Piaw's Blog » General

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. One “tiny” issue…

Piaw — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:09:26 +0000

Well, it’s finally out! I won’t bother with the review crap here since there are tonnes of them out there. I’ll briefly discuss an annoyance with the game. Don’t get me wrong. The graphic is cooler, the story is more exciting and the singleplayer gameplay totally outperforms its predecessor! In fact, I found out that the more realistic graphic runs better than the first Modern Warfare on the same hardware. Kudos to IW for improving the game engine while castrating PC’s multiplayer! And not to forget, implementing Steam tighter into the game than Valve’s (Steam’s owner) own game.

IW claimed to be offering better multiplayer experience by going online while playing LAN game!? WTF is that?! Why go through all the trouble to set up an online server for the smallest community in game platform (that’s the PC)? Isn’t it easier to programme a dedicated server and let us PC gamers deal with the problem? With greater flexibility comes greater problems and even greater gameplay experience that made PC the ultimate gamer’s multiplayer platform. Keyboards exist so that gamers can play with their own rules. Got a servermaster who’s hacking for cheap frags? Just don’t join it. It’s that easy! We don’t need some scripts to determine whose game we’re joining and going online just to have a simple fun LAN game is suspiciously annoying to us. WTH are you thinking, IW?

BTW Modern Warfare 2 runs nicely with my new Powercolor Radeon 4770 PCS 512MB. Playing with all settings to the max is visually satisfying. One word to describe its singleplayer game: AWESOME. Another word to for multiplayer:… Oh wait there’s no word vulgar enough to describe it.

Until then, after my semester finals! Enjoy MW2!!

Tech updates, holidays and overclocking.

Piaw — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:53:22 +0000

Finally, it’s the mid semester break. After rushing through assignments and spending late nights studying (and watching TV), I’m euphoric today as it’s actually the start of my break (no class on Fridays). Everything seems much less depressing now. No joke.

This week was exciting for tech world as Intel is having their IDF gathering and AMD is launching the Radeon 5870/5850 graphic cards. New Nehalem processors in 32nm process tech (codenamed Westmere) will be launched late this year. Those will be dual-core, quad-thread CPU with integrated graphic processing unit, the old (and sucky) Intel G45 variant to be precise. Unfortunately, 32nm quad core is not planned but there will be a hexa core version in the middle of next year. Until then, we’ll have to wait till codenamed Sandy Bridge launches in Q1 2011 to have cheaper, cooler quad core. By then AMD will also have its new wonder weapon ready, codenamed Bulldozer. Expect quad core, IBM licensed SMT technology (4 threads per core) and lots of cache (Z-RAM or maybe even better, IBM’s just-announced 32nm eDRAM). Personally, I won’t buy anything with Intel GMA on it. The thought of having a power sipper that does nothing right in everything annoys me. However I might recommend Core i5/i3 to low end users if it’s cheap.

On to my favourite subject, graphic processing units! AMD’s Radeon HD 5800 GPU might not be a huge change from the 4800, it still is the first DirectX 11 GPU in the world (and beat NVIDIA to it). It’s nice to see NVIDIA being a sore loser by releasing statements insulting AMD. Don’t forget that NVIDIA were the first to release DX10 GPU. And DX11 will definitely be more popular than its predecessor. However, I’m still on Windows XP, taking advantage of lower game requirements. DX9c can still perform as good as DX10 at this point. I will not migrate to Windows 7 until my next major hardware upgrade which will be the next gen AMD Bulldozer and probably Radeon HD 6 series. Until then I’m considering a graphic card upgrade as the GeForce 8600GTS is showing its age. The Radeon 5600-series GPU is rumoured to have 640 stream processor and low power output that are suitable for my current setup. But it won’t be available until next year. The older Radeon 4770 has similar specs, but it is unclear how much supply there will be. I’ll buy whichever is cheaper in the end.

This week was also a strange one for me as I’m suddenly interested in overclocking. Probably because there will be some great games coming soon. I have a terrific processor (Athlon64 X2 3800+ 2GHz) that can go 2.6GHz without extra voltage. Probably if I stabilize the vCore of my motherboard I can squeeze more juice out of that CPU. Now that’s a bargain! GPU overclocking is more of a grey area for me, but it’s easier if not the same as CPU overclocking. Now this particular GPU of mine has a horrific history of mass suicide in notebooks. Overclocking it probably won’t do any good. But what the hell, no pain no gain, right?

Fans of Left 4 Dead bewarned, the Crash Course DLC is confirmed on the 29th next week. New maps and new story that bridges the link between the hospital campaign ending and beginning of boathouse campaign (am I right?), the usual stuff. It’s FREE for Windows and XBox users need to pay for it. Life’s unfair, I know. But better be you than me, right?

I’m into modern combat games right now. And Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising looks to be an interesting one. Might be a nice time waster while waiting for November 10th. Nice graphics, lots of real life guns and plenty of modern warfare tactiques. What is there to complain?

Today’s special: Pointless research: top 10 Ig Nobel award winners for silly science. Of all the things we can do while sending an astronaut to space, I’m sure playing gasing is already experimented by NASA long ago. Enjoy my holiday, cheers!

Back to school.

Piaw — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:04:37 +0000

It’s the end of the third week for the semester and I’m still having trouble getting used to “busy” again. There were some unfortunate events but nothing serious, thankfully. I have to get up to speed with my studies as I’m still juggling time between activities for it. After all, this half of 2009 is going to be a very exciting time for tech and entertainment fields!

Almost all of my high school friends will be going overseas next month to study. It’ll be some time (or years) before all of us can get together like old times. However, despite having the chance to get paid by the government to study overseas, I do pity some of them for being sent to remote places in India. At least I can save more money for my next computer build.

Looking at everybody’s blog lately, it seems that there’s a lot of angst when going back to school. Here’s something to make you laugh.

Sick again. And it’s not H1N1.

Piaw — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 04:33:15 +0000

I had these symptoms (cough and fever) that might indicate H1N1 infection. Luckily there’s no sore throat, headache, difficulty in breathing… common symptoms of lung disease (of which H1N1 is one of, if you’ve been cramming too much).

I might have had food poisoning again, although much less serious than last time. No doctor this time, just lots of sleep and liquid food. Recovery is still just as awful. You’ll be very fatigued but insomnia always sets in. No sleeping position feels comfortable. I can go on and on. In short it’s the worst sickness you can get.

Good thing I’m OK today. No problem going to school tomorrow.

Another safe semester. Onwards to Year 2!

Piaw — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:06:06 +0000

Got my semester result today. Boy, am I glad to have passed all the subjects for the semester! Honestly, I didn’t study a lot throughout the semester. Even in the impending days of the finals, I had no idea what the lecturers taught the whole three months! Well, not to say I’d been a lazy slack all the time, at least I improvised my skill in programming. So having the only High Distinction grade in the only programming subject for the semester is expected. Overall, the result is not bad. Much better than last semester’s (below 3.0 CGPA and still passed).

Next semester would be the start of my second year. And it started well too with two programming subjects. From what I can read of the subject titles that are to come, they can’t be easy. The stakes just got higher. Guess it’s more crunch time and less game time.

Time to chill.

Piaw — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:11:44 +0000

Exam’s over. Everybody’s back. It’s that time of the year again. Time to chill.

There are games, movies, hobbies and friends to catch up with. I’m thinking of weekly movie outings since there are some big ones coming out soon. I’ve watched Terminator: Salvation and Angels & Demons already. Very nice movies I would say, though Angels did leave me rather unsatisfied in terms of the “spiritual enlightenment of Robert Langdon”. How cool is it to have a divine intervention that the cryptography extraordinaire cannot crack? That’s enough spoiler for now. I highly recommend watching previous Terminator episodes to connect the dots in Salvation. The Sarah Connor Chronicles isn’t canon though so don’t waste time researching it.

I have officially taken programming as a new hobby. Been planning to do something big, if my laziness doesn’t overwhelm me. I’ll upload the my current semester’s assignment, a Rubik’s Cube game if you remember it. Not much but I don’t plan to make money out of it.

Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the gang to come back. Life is boring without those bunch. Chill dude…

Missed me?

Piaw — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:09:10 +0000

May is a very busy month for all of us. Assignments to rush, tests to study for and just plain laziness that comes in between. Having done all of my work, I’ll upload some of my programming assignments’ byproducts in the coming days so you can try them. Don’t get your hopes too high though. I’m doing Electronics & Computer Systems, not Software Engineering.

If you’ve been sticking your eyes onto books for too long, the first trailer for Modern Warfare 2 is just out! It’s awesome! Crazier, epic storyline with more cool real life weaponry. Go to Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 website to watch the gunbattle porn. There’s a hi def version for you to download. Enjoy!

If anyone’s interested to play L4D with me in Garena, I’m on build 13 of the game now. Survival mode is really hardcore. Surviving just 4 minutes is hard. Very hard. Usually me and Joseph would get about 3 minutes plus early in the game then our survival time keep getting lower and lower. The more we try, the worse we get. That’s life, in some moments. You just have to learn how to live with it and enjoy it.

Holidays~ Working holidays…

Piaw — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:49:20 +0000

Just finished my Digital Electronics Design test. Yeah! Next week is off!

So what am I going to do during the holidays? More work! Physics, engineering case report and programming assignments are begging for attention, though they can be handed in at the end of semester. Better start now so I can relax early. Of course there are games that need to be finished and Joseph needs to be bugged just for fun.

Programming is my favourite subject so far and also my new interest. I used to loathe it because the lecturer wasn’t adept at teaching us (sometimes being too nerdish isn’t a good thing). But once I get the hang of it by trial and error it’s actually quite interesting. I still marveled at how I wrote 400 lines of code by myself for an assignment, skipping quite a few classes along the way. Producing algorithms and optimizing them are so stressfully addictive.

Right now I’m stuck with C++, an entirely foreign programming language. My assignment this time is to make a Rubik’s Cube game that can solve the puzzle by itself. This is so big a leap from the last programming assignment! That means I’m actually going to device an AI system, literally!

Just completed the file I/O part of the programme. 95% more to be done. Cheers!

Left 4 Dead: New Achievements!

Piaw — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:46:39 +0000

I’m very happy tonight. First up, I killed a Tank single-handedly. It was in Blood Harvest’s second map, at the train yard. I had to evade the Tank for ~4 minutes all alone as all my team mates had died. The thought of giving up and die under the Tank’s fists was in my mind the whole time. So I tried my best, and laughed under the effect of adrenaline and pure terror while I did ‘acrobatic’ stunts around the Tank using train carriages as cover! The dead team mates must have had fun watching me in Spectator mode. Sure I got hit a few time. Luckily I had high health and painkillers with me. The ordeal went on and on as I backtracked, and shot frantically with the shotgun. No freaking auto shottie here! Just when I had only 5 HP left, the ugly monster died. Whoo! I just did the impossible, and I still had a health pack with me! A quick fix up and off to save my comrades. Luckily they died at the same time so they all spawned in the same room nearby. Too bad the whole episode wasn’t recorded.

Some of you might have heard of crowning the Witch. It’s approaching the Witch closeup, I mean CLOSEUP and blast her in the face with the auto shotgun. Of course you have to it do before she starts to get aggro.

Since I had killed a Tank myself, the adrenaline and craziness that lingered from that episode was enough to drive me to crown a witch. I switched off my flash light as not to provoke the Witch instantly. I just approached her directly and got very near when she started growling and turning her head around. So I just panicked and shot her a few times. Boy, that was fun! You should try it!

The Witch doesn’t get aggro easily without the flash light so take it easy. I had some REALLY CLOSE encounters before, like looking into her eyes as she stared up just next to me. I just backtrackked quickly without shooting. I hadn’t heard of crowning back then. The Witch just looked at me as I backed away then resumed crying. The lesson is don’t be afraid of her. You can run just by her if you don’t want to confront her. She would growl for a while then get back to her ‘chore’.

I haven’t seen many people crowning the Witch but it’s very easy. You might need some loose screws in your head to do it though. Have fun!

A mishmash update.

Piaw — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:11:28 +0000

I’ve been sleeping a lot, playing a lot and not studying a lot. Good thing there’s no immediate assignment yet. Well, better get started on those annoying Boolean algebras.

Game’s I’ve been playing.

World In Conflict: Soviet Assault is an addon to the addictive original game. If you’re a military aficionado like me then you’re going to like replaying the game with six new Soviet missions interwoven into the original ones. Though it’s not a full fledged expansion pack that you might expect, the game still keeps me up until early dawn.

Fallout 3 just had its second DLC, The Pitt released this week. I’ve played a bit of it and it felt more stable than the bug ridden Xbox 360 version. The new quest’s storyline is as impressive as other quests inside the game, which is the hallmark of this game of the year winner. I’ll play it once I finished World In Conflict.

Red Alert 3: Uprising expansion pack was also released this week. New units, new storyline and new hot babes. Yeah. Looking forward to playing it.

Good news to all Call of Duty fans! Modern Warfare 2 is coming 10 November! I repeat, Modern Warfare 2 is coming 10 November! Infinity Ward is making this instalment so watch out for it! It might be the game of the year. The teaser looks awesome.

Movies I’ve been watching.

Punisher: War Zone is gory, just the way I like it. Lots of guns, bad guys, blood and bodies with head blown off. It’s not as good as 2004′s Punisher movie nor it is a direct sequeal of. The storyline isn’t presented properly. The director focused too much on headless corpses and cool cinematography. You might expect guys to watch this sort of movie, which in this case, directed by a woman. That might explain its downfall. Not saying that I’m a sexist. It’s just that the director focused too much on blatant violence and gore in the hope of attracting male audiences. That said, this version of Punisher is still a worthwhile weekend time waster.

On the contrary, 007: Quantum of Solace is quite OK despite what reviewers had say. This sequel continues where Casino Royale ends off. The action scene where the movie starts right away isn’t too incomprehensible, allegedly. Cinematography and storyline wise, it’s the same as Casino Royale. Nicely done and easy to understand. Others might think the quality has degraded to some degree. IMO it’s otherwise.

I’m watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button now. The story is unique, like Slumdog Millionaire. I’m not a fan of these sort of movies. I’ll watch just to waste time and know how they won the Oscars. You know what they say, “Poor selling movies are always Oscar winners.”

Misc.

Gundam 00 S2 episode 24 is epic! Everything finally fits into place. Setsuna’s ‘special’ condition. Seraphim Gundam’s function. 0 Gundam looks just like RX-78-2, the very first Gundam (1979). Twin Engine’s true purpose. And the list goes on and on. Can’t wait for episode 25! The final showdown between Setsuna, the first true Innovator and Ribbons, the Innovator above Innovator.

It seems that some of our friends have been doing some serious work in web authoring. Eichi’s doing it individually. Not bad for a career designer and first time coder. Gary’s done it in team. They’re not pursuing design professionally, but their website for futsal rivals some of the more professional sites. Good work!