In that order.
by AC - permalink
So I haven't been able to put aside much time for the blog lately. Somehow all my conscious free time has been sucked into a black hole called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I knew it was supposed to be good on the PS2, but nothing, not even GTA Vice City, prepared me for how all-consuming the PC version of San Andreas would be. It just pulls in your entire life and leaves your brain with nothing but spinning maps of Los Santos and Red County and San Fierro, etc. I got my first GTA: SA girlfriend up to 100%, while my real-life girlfriend -- let's pretend for a moment that I have one -- is left wondering why doing drive-by's is such a great third-date activity.
That 30fps problem was caused by the Frame Limiter in-game setting. It sounds like a vsync setting, but it actually caps the game at 30fps. Which is fucking insane. It's 2006, and I have 256MB of vidram, and I absolutely refuse to play any game at 30fps. Uncapping that, and hardware-forcing 4xAA and 16xAF still gives me over 60fps, so suck on that, Rockstar North. I mean, they're Scots and my people by blood, but come on. I want to kick 'em all in the neck for that shit.
Anyway. A developer-release alpha of Firefox 2.0 was released last week. Don't install it unless you're serious about beta testing and know that this bears virtually no resemblance to what 2.0 final will be. Similarly, don't use Internet Explorer 7.0 beta for any reason at all. It's feature-incomplete as well, but also sports some major security vulnerabilities and can break explorer. I tried to use it once, and it broke my ISP's proprietary dialer software. The latest word is that it won't integrate itself into explorer and will function like any other stand-alone browser (like Firefox or Opera). Frankly, I think that's a load of bullshit. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but I'm just going by Microsoft's track record.
I've dropped both Firefox and Opera on the POS box at work and started using Avant Browser. So far it's been flawless. Just to recap, it's an old IBM Pentium III rig with 64MB of RAM running Win98, and as far as I can tell, it's never been reformatted. Installing AB definitely helped extend it's useful life, and I mean that literally. Another couple weeks of forcing that fucking thing to run Firefox, or even IE, and I would have thrown it into the goddamn dumpster as hard as I could. You have no idea how close I've come to that, or how many times.
I don't really have any new DVD's or games on my radar at this point. Thinking about ordering System of a Down's Mezmerize and Hypnotize, but that's it. GTA III is just ten bucks, but I've got more than enough GTA than I can deal with as it is.
by AC - permalink
So I haven't been able to put aside much time for the blog lately. Somehow all my conscious free time has been sucked into a black hole called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I knew it was supposed to be good on the PS2, but nothing, not even GTA Vice City, prepared me for how all-consuming the PC version of San Andreas would be. It just pulls in your entire life and leaves your brain with nothing but spinning maps of Los Santos and Red County and San Fierro, etc. I got my first GTA: SA girlfriend up to 100%, while my real-life girlfriend -- let's pretend for a moment that I have one -- is left wondering why doing drive-by's is such a great third-date activity.
That 30fps problem was caused by the Frame Limiter in-game setting. It sounds like a vsync setting, but it actually caps the game at 30fps. Which is fucking insane. It's 2006, and I have 256MB of vidram, and I absolutely refuse to play any game at 30fps. Uncapping that, and hardware-forcing 4xAA and 16xAF still gives me over 60fps, so suck on that, Rockstar North. I mean, they're Scots and my people by blood, but come on. I want to kick 'em all in the neck for that shit.
Anyway. A developer-release alpha of Firefox 2.0 was released last week. Don't install it unless you're serious about beta testing and know that this bears virtually no resemblance to what 2.0 final will be. Similarly, don't use Internet Explorer 7.0 beta for any reason at all. It's feature-incomplete as well, but also sports some major security vulnerabilities and can break explorer. I tried to use it once, and it broke my ISP's proprietary dialer software. The latest word is that it won't integrate itself into explorer and will function like any other stand-alone browser (like Firefox or Opera). Frankly, I think that's a load of bullshit. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but I'm just going by Microsoft's track record.
I've dropped both Firefox and Opera on the POS box at work and started using Avant Browser. So far it's been flawless. Just to recap, it's an old IBM Pentium III rig with 64MB of RAM running Win98, and as far as I can tell, it's never been reformatted. Installing AB definitely helped extend it's useful life, and I mean that literally. Another couple weeks of forcing that fucking thing to run Firefox, or even IE, and I would have thrown it into the goddamn dumpster as hard as I could. You have no idea how close I've come to that, or how many times.
I don't really have any new DVD's or games on my radar at this point. Thinking about ordering System of a Down's Mezmerize and Hypnotize, but that's it. GTA III is just ten bucks, but I've got more than enough GTA than I can deal with as it is.
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