Gaming Signal: April 2007 Archives

Monday April 23, 2007

Gaming Tidbits for April 23, 2007

Today marks the return of gaming tidbits with lots of rejoicing, and far too much Xbox 360 news.

Guitar Hero 2 is a fantastic title that builds upon the success of its predeccessor, but there is some fallout from the cost of downloadable content for the Xbox 360. I doubt that Microsoft and Activision will necessarily drop the prices, but for those folks who want more strumming action can look to the open source version of the game called Frets on Fire. The only downside has been the lack of a controller for the game, but now there is some software that allows players to use the Xbox 360 controller for the game. So when you think about complaining about pricing, go make your own tracks.
Here at GamingSignal, we love boardgames. We play them as much as possible, but trying to get our collective selves together these days is much harder. We all have wives and kids and some of us have moved away (sniff, much love Scott). Luckily, Big Huge Games is bringing Settlers of Catan to us via Xbox Live Arcade this May. Furthermore, Carcassone is coming in June to help us play those board games we love without worrying about leaving our homes or making Scott move back here. Of course, he would have to step up and get a Xbox 360.
Have an Xbox360? Want a bigger hard drive? Don't want to pay what MIcrosoft is asking? Well, these guys have a hack that takes some skill to get working but would allow people to buy a third party 120Gb SATA drive to work at its full capacity. Standard warnings apply about this kind of stuff that you do so at your own risk and cracking open a MS enclosure will void its warranty.
Here at GamingSignal do not condone piracy (even though some folks seem to ask for stuff like that), but over at Game Giveaway of the Day there is a way to get a free game everyday. That's right, you can download a different game every day and while these tend to be independent titles and most are casual games, it is still an awesome service. This site is the sister site for Giveaway of the Day that gives away applications.

Friday April 20, 2007

Violent Videogames, Psychology, and Responsiblity

Given the events of this last week and again the media and government have turned their attention to video games as the cause of the tragedy, and most gamer will agree that this is ridiculous. To help our argument, CheapyD and Wombat over at CAG have an interview in their latest CAGcast with Dr. Patrick Markey at Villanova University who is researching the correlation of violence and video games. It is a great interview with a man who can speak about this topic and has some really interesting questions about this topic.

Now, I will not deny that allowing children to play games that are rated M or T can be inappropriate and ultimately that is why those games are rated that way, but I don't agree that playing those games will make them any more violent than those that don't play them. I do think it will give them nightmares and teach them some language they should know. The ESRB gets hammered about their rating process, but nobody wants to point the finger back at parents and guardians who allow their children to play games that are obviously not intended for them. I know that I try to work hard that my son does not watch movies or play games that are inappropriate for him (and most of the time I am successful), but ultimately it is my responsibility to monitor his activities. It is not the job of the guy that works at Gamestop nor is it the job of my elected government official. I also find it very interesting that everytime there is a tragic event that videogames are blamed which is strange given the number of other possible influences upon our youth. The event of this week should drive home the simple fact that there are folks who are not fully in control of their faculties and need help. There are warning signs, and we should step up and be involved with our children. We should also, as gamers, demonstrate that we are not violent people that we all know we are.

Thursday April 19, 2007

Want to write games?

That's a pretty good question and with XNA having been released for free, would be game designers can start working on their own games. While some of us can code and script like crazy there are still some stumbling blocks to actually creating a game. One of those is art, and I am well aware of the issues there. But what if there were somebody willing to provide art resources so you could write a game and learn about physics and all that fantastic stuff? Thanks to Danc over at Lost Garden prospective game developers can engage in a challenge he has posted to develop a game using some art resources that he created. So I suggest you meander over and check it out, and if nothing else it would be a great opportunity to see what others have created.

Link absconded with From Joystiq.

64 bit Windows Vista Ultimate finally usable with latest nvidia drivers.

Hello again my naughty little meerkats! On a whim I decided that since I recently came in to a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate (Full Version) that I did not have to pay the ridiculous sum of $400 to get. I figured I might give Vista 64 bit a shot on my PC now that nvidia has recently released version: 158.18 video divers for 64 bit OS's. I was pleasantly surprised...

What surprised me the most was how good a job nvidia did with the 64 bit 158.18 video drivers compared to older more stable (and more overclockable) 32 bit XP or Vista drivers.

So I guess a good place to start is my current basic machine stats. If you want more detail look to the screen shots below.
Case: Antec P180 Mid-Tower
PS: Silverstone DA650 650W
MB: ASUS A8N32-SLI-Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+
GPU: EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO
RAM: Patriot eXtreme Performance 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
HD: Western Digital WDC WD3200KS-00PFB0 SATA Device

So this is not a true "apples to apples" test since I am not a review site and don't have multiple similar PC's to test with so there is some variance in the GPU hardware I am testing with. In the 4 3DMark06 projects I am comparing I switch OS's and video cards + drivers only. Everything else stayed the same. Yeah yeah, not the best test, but since I don't care, (about anything for that matter) you shouldn't either. It's the experience I'm trying to exemplify and not the controlled environment of my test.

So what we have below is four different 3DMark06 comparisons running the default test at 1280x1024. One thing I would like to mention the light blue bar txt header should read "ASUS A8N32-SLI-Deluxe Win XP SP2 SLI CPU OC Max Vid OC 520/1315" because that unit had 2x 7800 GTX in an SLI config:

Items of note:
Look at 64 bit Vista rockin' the house in second place in the "Overall Score" with no overclock. It has the highest score out of the non-OC'd units!

Items of note:
Again look at 64 bit Vista come in second to a mild OC from Windows XP SP2 in the "Graphics Tests". Impressive!

Items of note:
This is the clincher I think? 64 bit Vista is beating all the other configurations in the "CPU2 - Red Valley" test here and two of the other configurations even have CPU overclocks?!?! VERY impressive!

Items of Note:
Well there is always one weak category. I wonder why the "Canyon Flight (SM 3.0)" test was so hard for 64 bit Vista. This one will take some research to figure out.

Items of Note:
Nothing here but the system specs and device values for reference. What? That not good enough for you?!?!?

Observations:
If this is what we can expect in 3DMark06, imagine what real world game performance is! Well done nvidia! So what about game compatibility you ask? Well so far I have loaded these games on 64 bit Vista. (Steam - Half-Life Source, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Day of Defeat Source, Medieval II: Total War, Thief: Deadly Shadows, X3: Reunion, The Ship, DEFCON, Counter-Strike: Source.) (EA Link - Battlefield 2 + all map packs, Battlefield: 2142 + all map packs, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars) (Others - Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Neverwinter Nights 2 (still dog slow!), F.E.A.R., Heroes of Might and Magic V, and last but not least The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.) So far all of these have worked quite well. Some had performance gains, some had losses, but minor losses only.

As far as productivity software goes I have loaded MS Office 2007 Enterprise, Adobe Photoshop CS2, Alias Wavefront Maya, 3D Studio Max, Adobe Premier without issue.

64 bit software surprises came along with this install in the way of me finding actual 64 bit versions of Logitech's G15 Gaming Keyboard applications, and Daemon Tools, and one more I can't remember. (I'm posting from work, sorry.)

Conclusions:
I think I'm going to leave 64 bit Vista as my primary operating system. So far I have not ran in to a single incompatibility with the 64 bit OS and in a lot of cases I have seen a performance gain. I'm sure none of the compatibility info is new to anyone, but the performance while gaming with the nvidia 158.18 video divers is new and quite a boon to those who have taken the plunge on Vista with an 8800 series GPU.

I hope there is enough data here that you might give Vista 64 bit a shot if you can. I wouldn't spend the money on a Full Version of Vista that comes with the 64 bit as Microsoft is totally kidding themselves with that $400 price tag. But all is not lost. If you currently have 32 bit Vista, Microsoft still seems to be running their alternate media program where you can get the 64 bit DVD for a small fee and shipping here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx

Thanks for letting me ramble on. I hope you enjoyed what I learned. I know I did, and from what I read online, there aren't a lot of 64 bit virus or malware written yet by hackers so the 64 bit OS might last a little longer before it bites the dust after running too many Sony rootkits and other DRM fiasco's from Sony.

Cheers!
-Trent