Random Gaming

[dyuman]

Pre-installation enabled. Already installed and downloaded, will be unlocked on the 17th.

[feedback]

They're remaking Serious Sam in HD. Just saw an add on Steam for pre-orders. No solid release date yet. Looks pretty and they're claiming up to 16 people co-op multiplayer on PC.

[Pikachu]

Super Serious Sam HD Remix Reloaded # ^Core Calamity Trigger Continuum Shift EX 2

[buhwhyen]

EDIT:
Videos are pretty badly de-synched on youtube. =(
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WCG was this weekend. Lots of good games all around (not only in starcraft). Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the finals for Warcraft 3 (normally high level WC3 is really easy to predict with the same old match ups - ne/orc. Mostly because the map pool hasn't changed since I was actively playing). But this time the finals was between two chinese players, who tend to not always play standard. The second game made me lolol, its really good. The commentary is...decent. At least the commentators have some practical knowledge and can explain some of the background and context to some of the stuff going on, rather than just blabbering on about whats obviously happening.

*** important note that isn't explained in commentary
"level 1," apprentice, upgrade on sorcerers unlocks "invisibility," 50 mana cost, no cooldown, single unit becomes invisible for 90 seconds or until it attacks. Can be cast on any friendly unit, really good in conjuction w/ archmage that has a mana regen aura that can keep sorcerer mana high despite casting slow and invisibility.

Game 2 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrTXLG5XxmQ
Game 3 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtSKXDfSASI


***
Counter Strike was surprisingly eventful? A bunch of the games went in tie breakers, in particular the finals match went into a 4th overtime/tiebreaker (lolol). Though I must say, this game takes WAY too long to play out. 30 rounds per match, best of 3 matches at semi finals and finals, 15 rounds as CT, 15 as terrorist, new map each match. Thought CVS2 took too long to play out? The first MATCH of the finals took 1 hour, 45 minutes to play out. They announced that because of the time it was taking to play out the games, if the finals went to a 3rd game, it would have to be played off stage. Then they corrected themselves by saying, it was just taking too long (the 1st match) so the 2nd and 3rd games would be played off stage. HAHAHAHHAA.


***
WCG starcraft can be explained by pure stating the results (mostly obvious). Since wcg.com sucks so much ass (servers can't handle the number of hits, the main web page takes in the minutes to load up - videos can be found on youtube, or the wcg site. I suggest youtube, the wcg site requires you to install streaming software), in groups (4 groups):
Jaedong 7-0
Kollsen 5-2

Bisu 6-0
Pj 6-1

Stork 7-0
Brat_Ok 4-2

Idra 6-1
Advokate 5-2

Round of 8:
Jaedong 2-1
Bisu 2-0
Stork 2-1
Kollsen (beating Idra) 2-0

Semi Finals
Jaedong (beating Bisu) 2-0
Stork (beating Kollsen) 2-0

3rd place match
Bisu (beating Kollsen like he's a D level scrub) 2-0

Finals
Jaedong (beating Stork) 2-1

In particular, watch the PJ vs Bisu games. Bisu makes an impossible comeback in a PvP match like I've never seen. Pj, for reference, is probably the best protoss player outside of Korea, and the best starcraft player in China. He's really old school, like Boxer old school. He also, around the time when Draco and Grrr, was also living in Korea and playing with a pro team.

The Bisu - Jaedong games were...hella one sided. Jaedong decided he wanted to win, so he made Bisu look like Jangbi. Really good games, though. Just goes to show how ridiculous the current ZvP meta game is. (Current meta is something like: protoss is struggling because zerg is able to power way too much because they know the exact timings of all the normal pushes after a fast expand. The more recent 2 archon + zealots timing attack has been mostly nullified by good building placement. So a lot of protoss players have been trying to switch back to an older style of fast expand play, where they constantly mass zealots out of 1 gateway, get really fast +1 weapons and zealot legs and push out with like 8 zealots around when the first corsair pops out)

The Stork - Jaedong games were pretty good too. Though, despite Stork's really good harass in game 1, he was playing Jaedong on Tau Cross. Jaedong playing on Tau Cross is even more predictable than Jaedong's ZvZ; if I remember correctly, his win percentage on Tau Cross is in the mid 90% range. The map pool was...honestly a bit too old school. They played popular maps, just some (Tau Cross) can be really frustrating to play on.

Map pool was:
-Python
-Outsider
-Destination
-Tau Cross
-Coliseum 2

Each player could thumbs down a map (in the round of 8 and later), and the remaining 3 maps would be played, dunno what happens if both players thumb down the same map.

Btw. I hate Artosis. He should go kill himself.

[buhwhyen]

Valve should digitally sign their games so Comodo doesn't freak the fuck out all the time. Such a retarded pain to have to manually add each key component of the game to my safe files. WTF addoninstaller.exe. Neither l4d2 nor the demo are digitally signed. Actually, I just looked at my "safe files" list that I had to add manually. EVERY SINGLE FILE (~15-20) is are steam files, almost all of which are l4d/l4d2.

EDIT:
Btw. Did anyone else have addoninstaller.exe pop up as a virus? Happened on both my desktop and laptop.

EDIT#2:
Seems like Steam just sucks anus. "addoninstaller.exe" apparently has something to do with the .vpk map files. And it behaves enough like malware (stupidly intrusive) that Avira says it is malware.

[feedback]

addoninstaller.exe pops up as a false positive on Avira, had this happen to me too. I'm not sure, but I think this is their custom map loader that was made for L4D2 so it's easier to run mods/maps.

[buhwhyen]

EDIT:
enabling low violence (-lv in launch options) doesn't stop police from spawning.

--------------------------------------------------

I've been having issues with my frame rate in L4D2, so I did some searching and found ways to improve my frame rate. If anyone else is having issues, these help. Funny enough, they're identical to the ways to increase frame rates in Counter Strike.

In console (~ in game/menu):
cl_updaterate 100
cl_cmdrate 100
rate 25000 (or some other really big number)


For those of you who hate mouse acceleration and random lagged cursor response (read: MEMEMEMEME), these commands allow you to remove a bunch of the built in acceleration (in the game engine). You have to enter these in the launch options, to do that...

-open up "my games"
-right click on left 4 dead 2 and select properties
-under the general tab, click set launch options
-copy and paste "-noforcemaccel -noforcemparms -noforcemspd"
(each field is seperated by a space and starts with a "-")


If you still have frame rate problems, you can add these 2 extra commands to the set launch options field:
"+exec lowend.cfg +mat_hdr_level 0 -lv"

They lower the level of detail overall in the game (the latter lowers the violence from kills - no exploding body parts going every which way), though personally I'd rather have good consistent frame rates over pretty pictures, but I'm rather old school when it comes to how pretty things have to look in game. (I just read that enabling -lv, low violence, removes riot cops from the games if anyone in the current game has it enabled...this actually makes no sense to me, but uhh...I guess we'll see if its true).

[Pikachu]

BlazBlue Continuum Shift is out. The game looks like it sped up, but then again, I'm watching players from Mikado and a-cho so far, so that might not mean much. At the very least, the mixups look a whole lot more interesting than the ones in Calamity Trigger (aside from Ragna, who runs at you with B, C, something immature). I *think* they're actually allowing for more frame advantage in the game so players can utilize options, but it could just be that people aren't sure of all the situations yet and are therefore being pretty defensive when one player has momentum. I haven't looked at shit on Dustloop yet, but I'm going off on what I've seen on videos so far.

Taokaka seems like she's the most beefed up, with tons of combo options just off of gatling chains. She can launch at will into a new loop that abuses her Drive like crazy, and does 3-4k.

Rachel seems really nerfed. On the surface, she seems like she has more to do, because the spam she throws on the screen seems to have new properties that I can't quite decipher, but her damage output is not threatening. It might be because there are a few combos that haven't been discovered, but I doubt it, because...

Noel's shit is really fucking good now. Seems like the Japanese have figured out a lot of her new stuff. They sped up her Drive chains, and her gatling combos flow. In other words, she doesn't rely on an anti-air 6A or 6B to hopefully hit so that she can lay down some damage. Her 6C loop is gone, but it's really just replaced with a new drive combo, a j.D relaunch, and good ground chains. For now, it seems like it's a straight up buff.

Lambda-11 is Nu's replacement. They took out the 5DD, 4D combo, and force Lambda players to actually use other buttons to pressure (WTF?). However, she can now bring out stationary buzzsaws on different parts of the ground, kinda like Eddie's Invite Hell, but with lots of frame advantage. I don't think it's so much a character nerf, but the player is just forced to kinda work harder now, and actually go up to the opponent to do damage... for the most part.

Hakumen actually has combos now. They do damage, too. Good for him!

Tsubaki seems really solid. She plays obviously like Holy Order Sol, but unlike HOS, she has tits. I can't tell jack shit otherwise, but she's been very aggressive in a style like Bang, but good.

Hazama is just weird. I think he's our Slayer replacement. I saw one video with him, and that's it.

Jin's projectiles are worth a damn again. I didn't see anyone go for big combos with him, but he sustained pressure really well. I'm sure he has some new openings, but he's been winning games by being just really solid. He's a threat wherever he is on the screen, that's for sure - I saw a video where Rachel couldn't really spam effectively because Jin was throwing icicles at her constantly. This was definitely not possible before.

That's all I have seen so far. It at least looks interesting enough to try.

EDIT - Noel is still very situational. The videos I watched were just... well, the player was too good. Damn.

Arakune doesn't have the C loops. He gets 60 hit combos in the corner instead.

Bang seems to do more damage with his basic shit.

[buhwhyen]

Randomly found this support article last week when I was searching for info on something (I forgot what I was originally looking for actually). But I haven't had time to really read over it till now. It looks like it might be the problem Josh was having with his computer.

support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5034-EIPV-6426


I related the problem to both L4D2 and Guild wars, even though technically Guild wars is completely independent from Steam, other than requiring registration and potentially splitting up the files on your HD. Because both games are crashing, though it seems like specifically the Guild wars crashing isn't a result of direct 3d exploding (the article says "looping sound crashes" are the result of direct 3d crashing).

For reference, Steam is just like a retailer for Guild Wars, Arena Net still runs it on their servers just like before Steam sold it. The only thing the steam interface does, if you have GW interfaced with steam, is add a UI for chat. Arena Net allows chat modifications, so as long as the data stream isn't affected, the program doesn't wig out. (unlike WoW, which heavily monitors 3rd party apps and all other apps not WoW)


The process explorer app thing is pretty neat. It's basically a more detailed version of the one you have when you ctrl+alt+del.

Personally I'm skeptical about modding boot.ini settings, but it doesn't hurt to look around to see if the line of code is there or not. If it is there, it *might* be the problem, but I really have no clue how it might affect everything else you do with your computer.

I'm pretty sure its not a sound card issue (assuming you have the proper drivers installed), but the recommended test is quite simple, so no real harm in trying it.

[feedback]

Serious Sam HD on sale on steam this weekend. 66% off means it's only $7 for the game.

[buhwhyen]

That's....really cheap. Though I would only get it if other people were planning on playing it at some point. Otherwise I have enough games to play solo.

[buhwhyen]

EDIT3:
Moved the stuff about the dedicated server set up from this thread to the new l4d2 thread. So if I get the server running, I can edit the first post to include all relevant info on how to connect and what not.
*************************

Forewarning: this is in regards to turning my old desktop into a potential dedicated server for games and shit. Technical babble will ensue. People not wanting to read technical shit should skip to the end of the post for info on the L4D2 dedicated server I'm trying to set up.

Hmm...so how limiting, in terms of performance, is having a single core (Pentium 4 Prescott) 3.4 ghz proccesor, 1mb L2 cache? The only thing I can't upgrade on my desktop (b/c of my motherboard) is the processor. I just ordered a new video card (512mb)/power supply, but I'm questioning whether or not my processor will actually be able to clock fast enough, or whether my processor will limit the performance I can get. There isn't a lot of easy, ie flat out says this one is better, kind of information available regarding single vs dual core processors since 2004ish, but they mostly say it depends on the multi threading software (which I assume is integrated in most applications by now).

From my understanding the clock speeds of a single core/dual core aren't hugely different, and the increase in performance comes from obviously being able to assign 1 core to a task while the other does something else. So I assume most of the advantage for running a single program (on a dual core processor) lies mostly in the size of the L2 cache, but is there a need/advantage for parallel computing if I was running a L4D2 dedicated server? Or other servers/game servers. I guess my real question is whether or not a server would really want a dual core processor. I assume it probably won't need (require) it persay, but would it really make a noticable difference in performance?

Secondary question which might help answer the previous question, does graphics processing take advantage of parallel computing? (I'm assuming it does)

I'm somewhat questioning whether or not my computer is actually running at it's peak performance. I ran a few of those rough power calculators and based on the results, I need roughly ~340-360W for my current (before changing anything) set up. My current power supply provides a max power rating of 305W. Fail. Epic fucking fail. The only thing I changed from the original out of the box set up was to add 1gb of RAM (went from 1gb to 2gb) and that does NOT NOT NOT equate to an added 40-60W of power consumption.

My desktop specs look something like:
-3.4ghz, 1mb L2 cache
-2gb DDR2 400hz PC3200 RAM (didn't realize I had such shitty RAM)
-512 mb GDDR2 (video card)
-New power supply rated at 460W. Overkill, but power supplies automatically scale back the power supplied to what the system wants/needs to draw (duh).
-I don't think heat will be an issue, so I didn't bother looking at adding/replacing fans.


***
Random question. Is there a good or just not butt fucking assinine way to figure out if my random internet failures are because of my router/modem or just the ISP? My internet will randomly die out for 30(?) or so seconds before coming back. I'll get the limited to no connectivity message and then without repairing/resetting my connection my internet will come back up. Time Warner Cable is known for buttfucking bad internet, but overall my speed tests show I have ~10-14 mb downstream and ~1.5 mb upstream at all times of the day. It would be a bit silly to have/run a stable server with a spotty internet connection.

***
Btw. Upgrading video cards is actually very...easy/friendly? Compatibility between motherboard and video cards is actually nowhere near as bad as I originally thought, the only 2 things you have to worry about are the connector (matching PCI express x16, PCI express 2.0 x16, etc) and making sure you have a big enough power supply. A motherboard with a PCI express 2.0 x16 connector will run any video card with that same PCI express 2.0 x16 connector.

*****************
EDIT2:
Hilariously setting up this server reminds me a lot of learning a new programming language (probably because it basically is), since I'm googling all sorts of unknown commands to see wtf they actually do. Kinda neat how much customization they give you, though.

[feedback]

Huge AI Wars update. They just released version 3.0 as well as their first paid expansion. The expansion is 9.99 on steam and adds more ships, ai builds, and other fun stuff. The free 3.0 update gives us some new ships and mechanics to play with as well. Arcengames is also running a special 50% off their original game in honor of their expansion release. Now would be a good time if we wanna try and get other people into the game.

Some interesting changes include the reversal of the basic Fighter -> Cruiser -> Bomber -> Fighter to the more intuitive Fighter -> Bomber -> Cruiser -> Fighter triangle. Mk I Engineers now teleport. They split Raid and Leech starships into their own separate line both up to lv 3. Upgrades to some previously underpowered ships. New npc factions that may help or hinder players. Better advanced factories aka Fabricators that let you build lv 5 or core ships. General performance upgrades, ai tweaks, and some grahpic updates. They have a change log several pages long posted in their forums if you want to see a list of all the changes.

Next time you run the game, it will be in trial mode. Enter your multiplayer code (that annoying code that we never knew what it was for) including the dashes to unlock the full version.

[buhwhyen]

I forgot to mention (I really should have done this before we played AI Wars), but I found this program called "game booster." Sounds like bloatware/spyware, but it isn't. It's a freeware app that just closes down a bunch of unnecessary apps running in the background that just suck up memory. On my laptop, it frees up almost 100mb of memory, which is a lot, considering I have 1gb of ram. Try it out, its really easy to use, and you can pick and choose what you do/don't want to deactivate, and everything is easily turned back on when you're done gaming. Seems to help quite a bit.

download.cnet.com/Game-Booster/3000-18541_4-10913645.html


I also ended up allocating more virtual memory b/c L4D2 was lagging pretty badly for me the other day, particularly when switching weapons (which I tend to do a lot). This also seemed to help, probably since I don't have that much RAM and/or dedicated video card RAM. Made a noticeable difference in my frame rate. Probably helps with AI wars too.

[buhwhyen]

Starcraft 2 beta came out yesterday? day before that? Looks interesting, though I have more concerns that I hope are unfounded after watching a bit and doing some reading on more concrete numbers.

I think its still possible to try and opt-in to the beta. I personally haven't bothered though.