I've currently mined myself a nice 0.22 BTC. (I can get $2 of that from CAD virtex minus the banking fee! Gox doesn't seem to mention their fees before sign up) I'm looking into getting another GPU and hoping to recuperate (though I won't end up on the streets if I don'T) my expenditure.

If I mine for a few months this looks attainable, especially if BTC continues to trend upward (it won't, will it?).

But my question is, will mining ever stop paying out? I'm processing transactions and I'm getting (payed  for) randomly generated BTC with my pool.

What happens when we hit 21 million?
Is mining over? I've read in older articles this is the year we hit it.
What's going to keep the network going? 


Another question probably better for hardware forums - except here I won't get flooded with "Why would you want to do that?" questions.

I've got my 5870  (for 2 years I've had minings best piece of consumer hardware and haven't been using it?  tfw you only started mining because of moot)
churning away transactions at a clock that likes to crash windows but not my miner, while an old
HD 2400 is powering my desktop.
Trouble is, I can't seem to install the catalyst legacy drivers for it alongside my current catalyst drivers, preventing me from playing my less intensive games.

Anyone know a trick for this?