"can someone tell me exactly what xpopup has to enable the alpha"... huh?... "so I can tell 3dlabs support exactly what the drivers can't handle"... huh?...

Sorry, I'm not trying to be an ***, just being informal ;)
(to clarify)

And Dev I've always been on-board the no hand-holding policy, I just usually prefix my link to the wiki with a detailed explaination of why they need to read the wiki ;)