AV and extra firewalls are for nubs

Right...I bet you have neither a firewall nor antivirus. Plus those are for free and works well.
If I had a dime for every time someone misused/misspell " noob" . I would take that cash and buy a bat and then beat the living ***** out of them. Kids these days.

For 3D stuff; 3DSMax, LightWave, Maya, Softimage or ZBrush.

Provided this person is into 3d objects, rendering, making masks, vectorizing.

If I want to mess around with making pictures, flash or 3D stuff, what programs should I get?

Macromedia Flash Professional 8. *Everything flash +++*

All I use is windows XP' s built in firewall, no anti-virus programs. And NEVER have gotten a virus, spyware, hacked, or anything like that.

Because I' m not a nub.

I' m using XP' s built in firewall.
I' m using a free anti-virus program because without one Xp keept saying that I wasn' t protected blahablaha which was getting on my nerves.'
I' m also scanning my PC with AdAware every now and then.

Provided this person is into 3d objects, rendering, making masks, vectorizing.

With time, I will learn. I' ve read about some of the stuff before. I played with something called a ray-tracer before, which taught me a couple of things.
I' m not going to use the programs for professional projects, I just like to play around with things that helps my creativity.

Well without wanting to upset you Locopuyo, you are either the luckiest person alive or a dumb idiot, I will allow you too chose which you are.

Av and firewall protection is not for Nubs, noobs, twats, nobs or any other derogatory term for a person. In fact anybody who is not using any form of protection is a F)*kwit. As an IT professional in this day and age you cannot rely on being lucky.

Ginjirou I would recommend getting a 3rd party AV and Firewall installed as windows firewall is ok for blocking intrusions however it is a bit flakey if you want to say host a game or use 3rd party game comms software. Something like Panda is very user friendly and it isn' t such a resource whore as Norton' s.

It isn' t luck. Obviously I just know what I' m doing. I don' t download and execute virus.exe email attachments, go to goggle.com with internet exploader or use other unsecure programs. It really isn' t that hard to avoid that stuff.

I understand using AV for all of the nubs on your systems.

Nope it is just dumb luck then in your case. I bet you don' t get spam or adware either?

Using AV is common sense something you obviously have very little of.

I don' t download and execute virus.exe

That' s the funniest thing that i ever heard.
I' m not going to say much on this. Sooner or later you' ll dance with the reaper.

I never used any anti-virus thingies on my old PC which I had for five years. I only had a couple of viruses once I scanned it but none of them were dangerous.
When I scanned my friends PC though, 8000 viruses and like half of them were dangerous
I' m either extremely lucky, or too dumb, to get any viruses...

OMG THERE CAN" T BE ANYONES SMARTERS THANS ME ON THES FORUMSZ

Sorry to burst your ego but some people are smart enough to be virus free without AV software. Just because you can' t do it doesn' t mean it isn' t possible.

In your case I wouldn' t say dumb, just lucky but it could happen at anytime, new viruses are being thrown out there all the time and it doesn' t matter how careful you are you will still get them.

BTW Locopuyo, I take it back, you are just dumb not lucky, may I ask how you know you have no viruses if you have no AV then how do you scan to make sure you are not virus free, if you use an online scanner (Even symantec and Mcaffee' s) they will report you have a virus, if you do an adware scan it will report fragmented files which could be a virus? So Mr I don' t open virus.exe files tell me how do you know you are 100% virus free?

Man whenever I build a new PC, and install my old copy of XP, it gets flooded with viruses and malware that stop my machine booting up, as soon as I connect to the web to update it. Then I need to get all that antimalware stuff like CWshredder, stinger, adaware, spybot, hijackthis, avg etc etc, just to get my computer to boot up consistently again.

I guess I could fork out for a newer copy of XP (got an SP1 disc), but I' ve already bought the damn thing and only ever built 2 PCs of my own. I shouldn' t have to! [:' (]

If you' re going to buy XP you might as well wait a few days and get Vista instead.

Sophos AV is provided free to me through my college. And I have to install it temporarily to scan my PC before I am allowed on the school' s network. I can enable it whenever I want.

You can insult me all you want. It won' t change the facts. Sorry to cause shrinkage to your e-penis.

Choupolo you can download the SP2 update from the windows web site for free and burn it to a cd. Then just install XP and then use the cd to update to SP2 before you connect to a network.

Just as I thought a cocky teenage muppet, look come back and talk about e-penile size when you have a set and you know how to use them.

Choupolo, Agent Ghost is right what a few days for Vista, although you may want to run the Vista Compatability program just to confirm which of the versions is best for you and your machine.

Yes, you are very mature. gg...

Yea, I should' ve downloaded all the updates onto a CD first in hindsight now. I just underestimated how crap SP1 is for security nowadays!

And I couldn' t reinstall at the time since I' d already used my last activation thing. So I' d have to phone and argue with MS to get a new one. It was a mess.

I' m definitely looking forward to Vista, although I' m not gonna upgrade right away. Probably wait till they iron out the inevitable problems first.

It' s not like there' s anything that important to upgrade to at the moment. I mean they' re kinda artificially making gamers fork out for DX10 and Crysis. So I' ll wait until there are more games and until Vista establishes itself a bit more. I' ll probably get Home Premium, I' ve got a fairly up to date machine now. In the meantime, XP will do me for at least the next year...

99% of the stuff on my PC is pirated and downloaded from questionable places, you cant trust some random guy posting Office 2007 on a newsgroup, so the AV software is necessary.

As for Vista, I have a DX10 Card but still don' t feel like upgrading to it anytime soon, I' m sticking with XP for at least another year.

Are you running the ATI or the Nvidia DX10 chipset? If the 8800 could you possible confirm if it is all it is cracked up to be or not, I am still happily using my 7600GS OC 512 at the moment although everything else is geared up for a full premium Vista system.

you dont have to be a nub to get virus on your pc, any unprotected PC will get it. But then again Loco withouth an antivirus program you cant know whehter or not you have it can you?

I think people are stupid if they dont have antivirus on their PC, its not just a matter of your own security but stopping virus from spreading around!

ORIGINAL: alijay034

Are you running the ATI or the Nvidia DX10 chipset? If the 8800 could you possible confirm if it is all it is cracked up to be or not, I am still happily using my 7600GS OC 512 at the moment although everything else is geared up for a full premium Vista system.

I have an Nvidia 8800GTX Factory Overclocked from BFG, it crushes any video card I' ve ever owned. I play everything at max settings with max AA/AF and @ 60+ FPS.

Only negative is that is is an expensive upgrade since 99% of people that buy this will need a new power supply and case, the card is way too big for most mid size cases and it needs a good PSU, I had to upgrade to 700W from a 550W PSU because it just couldn' t handle it.