Wednesday, April 13, 2011

post://1020399504249813858/

it appears it takes something drastic for things to show up in google these days - bing, yahoo... whatever these newfangled internets are pointing you to. In any case I've been up and running for like 5 days now on comb.synthetic-x.com and there is no mention in the searches of http;//comb.synthetic-x.com perfectly fine, mind you... just wondering what it takes.

So in an experimental fashion I am listing http://comb.synthetic-x.com in my primary blog location that has been here for years... I hope it gets picked up before the URL submission just so I can say a ya ya eeeeee ho ho to a certain paladroma doolieburry.

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posted @ 00:37

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Sunday, April 03, 2011

post://6353084424591360918/

Stub for letter to ea games.

[there are the points - I shall flush out the letter henceforth to forthwith, vis a vie.]

So I was very excited for two new recent game releases for PC. Both happened to be sequels and both were Electronic Arts (EA). I have never been a fan of companies that get so large they depend on formulas, plans, and financials to fuel their game decisions rather then ideals. I had seen it happen before, but couldn't directly relate an actual example when prompted. No longer need I search -- Crysis 2 and NFS Shift 2 are both prime examples of what happens when money makes the decisions.

They are actually two very good examples of game play, the engines themselves control and function very well but I think I need to go back and make sure that Shift 2 is actually DX 10/11, as I know that Crysis 2 was not. My problem is not necessarily with what the games are, Crysis is quite fun and lays out a decent story with some additional twists, but before EA bought them, they put out a phenomenal first game, and Far Cry before that (now that I think of it, Far Cry 2 was probably a warning sign). While waiting for Crysis 2 I had purchased Crysis Warhead since I had never played through it. On the official games explorer icon you have the gamut of DX 9, 10, and 32 or 64 bit mode for each. That is how it should be. You write on graphic engine that renders X accordingly, with additional effects and / or acceleration if your system supports it.

The problem is that consoles were the driving force with these gMes. You can see where they developed textures in both games at 1920 x 1080 and called it a day (who plays anything above that? -- those with PCs worth a goddamn). I like to use GTA 4 as an example, though they did take almost a year to get IV to PC but it was well worth the wait. It has enough detail to keep systems going at max for another couple years. All the textures are 2560 x 1600 native, with lower quality versions of those textures making up the lower detail levels (texture quality low, med, etc). You can see the difference, and you can set it all anywhere in-between.

computer games is where it started

not going to include piracy in this letter - it's for another discussion

I have lately purchased both the limited edition for both Crysis 2 and NFS Shift 2

I believe both games cut corners to meet release date.

It appears as you developed for console and ported those textures to PC 1:1
You SHOULD have developed (graphically, talking just textures here) for PC 2560 x 1600 max and then saved them lower resolution for console / pc lower texture settings. Otherwise you get something that's developed blurry, vs something that's developed perfectly sharp and exactly how you want it, and then shrunk, maintaining the sharpness at a lower resolution. Even if you are only developing for console, you need to have the quality there before you shrink it, otherwise you're needlessly cheapening the presentation of your game.

Textures doesn't matter so much in NFS - you're supposedly flying by the background.
Look for Forza, and that's 360. They had a fabulous match of textures, near / far, cars, backgrounds. GT couldn't touch it console / console, but I digress - we're talking PC here. I don't care what else you develop it for. I WANT to buy it for PC, I want to give you money, I want to activate and register, and legally own my game for computer. I recognize the effort that the developers have put into it, and where I am never a fan of big business - I recognize it's the presence of a giant company like EA that allows these "big budget" games to be possible. However - take a little less money for the "talent" of big name drivers in video format telling me how they can see I have talent and give the developers an extra month or two to finish it... or at least let them patch it up after the release date you've branded into their foreheads.

neither of these titles are games for windows, what's the deal? x64? no time?

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posted @ 00:30

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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

post://2350774821227249358/

I got my hands on Crysis 2 for PC yesterday. I was very excited having seen it and played it on multiple machines at PAX East several weekends ago. It came on one disk, which was good in regards to time to install, but I'm still impressed by GTA IVs 2 DVDs / 18G worth of textures and data.

I started it up and it was 4:3 by default... no one plays in 4:3 anymore, so straight to the options I went. The first thing I noticed was the lack of settings, though with some further reading I have heard that the display config file is editable. You can change the resolution, and the quality, so Low, Medium, High, and Ultra - though they all have their own special names like "Gamer" and "Extreme" for the top two.

I went realistic and set to 1920 x 1200 (basic 1080p at 16:10 aspect ratio) and Extreme, figuring I'd need to set it down once the game started. I have an AMD Phenom II x4 @ 3.2ghz, Dual Channel DDR3 @ 1600mhz (don't get me started on available SLi / TriChannel ram options for AMD chipsets) and 2 x EVGA 285GTX FTW 2G cards so based on the previous games (Crysis, Warhead) I assumed I'd still be a little behind the curve. That was not the case, all in all the game worked at a steady 60+ fps, no vsynch at 1920 x 1200 and a good 45fps at 2560 x 1600 in the Extreme setting.

I started the game and was treated to a phenomenal opening sequence, followed by a brief gameplay escape which cut to the intro credits and the initial introduction video. It set the scene for an ominous situation in the NY of the future (complete with completed Freedom Tower, I noticed) plagued by a widespread alien infection.

You start inside, murky warehouse windows, moderate light shining through. No light beams, and moderate grimy textures, nothing specifically too impressive, though it all looked good. You get outside pretty quickly and realize you've emerged onto a seaside warehouse roof with the city skyline in front of you. The ocean, trees, and ship in the dock is all obscured by heavy ansiotropic filtered light, a major part of the effects.

Another point I want to note was my test of the artifacts, the bullet holes and debris left by explosions. I shot a car, I didn't see any bullet holes, I got a bit closer... they appeared in strategic locations, not in others - there was nothing on the car window, or the back of the mirror, but there was several in the door. I shot them again close up, some appeared but as I backed up to (a virtual) 5 feet away, they went away. I shot the tire, it popped, stayed popped. I shot the hood with a smiley face pattern I didn't even get to half the smile before the eyes disapeared. This is on Extreme quality, mind you - that sort of stuff should be no problem to leave, especially for me with 2G of video RAM (with SLi you only get the video ram of 1 card since it uses the same amount for both cards). I then shot at an awning that was swaying in the breeze. I was impressed that the bullet holes appeared, cloth ripping is not really new, but physx is normally an afterthought - Batman uses it well with the cape, cloth tearing and uses it for some immersion. This was no physx. The awning moved again in the breeze and the bullet holes went away, as soon as the "cloth" breezed back to the 0 degree Y plane, the bullet holes appeared, and disappeared again as it breezed past it. I know I'm being picky, and this may pass on consoles but not for PC, especially with many other games that show it can be done well.

All I keep reading regarding the PC reviews about this game is "what do you mean, this is the best looking game to date!" Maybe for a console, but this is on PC - we're used to ports on PC, we put up with them, but this was originally a PC game and more is expected. EA bought it, pushed it for the money maker and this is what we get. My only hope is the hubbub about the DX 10/11 post-release patch. I don't know as that's going to do anything for the textures, but it seems silly that they'd limit the textures as (I'll use GTA IV in this example) other games have 2560 x 1600 textures to start, and they're reduced in size for the console version, and even the lower quality texture tiers on PC. This results in a better image overall because if you design the detail, reducing it actually smooths it out as well as saves GPU power / memory.

The story is cool so far, the gameplay is cool - nowhere else can you get a FPS that plays like this. It's truly gratifying to run up on someone in cloak and slit their throat, break their neck, or kick them in the back... sneaking, cloaking, shooting, and cloaking again is a little harder as it's designed so your energy has not regenerated enough in most cases so you still need to have some cover. Speaking of cover, there is a new method of cover I have not seen in any other game, counters and corners allow you to hold a key (or a mouse button) and move the mouse to "look" around the corner, it's more of an arc around / over the obstruction, which is very very tactical.

Story: Excellent
Sound: Amazing
Gameplay: Impressive
Graphics: Excellent for DX 9 / a year ago, low quality textures (above 1920 x 1080)
Technology: No x64 (yet?) no DX 10 / 11 (yet?)
Multiplayer: Broken (not available on launch day) - EA - Estimated Availability

All in all I have to fault it for the graphical shortcomings but I'll be playing the shit out of this game.

Here's some movies / screenshots:
































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posted @ 10:19

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Thursday, March 03, 2011

post://3506176413114788508/

I set out to write a very melodramatic account of getting glasses. I've always been able to see rather well, or so I thought. It's been over 10 years since my last visit to the optometrist and I'm sure my vision had degraded somewhere in there.

Everything was different. They used to have the lights and the poofs, but it just felt different this time. There were 3 machines when I went in for my pre-exam. There was an autofocus machine which determined what I was looking at as a scene appeared before me, constantly flicking in and out of focus, a puff machine - blowing air into each eye to see the reflex, and finally a crazy camera that took a picture of the back of my eyeball, does it go through the front? I assume so, but I don't know!

In any case all the technology was well and good until we came to the actual exam where they put (projected) letters in front of me. I couldn't make out nearly any of them of any good size, and apparently one eye was far worse then the other.

I had always claimed my good eyesight and hadn't really noticed a difference. The past few years I had run into difficult sign reading, at night, while driving... but it was more of a joke then a determination. I have astigmatism so that complicated things - neighter neear or far, just oblong development so one side doesn't match the other. The lenses should correct that.

I had wanted glasses as a kid for a short while, and even was diagnosed with a "lazy eye" based on my faking eye exam results to come to an end result of glasses. You think you're so clever when you're young. In any case this most recent exam came out of the blue. I was looking at my screens at work and realized I couldn't see as well as I'd like, add that on top of constant reminders everytime I couldn't read something but my wife could, or asking her for clarification... I knew it was inevitable that I had some deterioration.

All in all it wasn't horrible, just an irregularity - 88/80 I'm presuming are my numbers. They don't really tell you and they discourage you from ordering online. I don't blame them, you wan to try them on, but I can find the frames I liked and tried on and then order them directly.

In any case I got my glasses today and put them on. The perspective is completely different, and my biggest worry is the fact that when I put them on I lose my own vision. Taking them off and I'm all blurred up, 10x worse then I ever was before them... so what if I become that, what if I can't live without glasses ever??? It will be like that Twilight Zone episode where the lover of books has all the books in the world in a post apocalyptic shelter but then breaks his glasses... it's just not right.

I've been adapting, it's strange, things even seem skinnier, I'm changing my whoel perception of a lot of things, and the biggest thought to blow my mind was that everything that I thought I knew, what it looked like, has now been changed. This is the new view... and it's right?

The new:

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posted @ 22:02

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Tuesday, March 01, 2011

post://6185620843742239928/

So here's my first real entry since the whole blogger fiasco. I still want to convert everything to wordpress but for the effort I got the old template working with some strange google domain name service redirection magic to subdomains.

That's probably more then any good security expert would divulge, but I believe I've lost many of my readers anyhow at this point.

A lot has happened in the past couple years. It's going on 2 years since my son was born, and it was a good 9 months before that where we were preoccupied with newfangled life experiences.

It's strange but the biggest catalyst of late has been my need to reconnect with myself. I've let it go for a while, creeping further and further away, trying to ignore what's happening and continuing to live day to day. Not in a bad way, simply in a functional life process. I go to work, work, then come home. A lot of my interaction has been Facebook and I'm disappointed by the lack of permanentness.

It took a couple small tweaks but it's displaying some more info - mainly the musical section since I just posted a new item on my soundcloud account - I'll post more to the sidebar but you can view all my tracks here: http://soundcloud.com/serin-1

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posted @ 17:25

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