ShadowReality

Well all my new components came for my new computer upgrade in their new shiny boxes, even the motherboard box was decorated in funky holograms (too pristine for a mobo box in my opinion). It felt like Christmas opening up all the boxes, filled with “new” smells, instruction manuals, installation manuals, Driver CDs and all manner of cables.

The new graphics card has a beast of a heatsink on it to keep it cool so if that is anything to go by I’m sure it’s going to be pretty fast, i’m not sure which game I am going to test with it first, then I opened up the Power Supply only to find it was in a very strange bag.. another over packaged piece of electronics equipment in my mind.

I don’t know when they decided to add all this unnecessary snazzy packaging, I feel i somehow could of bought these things cheaper without the sock bag.
In any case I went about installing it all bit by bit, held my breath and hit that power button and it surged into life, a single short beep of the internal speaker tells me I havn’t fucked up and i go about installing the OS only to find the new hardrive just will not format.

After messing around for several hours afterwards I finally came to the sad truth of the matter that I would have to send back the hardrive for a replacement thus putting me off having my new system complete for a couple of days, drat!

My new PC upgrade parts are arriving soon, and so I thought I would document this process so I know how annoying it is to do to discourage me from potentially doing this in the future. So.. Old PC, Motherboard is DEAD, upgrading, lets get it ready.

How not to remove a motherboard.

First off I had to remove all the PCI cards, that’s easily enough my case is pretty screw-less and everything clips out easily. These included:

Nvidia 5500 AGP card - it was having memory problems so that’s being replaced
56k modem card - i don’t think I’ll be re-installing that
Sound blaster Audigy 2 ZX sound card - which I will more than likely be re-installing due to the digital inputs and surround sound.
A strange extra port that plugs direct into the motherboard, looks like a joystick port.

Next up, I removed all the motherboard screw.. or at least tried to. Unfortunately there is always 1 bastard that refuses to come lose, so after several minutes of trying to get this out instead I opt for finding something to eat.. perhaps I’m just lacking the nourishment to get this screw out, yep i’m sure that’s what it is.

Back again, this time armed with some needle nosed pliers I attack my new adversary, however it has equipped itself with a defense, and that is a pure circular circumference, +0 DMG from pliers, DAMN YOU SCREW… I try the screwdriver once more as if the screw had somehow changed.. it had not.

So thus i reached the conclusion, since the motherboard is dead and of no use to anyone anymore, why not just rip it out, so using brute force and a hammer I went about freeing the motherboard from the evil screw who held it hostage, however this screw is above average as just as i thought it was coming loose it killed my old crappy hammer. CRITICAL HIT!
Bah I needed a new hammer anyway, but mark my words screw.. your going down..

While all this was going down, the onlooker seemed alarmed that I might be going crazy. Fear not, I eventually got the motherboard out.

And so finally the case has been emptied, and dusted and ready for the new bits.. so a cautionary tale for anyone doing this sort of thing, make sure you have the right tools.

Around a couple months back my main motherboard snap, crackled and popped its way into the afterlife, and this week the temporary PC I am using has really been kicking up a fuss and feels like it’s about to bite the big one too, so I have been looking into getting my upgrade done ASAP.

I Intend to go for a nice Intel Core 2 Duo E2180, should be a nice improvement over my last one but the whole process of picking out components has been rather annoying since pc tech has recently made quite a leap forward little did I know.

On many of the new motherboards the double IDE slots are now being replaced by 4 SATA slots for improved performance and speed (1 IDE port remains), so where as before i had 2 DVD drives and a Hardrive, i would now need to either drop a DVD or go for a new HDD (which I indeed went for due to thier low cost and greatly improved speeds).

Not only that but AGP slots are also on the way out making way for the PCI-Express instead, so I can’t make do with my old gfx card, a new one must be obtained (still deciding on that).

All this makes me very sad, but I have really been squeezing in some good components at the lowest price.. and leaving an option to later either overclock or upgrade to better very easily.

Tremulous is an open source, free fps based on the Quake III Arena engine. It is completely stand-alone and does not require the original game to play. What’s even more interesting is that this game plays much like the HL1 mod, Natural Selection in the way that there are humans on one team, alien bug-like creatures on the other, and structures can be built. The developers also do a very good job of providing excellent balance between the two teams. Even though the aliens are extremely fast, they still have very weak armor and will fall to even the smallest of guns. The humans have projectile weapons but hitting the fast moving aliens requires a bit of work especially against the cockroach aliens which can barely be seen. I played this game a while back and it’s really fun and you should give it a try. Especially Smokey cuz he’s been having crappy pc problems and he should have something to play.

http://www.tremulous.net/

It kinda sucks for me this weekend because I cant use my computer. A few days ago, our area had a big snowday. Because of that, I guess my water pumping things got overloaded with so much water and it just spilled all tnrough my basement and that is where my computer is kept. Today, we had an insurance agent come by and look at the mess and as fast as u could say: hytnbcduihvstuh, workers had ripped off my carpet and had plugged in huge fans to dry it all. Because of a potential power shortage and a beating from my mother, I am forced to stay away from my computer. And so I bring you this message coutesy of my Wii, over a stolen wireless internet from my neighbors an i am just waiting for monday when this will be all over. Until then, cya

I got a damn Virus on my PC today, well more of a Worm than a real virus, but annoying none the less. Mainly because I am still on a spare PC and my virus protection hadn’t updated from when my motherboard failed on my main computer. I really am not having much luck at the moment, as this is the least of my PC worries, it seems my spare PC likes to Power off all on its own, without warning.. maybe it’s a dodgy driver, as it’s a spare PC i might need to update them more, but that in itself it a laborious task.

So basically what this meant was me getting a virus, thinking ah shit i better scan my computer, the scan getting half way through and BING my comp shuts off… so I cant even get a complete scan done. Anyway, after much hassle and poking I sorted the virusy worm out, apologised to all whom it tried to spread to from me, and then propmtly vowed to get my new computer as soon as humanly possible.

Anyway, last week I had been playing a load of Burnout Paradise and competing in NoobToobs IGC (Iron Gamer Challenge), I almost won, but was beaten by Jam Enslaver, one of the mods over at noobtoob, by a mere 15 points. It’s a great game, and I recommend it to all who enjoy Burnout. But for now I am back tuning up my Call of Duty 4 skills, oh and point whoring with a bit of King Kong (oh the shame).

Remember, when I told you about Black Mesa Source and how it’s going to re-define the whole half life experience. Well here’s another one. It’s called Operation Black Mesa

This game is really following in BMS’s footsteps as it is recreating the experience of Half Life: Opposing force as you once again play in the shoes of Adrian Shephard. The game has been totally revamped with the Source engine and by the looks of the renders and models, it looks to be a pretty good game. But this game is way behind in development compared to black mesa source. The developers have barely gotten done the renders and they have 1-2 concept drawings. Don’t expect this mod to come soon. But to be assuring, this mod is probably gonna be the best mods I have ever played. I say that on the fact that the original Opposing Force was one of the best add-ons to half life ever. (Blue Shift didn’t catch my attention)

This mod looks promising and the mod will bring both the singleplayer and multiplayer portion of the original game. Hopefully I can bring you some more info in the months to come.

Many of you source players out there may know what this is but some of you do not. Insurgency. This mod is a realistic shooter pitting the Iraqi Insurgents against the forces of the USMC. What makes this game unique, is that they go the extra mile or kilometer(if you are living anywhere besides the US) to make this game as realistic as possible. There are absolutely no crosshairs, no health bar, no radar, no ammo counter, no auto - reload, and it is almost impossible to shoot if you dont look down your sights. It is much like COD4’s gameplay mode with no crosshairs but this is more realistic. Also, you can pretty much die in one or two(if you are lucky)shots. The animations are amazing and so are the weapon and character models.

 The game is currently in it’s second beta stage but you can go on over to the site to try it out for yourself.

Download: http://www.insmod.net/

Call of Duty this is not, Nope, this week I have been playing some Assassins Creed. As you can tell I have been having fun onlooking as soldiers try and work out what kind of massacre has just occurred. Well it certainly did have mixed reviews, and In all honesty I didn’t know what i felt at first, but by the time I was a few hours into the game and learned some of the finer points of the game (and got my kick ass throwing knives) it really opened up and I started enjoying it a lot more.

You know what it feels like it feels like a weird crackdown / hitman hybrid, they could of made it a lot better by giving us more weapons, activities, and man where are the side quests, but yea thats how I would describe it, free roaming a city, and as for the assassinations, well you dont have to be as secret as the hitman games, but it’s more fun if you try and do it right.

Well I think if you judged this game based on another review, its defiantly worth a look, I am enjoying it loads, but it does take some getting used to.

Yes, I have been celebrating the return of my Xbox360 , I treated it to Call of Duty 4 and it treated me to high def gaming yummyness. Not to mention the new DivX compatability that I am just loving right now thanks to the new dashboard update.

Everything seems to be finally turning around, and I wish everyone out there happy holidays. See you in the new year.