do? Try that Latin stuff you slept through in school? Call Germany and ask for a translator? Looking at the top of the window, you see an option: "Display results in English only?;" an innocent enough question, but why were all the original results in German? Of course, you don't have time t ponder this. You have a mission. "Yes," you decide, "I'll click this, and my answers will await." You click the link, and a fresh set of links appears, this time all in English. As you scroll down the page, you find something that looks promising: a post on a wwwboard. Others have had this same error message. If they have conquered it, you can, too. You click the link, and behold! someone has posted a fix. Copy a few files, download a driver or two, and restart the computer. You can do this. You bring up the Windows search feature, looking for oOpenGL32.dll. It appears exactly where Mr. Helpful said it would. You copy it the game directory, and search for the second file. No dice. You try again, adjusting the advanced features to be sure you haven't skipped a folder. Again, no files found. You go back to the web page, and double-check the filename. No, you typed it correctly. Back to Google you go, a filename and a dream in hand. You type in "OpenGL32.lib download" and pray. The first 10 links are no help- programming classes at some University you don't attend and can't afford anyway. But link 11 has possibility: OpenGL.com. "Of course," you think, "I should have known that." You click the link, and 34 seconds later, OpenGL32.lib is nestled in your game folder right next to OpenGL32.dll. You close your Windows Explorer window, and find yourself face-to-face with that RTCW icon. Will it work? Like a Band-Aid coming of, you click fast and look away. When you look back- the error message. Appearantly, somehting has gone wrong. You return once again to Mr. Helpful's page, looking for the answer. "Aha!" you once again exclaim, "I have you now." You forgot to update you videocard drivers. A trip to ATI.com, a little investigation fo your computer settings, and you're ready to download the driver. And the Control Panel. And they're 10 megabytes. You won't be playing soon, but the clock is not stopping now. You begin to download the drivers, and head over to the VA board to chat while you wait. The download window minimizes to the taskbar, but the percentage indicator is clearly visible on the button. It slowly creeps up, first to the 10's, then the 2's, as you respond to post after post. Suddenly, the download has completed. you were so engrossed, yuo didn't notice it climbing into the 90's. You go back to the download page, and start the Control Panel download. This goes even faster. When the dialogue box tels you it's done downloading, you're ready for it. you log off, and install the driver package first. The computer prompts you to restart, and you do. Then you install the Control Panel: another flawless operation. One more restart, and you're ready to kill those Nazis like they've never been killed before. This time, the booting process seems to take forever. Ages go by. the second hand on your watch slows to a crawl, and the eternity of waitng gets longer. Then, you're face-toface with your Desktop again, and RTCW is waiting. Is it cowering in fear this time? Wasn't it larger, and in bold before? You send the cursor over the icon, and the newfound confidence of ATI's reference drivers allows yuo to double-click with only the slights of flinches. Thescreen goes blank and..............Wolfenstein starts! Oh happy day! You pick up where you left off a year ago- in the train yard.
: Take it slow, you've still got those buttons to program. Happy shooting........yeah.