Tuesday, June 30, 2009
post://4306510762466182006/I received my EVGA 295 GTX Co-Op today and here are the results!
17:45 - Card installed, powered on
18:00 - Drivers Updated, restarted
21:06 - done with benchmarking
Initial observations:
Compared to the 280 GTX:
- same length
- feels heavier
- a tad thinner
Hardware installation included 2 devices (GTX 295)
I left a 280 in there for strictly PhysX for now but going to do try benchmarks both with and without it on both cards.
Test: -/+ for decreased / increased performance
3DMark Vantage (Ambient Occlusion: ON | PhysX: ON): +
Score: 16209
CPU: 33477
Graphics: 13831
3DMark 2006 (Ambient Occlusion: ON | PhysX: ON): =
Score: 13260
SM 2.0: 4953
SM 3.0: 6965
CPU: 3268
3DMark Vantage (Ambient Occlusion: OFF | PhysX: OFF): +
Score: 12415
CPU: 8610
Graphics: 14560
3DMark 2006 (Ambient Occlusion: OFF | PhysX: OFF): -
Score: 13126
SM 2.0: 4830
SM 3.0: 6935
CPU: 3263
GTA IV: -
Benchark @ 1920 x 1200
Texture Quality High
Texture Filter Quality: Very High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 30
Previous (2 x 280 GTX):
Average FPS: 52.01
Duration: 37.55 Sec
CPU Usage: 77%
System Memory Usage: 36%
Video Memory usage 92%
Current (1 x 295 GTX Co-Op):
Average FPS: 48.96
Duration: 37.72 sec
CPU Usage: 78%
System Memory Usage: 38%
Video Memory Usage: 99%
Crysis: -
I was a custom mix of Very High and High with a lower view distance with the previous cards but durring hectic battles I'd notice everything getting really choppy.
With the new card autodetect chose all High
1920 x 1200 was too much for it at first, but after it settled in and had the textures loaded it went relatively smooth and playable. I turned down to 1280 x 800, the next lowest 16:10 resolution in the list but the quality wasn't worth it. The text was way too blocky, and the trees all had squares where light shone in-between the leaves. I turned it up to 2560 x 1600 and it looked really good but and still had similar performance as the other resolutions. Overall I'd say this is an improvement as I can eek up the shaders and the physics with little to no impact in framerate... too bad said framerate is a steady 30 fps or so. I have the latest version and drivers but I remember a past bug in Crysis where it would run worse if you changed the resolution in game so I'll try this one again tomorrow.
NFS Undercover: +
I had it at 1920 x 1200 previously - with medium world effects (I hate the motion blur) all detail set to highest and 6x AA. I had turned off VSynch previously because it was pulling it down to 30 when I was probably getting about 40 or so, but I HAD to enable it with the new card. I was getting at least 60fps easy and even when I turned it up to 2560 x 1600 I had to turn on VSynch to make it not look like everything was in Fast Forward.
Benchmarks really don't gain much over my 2 x 280s and even go down in the game test. That's partly because the new card actually reduces my available video RAM. The RAM is what I had originally targeted as my bottleneck for draw distance in GTA and this isn't going to help at all, I even need to bring it down a little.
I'm not super impressed, especially since I could get the same performance and even better high resolution performance from my 2 (and now much cheaper) 280s. All in all I'm sure if you're running lower resolution you could kick some ass running 2 of these, but good luck with that.
Rendering is faster due to the increased clocks and there is a noticebly higher quality to the image but as far as sheer frame rates go - this card isn't going to cut it for anyone running higher then 1920 x 1200.
My recommendation is that if you're looking for high performance AND high resolution - stick with the 295 GTX 1g+ cards. I'll be waiting for the higher memory cards to come out, and praying my 90 days for the step up program is enough time.
Labels: 2009, 3dmark, consumerism, games, games for windows, hardware, materialism, video
posted @ 18:03
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Wednesday, June 03, 2009
post://2302350923508456804/The baby is coming in two months (give or take) and I'm feeling a bit... stressed?
I'm excited for the actual situation, but how I'm going to turn everything around in that short of time is a bit daunting.
I have until the beginning of July to finish everything for school. Once class is done and I think I'm in good shape there but the other one I've fallen quite a bit farther behind. I'm just starting on a paper that should have been done a week or two ago and I don't even know where to start.
We've got the baby's room started. It's primed and painted but needs another coat of paint and then I've still got to do the floor. After we pulled up the carpet there was a nice wood floor underneath, but the previous owners went all fuckall with the ceiling popcorn so it's got to be sanded and refinished and since I was going to rent a sander for the occasion I figured I might as well do the office too while I'm at it, since that floor has certainly seen better days.
On top of all this the bathroom is still being redone downstairs. At least we've got the upstairs one so we're not without during all this, but it's taken some time. They're doing good work thus far so I'm not complaining but there are additional concerns and decisions to approve as far as things we need to replace now they've got everything apart or the allotments for improvements to the items we've budgeted for.
I'm worried I can't get everything baby-ready in time, and in order to do all these pending items I kind of need to be home but we keep making ourselves busy. VT was last week, and NY this week - Pregnancy: Get it While it Lasts! (The Mom Tour)
I'm currently ready to head to our last birthing class, so once Nicole's lab is done at school we'll at least have Wednesdays back to normal. I might not be able to squeeze all the house stuff into a weeknight, but it might help me catch up on my school assignments. It's a great class, really interesting, but I'm so not getting what they apparently think I should be getting out of this because I read the materials but have NO idea what they're talking about in the writing assignment that's based on them. "wait... what do you mean 'all the different views?' I can name one... I think"
It all builds on itself so I'm starting to get a little tense. Work has been well, at least. Everything finally settled down, but apparently today was "nothing based on Access will work properly and needs to be fixed" day. There's a potential good thing coming up in the prospect of a trainee at work. They shuttle college graduates on a "fast path" to management - sending them to various areas a few months at a time to get as broad of a perspective as possible. We're getting one in my area and I'm going to be the mentor, so it'll be a little practice and I'll see how I do. I don't really want to get into the management side, but I'm thinking that might be the only route that'll get me any more moolah in this area and I would like to think my background would mean I could recommend and deligate well.
Ultimately I'd like to do full time programming, hopefully it'll be varied enough to keep me interested. I'd need more official training and if I can ever get to it I've got some additional programming classes coming. My development plan - read: list of classes for a degree - is fairly intense and involved so I might not really get to the actual programming classes until later. I know .NET but I've only been through official VB6 classes so I'm really looking forward to it for the best practices end of things.
Labels: 2009, baby, school, status
posted @ 18:13
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
post://6427700829808250218/You may have played "Peggle" on PopCap before, but now you can get it on your iPod - I just found Peggle on iTunes for $4.99
Labels: 2009, consumerism, download, games
posted @ 09:43
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009
post://3410978190845501729/Got an idea to pull in my twittering to the sidebar. I know it exists already but knd of looking forward to writing it myself. Javascript is like a baseball glove. My plan is to pull the whole page (unless there's an RSS) via javascript and then find the start tag of the twitted text and pull each consecutive line to a string until reaching the end tag. I could then adapt the script for a bunch of stuff.
Labels: 2009, idea, mobile, web
posted @ 15:28
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
post://8494446360010875168/Now I know how the other half lives. Private parking in Hartford, marble building, art and comfortable chairs. I know the business side has the money but they're so all businessy.
posted @ 10:40
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Saturday, May 02, 2009
post://6614627549669008837/There's a "swine flu pandemic" on the news, but the news has been looking for a good widespread disease to report on since mad cow. Bird Flu, Swine Flu... so far 150 cases of people actually dying from it. The (straight up, no frills) flu has killed over 15,000 this year and the swine flu makes the news.
I don't have the swine flu but I do have some odd type of sickness. I've been feverish for days with all the normal feverish stuff. I then take 1 ibuprofen, 200mg, and everything goes away. Normally when I have a bad headache I need several, or any kind of pain or swelling I'm trying to do away with... but this horrible feeling sickness - only 1.
I wake up with something different every day. I'll struggle through fever sweats, shivers, and shakes one night, and then be in the bathroom for the next. I was feeling ok yesterday but worked from home just in case. No issues other then feeling slightly off which has been this entire week. This morning it was a headache at the base of my skull... and by the time I woke up it went to the top and behind my eyes.
Nicole seems to think it's dehydration so I keep drinking more and more water. I stop when my stomach starts to rumble. I can't think... brain too big in my skull, can't look at the screen... got school work I need to do, I am so far behind.
Jay's birthday outing is tonight. I had planned to get school work done durring the day, head out - have dinner. Most likely I won't even make dinner, already opted out of the crazy drink fest to follow. No shape to drink, body wants it's back.
*update 2:40 PM*
So managed to get the headache taken care of, though it took more then 1 solitary ibuprofen - had a small cup of coffee after a shower and a drive to the bank and things cleared up. I got home ready to do some school work and half the site was down. I could see what I needed to read though, so that I did. Sat outside for a while with the puppy and caught up on some of my reading.
posted @ 08:47
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Sunday, April 26, 2009
post://4009998041866314026/Randy Boyer just came out with a new track:
Randy Boyer & Kristina Sky (ft Cari Golden) - No Limit
- check it out if you're a fan of trance / dance. I've also seen a couple remixes of his around like this one for darude.
I originally heard about Randy Boyer from a friend at work, another fellow aspiring DJ he was impressed with Randy's style of trance. He introduced me and I caught a show this winter at room 960 in the middle of a blizzard (which s the start to any great story in New England).
It was a great show, he's got an awesome style. You can listen to some of his other tracks over on his site: RandyBoyer.com and if you sign up for the newsletter you'll get a password for the secret area with all sorts of exclusive mixes and songs in MP3.
Check out the video for Randy Boyer & Kristina Sky (ft Cari Golden) - No Limit
Labels: dj, download, mp3, music, video
posted @ 10:11
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Saturday, April 18, 2009
post://3466609533750886962/Oh... so nice.
I just re-downloaded much of the old music I had purchased off iTunes. iTunes finally went full DRM free - 256k, not the best but almost. 320k is the most you can get normally and most pop tunes won't fill that bandwidth on VBR (variable bit rate - adjusts the size to fit how complicated the music is).
In any case there were a lot of tracks I had lost when the mac harddrive originally went - I had backed it up but I hadn't gotten them all. At the time Pepsi was doing their promotion. 1 in 5 caps had a free code for an iTunes download. On a hunch and a curiosity trip I bought 5 one day. I won a free iTunes download on 4 out of 5 and was hooked. For the rest of the summer I never bought fewer then 5 pepsi's at a time. By the end of that summer I believe I garnered over 130 songs before that promotion was through. Free songs, free soda - however you want to look at it.
I was just presented the opportunity to purchase my previously purchased songs. Granted, it's a little bit backwards sounding - I've already paid for these, why do I need to re-buy them? Well, it used to be that you had to do your entire library - an all or nothing sort of thing. A lot of those for me were free tracks or tracks I found sucked after I downloaded the whole thing and got to listen to more then 30 seconds. There was no way I was paying $235 for all the tracks I had ever downloaded. I've now gone through and cherry picked the best ones. I can now use these AAC files with my XSession Pro for mixing without having to record a playing iTunes DRM'd file and make an MP3 of it. It's worth the effort to pay an extra 30 cents for that.
In any case check it out and see what you can do for upgrades.
Labels: consumerism, music, technology
posted @ 00:54
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Friday, April 17, 2009
post://215914447686013624/Mechanically separated llama
Jay said an it didn't exist on the internet... now it does:
You can now tell your friends "well just search for mechanically separated llama (two Ls one M) and you'll find it" feel free to join the obscure search phrase bandwagon, lets see how many mechanically separated llama's we can get!
Labels: fun, internet history, pics
posted @ 13:34
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
post://441323912637714557/Frikkin lovin ASOT #400 while I work:
A State of Trance #400 - live April 16, 17, 18
And please... think of Kanye West and download his latest single: Gay Fish.
Labels: link, mp3, music, rave, video
posted @ 23:28
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
post://219228377295947926/iTunes has added a new feature:
Your guests with an iPhone (and the remote app) can request songs to the now playing list.
Labels: music, technology
posted @ 18:42
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Saturday, April 11, 2009
post://49966346960441633/Here's another mix I did a few months back, realized I hadn't posted it or added it to the net yet - it was still sitting on my work computer and my old MP3 player.
So check it out - I had mixed it up a while ago but since I had recorded of sirius it had a couple dead spots, I've done my best with this version to blend the dead spots out, you can probably still hear them, but this mix would be top notch if not for those IMHO. =)
Morgan Page - The Longest Road (WijiX Mix - Respackled)
posted @ 20:27
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Tuesday, April 07, 2009
post://7853510666201610976/more to follow, teaser:
Labels: 2009, consumerism, games, games for windows, hardware, technology
posted @ 21:05
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Friday, April 03, 2009
post://4393375386350855146/There is an amusing story behind this - but better to tell in person.
Jay found it.
posted @ 18:40
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Thursday, March 26, 2009
post://6837641428007151744/This year's birthday spoils:
- iPod Nano
- Novint Falcon
- NFS Undercover
- BF2142 Deluxe (for the living room PC)
I ended up working half a day today, spent the 2nd half being productive and hanging out with the dog.
I went and got my winter tires off the car, I think we're safe for snow. If it comes now I just won't go anywhere :)
I spent that time waiting listening to my iPod - I was totally that guy in the store with the iPod on. I meandered around Home Depot, looking at some bathroom stuff, and I found a fence I liked. I picked up a rake, and walked back to pick up my car. I didn't really think that much of it, but people look at you funny when you walk into a waiting area with a rake.
It wasn't too long, though I noticed something odd about the iPod touch. Even if you have video in your audio playlist it won't make it to your iPod unless you add the playlist under the video section. I have this thing about rating. I love rating my music, and now that I've perfected moving my whole Library (album art, comments, ratings, along with all the files themselves) I've gotten more serious about it.
1 star - don't like it, don't like it at all - I'll probably delete later
2 star - I appreciate it, but I don't like it enough to have it be played in my background music
3 star - background music
4 star - really good
5 star - makes me stammer when attempting to describe, tear up, or jump up and down
Armin Van Buuren - Shivers (Rising Star Mix) is a good example of what I'd give a 5.
I set up a running playlist of only non-rated files listing the newest out of whatever size, or number of files I restrict it to - but never put much of a dent in it, at least not until I got Jamie's old iPod. It was kinda broken, had synching issues - but she gave it to me for helping with her computer and I got it to mostly work. Doing things very patiently I could reload it ever 5 synchs or so and I'd get about 4 days worth of ratings at a time before I'd have to reload the firmware on it. With an iPod I could now rate the music during the day in the car or at work - I got a lot done.
It eventually frustrated me to the point of crushing it, so of course I took it apart to check it out. I've been non-rating MP3 playering since, at least I had a backup. Now I'm back in the groove. I also had to get a new case because the neoprene DLO case I had for the 1st gen nano covered the bottom 40% of the wheel on the new model - bastards, change it juuuuuust enough.
So I got BF2142 all working for the weekend - coupld of the guys are coming out and we'll have a multi-computery dethmatch of deth, so wanted to make sure all was in tip top shape. I also just installed NFS - I know it's going to be corny, but lets go see what they did with the graphics and this new "Heroic driving engine".
Labels: 2009, birthday, games for windows, hardware, music, technology, update
posted @ 10:09
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Friday, March 20, 2009
post://1044381229610060318/If you were talking about a "car" 3 years ago, you might have had referred to the resurgence of the muscle car, with larger, more powerful engines with hardly a mention of fuel economy. After the fuel crisis of the past summer though, everyone was looking at cars in a whole new light. They wanted fuel economy, and hybrid technology in their cars.
I believe we would have gone much further and faster too, if it weren't for the economic slowdown that inevitably followed. No one wanted to buy cars, even the specialty hybrids. Before the downturn the demand for hybrids was so high that Toyota had slated a plant in the US designed especially for their Prius line alone but by December of 2008 - they had halted construction (1).
The idea of a hybrid car is certainly not new, and neither is an entirely electric car. In the early 1900s electric and petroleum based cars were large rivals, but after some major technological breakthroughs - petroleum based vehicles became a more economically sound option. Where petroleum cars were roughly $650, electric cars sold for about $1750 (2).
In 1990 California passed a revolutionary new law, the zero-emission mandate which would require 10 percent of new vehicles sales in the state to be all electric by 2003. It based this on a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80% of the 1990 level by 2050, so in order to reach this goal they would need to have at least 400,000 zero emission vehicles on the road by 2020 (3).
This early push "sparked" a major electric offering by all the major car companies, and especially by GM with the EV1. An all electric vehicle - it required a charging station placed in the home or garage. In addition, there were several public charge locations set up with taxpayer dollars throughout the state. The goal was to start creating the infrastructure to support this new automotive model. It would have succeeded, if not for a push by the car companies to declare the law unconstitutional. They said they could not do it and remain profitable in the state, proposing a lack of vehicles being available and with that, a lack of new car sales, and new car sales taxes.
The push worked, CA caved on their requirements and all the companies began taking back their vehicles from consumers. Offered only on limited 3 year leases, and not for purchase, there was not one person who owned their EV1 - they were all repossessed, in some cases by force. The EV1s (along with the other company models) were carted off to large lots behind the company headquarters, or hidden in fenced in areas. There they sat for years, with vigilant watch by many electric car proponents. When the cars were finally moved to their final resting place and crushed, police were called to escort the car carriers full of revolutionary cars to protect the trucks from the activists, many who protested by laying down in front of or blocking the trucks. (4)
We could have gotten to this place much faster, but the environment was never as much on the table as our hard earned cash.
1.) http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/12/17/toyota-halts-construction-on-us-prius-plant/
2.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car
3.) http://www.hybridcars.com/news/california-air-cuts-electric-car-goal-again.html
4.) Who Killed the Electric Car?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA2u_KbCs6A
Netflix: http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car/70052424
Labels: school, science, technology
posted @ 22:37
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Friday, March 13, 2009
post://3876978030638891391/I start school on Monday - already hopped online to get a peek at the workload. I stuck with 1 major class and 1 short class this semester to start out. I would like to have an idea of the workload so I can plan for the following semesters.
I'm taking Science and Technology in Western Culture as well as Planning and Finalizing the Degree. I can also get college credit for real world experience which ought to start me off with about 16 credits + the 12 from the bit of college I started. I really can't say how long it might take to get my degree this way but that puts me a little ahead of the game.
I'm nervous about the obligatory math class. I can program a computer to do many complicated things and can wrap my head around writing an application that considers what our work load would have looked like last week and speculates future need but give me a basic trig or calculus problem and I get a little overwealmed. I get the concept, but it needs to be tied to something tangible for me to understand.
Of course History has never been my strong suit either, I'm interested by it, but I can't remember it - and they test you by asking really specific information. I get the general concepts but can't remeber the names and dates very well. I also never saw the purpose in memorizing those things just for the test. I always felt the point was to get the idea, know where we came from and learn from the past.
There's a fair ammount of reading, quite a few DVDs to watch, and a lot of discussion with this history class. You're also supposed to post everything online in the forums and respond to at least 2 other posts by other people. Maybe being able to write out my answers will work better then vocalizing my thoughts. I was never very good at speaking in front of the rest of the class.
Labels: 2009, history, science, technology, update
posted @ 11:42
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Sunday, March 08, 2009
post://3051153165600884304/We've been cleaning the house this weekend, and as I was vacuuming I wondered if I was nesting. I don't think so, I think it's cooincidental with spring cleaning time. I tend to hoard over the winter and then do an overhaul in the spring. I try not to stay inside in the summer, so less likely to dirty it up again and it stays relatively neat until the fall / winter when the whole process can start over again.
It feels good to have things picked up though. We finally got around to hanging a lot of artwork / prints / photos that have just been leaning up against things, and it makes it look nice and tied together. All just in time to probably have to rip apart the wall in the dining room.
We noticed some water spots on the blinds, but I assumed it was from the plants hanging next to it... paying no mind to the fact that they're at least 2 feet higher then the highest hanging plant. In any case it appears that either the roof is going or they damaged that part of the roof when they put the gutters on about 2 years ago. It lasted through 1 winter so there's not much I can do by going back to them about it.
The paint started peeling and we noticed the wall looked a bit soggy, there was also a water spot on the ceiling next to the wall... so the roof is leaking up there and dribbling down the wall. Add that to the leaking roof in the side porch (roundabout the same issue except it's coming right in the ceiling, and then some water where the radiator was leaking in the TV room.
We had a couple contractors come out to see about redoing the bathroom but not it seems we'll have to do these items first. No hope of a home equity loan either - though it couldn't hurt to try. I've kept relatively good credit so far so maybe the bank will be wanting to give out some safe loans.
With what they were quoting us we wouldn't be able to do all that mcuh to the bathroom and we both feel if we're going to re-do it, might as well make it look nice rather then an updated version of what it was.
posted @ 15:30
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Sunday, February 22, 2009
post://8133353976599970085/I had my main system drive in RAID striping (no data protection) and sure enough one of the drives went screwy. I had a system backup that I made with Vista Ultimate so I wasn't that wary of reinstalling. I could pop in the new drive, insert the windows disk and restore, one of the bennefits of Ultimate!
It wasn't like that, not at all - in order to restore off of one of those Windows Image Backups you need to have the same drive configuration as before. My drives were different - so no go.
I finally reinstalled fresh to a new drive (no RAID on the system drive this time) then I got all the files I needed off the original RAID setup which was still limping along good enough for me to get my data. I was sure I had everything but I was about to find out otherwise.
I started up GTA and it asked me to activate. Ok I can activate, I clicked ok - nada, some error with infrastructure and all that. I realized I needed to reinstall so that got me thinking of my savegames and how I should probably go back them up in case the reinstall tried to overwrite them. I made a backup of my Rockstar Games folder in Documents but as I poked around in there I didn't see any savegame files. I also didn't see anything in the new Vista c:\Users\X3\Saved Games folder.
I did some research and realized I had lost them. I needed the files in c:\Users\X3\Local Settings\Application Data\Rockstar Games\... and since I was using XBox Live for Windows and it encrypts the savegames (to prevent people from cheating) I also needed the files in c:\Program Files(x86)\XLive
I've lost save games before and I know there are sites around that have a save at virtually every misssion in the game, but how would that work in this case?
After some more searching I found something that would let me load the save files into the reinstalled version:
HowTo for Savegame "wrapper"
Original Site
I'm going to go look for savegame collections now. If I can't reply my game with all my carefully molded relationsihips I can at least play out the missions and get the rest of the story.
Damn it!
[Update - 2/23/2009] - I found them! I'll post the link once I get home, but I've found a site with all the missions, and the link for the wrapper above works. Now I can get as close as I can to where I left off - of course the relationships, the races, the pidgeons, the stunt jumps, who knows how they did with those but I can only hope for the best and try and finish the game, albeit from someone else's skin.
Labels: games, games for windows, lament, lost data
posted @ 14:02
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Saturday, February 14, 2009
post://5313472958211376515/I just downloaded the largest demo ever: 2.9 gigs, and it turns out that's because it also has the full game in it. When you go to install it you are presented with 2 buttons: Install Trial or Install Full Game, naturally I chose Install Full Game where it presented me with a spot to put in a registration code from EA. I didn't have one but I did see that it's $39 at the EA store so you can download the demo and turn it into the full game.
I thought game companies did away with this sort of thing. Isn't it a little too tantalizing to have a carrot dangled in front of a hackers face of being able to download the full game right out the box or are they confident that their downloadable game technology is safe?
In either case it's kinda cool to be able to download the demo, figure out if you like it and then click a button and input a code to get the full thing. Also cool if you know how to crack I suppose. If it's good I might just consider paying them the $39 though, I like to support good ventures and there's a shortage of racing games in the PC world that don't have hokey dialog (now that they've turned NFS into a bad 2Fast movie).
[Buy the Game]
[Download the Demo & See Screenshots]
Labels: consumerism, games, games for windows, graphics, SLi
posted @ 08:16
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
post://6816059569584533463/So I've spent the weekend... well, I guess that could be extended to the past month, doing computer stuff. I placed the hardware order on December 31st (so I could include it in the business costs for 2008) and received them on the 7th or so.
From there on it's been computers, computers, computers. I upgrade my own to free up a power supply and memory for my new Media PC for the living room. I took all the old stuff I had and got a brand new media pc case for it all. It's about the size (amazingly close in size) to my receiver and now have it all nicely arranged in the new entertainment center.
The original order started with Jamie. Her computer was up to the gill in spyware and antivirus and she was looking for a way to record TV. Since the existing setup couldn't quite pull that off I came up with a solution for her - a Media PC / desktop. That got me thinking about an actual media PC for myself and lead to me ordering the new case and replacement parts for my desktop so those old parts would be available for the Media PC.
In any case I came up with a really nice Thermaltake box case (like a shuttle case on steriods) and TV card arrangement. I waited on the TV card for myself until I could confirm if Comcast is QAM in my area. Per my experience with Jamie's PC being plugged into my cabe I can confirm it is not. They give me one digital channel in high quality off the line and it's always an add for a Wrestling PPV. So the only channels on my network are analog and most of those have that little known property that Comcast actually just got fined for - many of the channels say "this channel is still available on the digital teir" to try and entice the $13 a month-ers.
So I was working on 3 computers, more upgrading 1, making another from old parts in a new case and building a new system. Then Joe from Finishline called me. I haven't done business with him in a while - over a year in fact. It got where I was spending a lot of time supporting him over the phone with questions and the like and not getting anything from it. I finally started charging him for phone support and he didn't pay those invoices. I took the loss and moved on but he recently started calling me again when "his computer got stolen". He had taken it to a local shop for repair and they closed up and took his computer with them. They didn't return it and wouldn't return his calls. He ended up getting it back but it had been in the middle of a system refresh and was apart all over the place. He was in a bind and I'm planning on charging full price, so I agreed - that made the 4th.
So here I am in the office all weekend, with multiple computers on a KVM going back and forth between them, installing, downloading drivers, tweaking, and loving it. Of course, my ADD (or so the pamphlets would have me believe) never lets me focus for very long so I'm in and out of the office as things format and download so I'm not completely holed up the whole time. As a matter of fact I even had dinner with my wife last night, then we watched the office (had to resort to Hulu due to the cable issues) and then caught up on the Kyle XY finale from last year (we'll probably check out this season tonight). I then had Nicole try out Civ on the PS3. It's a pretty good game, and she didn't experience anywhere near the performance problems I had. She won via domination but to be fair she was building the United Nations... it just happened that Abraham Lincoln got his panties in a bunch before it could get completed.
So though I've been busy this weekend, but all in all it's been fairly enjoyable. The only thing I might like more is if the office was clean, but I can get around to that once I'm not using it to build. I so need to sort through my stuff and throw out the old parts(PIII and under). As it is I could never receive purely professional customers.
Side note - found this while browsing: The Unwanted Blog
It's got a lot of very cool general interest stuff as well as technological and historical items. A great blend of all things I'm interested in.
Labels: 3dmark, games for windows, graphics, hardware, link, technology, vista
posted @ 13:35
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- side note about the link - of course nothing is perfect and though this blog is great otherwise, he does seem a bit bitter about Obama. Just have a little hope, give it some time, and I'll welcome your point of view in a couple years.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
post://6159892700569416999/Peapod has taken forever to come to the area... it sucks because I would love to order my groceries online and then have them delivered. The next best thing to that is ordering online and picking them up. Well the time has come for online grocery shopping as Big Y has BigY2Go in Greenfield and Springfield (Walpole too but that's all Boston-y).
I was able to go through our entire grocery list and order. You can search, or go through by category and choose what you want in your order. The best part was that it not only shows you the sales, but you can sort by unit price so you can see which is the cheapest method of buying each thing. I saw poptarts, an 8 count and a 12 count and I could see the 12 count was quite a beat cheaper per unit.
That may seem obvious, but there are other foods where it's not so obvious, and even when I'm curious I don't want to look all over multiple shelves comparing the tomatoes... and what happens when you see that thing you want in an odd part of the grocery store, do you go look for the best deal where it's home is, or do you just pick it up? That's what they're counting on!
Shopping this way allows me to see all the raisins available, and judge whether it's really worth the 6 cents a unit or 30 cents a package for the better tasting ones. The issue can't really be made for saving money, however - because if you were really looking to save all this money you wouldn't be paying them $10 to go grab your list of items off the shelves for you.
$10 for an entire order of groceries (translates to $3 an hour the way I food shop) is well worth it, and I feel quite a reasonable price. So if you live in Springfield or Greenfield MA - give it a shot, it sounds like this could be the feature and I'm loving the potential.
Labels: consumerism, cool, technology, web
posted @ 21:42
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Saturday, January 03, 2009
post://6990541718987691637/I beat Fallout 3 today - tried it ever which way to survive. Unfortunately the ending comes out almost the same, with a few changes here and there. I did it right the first time and then reloaded and went back to it. I reached level 20 and Max XP well before I got involved in the last battles of the game. All told it was great, story got even better and though it was slightly more linear towards the end I still really enjoyed it.
I just heard the latest on the DLC which is coming out for both the 360 and PC. 3 installments, they'll be coming out one a month for January - March 2009. The first installment "Battle of Anchorage" lets you play the first battle of the war via simulation, much like "Tranquility Lane". The second installment "The Pitt" is a morality quest into a slave town in Pittsburg. The third and final DLC is the big one, it lets you use all you've gained in the main plot and resumes from where you left off (and lets you advance past level 20).
The first 2 DLCs don't seem like they'd do much good to me from a character expansion point until the third one is out. I may just wait for the multipack to come out in March as I'm sure they'll package them in a disc version once they're all released.
Labels: consumerism, download, games, games for windows
posted @ 14:40
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Thursday, January 01, 2009
post://8849305309033283493/Here are a few mixes I've done as of late:
Anavan - The Perfect Sound (WijiX SoundOff Mix) [listen]
The Veronicas - Untouched (WijiX Touché Mix) [listen]
Lady Gaga - Just Dance (WijiX MiX) [listen]
I also have a pretty awful session [listen] where I started playing with my new XSessionPro. It's the first time I've been able to mix between two MP3s... now if I only had a second audio card on the laptop so I could listen to the cue.
Labels: dj, download, mp3, music
posted @ 10:26
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post://6164516219882452047/
We spent almost new years at Jen and Matt's, ate some ribs, played some wii and then got home in time to see the big sparkly thing... forget what it was but it was sponsored by Nivea.
Labels: consumerism, holidays, new years, status
posted @ 10:20
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Sunday, December 21, 2008
post://8937212902501074694/This blizzard will be the death of me, I'm currently attempting to ward off back spasms with muscle relaxers and aleve. I was just getting over it too, and now I've done WAY too much shoveling. I am writing to try and keep my mind off the spasms, pain, and absence of breath I'm feeling, so I won't be hurt if you stop reading here :)
It started a week ago Thursday. I hurt my back doing nothing special - I was sitting in my office chair and turned right to grab my laptop out of the case on the ground. I didn't feel anything right away, but by the end of the day I was feeling it.
I worked Friday from home and then had Monday and Tuesday off to recuperate so I didn't think much of going to Nicole's family's Christmas Party on Sunday. I still hurt, but it wasn't bad enough to keep me home. By Monday I was feeling good. So good, in fact, that I decided I'd surprise Nicole by putting up the Christmas lights outside. Otherwise the whole day was me resting by watching TV and video games.
Alas, Tuesday was going to be another wash - holed up in bed all day so I finally got an appointment with the Chiropractor. He adjusted, it didn't feel quite as wonderful as it normally does but I figured it was due to it being out for so many days thus far.
I went to work Wednesday and Thursday with little to no issue and then this damn storm came up on Friday. I shoveled Friday night and though I hurt in the morning I needed to shovel Saturday because our damn snow blower is delayed until Tuesday. We couldn't find the one we wanted in the stores around here so we went online. Amazon got our hopes up by saying it would be delivered the next day... FedEx tracking brought us back into the reality that we'd be waiting another few days.
No sunflower means shoveling and when it's coming down about 2 to 4 inches an hour, that means shoveling several times. I did a lot the first time, though still not the whole driveway. I tried to at least keep the area around the cars and the plow deposits at the end of the driveway clear but it... just... kept... coming.
This morning I finished up the picture for our Christmas cards so we'll be sending those out tomorrow. I beat several stages of both Fallout3 and GTAIV then I watched the whole football game today, an absolute slaughter by NE in the snow. It almost feels like it's getting worse with me applying heat and not moving much. I'm wondering if I should stretch, I need to move, I'm getting a bit stir crazy.
Our driveway really needs a complete shovel, as does our front steps and sidewalk. I know the neighbors must not think much of me, but I just can't do any more shoveling. I can't move, or walk well, and shoveling will just make it worse. I wish the neighbor kids would come over and ask. I kinda thought they would after seeing me shovel. I'm weird with kids & neighbors though, never know what to say, or even what to say when they start the conversation, put the two together and I have no idea how to interact.
I had moved around enough snow previously to be able to get out with the car both earlier today and a little while ago. Nicole and I just went to go pick up the invitations after submitting them online and for food earlier today. It was really bad out there, the Subaru cut right through it, but I did emulate a plow somewhat on my exit and re-entrance.
*Whew* The spasms have finally subsided after a double dose, but along with them goes my thoughting ability. I'm too young for back problems, if this is just the start of it, I hate to see what's in store for my future. I'm working from home again tomorrow, and not sure about the rest of the week but this is crazy.
Labels: blizzard, holidays, lament, snow, status
posted @ 18:12
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008
post://5007839232060440479/I love Hulu, and now they've got my favorite show: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - watch the full episodes. If you can get the beginning of the season the final episode will be a lot funnier :)
posted @ 14:03
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Wednesday, December 10, 2008
post://1480953871889639729/So this shows a few issues with Rockstar's "video editor" in GTA IV for PC.
You'll notice you don't see any fire after the first clip or two yet some vehicles tend to blow up for no reason. I'm a little disssapointed considering it took me over 40 minutes to encode this "web quality" video. Other options are 720p and 1080p. Last time I tried 1080p I crashed. Go fig.
Anyhow, take a look at my GTA 'fire storm' video here.
Labels: games, games for windows, graphics, video
posted @ 23:23
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Sunday, December 07, 2008
post://6314627219298098290/Here's the same progression in GTA benchmarks. I didn't have to do much work for this because GTA writes each benchmark to a separate txt file automatically. I pasted into Google Docs and made a graph of it all.
The details are here but this is the graph:
Labels: 3dmark, consumerism, games for windows, hardware, materialism, SLi, technology
posted @ 11:37
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Saturday, December 06, 2008
post://8239767402186441602/Ok, so after the dust has settled I've completed the Hard Drive externalization (technical prototype) and here are the past couple benchmarks:
2 x New Graphics Card + CPU
New Graphics Card + CPU
New Graphics Card
New Motherboard
Original
Read em and weep.
Labels: 3dmark, consumerism, games for windows, hardware, materialism, SLi, technology
posted @ 22:51
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post://7178261761764014228/
I think I've thought of all that though being short on material and the means to create something like this, I'm a bit unsure how I'm going to work it all through.
For now maybe I'll use some metal "gutter mesh" I have left over from my bumper screen I made for my Legacy. I had taken a rock directly through the intake area of the bumper the first few months I had the car - took out the whole A/C grate so I made a guard for those rogue CT highway rocks.
In any case it's about 2 feet long and 6 to 8 inches high, originally meant to keep the leaves out of gutters. It's got small enough holes where screws ought to hold and it's bendable while still being (somewhat) strong enough to hold the hard drives.
The "prototype" if you will, is actually just 2 3.5" bays of 3 slots each from 2 old computer cases. My plan is to put them side by side but there's actually no room for that with my current setup. In order for the SATA cords to reach outside the tower, the whole arrangement needs to be pretty close.
So here is what I've got so far and in concept it works. I jumped a 250W power supply according to this ATX Power schematic. So it's switched off the power supply itself and otherwise "always on".
After speaking with my electrician friend at lunch he said that I had to be careful because without a load on the other end, running a "jumped" power supply would overheat if it couldn't offload it's power. The other thing to note is that a jumped power supply will also always run at full load, so that's a constant 250W. Still better then a variable (with new energy star 80-rated) 1.3 Kilowatt power supply.
So here's some pics, I'll post more as it evolves/burns up.
Labels: pics, project, technology
posted @ 16:45
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Friday, December 05, 2008
post://2095755929140285485/| Latest Benchmark | 3DMark06 - 11059 |
| 2.0 PCI Ex Motherboard | 3DMark06 - 10879 |
| 1.0 PCI Ex Motherboard w/ 2 8800 GTX | 3DMark06 - 10674 |
Labels: 3dmark, graphics, hardware, SLi
posted @ 04:21
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Thursday, December 04, 2008
post://1960250936291300007/Ya know... sometimes I hate PC gaming and then other times.
I looooove it:
[ 1st Try, beloved MMA10 ERROR ]
[ GTAIV 01 ]
[ GTAIV 02 ]
[ GTAIV 03 ] *
[ GTAIV 04 ]
[ GTAIV 05 ]
* = driver upgrade mmmm hmmm
Labels: games, games for windows, graphics, screenshot
posted @ 21:44
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Wednesday, December 03, 2008
post://8605665130117686757/Rockstar apparently wanted their little foot in the online pool. GTA IV for PC may be exclusive to XBOX Live (Windows) but since they have it all centralized via their Rockstar Social Club - it all depends on their servers having the stones to support everyone logging in at once.
I guess they didn't expect such a rush. I called support:
Wait, you called before?
No... I don't think so.
Yeah, for PS3 - not showing 1080p.
Oh yeah, yeah I did.
So why'd you buy it for the PC too? I had it for PS3, I wasn't going to go buy it for PC too.
Well... I guess the graphics, and really liked the achievements in Fallout 3
Oh, Fallout 3 - brilliant game
Yeah, I love it
Chatter aside, it turned out their server wasn't prepared.
Rookie mistake, Rockstar.
So if you're playing GTA IV for PC and you're getting an error after the copyright screen in GTA (fatal error MMA10), just pull the network cable, start in "offline" mode and boom - you'll be up and happy in single player.
I guess no one was online making recordings in Multiplayer last night, maybe they'll have it fixed later today. When I called it was 3am their time in the UK, with expected rollout to their masses in about 5 hours so it doesn't look good unless they can get some serious stones, real fast.
Labels: commentary, games, games for windows
posted @ 09:47
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Tuesday, December 02, 2008
post://441443711170341468/Yeah... I got it.
I couldn't help myself. I looked at the screenshots, I pondered, and after finding there was no demo to quench my thirst, I ventured to go get it before the stores closed.
It's installing now, and I'm enjoying the extra items in the box. I've got plenty of time to read it all - the game is 18g over 2 DVDs. I wonder if they're dual layer. I guess they'd have to be, even compressed it would be at least 12 to 16g and that's more then 2 4g DVDs could handle.
The new social club feature is kind of odd. Apparently someone had already taken my handle?? I don't quite understand but now my PS3 Social Club, PC Social Club, and XBOX Live (Windows) is now all linked up. I've enjoyed the achievements in Fallout 3, and I guess that was another reason I was eager to get this version. I know I've seen most of the missions already, but I can play it really down and dirty and probably get pretty far.
I was all about the DLC, wondering if it will be out for PC too - and I guess I'll get my answer, but if Fallout can do it (coming in January for both XBOX & PC users) I at least know it's possible, and since it's all LIVE - it ought to come to fruition soon enough.
[update 21:44] Apparently there is a newer version of Games for Windows LIVE. I was just playing Fallout 3 yesterday on LIVE so I expected I'd have the latest release. I didn't play it today though, so there must be a new version just for GTA's release. So on the upside to it still not being installed completely - coolness. Also, because I has x64 VISTA I needed to install x64 specific video encoding engine for the game to start, I guess the video editor and encoding is integral.
Labels: consumerism, games, games for windows
posted @ 21:10
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Monday, December 01, 2008
post://5761582253016075666/Listen to the new Lilly Allen track "Fear", or if you're so inclined, download it.
posted @ 20:10
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Saturday, November 15, 2008
post://4115377957762220307/Have you heard?
The Bird is the Word
S6E2 of Family Guy -
posted @ 18:06
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- one of the best moments in TV history...
- Hey Jim!
Do you have a new blog spot?
Your previous domain is now where I'll "find the best stuff on the internet", and other "helpful" links.
- I just started a new blog... http://huskyhiker.com how have ya been? you can email me at jimbradley/at/gmail.com
I had to put all the links here so they could still be robot'd since I was having issues with the whole dual click nature of the modern browsers.
music recommendations
links
discuss (no longer in service)
...mysterious
pictures
mobile
archive
music recommendations
links
discuss (no longer in service)
...mysterious
pictures
mobile
archive