It's so nice to have a kick-ass computer again... I played through the single-player campaign in Modern Warfare 2, and it was totally sweet; great set-pieces and high production values deliver a fantastic solo game, so there really is something there for everyone.
I've since moved on to Halo: Reach, and it's really solid so far; I'm about 1/3 through a solo campaign. I'm still working through Ys Seven as well, and still having lots of fun there.
Recent acquisitions include Ivy The Kiwi and Resident Evil 4 (gonna give it another try) for Wii, and I finally found a reasonably-priced (though sun-faded) copy of Earthbound for SNES along with a reproduction cartridge of Earthbound Zero for NES... Yeah, I'll find the time for Fable II, Metroid Prime 3, and Yakuza 2 at some point, I'm sure ;)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Resolution
Steam was running in Compatibility Mode on my Windows 7 machine... I'm not sure why. I put a stop to that, though I had to edit the registry to do so.
Performance on that same machine had become sluggish and choppy, and the cause turned-out to be the ASUS-provided drivers for my ASUS PCE-13N wireless network card; I've since installed Ralink drivers, as the card is built around a Ralink RT2790T chipset. All runs smoothly now.
Still regarding the same machine, I never could get all three sticks of RAM running together stably at 2000MHz, despite an extensive discussion with a G.SKILL technician. They offered to allow me to RMA the whole kit (2000MHz, 9-9-9-24-1N) for something a little more tame (1600MHz, 7-7-7-21-2N), but I tested the current kit at both 7-7-7-21-2N and 9-9-9-24-1N at 1600MHz, and the performance difference was negligible; I'm talking a latency difference of ~3ns (61ns vs. 64ns) and a bandwith difference of ~20MB/s (67.66GB/s vs. 67.68GB/s). Given that the RMA process would leave me without a functioning computer for a few weeks and neuter my upgrade path, all for a trivial speed increase, I think I'll be keeping the 2000MHz RAM and running it at lower frequencies.
So all is now well, and I am at peace :)
Performance on that same machine had become sluggish and choppy, and the cause turned-out to be the ASUS-provided drivers for my ASUS PCE-13N wireless network card; I've since installed Ralink drivers, as the card is built around a Ralink RT2790T chipset. All runs smoothly now.
Still regarding the same machine, I never could get all three sticks of RAM running together stably at 2000MHz, despite an extensive discussion with a G.SKILL technician. They offered to allow me to RMA the whole kit (2000MHz, 9-9-9-24-1N) for something a little more tame (1600MHz, 7-7-7-21-2N), but I tested the current kit at both 7-7-7-21-2N and 9-9-9-24-1N at 1600MHz, and the performance difference was negligible; I'm talking a latency difference of ~3ns (61ns vs. 64ns) and a bandwith difference of ~20MB/s (67.66GB/s vs. 67.68GB/s). Given that the RMA process would leave me without a functioning computer for a few weeks and neuter my upgrade path, all for a trivial speed increase, I think I'll be keeping the 2000MHz RAM and running it at lower frequencies.
So all is now well, and I am at peace :)
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Escaping The Mouse
Alan Wake (and "The Signal" DLC) was great! Remedy has done a pretty good job of keeping things fresh and interesting; the gameplay never became tedious, and the story kept me guessing... I haven't been able to bring myself to complete a survival horror game since Resident Evil 2, and I couldn't put Alan Wake down until it was complete. Well done!
Anyway, I've been away for the past week... Wrapped-up most of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game before I left, and it was glorious. Buy it. It's cheap, nostalgic, epic, visceral, and fulfilling. The movie's pretty awesome too, as are the graphic novels... Yeah, I'm a fan, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the whole thing takes place in my actual neighbourhood or that my band has played the same venues featured in the books/movie/game ;)
Shank's up next for me, but I'm suffering from the stuttering cinematic issue that's been going around; I've yet to fire-up the game to see if there's a patch.
I brought Ys Seven along while I was away, and it's pretty sweet. Good graphics and music, standard story, engaging gameplay, and awesome boss battles that are genuinely challenging. I never did finish the first three games on TurboGrafx CD, decided to abandon all hope of doing so once the PSP remakes were announced, and have yet to try Ys VI on PSP... But it's supposedly the same formula each time, so I figured this'd be as good a place to start as any. It was a toss-up between Ys Seven, Lunar Silver Star Harmony, and Persona 3 Portable... As well as a bunch of other quality PSP RPGs I've yet to explore.
Moving on, remember that RAM issue I was having with my new computer? G.SKILL approved my RMA request and I got a stick of RAM in the mail last week... But there was no correspondence once I sent the faulty module away, or paperwork shipped back with it. The module they sent back doesn't work either, so I'm wondering if they just returned the old one (it would only fail under specific conditions, which I outlined in the RMA request) or the replacement is faulty as well. Grrr. In the meantime, I'm running at DDR3-1600 speeds :|
Anyway, I've been away for the past week... Wrapped-up most of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game before I left, and it was glorious. Buy it. It's cheap, nostalgic, epic, visceral, and fulfilling. The movie's pretty awesome too, as are the graphic novels... Yeah, I'm a fan, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the whole thing takes place in my actual neighbourhood or that my band has played the same venues featured in the books/movie/game ;)
Shank's up next for me, but I'm suffering from the stuttering cinematic issue that's been going around; I've yet to fire-up the game to see if there's a patch.
I brought Ys Seven along while I was away, and it's pretty sweet. Good graphics and music, standard story, engaging gameplay, and awesome boss battles that are genuinely challenging. I never did finish the first three games on TurboGrafx CD, decided to abandon all hope of doing so once the PSP remakes were announced, and have yet to try Ys VI on PSP... But it's supposedly the same formula each time, so I figured this'd be as good a place to start as any. It was a toss-up between Ys Seven, Lunar Silver Star Harmony, and Persona 3 Portable... As well as a bunch of other quality PSP RPGs I've yet to explore.
Moving on, remember that RAM issue I was having with my new computer? G.SKILL approved my RMA request and I got a stick of RAM in the mail last week... But there was no correspondence once I sent the faulty module away, or paperwork shipped back with it. The module they sent back doesn't work either, so I'm wondering if they just returned the old one (it would only fail under specific conditions, which I outlined in the RMA request) or the replacement is faulty as well. Grrr. In the meantime, I'm running at DDR3-1600 speeds :|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)