The home of a Very Grumpy Bunny

SOPA: A Partisan Fight.

2012-01-18T21:18:00.001-08:00

No, I haven’t forgotten this blog. Like many of my other ventures over the years, such as Mepisguides, my lack of updates was driven by my desire to keep from letting my personal life interfere with my professional life. Now that I’m slowly getting my feet back under me I feel a bit more confident in posting again.

The subjects this time are the infamous acts of legislation titled Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act. Yesterday, January 18th, was the day that several prominent online sites protested the legislation by shutting down services. Over the course of the day 13 congressmen voiced their position of opposition to the legislation, with several notable sponsors of the legislation pulling their support. Not surprisingly many of the congressmen making an about face were Republicans, which did lead to the surprising comment from Arstechnica’s Timothy Lee:

The partisan slant of the defections is surprising because copyright has not traditionally been considered a partisan issue.

Well, Timothy is wrong. The issues at hand with the proposed SOPA and PIPA legislation did not involve copyright. The issues at hand were those of personal liberty and personal freedom. I pointed this out on SVN’s Google+ page:

It should, but it probably won't. SOPA was written by people with no concept of personal liberty, property rights, or consumer rights. It was written with no concept of Due Process of Law, and no concept of representation. SOPA was forced into Congressional consideration by outright bribery and extortion by people who believed that they were inherently better than everyone else and thus entitled to do anything they wanted to in order to get their way.

Some of the core issues are really the same as those behind Net Neutrality. The organizations behind the RIAA and MPAA do not believe in the concepts of personal property or consumer rights. Those organizations do not believe that consumers can actually “own” a product. Case in point is the long history of lawsuits against television recording devices such as VCR decks, Tivo, and other video capture products. For decades the organizations that back the RIAA and MPAA have dumped billions of dollars into methods that “protect” the content they sell or broadcast from being copied.

The actions of the members of the RIAA and MPAA reflect strong liberal democrat and socialistic tendencies. Just as the rights of the “state” supersede the rights of the citizen, the “rights” of the RIAA and MPAA supersede the rights of consumers. Legislation such as SOPA and PIPA further this agenda, restricting the rights of the citizen while giving organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA more power to further their agenda’s.

The reality of the situation is that the member organizations of the RIAA and MPAA are still stuck on ancient business models. Broadcast Television, for example, still works on the concepts of advertisers paying for breaks in the storyline of the program. However, more and more consumers are getting their television programs through time-shifting devices such as TiVo; or through streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix. Rather than try and explore new business models the vast majority of television production companies still try to make their shows work around a business model dating from the time of Jack Benny and George Burns.

The Commercial Content industry loves to blame piracy for their financial woes, but piracy really is not the problem at hand. The reality is that people who pirate content are going to pirate content. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the saying “Locks keep out only the honest” is a Jewish proverb dating back to Biblical times, as in thousands of years ago.

The problem the Commercial Content industry faces is that piracy is an increasingly attractive alternative to buying content. Let me put this in real terms for myself. If I rip a DVD using Handbrake I no longer have to put up with that mandatory selection of trailers or promotional content that normal dvd players cannot skip. Additionally, if I have a large series of DVD’s, such as Hogan’s Heroes, I can store entire seasons on a single media server and just browse through my shows as I please. However, the Commercial Content producers do not believe that I have the right to consume my content as I see fit. They believe they have the right to dictate how I consume my content and what I consume my content with. The RIAA and MPAA do not have the rights to make those determinations. Period. Stop.

* * *

Looking ahead a lot of analysts are now wondering what the next move on the part of the RIAA and the MPAA is going to be. It is my opinion that they need to be short-circuited and shut down.

The reality is this: Theft is theft. There are already numerous laws on the books both at the federal and state level within the United States that clearly spell out how theft should be handled. There is no need for special legislation to deal with “Online Piracy.” The FBI proved this point by taking down the sites Megaupload.com and MegaVideo.com using existing standing laws with absolutely no need for additional legislation.

This goes back to what I said earlier. Existing Laws already cover protection and enforcement of Copyright. The issues at hand was never about Copyright. SOPA and PIPA contained no provisions or actions that would enforce copyright that existing laws did not already accomplish. SOPA and PIPA were always, from the day they were bribed into existence, always about limiting consumer rights and giving more power to entities who need to be shut down and dismantled.

What we do have a -need- for is legislation that states that consumers have rights. We do need legislation that says it’s legal for consumers to copy television content that they paid for to any device they want to in any format that they want to, on any operating system that they want to. We do need legislation that says it’s legal for consumers to copy music or video content that they have paid for to any device they want to in any format that they to, on any operating system they want to. We do need legislation that says it is legal for consumers to run or copy video game content that they have paid for to any device that they want to in any format that they want to, on any operating system that they want. We do need legislation that says it’s legal for consumers to resell, gift, or trade content they have purchased to anybody they want to.

What we -need- is legislation that makes Digital Rights Management that results in Digital Rights Removal illegal.

The reality is this: Getting rid of Digital Rights Management schemes that limit a user's freedom to own their content at a Federal and/or State level removes one of the largest barriers between Pirated Content and Purchased Content. If I no longer have to deal with DVD’s and Blu-Ray discs that don’t have unskippable trailers, I’d be more likely to pick up a legal copy than go and get an illegal copy that does not contain all of that extra crap. By the same token, I'd be more likely to buy a Blu-Ray movie with a video resolution of 1920*1080 if I was able to watch that video without having to purchase equipment that can pass HDCP signals.

Another side effect of making such DRM schemes illegal would be the crash in costs. To speak for myself. even with a paycheck I was not buying a whole lot of videos games because I just was not willing to spend $60 a game. Looking at game sales, I’m not the only person whose skipping “hot new release” titles because they are a bit on the ludicrous side of expensive.

The economic rule of thumb here is pretty old: The more people you can potentially sell to, the more people you HAVE to sell to, and thus the more people that are in a position to buy your product. Really. Not that hard. It’s not. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to wrap your noggin around this economic principle.

Cratering prices on content and making that content easier to access and easier to use would go a long ways towards making people more likely to buy that content.

Now, is the United States now in a position to hit the RIAA and MPAA below the belt and dismantle their anti-consumer and anti-personal-rights war? I’d like to think yes. The SOPA and PIPA protests have highlighted just how partisan the core arguments actually are. With an upcoming election year it may be possible to get candidates into office who can push through pro-consumer legislation and return to consumers their rights to use their purchased property as those consumers see fit.

* * *

Now, as an addendum, I do want to single out services that have implemented non-restrictive Digital Rights Management, notably the Steam network developed by Valve Software and the Desura network.

Both of these services leverage Single-Sign-On technology which requires a user to sign in and certify their account against a master-server. From that point users can access content distributed through the Valve Steam and Desura networks on any platforms that support the content Valve and Desura offer through those services. In addition both services have offline implementations that store the user's credentials and allow consumers to still access their content even when no internet access is available.

Now, neither service is perfect, and I'll go more into what could be done with such services as I actually write about them.

Ebay listing...

2011-03-31T08:48:00.000-07:00

since I haven't gotten any emails outside of scammers, and no phone calls...

I've pushed the computers to Ebay:

Laptop: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130503586049&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

C2D: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130503579952&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

A64X2: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130503581623&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

More details on the computers

2011-03-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

Since I'm about to go list these computers on HardOCP, here's a bit more background on each one:

Core 2 Duo / RadeonHD 4850 Crossfire X2

As mentioned in the first post I'm wanting around $700 for this system. As can be seen from the photos it has some pretty extensive inside work with higher quality fans and the massive non-stock heatsink. The power supply is a modular from thermaltake, and yes I do have the modular cables not actually used in the chassis. They will ship with the computer.

The monitor is not included, but if somebody wants it, I'm looking for about $50 on the monitor. It has a resolution of 1280*1024 and only accepts D-SUB input.

This particular unit has both Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit edition and Mepis Linux 11 Beta 3 64bit installed. The Microsoft installation disc and license key used for this computer are included in the sale price.

Athlon 64 6000+ / Geforce GTS 250

For this computer I'm looking to get around $800. Like the Core 2 system this has upgraded main cooling and upgraded fans. It also uses a Thermaltake modular power supply, and yes the cables not used will be shipped with the computer.

As before the monitor is not included. I'm looking for around $100 for the monitor. Yes, I know that's bloody low for a 23" monitor, but it only does 1440*900, and the color balance is... not that great.

This particular unit has both Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit Editon and Mepis Linux 11 Beta 3 32bit installed. The Microsoft installation disc and license key used for this computer are included in the sale price. Yes, I do have another 64bit Vista Ultimate disc on hand. Yes I am open to dicussing shipping that instead of the 32bit disc.

Averatec 7100 Notebook

A surprise addition. I'm also selling this notebook:

It's an Averatec 7100 with a Turion64 X2 and an Nvidia Nforce Graphics chip. These things tend to go around $650 refurbished online. I'm only wanting $550 for this laptop.

First, this particular one has had it's memory upgraded to 2gb PC2 5300 mobile memory, and is packing a new-hard drive. That's all well and good. However, the battery is fried out. Even in power-save mode this thing will barely last 25 minutes, and that's with a bleeding edge linux kernel, brightness all the way down, and every power saving trick I know enabled. A new battery runs around $75 online before shipping.

In addition, because it has a new hard-drive, this laptop has no Microsoft Windows Operating System Installed and will not ship with a Microsoft Windows Operating System Disc.

This Laptop will only ship with Mepis Linux 11 Beta 3 Installed.

For those interested in the back-story, Averatec does not ship their laptops with Microsoft Windows installation discs. Their solution to providing installations of Microsoft Windows Operating Systems is to utilize a recovery partition on the laptop's single hardrive, which doesn't really make a lot of sense for a laptop where the most likely problem a user will experience... is physical hard-drive damage. According to Averetec they don't ship an installation disc because of Microsoft's Licensing terms, and I wasn't willing to ante up the cost to purchase a recovery disc from Avertec.

Again, for those interested in the computers, email me:

The situation... is desperate

2011-03-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, yes, I've been silent on this blog, yet again, for a really long time. The reason is... radically different. People who have seen my facebook profile already know what has happened, as well as readers on the City of Heroes Forums, Clockwork Mansion, and the Mepis Community forums.

I went back to school.

More importantly, I did not go back to school for anything tech related. I tried through most of 2010 to get hired on the merits of my tech expertise, and I got nowhere. So I chose to broaden my applicable skill-set and attend school to become a Pastry Chef.

Since January I have been in Flordia attending the Notter School of Pastry Arts. Now, when I applied for the school, the financial aid office offered to help me establish funding to attend the school. 8 months of effective unemployment gave me pretty much nothing to work with, and for whatever reason the State of Georgia was not willing to cut unemployment checks for me. I never saw any money from the unemployment that I filed for last year, despite receiving confirmation letters that I was eligible for, and would get, unemployement benefits.

Ultimately the financial aid office was able to establish a loan to cover the amount of tuition not covered by grants or scholarships. However, the school and I were unable to establish any loans to cover LIVING expenses. That's a story I do not really want to get into here.

Since I've gotten down to Florida I've been applying pretty much everywhere. Staples, Borders, CompUSA, Publix, Williams Sonoma, M&M's store, Chick'Fil'A, T-mobilie, toys'r'us, Best Buy, Apple Store, and Zaxby's are just a few of the places that I've applied at. Chipolte Mexican Grill is doing a job fair of sorts tomorrow, I intend to be there. However, the only place I have had a response back from has been M&M's store, and I can't take that job because it's hours conflict with school.

So, that brings me up to, well, now. I need money to cover food, rent, and power. As is my car is up for sale back in Georgia, but I don't know whether or not it will move by the end of the month.

Immediately then, I'm placing two of my own systems up on the purchase block, as there is a chance THEY might move before the month is out.

Those are:

Intel Core 2 Duo
Intel D975XBX Motherboard
2gb DDR2
RadeonHD 4580 - Crossfire X2
Thermaltake Bach Media Chassis

Atlhon64 6000
Asus M4N82-Delux
2gb DDR2
Geforce GTS 250 - SLI X3

Yes, I realize these aren't exactly the blazing best top of the line systems anymore. I'm also not sure where to price them either. Thing is, I've done up stuff like the power-supplies and cooling fans. Neither processor uses a stock heatsink. In terms of total power, they'll both still outrun everything in the $600-$800 market from Dell, HP, or Gateway.

Ballpark figure, I'd like to pull around $700 for the Intel Core 2 Duo system. I'd like to see the Triple SLI system move for a bit more, around $800. I'm open to best offers under those. I'm really not in a position to say no.

I'm not ready yet to sell either my I7 or Phenom II system, but hey, if you are interested in those systems, email me, ask about them, and we can work something out. Again, I'm not really in a position to say no to any sale right now.

Beyond those systems, if anybody who reads this is in the Orlando area, or knows somebody in the Orlando area, who is looking for a tech or somebody to work in a kitchen, drop me an email.

Hopefully the link works,

RadeonHD 6900 series launched

2010-12-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am aware that AMD launched the RadeonHD 6900 series today. Yes, I am aware they offer GTX 5xx performance at a far lower cost.

No, I can't actually really give a good comment on them since I wasn't included in the pre-launch testing or press briefings.

Silent

2010-12-13T23:53:00.000-08:00

I realize that I've been relatively silent since the elections, which prompted somebody to email me asking if I had been admitted back into a hospital. Fortunately an unexpected hospital trip has not been part of my recent history. The short version of the events is that I've been sending out cover letters and resume's left and right trying to find a job, and the strain of a lack of regular employment is beginning to show. I'm often too tired, mentally, to come up with anything that I think anybody else would want to read. I have made almost no progress on Callaer, deleting entire chapters as nothing I wrote seemed to convey any sense of charisma or presence, reading as flat and dry as Harry Potter and Twilight.

Somebody once asked me in the intervening weeks if I blamed my situation on Obama and his administration as so many other unemployed American Citizens do. The intent behind the question was to find out what my opinion was on Obama immediately performing a world-tour after the November elections, slagging off on the American Economic problems. My response was that I don't blame the Obama administration for anything.

Around 30 years ago the United States was in a Cold War with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR. The USSR was largely represented in international press by Russia and East Germany, presenting a very real day to day sobering reminder of the effects of socialism. The demise of the USSR and the destruction of the Berlin Wall gave the international press one of the biggest lucky breaks they could have ever hoped for. The fragmented nations were of no military threat to the United States, one of the primary reasons the international press had to keep covering the events in the USSR. Within a few short years, the effects of socialism were removed from the international public eye as the USSR and it's subjugated nations found themselves removed from the headlines.

The lack of a visible day to day reference point for what Socalism accomplishes has allowed the political movement to take hold in the US, and the past several years have seen socalistic politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama rise to power. Entire generations do not understand exactly why the political beliefs espoused by the Democrat party in the US are harmful to long-term economic stability or the growth of a country. There is a cultural disconnect that with the internet and it's access to vast historical resources, should not be occurring.

For many Americans the rise of socialism and big government has long been obvious. Liberal Democrats have used a variety of tactics to force their policies upon American Citizens, often turning to the courtroom to shove policies through after the voting public shot down those policies in open votes. Seriously, go read Judge Dierker's The Tyranny of Tolerance. The abuse of the court system has seen the socalistic agenda white-whashed in the eyes of American Students.

Ergo, when halfway through Bush Jr's last term, when a Democratic Congress was voted into power, many Americans saw the writing on the wall. This leads up to another cultural disconnect over who actually controls political power in the United States.

When the Founding Fathers of the United States signed the Constitution, they did something that was inconceivable to every other nation on the planet. The Founding Fathers gave political power to the people. Under the Constitution all of the Political Power to make laws and govern the people was given unto the people. The office of the President was largely a ceremonial office, one that Congress or the people could bypass.

The sheer brilliance of the United States founding government was largely lost on other nations. Writers such as Karl Marx, and politicians such as Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, couldn't understand what the U.S. founding fathers had conceived and implemented, never realizing the power unto the people had already been recognized and established.

Think about the structure of the US Government for a minute. Name any other country in the world where the President, Prime Minister, or Premier is not the final say in political matters? Name another country where it is possible for the people to ratify and vote into constitutional law changes without the consent of the Congress or the President?

The international press, and for that matter the national press as well, don't realize that the US President is not the final authority in anything. Everything the President does has congressional oversight, and anything the President carries out can be halted by Congress.

This is why I don't blame the Obama Administration for the current state of anything. The office of the President in the United States is ultimately not-responsible for the actions they commit. If the Presidential Administration does something that is harmful to the country, it's the fault of the Congress of the United States for not stepping in. Obama and his Administration are, in a very real sense, powerless without the backing of the US Congress. Given that the liberal democrats have been in control of the US Congress for the past 4 years, it shouldn't be too hard to realize who the fault belongs to.

The fact is, the situation that lead up to the initial economic collapse of the housing market was created by Liberal Democrats forcing their agenda onto banks and lending companies. The fact is, the economic situation now was created by the actions taken by Liberal Democrats over the past couple of decades. Such collapses are what socialistic policies cause. Entire countries have been rendered bankrupt with citizens brawling in the streets over rotten loaves of bread because of socialism. Seriously, not a joke. Please go look up the history of the USSR. Not exactly what you would call a BIG SECRET.

Even though the Liberal Democrats are responsible for the economic woes of the country, for the state of the national budget, and for the train wreck that has been the Obama Administration, I don't hold them personally responsible for my situation. I made the choice to stand up for myself, and confront somebody who was breaking the law over their actions. That choice cost me my job.

I also have to recognize that at some point, I chose to specialize too much. I am not a coder, and more than once over the past couple of months, I've had serious job offers from companies looking for coders experienced in C++, Perl, Java, .NET, or so on. I've had to explain that I don't write computer code. Just because I fix computers doesn't automatically mean I can write a script to switch between embedded pictures on a mouse rollover. Just because I can tell you what that exotic error code means and the appropriate files to delete or modify to restore your desktop does not mean I can create a website page leveraging Adobe Flash.

As you can see from this post, this is basically why I haven't been writing on a regular basis. I'm just way too stressed out to make the points I want to make flow into each other, and I'm hitting random hot-points and descending into pointless examples upon pointless examples.

I'm actually beginning to feel like Patricia Tannis.

Will the economy recover?

2010-11-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been silent for the past several months. Mostly it's because I'm still hunting for a steady job and the lack of a steady paycheck has wrecked merry havoc with my capabilities to express complete and coherent thoughts as most of what I've attempted to write has degenerated into meaningless rambles. The type of written entry that I would place on Live-Journal behind a friend cut and then link to if I thought it had any substance or overall point.

For the first time in months, my spirits have been lifted. While it was not with a call offering a job-interview, or a call stating I had landed a job, it was with the November 2nd elections. As a country America peeled away the wool that the liberal democrats had pulled over their eyes, sending record numbers of unknown and untested political candidates backed only by the Taxed Enough Already party into the mansions of State governments and the halls of the nations Congressional Chambers.

Over the past two years the liberal-democrat political machine has been hiking taxes and destroying the ability of small business's to operate in a fiscally fit manner. Case in point, there is an upcoming tax that will start in January that will raise Small Business Tax by 7%. From my own point of view as a tech worker seeking employment, I've witnessed the small-business market drive itself into a state of hibernation in an attempt to whether the financial storm of a business-incompetent political party.

Now small business's, my bread and butter for employment, have hope that the high taxes will be repealed. There is hope that the unpopular and fiscally unsound health doctrines of the liberal democrats will be thrown in the gutter where they belong. There is hope that outright political non-sense such as needing to pass a bill to find out what's in a bill has seen its death.

The victory of the conservatives and the T.E.A. party is a bitter-sweet one for me. While I now have more hope of finding and landing a steady job, hopefully doing what I do best, which is writing or fixing computers, there is also an odd sense that it didn't have to be this way. One event that stands out to me is my encounter with the web-comic PvP Online.

During the run-up to the 2006 elections the head of a small business in the comic took a pro-Obama stance. Something that was so out of place I actually emailed the author of the comic, Scott Kurtz, over why his character was acting out of character. Given that the in-coming owner of the small business didn't change his tune, it was clear that Scott Kurtz didn't feel his character was out of character. At the very least it was obvious that Scott Kurtz did not understand either political party, or the history of the political parties, or the objectives of the political parties.

In fact, that was actually a problem with a lot of voters in 2006. Despite having access to the Internet and it's records of party speeches, party theories, party platforms, party voting records, and so on, many voters simply did not comprehend what the political parties stood for. Unfortunately it took 2 years of bad legislation and political incompetence for many Americans to realize just what socialism was, and what the goals of the liberal democrat party were. It didn't matter that one just needed to look at countries over in Europe to see what high tax rates and socialistic political agendas could do to a countries economy and ability to fend for itself. Too many Americans needed to learn the hardway just what Obama and his ilk stood for and worked for.

One of the questions being raised in this election season is whether or not the lessons learned will be remembered in the next election season. Will enough American's remember how Obama and the liberal democrats tried to destroy the American Economy? Is it actually possible to recover from the damage already wrought by the hands of an out-of-control socialist agenda?

I don't know. In 2006 I made the mistake of assuming that enough Americans would have the sense to actually research what each political party stood for and what each political party was capable of doing. I failed to account for the number of people who simply wanted to be in the history books for putting a colored president in office, regardless of the long term disaster it would cause.

My hope is that yes, America will have a long-bitter memory of the destruction that a liberal-democrat government can cause in such a short amount of time.

Gearbox Community Manager: Yes I did send a resume

2010-09-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Couple of quick notes. Yes. I did see that Gearbox was looking for a new community manager on their homepage. Yes, I did send them my resume.

No idea if anything will actually come of it... given that I've racked up some near 318 hours in Borderlands though, I'd love to be on the side of getting paid to tell everybody how awesome it is.

Toshiba recalls laptops: Nvidia not involved!

2010-09-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

Over the past several months, actually a couple of years now, every time a laptop vendor has issued a mass recall for exploding laptops you would be making a safe bet if the laptops were using Nvidia chips. Well, for once, Nvidia does not seem to be involved in a laptop recall: http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/bulletin.jsp?ct=SB&soid=2761378&ref=EV

Okay, there isn't much point to this post other than to re-post the notification that there is a serious problem with Toshiba's series Satellite T13x laptop computers. If you have one of these laptops, please do contact Toshiba and get it repaired or replaced.

AMD to drop ATi branding

2010-08-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Quick note. I have received a confirmation email from AMD that there is a quote unquote brand transition on the horizon. The brand transitioning will see the removal of the ATi branding.

Now, as of this posting, I haven't actually had time to sit and talk with anybody from AMD over the subject. That doesn't mean I don't have some possibly awkward questions to ask them, if the questions can be answered.

First Question: Right now, every single Nintendo Wii that is shipping carries an ATi branding. I'm curious to know if the retirement of the ATi brand name will see Nintendo shipping retail boxes with the ATi logo replaced by an AMD logo.

Second Question: Are there any possible corporate relationships that could could deteriorate from listing an Intel Processor with an AMD graphics chip. Given some of the petty behavior witnessed by some tech corporations, is it possible that dropping the ATi branding will see competitors like Intel leaning on vendors to not use the AMD branding?

I guess what I'm going for can be demonstrated by Dell. Just go to http://www.dell.com/home/laptops and try to search for a laptop by the graphics chip. You'll find that you can search by Integrated Graphics and Dedicated Video Card on the Dell site. Once you make a selection the actual graphics chip information is still not displayed anywhere on the search results. In fact, it's not until you get to the Alienware models that Radeon graphics cards get any mention in the base search results.

I can just see more of this type of buried information tagging from some of the more petty tech companies. Yes, Intel has gotten better on the community relations front, and the not breaking every single Trade Law ever written front, but there's always the concern that the new friendly Intel is just a front in and of itself.

As far as I know, AMD has not addressed these particular questions, so this could be interesting if they do.

Net Neutrality: What does it actually mean?

2010-08-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to say I get asked this question on a regular basis, but I do see it being asked on a regular basis. Just, exactly, what is Net Neutrality, and more importantly, why should I care about it?

The core concept of Net Neutrality is very simple. It is the idea and concept that data is data. What I mean by this is actually fairly simple. Look at this webpage for a moment. Not any particular part, just the whole page. Now I'm going to ask a few simple questions:

What do you see?
Do you see Text?
Do you see Pictures?
Do you see Links?

Well, you probably responded that yes, you did see those items. Now, let me pose another question:

If you were a router passing network traffic, and you had to download this page, can you tell the difference between a picture file that is 2mb in size and a text file that is 2mb in size?

The obvious answer is: No, you cannot.

Data is Data. To a computer, be it in file storage, file transfer, or file manipulation, a 2mb file is a 2mb file. It is the software applications, the actual programs that you use on your computer, that determine whether or not a 2mb file has any particular contextual meaning. A text editor such as Notepad, Wordpad, or Kwrite, will not be able to parse and display a picture file. An image manipulator, such as Microsoft Paint, will not be able to parse and display a file saved as a Text File or as an Open Document File. So how does this relate to Net Neutrality?

From a purely technical standpoint the Internet is basically a series of permenant network connections used to transfer data. Your own personal modem is connected to an Internet Service Provider, and your I.S.P. is connected to a larger collective of networked computers referred to as the Internet Backbone. The Internet Backbone systems are largely connected to each other. Here, for example, is a typical setup:

The Black lines indicate data transfer paths. The Green Lines indicate potential pathing, overflow capacity, or backup-lines.

Most Internet Service Providers are linked to at least two backbone providers. Thus, if one backbone provider were to go down, the I.S.P. would still be able to offer connection services. In this configuration the Internet Backbones are largely linked to one another, and the ISP is linked to the Internet Backbones.

When connecting to a server on the other side of the Backbone the configuration basically mirrors itself:

The Green Lines indicate Potential Pathing

Here we can see that the primary modem and computers are connected through a straight data line to the ISP. However, the Server that the user is trying to get to is connected to an I.S.P. that is not directly connected to a backbone provider that is directly connected to the users I.S.P.

Data transferring from the user's modem to the server's modem would have to make a minimum of 5 hops:

User's I.S.P.
Backbone Provider One
Backbone Provider Two
Server I.S.P.
Server Modem

This is where we start to see the problems of Internet congestion, as data spends more time in transit, or worming it's way through the network, then it should have to. If either of the green lines were active on that configuration, the connection to the user's target server would have less data hops. Less data hops would decrease the amount of time to transfer data, as the data would have to make less hops.

Now, if some backbone providers were actually upgrading their internet hardware instead of buying exclusive rights to promote and sell a smartphone, Internet Congestion wouldn't be a problem. However, several of the major I.S.P.'s, and I'll go ahead and say COX COMMUNICATIONS, COMCAST, and AT&T are not exactly interested in upgrading their networks. I've made no secret of Cox Communications business practices, specifically where the concept replacing and upgrading failing equipment was complete and utter anathema to Cox Communication's management. Cox's sole business model was based on being in markets with no other competitors, so that consumers had no choice but to buy Cox Communication's service. No, I'm not making that up. We were flat out told that by our own management. Cox Communications was not interested in spending money on developing a faster internet connection. Cox Communications was not interested in spending money on upgrading it's network infrastructure.

AT&T is a laughing stock among the technically literate for one of the nations worst 3G networks running. When I say that Apple and AT&T considered 30% of dropped calls to be normal, that is not a joke. It's not exactly a puzzle to figure out why nobody caught the design flaw on the Iphone4. Nobody in Apple could tell a difference between dropped calls caused from casual handling of the phone and dropped calls from AT&T's network. AT&T has basically set a standard for irresponsible spending of corporate monies. My personal opinion is that there is a good class-action lawsuit to be found in AT&T having spent money in every place but where it mattered: THEIR NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE.

Comcast, often referred to in much less flattering terms, has an even lower opinion of it's users and it's networking options. Comcast has been slapped by both consumers and regulatory agencies for it's bandwidth throttling and invasive network scanning. Comcast contractors have been caught disconnecting competitors connections, then trying to sell consumers on the Comcast network while the competitor was down. If this sounds familiar, it's because I've written about Comcast before.

In fact, this is how Comcast views their Network:

Red Lines indicate PremiumTraffic. Black Lines indicate FilteredTraffic

In this configuration, Comcast actively filters the information that comes from the user's modem. Traffic that Comcast prioritizes has to take less hops to reach the same destination. The filtered traffic has to simply go:

Modem
I.S.P.
Backbone
I.S.P.
Modem

Network that is de-prioritized has to take this route:

Modem
I.S.P.
Backbone 1
Backbone 2
Backbone 3
I.S.P.
Modem

I feel I need to stress the point that this is not conjecture. Comcast has been fined by regulatory agencies for this behavior. They have been called out by consumer agencies for this network filtering. They have done this Network Filtering. They still do this Network Filtering in some markets.

In fact, what Comcast, AT&T, the R.I.A.A., the M.P.A.A., and other's like them want is a network configuration that looks something like this:

Pink, Blue, and Red Lines are Filtered Traffice. Black Lines are non-filtered traffic.

In this configuration the ISP's filter the data traffic that comes out of the user's modem. The I.S.P.'s deem which traffic is important, and fast track that traffic to it's destination, while shunting de-prioritized traffic off onto slower servers and network technologies.

Let's say you are a gamer for a minute, and you play something like City of Heroes or World of Warcraft. Presently your access to the game server looks a bit like... this:

The Game server has multiple game servers spread out across a few regional locations, and you are fairly well networked to all them. Some might be faster than others, but you can get to all servers.

Under a filtered internet, such as the one Comcast would dearly love to implement, you would have a much more, AOL-Style network configuration:

Here, in this network configuration that's been filtered, you don't have any access to one of the servers. You have a lightning fast filtered connection to one of the servers. Then you have a not as fast shunt to the backbone de-prioritized access.

Again, I need to stress, this is not a joke or an exageration. This is what AOL DID. This was AOL's entire business model. Aclosed network infrastructure available only to users who ponied up a subscription fee. What happened to AOL? Well, let me put it this way: When was the last time you saw an AOL disc on a counter?

The AOL style of a filtered and closed network access system was pretty much beat into the ground by competitors who offered a superior product. Which again, was this:

This then, in a nutshell, is whatnet neutrality is all about:

Net Neutrality is the conceptual idea that the Internet Service Providers and Internet Backbone Providers should make no difference in the traffic that is transmitted through the I.S.P.'s network.
Net Neutrality is the conceptual idea that when a consume pays for certain combination of speed-grade and data amount of Internet Connection, that they recieve that speed-grade and data amount without limitations. For example. If somebody pays for a 12mb download speed with 60gb's data-transfer a day, they get 12mb download's and 60gb's data-transfer a day, reguardless of if they are sending text documents, .ogg vorbis files, or WebM videoes.
Net Neutrality is the conceptual idea that the Internet Service Providers and Internet Backbone Providers should not search the users traffic without an applicable legal warrent from appropriate legal authorities.
Net Neutrality is the very real fact that data is data and that Internet Service Providers and Internet Backbone Providers should spend their money on upgrading the network infrastructure. I.S.P's and I.B.P.'s should not be spending client's money on buying exclusive access to a phone, or outright refusing to deal with hardware issues.

Hopefully this will help explain exactly what Net Neutrality is, and why you should care about it.

ATi Catalyst 10.8 / Unigine: Performance Scaling on Higher End Hardware Part 4

2010-08-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

While mucking about with Unigine on the little Asus F3Ka Laptop, I went back to trying to sort out the stability issues of the 5770's when coupled against the Phenom II platform. After witnessing Unigine's inability to scale at all I decided to show the engine scaling against a more powerful processor. The easiest way to do this would be to drop the multiplier on the processor and benchmark Unigine as the processor performance increased. Of the motherboards I have on hand though then, that wasn't quite working. The Intel D975XBX v1 motherboard, for example, was sold as a Crossfire Capable Gaming motherboard, but it's BIOS is complete and utter Junk, and the processor multiplier is not exposed within a BIOS made by Intel. The DFI LanParty Jr X58-T3H6 does expose the multiplier, but the Windows 7 64bit Operating System wouldn't recognize it. I'd set a really low multiplier for the OS, boot up, check CPUZ, and it would be at the stock 20x multiplier. The Asus M4N82-D I had performed exactly the same with the multiplier being manipulatable in the BIOS, and the Operating System not caring what the Multiplier was set to. Surprisingly, Nvidia's revamped nTune software package also refused to allow changing the multiplier in real time, although I could change everything else.

That just left me with the semi-broken Phenom II system. It's still not exactly what I would call stable as everytime Windows 7 is shut down the entire system blue-screens and reports a recovery from a serious error on the reboot. However, with AMD's OverDrive system software I can manipulate the processor's multipliers in real time. So once again I wind up with a series of benchmarks that are not applicable to real-world performance. The processor is still a Quad-Core Phenom II Processor, and it's still backed by 8gigs of ram.

Because of the previous benchmarks we know that enabling Tessellation carries a huge performance hit under the OpenGL API. We also know from the previous benchmarks that Crossfire support for OpenGL is either broken, or missing in action. So, for each multiplier setting I ran 3 different benchmarks:

OpenGL: tessellation off
DirectX: tessellation off / crossfire off
DirectX: tessellation on / crossfire on

This allows us to continue to compare the OpenGL and DirectX API's, while showing the benefit that a multi-gpu rig can have under certain circumstances.

X4: 800mhz

What you might not know, and probably won't even care about, is that 800mhz is the average operating speed of most AMD processor's under Windows NT5, Windows NT6, and most Linux Distributions. These operating systems largely support power-saving schema and unless you put the system into a high-performance mode the processor will default to a low operating speed under most computing tasks.

That being said, I did find an interface bug with the Overdrive UI. I have the multiplier set at x4, but the UI does not indicate this change. Which is why CPUZ is open to confirm that a x4 multiplier is set.

OpenGL:

DirecX 11: Tess off / CFX Off

DirectX 11: Tess On / CFX On

The results are odd to say the least. With this processor speed the OpenGL renderer turned in a score nearly half of it's DirectX counterpart.

Adding a second GPU did pretty much nothing for the average frame-rate at first, till I put out that Tessellation was turned on. As was demonstrated in the earlier benchmarks simply enabling tessellation under DirectX could result in a 50% loss of performance.

x6: 1.2ghz

Bumping the processor speed up to 1.2ghz with a 6x multiplier sees the UI bug on OverDrive still hanging around. So what did this do to our Game's performance?

OpenGL

DirectX: Tess Off / CFX Off

DirectX: Tess On / CFX On

Here we can see that the gap between OpenGL and DirectX is closing up. Interestingly, even with Tessellation turned on, the Crossfire setup is already pulling away and delivering a playable experience. So let's turn up the processing speed once again.

x8: 1.6ghz

Interestingly, AMD's OverDrive utility is now showing the multiplier that is set as well as CPUZ.

OpenGL:

DirectX Tess off / CFX Off:

DirectX Tess On / CFX On:

At this clock-speed we see the OpenGL API close the gap on the DX11 API, as now are both within a few points of each other. We also see the Crossfire configuration extend it's lead, even with Tessellation active.

What we also see is that the overall performance isn't making the same leaps and bounds that it was before. There is there practically no difference between the single GPU 5770 at 1.2ghz and 1.6 ghz, and the average frames per second spread between the 1.6ghz and 800mhz is only 2frames. Doubling the clock-speed, at least in this benchmark, only netted a realistic 2 extra frames per second. That being said, the minimum frame-rate did go up significantly, from just under 8 frames to around 13 frames.

There was also a sharp difference between the 800mhz Crossfire Configuration and the 1.2ghz Crossfire configuration. There's not as much difference between the 1.2ghz Crossfire Configuration and the 1.6ghz Crossfire configuration, with the maximum number of frames barely moving.

So, let's bump the clocks up again.

x10: 2ghz

Now we've gotten to the same clock-speed as the Turion64 in the Asus F3Ka. Unlike the Turion64, the Phenon II has two more processing cores, loads more cache, a much faster memory bus, and a much faster system bus. It's also coupled with a much more powerful Graphics Processor.

OpenGL

DirectX: Tess Off / CFX Off

DirectX: Tess On / CFX On

An additional 400mhz sees the Single Card OpenGL performance sustain a higher average frame-rate than the Single Card DirectX performance figures, while having both a lower minimum frame-rate and a lower maximum frame-rate.

The Single Card DirectX Performance is largely unchanged from the 1.6ghz speed, gaining only a few frames on the minimum side, but barely pushing the average frames per second or the maximum frames.

Crossfire Performance is still increasing, but again, not by much. The immediate conclusion to make is that at this point Unigine Heaven 2.1 is not being limited by the processor, but is instead being held back by the graphics cards.

Which becomes pretty evident as the speed is bumped again:

x12: 2.4ghz

OpenGL

DirectX: Tess Off / CFX Off

DirectX: Tess On / CFX On

At 3 times the base clock speed, the only API that has shown any significant improvement is the OpenGL API, which once again manages a higher average frame-rate than it's DX counterpart, while still having a much lower minimum frame-rate and a lower maximum frame-rate.

The Single Card DirectX performance has doubled it's minimum frame-rate, and the maximum number of frames has also increased. The average number of frames has only gone by about 2 frames per second.

The Crossfire DirectX performance has improved dramatically from the 800mhz base, but it hasn't improved so much from the 2ghz clock speed.

So, onwards to 2.8ghz:

x14: 2.8ghz

OpenGL:

DirectX Tess Off / CFX Off

DirectX Tess On / CFX On

I really could have left this series of benchmarks out. Absolutely nothing has changed in terms of performance.

x16: 3.2ghz / x17 3.4ghz

At 3.2ghz this system is now just 200mhz off the figures shown in the first posting on Catalyst 10.8. So we'll also include the x17 single cared figures as well, since I haven't done them on this system yet.

OpenGl 3.2ghz:

DirectX Tess Off / CFX Off 3.2ghz

OpenGL 3.4ghz

DirectX Tess Off / CFX Off 3.4ghz

DirectX Tess On / CFX On

As you probably expected, performance still did not change. With 4 times the raw processing speed, and the Single Card DirectX performance basically went absolutely nowhere.

Unigine, at least in the benchmarks available for download, is a questionable software product. I'm left wondering just how much of the performance difference in OpenGL is down to AMD's drivers, or Unigine's product. I'm also left wondering why Crossfire scaling ceased to scale as well. Is it an engine issue or is it a Driver issue?

As I said, the real-world benefit of this performance scaling is pretty much nil. There's no commercial game on the market that uses the Unigine Engine. Hopefully, when those games arrive, they'll show much better performance scaling across hardware than the benchmarks.

ATi Catalyst 10.8 / Unigine: Performance Scaling on Low End Hardware Part 3

2010-08-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

One of the concepts I talk about in many of my Gamenikki reviews is the concept of breakpoints. A breakpoint is the point at which hardware is fast enough to run a certain application. Since I was already running Unigine's Heaven 2.1 benchmark across several different computers, I thought I'd try to run it on my Asus F3Ka laptop. The frame-rate results are not surprising, but they can help shed light on the concept of a breakpoint.

We'll start out with the default scorings of Heaven 2.1 under OGL:

Then Heaven 2.1 under DirectX:

As expected, the DirectX API scores a few frames per second more. What's interesting is that Unigine Detected a Turion TL-60 as a 2.6ghz part. Oh how I wish.

One would think then that lowering the resolution would help the performance. So, I lowered Heaven 2.1 to 640*480 in OpenGL:

And DirectX:

While we get to see Unigine's Hardware Detection issues repeat themselves, the results themselves aren't actually that spectacular. Performance has largely doubled itself under DirectX, and is closer to a 40% leap under OpenGL.

So, what about turning the Shaders to low to give our graphics card less processing work?

Heaven 2.1 with low shaders in OpenGL:

Heaven 2.1 with low shaders in DirectX:

Interestingly, here we see that OpenGL turns in better performance than DirectX. The performance of OpenGL in low-resolution with High-Shaders is not far off from OpenGL in High Resolution with Low Shaders. The performance of DirectX in low-resolution with High Shaders is much better than Direct in High Resolution with Low Shaders.

So, one would think that turning both the shaders to low, and the resolution to low, performance would go up? Right?

640*480 with Low Shaders in OpenGL:

640*480 with Low Shaders in DirectX:

Unsurprisingly, OpenGL not only went back to scoring less than DirectX, by a wide margin. Surprisingly, OpenGL did better with Shaders on high, and DirectX pretty much performed the same as it did in low resolution with High Details.

One of the problems here is that this particular laptop is hindered both by the processor and the GPU. Neither are really capable of driving the Unigine Software Application. Even if I moved to a much more powerful graphics card, this processor simply would not be able to process the Unigine software application as used in the Heaven 2.1 test. Even if I moved to a more powerful processor, the graphics card alone would also be a hindrance.

Way back when Valve first launched the Source Engine in Half-Life 2 I praised the engine for it's ability to scale across various hardware levels. One of my complaints about the Unigine Engine, at least as it is used in the various downloadable benchmarks from Unigine, is that it doesn't really scale across hardware. Recent versions of the Unreal Engine have the same problem. On this particular laptop games like Unreal Tournament III and Borderlands will run. They just won't run well. Games that are built on recent revisions of the Source Engine, such as Alien Swarm, Team Fortress 2, and Left For Dead 2, are still largely able to run well on this particular hardware combination.

ATi 10.8 OpenGL / DirectX performance difference - Part 2

2010-08-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

After a significant amount of fettling with the I7 system, including I think flashing a new bios for the motherboard, and completely un-installing and removing the existing ATi drivers with Guru3D's Driver Sweeper, the system now appears to be largely stable with a fresh install of the 10.8 drivers.

Again, the aim of these benchmarks is not to compare hardware, but to compare the performance of the DirectX and OpenGL API's on the same hardware with the same settings. According to several software developers there is no massive performance difference between the two API's in their latest revisions. Against the same hardware DX11 and OpenGL 3.x / 4.x should perform the same.

In part one I showed there was a massive performance difference between the RadeonHD 5770 running in a 2x Crossfire mode on the DirectX 11 and OpenGL API's. The performance ratio difference was consistant across platforms backed by an AMD PhenomII and an Intel I7 920 Engineering Sample.

Testing on a RadeonHD 4850 in a 2x Crossfire mode and in a single GPU mode indicated that one potential problem might be related to Crossfire not actually activating against OpenGL 3.x / 4.x calls. The performance difference between the RadeonHD 4850 in Crossfire Off and Crossfire On modes in OpenGL was fairly close, with the Crossfire On mode turning in a score of 904, and the Crossfire Off mode turning in a score of 931.

So, with the I7 co-operating, how does it fair with Crossfire turned off?

In the Single GPU rendering mode against DirectX 11 with Tessellation enabled, Unigine Heaven 2.1 turned in a score of 683:

In the Single GPU rendering Mode against OpenGL with Tessellation enabled, Unigine Heaven 2.1 turned in a score of 460:

The Crossfire Off score of OpenGL with Tessellation is not far off the Crossfire On score of 493.

So what is the performance penalty of running OpenGL 4.x tessellation anyways?

Same system, same I7 processor, same Crossfire Off Configuration. All that's changed is Tessellation in Unigine Heaven 2.1 has been set to Disabled.

In this configuration against DirectX 11 Heaven 2.1 turned in a score of 1037:

Under OpenGL Heaven 2.1 turned in a score of 1148:

No, that's not a typo. Under the OpenGL 3.x rendering mode, nothing else changed, the OpenGL renderer actually turned in a higher number of frames per second compared to the DX11 renderer with Tessellation turned off.

What conclusions can derived from these tests? Well, again, the scope is just too limited to draw any useful conclusions. Against this particular software application, Uningine Heaven 2.1, tessellation performance under ATi's OpenGL 4.x driver is just abysmal when compared to the DirectX tessellation performance. Outside of tessellation and in single-gpu mode the OpenGL driver is about where it should be in keeping pace with the DX driver.

Crossfire support for OpenGL 3.x / 4.x also seems to be completely broken, or it just may not be implemented yet. I do know that Crossfire rendering modes do not work in City of Heroes, but by the same token, SLI rendering modes are also non-functional for that game, so that isn't a reliably point of data either. SLI seems to be working in the cards I have against Unigine Heaven 2.1, but their OpenGL performance is indeed lower than the DirectX performance. I don't know if this is an issue with Heaven 2.1 itself, or an issue with the Nvidia drivers.

As an entire driver set, Catalyst 10.8 still isn't giving me any problems against the older Mobile RadeonHD 2600 and 4850 graphics cards I have. It doesn't seem to be that bad on those cards.

ATi OpenGL 3.x / 4.x performance: something's not right here

2010-08-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, ATi just launched their Catalyst Driver for August. So I've been installing it on my systems, kicking the binaries, and seeing how it performs. In DirectX rendering modes the driver seems fairly competent. In older OpenGL 1.x and 2.x applications, such as F.E.A.R., Quake Live, NOLF, and so on, performance seems fine there too.

In City of Heroes, which leverages OpenGL 3.x for it's ultra-mode graphics, the performance has never really been where I would think it should be on the graphics cards, at least compared to DirectX titles. City of Heroes is extremely difficult to reliably benchmark. There is, however, a software application that does leverage OpenGL 3.x / 4.x API calls, and is a reliably benchmark with easily repeatable results: Unigine Heaven 2.1.

So I pitted the Heaven 2.1 benchmark against my Radeon cards running on AMD's latest driver in both DirectX 11 and OpenGL rendering modes under Windows NT6. For those wondering why I didn't also run Unigine Heaven 2.1 under Mepis Linux to compare OpenGL performance differences between Windows and Linux, it's because the benchmark application doesn't work on Mepis Linux 8.5, or previous versions for that matter. Now I don't know if this is because Unigine Heaven 2.1 is just badly coded, or because some components of Mepis Linux 8.5 are best described in terms of computer paleontology. I'd be more concerned about this if Unigine Heaven 2.1 wasn't effectively bleeding edge software.

Anyways, getting back to the benchmarks themselves, starting with my primary system running Crossfired 5770's atop a Phenom II. In 1920*1200 with Crossfire Active, Unigine Heaven 2.1 posted a score of 947:

Against the same computer, nothing changed but the API, Heaven 2.1 posted a score of 325:

That's a huge difference in performance when nothing but the API is changing. I also happen to know, from the likes of Valve Software and ID Software, that from an API standpoint, there's no performance difference between DirectX or OpenGL. Ergo, on the surface, there is something seriously screwed up with either Unigine's software or with ATi's drivers.

Okay. So, same two graphics cards, different base computer. This one being the Intel I7 920 Engineering Sample. To make this clear, this is not a comparison of Unigine Heaven 2.1 against different hardware platforms. This is a comparison of Unigine Heaven 2.1 against different API's Under DirectX in 1280*1024 this system posted a score of 1284.

Same computer system, all that's changed is the API, and it scores 493

Again, OpenGL performance is roughly 1/3 of the DirectX performance. The performance difference is repeatable, under different resolutions, on entirely different base computer systems. Now, at this point, I was going to test the HD 5770 cards outside of Crossfire rendering mode, only I ran into a rather large problem.

The 10.8 driver is an unstable mess with these cards on 64bit Windows NT6. During the Install of the 10.8 driver on my Phenom II system, the HDMI audio driver kept failing to install. On the I7 system, things were a bit worse. When I turned it on in Windows mode, it blue-screened. System restore which took me back to 10.4 OpenGL 4.0 preview driver, update to 10.8, reboot, blue-screen. Restore again, install 10.7 driver, everything's fine. Install 10.8 driver, everything's fine during that session, but reboot, and blue-screen.

Ergo, I'm forced to conclude that not only are there some rather serious performance problems with the 10.8 driver, there are some serious issues with the 10.8 driver in regards to system stability, at least on the RadeonHD 5x00 series cards I have in my hands.

Next question: Is this a problem shared by all of the ATi OpenGL 3.x / 4.x cards? Or is this a problem solely related to the 5x00 series cards? Well, to start off this testing, I turned to my RadeonHD 4850 system backed by an Intel Core 2 Duo. It ran fine yesterday when I did the initial Crossfire-On benchmarks. Spent the night turned off, turned on fine, no blue-screens, no other problems. So, how did it do under Unigine Heaven 2.1?

With a resolution of 1360*768, in DirectX 11 API rendering mode, this system scored 1793

Under OpenGL, nothing else changed, the system scored 904:

Okay, the good news is performance is no longer one third. The bad news is, the performance gap is still pretty wide, just on the positive side of 50%.

Since that's how ATi cards perform in Unigine Heaven 2.1, how about Nvidia cards?

Well, as I've mentioned before, I don't actually have any GTX 400 series cards on hand to test with. The most recent cards I have from Nvidia on hand to test with are some GTS 250's. Like the RadeonHD 4850 they are an OpenGL 3.x class gpu.

In a resolution of 1680*1050 leveraging DirectX, the GTS 250 system managed to score 1436:

Nothing else changing but the API, the GTS 250 turned in a score of 1200:

Okay. Yes, there is a performance drop here, but OpenGL still delivered 83% of the performance that DirectX delivered. This is a more acceptable delta of change considering that fast-pass OpenGL 3.x / 4.x rendering applications are still very new and drivers could be unoptimized.

Unoptimized drivers are one thing, but the sheer performance difference between the DX11 and OpenGL API's just continues to raise questions. All of these systems so far have been running their respective multi-gpu modes. How exactly would they perform outside of their multi-gpu rendering modes? Well, as mentioned earlier, I was going to do these tests on the RadeonHD 5770 because of the near 1/3 performance difference, but wound up not being able to because of driver stability issues. I'm still trying to sort those problems out.

I can however look at the RadeonHD 4850 and Geforce GTS 250 systems in single card rendering modes.

The RadeonHD 4850, with the DX11 API, and no other changes than disabling Crossfire, achieved a score of 1064:

Under OpenGL with Crossfire turned off the system achieved a score of 931:

Going back to an older system, I ran Unigine Heaven 2.1 atop a Mobile RadeonHD 2600. This GPU is actually too weak to give any meaningful input. Under DX11 it only managed a score of 192:

Under OpenGL, it turned in a score of 151:

Well, that seems to be one problem sorted. Crossfire does not seem to be activating for Unigine Heaven 2.1, at least on the RadeonHD 4850, but the single card performance difference between the OpenGL and DirectX 11 API's are not that extensive.

For comparison, the Geforce GTS 250 under the DirectX 11 API with SLI disabled achieved a score of 867:

The same Geforce GTS 250 system under the OpenGL API with SLI disabled achieved a score of 849:

The immediate conclusion is that SLI is activating for Unigine Heaven 2.1, but Crossfire is not. This explains the 50% performance difference between the RadeonHD 4850 in Crossfire under DirectX and OpenGL, but not the 70% performance difference between the RadeonHD 5770 in Crossfire under DirectX and OpenGL.

Wanted Alive: Ramnesis

2010-08-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I was asked what I thought was the best written web-comic. Was it Sluggy Freelance, was it PvP, was it Schlock Mercenary, It's Walky, College Roomies from Hell, Clan of the Cats, Wandering Ones, RPG World, or the like? I surprised the person asking the question by naming a sprite comic as the best written web comic running.

Generally, I hate sprite comics. Free hosting sites like Keenspace were flooded with people putting various sprite rips of Mario, Sonic, and Mega-man together. Some of the sprite comics did rub off on me, such as Bob and George and Alan Solivan's Author Space.

Bob and George was largely a pioneer in the sprite-comic world, and if you can think of a cliche that's used in sprite comics, Bob and George probably did it first. Author Space was largely a spin-off of Alan's The Rogue's Gallery comic, one I enjoyed not only for Alan's great artwork, but also because it was genuinely well written.

As time went on, Bob and George became not just a home page for the webcomic featuring Bob and George, but also a portal to some of the better sprite comics. Sure, a lot of the comics posted through Bob and George were junk, but some gems did shine through.

There was Universal Voyage which was excellent, until I think NW got clonked on the head by Reichsman or something. Oddball Fancomics was worth a read. Evil Inc., which is not related to the spin-off from Greystone Inn was one of the better comics. Taco: the Comic started off slow, but trust me, get to the world ending flood of Taco's, and you'll be glad you did so.

The best comic by far though, and I mean, it really was the best comic, was Ramnesis's Jailhouse Blues. The jokes were original, the plot-line was ludicrous, and the sense of meta-humor through the whole comic just worked. I'd be hard-pressed to name any other web-comic that I looked forward to updating as much as I did Jailhouse Blues.

Then Ramnesis just... disappeared. Nobody on the Bob and George forums knew what happened to him, or if they did, they weren't saying. What was worse for readers like me is that Ramnesis was in the middle of a story-arc that had just exited an extensive psychotic dream scenario and had gotten back to the main story arc against a... well... transforming, regenerating reploid that has gone maverick. Players of any Megaman X game are probably blinking and praying they didn't read that right.

Does Jailhouse Blues stack up as one of the best written webcomics now?

Oh no. Howard Taylor's Schlock Mercenary has come a long way in it's story quality since the days when Jailhouse Blues was updating. There's also comics like Girl Genius and Erfworld being updated these days, and they set a pretty high bar for writing quality.

That being said, the lack of an ending for Jailhouse Blues has always bugged me. I keep wondering what happened to Ramnesis anyways? When other webcomics have ended, many without really resolving plotlines, I basically haven't cared. I doubt there's any that I'd be searching for 3 or 4 years later wondering if the author ever got around to writing a proper ending.

Jailhouse Blues? Well, it was good enough back then to keep me hoping that somewhere Ramnesis will pop back-up and at least finish the story.

Blogger's Font Controls and HTML Generation

2010-08-04T17:12:00.001-07:00

Not exactly the post I started with... but while putting together a new guide I got fed up with Google's new in-Blogger picture loading system. Quite simply, the newly exposed in-Blogger composer is not ready for any kind of usage. After filing a bug report in the Blogger help section for stuff that's broken I decided to take on the in-Blogger font controls as well. Since I've been on Blogger I've never really said much about the behind the scenes controls exposed for fonts in the content generator. I've often accepted that Blogger is a relatively free-of-financial cost product that is made available as it leverages Google's core competency: Advertising Distribution through Search.

Google's continued development of Blogger, as well as it's exposure as a tool for Commercially Oriented Blogs, finally warranted something being said on the said state of the internal font controls as they are applied to user generated content. The font controls of the old blogger interface were pathetic at best. Let me demonstrate with a picture of the old in-Blogger composer as accessed through Firefox.

Here I've typed out 3 lines of text. Now I am going to apply a single Font change to these 3 lines:

Now I'm going to access the Edit Html tab at the top of the composer:

Each line of text has been given it's own separate span tag. Now I'm going to go back to the Compose tab and select Font Size.

With my font size set as small, I'm now going to click back on the Edit Html tab:

My entire file size has exploded. I checked in Open Office. There are 339 characters in this HTML generation. The original text only had 92 different characters. Blogger's composing system added 247 new characters, more than tripling the raw text. I now have 5 different sets of commands to set the font size to 85% and 3 different commands to set the font itself to Courier.

The actual amount of HTML code needed to generate the text I want is signifcantly smaller:

As can be seen, with just a total of 149 characters I have the same exact text formatting output.

So that's the old Composer. One would think that Google's new Composer system would fix some of this ludicrous over-use of HTML tags.

The short answer is that no, the new composer actually makes the HTML generation even WORSE than before. The browser that you use will also influence just how many redunant HTML commands are included in the Blogger HTML generation. So here we have the Blogger composer under Google-Chrome using the older editing interface.

Our Text here uses 62 characters. The Blogger HTML generator uses significantly more characters:

No, that is not your eyes decieving you. That is 1,097 characters. More than 1,000 characters have been added to the document source just to describe the formatting on 4 lines comprised of 62 characters.

Is the new Composer system any better? Well, here's the plain text in the new Composer Interface:

Again, this is just 4 lines of text with just 62 characters set to Font Courier with a size of small. This is the HTML generation in the new Composer:

Believe it or not, the amount of HTML has actually gone up, with a total character count of 1168characters. The new Composer system adds 71 new characters. The entire system is OUT OF CONTROL.

Now, I realize that all of the pictures shown thus far deal with converting existing text into the text format I want to use. Is the system really this bad when I am just generating text as a new input? To find out I'm going to use Seamonkey's Composer system to generate the html, and then do the same generation in Google's online system.

With Seamonkey I was able to specify the font type of Courier and font size of small before I actually entered the text:

This is the HTML Source that Seamonkey Compozer generated from 63 characters:

As can be seen, Seamonkey Compozer took 297 characters to fully describe the text, the line breaks, the page, and the pertinent meta data to describe the text as a standalone HTML page. Of this, only 162 characters were used to actuallydescribe the text itself, including the line breaks. Of those 162 characters, 134 characters are used to describe the text without the line breaks.

Of the actual HTML commands, Seamonkey Composer correctly used only two commands to dictate the text formatting. One 'small' command to dictate relative font size, and one font-change command. The result is a relatively efficient use of HTML.

Now, for the comparison, here's how Google Chrome does with Google Blogger. There is another bug with the new content generation system here alone. I can not dictate a font size and type of font before I start entering text. I have to actually enter some text first, then I can specify the size of the font and the type of the font.

As can be seen, I have not typed out the full 4 line character test from before. Rather I can going to make a single carriage return and type a single letter:

With only 13 characters in the edit box, this is what my HTML generation looks like:

Google Blogger has used 497 characters to describe just 13 characters.

Again, I realize that by and large Google's Blogger system is a free-of-financial-cost tool. Google does expose it as a professional option which has been used by CEO's like Rahool Sood of VoodooPC. The old http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/ still directs to http://www.rahulsood.com/, which at first glance still seems to be using the Google Blogger interface. Google also appearently utilizes the content generation Engine in some of it's Premier Business edition tools.

By the same token, Mozilla Seamonkey Compozer is also free-of-financial-cost. Yet the HTML generation of the two software systems is dramatically different. Google's Blogger Compozer is a bloated wreck of an application that adds browser-context-sensative html code.

On a small scale viewpoint the massive train-wreck that is Google's Blogger HTML generation isn't that big of an issue. Internet Speeds are increasing on an across the board basis, and Microsoft has finally figured out that upholding Industry Standards in it's browser might stop the flood of users to competing browsers. What's the big deal if Google Blogger generates a massive amount of redundant and useless HTML code?

The problem is the scale of Google itself. Google hastens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not potentially millions of active users worldwide. Google goes to great lengths to design datacenters to hold and sort through information. Google goes through a great deal of engineering work to cool these data-centers off and exhaust the massive amount of heat that can be generated.

Okay, fine, one person turning 64 characters of text into over One Thousand Characters of Text is not really a bad thing. 10,000 users turning 64 characters into over One Thousand Characters IS A BAD THING. 100,000users is even worse than that. 1,000,000 uses would generate over 1,000,000,000 characters of text for 64,000,000 characters. This now goes from the realm of small potatoes into that's actually a large amount of bandwidth through the network and storage space on the hard-drives.

Google's formatting system for Blogger NEEDS TO BE FIXED. Getting a handle on HTML formatting and fixing the underlying formatting controls would have a direct and immediate effect on operating network bandwidth, processing time, and file-size storage. I mean, I really would have thought then that an upgrade to Blogger's content generation would have focused on streamlining the HTML generation processor. Instead, the system has gotten even more bloated and more ludicrous in the generation of HTML.

This type of generation is something I would expect from a MICROSOFT PRODUCT.

Nvidia beta's OpenGL 4.1

2010-07-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/opengl_driver.html

Nvidia has pushed an OpenGL 4.1 driver out the door for testing. Granted I'm unable to actually test this I don't have any Fermi based cards on hand

Now, I'll admit that I'm not exactly Nvidia's biggest fan. I consider the GTX 470 to be overpriced, too hot, and too power hungry. I'm not even sure the 850 watt power supplies I picked up some time ago could handle 3 470's in Triple SLI. I have an even lower opinion of the GTX 480. Yes, the GTX 480 is more powerful than a stock RadeonHD 5870, but if you check the links that I'm putting in here, it's not near as makes no difference $100 more powerful.

Anyways, since I don't have a Fermi card on hand to test with, I can't really give any feedback on how well this driver works. For this then, I'll just have to rely on readers who bought Fermi cards to download and test the driver.

Biting the Bullet: Help

2010-07-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of years that I've been writing this blog, I've been reluctant to well, talk about myself. Of course, this meant disappearing for months at a time with only a trickle of posts, then a flood of posts, then another disappearance, and so on. I've also mentioned my dislike of taking donations, instead pointing readers to other sources who needed it more.

Well, now I'm having to bite a bullet here and actually ask for help.

Short version is, I'm not exactly healthy. I wrote about one of my major problems back on live journal several years back, where I was determined by the Augusta Neuroscience Doctors to have a pinched nerve, one they couldn't locate, and one Blue Cross / Blue Shield wasn't willing to continue to fund treatment for. The basic problems of the pinched nerve is that my legs will cramp up, and my muscles can quite literally rip themselves apart. Other symptoms include prolonged work leading to my legs locking up and my knees turning purple. I don't like to talk about this because I'd rather not admit that I'm injured, or go through the hassle of filing for a disability since I'm not really disabled... as I see it.

The second major problem, well, I think I've mentioned here, is my blood pressure, which has normally been high. Earlier this year I came down with an illness, and was thrown into the hospital for intense dehydration and a blood pressure systolic reading of 80. Which caused a couple of double-takes from nurses, at least one "you should be unconscious" statement, and more than a few "you walked to your hospital bed?" questions.

Also, over the past couple of months, my bad legs and back and have, well, come back to haunt me, causing their own pain and driving a bad case of insomnia. So, I've been on and off stuff like Fioricet, Ultram, Mobic, Flexeril, Naprosyn, and Ambien.

Which brings me to the problem of... now. Since I was dismissed from AC, I haven't been able to find another job local to me within the realm of tech support or computer repair, outside of a part-time job as a family systems administrator. Immediately, this means I have a still looming hospital bill that I can't pay.

Which means I am now at the point of, well, needing help.

I really wanted to have something more to show for this post, which is why I kept putting it off. My, direct intent, had been to work on getting a proper book published, and to that end I've been putting some of my old Callaer stories together. I've uploaded the progress that I've made on piecing these stories together to Google Docs:

Forward
Part 1: Origins
Part 2: Exit
Part 3: Roxanne

From this point though, I don't know where to start with to get a publishing deal. The last time I had anything published in a proper book (mostly poetry), my English teachers took care of all the details.

My, immediate plan of action then, is to finish editing the first few parts I have now and create an Ebook on Lulu. I had wanted to have an Ebook ready for purchase, but the more I put off making this post, the more difficult it is going to be for me to make this post.

I am also, at this point, willing to do something I haven't been willing to do in the past, which is move. I haven't been wanting to leave the Augusta area largely because of my health issues. There is a certain amount of comfort being in a hospital town, and with doctors being somewhat familiar with my medical background.

I think that's really all I have to say for now... I'll try to get back to posting opinion pieces on tech and finishing up several game reviews I've had on the table.

Meanwhile, I can hope that a game studio decides they need another writer or somebody to handle tech support... maybe I should go poke Valve.

More bad news for Nvidia: Sony Viao Recalls

2010-06-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/sony-recall-535000-vaio-laptops-as-heat-distorts-shape-burns-skin-20100630/

I really don't have much more to say on this subject.

Gamenikki.com Domain

2010-06-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Might as well go ahead and address this. The content from Gamenikki.com can currently be found at www.gamenikkiinexile.com

It's a long and ugly story, and I think the shortest way I can explain the situation is that somebody at the hosting provider decided to stop answering the telephone.

Of course, this means that jason at gamenikki dot com is out of commission. I can be reached at jason dot frothingham at gmail dot com, or mepisguides at gmail dot com.

CoH: Tracking Combat numbers

2010-06-18T17:08:00.000-07:00

One of the questions I get asked on a regular basis is how I get a separate window to track combat statistics in City of Heroes, as shown with my ice tank here:

To get this pop-up, simply open up Combat Attributes from the Power Tray

Here we have our list of the avatar's vital stats.

As can be seen, I typically monitor my Ice Tank's Smashing / Lethal Defense, Recovery Rate, and Endurance consumption.

If you Right Click on a combat stat in the main power window, there's a pop-up with an option to Monitor Attribute.

So, if I Right Click on Energy Defense and Left Click on Monitor Energy Defense..

Energy Defense is added to the combat tracking window.

Basically, you can monitor all of the vital stats of an avatar.

Have fun keeping track of your character.

CoH: Willpower / Stone Melee Tank

2010-05-30T11:15:00.001-07:00

Jordan Yen, of Jordon's Town, has been bugging me to join in his ongoing contest with new player guide(s). So, here's a another, not so new character build, and to date, probably one of the cheapest ones to actually make. It's a Willpower / Stone Melee tank, made largely because I saw somebody with a WP/Stone tank a MoSTF.

The Major Issues

Saying that Willpower has issues is a bit misleading. The set is honestly one of the better balanced sets for survivability. There's really no "what the blazes were you thinking" power or "that's an auto-skip power" to be had in the set. Willpower is a good solid set for those who have never played C.o.H. before, and an excellent choice for veterans as well.

That being said, there are some things that Willpower players probably should know.

Willpower is pretty much about the regeneration rate, so anything that boosts regeneration and the HP cap is a good thing.
There's no native resistance to slows. Which means that every single enemy critter with a slow attack is going to slow down a WP with no problem.
The native taunt aura is weak. All other Tank Taunt aura's taunt for 400%, Willpower's aura only taunts for 300%.
The native taunt also can't build against Gauntlet as it has no damage component.

Stone Melee is also a good set, providing players know what they are getting.

Like Energy Melee, Stone Melee is weak on the AOE damage.
Stone Melee is also an incredible endurance hog.

Because of these factors, Willpower / Stone both works well together, and doesn't work well together. The lack of a strong AOE component, or a taunt that builds against Gauntlet means that Aggro Tanks will have to work really hard to hold aggro on AOE heavy teams.

However, Willpower's high recovery potential means it can support sustained use of Stone Melee's hardest hitting powers.

Overall Power Selection and Design

The Willpower set itself is an Asynchronous Mixed Resist / Defense / Regeneration set. What this means is that the set has native resists, native defenses, and native regenerations, but the resists and the defenses generally don't stack for the same damage type. This gives Willpower a wider range of power types compared to other tank sets, and is one of the reasons. Technically, each power type is weaker when directly compared to another power sets power with the same effect. In the case of Willpower though, it's the entire package that makes the set, not a single solitary power.

I approached the Willpower slot design with 3 primary goals in mind:

Boost HP Cap
Boost Regeneration
Boost Recharge Rate

As can be seen, my love of frankenslotting continues. Now I feel sure that somebody is going to come along and say that I missed an opportunity to make this build .001% better by switching out some of the crafted level 50 IO's for an IO set.

I don't particullary care, and I'll explain why at the end of the post.

Now, the most expensive part of this build is the procs. Again, I knew on paper going into this build that there was no protection against slows. The proc's really are not required to make a Willpower Build shine. Now, procs can make a good willpower set great, but if you just want something to cut your teeth on, this build is a bit overkill.

The Build: Primary Powers

Now into the powers and the slots.

Mind over Body: Mind over Body is the primary resistance for Smashing, Lethal, and Psionic Damage.

Compared to the Dark Armor set that I just looked at, the outright resist values are indeed lower. As we'll so though shortly, this isn't really an apples to apples comparison.

For the slotting, I went mostly with a 3 slot Titanium Coating for the health boost, and an Aegis Resist / Endurance IO to lesson endurance usage and increase resists.

Fast Healing: The primary native regeneration power.

The power is slammed far into ED with 3 level 50 crafted Heal IO's.

The proc in use is the Regenerative Tissue: Regeneration proc.

Indomitable Will: The primary anti-mez power for Willpower, IW also offers a Psionic Defense Bonus.

Leveraging this Defense Status are both a LoTG 7.5 recharge proc

And a GoTA: Run proc.

Rise to the Challenge: The Willpower's taunt aura.

Rise to the Challenge also increases the player's regeneration rate while fighting mobs, while decreasing a mob's to-hit rating. The To-Hit debuff combo's well with Defense sets, as a lower to-hit is the equivelent of a higher defense rating.

Here though, for Willpower, I focused more on the healing aspect, maximixing the healing aspect while in a mob situation, and edging off the endurance usage.

A Doctored Wounds End / Heal provides the extra heals and endurance reduction ontop of the 3 slotted Numina's Convelesence.

Quick Recovery: Willpower offers a native recovery bonus.

Here a level 50 crafted IO backs up a double slot Performance Shifter with chance for endurance.

Heightened Senses: The primary defensive power of the Willpower set.

While Mind over Body provides a strong resistance to Smashing, Lethal, and Psionic damage, Heightened Senses only provides for minor Smashing and Lethal damage defense with no protection against Psionic Damage.

Rather, Heightened Senses provides a strong defense against the other damage types, Cold, Fire, Energy, Negative Energy.

Heightened Senses, as a defense power, shares the same IO's as Indomitable Will.

High Pain Tolerance: This power simply offers resistance to all damage types, and raises the players maximum HP. No fancy IO sets here, just straight level 50 crafted IO's to maximize the dual nature of this power.

Strength of Will: The tier 9, I'm in trouble power for the Willpower set.

Like High Pain Tolerance, it's IO potential is limited, since the only enhancements it can accept are Resist Damage and Reduce Endurance Consumption. However, since it's Endurance usage is only 2.60 End, this really isn't a barrier to usage.

Still, it was a good place to slot a Steadfast Protection: resist / defense proc.

The Build: Secondary Powers

With the primary powers done, now onto the attacks:

Stone Fist: Reasonable Damage, Reasonable endurance usage.

Stone Mallet: Another melee attack, same slotting with Crushing Impact.

Heavy Mallet: Another Melee attack, and more Crushing Impact.

Taunt: I know I keep saying this over and over. Tanks need taunt.

Perfect Zinger is leveraged for it's 5% recharge boost, incidentally capping the 5% recharge buffs.

Fault: Originally I was not going to take this power, and for the longest time ran without it.

However, one of my friends also has a Willpower / Stone tank, and his internet service died one night while he was prime-tanking an ITF. He called me to login in and finish the TF out. I found, strangely, that fault helped shore up the poor aggro control.

I also figured out that I hated the power because every tank whose taken this before probably slotted it for knockback instead of stun.

Tremor: The only PBAOE power Stone Melee gets.

Scirocco's Dervish is pretty much the only good PBAOE damage set for a power that's used on a repetitive basis.

Seismic Smash: Also known as kiss your endurance good bye.

Even with a near 70% decrease in endurnace consumption from Crushing Impact, this attack still wipes out 1/10 of an average endurance bar

Hurl: Stone Melee is one of the few tank attacks with a ranged component.

Devestation: useful for the damage and max HP bonus.

Pool Powers

Combat Jumping: I knew early on that I wanted another base for Luck of the Gambler proc, and since only the jump and fly sets offer this slotting, I went with Combat Jumping.

As mentioned, Combat jumping is just a proc mule.

Super Jump: not much to type here really.

Winter's Gift was chosen as it's unique proc helps shore up Willpower's lack of any native resistance to slows.

Health: Proc Mule.

Hosting Numina's unique, and a 3 slot on the numina set for the HP boost.

Stamina: same slotting as Quick Recovery

Boxing. As normal, a single stun.

Tough: not much to write here. Same slotting as Mind over Body.

Weave: Same slotting as the other defensive powers.

Power Performance

Okay, here we go with the analysis of what this slotting does.

44

Now, on these initial numbers, you might notice that they aren't actually that far off of the numbers from the heavily IO'd Dark Tank I just showed. Both have near 70% resistance to Smashing / Lethal damage. The Dark tank as better esoteric resists, the Willpower tank has better esoteric defenses.

There are differences though.

The Dark tank has a maximum HP of 2550, and that's after the inclusion of all of the available Accolades to boost Hit points.

The Willpower tank has a current maximum HP of 2816 and is missing two HP boosting accolades. Those accolades will give 93.70 hp and 187.41 hp respectively, bringing the Willpower's tank maximum health up to around 3097.

The Dark Tank has a regeneration rate of 23.92 HP per second.

The Willpower Tank has an out of combat regeneration rate of 53.36... and in combat sustained regeneration of... 134 hp/sec.

Then there's the small matter of Strength of Will. Activate it...

In Strength of Will, smashing / lethal resistance is hard-capped, resistances to everything else increase, and endurance recovery goes up. Even on SO's, Strength of Will will be touching hard-cap smash / lethal numbers.

There's also the matter of Defense Debuff Resistance, something I found difficult to take pictures of. Basically put, when something attacks a Willpower tank with a power that removes Defense, not as much defense is removed in each attack.

The Dark armor set gets no such benefit, so any attack that takes aware defense... takes away the maximum amount of defense.

***

Now, as I said earlier, I know this build is not as tightly optimized as the Dark Tank / Energy Melee build. It doesn't need to be. This tank is Master of capable and has prime-tanked all of the Master of capable task forces.

Now, once I get the last couple of HP buff accolades, I'll be within a hundred points or so of the HP cap.

When writing this guide (and why it's going up now and I'm still finishing it out), is I've been playing around with a build that works on increasing the HP cap by sacrificing some of the end-recovery capability.

I figure my HP cap bonus's as follows:

1.5% : 1, 2
1.88%: 1, 2, 3
1.13%: 1, 2, 3, 4
2.25%: 1

Swapping out the level 50 crafted Endurance IO's for a performance shifter endurance / something would put me at the 1.88% cap, and in theory, a Miracle proc placed on Fast Healing would make up the endurance usage.

I'm not entirely sure that's the best way to go though, and I'm not likely to change it for now.

Heidi Montag: knowing Michael Bay

2010-05-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

There's a clip floating around on Youtube featuring Heidi Montag purportedly filming an exhibition / demo tape for Michael Bay. Most of the sites reporting on the news are mocking Heidi Montag, and the Youtube video has garnered quite a few comments towards the effect that the video is pointless and that Heidi Montag is simply embarrassing herself.

Well I think Heidi Montag has a better handle on Michael Bay than most of the commentators on the subject I've seen so far. Now, I don't know if anybody has actually watched a Michael Bay film... If you haven't, I suggest looking up the Armageddon review by Nostalgia Chick, Part 1 and Part 2. I'd also look at the Michael Bay Victory Secret's Commercial.

This is a movie maker who focus's on a few select points in pretty much all his movies:

Big Genitalia
Big Explosions
Big Guns (goes with big explosions)
Bad Acting

From the standpoint of what Michael Bay is known for, about the only way Heidi Montag could have made her clip at the firing range more desirable to Michael Bay would have been to have shot the clip while wearing a bikini... followed by jumping up and down on a trampoline. I'm sorry, but when I think Michael Bay, terms like good acting, good directing, subtlety, and interesting plot points are not what come to mind. Heidi Montag, or her agent, apparently actually have a handle on the concepts that make Michael Bay tick.

Dark Armor / Energy Melee tank

2010-05-23T19:02:00.001-07:00

Jordon Yen, of Jordon's Town, has been bugging me to join in his ongoing contest with a new player guide. So, here's a new character build, and to date, the most expensive one I've made. It's a Dark Armor / Energy Melee tank, made largely to explore the on-paper issues with both sets.

The Major Issues

I've written about Dark Armor before and what I see as the problems with the set. On the surface the set has low resists and aura's that prevent effective tanking. As I played the set, I found there was another issues, endurance consumption. To put this in perspective, an Ice Armor Tank and a Stone Armor tank can stack the following powers:

.26 e/s :: Frozen Armor
.26 e/s :: Chilling Embrace
.26 e/s :: Wet Ice
.52 e/s :: Icicles
.26 e/s :: Glacial Armor
1.56 end / sec :: Total

.26 e/s :: Rock Armor
.78 e/s :: Mud Pots
.21 e/s :: Rooted
.26 e/s :: Brimstone Armor
.26 e/s :: Crystal Armor
.26 e/s :: Minerals
2.03 end / sec :: Total

Now, Ice gets two Endurance Recovery powers, Energy Absorbtion and Hibernate. Stone Armor gets granite, which produces the following base stackables at high levels.

.26 e/s :: Granite
.78 e/s :: Mud Pots
.21 e/s :: Rooted
1.25 end / sec :: Total

Dark by comparison, with all stackable armors

.52 e/s :: Death Shroud
.21 e/s :: Dark Embrace
.21 e/s :: Murky Cloud
.21 e/s :: Obsidian Shield
.26 e/s :: Cloak of Darkness
.08 e/s :: Oppressive Gloom
1.49 end / sec :: Total

52 e/s :: Cloak of Fear
2.01 end / sec :: Total

Without Cloak of Fear, Dark Armor is nipping right on the heels of Ice's endurance consumption. With Cloak of Fear on, Dark Armor nips right at Stone Armor's heels. This is a set that can't hard-cap resistances, can't soft-cap defenses, has no native endurance recovery, and no native regeneration boosts. Now, Energy Melee is something I haven't addressed before, mostly because I don't really see a problem with the set. One of the factors of CoH development is that all power-set balances are based off of Single Origin enhancements, and on SO's, Energy Melee is one of the best single target damage producers in the game. Still, the CoH forums are filled with players with battle axes to grind on the subject of changes to the Energy Melee set. Terms like nerfed, useless, and pointless, are often used by multiple players. As a tanking set, I'm not really going to argue with some points. Energy Melee's lack of AOE punch simply means tanks need to work their taunt to hold aggro in mob combat.

Overall Power Selection and Design

So, now for the powers I wound up taking. As a note, this character is still incomplete, it's only level 48. However, I already have the enhancements for the final power, so I can tell you what's going to happen with the build.

As I said, this is my most expensive character build to date. Early on my design goal had been to maximise the recharge and make Conserve Power permanent. However, when I actually checked the numbers on Conserve Power, at the recharge cap of 500%, there would still be a down time of 30 seconds between the power's recharges... and as I found out on my Controller Builds, increasing the recharge rate without equally increasing the endurance recovery rate was not a good thing for a sustained combat build. Thus, approaching the practical recharge rate cap was actually going to make endurance consumption problems worse, rather than better.

There was also the additional problem that I needed to spend slots on knockback procs as the Dark Armor lacks any native knockback protection. I also knew from experience that I'd need the Numina and Miracle procs to help offset the load from the Tough and Weave pool powers. With the recharge rate strategy out of the question, and with Physical Perfection looking like a requirement, I went back to the drawing board to rework power choices. I started focusing on sets that offered Endurance Capacity boosts, as boosting the total endurance would also boost endurance recovery. Eventually as I figured that my average Melee attack slot budget was going to be about 4 slots, rather than the 5 slots I had allocated for the Crushing Impact set. So, late in the life of the build, I started looking through power-sets and slots coming up with a new design goal. Of the Melee Damage IO slots, only 3 had buffs I'd actually be interested in for my tank in the pump 4 slot; Crushing Impact with it's accuracy boost; Mako's Bite with it's damage boost, and Kinetic Combat with it's defense boost. The sheer costs of using Kinetic Combat were an instant turn off:

The set doesn't drop above level 35, so it was rare and hard to come across.
The drop level also meant that the effective power range meant lower damage, higher endurance consumption, higher recharge times, and lower accuracy.
The set costs a ton of influence on the market, with recipies commanding 80,000,000+ inf price-points. I'd need 20 IO's, with 4 recipes per melee power, which means that buy them on the market, I'd be looking at over 1,600,000,000 in influence... presuming I was able to win those builds.

As I rose in level though, the problems with Dark Armor became... insurmountable. As a tank set, the usual strategies and franken slotting weren't working. On SO's and affordable IO sets, Dark Armor sucks. Plain and simple. Now, I'll go into some changes that I think need to be made to Dark Armor to bring it up to par with Fire Armor towards the end of this guide.

Yes. I just said what you think I said. For tanks, Dark Armor is worse than Fire Aura.

Anyways, once I had resigned myself to needing Kinetic Combat to just survive, I started setting aside merits for the recipies and worked out the slots to try and push a softcap to smashing / lethal defense. The following build is the result.

The Build: Primary Powers

Death Shroud: Death Shroud is the primary taunt aura, and a huge end drain.

The slotting choice paired a 4 set Eradication for it's maximum endurance boost and maximum health boost with a Scirocco Dervish:Damage / Endurance to try and help take the edge off the end drain and boost damage up.

Dark Embrace: Dark Embrace is the primary smashing / lethal resist power for Dark Armor.

I went with the 3 slot Impervium Armor for it's recovery boost and not the 4 boost for increased endurance as....

I needed the fourth slot for the Steadfast resist / def boost, which helped put the build into softcap.

Dark Regeneration: The Dark Armor's party peice. Just two enemies can completely refill a Dark Tank's HP, at a 1000 plus Hit Point heal on a non-ED pressing 92% boost.

The bad news is the endurance consumption. The Accurate Heal sets are low on endurnace IO's, and Dark Regeneration requires a too-hit check. Ergo, the power chomps out nearly 25 endurnace, just about a forth of a players average endurance.

I went with Touch of the Nictus over Theft of Esscence mostly for the higher Maximum Endurance buff.

Obsidian Shield: One of the reasons why you would want a Dark Armor. Obsidian shield offers extremely high resistance to Psionic Damage.

I went with a 4 set of Impervium Armor here for a couple of reasons. First, to get the Psionic Resistance far into ED. Second, for themaxium endurance boost. This meant having to go without another knockback IO, so there are some critters that can knock this particular tank around.

Murky Cloud: The Anti-Mez. Slotted like Dark Embrace...

Only with a Knockback proc.

Cloak of Darkness: One of the powers that wasn't really thought out that well for tanks. Without an additional stealth, such as an IO or Super Speed, Cloak of Darkness's hide bonus isn't enough to not be seen by enemies. As will be shown with the next power, while it's not enough to prevent aggro, it is enough to interefere with aggro.

It is useful as a platform for Luck of the Gambler, and it's defense footing became important later on.

Oppressive Gloom: Another power that just was not thought through went brought to tanks. Okay, I'll get the obvious issue out of the way. The trade-off of health for stunis not an issue. That isn't the problem.

Lets go ahead and get the slotting out of the way. I did go with a 5 slot Razzle Dazzle for the Defense boost.

Here's the problem: The Status Aura's Prevent Tanks from Holding Aggro. Here's my tank fighting a mob of carnies. Note how the carnies are bunched around the tank in a close group. Every one of them is in melee range and the team can utilize their AOE powers to maximum effect.

Stun Off

Now watch what happens as I turn stun on:

Stun On

Here we can see that the carnies are stunned. They start trying to GET AWAY FROM THE TANK.

This is why Oppressive Gloomand Cloak of Fear, which I did not take for this build, ARE ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE FOR TANKS.

Yes, with either power personal survivability increases. An enemy that is not attacking is as good as an enemy that isn't there. However, this now means that with the survivability factor turned up, my tank now has to CHASE DOWN runners. If my tank is keeping a troublesome Archvillain, Ebby, Monster, or other critter in place, a stunned or feared enemy critter will simply leave the area. Once out of melee range, what happens when the critter recovers? They do a perception check. If your tank is running Cloak of Darkness, it's entirely probable that a stunned enemy that wandered off will promptly start firing on your teammates. Then there's the additional problem that both of the status auras are All-Or-Nothing powers. Either the enemy is mezzed, or they aren't. So while I can knock even-con Carnies out of the running pretty easily, Nemesis, Rikti, Devouring Earth, Cimerorans, Malta, and higher con-enemies... not so much. Thing is, these powers are Great on Scrappers. A scrapper doesn't care if an enemy critter wanders the other way, or if a wandered off critter recovers and chooses to pick on the squishy defender, blaster, or controller. I'm not even sure the status aura's are such a bad idea on Brutes. On a tank, it's just bad.

The Build: Secondary Powers
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Okay, to rehash from before, Energy Melee is heavy on the single target damage. For Purposes of leveling guide, there's also a pool power in here.

Barrage: the basic 1-2 punch of the EM set.

Kinetic Combat. To reiterate, getting these sets took several months of work. However, no other damage set offers the defense or max health bonus's.

Bone Smasher: Not much to write about. Another melee attack with Kinetic Combat. Did I mention the ludicrous amount of effort that went into getting these sets?

Boxing: As mentioned in the design section, I went through several different possible builds trying to fit in the powers I needed to handle the sheer endurance drain of the Dark Armor set. In most builds I simply toss a stun boost on Boxing and leave it alone. For this build, after looking at the numbers, I decided the best power to drop was Energy Punch.

While Energy Punch's DPA @ 50 was better than Boxing; 53.60dpa vs. 31.60dpa, the Damage Per Cast Cycle was in Boxing's Favor; 9.47dpcc versus 9.21dpcc. This freed up a power letting me take Physical Perfection later on, and Boxing was taken early in the respec chain.

Whirling Hands: The only PbAOE the EM set gets.

As with Death Shroud, a Scirocco Dervish damage-endurance IO takes the ting off the low levels of the Eradication Set.

Taunt: Every tank needs this. Period. If you ever run into a tank that says they can tank without taunt, laugh. Loudly.

Perfect Zinger was chosen for the defense buffs. It's +psidamage proc is fun to use as well.

Stun: One of the reasons EM combines well with dark is that the stuns can stack.

As with Oppressive Gloom, theRazzle Dazzle set is leveraged for it's defensive Boost.

Energy Transfer: The party peice of the EM set. Energy transferoffers an extremly high damage count for a bit of health. Worth it.

Total Focus: the tier 9 attack power. Massive damage.

The Energy Melee Power Controversy:

To be fair, I do need to address thatthere is a bit of controversy over the last two powers; Energy Transfer and Total Focus. The animation on Energy Transfer used to be much shorter, and requests to un-nerf the power are frequent on the City of Heroes forums, as a thread from this month indicates. Total Focus also animates like a PbAOE attack. Many players feel that the damage output does not match the animation times, and to be fair, there is a fair bit of point on this matter. In the case of Total Focus, it's a tier 9 Single Target attack. Here's how it's Damage per Activation / Damage per Cast Cycle stacks up against the other Tier 9 single target attacks @ level on tanks:

Greater Fire Sword: 56.86 / 9.24
Seismic Smash: 105.59 / 7.37
Total Focus: 47.99 / 6.80

So, compared to it's revivals, it actually is weaker. The same cannot be said for Energy Transfer:

Incinerate: 66.60 / 9.53
Greater Ice Sword: 37.42 / 7.07
Energy Transfer: 138.46 / 16.31

Which, brings me to something a lot of players don't understand. Sets are balanced against what the entire set does, not what other sets do. In some aspects Energy Melee is weaker than other melee sets with weaker average attacks, and a lack of an AOE punch. As an entire set on Tanks, I'm not entirely convinced that Energy Melee is out of line for what it is described to do.

The Pool Powers

Now we get to the edging powers, and for this build, also known as proc city.

Combat Jumping: I took combat jumping to help stack up the defense. It's a minor amount, but every bit helps this build. I also used it as a proc point.

Knockback IO: Another 4 points of Knockback protection

Luck of the Gambler 7.5: I didn't entirely give up on increasing the recharge rate.

Kismet Accuracy: This power should actually be named Kismet: To Hit buff. One of the issues with this particular build is that there's a lack of decent accuracy boosts, and against con-higher enemies, missing with attacks gets to be a bit of a pain. As dark doesn't have a passive defense power, I wound up putting the buff on Combat Jumping and when I need to renew it, just swap back and forth between CJ and Super Jump.

Super Jump: if this was an SO build, this would be the path taken to get acrobatics. Since I wanted a anther Def buff slot to host a LoTG 7.5, it was either jump or fly... and fly's a little slow for a tank.

Blessing of the Zephyr: taken mostly for the extra knockback protection.

Swift: how do you make swift sound interesting?

Health: More expensive procs.

Miracle set: I wound up 3 slotting with the Miracle set for the health boost and IO recovery boost.

Numina Proc: Strange that this and the LoTG 7.5's are not the most expensive IO's in the build...

Stamina: I ran out of slots, or this would have 3 crafted level 50 IO's.

Conserve Power: Takes forever to come back, but if I have to lay on the self-heal power, it's still very much needed.

Physical Perfection: A newer pool power, this boosts Regeneration and Recovery at half the rate of health and stamina. Slotted for Endurance Recovery.

Tough: given the sheer end-drain this build pulls down, Tough and Weave would be the final powers taken after Physical Perfection.

4 slotted with Impervium Armorto push resists into ED and gain another max endurance boost.

Weave: not pictured.

Weave is the reason there arefour more LoTG IO's sitting at the bottom of the enhancement screen. So, yes, this build will get another 7.85% defense, 7.5% recharge,1.13% hp cap boost, 10% regeneration boost, and an accuracy boost.

Power Performance

So, there's the slotting, now here's how it looks with Accolades. Due to a bug in the power source display*, I turned them off to just show the base stats.

And now, for the payoff:

With 38.05% defense to Smashing / Lethal, the additional 7.85% from Weave will place total Smash / Lethal defense at around 45.9%... over softcap. Melee defense will approach 37%. In practice, as is, the existing defense tends to hold up well enough in average combat.*For those interested in knowing what that bug is, the power sources flicker on and off, shifting the list up and down, making it difficult to read.

***

Fixing the Dark Armor Set

As indicated at the start of the build guide, I do have some furtherrefinements to the idea to fix the Dark Armor power set against SO's.When I originally advocated changes I looked mostly at changing or removing the status effects that didn't fit with the tanking objectives, and increasing effective defense. I expressed somereservations about the suggested changes as they might not fit within the cottage rules, and thus not be considered. To reiterate the issues,as I have played them:

Extreme Endurance cost does not match defensive performance ofthe set
Native Mez Powers interfere with ability to hold aggro
Resists are low
No way to maintain moderate levels of defense

Extreme Endurance Usage and Low Resists

Dark Regeneration Modification:Energy Absorbtion / Heat Loss / Eclipse hybrid

Lets deal with the endurance question first. One of the other Extreme Endurance Sets is Ice, which getsEnergy Absorbtion. Each affected enemy returns 15 endurance points base, and when capped into ED, an Ice tank recover around 30 endurance per enemy. Energy Absorbtion also boosts Defense. A fully saturated unslotted EA swipe will give around 5%~8% defense. The conceptual idea then is this:

Implement EA as a Dark Miasma Resist

Part of the work has already been done. The WarShade Epic Hero Archtype gets a power called Eclipse which already does a stacking Resist bonus based on enemies. For the Dark tank, scale that back to something like 1.2% resistance non-buffable for 10 targets max. the Result is that in Mob Combat Dark Tanks will be able to press 80% resistance to smashing / lethal and be within slotting distance of hard-cap Psionic resistance. Now, since we don't want a straight rip off of EA, convert the straight endurance recovery into an average 2.5% per target, max 10 target, recovery rate bonus. The conceptual idea is this:

Activating Dark Regeneration gives the player 50% of base Secondary Speed Boost recovery, or 25% recovery rate

If the player chooses to slot recovery IO's over health IO's, they'll be able to produce a recovery effect equivelent to getting hit by an unslotted speed boost. Now, while i would prefer that the actual heal component on Dark Regeneration be unchanged since this is supposed to be about bringing Dark Armor into parity with the realistic play performance of other tanking power sets, adding in a resistance bonus and a recovery bonus might neccessitate dropping the total heal component.

Anti Status Effect

Counter the counter-intuitive Mez Effect Powers: Combine Mud Pots and Death Shroud.

A potential solution to the enemies that wander off when stunned or feared could be found in the Stone Armor set. The power Mud Pots contains a 2 magnitude immobilize component. Implement this Immobilize component into Death Shroud on the Dark Armor set. Poof, stunned or feared enemies have a lower chance of walking around and getting lost from the aggro. Considering that just about every other dark set in the game has an immobilize of some sort, the idea certainly fits.

Defense Debuff Resistance

Add a Defense Debuff Resistance Component: Empower Cloak of Darkness

As the Dark armor set is primarily a Resistance based power set, it doesn't get any sort of Defense Debuff Resistance even though it contains a native Defense Power. Adding in a minor Defense Debuff Resistance Component to Cloak of Darkness would help Dark Tanks retain what defense they could naturally obtain.

Mydefrag / Defraggler

2010-05-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

I was asked recently why I tell users of Microsft Windows Operating Systems to use the hard-drive defragging program MyDefrag over Piriform Defraggler. Afterall, I point users to Piriform's CCleaner just as often as I point at MyDefrag.

I addressed the reason somewhat in the guide I wrote a few years back on JkDefrag, which turned into MyDefrag. JkDefrag was released under an Open-Source license. Unfortantly, MyDefrag, is not released under an Open Source License.

However, Piriform's Defraggler doesn't even have a listed license. Wikipedia simply states that the software is licensed as Freeware.

Between the two, I know where I stand on MyDefrag's license. I don't agree with the conversion from an Open-Sourced license to a closed license, but at least I know what that license is, and what it says. I can't say the same about Piriform's Defraggler.

The reason I have no qualms about Piriform's CCleaner is this: As far as I'm aware there are no clearly licensed, open-sourced or otherwise, tools that can replace Microsoft's Disk Cleanup utility. In this light Piriform's lack of a clearly stated license on CCleaner is an overlookable issue.

Mixed news from AMD

2010-05-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

One of the big questions asked that was asked in the City of Heroes forums, and a repeated question at that, is when a price break will be coming for RadeonHD 5x00 series cards.

Well, there may be good news in store for those looking for a graphics card that does DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0 without costing an arm and leg, and replacing the need for a heater in the winter. Well, Scratch that last part.

According to Digitimes, AMD has authorized TMSC to use it's 55 nano-meter tech to produce more 55nm GPU's, easing the burden on the 40nm process used so far.

While this could mean more RadeonHD 5x00 chips hitting the market, the larger die-size will mean that heat and power costs will go up. My guess is that only the simpler graphics cards, such as the RadeonHD 5400, 5500, and 5600 cards will be manufactured at the larger die size, while the 5700 and 5800 series will continue to be manufactured at 40nm, as those are the cards where heat output and power draw really matter.

What the article isn't clear on is whether or not the new 55nm gpu's WILL be 5x00 series, or if they will be 4x00 series chips. The presumption is that if it's a 4x00 series reboot, we'll see RadeonHD 4890 prices drop to $150 or lower. Such a move would spell additional trouble for Nvidia as the RadeonHD 4890 already runs around with the EOL'd GTX 275, 280, and 285. A newer, even faster clocked version of the 4890, say a 4970, would probably be slotting into the $200 mark, with a 4950 slotting in around $150.

The bad news for these scenarios is this: AMD scored several design wins due to Intel's mis-steps in the mobile market. Which means AMD now also needs chipsets.

The additional 55nm RadeonHD gpu's... are being manufactured by the machines that were previously allocated to manufacturing... chipsets.

So. If you were eying a shiny new Socket AM3 Phenom II... and you would be given the "woof woof" sounds coming from Intel's I5.... be forewarned that AMD motherboard prices could go up over the next few months as supplies of the chipsets decrease.

Now, I don't think prices will rise to the point where you'll be paying Intel I5 prices for an equivalent performance AMD processor and motherboard. I do think prices are going to rise up enough to be noticeable.

BFG leaves the graphics card market

2010-05-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/05/18/bfgtech_exits_graphics

BFG Tech Announces Exit From Graphics Card Category, Continues On With Power Supplies And Laptops/PCs

Libertyville, IL – May 17, 2010 – BFG Technologies today announced their exit from the graphics card category. The company will continue to sell their line of BFG Tech power supplies as well as their Deimos gaming notebooks and Phobos gaming systems.

"After eight years of providing innovative, high-quality graphics cards to the market, we regret to say that this category is no longer profitable for us, although we will continue to evaluate it going forward", said John Slevin, chairman of BFG Technologies. "We will continue to provide our award-winning power supplies and gaming systems, and are working on a few new products as well. I’d like to stress that we will continue to provide RMA support for our current graphics card warranty holders, as well as for all of our other products such as power supplies, PCs and notebooks."

BFG will continue to offer RMA, telephone and email support for qualified BFG Tech graphics card warranty holders, but will no longer be bringing new graphics card products to market.

One can almost hear the screams emanating from Nvidia over this. BFG has been one of their most loyal partners, exclusively offering Nvidia's cards from day 1. BFG was also one of only two vendors to produce AGEIA PHYSX add-in cards, and helped to push PhysX as a viable physics solution for game developers.

The line about the graphics card business no longer being profitable is, well, telling. It's been no industry secret that Nvidia's actual graphics chips were horribly expensive to produce, and that Nvidia was having to sell many of their chips at a loss in order for the card vendors to make a profit. Last years loss of XFX to a multi-vendor approach was one of the first signs that things weren't going well for Nvidia.

The list of vendors making Nvidia-hardware only is still rather long. ECS, EVGA, Galaxy, Palit, PNY, Sparkle, and Zotak all still manufacture Nvidia branded graphics cards exclusively. The list isn't exactly encouraging though.

ECS has a longtime reputation as a budget vendor. They tend to make reliable products, and I enjoyed the 755-A2 I had. It was a steller product, offering 90% of the performance of an Nvidia Nforce3 250gb, but at way less than 90% of the cost. Which, really, was the only reason you'd buy something from ECS. You bought from ECS because you could not afford anything better.

Unfortunately for Nvidia, that's also what Palit, Sparkle, Galaxy, and Zotak are all known for. Providing budget cards, at a budget price-point, for the buyer who just can't afford any better. I've gone through a couple of Sparkle graphics cards outfitting older computers for people who wouldn't switch to ATi cards, and... the Sparkle cards are cheap. I've had a Zotak that a client requested, and the build quality was... disgusting. I've gone through a couple of Palits, again because the buyer didn't want an ATi card.

So, of the remaining Nvidia only vendors, it's just EVGA and PNY. PNY is better known for their desktop memory, but they are a good vendor, although I've never actually had hands on with any of the graphics card products. EVGA? Well, my triple-sli system uses EVGA. They are a good brand, good customer service... and one can't help but wonder how far away from offering ATi cards they are after today's announcement from BFG.

With a less than stellar exclusive line-up of graphics cards vendors, and previous exclusive vendors manufacturing cards for the competition, one just has to wonder how big of a financial disaster Fermi is for Nvidia and their board partners. Reading between the lines, it was a disaster big enough to take one of the best out of the game.

A comment on AC

2010-05-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

I feel I should make a statement about my current employment. I am no longer with Adventure Crossing. The terms of the departure were less than amicable, and at this point, some of the activities that lead to the termination might wind up involving various federal agencies.

So I will keep this simple. Any potential employeer is welcome to review the large quantity of emails that lead to the termination, as well as indicate the complete, and in several cases near dangerous to customers, incompetence demonstrated by one of the Adventure Crossing owners and Ex-General Manager. Beyond that, I have no other comments to make at this time other than wishing the actual working staff of Adventure Crossing the best in their future endeavors.

Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg? You need to shut up.

2010-04-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/04/02/microsoft-no-web-browser-on-the-xbox-360/#

“No, we really believe that the web browsing experience on TV is a poor one, and the real magic is to take those web experiences and optimise them for the living room. That’s what we did with Netflix. So, sure, you can go on the PS3 and go to Facebook and and try to navigate, but it’s an absolute nightmare.

No disrespect, there’s things I love about the PS3, but that’s not one of them. We want the online experience to be fun and optimised for the living room, and we’ll continue to add more applications to get more richness.”

Apparently Mr. Greenberg has never looked into his companies own products. Like say... http://www.webtv.com

BFG to sell ATi RadeonHD? HardOCP thinks so

2010-03-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

HardOCP currently has a blurb up on their front page that just says this:

BFG to do ATI Radeon Cards?
The rumor we are hearing today is that BFG is going RED! Totally unconfirmed, but given the history I have heard over the last few years...yes years...this does not sound implausible. I am waiting for a response from BFG's CEO, but none is forthcoming.

Now, while I don't hold a lot of respect for HardOCP's Steve, Kyle is a different story. I can't remember myself ever logging into HardOCP's forums to make a correction on any news post Kyle has posted, and I can't remember the last time Kyle posted something that was a complete rumor. Ergo, if Kyle is posting that BFG is going to produce RadeonHD cards, chances are... it's likely.

Why you should invest in Applications like Cedega

2010-02-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

After I had published the City of Heroes guides I had started passing them around to the companies whose products I had used, notifying Transgaming, NCSoft, and posting on the City of Heroes forums. Another City of Heroes player responded to the effect of, thanks, but the game works under WINE, which is Free. After bashing my head against a brick wall, I tried to communicate to the player why subscribing to Cedega is a better option for the future of City of Heroes on Linux. The fact is, Transgaming uses the same engine in their Cedega and Cider software. Improvements and feedback from both sides of the engine can help Transgaming locate and address problems with their engine, or determine if the problem is with the game or application itself.

Now, last year I published an editorial detailing an approach that would make gaming on Linux viable and profitable to Game Publishers. I used Valve as an example of a company that could use it's influence as a major publisher to address many of the issues that hamper "gaming on Linux" today. The synopsis is that as a publisher, a company like Valve would be responsible for dictating the API's for game development to the developer, as well as providing a static game distribution method. In return, Valve, as a publisher, would handle conflicts on the users end. I used Cedega as a model as Cedega maintains 6 different versions of their Cedega Interface: Debian, Red Hat, Mandriva, Novell Suse, Gentoo / Slackware, and Apple OSX. However, Cedega only maintains one gaming engine. As far as installed games are concerned, they are presented with a unified and identical interface, regardless of what the actual base operating system is.

I still stand by my statements from that editorial. I still do think that a publisher like Valve, or EA, or Activision, or Take 2, isn't going to have a choice in moving into the Linux market. Right now, economic times are tough. The wider audience a software vendor can access, the more chances they have for a sale. The more chances a software vendor has for a sale, the more likely a sale is going to be made. Ignoring the Linux market hit Epic Software in the knees with Unreal Tournament 3, and Raven Software didn't fare well either with it's Linux ignoring Wolfenstein.

Bringing this back around to Cedega, or it's main competitor, Crossover Gaming, increased subscriptions can actually help improve the state of gaming on Linux. The term I'm looking for is market leverage. Lets say Transgaming has 10,000 6month subscribers. That's 10,000 people that Transgaming can take before a company like EA or Activision and tell them is a potential market. The larger subscriber base Transgaming, or Crossover has, the harder it is for game publishers to ignore the numbers. If Transgaming walked into EA's office and told EA that they had 500,000 subscribers, you can bet that EA would be putting Cedega Compatible stickers on every software product they sold.

Which brings up the killer point on WINE. Game Publishers do not like WINE. As an Open-Sourced project, WINE cannot be tracked. Nobody knows how many installs of WINE there are. If everything works properly, a Game Publisher would not be able to tell that a player is not using Windows.

The perception problem with WINE is further complicated by the usual F.U.D. springing forth from Microsoft. Microsoft has successfully convinced many publishers that Linux users are a bunch of free-loading pirates who don't pay for games. Microsoft's statement actually does have a nugget of truth. Many games that use rootkit like security methods, such as Securom, won't work on Linux. However, cracked or pirated versions of these games without the rootkits... will work perfectly. For this reason, Game Publishers like applications like Cedega and Crossover Gaming, as these proprietary applications largely try to leave a Game Publishers security system intact. WINE's free and open-source status, actually harm's the state of Linux Gaming.

There's also another complication involved between Cedega, Crossover Gaming, or just plain native clients. That complication is that most Game Publishers don't understand Multi-platform development.

The case in point here is FireFox, OpenOffice, Opera, and just about any product by Google. All of these popular and well known Open-Source products are built with a cross-platform focus in mind. When FireFox is updated, it's generally updated across all platforms at once. When OpenOffice receives an update, it's across all platforms at once. When Opera releases a new version, it's generally across all platforms... at once.

Game Publishers, however, approach similar, but different, platform as a separate projects. A company like Activision, for example, would allocate separate budgets for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the same game. Despite the fact that the game engine is going to be shared, the content is going to be shared, and the development is largely going to be shared, the Publisher treats each version as though it were a separate game, with it's own separate sales data, and it's own separate budgetary allowances. So, when a product like Call of Duty launches, rather than simply checking to see how many units Call of Duty sold, Game Publishers look at the performance on different platforms. So if Call of Duty sold 3 million units on Xbox 360, and 1.5 million units on Playstation 3, and 2 million Units on Windows... what a normal person sees is 6.5 million copies of Call of Duty sold. What the Game Publisher sees is 3 million units of Game #1 on Xbox 360, 1.5 million units of Game #2 on Playstation 3, and 2 million units of Game #3 on Windows.

Some publishers, such as Capcom, realized that separated development was a bad idea and have reworked their internal studios to focus on a common source code build that can be easily ported into, then optimized, for various platforms.

This is why Linux is such a disconnect for Game Publishers and many Game Developers. Keeping with the Call of Duty example, rather than allocating the budget of the game to build a common source code version that could be ported into each architecture and then optimized for performance, and using Technologies that are shared across all potential platforms, the game is separated into 3 source code builds that are then worked on separately, and optimized separately. So when somebody asks about a Linux Client, an accountant starts figuring out the cost of creating a completely new source code build, and thus a completely new game, and comes to the decision that it just isn't worth the money. To a normal person, it's confusing as to why the Game Publisher didn't have the developer use Technologies that were multiplatform to begin with.

There is some hope on this multiplatform front. The success of the Apple Iphone and the various versions of Google Android have forced many publishers to redefine how they work with their mobile platforms. Suddenly using portable technologies like OpenGL, OpenAL, OpenCL, and the like, makes more sense than focusing on a vendor specific API. The hope is that the realization that using a common code base that's easily portable, rather than separated code bases, will strike publishers as a better development method.

Once developers and publishers wrap their heads around the fact that they can indeed create multiplatform content for not much more, if not any more, than it costs to create dedicated platform content, things stand to change. At that point, Publishers might realize that creating separate SKU's of their products for different PC platforms is just pointless. When creating the client for a game, go ahead and create clients for Linux, OSX, and Windows. Then partner with an online distribution client, such as Steam, and let the gamer buy the content. The online distributer takes care of making sure the gamer gets the right client for the game.

Until we reach that stage though, working with, and through, commercial companies like Transgaming, really is the best way to get the attention of publishers that their client base consists of more than just Windows users.

Cedega Install: Steam

2010-02-14T12:33:00.001-08:00

Yet another install guide, this time we are looking at installing Steam through Cedega atop KDE4.

1: We want to start http://www.steampowered.com

Left Click on Get Steam Now in the Left Hand Bar

2: FireFox will want to save the file.

3: Lets check our download folder and make sure that SteamInstall.msi is there.

4: Okay, lets go over to Cedega and Left Click on Install.

5: First thing we need to do is check our Game Folder

Currently it says CoH2

6: We need to rename the Game Folder.

Here I've renamed it to Steam.

7: Now Left Click on Browse.

8: As always, Cedega starts with the CD/DVD drive.

9: Navigate to the download folder

Left Click on SteamInstall.msi

10: Left Click on OK.

11: Like most game installs, we really want to be in a windowed mode.

Left Click on Advanced.

12: Left Click in the Drop Box for Run In Window and select a resolution.

13: Since 1280*1024 is my desktop resolution, that's what I used.

Left Click on OK.

14: We should now be ready to Left Click on Install.

15: We should now be in the Steam Installer.

Left Click on Next.

16: Remember, Steam is Licensed Software. You will need to agree to Steam's licenses to use the software.

If you agree, select I agree, then Left Click on Next.

17: Steam will now ask for the approximate network speed.

Select your average download speed, then Left Click on Next.

18: Don't worry too much about the graphical glitches.

Unless you need to select something other than English, on Left Click on Next.

19: Left Click on Next to start the install process.

20: Depending on the speed of your computer, the install could take a few moments.

On Intel's I7 in use here, the Ksnapshot application didn't even have a chance to reload.

21: Left Click on Finish.

22: Don't... worry too much about any graphical corruption here. If Steam works correctly, it will shut off automatically.

23: Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, Cedega and WINE generally do not allow programs to automatically restart themselves. So we'll need to launch Steam manually to complete the installation.

From this point, we shouldn't need to worry about running in a windowed mode either, unless we are installing software that requires additional pop-ups.

24: Left Click on Play.

25: Now the Steam updater shows without graphical glitches.

26: Eventually Steam will either ask you to either or Create an Account or Login to an Existing Account.

27: Since I already have a Steam Account, I just need to login.

28: Don't be surprised if Steam goes through another update after logging in.

29: Steam is now loaded...

30: and you should be able to access your game files.

As an ending note, do keep in mind that you can generally install and view games in the Steam Browser that don't actually work under Cedega or WINE. So just because you have a game on Steam doesn't automagically mean it will work.

***

As a special note, I do need to extend thanks to Intel. The processor used for this guide system is one of their I7 Engineering Samples.

Cedega Install: City of Heroes Test Server

2010-02-14T10:01:00.001-08:00

Okay, here we go with installing the Test Server for City of Heroes under Cedega. Now, this guide somewhat presumes that the base City of Heroes game is already installed. I also started this guide while waiting on the Live Server was crunching through game file verification, so don't get thrown off by the task bar entries.

1: The file that we need to start the test server install is CohUpdater.exe

As this system already has a live install of the City of Heroes game, I can find the file under the /home/(username)/.cedega/CoH/c_drive/Program Files/City of Heroes folder that was created in the last guide.

2: We want to Copy the CohUpdater.exe file.

3: Lets Left Click on Home in the Left Hand Bar.

4: Paste the CohUpdater.exe file into the /home/(username) folder.

5: Now we can go to Cedega and Left Click on Install.

6: In the install window we see that Cedega has defaulted to our already existing CoH folder. We'll need to change that in a minute.

For now Left Click on Browse.

7: As always, Cedega defaults to the CD/DVD drive.

Left Click on the (Username) in the Left Hand Bar.

8: We should be taken right to the folder with CohUpdater.exe.

Left Click on CohUpdater.exe

9: Then Left Click on OK.

10: Go ahead and change the Folder Name.

Here, I've changed it to CoH2.

11: In the Command Line Options field, type in the text entry: -test

12: As with the live install, we'll want to set a windowed mode.

Left Click on Advanced.

13: Select your Desktop, or desired, resolution under Run in Window.

14: Here I've chosen 1280*1024.

15: Left Click on OK.

16: We should be good to go, so Left Click on Install.

17: We should now have the City of Heroes launcher on the screen...

18: Then we should get a Dialog Box asking where to install the game. Chances are, if you didn't set a windowed mode, this dialog box will not display.

Left Click on Next.

19: City of Heroes will start to download the files. As in the first guide, I'm going to cheat a bit.

20: While we wait for the installer to download the base files, I'm going to go ahead and go to /home/(username)/.cedega in Dolphin.

Here we can see our new folder, CoH2.

21: Under CoH2 is a new c_drive

22: A new Program Files

23: Here we see the primary difference from the and the Live Server Install and the Test Server Install.

Our game folder is CohTest.

24: Here we can see some of the base files are already in place.

25: At this point, I'm going to go ahead and Close the City of Heroes Launcher.

26: In the last guide I had opened up a Flash Drive with a copy of a Windows Install.

The folder /media/disk/City of Heroes is still the first tab under Dolphin.

27: As before, I'm going to Copy the piggs folder.

28: The second tab under Dolphin is still /home/(username)/.cedega/CoH2/c_drive/Program Files/CohTest.

I'm going Paste the piggs folder into the CohTest folder.

As a note, if you didn't cheat on the first guide, you can use the piggs folder from the first install, which in this case would be under /home/(username)/.cedega/CoH/c_drive/Program Files/City of Heroes.

The reason why I didn't use the existing live install is that it was still installing, as evidenced by the City of Heroes Updater still running in the task bar.

29: Once again, since the piggs folder is the majority of the game data, the copy could take a while.

30: Once the copy is finished, we can go back to Cedega.

31: Before we launch the game again, we do need to make a few adjustments.

Left Click on the Settings Tab, if it's not already selected.

32: Go ahead and set a windowed mode for the game:

33: with a windowed mode set, Left Click on Apply.

34: Now Left Click on the Shortcut Tab.

35: Under Command Line Options, type in the text entry: -test

36: Then Left Click on Apply.

37: We'll probably be dropped back to the Left Hand Window selection.

38: So, Left Click on City of Heroes under CoH2

Then Left Click on Play.

39: The installer should launch and start to work on updating the piggs and other files to test version.

40: Once the test server is finished loading, we can try to play.

41: Once again, as I'm doing this on ATi hardware, and the Ultra Mode fixes haven't arrived yet, I'm greeted with screen corruption.

42: The fix is the same as on the Live Server.

Left Click on Menu.

43: Left Click on Options.

44: Left Click on the Graphics and Audio Tab.

45: Left Click on Advanced Graphical Settings

46: The Advanced Graphical Settings should now be disabled.

47: Left Click on Water Effects TWICE.

48: Water Effects should now be set to None.

49: Left Click on Apply Now.

50: The screen corruption should clear right up.

51: Now, you might notice that although this system supports OpenGL 3.0 and is running an OpenGL 3.2 driver, several of the shader affects are disabled.

As I mentioned in the Live Server Install, the Water Effects option that causes corruption on the ATi drivers is actually disabled under equivalent hardware from Nvidia. Specifically the Triple-SLI GTS 250 system with the 195.30 driver set.

Nvidia - Live

Nvidia - Test

52: With our graphical corruption cleared up, we can once again set a new resolution for City of Heroes.

53: As in the Live Server Install, we'll need to restart to see the changes.

54: So once again, Quit to Login Screen.

55: Left Click on Exit

56: Launch the game again...

57: We should now be in full resolution. As in the live server guide, if you want to turn windowed mode off, you can do so through the Cedega User Interface.

So there we go, installing the Test Server through Cedega.

And yes, I used pre-existing characters on purpose. You'll just have to wait for the NDA's to lift.

***

As a special note, I do need to extend thanks to Intel. The processor used for this guide system is one of their I7 Engineering Samples.

Cedega Install: City of Heroes

2010-02-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

Another guide I've been meaning to remake for a while. Here's installing City of Heroes atop Cedega under Mepis 8.5 Beta 4. As shown in the Cedega Install, my original platform was a 64bit version of Mepis 8.5 Beta 4, and Cedega has issues with properly detecting hardware under 64bit system. Granted, the detection issues are not as severe as the play issues with 64bit Nvidia drivers, so we'll be sticking with ATi hardware for the game install, but dropping to a 32bit OS base.

1: If you don't already have the City of Heroes installer, it is available for download from the NCSoft site.

Left Click on Download PC Client

2: Wait for the download to complete...

3: Then locate the downloaded file: CoH_NA_Setup.exe

Here, Firefox is set to save to /home/(username)/Downloads

4: Okay, lets go to Cedega and left click on Install

5: A new window will pop up. Left Click on Browse

6: By default Cedega looks in the CD/DVD drive first...

7: So you'll need to navigate to your download folder.

Left Click on CoH_NA_Setup.exe, then Left Click on OK.

8: We should now be back to the Install Window.

The Program line should be filled in with our CoH_NA_Setup.exe file.

9: Left Click on Advanced

10: in Advanced there is an option for Run in Window.

Left Click in the drop box.

11: Left Click on your Desktop Resolution.

Since mine is 1280*1024, I'm going to select 1280*1024.

12: With a resolution set, Left Click on OK.

13: Don't forget to put a name under Game Folder. Here I've gone with CoH

With the Game Folder filled in, Left Click on Install.

14: Here's one of the reasons we needed to be in windowed mode. If you try to do the install without a window, these boxes may or may not show. Remember, City of Heroes is Licensed Software.

15: If you agree with the license, Left Click on I agree.

16: We shouldn't need to make any changes to the install.

Left Click on Next.

17: Left Click on Next.

18: Left Click on Next.

19: Now this pop-up window won't show at all if you try the install outside of Windowed mode. If you don't already have an account for City of Heroes, you'll need to go to NCSoft.com and purchase an account.

Since I already have an account, I'm going to Left Click on No.

20: The installer is finished, so Left Click on Finish

Here, I've left the automatically run updater checked in.

21: The City of Heroes updater should launch at this point.

22: Now, since I really don't feel like waiting for the entire game to download and install, I'm going to cheat. After giving the game a few minutes to get the base files in place, I'm going to use Cedega to Halt the install.

23: Here we see one of KDE4's tools, a dedicated Widget for plugged in flash drives.

Left Clicking on the Flash Drive should cause it to automatically open up in Dolphin.

24: In the flash drive I have a copy from a Windows Install of City of Heroes. Inside the City of Heroes folder, I'm looking for the folder named: piggs.

25: I'm going to copy the piggs folder.

26: Then open up a new tab

27: In the new tab I'm going to Left Click on Home from the left hand bar.

28: You'll need to enable View Hidden Folders under the View Menu from the Top Bar.

Here, I have the hidden folder .cedega

29: Under .cedega I have the folder CoH that was created earlier.

30: Under CoH I have the folder c_drive

31: Now we have something that resembles a Windows Directory structure, with Program Files.

32: Under Program Files there is City of Heroes

33: Finally, under /home/(username)/.cedega/CoH/c_drive/Program Files/City of Heroes... we've arrived.

Paste the copied piggs folder.

34: What we are doing here is copying over the vast bulk of the actual game files. All of the texture, polygon, sound, and other data needed for the game is contained in the piggs.

35: With the piggs file copied, we can go back to Cedega.

36: Here we can see multiple entries for City of Heroes.

For now, Left Click on Play.

37: The installer should fire up and begin work on processing the game files.

38: Even if you cheated and copied over files from a pre-existing install, the update process can still take a while.

Here though, it's finished, and we can enter the game.

39: Now, if you get the login-screen... great.

Chances are though, if you are using an LCD panel, you didn't get a login screen. You probably got something that was graphicall corrupted or off center.

40: If you didn't get a login screen you should be able to alt-tab out of the game, even with ATi hardware. (more on that in a bit)

We can use Cedega to halt the game with Stop All.

41: When we are click into the CoH folder, there are some tabs on the lower half of the Cedega interface.

Left Click on the Settings Tab.

42: Here we can set our Run in Window resolution.

43: With your desktop resolution set, Left Click on Apply.

44: Try to Play the game again...

45: This time the launcher should be framed in a windowed box...

46: The Login screen should display correctly now, although it's at a lower resolution than was specified.

47: Now, if you are using ATi hardware, you do have to come to terms with some issues the game currently has. These issues are largely two-fold as I understand them.

A: Nvidia helped write / create some of the advanced shader affects for the City of Heroes game, so all other vendors hardware support was sabotaged at the game's code level years ago.

B: In the past, Transgaming has openly optimized for Nvidia hardware, treating ATi users as distinctly second-class citizens.

With this in mind, features like Full Screen Alt-Tab that work fine on Nvidia 32bit drivers, don't work on ATi drivers, 32bit or 64bit. You'll also, more than likely, load into City of Heroes with a screen that looks somewhat like this one:

48: Getting out of this display corruption is actually pretty easy. The game still follows a window display hierarchy, so new windows will layer on top of existing displays.

Left Click on Menu. (on my screen it's in the top right hand corner)

49: Left Click on Options.

50: Left Click on the tab Graphics and Audio

51: Now, existing guides will tell you to drop the recommended settings. We don't need to do that.

52: Left Click on Advanced Graphics Settings

This should Enable separate control of graphics features.

53: Scroll down and Left Click on Water Effects TWICE.

54: This should change Water Effects to None.

55: Left Click on Apply Now.

56: The screen corruption should clear right up.

Now, what's interesting about this, and I'll show it in the next guide, is that Water Effects are disabled on equivalent Nvidia hardware.

57: Now we can work on changing our resolution.

58: Select your desktop resolution...

59: Left Click on Apply Now once your resolution is selected...

60: City of Heroes will issue a warning that you'll need to quit and restart to see the changes.

61: So lets Quit

62: However, we need to Quit to Login Screen.

Do not Quit to Desktop. For some reason, resolution changes don't always apply if you quit straight to the desktop.

63: Once at the login screen, Left Click on Exit.

64: Now, when we go to Play the game again...

65: We should now find that the game is in full resolution.

66: If you want to, you can take the game out of windowed mode now.

67: Just use the Cedega Run in Window setting with No to go to a Full Screen mode.

Okay. In all fairness, some of the issues seen in this guide are expected to be fixed / addressed in the coming months. Paragon Studios, the developers behind City of Heroes, have a new graphics engine purportedly based on OpenGL 3.0 arriving in April. The branded Ultra Mode graphics engine also brings fixes to the existing graphics engine currently in use. Reportedly the graphics issues specific to all Non-Nvidia hardware have been addressed at the code level in the graphics engine, with the older Nvidia developed sabotaging shaders replaced with shaders that should work across all OpenGL enabled hardware. So, in theory, as long as your graphics card supports OpenGL 1.4, 1.5, 2.x, or 3.x, you should have the exact same image regardless of who the graphics vendor is.

Transgaming also has a new proprietary Cedega engine in development, which reportedly is not as optimized for one graphics vendor alone. Reportedly Transgaming has also been working closely with the Khronos Group, who manages OpenGL. Theoretically then, the upcoming Cedega 8 engine should fix the Cedega specific issues, such as lack of Full Screen Alt-Tab on ATi hardware, and fix the advanced shader features that are exposed as options to the end user. There is hope then that within the next few months, ATi users won't be second class Linux Citizens that they are in some games now.

***

As a special note, I do need to extend thanks to Intel. The processor used for this guide system is one of their I7 Engineering Samples.

Cedega Install: KDE4

2010-02-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

Been meaning to do this for a while. Here's a walkthrough of install Cedega atop a KDE4 desktop. As a precursor note, Cedega does not yet actually work on the hardware platform I used to write this guide. There's an issue with Cedega's hardware identification failing to recognize a mobile RadeonHD 2600 with Catalyst 10.1 atop a 2.6.32 kernel. Native OpenGL titles like QuakeLive and WarSow work fine, so there's no issue with the installed software. However, Cedega's support team was caught with their pants hanging down feeding junk answers to users with this particular problem, and so far, at the time of this posting, Cedega's staff has not responded to provide a date on when their software will be fixed.

1: Starting with the cedega install file already downloaded.

Left Click on the file in Dolphin

2: Kpackage should automatically open up.

Left Click on the Install button in the lower right hand corner.

3: Now Kpackages second Window will pop up.

Left Click on the Install button in the lower left hand corner.

4: Kpackage will now ask for the root password.

5: Here in Mepis 8.5 beta we've come across our first error. Parts of python are not installed. Under KDE3 we could use apt-get install -f to complete the install, but sadly this method no longer works under KDE4. We'll need to go get the Python files manually.

6: Open up Synaptic Package Manager

Here in Mepis 8.5 Beta 4, it's on the menu bar by default.

7: Synpatic will ask for the root password. Enter the password.

8: Synaptic has gotten a bit of a make over from the KDE3 edition.

The Search icon is now indicated by a pair of Binoculars on the upper bar.

9: Left Click on the Binoculars to initate a search

10: In the search box typ in the term: python-gtk

Then Left Click on Search.

11: We have quite a few python options, but the one we want is close to the top.

12: Right Click on the python-gtk2 package.

13: Then Left Click on Mark for Installation.

14: Python will ask for a couple of depencies.

15: Left Click on Mark.

16: Getting a little ahead of myself here. I also know that Cedega will ask for python-glade, so left click on the Binoculars to search again.

Enter the term python-glade then Left Click on Search.

17: Same thing as before. Right Click on the python-glade2 package...

Then Left Click on Mark for Installation.

18: Now with our Python files marked, Left Click on the Green Checkmark.

This will apply all marked changes.

19: Left Click on the Apply button.

20: Sit back and get comfy, this part could take a while.

21: The Python files shouldn't require any more user-intervention, so once Synaptic finishes, go ahead and Close Synaptic.

22: Go back to the Kpackage Windows.

Left Click on the Install button in the lower left hand corner again.

23: This time the install completed, so we can Close Kpackage.

24: In most cases there should be a menu entry for under Cedega Gaming Service under Games in the Kmenu.

25: At this point I began to regret sticking with 800*600 for a capture resolution.

There's an Accept button in the lower right hand corner. Left Click the button.

26: At this point you'll either need to agree to the trial or purchase an account.

27: The next part of the installer will ask which type of install to use.

For most users the Single-user install is fine, so Left Click on Continue.

28: Cedega will begin checking for updates.

29: Remember, Cedega uses non open-source licensed software and fonts to maintain better compatibility.

This license agreement also has an Accept button in the lower right hand corner.

30: Get comfy again as Cedega starts to download the support files.

31: Cedega is now installed and ready to run... or is it?

32: As I mentioned, Cedega has issues with the latest ATi drivers and the 64bit 2.6.32 kernel combination as the Cedega System specs show.

33: It's also not due to lack of proper OpenGL support either. As shown here, the Catalyst control center shows the hardware and driver are installed and operational...

And games such as QuakeLive, UT2k4, and WarSow work pretty much flawlessly.

QuakeLive KDE-4 2.6.32 Kernel 64bit - Catalyst 10.1

QuakeLive KDE-4 2.6.32 Kernel 64bit - Catalyst 10.1

The problem appears to be limited to 2.6.32 64bit installs as the following installs show:

KDE4 - Nvidia Beta Driver - 2.6.32 Kernel 32bit

KDE4 - Catalyst 10.1 - 2.6.32 32bit kernel

KDE3 - Catalyst 10.1 - 2.6.27 32bit kernel

However, the detection problem rears it's head again with another system I have on hand. I had been testing one of the RadeonHD 4850's on an Intel D975XBX motherboard before swapping out and dropping down to an x1950 Pro. As shown, Cedega is still convinced that the RadeonHD 4800 series card is installed... while Catalyst Control Center shows the card actually in use, an x1950.

KDE3 - Catalyst 9.3 - 2.6.27 64bit kernel

So no, things aren't "perfect" in the Cedega world. Their 64bit hardware detection needs some work.