Kaz

I’ve been up to no good. Since I’m going to start work on Monday I need to get in as much quality gaming time as possible. To that end I’m playing Halo 3 as much as possible before returning my broken ManBox360 to Microsoft, getting destroyed in Team Fortress 2 and waiting for another level cap increase in Call of Duty 4.(I’m starting Metroid Prime 3 tomorrow)

Here’s my thoughts so far:

Team Fortress 2

I’m of the opinion that this may be the best looking game this year, and this game is running on the Source engine which is just over 3 years old. How is it that this game surpassed Gears, Halo 3 and Bioshock in my book? Charm. Every character is filled to the brim with character–the way they walk, jump, aim and taunt. All of this adds up to a game that’s both technically challenging and visually engaging at all times.

I just wish I didn’t see this screen quite so often. Whenever you die the game zooms in on your killer moments after the deed and gives you the option to save a screen shot. Why you would need this? I do not know, in fact, I posted it merely to lend it some value. Otherwise its a feature I would patently ignore. I need to polish up on my skills, though, that’s evident.

Halo 3

It’s Halo. Done.

Okay I have more thoughts than that, but I’ll save them for the podcast. Since I can only play in 30 minute increments I’m only playing online matches. I’m saving the campaign for when I can sit down and play for an hour or two. Plus I have to kidnap Tom and force him to play with me.

Call of Duty 4: MP Beta

I really should have posted about this earlier. I have mentioned it on the podcast but it deserves more credit than that. Plus I feel the need to get myself back into the beta before I seal my Xbox’s coffin. There are rumors that the next level increase will happen on Friday, increasing the max level to 25 and giving 3 new weapons and 4 perks (fast reload FTW). Then the beta will be shut off on Sunday. I had heard earlier that the beta would run up to the launch of the game in November (when every other game comes out), but this is apparently untrue. Which means you’ll find me splitting time between Halo 3 and this until Saturday when I send my Box to the great maker in Texas.

Oh crap, I still have to play Eternal Sonata…

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So you want to build a computer? Well I’ve got good news! Building a computer for yourself is easy, anyone can do it. Why don’t I just buy one from a store you say? Just buy a Mac if that’s the case you lazy bum! Or you can follow these easy steps to computer building success:

Step 1: Find the manuals

Do you have them all? Good, now burn them, in a 50 gallon drum if possible. They’re written in so many languages none of them are ever useful. Besides you don’t really need a manual to know where your memory goes, it goes in the slot shaped like your memory. Remember these skills from kindergarten? Good.

Step 2: Seat your memory

Find the ram shaped holes, just make sure the speed ram you got (PC-6400 800mhz?) is supported by your motherboard. This information would have been in the manual you just incinerated to warm a hobo, but frankly if you failed to do this before you spent hundreds of dollars you probably should go buy a mac. If it is right: proceed to step 3.

Step 3: Attach your processor with great care

Screwing this step up is expensive. If that doesn’t scare you then lift up the little shiny handle next to your processor slot, drop the little bugger in and put the plunger down. Wave goodbye while you’re at it, you’ll never see your processor again. The heatsink that came with your processor should have some thermal paste on it, slap it on and ratchet the plastic lever to seat the heatsink. Sidenote: in the old days it took roughly 300lbs of manpower to seat the heatsink, usually this required using a flat screwdriver to push the clip down, one slip would send the screwdriver through the motherboard and into whatever working surface you had the thing on. I should note that I place the motherboard on the foam pad it came packed in to do this. Also, plug the fan in, seriously, it’s really important.

Step 4: Find a workspace

Find the manliest cover you can and set your stuff around it like an expensive mine field. If you’re looking for a challenge attempt this activity while inebriated. I only use the pink table cloth because: A, I hate it and B, I don’t want to scratch the coffee table.

Step 5: Tear everything out

Everything must go, well, not all in my case, just the motherboard and all the pci cards attached to it. What should you do with all those old components? Is the hobo still cold?

Step 6: Put the board back in

Reset the studs in your case with a pair of pliers to match the holes on your motherboard. In my case the new board is a cheap replacement so it’s a micro-ATX style board. I think this shrinks my e-peen size, but I don’t care. Now all you have to do is plug everything back in. This is the reason I attach the heatsink and ram before I put it in, I’d hate to have to squeeze my meathooks in that case and do delicate things.

Turn on your computer, if all is well skip to step 9. but something probably won’t work. This is normal, proceed to Step 7.

Step 7: Flip your computer the bird

You built it, you shouldn’t have to take this shit. Let out some aggression. There’s a slight chance the sound waves will correct whatever is at fault. Turn the thing on again, it still won’t work. Go to next step.

Step 8: Buy shit until it works

Systematically replace everything in your computer until it works again. In my case this meant I had to upgrade from IDE to SATA. Luckily my father keeps a stockpile on new hard drives around for no reason. Step 8 is a great way to rationalize a new computer purchase. For example, purchase a new mother board that has a PCI-e graphics slot and “realize” your AGP card won’t fit. Then exclaim: “I wish I new it wouldn’t work” out as you purchase new PCI-e card for $500. This also works with all other electronics.

Step 9: Success!

Roughly 10 to 20 hours since you began you finally have a working computer, in my case I had to reinstall Vista, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Take time to go pee, if you’re like me you may have consumed 4 or 5 bottles of seltzer water without realizing. Ahhh, how’s that for relief…

Step 10: Test your new computer

Does it really work? Good, close up your case and thank the Lord. You’re the proud new owner of a working computer. in my case it’s practically a brand new computer. I only built this a replacement, it will eventually become a media server when I buy a new rig for Crysis this winter. But it works for now (and it plays CounterStrike).

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This might be the worst possible time for my computer to break. Right before the new set of DX10 hardware comes out, right when whether you buy the best on the market or just enough to get buy in roughly 2 months you’ll want the new stuff.

I’m still running my old AGP 8x graphics card, a lowly GeForce 6800GT (retail price circa 2004: $400, now: $30?). Only one of the best selling DX9 cards out there. Unfortunately for me, my aging Motherboard and CPU combo is letting out death cries, seems almost a certainty they will soon be releasing their magical blue smoke and moving on to the next electronic life. Since I’ve loved my ASUS board and my Athlon XP 2800+ so much their being kind enough to emit warning signs that they will soon be dying. These choice signs are twofold: one, opening more than one program results in a catastrophic slowdown, and two, the fan on my processor is emitting a noise that can only be described as “deafening”. The noise is like a drunkard taking hand mixer in a steel bowl (not something I’ve witnessed, but the closest approximation my mind can come up with).

I even had my father come take a look at my computer. In spite of the fact that we have built many computers; the only thing we could seem to do was jiggle the processor and mutter: “That’s really f!&*ed up…”

So I had to trudge to my local computer store to purchase a cheap fix for my rig. I wanted to salvage the once expensive GPU so I had to order a motherboard online that could take new processors and still had an old AGP slot on it. Apparently, no one wants the customer to have options so all motherboard manufacturers make two motherboards: the Intel board and the AMD board. On the bright side, I got a discontinued board for 40 bucks.

Now that I had a board and a GPU, I knew that I had to make a bit of a purchase. My old generic RAM that I bought 5 years ago was DDR-333. Which meant I couldn’t use it anymore. So the question became: do I get nice ram and make Vista run better or do I get the bare minimum to make the computer work?

I decided to get some nice DDR2-800 RAM, and 2 gigs of it to boot. I figured since I’ll demote this computer to server/youtube on the TV status someday I might as well make it run Vista well.

Now the only component left was the processor. I wanted to get at least the same performance as my old 2800+. Which I relayed to the store clerk. And then he laughed at me, I wasn’t aware but apparently my processor had gone from bleeding edge to the processor equivalent of the Flintstones’ car in the 5 years since I purchased it. No one had told me though, I was too busy still playing the latest and greatest games with ease. The 2800+ runs at a brisk 2.08ghz and the mid range replace I bought yesterday only runs at 2.2ghz. Not much of an increase.

Until you realize there’s two cores in the thing.

I purchased the Athlon X2 4400+, which is a 64bit dual-core processor with twice the cache size as my old chip. It churns out nearly three times as much data as my beloved flintstones-mobile. Needless to say, when the motherboard finally gets dropped off by UPS two seconds later I’ll be tossing my processor out the nearest window without an ounce of remorse.

I’ve had people ask me over the years how I built my own computer. So I’m going to document the swap in order to show how not difficult the whole process really is. I suppose I’ll post my Windows Experience Index as a metric for what improvement I’m going to see. I hope there’s some improvement…

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Be wary of any television service that has more than 100 channels. Before now I have only ever had access to basic cable. Occasionally I could channel surf from channel 3 to channel 73 and there would be nothing on TV. There was such a limited selection of channels that I could find, at certain times, there was nothing to watch that interested me. That was a good thing.

Now that we have over 400 channels there is always something to mesmerize me. Anything from The Dog Whisperer to Mythbusters to one of the 13 ESPN channels, I can always find something to watch. Which is why I try to avoid turning on the TV, I spent the first day trying to learn all the new channels and managed to drain a good bunch of hours in front of the TV.

Even worse for my health is the DVR, which actually makes you dumber. You’ll find yourself not understanding what people say on purpose in order to rewind live TV. Sure all these new features and channels are awesome, but I think the trade off of having too much to do while watching TV is a big minus. Frankly, all I need is broadcast TV and the SciFi channel.

On the upside my upload speed on the interweb increased tenfold. Most consumers wouldn’t care but since I upload large audio files everyweek I notice.

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