2K Games finally released 3D Realms game, long awaited Duke Nukem Forever. The game was released 15 years after the development started – most of the time work was done and undone by 3D Realms, they switched engines, scrapped levels, built things piece by piece until they finally ran out of money to continue development. Lucky for us gamers, Gearbox Software took the project under their wings, and finished the project in co-operation with Triptych Games and Piranha Games.
After 15 years, what did we finally get into our hands?
According to some, we got nothing but steaming pile of shit, yet according to others, we finally got a masterpiece worthy of Duke’s reputation.
Sure, the game is ‘consolized’, as we PC gamers tend to say from far too many games today, rightfully or not, but does that necessarily ruin the game?
In my humble opinion, no, it doesn’t. Of course some elements of the game almost yell “play with me with gamepad” instead of far superior keyboard & mouse kombo, and saves are only done on pre-determined checkpoints rather than when player wants so, but that’s about it.
Every other element in the game could be from PC exclusive FPS game just as well.
It doesn’t let you explore around too much, but a gamer who doesn’t just run through the game will find several “hidden rooms” or “extras” that take you off the straight course through the level, which is more than most modern games offer.
What about the reputation and big expectations the game had to live up to?
Some claim that only thing common with the good old Duke Nukem 3D is the name and the immortal catch lines Duke throws into air like ‘I got balls of steel’ and ‘It’s time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I’m all outta gum’.
I, however, found a lot more in common with the predecessor, all the crude humor, objectification of women, sexual themes, dark humor and everything in place, as well as the general gameplay even though there’s new elements to it too, like driving around as shrunk Duke with a RC truck as well as full-sized monster truck, but those are only added spice to what I find to be one of the best modern shooters, beating easily Call of Battlefield part XXV: Modern War or some such.
The graphics of the game could use some updating, but let’s face it – had Gearbox & co gone to upgrade the graphics engine we would still be waiting, and graphics isn’t nearly as important as gameplay is.
Sound design works fine in general, though I think Dukes lines could have used some work, as they sometimes sound more like they’re “dubbed on” (well, obviously, they are, but you get the draft) rather than said by Duke in the game.
The game is running on widely popular Unreal Engine (2.x generation), though the tidbits which 3D Realms slipped during the long development tell that the graphics engine is completely in-house built engine instead of Unreal Engines. The renderer, though, appears to be finalized around 2007-2008 era, as the game tech demonstrations from that era match the final game completely – so it’s obvious the graphics from 3 years ago can’t match newest titles out there, but they’re still easily enough not to bother the gamer, IMO.
Before they settled on Unreal Engine, Duke Nukem was first started on Quake Engine, but 3D Realms quite quickly switched over to Unreal Engine, which later got updated to build 2 and 2.x, and the renderer to 3D Realms’ in-house built renderer.
So what is my verdict?
Duke Nukem Forever is worthy sequel for Duke Nukem 3D, modernized to (almost) todays standards, trying to keep some of the elements of the old days of extra rooms, with possibly alternative ways to go forth, in the todays world of “tubes” where player has absolutely no way to slip away from the meant course even for a second.
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Total: 8½/10
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Hi and welcome to my blog
As you probably noticed, I just massposted quite a few entries here - they're from my previous so-called blog, which I figured I'd post here too, if not for anything else, but for keeping them from ending up in bitspace for one reason or another. (Had to use Google's cache & Internet Wayback Machine to actually dig up the entries from the other place, as it's been suspended at least for now)
I'll try to keep posting here on regular, or at least semi-regular basis on my toughts on world, life, death, tech and whatnot.
Hope you'll enjoy your stay,
Yours,
Kaotik
I'll try to keep posting here on regular, or at least semi-regular basis on my toughts on world, life, death, tech and whatnot.
Hope you'll enjoy your stay,
Yours,
Kaotik
The best just got better
December 3rd, 2008
This is, of course, referring to World of Warcraft and the recent expansion to the game, Wrath of the Lich King.
The life of Warcraft lore-fans like me took huge steps to better with the new expansion, Blizzard really got it right, there's so many great quest lines which bring a lot more than any previous quest in WoW or TBC ever did for us, most of which aren't obvious or even noticeable to Average WoW-Joe, that I can't even really start to list those here.
But one quest line definately needing a special mention is the Wrathgate-line. I mean, epic is just a too weak word to describe it! It takes the whole term "epic" to a damn Brann-spanking-new level!
Of course there's downsides to the expansion too, at least for some. Many feel that the "wellfare epics"-trend has gone too far with the new raid-instances, Naxxramas specificly, being too easy. However, this isn't too shocking, not to me anyway, Blizzard said that they will be easy, they will be "Molten Core" of WotLK, back to basics, teaching the people pve-raiding, which of course feels far too easy for those of us who have raided most if not all
of the previous pve content of the game. And don't forget that many of you were also familiar with the encounters beforehand due the old Naxxramas 40-man raid-instance - while the new Naxx is tuned for 10 and 25-man raids, it's still essentially the same.
So I wouldn't be too worried, sure, they're easy and puggable, but already Eye of Eternity gives a bit harder challenge compared to them, let alone Onyx Sanctum if you keep the extra-drakes up. Even having just one drake up raises the encounter difficulty significantly, let alone having two or three drakes up.
Ulduar, coming in future content patch, is only the 2nd "big raid instance" in the game and it should be a challenge for most of us. Sure, it will probably be cleared quite swiftly by Ensidia (ex-Nihilum & ex-Curse (SK-Gaming) combined) and few others, but not as swiftly as Naxx was and definately will take some time for the "normal hardcore" guilds, let alone semi-hardcore or semi-casual guilds.
And Ulduar won't be the last either, Icecrown of course will be the last instance in the expansion, but there's rumors that at least Uldum might be included in the game before it, and who knows what other instances they'll come up with.
This is, of course, referring to World of Warcraft and the recent expansion to the game, Wrath of the Lich King.
The life of Warcraft lore-fans like me took huge steps to better with the new expansion, Blizzard really got it right, there's so many great quest lines which bring a lot more than any previous quest in WoW or TBC ever did for us, most of which aren't obvious or even noticeable to Average WoW-Joe, that I can't even really start to list those here.
But one quest line definately needing a special mention is the Wrathgate-line. I mean, epic is just a too weak word to describe it! It takes the whole term "epic" to a damn Brann-spanking-new level!
Of course there's downsides to the expansion too, at least for some. Many feel that the "wellfare epics"-trend has gone too far with the new raid-instances, Naxxramas specificly, being too easy. However, this isn't too shocking, not to me anyway, Blizzard said that they will be easy, they will be "Molten Core" of WotLK, back to basics, teaching the people pve-raiding, which of course feels far too easy for those of us who have raided most if not all
of the previous pve content of the game. And don't forget that many of you were also familiar with the encounters beforehand due the old Naxxramas 40-man raid-instance - while the new Naxx is tuned for 10 and 25-man raids, it's still essentially the same.
So I wouldn't be too worried, sure, they're easy and puggable, but already Eye of Eternity gives a bit harder challenge compared to them, let alone Onyx Sanctum if you keep the extra-drakes up. Even having just one drake up raises the encounter difficulty significantly, let alone having two or three drakes up.
Ulduar, coming in future content patch, is only the 2nd "big raid instance" in the game and it should be a challenge for most of us. Sure, it will probably be cleared quite swiftly by Ensidia (ex-Nihilum & ex-Curse (SK-Gaming) combined) and few others, but not as swiftly as Naxx was and definately will take some time for the "normal hardcore" guilds, let alone semi-hardcore or semi-casual guilds.
And Ulduar won't be the last either, Icecrown of course will be the last instance in the expansion, but there's rumors that at least Uldum might be included in the game before it, and who knows what other instances they'll come up with.
General ramblings about hypocrisy
August 2nd, 2007
Hypocrisy. Let's start with that, shall we?
Again, I got personal experience on how hypocritical the world can be, how hypocritical the users of Futuremark / YouGamers forum users are.
My signature, which you can see at the top of this blog too at slightly different size, has a razorblade in it, and then some blood. Shocking, isn't it? Apparently yes, it was shocking enough for many users to file complaints on it hurting them.
These are the same people which of many play games, where they kill NPCs and in case of multiplayer games, other players characters. Taking into account the realism of todays games, how can the same people who blow characters in games to bits and pieces, glorifying the game more and more the more realistic it's graphics are act like they did now?
Razorblade? with blood? My god, that's hurting my feelings, that's ruining my innocent mind!!
Let's go to the classic, prime example of hypocrisy, this comes from the United States of America ([sarcasm]surprising, isn't it?[/sarcasm])
Everyone probably remembers the good old Janet Jackson scandal, where the other singer (can't remember his name) ripped part of her dress off, revealing one of Janets breasts (with the nipple area still covered, though). Everyone went manic, how can that happen! Why was this allowed! Let's sue them!
Meanwhile probably half of them are perfectly happy with watching hardcore pornography, see just as much of "bare skin" in normal (as in, non-pornographic) magazines, commercials etc.
Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Okay, enough of that, I had plenty of other things on my mind when I started writing this, but I can't remember half of them anymore. I remember that some of them were related to my last blog entry, but but, can't remember more, so I'll just write a new entry when I remember what I was going to write.
Hypocrisy. Let's start with that, shall we?
Again, I got personal experience on how hypocritical the world can be, how hypocritical the users of Futuremark / YouGamers forum users are.
My signature, which you can see at the top of this blog too at slightly different size, has a razorblade in it, and then some blood. Shocking, isn't it? Apparently yes, it was shocking enough for many users to file complaints on it hurting them.
These are the same people which of many play games, where they kill NPCs and in case of multiplayer games, other players characters. Taking into account the realism of todays games, how can the same people who blow characters in games to bits and pieces, glorifying the game more and more the more realistic it's graphics are act like they did now?
Razorblade? with blood? My god, that's hurting my feelings, that's ruining my innocent mind!!
Let's go to the classic, prime example of hypocrisy, this comes from the United States of America ([sarcasm]surprising, isn't it?[/sarcasm])
Everyone probably remembers the good old Janet Jackson scandal, where the other singer (can't remember his name) ripped part of her dress off, revealing one of Janets breasts (with the nipple area still covered, though). Everyone went manic, how can that happen! Why was this allowed! Let's sue them!
Meanwhile probably half of them are perfectly happy with watching hardcore pornography, see just as much of "bare skin" in normal (as in, non-pornographic) magazines, commercials etc.
Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Okay, enough of that, I had plenty of other things on my mind when I started writing this, but I can't remember half of them anymore. I remember that some of them were related to my last blog entry, but but, can't remember more, so I'll just write a new entry when I remember what I was going to write.
The time to let go, the time to keep it inside, the time to unleash it all
July 28th, 2008
When is the right time for all that?
When is the right time to let everything go? To keep it all inside? Unleash it all, no matter who and how much it hurts?
I've been pondering about that lately, too much for my liking. I've been thinking if I've made the right decisions in the last few months, if my decisions were even relevant, could things that now happened be avoided had I chosen otherwise? I don't know.
I've taken a good grip of myself in the past couple months, but it has a price too. The decisions I've made during that time may have ended a period in my life which I've enjoyed the most, the period where I was truly happy inside - this is something I didn't foresee.
I've been thinking if the decisions I've made were good or not, the short term effects at least are catastrophic, but long term? I don't know. I don't have my engagement ring anymore, I don't know if I'm living here alone in a week, or is my love still here by my side.
I don't know, which is the worst thing I can imagine. Not knowing, it hurts, it hurts more than anything. What if I had chosen to do things differently, would I still feel good, would I still be happy inside and not only outside? Would I be with the one I love now, would I in a year?
Those answers can never be answered, there's no save/load buttons in life no matter how useful they could be.
So what did I do? Is it even relevant? I made things that caused her to lose her confidence in that she could trust me. Would I rather undo them? Probably, but I'm not sure if it would still fix anything.
After talking to few good old friends of mine, they said what I did was what anyone would have done in the same position, she was the one who caused me to do those things, they said.
If I had chosen to do them and keep it to myself, what then, would I still be here in a year and having them still burning my insides out?
That's what I've always done, it has always ended up in tears sooner or later, but this time I think it still might have been better choice, at least for myself. Why? Because the decisions made brought up things I had forgotten, things I thought were the past, things I thought I
had gotten rid of nearly ten years ago.
Yet here they are again, and I don't know what to do anymore, I don't want them back, I don't want the pills back either. Some of my good friends didn't want them ever, they're not here anymore. Am I here tomorrow if I don't go on the same painful road I took nearly ten years ago? I don't know.
Why am I writing this here? I don't know that either, really, I only know that what ever happens to me in future, I at least tried to put my thoughts down, clear it in my own head, clear it with my friends, clear it with who ever might read this and know me. Was writing here wise? Probably not.
Of course this doesn't really tell anyone anything, this is just words on a screen, with no real point in them, there's no thread to follow, there's no real answers or even questions of what actually did happen.
Heck, I don't know if I now re-read this if I understood what I just wrote myself anymore.
But it all still comes down to the topic - how do you know it's the time to let go, the time to keep it inside, the time to unleash it all?
And what if you picked the wrong one?
When is the right time for all that?
When is the right time to let everything go? To keep it all inside? Unleash it all, no matter who and how much it hurts?
I've been pondering about that lately, too much for my liking. I've been thinking if I've made the right decisions in the last few months, if my decisions were even relevant, could things that now happened be avoided had I chosen otherwise? I don't know.
I've taken a good grip of myself in the past couple months, but it has a price too. The decisions I've made during that time may have ended a period in my life which I've enjoyed the most, the period where I was truly happy inside - this is something I didn't foresee.
I've been thinking if the decisions I've made were good or not, the short term effects at least are catastrophic, but long term? I don't know. I don't have my engagement ring anymore, I don't know if I'm living here alone in a week, or is my love still here by my side.
I don't know, which is the worst thing I can imagine. Not knowing, it hurts, it hurts more than anything. What if I had chosen to do things differently, would I still feel good, would I still be happy inside and not only outside? Would I be with the one I love now, would I in a year?
Those answers can never be answered, there's no save/load buttons in life no matter how useful they could be.
So what did I do? Is it even relevant? I made things that caused her to lose her confidence in that she could trust me. Would I rather undo them? Probably, but I'm not sure if it would still fix anything.
After talking to few good old friends of mine, they said what I did was what anyone would have done in the same position, she was the one who caused me to do those things, they said.
If I had chosen to do them and keep it to myself, what then, would I still be here in a year and having them still burning my insides out?
That's what I've always done, it has always ended up in tears sooner or later, but this time I think it still might have been better choice, at least for myself. Why? Because the decisions made brought up things I had forgotten, things I thought were the past, things I thought I
had gotten rid of nearly ten years ago.
Yet here they are again, and I don't know what to do anymore, I don't want them back, I don't want the pills back either. Some of my good friends didn't want them ever, they're not here anymore. Am I here tomorrow if I don't go on the same painful road I took nearly ten years ago? I don't know.
Why am I writing this here? I don't know that either, really, I only know that what ever happens to me in future, I at least tried to put my thoughts down, clear it in my own head, clear it with my friends, clear it with who ever might read this and know me. Was writing here wise? Probably not.
Of course this doesn't really tell anyone anything, this is just words on a screen, with no real point in them, there's no thread to follow, there's no real answers or even questions of what actually did happen.
Heck, I don't know if I now re-read this if I understood what I just wrote myself anymore.
But it all still comes down to the topic - how do you know it's the time to let go, the time to keep it inside, the time to unleash it all?
And what if you picked the wrong one?
Game Over! But Blizzard still has it!
February 24th, 2007
Game over, like said, Illidan down, no new content yet.
Luckily 2.4 isn't too far away anymore, and there will be a lot of new content in it.
But let's cut to the point - Blizzard still has the magic in their hands, and they're using it right.
After the initial dissappointments in last.. november I think it was, when we had our first proper tries on Illidan, we didn't get him down. Too big portion of the guild went on vacations or just quit, so we had to start recruiting - then christmas came, more vacations, and after christmas break again more people had left, so again we needed more new recruits. Needless to say, new recruits aren't quite as good as the old folks, so we went on painful road of training them to suit our needs.
Today, it finally paid off, Illidan dead.
And the magic Blizz still has, I mentioned earlier?
Well, the kill, and the few moments before it, were just as ecstatic as the first big boss kills ages ago, Onyxia, Ragnaros, Nefarian - Illidan felt just the same!
I do admit that for example Vashj didn't have the same feeling to it, but luckily that's an exception to the rest.
Game over, like said, Illidan down, no new content yet.
Luckily 2.4 isn't too far away anymore, and there will be a lot of new content in it.
But let's cut to the point - Blizzard still has the magic in their hands, and they're using it right.
After the initial dissappointments in last.. november I think it was, when we had our first proper tries on Illidan, we didn't get him down. Too big portion of the guild went on vacations or just quit, so we had to start recruiting - then christmas came, more vacations, and after christmas break again more people had left, so again we needed more new recruits. Needless to say, new recruits aren't quite as good as the old folks, so we went on painful road of training them to suit our needs.
Today, it finally paid off, Illidan dead.
And the magic Blizz still has, I mentioned earlier?
Well, the kill, and the few moments before it, were just as ecstatic as the first big boss kills ages ago, Onyxia, Ragnaros, Nefarian - Illidan felt just the same!
I do admit that for example Vashj didn't have the same feeling to it, but luckily that's an exception to the rest.
What happened to the gaming World (of Warcraft)?
Damn, missed one when posting these old blog entries, so this isn't in the right place date wise, sorry for that.
October 10th, 2007
World of Warcraft - it would be hard to find someone who hasn't heard from it.
In November 23. 2004 - the 10th Anniversary of Warcraft franchise - World of Warcraft, a eagerly waited MMORPG to rule them all was released, few months later it was unleashed for europeans as well. Those two releases have changed the world of many, including mine.
The game has consumed lives, marriages, relationships, I've witnessed it all even though not for myself, but for people I know.
The game is a drug - it's more addictive than heroin for many - one might ask why?
Why does the endless quest for glory and more shiny epix lure people to play endless hours of the same, repeating instances, quests, mobs, over and over again?
What did WoW do that others didn't, why did it became so succesful?
It made it easy to start. You don't need to be expert with computers or computer games of any sort to get hang of it, but still, for the people who play more, it's hard to master, there's always something improve in your own gameplay, more places to discover (thanks to constantly growing world, getting new instances in patches etc)
But that's only a small part of it - the biggest draft in the game is the social side - many times I see myself and others logging in just to chat, somehow it's more fun in WoW than it would be over IRC or MSN or something similar to those.
The bonding between long time guildmates, gone from getting your very first kill on Lucifron in Molten Core to killing Illidan at Black Temple is a strong emotional bond, it shouldn't be looked down compared to "real friendship" as some call the relations in "real life" - I see it different, I see them just as much as my friends as the people I am with in the "real life" even if I can't see them face to face (excluding meetings people arrange, and those few living near enough to meet every now and then or more often).
People might think of it as "meh", they're just people writing over net, who cares? Well, the people doing it care - spending endless hours with 39 (or 24 later in BC) others in a raiding instance practising new bosses will make you know others no matter if you want it or not.
Many times it's also easier to speak of some things online, seemingly anonymous even if the other would know you in person aswell. I'm especially thankful to the two "long distance friendships" I've built during my years of playing, one living in Sweden and other in Norway - those two, even though I've never met them (hoping I will sooner or later, though, we might get a meet up at some festival for example, they're QUITE close after all), mean a lot more to me than many I know in person, I've talked with both of them in WoW, in phone, over MSN etc from everything between the ground and sky, they know me better than most, I know, or at least believe I know, them quite well too.
But, this has all been a bit off the topic I was thinking when I started writing this.
What did World of Warcraft do to the gaming World (of Warcrat)?
Well, that question has to be answered of course by each of us to ourselves - but to me, it changed it for good.
Before I played many, many single player games over and over finding new stuff etc - now I just rush through the few I even bother trying, only putting serious time to the few gems in the pile of what I now see as junk. Many new games are now in my eyes just nice tech demos, but that's it.
I have the normal urge to upgrade every now and then, but I'm not making any real effort towards it, I'll upgrade when I have the money if I feel like it, I won't start saving for it or anything - my computer runs WoW fine, and that's enough for me as of right now. Without WoW, I would have for sure upgraded now once, if not twice since getting my current rig - just to run all the newest titles at maxed out candies and good framerates.
For me, even though I have to pay ~13€ per month to play WoW - it's clearly worth it. I've bought less games since, and saved money on not upgrading my computer so often - and built several friendships, which can't be measured in money.
October 10th, 2007
World of Warcraft - it would be hard to find someone who hasn't heard from it.
In November 23. 2004 - the 10th Anniversary of Warcraft franchise - World of Warcraft, a eagerly waited MMORPG to rule them all was released, few months later it was unleashed for europeans as well. Those two releases have changed the world of many, including mine.
The game has consumed lives, marriages, relationships, I've witnessed it all even though not for myself, but for people I know.
The game is a drug - it's more addictive than heroin for many - one might ask why?
Why does the endless quest for glory and more shiny epix lure people to play endless hours of the same, repeating instances, quests, mobs, over and over again?
What did WoW do that others didn't, why did it became so succesful?
It made it easy to start. You don't need to be expert with computers or computer games of any sort to get hang of it, but still, for the people who play more, it's hard to master, there's always something improve in your own gameplay, more places to discover (thanks to constantly growing world, getting new instances in patches etc)
But that's only a small part of it - the biggest draft in the game is the social side - many times I see myself and others logging in just to chat, somehow it's more fun in WoW than it would be over IRC or MSN or something similar to those.
The bonding between long time guildmates, gone from getting your very first kill on Lucifron in Molten Core to killing Illidan at Black Temple is a strong emotional bond, it shouldn't be looked down compared to "real friendship" as some call the relations in "real life" - I see it different, I see them just as much as my friends as the people I am with in the "real life" even if I can't see them face to face (excluding meetings people arrange, and those few living near enough to meet every now and then or more often).
People might think of it as "meh", they're just people writing over net, who cares? Well, the people doing it care - spending endless hours with 39 (or 24 later in BC) others in a raiding instance practising new bosses will make you know others no matter if you want it or not.
Many times it's also easier to speak of some things online, seemingly anonymous even if the other would know you in person aswell. I'm especially thankful to the two "long distance friendships" I've built during my years of playing, one living in Sweden and other in Norway - those two, even though I've never met them (hoping I will sooner or later, though, we might get a meet up at some festival for example, they're QUITE close after all), mean a lot more to me than many I know in person, I've talked with both of them in WoW, in phone, over MSN etc from everything between the ground and sky, they know me better than most, I know, or at least believe I know, them quite well too.
But, this has all been a bit off the topic I was thinking when I started writing this.
What did World of Warcraft do to the gaming World (of Warcrat)?
Well, that question has to be answered of course by each of us to ourselves - but to me, it changed it for good.
Before I played many, many single player games over and over finding new stuff etc - now I just rush through the few I even bother trying, only putting serious time to the few gems in the pile of what I now see as junk. Many new games are now in my eyes just nice tech demos, but that's it.
I have the normal urge to upgrade every now and then, but I'm not making any real effort towards it, I'll upgrade when I have the money if I feel like it, I won't start saving for it or anything - my computer runs WoW fine, and that's enough for me as of right now. Without WoW, I would have for sure upgraded now once, if not twice since getting my current rig - just to run all the newest titles at maxed out candies and good framerates.
For me, even though I have to pay ~13€ per month to play WoW - it's clearly worth it. I've bought less games since, and saved money on not upgrading my computer so often - and built several friendships, which can't be measured in money.
Upgrading is always fun... but!
January 6th, 2008
Helping my brother upgrade his oooold machine, which started from Athlon 1200MHz and evolved through used parts, mostly from me, from AXP 2500+ to up-to-date machine this christmas was fun, now he has Q6600, HD3850 and so on - and due my uncle getting impatient on getting a new machine to play some rally games, I got to upgrade my own
machine now too, couple months earlier than the original plans.
So here we go, Q6600 G0, Abit IP35, 2x2GB DDR800, Radeon HD3850 512MB with damn fine cooler, ready to rock the world!
But - what world is that, really? I installed Crysis only to find that it's not tempting me, not atm anyway, not anymore than the demo did, I'll play it through eventually, I paid for it after all.. WoW ran fine before too, guess it runs a bit better now, but nothing too drastic there.. UT3 had noticeable increase, at least, but it's only to relax now and then with some mindless shooting around online..
I'm seriously wondering now, was it worth it for me? Honestly atm it feels like that the biggest winners were really my uncle and my girflfriend - gf got my old A64 X2 3800+ @ 2.7GHz, X1800XL, 2GB DDR, uncle got her old AXP 2700+, X1600 Pro, 1GB DDR, more than enough for his old rally games.
I got the fanciest system, but don't really know where to put the new found power of it atm.
Helping my brother upgrade his oooold machine, which started from Athlon 1200MHz and evolved through used parts, mostly from me, from AXP 2500+ to up-to-date machine this christmas was fun, now he has Q6600, HD3850 and so on - and due my uncle getting impatient on getting a new machine to play some rally games, I got to upgrade my own
machine now too, couple months earlier than the original plans.
So here we go, Q6600 G0, Abit IP35, 2x2GB DDR800, Radeon HD3850 512MB with damn fine cooler, ready to rock the world!
But - what world is that, really? I installed Crysis only to find that it's not tempting me, not atm anyway, not anymore than the demo did, I'll play it through eventually, I paid for it after all.. WoW ran fine before too, guess it runs a bit better now, but nothing too drastic there.. UT3 had noticeable increase, at least, but it's only to relax now and then with some mindless shooting around online..
I'm seriously wondering now, was it worth it for me? Honestly atm it feels like that the biggest winners were really my uncle and my girflfriend - gf got my old A64 X2 3800+ @ 2.7GHz, X1800XL, 2GB DDR, uncle got her old AXP 2700+, X1600 Pro, 1GB DDR, more than enough for his old rally games.
I got the fanciest system, but don't really know where to put the new found power of it atm.
New recruits, uh oh
December 3rd, 2007
We had some people getting almost nervous breakdowns on our Illidan attempts, so it's better they moved to at least a vacation, if not completely off the WoW.
So there we were, not enough players to raid, raid break, here we come.
Luckily for those who still wanted to raid, it only lasted for less than a week, skipping some, 3 raids or so, until we got enough new recruitments.
We have now 9 new players in the guild, I think, we had to "waste" couple days clearing SSC & TK for their Hyjal / BT attunements, but after that, the progress has been damn good, I seriously wouldn't have believed that we would be, only on the 2nd week with the new recruits, going for Illidan again.
Fresh blood seems to have really spiced some things up for us, sure, their gear isn't as good as those who left, but that doesn't seem to slow us down too much, they've learned the encounters quite quickly even though we've had some frustrating moments with couple bosses just not going down as they should, but nevertheless, they went down.
What's the point of this? I don't know - maybe the lesson that you really need to quit in time so you won't get those nervous breakdowns, or maybe that you shouldn't be afraid as a guild to get new recruits even if it would require you to waste that day or two in SSC & TK for their attunements.
We had some people getting almost nervous breakdowns on our Illidan attempts, so it's better they moved to at least a vacation, if not completely off the WoW.
So there we were, not enough players to raid, raid break, here we come.
Luckily for those who still wanted to raid, it only lasted for less than a week, skipping some, 3 raids or so, until we got enough new recruitments.
We have now 9 new players in the guild, I think, we had to "waste" couple days clearing SSC & TK for their Hyjal / BT attunements, but after that, the progress has been damn good, I seriously wouldn't have believed that we would be, only on the 2nd week with the new recruits, going for Illidan again.
Fresh blood seems to have really spiced some things up for us, sure, their gear isn't as good as those who left, but that doesn't seem to slow us down too much, they've learned the encounters quite quickly even though we've had some frustrating moments with couple bosses just not going down as they should, but nevertheless, they went down.
What's the point of this? I don't know - maybe the lesson that you really need to quit in time so you won't get those nervous breakdowns, or maybe that you shouldn't be afraid as a guild to get new recruits even if it would require you to waste that day or two in SSC & TK for their attunements.
3-way SLI, CrossFireX... but something's missing
November 11th, 2007
nVidia is introducing 3-way SLI - that's up to 6 slots space taken.
AMD / ATI introduced CrossFireX - that's up to 8 slots space taken.
Now, I do realize that both of these have tremendous horsepower in them, but at what cost?
No, I'm not talking about powerbills. I'm talking about your PCs functionality.
How many of you have a motherboard with over 6 slots space for add-in cards, let alone 8? I don't, that's for sure.
Let's say I would like to go and get myself 3-way SLI or CrossFire X system - where does AMD and nVidia think I'll put my soundcard to? No, integrated is not enough for me, excluding perhaps ATI's on the gfx cards, but even then that's only for watching videos if I had a amplifier that supported HDMI, which I don't, so it's useless for me. Where do they think I'll put my TV receiver card? And NICs and other possible cards I could have.
Now, by using HD3850's or 8800GT's you could somewhat get by this, since they only have single slot coolers by default, but if I didn't put my computer in a freezer, I'm quite sure 3 tightly packed 8800GT's might actually just start melting through the mobo with all the heat coming from other sources too.
But seriously - both of the platforms sound great, but they forgot one little problem - there's no room for other add-in cards.
We need bigger motherboard, or we need alternative solutions, 3870 X2 is one, of course, but that wouldn't probably fit all the cases (though, it shouldn't be longer than 8800 Ultra so I guess it's still manageable)
nVidia is introducing 3-way SLI - that's up to 6 slots space taken.
AMD / ATI introduced CrossFireX - that's up to 8 slots space taken.
Now, I do realize that both of these have tremendous horsepower in them, but at what cost?
No, I'm not talking about powerbills. I'm talking about your PCs functionality.
How many of you have a motherboard with over 6 slots space for add-in cards, let alone 8? I don't, that's for sure.
Let's say I would like to go and get myself 3-way SLI or CrossFire X system - where does AMD and nVidia think I'll put my soundcard to? No, integrated is not enough for me, excluding perhaps ATI's on the gfx cards, but even then that's only for watching videos if I had a amplifier that supported HDMI, which I don't, so it's useless for me. Where do they think I'll put my TV receiver card? And NICs and other possible cards I could have.
Now, by using HD3850's or 8800GT's you could somewhat get by this, since they only have single slot coolers by default, but if I didn't put my computer in a freezer, I'm quite sure 3 tightly packed 8800GT's might actually just start melting through the mobo with all the heat coming from other sources too.
But seriously - both of the platforms sound great, but they forgot one little problem - there's no room for other add-in cards.
We need bigger motherboard, or we need alternative solutions, 3870 X2 is one, of course, but that wouldn't probably fit all the cases (though, it shouldn't be longer than 8800 Ultra so I guess it's still manageable)
exo.losttouchwithreality.network
November 9th, 2007
I was inspired to write this after reading a post on another forum about Vista and SP1.
Sadly, the poster apparently had swallowed these two blog entries without chewing.
But what am I talking about? Let's take a look.
"exo.blog The official blog for the editors and research staff and of the exo.performance.network (www.xpnet.com)"
Sounds professional enough, they apparently released some sort of Microsoft Office benchmark.
Let's take a look on our candinate number 1http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-intel-giveth-microsoft-taketh-away.html
They make a big fuss on how Office 2007 eats 12 times the RAM and 3 times processing power compared to Office 2000, released only "seven short years ago".
They however fail to tell us how exactly they ended up with those numbers - the official minimum requirements? Pulled numbers from a hat? A fairy told them?
Well, regardless on where they got their numbers from, they completely disregard the past which doesn't suit their needs - "how can we bash Vista and everything related" (no-one can or will deny how Office 2007 is Vista related).
Let's go 7 more years back in time, to 1993. Let's take a office software from those days, and then compare it to Office 2000 - do you really think the difference there isn't at least as big as with 2000 vs 2007?
"But hey, we got some benches too" - yeah, tests run on a bloody virtual machines. Sure, the platform, VMWare, is in theory the same for all - but did they take into account that even with endless horsepower in the host, different systems actually might run better or worse under the virtual machine compared to the others?
Time for candinate 2:http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/vista-sp1-performance-dud.html
Vista SP1, according to them, won't be brining any performance increases. How do they know? Simple, with mere 2 different benchmark suites, one being their own office bench and other.. I don't even want to guess what that is, ran on a notebook with dual core cpu and 1GB RAM with unpatched Vista vs Vista with RC0 version of SP1 (which most likely won't be final version), they know for a fact now that Vista SP1 won't be bringing any performance increases whatsoever.
--
Am I the only one who doesn't like what we're seeing there?
I was inspired to write this after reading a post on another forum about Vista and SP1.
Sadly, the poster apparently had swallowed these two blog entries without chewing.
But what am I talking about? Let's take a look.
"exo.blog The official blog for the editors and research staff and of the exo.performance.network (www.xpnet.com)"
Sounds professional enough, they apparently released some sort of Microsoft Office benchmark.
Let's take a look on our candinate number 1http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-intel-giveth-microsoft-taketh-away.html
They make a big fuss on how Office 2007 eats 12 times the RAM and 3 times processing power compared to Office 2000, released only "seven short years ago".
They however fail to tell us how exactly they ended up with those numbers - the official minimum requirements? Pulled numbers from a hat? A fairy told them?
Well, regardless on where they got their numbers from, they completely disregard the past which doesn't suit their needs - "how can we bash Vista and everything related" (no-one can or will deny how Office 2007 is Vista related).
Let's go 7 more years back in time, to 1993. Let's take a office software from those days, and then compare it to Office 2000 - do you really think the difference there isn't at least as big as with 2000 vs 2007?
"But hey, we got some benches too" - yeah, tests run on a bloody virtual machines. Sure, the platform, VMWare, is in theory the same for all - but did they take into account that even with endless horsepower in the host, different systems actually might run better or worse under the virtual machine compared to the others?
Time for candinate 2:http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/vista-sp1-performance-dud.html
Vista SP1, according to them, won't be brining any performance increases. How do they know? Simple, with mere 2 different benchmark suites, one being their own office bench and other.. I don't even want to guess what that is, ran on a notebook with dual core cpu and 1GB RAM with unpatched Vista vs Vista with RC0 version of SP1 (which most likely won't be final version), they know for a fact now that Vista SP1 won't be bringing any performance increases whatsoever.
--
Am I the only one who doesn't like what we're seeing there?
Lyrics, meaningful or not, they're beautiful
November 7th, 2007
Maybe not really blog-material, but still, it's a beautiful song, and I thought I'd share the lyrics with you.
The song is "Morfiinisiivet" (Morphine wings) by Mustan Kuun Lapset.
It's the last song of their last album, "Viimeinen Laulu Kuolemasta" (Last song about death), which ended their career.
The band never really got any "name" behind them in the media, but the fans that knew the band will never forget them or their 5 albums and 1 split album with Azaghal.
So, here goes nothing:
Minun tapani hyvästellä on olla tässä hetken verran
sinut sänkyysi peitellä
syleillä viimeisen kerran
Pois tästä maailmasta
tuskasta taivaisiin
uneksitko kuolemasta matkallas korkeuksiin?
Jää uneen ystäväni kun luotasi pois meen
en toivo sua näkeväni enää vankina valkoisen huoneen
--
And then the unofficial translation
To stay here for a little while, is my way to say good bye
To cover you to bed, embrace you for the last time.
Away from this world
From agony to heavens
Do you dream of death, on your journey to the heights?
Remain in sleep my friend as I'll leave you now
I don't wish to see you as the prison of the white room
---
And here's the music video of the said song:
Maybe not really blog-material, but still, it's a beautiful song, and I thought I'd share the lyrics with you.
The song is "Morfiinisiivet" (Morphine wings) by Mustan Kuun Lapset.
It's the last song of their last album, "Viimeinen Laulu Kuolemasta" (Last song about death), which ended their career.
The band never really got any "name" behind them in the media, but the fans that knew the band will never forget them or their 5 albums and 1 split album with Azaghal.
So, here goes nothing:
Minun tapani hyvästellä on olla tässä hetken verran
sinut sänkyysi peitellä
syleillä viimeisen kerran
Pois tästä maailmasta
tuskasta taivaisiin
uneksitko kuolemasta matkallas korkeuksiin?
Jää uneen ystäväni kun luotasi pois meen
en toivo sua näkeväni enää vankina valkoisen huoneen
--
And then the unofficial translation
To stay here for a little while, is my way to say good bye
To cover you to bed, embrace you for the last time.
Away from this world
From agony to heavens
Do you dream of death, on your journey to the heights?
Remain in sleep my friend as I'll leave you now
I don't wish to see you as the prison of the white room
---
And here's the music video of the said song:
Want to buy Flask of L2P for half the raid
November 5th, 2007
Well, not really, but sometimes it really feels like it.
A night of training Illidan tonight, 2 hours done, some progress, but I have a feeling that Flask of L2P for some would really be appropiate at this point, so newbieish mistakes they shouldn't be making anymore.
And then there's the newerending fighting on where should Player X be positioned in phase 3 because from point Y he can't do this and point Z he can't do that and from point W no-one can heal him.
Oh well, only 3 hours to go.
Well, not really, but sometimes it really feels like it.
A night of training Illidan tonight, 2 hours done, some progress, but I have a feeling that Flask of L2P for some would really be appropiate at this point, so newbieish mistakes they shouldn't be making anymore.
And then there's the newerending fighting on where should Player X be positioned in phase 3 because from point Y he can't do this and point Z he can't do that and from point W no-one can heal him.
Oh well, only 3 hours to go.
Enthusiast graphics cards - the new way to show you have too much money?
October 31th, 2007
We don't need to go far back, when it was all simple.
You had high end card(s), you had midrange card(s) and then you had lowend card(s).
All simple, clear differences in prices and performance.
Then someone came up with an idea, hey, how about an new "performance" group?
Both ATI (now AMD) and nVidia introduced great cards for low prices last generation, and now it's happening all over again, and this time it's even more pronounced than before.
True, that 8800GT is coming nearly a year later than the original 8800-series, but stil, it's priced to 200-250€ or so, and offers near 8800GTX performance in most cases - extremely small performance difference, extremely large price difference.
Same for AMD's camp - even more pronounced to be exact - HD38xx series which, by the looks of it, will actually outperform the long awaited, and to many, dissappointing HD2900XT, and even though 2900XT wasn't topend card in the sense of GTX, not for performance nor price, it was still a lot more expensive than the HD38xx series is expected to be.
Many people say "skip the first generation" of new tech since it won't be good performing part / will have bugs etc on the new stuff - but it looks more like "skip the first generation" is true for the price, wait 6 months to a year or even shorter time, and you get cheaply priced, extremely well performing part.
The subject of this post is a bit misleading, after all, buying that enthusiast part gave you great performance a lot sooner than you could get it for the cheaper prices, but there will still be people going to buy GTX's and Ultras at least, when they could have pretty much the same performance for half or even less of the price.
We don't need to go far back, when it was all simple.
You had high end card(s), you had midrange card(s) and then you had lowend card(s).
All simple, clear differences in prices and performance.
Then someone came up with an idea, hey, how about an new "performance" group?
Both ATI (now AMD) and nVidia introduced great cards for low prices last generation, and now it's happening all over again, and this time it's even more pronounced than before.
True, that 8800GT is coming nearly a year later than the original 8800-series, but stil, it's priced to 200-250€ or so, and offers near 8800GTX performance in most cases - extremely small performance difference, extremely large price difference.
Same for AMD's camp - even more pronounced to be exact - HD38xx series which, by the looks of it, will actually outperform the long awaited, and to many, dissappointing HD2900XT, and even though 2900XT wasn't topend card in the sense of GTX, not for performance nor price, it was still a lot more expensive than the HD38xx series is expected to be.
Many people say "skip the first generation" of new tech since it won't be good performing part / will have bugs etc on the new stuff - but it looks more like "skip the first generation" is true for the price, wait 6 months to a year or even shorter time, and you get cheaply priced, extremely well performing part.
The subject of this post is a bit misleading, after all, buying that enthusiast part gave you great performance a lot sooner than you could get it for the cheaper prices, but there will still be people going to buy GTX's and Ultras at least, when they could have pretty much the same performance for half or even less of the price.
A day in the Temple
October 29th, 2007
Another raid day in the Black Temple, everything going rather smooth, Reliquary of Souls on 3rd try, not bad, not perfect, sucky loot as usual.
Onwards for Mother Shahraz, down on first as expected, quite good loot I guess, even "my" shoulders, but couldn't really loot them, I'm saving with a fellow shadowpriest for T6 chest (and in addition, to Zhar'Doom), we're leading the DKP-list with quite a gap to the next.
On Illidari Council, which went down on 3rd, again quite good but nothing spectacular, I got to show my epix looting skills, and looted the Cloak of the Illidari Council, the raid cheered! Too bad I already had better cloak, but one of our mages got quite happy from it.
During the fight, I was wondering how the hell do I have this little mana, and why am I going OOM so quick (and why the hunter in the group is going OOM too) - well, hooray for raiding tired, I still had the shadowres gear on from Mother Shahraz fight :D That's 2k lessmana, ~400-500'ish less dmg.
Oh well, proper gear on, and let's hope the Illidan Phase 2 tanks have learned to use the space so we could actually down him, too.
Another raid day in the Black Temple, everything going rather smooth, Reliquary of Souls on 3rd try, not bad, not perfect, sucky loot as usual.
Onwards for Mother Shahraz, down on first as expected, quite good loot I guess, even "my" shoulders, but couldn't really loot them, I'm saving with a fellow shadowpriest for T6 chest (and in addition, to Zhar'Doom), we're leading the DKP-list with quite a gap to the next.
On Illidari Council, which went down on 3rd, again quite good but nothing spectacular, I got to show my epix looting skills, and looted the Cloak of the Illidari Council, the raid cheered! Too bad I already had better cloak, but one of our mages got quite happy from it.
During the fight, I was wondering how the hell do I have this little mana, and why am I going OOM so quick (and why the hunter in the group is going OOM too) - well, hooray for raiding tired, I still had the shadowres gear on from Mother Shahraz fight :D That's 2k lessmana, ~400-500'ish less dmg.
Oh well, proper gear on, and let's hope the Illidan Phase 2 tanks have learned to use the space so we could actually down him, too.
A world without the techings of a fairytale
October 25th, 2007
I thought this might be an interesting thing to post here - it's a translation of an short essay-ish answer I made for school once.
There was few subjects to choose from, I picked "A world without the teaching of a fairytale"
Please note, that english isn't my native language and some things might be hard for me to translate so they would actually still make sense after it, but I'll try my best.
---
A world without the teaching of a fairytale.
Worlds perhaps the most famous fairytale books, the Bibles Sermon of the Mount, one of the tales main characters, Jesus, suggested people to turn the other cheek too. "You have been taught: Eye for an eye and teeth for an teeth; but I tell you: don't resist the evil." In the modern world, however, that particular teaching has been forgotten by most people. Why, one might ask, and the answer is really simple - because Bible is just another fairytale book among the rest, where imaginary character gives people virtuous tips.
Many tales are full of great tips and teachings, but they're followed quite sparsely today. Maybe the reason is forgetting the childhood tales, maybe the sinful, wretched world of today, kill or get killed.
Regardless of the reasons, world has developed to be a rough place to live in, and the virtuous teachings from childhood don't really help one at all, when everyone else is playing by their own rules.
Darwin was right, the nature makes the choices, the strong survive, the weak extinct. Good manners can be used as tools in certain situations, but in a longer view, you'll only notice yourself getting pushed by countless elbows to behind the whole queue if you only trust in those manners.
In many situations, turning that famous 'other cheek' is no doubt a good choice, based on so called 'good moral' it would probably be the right choice always, but as sad as it is, you don't get far in this reality with only good manners.
A wise man once said: Turn the other cheek, but only to gain more time to hit back; how damn right he was.
The winners of the life's endless race are the strongest of all - though in most cases this has nothing to do with physical strength, it's about mental strength, cunningness and pure selfishness, the skill to turn even the smallest set backs to victories for yourself.
I never read the bible thoroughly or with thought, it's in my opinion overrated fairytale collection - if I want to read tales, I turn to Grimm brothers or some other fictional literature, even if most wouldn't conceive them as fairytales. Due this, I can't do nothing but wonder why on this course, one of the given subjects for the essay(ish thingy) was one religions one teaching, from a small fragment of the fairytale book filled with plagiarized stories from other religions. I don't judge anyone by their beliefs, but many times one can notice how blind faith only makes you ridicilous in others eyes - and at the same time pushes you rolling down life's stairs - Good - one person less in my way competing for the spot in the sun.
As unfortunate as it is, you can't pity the weak, the weak have to build their hard shell and use their own elbows to ram their way towards the light, through the others left behind, hoping it's not too late to get up from the deepest abysses where everyone living by only good manners will eventually fall.
Getting more or less out of the subject seems to be natural for me, but in the other hand, the given subject was quite weak for any longer story of worlds status, good manners and following or not following them.
I've driven myself to the corner - there's no way to stretch this essay(ish) rambling any longer without making it pure insult towards certain unnamed religion; I don't want to go that road, insulting something I see as ridicilous religion just because I don't believe in it.
Where does this essay(ish) mumbling end up in?
Probably lost in the byte space among other trashes, but hopefully only after it has at least woken few thoughts up about where the world has come to, and especially (my) view of life.
I thought this might be an interesting thing to post here - it's a translation of an short essay-ish answer I made for school once.
There was few subjects to choose from, I picked "A world without the teaching of a fairytale"
Please note, that english isn't my native language and some things might be hard for me to translate so they would actually still make sense after it, but I'll try my best.
---
A world without the teaching of a fairytale.
Worlds perhaps the most famous fairytale books, the Bibles Sermon of the Mount, one of the tales main characters, Jesus, suggested people to turn the other cheek too. "You have been taught: Eye for an eye and teeth for an teeth; but I tell you: don't resist the evil." In the modern world, however, that particular teaching has been forgotten by most people. Why, one might ask, and the answer is really simple - because Bible is just another fairytale book among the rest, where imaginary character gives people virtuous tips.
Many tales are full of great tips and teachings, but they're followed quite sparsely today. Maybe the reason is forgetting the childhood tales, maybe the sinful, wretched world of today, kill or get killed.
Regardless of the reasons, world has developed to be a rough place to live in, and the virtuous teachings from childhood don't really help one at all, when everyone else is playing by their own rules.
Darwin was right, the nature makes the choices, the strong survive, the weak extinct. Good manners can be used as tools in certain situations, but in a longer view, you'll only notice yourself getting pushed by countless elbows to behind the whole queue if you only trust in those manners.
In many situations, turning that famous 'other cheek' is no doubt a good choice, based on so called 'good moral' it would probably be the right choice always, but as sad as it is, you don't get far in this reality with only good manners.
A wise man once said: Turn the other cheek, but only to gain more time to hit back; how damn right he was.
The winners of the life's endless race are the strongest of all - though in most cases this has nothing to do with physical strength, it's about mental strength, cunningness and pure selfishness, the skill to turn even the smallest set backs to victories for yourself.
I never read the bible thoroughly or with thought, it's in my opinion overrated fairytale collection - if I want to read tales, I turn to Grimm brothers or some other fictional literature, even if most wouldn't conceive them as fairytales. Due this, I can't do nothing but wonder why on this course, one of the given subjects for the essay(ish thingy) was one religions one teaching, from a small fragment of the fairytale book filled with plagiarized stories from other religions. I don't judge anyone by their beliefs, but many times one can notice how blind faith only makes you ridicilous in others eyes - and at the same time pushes you rolling down life's stairs - Good - one person less in my way competing for the spot in the sun.
As unfortunate as it is, you can't pity the weak, the weak have to build their hard shell and use their own elbows to ram their way towards the light, through the others left behind, hoping it's not too late to get up from the deepest abysses where everyone living by only good manners will eventually fall.
Getting more or less out of the subject seems to be natural for me, but in the other hand, the given subject was quite weak for any longer story of worlds status, good manners and following or not following them.
I've driven myself to the corner - there's no way to stretch this essay(ish) rambling any longer without making it pure insult towards certain unnamed religion; I don't want to go that road, insulting something I see as ridicilous religion just because I don't believe in it.
Where does this essay(ish) mumbling end up in?
Probably lost in the byte space among other trashes, but hopefully only after it has at least woken few thoughts up about where the world has come to, and especially (my) view of life.
Microsoft Windows Vista - or there and back
October 25th, 2007
I admit, the title might be a bit misleading, we're not going anywhere nor getting back from there, but let's just ignore that and listen to old CB's senseless mumblings for a while.
A little under a year ago, Microsoft released long waited new operating system - Windows Vista. Many waited for something that would revolutionalize the way we use our computers, it's new after all, isn't it?
Some others knew what was coming, we had been already using the beta and release candinate versions of the said operating system for months.
It wasn't a revolution - but it definately was evolutoion.
Vista lacked, and still lacks, some of the promised features, maybe we will get WinFS in some future Service Pack, or maybe with Windows 7, maybe never.
Regardless of these lacking features, was he operating system a dissappointmen? To some, definately, to others, no.
I find it to suit my own needs perfectly, it offers small, yet practical, improvements over the XP GUI, not to mention it's purdy looks - which you of course can disable if you don't like it, just like you could disable Luna -theme in XP, you can disable Aero -theme in Vista.
Sadly, many people have had severe problems with their systems trying to run Vista. Naturally, most of the blame goes for Microsoft - it's their OS after all, but most seem to ignore that 99% of these problems are in fact caused by lackluster driver quality by 3rd parties, and by user errors.
I've seen in person many struggle with some quite small, yet annoying problems, only to notice after a while that the user is trying to use his Vista like it was XP - this trick worked in XP, it has to work in Vista too - right?
Wrong.
Everything is not the same, it's a new system with it's own tweaks and tricks, most yet to be
found no doubt.
Luckily for the userbase, the driver quality has improved a lot during these last few months, most systems get things working like they should as long as their hardware is relatively new, the manufacturers are taking advantage of the change and dropping support to many bit older products.
But, this isn't really what I was going to talk about.
It was the endless whining and bashing people are on with Vista, it's like a crusade already!
Many of you hopefully remember some previous OS releases, this isn't really much, if any, different from those.
People are afraid of the change, they pick on anything they can, and try to hold on to their dear old system.
But take look on XP - sure, it's a mature operating system nowadays, and there's nothing really wrong about it - but it already lived longer than planned, since Vista ended up getting more and more late.
XP has been the single longest operating system being for sale at once from Microsoft.
But it's time to wave good bye to it - in less than two years, full support for it will be dropped, leaving five more years of extended support in form of security hotfixes to follow - by that time we'll have Windows 7 too, probably.
Why not to upgrade? Because Vista is different? Is it worse? No, I've yet to see anyone point out anything real in Vista that was really worse than it used to be - excluding of course problems caused by 3rd party drivers and programs, but there's nothing MS can do about those.
One big reason many have said is the cost - it's an expensive OS - no doubt about that. But try to put it into a perspective. It's an operating system which you will use for years, the relative cost of it neglible when you compare it to 40-50€ games which only last for 10 to 20 hours in most cases.
Some people upgrade half their machine every few months, and still have the balls to whine on how they can't buy Vista because it's so expensive - hypocrisy at best.
Some don't like all the new features, but they can be (mostly) disabled if the user chooses to.
There's only one real thing I would like to "whine" about Vista myself - UAC - the idea is good and proven by *NIX OS'es for example - but the way MS implemented it is just wrong. Luckily, it's simple to turn off if you really feel like it, though that will compromise your computer security somewhat. Then there's the best option in my own opinion - use a nifty little tweak tool to turn it into "Silent mode" - this disables most of the annoyances caused
by UAC, while leaving UAC still to work.
Lately there has been a lot of talk about DirectX 10, and how Microsoft in all their greed decided to make it Vista only.
People don't seem to realize, that there are actualy technical reasons not to do a "XP port" of it - the practicly only two ways for it would be to turn XP to Vista, which of course is pointless, or to make a OpenGL wrapper which, even if it did work, would no doubt offer next to no performance at all.
Some people I've talked with have recently bought a new graphics card, many of them choosing GeForce 8 -series or Radeon HD -series card - when I've asked them why did they choose the cards they did, the main reason 2nd to performance, was DirectX 10 support. Ironicly enough, only couple of them was using, or even planning to upgrade,
to Vista, rendering their 2nd most important reason a moot point.
And now I think I've confused myself, you and my 3rd personality enough for tonight, it's 6.07 AM, I need to wake up in 1½ hours or so.
I hope you enjoyed reading this, or at least read it through once even if you didn't. And I hope you got at least some idea of what I was trying to say, since I'm not sure at all how this all will look once I post it.
Maybe I'll read this all later today, after a nap, myself, too, and try to make something out of it.
Maybe even rephrase a thing or two, or rewrite the whole blog entry to make any sense out of it.
I admit, the title might be a bit misleading, we're not going anywhere nor getting back from there, but let's just ignore that and listen to old CB's senseless mumblings for a while.
A little under a year ago, Microsoft released long waited new operating system - Windows Vista. Many waited for something that would revolutionalize the way we use our computers, it's new after all, isn't it?
Some others knew what was coming, we had been already using the beta and release candinate versions of the said operating system for months.
It wasn't a revolution - but it definately was evolutoion.
Vista lacked, and still lacks, some of the promised features, maybe we will get WinFS in some future Service Pack, or maybe with Windows 7, maybe never.
Regardless of these lacking features, was he operating system a dissappointmen? To some, definately, to others, no.
I find it to suit my own needs perfectly, it offers small, yet practical, improvements over the XP GUI, not to mention it's purdy looks - which you of course can disable if you don't like it, just like you could disable Luna -theme in XP, you can disable Aero -theme in Vista.
Sadly, many people have had severe problems with their systems trying to run Vista. Naturally, most of the blame goes for Microsoft - it's their OS after all, but most seem to ignore that 99% of these problems are in fact caused by lackluster driver quality by 3rd parties, and by user errors.
I've seen in person many struggle with some quite small, yet annoying problems, only to notice after a while that the user is trying to use his Vista like it was XP - this trick worked in XP, it has to work in Vista too - right?
Wrong.
Everything is not the same, it's a new system with it's own tweaks and tricks, most yet to be
found no doubt.
Luckily for the userbase, the driver quality has improved a lot during these last few months, most systems get things working like they should as long as their hardware is relatively new, the manufacturers are taking advantage of the change and dropping support to many bit older products.
But, this isn't really what I was going to talk about.
It was the endless whining and bashing people are on with Vista, it's like a crusade already!
Many of you hopefully remember some previous OS releases, this isn't really much, if any, different from those.
People are afraid of the change, they pick on anything they can, and try to hold on to their dear old system.
But take look on XP - sure, it's a mature operating system nowadays, and there's nothing really wrong about it - but it already lived longer than planned, since Vista ended up getting more and more late.
XP has been the single longest operating system being for sale at once from Microsoft.
But it's time to wave good bye to it - in less than two years, full support for it will be dropped, leaving five more years of extended support in form of security hotfixes to follow - by that time we'll have Windows 7 too, probably.
Why not to upgrade? Because Vista is different? Is it worse? No, I've yet to see anyone point out anything real in Vista that was really worse than it used to be - excluding of course problems caused by 3rd party drivers and programs, but there's nothing MS can do about those.
One big reason many have said is the cost - it's an expensive OS - no doubt about that. But try to put it into a perspective. It's an operating system which you will use for years, the relative cost of it neglible when you compare it to 40-50€ games which only last for 10 to 20 hours in most cases.
Some people upgrade half their machine every few months, and still have the balls to whine on how they can't buy Vista because it's so expensive - hypocrisy at best.
Some don't like all the new features, but they can be (mostly) disabled if the user chooses to.
There's only one real thing I would like to "whine" about Vista myself - UAC - the idea is good and proven by *NIX OS'es for example - but the way MS implemented it is just wrong. Luckily, it's simple to turn off if you really feel like it, though that will compromise your computer security somewhat. Then there's the best option in my own opinion - use a nifty little tweak tool to turn it into "Silent mode" - this disables most of the annoyances caused
by UAC, while leaving UAC still to work.
Lately there has been a lot of talk about DirectX 10, and how Microsoft in all their greed decided to make it Vista only.
People don't seem to realize, that there are actualy technical reasons not to do a "XP port" of it - the practicly only two ways for it would be to turn XP to Vista, which of course is pointless, or to make a OpenGL wrapper which, even if it did work, would no doubt offer next to no performance at all.
Some people I've talked with have recently bought a new graphics card, many of them choosing GeForce 8 -series or Radeon HD -series card - when I've asked them why did they choose the cards they did, the main reason 2nd to performance, was DirectX 10 support. Ironicly enough, only couple of them was using, or even planning to upgrade,
to Vista, rendering their 2nd most important reason a moot point.
And now I think I've confused myself, you and my 3rd personality enough for tonight, it's 6.07 AM, I need to wake up in 1½ hours or so.
I hope you enjoyed reading this, or at least read it through once even if you didn't. And I hope you got at least some idea of what I was trying to say, since I'm not sure at all how this all will look once I post it.
Maybe I'll read this all later today, after a nap, myself, too, and try to make something out of it.
Maybe even rephrase a thing or two, or rewrite the whole blog entry to make any sense out of it.
When things just go wrong
October 18th, 2007
Uh oh - this is something you should never do - format and reinstall windows when you're tired.
My girlfriend decided to upgrade to Vista, too - no problems there, let's do it even though her computer isn't the top of the notch, it should work fine enough and retail licenses can be transferred to new computer anyway.
Soo, what do I do when installing windows with her? I'll go and install fresh installation on my computer too!
Wise? No.
Well, it sounded like a good idea, to do a fresh installation and put that fancy SP1 beta on it to see if it does any significant changes over the updates I already had on my old installation.
Back up stuff. Check.
Back up stuff. Double check.
Stick the DVD in and reboot. Check.
Install Windows & SP1 beta. Check.
Remembered to back everything up before installing windows? I guess I should have triple checked.
There goes hundreds of mail, some less important, some more important.
There goes my UserContent.CSS
There goes my IRC logs.
Was that the DVD database I was working on flying out of the window?
Not to mention ~30GB of FRAPSed WoW Raiding that was about to hit the editing board.
Lesson learned? No, I don't think so, I'll most likely just do the same mistakes next time again, and forget to back up half my stuff even if I do double check I got everything I need backed up.
Uh oh - this is something you should never do - format and reinstall windows when you're tired.
My girlfriend decided to upgrade to Vista, too - no problems there, let's do it even though her computer isn't the top of the notch, it should work fine enough and retail licenses can be transferred to new computer anyway.
Soo, what do I do when installing windows with her? I'll go and install fresh installation on my computer too!
Wise? No.
Well, it sounded like a good idea, to do a fresh installation and put that fancy SP1 beta on it to see if it does any significant changes over the updates I already had on my old installation.
Back up stuff. Check.
Back up stuff. Double check.
Stick the DVD in and reboot. Check.
Install Windows & SP1 beta. Check.
Remembered to back everything up before installing windows? I guess I should have triple checked.
There goes hundreds of mail, some less important, some more important.
There goes my UserContent.CSS
There goes my IRC logs.
Was that the DVD database I was working on flying out of the window?
Not to mention ~30GB of FRAPSed WoW Raiding that was about to hit the editing board.
Lesson learned? No, I don't think so, I'll most likely just do the same mistakes next time again, and forget to back up half my stuff even if I do double check I got everything I need backed up.
A Perfect Night?
October 10th, 2007
Photoshop, head full of ideas, all night time to work on it - nothing could go wrong, right?
Well, no. Everything could.
And all due one thing, more annoying than anything I've ever faced in my life - atopic excema.
I spent a week in hospital recently due bad infection - getting antibiotics straight to vein and driving me out of my mind of boredom. That's when things actually went bad - my atopic excema started to get worse there, but I declined the possibility to go to skin disease specialist since at that point everything looked still quite normal, it goes from good to worse every now and then.
I get home, things continue quite normally when I get back to my own creams and lotions for my skin, still eating antibiotics, pills this time though.
But then, all hell breaks loose - it has never been this bad for what I can remember - not even couple years ago when I spent nearly a month in the hospital due it.
The skin is dead - dry flakes all over, and it hurts, hurts like hell to even move slightest bit - and here I'm supposed to work on my ideas on photoshop when every inch moving my mouse hurts :(
Oh well, at least it's getting a bit better from what it was couple days ago, but still, this is painful - I took a shower yesterday morning - oh my, was that a mistake - pouring salt to open wound would be heaven compared to what it felt like - and like always, it caused the skin to dry even more.
Doctor tomorrow.. .no, this morning since it's 5.42 AM here - but that's for the infection checkup, not the skin - hopefully there's some doctor in the skin policlinic available to take a look on me, though it's unlikely, but I need something new for this, something to fix me before I lose it all.
Be grateful if you're even relatively healthy - atopic excema is hell.
To look things on the brightside, my girlfriend doesn't seem to be taking stress over my condition - only I am from the two of us, let's see if her opnions on it hold now that she's going to spend next week and a half straight here next to me, she saw this when it was almost at it's worst, but that was only a day.
Photoshop, head full of ideas, all night time to work on it - nothing could go wrong, right?
Well, no. Everything could.
And all due one thing, more annoying than anything I've ever faced in my life - atopic excema.
I spent a week in hospital recently due bad infection - getting antibiotics straight to vein and driving me out of my mind of boredom. That's when things actually went bad - my atopic excema started to get worse there, but I declined the possibility to go to skin disease specialist since at that point everything looked still quite normal, it goes from good to worse every now and then.
I get home, things continue quite normally when I get back to my own creams and lotions for my skin, still eating antibiotics, pills this time though.
But then, all hell breaks loose - it has never been this bad for what I can remember - not even couple years ago when I spent nearly a month in the hospital due it.
The skin is dead - dry flakes all over, and it hurts, hurts like hell to even move slightest bit - and here I'm supposed to work on my ideas on photoshop when every inch moving my mouse hurts :(
Oh well, at least it's getting a bit better from what it was couple days ago, but still, this is painful - I took a shower yesterday morning - oh my, was that a mistake - pouring salt to open wound would be heaven compared to what it felt like - and like always, it caused the skin to dry even more.
Doctor tomorrow.. .no, this morning since it's 5.42 AM here - but that's for the infection checkup, not the skin - hopefully there's some doctor in the skin policlinic available to take a look on me, though it's unlikely, but I need something new for this, something to fix me before I lose it all.
Be grateful if you're even relatively healthy - atopic excema is hell.
To look things on the brightside, my girlfriend doesn't seem to be taking stress over my condition - only I am from the two of us, let's see if her opnions on it hold now that she's going to spend next week and a half straight here next to me, she saw this when it was almost at it's worst, but that was only a day.
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