<.. Moved .. >
Moved to a slightly more private blog.
Only a certain list of friends on Facebook/Google Buzz have access and will see a link to it appear.
Reflections on Lethargy, boredom, obsession, loneliness and love.
5
How EA ruined C&C – The Installer
No, I have not played C&C4 yet, though I will soon.
And no, this is not a post analysing in detail the gameplay, estetics, production quality, storyline, etc of the various C&C incarnations and how they have gone to shit since EA toolk over Westwood and then abolished it.
Instead, I am going to simply demonstrate something that very nearly and very completely encapsulates the difference between C&C during Westwood en C&C during EA.
The Installation of the game.
See here first of all, the DOS installer for C&C1
Then see here the DOS installer for Red Alert 1
Now lets look at what we get with C&C3 installer:
Its not even in English, i dont even get to choose the language.
EA, FUCK. YOU.
On meta identities and splitting up your personality online.
Below is my response to the last episode of the metatalks podcast, hosted by my friends Alachia en Jeppy.
You should listed to the episode first if you want to understand the context of my comment below.
http://metatalks.blogspot.com/2010/03/metatalks-3-meta-layers.html
Comment thread: http://www.google.com/buzz/alachia.me/Gf4wkaPdDo7/Metatalks-3-Meta-Layers
Listened to the episode this afternoon while cleaning. Funnily enough just this morning I read this: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/28/reputation-is-dead-its-time-to-overlook-our-indiscretions/ which deals rather nicely with exactly the same topic.
What Alachia didn’t mention in podcast but knows is that I in fact maintain 3 blogs now that deal with the different aspects of me. The last one being very important that it not intermingle with my other identity, whereas the first 2 I have no issue with them kinda cross-connecting in some ways. So my first 2 blogs, the tech blog (thefluffyadmin.net), and the me/geek blog (jemimus.net), are designed with the potential audience in mind, so that “audience”, doesn’t have to be bored to tears with the other part. Its a basic secmentation of my 2 major interest spheres.
The third blog is rather more secret and disconnected in every way I can think of, and also is built around a completely fictional identity. And that blog is not really for an audience (though in the beginning I thought it could be), but more as a sounding board for my own thoughts on that particular side of me. Its far more personal than my “me/geek” blog at jemimus.net could ever be. Which I feel is a little unfortunate, because there is a middle ground that I would like to cover between those 2 blogs that I can’t currently.
For example, my parents will read jemimus.net because its connected to Twitter, and Twitter appears in their MSN. But I don’t really want to go into my darker emotional states on there, because of those 2 people, along with some others like potential collegues. While I am sure most of my other friends really wouldn’t mind at all if I shared some more of the emotional stuff there. Feeling the need to express myself there in that way, I have even considered disconnecting my parents MSN from my Twitter feed, or otherwise not connecting my blog posts to Twitter. Sure its still all public, and they can just google my site if they wanted to, but I know most of them wouldn’t, its just on the margins of their internet periphery.
Maybe a 4th blog is in order? lol. I go back to what Alachia and I discussed on Wowcast once, where I mentioned that what you really want is 1 single identity platform, so you can far more closely control who gets to see what exactly. Some posts visible only to annonymous, others other visible to “Friends list 1”, where that list would consist of verifiable identities coming from either a locally registered account, or remote identity silo’s like Facebook, Google and Twitter. This can be done right now, but I have yet to see the right implementation of this in, say, a WordPress plugin.
They wont let me pay for it!
Yesterday, Felicia day and the crew of The Guild released a music video which is awesome.
I am a fan of Felicia Day and the Guild, so I want to support them and purchase with actual money the music video and the song itself.
Lets just be clear about this.
I want to pay them with my MONEY
And they wont let me. Retarded, backward, outdated international copyright law is stopping me from actually legally BUYING digital content.
Translation: Your request could not be completed. The item you requested is currently not available in the Itunes store in [?], but is available in the store of [?]. Click on “change store” to see this item.
Translation: Your account is only valid for purchases in the Dutch Itunes store. Click OK to go to that store. – And thank you Apple. for even giving me the option to stay on this page, let alone buy something here.
FUCK!
How DARE they accuse US, the digiratii, of PIRACY when they themselves cannot get their collective heads out of their asses and ACCOMODATE ME?!
Just the other day, I had exactly the same experience when I tried to watch the new Ghostbusters game trailer.
So thank you, after getting me exited and nostalgic about Ghostbusters, they deny me a FREE TRAILER. FREE!
So partially out of SPITE, partually out of not actually having ANY OTHER VIABLE OPTION, I torrented the ENTIRE Ghostbusters movie, Blueray rip, in HD
FUCK. YOU. Old Media
Hello thepiratebay.org! 🙂 You are always there for me!
I enjoyed it. Then I deleted it.
Broken Hardware Part 4 – fixed! And a little on ARMA II
Well, suffice to say, I managed to fix the problem just a day after my last post. It was Dalrain that suggested the awnser, and after looking up the correct timings from my ram, the instability issues instantly vanished.
So my mistake was assuming that the default settings of the mainboard, setting everything to auto, would be the most stable situation. As per usual, you need to know what you are doing first and not make any assumptions.
The Fluffgame PC is now back in its corner, and the passively cooled GT9800 that is on loan to me is still performing well.
I dropped by the shop to see if they had gotten a replacement in for my 295GTX, but they didn’t have it yet. Its very hard to come by.
What really irks me is that I know that the card was perfectly fine now. So my own stupidity has caused me to go without the best possible graphics experience I could have had.
Its especially sour because I have no finished Mass Effect, with graphics quality less than it could have been, and am now stuck into ARMA II, which really taxes the grahpics card with its wonderfull outdoor scenerey and highly detailed balistics effects.
Mass Effect was AWESOME by the way, I mean really friggin awesome. One of the best games I have played in years. The storyline was so good, and the way the action was direction, and the final cutscene and choices where supurply done. I may replay it but not soon. Mass Effect 2 is on the way anyhow 😉
ARMA II is the third game by Bohemia Interactive in what was originally their “Operation Flashpoint” line of games. As per usual the engine is amazingly realistic, and the game works and feels identical to its predecessors. Some people hate the realistically “sluggish” feel of moving around. The engine isn’t as “tight” as a typical FPS, and takes getting used to if you havent played a Bohemia game before
What I friggin LOVE about their games though, is the sense of complete realism these games provide, and the atmosphere is amazing. If you have ever taken a long walk in the countryside, you know the feeling you get. Its quiet and pastoral, you hear the birds in the trees and the rusling of the treest and grass in the wind, Its calm and tranquil, only broken by the occasional car going by on small narrow roads. Rolling hills with forrests on the horizon, birds and insects around.
Get the picture? Good, now imagine 4 M1A2 Battle tanks roaring across that same hill, startling cattle as the come over the horizon. You can actually hear them a lot sooner than you see them crashing through the trees and bushes. In the very far off distance, you can hear gunfire and shelling.
The soundscape of ARMA II is the single most impressive thing, that contributes to the realism. I use my G35 serround sound headphones to get a full experience and its so damnimpressive.
Broken Hardware Part 3
Things are getting desperate. I am really at my wits end now.
A ray of light appeared when I removed the Creative Labs X-Fi soundcard, and other USB peripherals. The thinking was that if it was a power issue, that might help.
Low and behold, there was an improvement. The crashing continued, but was no longer resulting in permanent screen corruption as my previous pics show. Basicly in Mass Effect, the graphics freeze, as usual, but after an alt-ctrl-delete, the game and the graphics will pop back in a playable state.The crashes are also less frequent, and its sometimes possible to play for half an hour or more, without it crashing once. However, when it does freeze, the freezing seems to come in waves, where the game will freeze every minute or so for period, before becoming more or less playable again for a while. It doesn’t matter what i do in game though. I just leave it and it will crash eventually, with the characters standing around idely.
Grand Theft auto, on the other hand, still gives corruption, again, only after a while sometimes, but no longer the pixel mess. It will corrupt the textures in game, then freeze, then crash out to the desktop. GTA is more consistent in crashing that Mass Effect though, at this point.
Stuff I have tried since the last post:
– Took the PC appart and running on the table. More or less excludes shorting with the case.
– Memtest86, turned up nothing (remember hte memory is suspect because its one of the few common components across the old and the new hardware)
– Removed 3 of the 4 RAM, no effect
– Replaced the Keyboard and Mouse with a different keyboard and mouse, no effect
– Reconnected the old PSU, no effect
I have been going over how the PSU stuff is suppose to work, still thinking its a power issue.
The new 800watt PSU I got (Gigabyte Odin Pro) is a very good PSU, good reviews, and is know to deliver well on the voltage and amps. It has 4 separate dedicated +12v “rails”, two of which can deliver 28amps, more than enough for this setup. Now I have been running Speedfan, and besides measuring temperature, it can give a readout on Voltage.
Now here is the worrying part. It shows 11.35v on the 12v readout. Way too little. However, the BIOS itself, when I boot into it, is telling me the 12v is at 12.04, which is spot on. I did read that software indications of voltage are unreliable. Regardless, I reconnected the old 650watt no-name PSU, and its giving me the same readout in Speedfan, and in the BIOS slightly higher, 12.152v
The whole thing still smells of a power issue. The way people on forums seem to have described power-related issues seems spot on with what I am having here. But it may just be confirmation bias of course.
There are 2 approaches I can take at this point. The first is to reinstall Windows, in this case Vista, again. I cant be sure Windows 7 is not at least a part of the problem, even though I doubt it because the problems started on Vista originally. I need to get my hands on a version with a valid key, but I think I know where, my original key didnt seem to work anymore as you know. I think I know where.
The other path is to continue digging into the power issue. I have seen several forum examples of people that had similar instability, that they managed to solve by upping the voltage of components ever so slightly. The CPU and/or the RAM for example. I may try this, there are certain margins that we can play in safely. I am not convinced either PSU is not performing well, but to really confirm it, I would need a multi-meter, which I dont have. I may buy one, its generally usefull to have around anyway.
I still have not heard back from the shop about my 295 card. I am assuming they have not recieved a replacement yet. I will call them tomorrow. I may explain this whole thing to them, but I suspect they will give me the usual shopping list of things I have already tried.
And the very last thing I want to do is bring the parts round to them to have a look at. Its a logistical nightmare.
Broken Hardware part 2
Back to square 1 with the video card crashes. Even on my loaner 9800GT, same issues as before. I am even suspecting its the same issue as plagued my 8800GTX.
Mass effect is a good example: It will run fine for 5 minutes, then suddenly freeze. With alt-ctrl-del I get back to my desktop. But that is apparently the kick-start the graphics driver needs, and it will immediately full-screen the game again, and all is fine, for about 5 minutes, then it freezes again.
Now I have noticed, that if I just leave it frozen, without pressing alt-ctrl-delete to restart the graphics, the problem will permanently corrupt all graphics functions for this session of Windows, causing the crazy-ass pixel snow effect I have described before. Windows desktop will display random mis-colored pixels, that move about when something else on the screen moves. In the game the image becomes a mixed up mess of pixels, but its basically the same effect.
I imagine this is what video-memory corruption looks like.
http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377
http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377
Now I had exactly the same problem when I was running the 295, on Vista, aswell as on Windows 7, and on the old mainboard/cpu/power suppy, as well as the new hardware.
Thinking back to my original issue with the 8800GTX, I cannot remember seeing the pixel mess, but the freeze behaviour was identical. If only I had let it sit there on the frozen screen of Mass Effect a bit longer, perhaps then I would have seen the same pixel issues.
So, across a different OS, different cpu, different mainboard, different power supply, AND 3 different video cards, I seem to be having the same problem over and over.
Something is fucking up the graphics somehow. Either the physical card or the drivers.
What I find fascinating is also how in the corruption while in game, you very clearly see that familiar diagonal line across the screen. I cant remember what that was exactly, but it something pretty basic to how images are drawn on the screen. It goes to show something is off on a very basic, hardware level.
I have bene looking for common elements. Here is the stuff I can think of:
– Same power socket (could it be a power issue causing memory corruption? Would this not be stopped by the power supply?)
– Same sound card; Creative Labs X-fi Fatality edition (with front panel)
– Same mouse (logitech MX revolution)
– Same Keyboard (logitech G15)
– Same headphones (logitech G35)
– Same Wireless Network USB dongel (sitecom)
– Same 2 monotors: 22″ and 19″
– Same Case
– Something enviromental like interference, magnetic field or signal-crossover
Now, looking at the list above, the ony thing that has recently changed or been added is of course the G35 headset.
My first thought was, maybe its conflicting with the Creative X-fi, so I removed the sound card, that I wasnt even using currently as the G35 software takes care of all sound
That did not help. It also cant be a driver issue as in this Windows 7 install, its default drivers for the X-Fi, but the Logitech drivers are installed from the website.
Could it be the G35 or its driver itself then perhaps? Its a USB headset, with a sound driver that acts as a directsound output device, and can do serround sound. How could it effect the video card? Sure both use drivers, could they be eating eating eachothers memory space? I thought since Windows xp this kinda stuff was already almost impssible? no?
I will try to stick the G35 in a different USB port, in the back this time, instead of the front. (perhaps a defective USB port?, the frontpanel USB ports of the case have not changed between these configs either)
Next I can try without teh G35 at all, with or without activating the onboard sound card of the mainboard.
The shitty thing here is that I may have replaced my 8800 for no reason. And that the 295 currently at the shop may be fine after all.
I will know more in a few days…
A fist full of broken hardware
The last 4 days have been nightmarish. As in, the worst kind of hardware upgrade nightmare.
It started early last week, when I started getting serious issues playing Mass effect. The graphics driver would suddenly crash and reset, causing an interruption and minimizing the game. Windows would restart the driver, generate a popup, and then I could keep playing.
This started to get progressively worse, as after the first crash, the in-game graphics would slowly start to corrupt. Textures would start to go missing, geometric shapes would start to get out of sync, and lighting effects would go haywire. Tried the newest Nvidia drivers, no effect.
The 8800 even failed in dos mode.
My old card, the 8800GTX
Now I was already considering getting a better card, as I was not impressed by the performance of Mass Effect, and my Nvidia 8800GTX was getting on a bit, now over 2 years old.
So I went out and got myself the new Nvidia 295, which is basicly a duel-core version of a 260.
Its the most powerful card on the market today.
I also saw that the quad-core Intel 775’s where down to some nice prices, so I also pickup up the 3Ghz version, the q9650. I knew my mainboard, the Asus Striker Extreme, should be able to use it.
On Thursday I swapped out the Nvidia cards, and had a good night of play on the new 295. But it was obvious how much of a bottleneck the CPU was now.
The next night, I swapped out the CPU. However, imagine my suprise when the Quad core didnt play nice at all. The PC would not boot at all with it in there. Under the assumption it was lack of having the correct microcode for the new CPU, I downloaded the last BIOS file, and flashed it with the EZ-Flash tool in the Bios.
That was the last time my Striker Extreme ever booted.
I am clueless about what went wrong. It was the correct Bios file, and a perfectly normal and supported means of flashing.
So Saterday I went back to the shop, and got myself an Asus P5Q Deluxe mainboard.
After putting it all back together again, I let the original Vista installation boot up.
It actually dealt with all the changes quite well.
Tried mass effect, and while it ran very smoothly now, as expected, within minutes I got pretty bad texture and vexel corruption. So not exactly the same problem as with the old card, but quite similar.
Supreme Commander ran smoothly and without any corruption, but would suddenly crash out without warning.
I ran into an additional problem with Vista. Because i had changed so many bits of hardware, it now said i needed to re-activate it. But when I tried this, it said the key was already in use. Rather strange, considering this was a volume-license key and already in use by my laptop and several other computers i am aware of. Volume license keys should be able to be used multiple times.
New card: the Nvidia 295GTX duel core
New board: The Asus P5Q Deluxe
By this point, I was suspecting the driver-instability, if that is indeed what it was, may well be down to windows. Coupled with the activation issue, I decided to take the opertunity and install Windows 7, RC build 1700. Once this was installed, I went about getting the games back on. Mass effect needed to be re-downloaded, so I gave GTAIV a try. This was on the default drivers supplied with Windows 7.
Much to my disappointment, I got severe texture and shading corruption again, similair to what i had in Mass effect.
I have tried various combination’s of drivers now, but the largest difference has been when I have turned off multi-core rendering in the Nvidia control panel. The problems are there clearly with just 1 core, but with 2 cores on GTA crashes almost immediately. I tried some Left 4 Dead, which crashed on 2 cores, but ran reasonably well on 1 core. Most distressingly, is that sometimes when it crashes, for example in Supreme Commander, it shows a bad-pixel pattern over the screen, not just in 3D, but also on the 2D Windows desktop.
http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377
Supreme Commander with pixel snow inside the game, and even on Windows desktop
http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377
Mass effect goes crazy with duel cores on, vexel nightmare. With just a single core on for rendering, it only(!) freezes every 5 minutes.
So I am more or less out of ideas. My suspicion is that my new card is as broken as my old card. And the old card is very broken, as even in the boot screen it showed vertical red lines across the screen, probably indicating fried memory or something else bad.
We already threw out the original box of the 295, but its got a 3 year warranty, so I should be able to get it repaired, or get a replacement. I am hoping for the latter.
Maybe I will think of something else to try tomorrow, but it looks like i will be going back to the shop soon.
Things sound harder better faster stronger
Yesterday saw the arrival of my long awaited Logitech G35 Headset.
http://www.viddler.com/player/be8ee844/
(click here if you cant see the video above)
I am quite happy with it. I have only tried 1 game with it so far, but the spacial 7.1 sound is good. Later today I will give some DVD’s a try. The most impressive is the overal quality for music. The base is very good and the sound seperation is excellent. I can hear detail in my favorite songs I never noticed before.
Also in the gadget department, is the most awesome Android app I have found so far:
http://www.viddler.com/player/53783f4c/
(click here if you cant see the video above)
Per Gessle / Roxette concert Amsterdam may 6th 2009
Emma and myself went to see Per Gessle in Amsterdam.
Both of us have been Roxette fans for many years, and we always regretted not ever having seen them live.
It had started to look like we never would, after Marie’s cancer, it didnt look like they would ever perform as Roxette again, its been 7 years since the last album and tour.
However, to our delight, it was rumored and then confirmed by Per on his Twitter, that Marie would very likely make an appearance at one of his shows. This turned out to be Amsterdam, and how fortunate we where to be there!
Pics (click here if you cant see the slideshow below):
http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649
I made lots of video too (link here):
http://www.youtube.com/p/097AC5F368E0AC13&hl=en&fs=1
An amazing night. A small intimate crowd of true fans, only about 500 of us. Considder that for a moment when you realise that Roxette would play to a crowd of 100.000 during their hay day.
Marie was obviously not used to being on the stage, but she warmed up and for 2 songs, Roxette was back again. We will be seeing more of them this year, they are a mainline act on the Night of the Proms
As you can see in the slideshow, me and Emma got our favorite album books signed, and I filmed Emma meeting Per, so check out the playlist above.
The Fluffshack 