4500X

Trials & Rewards : New PC Upgrades

2008-05-29T12:51:00.002-04:00

What is this About?

Well, about three weeks ago I started looking on newegg for some new PC upgrades. I just felt that it was time for a rather simple upgrade. Nothing too extreme, since I have college courses coming up again in September. I think this is a fairly high-end build though, seeing as how I spent about $1260 USD on parts.

Machine Specs

Name:: UNCROWNED 2

CPU:: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale @4.0Ghz
MOBO:: EVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW
RAM:: 4GB OCZ REAPER HPC
GPU:: PNY GeForce 9800GTX XLR8 Performance Edition
HDD:: WD 250GB, WD 400GB All SATA, WD 80GB IDE, WD 20GB IDE
OS:: Vista Home Premium 64-bit
DISPLAY:: 20" Widescreen 1680 x 1050 Acer Monitor

Some Problems Faced

Well, this is the very first build I have ever had problems with. However, after taking my time I eventually solved all of my problems(except for one). See, I'm smart like a fox!

(1) One of my first problems was getting the friggin' OS to install. The ASUS DVD burner I got turned out to be dead, so I went to the store and got myself some HP DVD drive. After that, the OS installed with no problem.

(2) For some strange reason, after the OS installed and I rebooted the computer, it would not boot. I installed Vista on the 250GB SATA drive, so I made sure that the system was set to boot from it first. But still, it would not boot. So after about 30 minutes of scratching my head, I realized that the BIOS on the EVGA FTW board not only allows you to set the HDD to boot first, but it also allows you to set which HDD is booted first. So when I finally set it to boot from the 20GB IDE drive, it worked to my surprise. Now I'm wondering why the hell it's booting from the 20GB when Vista is in fact installed on the 250GB SATA. This is the only thing I have not been able to solve yet. I want the system to boot from the 250GB SATA, becuase originally that 20GB IDE was going to be my junk drive, and probably would have been reformatted many times. Oh well!

(3) Okay, I admit this one was my fault. After the machine was already build and up and running, I installed the 400GB SATA drive, but it did not show up in "Computer" tab on Vista. It was in the device manager and the BIOS but not in the Windows explorer where it should be. Then I smacked myself in the forehead, I had to initialize the drive. So I did and now that problem is solved.

Thoughts

Later I will get a new case for this PC, but for now it's in the NZXT Apollo Gaming Case. I had a lot of fun building this one, especially when that 9800GTX arrived. As of right now, there's only about a quarter-inch between the front of the GTX and my hard drive cage. I had to disconnect the floppy to get the GTX in there. So, no floppy drive for this machine.

EVGA 750i FTW - I'm pretty impressed with this board. My Wolfdale CPU posted and booted without any problems, the board is in fact a good overclocker. My E8400 is running at 4.0Ghz on air and it's stable. My only thing that bothered me a little is that the board only has one IDE connector.

Core 2 Duo E8400 - What can I say, it overclocks very well, it runs cool, and it's 45nanometer.

PNY 9800GTX - This was the cheapest 9800GTX I could find at $294 USD, plus there's a rebate I'm about to send in. I put this card in, set my new monitor to 1680 x 1050, fired up Crysis on veryhigh DX10 64-bit and averaged about 24fps. Then I set it to high DX9 64-bit same resolution and averaged about 35fps. Nice!

Conclusion

I'm gonna sit back and wait for Mass Effect to arrive at my door.

Mirror's Edge

2008-05-06T16:52:00.002-04:00

How sweet it is!!!

About two days ago I saw this image for a game in PC Gamer magazine next to an image of Assassin's Creed, with a mention of free-running, but I thought nothing of the other unknown game. Then today, I'm just surfing GameTrailers.com
and I come across this game video entitled "Mirrors Edge." The only reason I clicked on it was because the preview image had really nice visuals, and it was also listed as being a PC game. Since I'm buying mostly PC games right now, I clicked on it.

BOY, was I surprised! When the trailer started, I immediately noticed the incredible music that was playing, followed by the sounds of someone breathing as though they were running, and some footsteps. When the image faded in, the game was being played from a first-person perspective. You'll never guess what amazed me the most. Once I saw the person running, and heard the sounds of the character's breath, I immediately put two and two together and realized that this was a game based on something I have come to admire very much. I'm talking about Parkour(free-running). Over the past year and a half, I have been watching people performing Parkour and just recently I have decided that I was going to put some effort into learning this art. I would have never imagined that someone would create a game based on free-running, but boy am I glad they did. The game is being worked on by EA, and DICE as far as I know. You can be sure that I'll be getting this game for sure once it comes out.

The choice of music they included with the footage in this game trailer blew me away. The trailer itself provided the incredible experience of free-running, in my opinion. I am not super talented at Parkour yet, in fact I don't even have any real stylish moves yet, but I am good at massive jumps and the basics. But I still know the intense experience of feeling like you're flying high. That's pretty much what this well-assembled trailer provides.

Below is the video for the game I'm talking about. Check it out!!!

New To Team Fortress 2

2008-05-05T12:21:00.004-04:00

Well, I've just bought Team Fortress 2 from Steam. I've been wanting to get the game, but never remembered to do so. I'd be online, but I always have Steam set to offline mode. So, I just skip over it every time. Anyway, I finally decided to launch Steam about an hour ago. I TF2, so I bought it. Unfortunately, I'm on my laptop, and my desktop at home is not connected to the internet, so I had to play with my laptop's touch pad, and ingame settings turned down. Most of them on low. Anyway, I still like the game and I plan on installing it on my gaming machine when I go back home after this semester. Also, I've been using steam for a long time, but I have not been logged in. So, today I updated my info, added a new avatar, and other junk. It's time to get serious.

Uh Oh!

2008-05-05T10:20:00.000-04:00

Here They Go Attacking Games Again : GTA IV Robbery

2008-05-01T11:04:00.002-04:00

I'd like to thank Artofwar for posting this video over on GameTrailers.com. I've got to say this is the stupidest thing the news could feature. It only fuels people like Jack Thompson. Is the news really that desperate for attention?

This video shows a news story in which some guy stole a copy of GTA IV from a Gamestop. This is just a failed attempt at a simple shoplifting, so why should this be featured in the news? I'll tell you why. The new GTA has been long awaited game by gamers and by the people that like to attack games. I think that they were just waiting for this game to come out so they could try to make games look bad some more. This is the kind of thing that really ticks me off. They would never feature a story if someone stole a copy of say half-life 2, or Assassin's Creed. People shoplift stuff all the time and you don't see that featured the way they featured this GTA story.

When the guy was questioned as to why he stole the game, he said "I just wanted it, so I took it." Then they go on to say that, Oh, this is what GTA makes people do. In my opinion that's bullshit! The guy desired the game so he took it. When people desire something enough and don't want to pay or can't pay they take it. It's just that simple. A game can't make someone do this.

I think that this is just going to fuel people like Jack Thompson, with all his assaults on video gaming. I don't know if you know this already, but a couple of weeks ago I think, Jack Thompson actually sent a letter to the chairman of Take Two's mother. He sent a friggin' letter to the chairman's mother! What the hell?! I don't remember the exact contents of the letter, but basically he was saying that the chairman is destroying the youth with games, or something like that. You might be able to find it somewhere online if you haven't seen it.

DAMN, I'm pissed now!

Let me know what you guys think.

MOD UPDATE: Shadow on the Sun

2008-04-29T15:33:00.005-04:00

I have been working on this Crysis map for quite some time. There have been many delays due to school work and trying to learn the Crysis editor at the same time. This is a preview for my map, which is focused on delivering a chaos-like atmosphere with bad weather and explosions to give the experience of chaotic combat.

Music in this video by:

Audioslave

Blue October

and Billy Talent.

Blog comments and video comments will be much appreciated, and please be sure to tell your friends.

Thanks for watching!

Here's the Preview Video:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

UNCROWNED : Custom Gaming Machine

2008-04-22T09:43:00.012-04:00

Machine Name: UNCROWNED

Owner: Me (4500X) aka (Apollo GT)
Country: USA

DESCRIPTION:

I just finished building this PC last week. I chose the name "UNCROWNED" because the whole time I was lining up my parts, all I could think about was kings and combat. I usually name my machines based on what's going through my mind. But just naming it "King Machine" or something like that would sound really lame, so I decided to go in a different direction. So I developed a small back-story that tells of a crown-less king at war. That is why I chose to name this PC "UNCROWNED."

SPECS:

Case: NZXT Apollo Gaming Chasis (temporary)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 3.2Ghz
Motherboard: Asus Striker II Formula nForce 780i
Memory: 4GB Patriot Viper DDR2 RAM
GPU: 2x Asus EN9800GTX in SLI Mode
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit

IMAGES: ( Note: The Case you see in the below pics are not final. This NZXT case is only temporary. I'm going to switch over to the Thermaltake Armor Extreme case for this machine sometime soon. I will add a new updated blog with new images then.)

Do Six Things Project

2008-04-21T08:19:00.002-04:00

Student: Charles Gough
Class: IDIS 101

Back in January, I started my first semester at the University of Baltimore with Simulation & Digital Entertainment as my major. In my Applied Learning and Study Skills class(IDIS 101), we were given a "Do Six Things" Project early on in the semester. The purpose of this project is to get students involved in learning outside of the classroom. The Do Six Things project includes deciding what kinds of learning experiences are imortant to you, finding six things that are happening around the campus, attend them, and then present an accounting of your experiences. So, if you haven't figured it out already, my presentation will be in the form of a blog. For my events, I chose items that were all listed on the student calender on the schools website. The events I attended are listed below with descriptions of what I learned, what I did, etc.

PC to Mac 101 (Feb. 2)

- I don't plan on switching to a mac anytime soon, but I attended this even for a couple of reasons. First, I think it is important to know the workings of more that one platform with most things that you do. Second, I wanted to attend something that had to do with computers.

- During this event, I learned some of the basic differences between the mac and the PC. I did not have time to stay very long, but I did a little research afterwards when I had some time. Another thing I found out was that the mac platform is capable of running Microsoft's Windows operating system. I would participate in more of these kinds of activities because being versitile with technology is a great skill to have.

XNA Game Studio Express Development - with Microsoft's Cy Khormaee (April 4)

- XNA is a development tool that can be used by advanced users or even beginners to create games for the Windows and Xbox 360 platforms.

- I chose to attend this event because of the fact that I am majoring in game development.

- At this event I learned some of the steps involved in creating a game with XNA Game Studio Express. Some of the stages include; concepting, planning, writing code, audio with XNA's X-ACT sound tool and graphics programming. I do plan to do more of these type of things because I find that meeting with industry leaders and hearing the details from them will be of great help with my future plans.

LAN Party (April 4)

- This was not the first LAN party I have been to, but everytime I hear LAN party, I have to go. LAN Parties are video gaming get-togethers where gamers compete with each other in the latest games on the market.

- Many LAN parties are centered around teams, which is a good way for people to learn to work together as a strong team to accomplish a goal. Plus, they are fun to compete in.

The Nuts & Bolts of Emailing (April 5)

- I attended this event to see if there was anything more that I could learn about emailing. Unfortunately, I didn't get any info that I did not already know. However, I would still recommend this type of event to someone else because the info that was given during the event did seem quite useful. I know that if I were someone who perhaps did not know anything about emailing, I'd be able to get a good start and improve from there, with the information provided at this event.

HTML with Style: Using CSS (April 12)

- I went to this event because that I knew that I did not know much about HTML with CSS (cascading style sheets). Before attending this event, I would still be able to identify a CSS if I saw one, but I could have told you nothing of how they worked. I've see them used often on sites such as www.myspace.com where they are used in profile pages to give them a specified theme.

- I would engage in another experience like this one because I learned a liitle bit more about CSS and how they work, so that's one more thing I'll know how to do once I continue to put time and effort into it.

500 Years ( I don't remember the exact title of the event) (April 15)

- I arrived late, but basically The 500 Years event was a video showing about slavery, and racism. In the presentation, people shared thier thoughts of what could be considered as racism, the trials and tribulations that African Americans went through during the days of slavery, and how many believe that racism still exists today's society.

Conclusion

Though most of the events that I attended were based around computers, if the future I do plan on going to other types of events as well. I'm really a PC Enthusiast, which is why I tend to take more intrest in computer-related topics. However, I know that great learning experiences are ones that cover more diverse topics, rather than just one central topic. So in my continuing studies at the University of Baltimore and beyond, I am willing to make broad-range learning my goal.

The Beauty of Crysis

2008-03-31T09:33:00.003-04:00

I have been playing the Lost Island II Singleplayer mod for Crysis for a day or two now. I've got to say, this is looking good so far. As of this blog they are only at about 20% completion, but the demo was awsome. In particular, it looked really amazing. That's why no other game in existence looks better than Crysis right now in my opinion.

If you have Crysis and have not played any mods yet, I recommend you download Lost Island II and play it . It looks great! Plus, if you have some of the other enhancements from the Crymod site, like the "Natural Mod" or the other graphics tweaks found on the site, the game can look even better.

Here are just a few screenshots I took while playing the map.

NOTE: I also turned of the HUD(heads up display) for some shots in order to get some screens without the HUD showing. You can do the same by using the ( ` ) key to open the console during gameplay. Then type "cl_hud 0" to remove the HUD and "cl_hud 1" to restore it.

HERE ARE THE SCREENS:

Relived an entire day in a Dream

2008-03-20T10:26:00.003-04:00

This is going to be a short one. So basically, last night I went to sleep and dreamed about that entire day all over again. Absolutely everything that happened all day yesterday replayed itself in my dream. The only difference is that everyone in my dream called me "Mr. Martin Peanut".
Also, I went into Subway in my dream just like I actually did that day. In my dream, however, an infant baby popped up out of the honey-mustard container and said "I'ma Fuck You Up!"

NO KIDDING!

I should write a book or something, because with all the weird dream I have I could make a small fourtune. Oh well, I'm out!

Fastest Camera In The World

2008-03-03T11:25:00.001-05:00

MORPH

2008-03-03T10:12:00.002-05:00

I thought this was really cool. Imagine technology like this someday, how awsome would that be.

This is a concept video for the NOKIA MORPH

I love soccergirl INC.

2008-03-02T15:44:00.001-05:00

Just what am I talking about? For anyone out there who doesn't know about soccergirl incorperated, let me fill you in.

soccergirl incorperated is like a freaky topless alien chic, who's job is to speak her cryptic, hypnotic language into your ear until you literally laugh your ass off. Pretty Much!

Alright, for real though. I was just surfing deep into the iTunes podcast section about a week ago and then I just saw this tiny image near the middle of the page with some topless chic, so naturally I had to click on it. I read the description and thought I'd give the show a shot...In the mouth! Just kidding, so I download the most recent episode and listen to it. From the very beginning I'm laughing like a maniac with no reason to stop. soccergirl just starts spittng balls-to-the-wall, bullshit-out-the-window type stuff. Stuff you would never think of saying. And of course I'm lovin' it because I'm the type of person that finds a whole lot of stuff funny. I mean...she's just like me, saying things that are totally off the wall.

After listening to that one episode entitled "Cock suck my vagina, God" I had to download every episode. After that I dumped almost every other podcast off of my iPod Touch since I only have the 8GB version, just so I could listen to soccergirl incorperated all day. So if you haven't heard of soccergirl inc, go download her from iTunes or visit http://soccergirlincorporated.podshow.com/ to view her show. But be warned young listeners, the show contains adult lanuage.

I give soccergirl incorperated 10 "big round boobies" out of 10 (10/10)

"RIDE DONKEY RIDE"

[ Apollo Landed Here ]

Baku - What?!

2008-02-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

So I was just surfing the iTunes store yesterday, minding my own business when this anime is listed as a free download. I download pretty much anything that's free on the iTunes store just to see if I like it, cause' I spend too much money on iTunes as it is. Why doesn't someone by me an iTunes store card anyway? Oh well

Anyhow, So this anime show is called Bakugan-I think I spelled that correctly because I don't feel like looking right now. So I download the episode and begin to watch it. This has got to be the most incredibly stupid show I've seen all year. The opening starts out with this kid talking about mysterious cards falling from the sky all around the world one day. That right there was enough to get me laughing my ass off. Then when the opening is over, they've got this kids mother who looks like an 8 year old. The kid totally ditches breakfast to jump out the front door and do the spits onto his bike, and all just to go throw down with some fat kid. Literally. They use these cards by throwing them onto the ground and then giant monsters pop out when they throw their balls to the ground. Yeah, they also throw some sort of ball onto the ground with the cards.

I don't get it either.

Man Yu-Gi-Oh! was so much better than this show.

What the hell is a Bakugan anyway?!