Of Curmudgeons And GameTaps

The old Curmudgeon Gamer set his target on GameTap, this time around having an email exchange with Simon of GameSetWatch about the potential loss of gaming history:

Simon "I just like them because they make old, interesting games available legally. It's as simple as that. There will still be ROMs and standalone copies of these games (Sam & Max is coming out as a standalone digital download too, and at retail, don't forget). Sure, there are some exceptions like Uru, but that needs a server to exist anyhow.

Are you being a Curmudgeon? :) What do you think they are doing wrong? It's not possible that old games would just be available for free, because companies can monetize them. We have to wait for the public domain to kick in for that."

Matt: "Perhaps a bit of a curmudgeon, but more importantly a person who likes being able to purchase copies of media. Do we know that [all the games GameTap offers exclusively on their service] will be untethered? The lesson of Half-life 2 and other Steam-linked products is that you may find yourself dependent on the service for authentication -- either now or in a few years when you want to revisit a game -- even if the game itself doesn't require anything online.

That's what my friend/co-blogger Ruffin calls the virtual rare book room, and it's a reasonable analogy I think. There is a gatekeeper who stands between you and things that you (think you) own (in the instance of, say, a public university where the people ostensibly own the library's holdings).

-- Preservation, GameTap, and Curmudgeoning

Matt's got a point - well they both have points which is why it's a decent read. My problem with the online services is even less historical and more about fears as a consumer. When I buy a game and it downloads to my hard drive - I like to think of that as my game on my hard drive. But it's not really my property if I have to login to a remote server to access my own local files.

I actually wonder why the games.yahoo model didn't work out better. Treat games as rentals. I mean - that's what Steam and GameTap are more similar to than physical media sales. You don't really own the content outright, you've just negotiated some terms to use it for a while. My only problem with games.yahoo was that their library was usually small, out of date and was slow to get new titles.

For my money, a model like Steam where you can buy a physical disc in the store, install it - and then not be able to use it if something goes wrong with a remote connection - is just no deal at all. If that becomes the mainstream, it will be the nail in the already mostly built coffin of my PC gaming life. Yeah, I get piracy is a huge issue for PC games. That doesn't mean I want to be unable to finish my game when your buggy software won't let me play it.

When it comes to the preservation of games, we've got a pretty thorny issue. Matt's line of thinking is correct that the GameTap/Steam/etc approach isn't a safe method for the future. It's not really a preservation model at all - there's no guarantee the games will be around for prosperity. Yet - as one of the commenters note - this is something of a problem for games in general. They aren't like books which simply need a good room for storage. They're worse than even those old VHS tapes you probably can't watch anymore because your player went for $20 at a garage sale. Games are really only reliable on the platform they were designed to play on. DOS games are becoming harder and harder to keep around. There are Amiga games I was quite fond of which I doubt I'll ever be able to properly play again. Emulators, sadly, can only go so far (and even emulators, well, only run on the platform for which they are designed). Backwards compatibility on consoles is becoming more and more contentious, it seems, with every generation.

This is precisely the reason I'm unlikely to part with a cartload of aging console hardware. No, I'm not likely to bust out Defender any time soon - but I feel I need to keep the ability to do just that anyway.

And I think it's very easy to underestimate this issue or dismiss it outright. We need to acknowledge this as a bad thing. Games are part of our culture and as a medium they build on themselves. Where would we have gotten Wing Commander if it weren't for Defender? I'm a big proponent of the theory that old games still have plenty to teach modern game design - but they can only do that if someone can boot them up.

Some Irony With XNA

I was just browsing the FAQ on Microsoft's XNA studio when I ran across this again:

Q: What versions of Windows does XNA Game Studio support? I'm running Windows Vista, can I run XNA Game Studio Express?
A: Right now XNA Game Studio Express is only designed and tested for Windows XP SP2. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 are unsupported platforms, although we are working on bringing Vista support in a future update.

-- XNA Frequently Asked Questions

I've drifted through these answers before - but the irony of this fact didn't click with me the first time. Microsoft's vaunted Games For Windows program, a Vista only feature set which the New York Times believes will help revitalize the PC gaming world, should help merge the worlds of the Xbox 360 and the PC world.

For Vista users.

But wait, if us XP users aren't even worthy of playing Halo 2 ... why is it we are the only ones allowed to code XNA? In other words if I wanted to be a part of Microsoft's new gaming initiative in all it's glory - to cross-develop 360 and PC games AND play with Xbox Live on both a computer and console ... I'd need three installations. A 360, Vista and XP.

Nice. If Microsoft is still tied to XP enough that it is an intergral part of XNA - I don't see why Games For Windows shouldn't include XP as well. What's good for the goose, right?

More evidence that Games For Windows is primarily a marketing sham.

Driver For 360 Controller On OS X

I have created a USB driver which allows you to use wired XBox 360 Controllers via USB, and wireless XBox 360 Controllers via the Microsoft Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows, on your OSX machine, including support for the Apple Force Feedback library. The driver is licenced under the GPL.

-- Tattiebogle.net - Mac OS X driver [via Engadget]

That's completely awesome. I may be tempted to pick up a 360 Controller now, if I can get one that works on both Windows and OS X. Standardized controller anyone? We could do worse than the 360's design, that's for sure.

NY Times (Overly) Optimistic On PC Gaming

The New York Times just published an article about how PC games are bouncing back:

Anita Frazier, an industry analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm, noted that in the first two months of 2007, domestic retail sales of PC games reached $203 million, a 48 percent increase over the $136.8 million in the period a year earlier. She noted that these figures do not include revenue generated by PC game sales online, or online subscriptions to play PC games.

“Yes, it does look like a fluke, doesn’t it?” Ms. Frazier said. “Rest assured it’s not.”

She said the bulk of this surge in sales is rooted in the role-playing video game genre that, itself, grew 43 percent over the same period last year. “The robust performance we’re seeing in PC game sales can be tied to several key titles across several genres,” she said, “but we’d be remiss not to address the continued success of World of Warcraft.”

-- PC Games, Once Down, Show Signs of Rebound

Ah yes, World of Warcraft. We'll get back to that later. Let's go back to the beginning of the article where the Times uses a 28 year old lawyer as an example of the nouveau PC gamer:

When I was a kid, I used to like Nintendo and used to play on consoles,” said Mr. Kirschner, a 28-year-old lawyer. “But right now I don’t have the time or money to invest in a $400 console and $50 in a game.”

He then buys Civilization IV. Which costs $40 on Amazon right now. Many new games for the PC cost $60. And let's not even talk about how cheap $400 is compared to getting serious about your gaming rig. So I think the cost portion of this quote is something of a non-starter.

The genre is more pertinent. The "new PC gamer" is looking for titles which can be played at random intervals for random periods of time (some would call that casual, I'd say ... sporadic). Console games are often more about sucking you in for at least an hour or so at a time. Although with things like Live Arcade, that's changing as well.

He continues about the kind of games on the PC that, "It’s not just killing unlimited enemies on a screen." Course, the problem here is that many PC games are becoming married to the console format. Even titles which aren't "just killing unlimited enemies on the screen" like Knights Of The Old Republic or Fable get their start on the Xbox and then port over.

Civ IV is just one example of a genre still pretty exclusive to the PC world. The other would be the MMO genre. Which brings us back to World of Warcraft. As I mentioned earlier - MMO's are moving into the console realm at a pretty decent clip. I wouldn't expect WoW to go Xbox on us anytime soon, but what happens when the console market gets it's own World Of Warcraft? I mean, that's essentially the kind of hammer Halo brought down. Sure, GoldenEye proved to many that a console FPS didn't have to suck, but Halo brought online multiplayer into the fray - proving that nearly all the advantages of a PC FPS game were workable on the console.

I mean geez, if Bungie produced a Halo MMO for the 360 - can you imagine the resounding soundwave?

Now let's look at these numbers:

The upsurge comes after some recent reversals. Over all, retail sales of PC-based games in the United States exceeded $970 million in 2006, an increase of about 1 percent of sales the previous year of $953 million, which represented about a 14 percent drop from $1.1 billion in 2004.

By contrast, according to the NPD Group, retail sales for console games in 2006 were $4.8 billion; another $1.7 billion was spent on games for hand-held devices like Sony’s PlayStation Portable.

A one percent increase after a fourteen percent drop is hardly a "reversal". The handheld market eclipses the PC numbers and the console figures simply swallows it whole. Consoles buyers are over four times the size of the PC consumers and let's remember the bonus materials consoles give developers and publishers: much lower rate of piracy, easier hardware footprint and quality assurance.

So how exactly is the PC market poised for a resurgence when the console market still enjoys a far more viable customer base?

Games For Windows is trotted out as one factor. I still don't see how this Vista only offering will make much of an impact in the next few years. The Times then also talks about major gaming rigs like Dell's XPS monster, mentions how it costs over five grand and then finishes with a quote about "the economics of the PC" that “everybody needs a computer.”

Sure, but if the PC gaming market shows anything - it's that not everyone needs a computer to game.

Again, I'm not looking for PC gaming to fail. Many of my fondest gaming memories were on a PC. I would love a PC game revival - but nothing in this Times article adds up to one.

Halo 2 For Vista

Read Tim's opinions on Halo 2 for Vista as a fine example as to why it simply annoys me so much. I rather liked Halo when it came out for the PC, and I'd like to enjoy Halo 2 as well. I can't though without upgrading to Microsoft's latest OS - and OS which doesn't really interest me in the slightest.

None of the gaming features touted for Vista are terribly impressive. Tim notes that "Tray and Play" is kind of neat - but some irrelevant to PC gamers. Installing before playing was just never a big deal (now, issues associated with installations ... like copy protection and such - that's another story ... and Vista, if anything, aggravates those). I'm a big fan of a standardized controller for PC's (and Mac's) - but let's face it ... nobody is going to use the 360 controller for Halo 2 instead of their keyboard and mouse.

And Tim's review of Xbox Live for Windows is hardly glowing. The real kicker? It has driver conflicts because Nvidia is still working out their Vista drivers. XP drivers? Oh yeah, those are fine.

So thanks Microsoft for keeping one of the finer games you've produced as a cheap and ineffective marketing toy. Having been a gamer on Windows XP for all these years, I'll go put some ice on my groin. Thankfully developers like Epic aren't following suit, so I can at least look forward to trying to run some new FPS games on XP.

Console MMO's And You

Ars Technica takes a look at a genre that is likely to expand soon - the console MMO:

Maintaining a good gaming computer is costly, so being able to play an MMO on the couch with a stable and standard console has proven to be the most enjoyable route for me. Though I have played and continue to play many PC MMOs, I've come to prefer their console counterparts. With the way that the Xbox 360 is allowing developers to use a similar code-base for both a 360 and a PC version of a single title, I'd like to see the option available in the future.

There are other advantages to console-based MMORPGs as well. The locked platform of the console is less prone to hacking (though not immune), and with a more stable and predictable user platform, tweaks can be made to the games to better facilitate code; compensation for different rigs will be rendered unnecessary.

-- Console MMOs: looking towards the future

They take a good look at titles like Huxley and Conan. Considering all three modern consoles are dishing out some kind of online goodness, I can't imagine that this won't get legs pretty soon. And honestly, once we go down that path - what is there for the PC gaming world once World of Warcraft moves to the living room? First person shooters were once a key reason for keeping your PC rig alive, but Halo has officially busted that concept out of the water.

So what would that leave? Real time strategy? The MMO genre is a massive draw for PC gaming at the moment ... if interest in that declines the market is possibly going to take a hit.

The next couple of years will be interesting to see how faithful Microsoft really is to the PC gaming market. Right now - I'm not impressed. Halo 2 being a Vista exclusive is a slap in the face to XP gamers worldwide. I honestly don't know why the only Live Arcade title slated for Games For Windows treatment would be UNO. Your average gaming rig is easily capable of running anything the 360 can - but Microsoft insists on keeping titles like Gears of War to push 360 sales while PC gamers can look forward to what? Live Anywhere? Oh yeah, still for Vista only.

Sadly most of what I have to be excited about with a newly upgraded PC is the ability to play bargain titles at full clip.

Game Play: More on Fable

I think it would be safe to say I'm addicted to Fable at the moment. If I didn't have to justify my existence to, you know, the man and all, I'd be home playing it right now. The game is seriously reminding me of such greats as Deus Ex or even Zelda - and I know that will probably be seen as a kind of hyperbole to those who have already played it and moved on (especially the Xbox version).

The game just lets you own so much of the experience, however, that I can't help the comparison. I get that it isn't as open-ended as any of the Elder Scrolls games - this is not a "single player MMO" as it were - although portions of the design remind of Phantasy Star Online if there were nothing but NPC's to fight (set areas with random encounters). Still, the control you're allowed over the character's life in general is remarkable as is the attention to detail to making quests a more than linear experience.

That said, however, there are things I wish they would look to changing in that regard for the next version. Allowing the option to fail missions, for instance. Why can't the hero become evil through his own shortcomings? Plus, the options aren't always clear. I had considered letting Twinblades live, but didn't realize the only way to accomplish that was by walking away from him (I kept trying to talk to him and he kept asking me to kill him ... so ....)

I'm still pretty early in the game - so my early impressions might evolve as I play more. I was thinking about getting KOTOR II after this, but I'm afraid it will pale in comparison.

Beyond The Red Line: Battlestar Game

Beyond The Red Line is a total conversion using the Freespace 2 engine that allows you to fly Viper missions from the Battlestar Pegasus. Looks like they have Windows, Linux and Mac demos - and I would get them while they're hot since I don't see any notice about legality posted on the site so who knows how long this will be available.

More Hitman Movie Details

Most interesting detail is that it might not suck:

While I'm not ready to proclaim Woods's January 2007 draft of Hitman the greatest pure action screenplay since Die Hard, it is a well above-average take on the international espionage genre, which has been curiously popular in the wake of 9/11. The conventional wisdom regarding Woods's last produced screenplay, Swordfish, has always been that it got excessively dumbed down during rewrites. This is entirely plausible after reading Hitman, which is polished, smart and genuinely exciting on the page. Woods even gets away with a wraparound device that should rob his script of some critical suspense; fortunately, he's quite gifted at pacing, immersing the reader in the non-stop intrigue and relenting only to dispense with some shopworn exposition (which works better than it should because the characters are actually well-drawn for this kind of material).

-- CHUD.com - Cinematic Happenings Under Development

Sounds interesting. I think Olyphant will do a great job - he's got that deadly steely gaze from life on the Deadwood camp. I really enjoyed parts of the first Hitman, although I haven't been quite as enamored with the franchise since then - I'd still vote for it making a reasonable movie if it were made by reasonable people.

My Slow Return To PC Gaming

I've discussed, at length at times, here how I've gotten more and more distance between me and my once beloved PC for the purposes of gaming. Consoles were once an afterthought for me ... but the Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 paved the way with with titles like Phantasy Star Online and GoldenEye that made the living room a more and more attractive place to game. The night after I left my first office job, the going away party descended into a four hour late night GoldenEye match. Try doing that on your PC.

More than anything, modding kept me on my PC. I learned a lot about object orientated design from UnrealScript and ... well ... blowing stuff up. Really - trying to build a better nuke grenade is a great way to learn about abstraction. That peaked for me with the last Make Something Unreal Contest and I never finished any of my follow up projects.

Now, though, I'm getting back into it. Here's why:

With pre-existing hardware, you can still cheaply upgrade
I still have the same $250 rig I got from Frye's a year or so ago. A RAM upgrade and a $200 AGP card is suitable for playing most every game out there at fairly impressive specs. No, it's not equipped to go SLI - but more on that later. Point is - if you have an old computer laying around, you may be able to play games at the same res as a 360 or PS3 (or better) for the cost of a Wii.

Huge library of older games for cheap
Sure, this is true of the PS2 as well - but choosing between Knights Of The Old Republic II or Fable: The Lost Chapters for $20 each is a nice treat.

MMO & RTS
First Person Shooters used to be a genre which dominated PC gaming - now not so much. Now RTS and MMO games are the real reason to keep that PC hardware around. I don't know how long that will last, and these genre's aren't the biggest draw for me, but they're still there.

Modding
Ah yes, good old modding. I can't say that staring at old code that never really got its due and wondering how long it would take to get it playable isn't a curious thing. I'm seriously considering taking all the stuff I never properly released and combining it as one final mod pack for Unreal Tournament 2004. It would be an updated version of the UXL mutators, some gametypes I never released and a stripped down version of the turn based code I didn't really finish.

This isn't all peaches, though. I'm still not sure how long this love affair will last:

Games For Windows is a marketing trick
I'm so wildly disappointed in the "Games For Windows" branding now. Simply because I can see it for what it really is - a way to force gamers onto Vista. I don't see any real benefit in it. The 360 controller is apparently not very useful on the PC. Sure, you'll get some cross-platform multiplayer benefits - but if Microsoft isn't willing to share Live with XP users ... I'm not about to spend the extra cash for Vista to play along.

Microsoft has cannabalized PC gaming for their Xbox strategy - and "Games For Windows" is just another meal for Vista.

XNA is a shallow strategy right now
As I've noted before, XNA is really good for other XNA developers right now. I can't develop on the PC and easily deploy to non-XNA machines - so I'm not sure what the point is right now. I've been a pretty good cheerleader for the concept, but it's getting time for Microsoft to pony up. Stop talking about being the "YouTube for gaming" and do it.

The Hardware Curve
Buying PC parts is like getting a new car - the worth depreciates from the moment you take it off the shelf. I've hurdled the requirements bar for the last crop of games, but we've got monsters like Crysis and Unreal Tournament III around the corner. Consoles conversely better with age, as developers learn new tricks to apply to the hardware. If or when parrellel cards (SLI or Crossfire) become a standard - I don't see myself trying to catch up anymore.

So far now I've got the hardware to catch up on the games I've been missing out on at settings to make them look impressive and maybe cap off my modding work. If I can run Unreal Tournament III, I might fall back into that crowd. We'll see.

Wait - Unreal Tournament 3 Mods On PlayStation 3?

How did I miss this? It's like a year old?

While Sweeney seemed to be disquieted by the complexity of developing for Cell, he did praise Sony elsewhere in his keynote for an "enlightened business model" when it comes to online PS3 capabilities - one that will apparently allow Epic's users to create Unreal Tournament 2007 levels and content on the PC, and distribute them via the PlayStation 3.

He notes that the mod community was "an essential part of [Epic's] success", and commented: "We would love to transfer this mod community over to the console platforms." Of course you'll need a PC to create levels for the upcoming UT2007 for PS3/PC, but Sweeney believes that everything will be in place so that modders can make new levels on the PC, "download them to the PlayStation 3, and distribute them online."

-- Sweeney Talks Cell Difficulties, PS3 Online Inclusivity [Gamasutra]

Wha? Seriously? Levels would be neat, but partial or total conversion mods would completely rule. Especially if there was some kind of support for split screen. Code a mod and then invite some friends over for beers and playtesting? I may feint now.

Game Play: Fable

I picked up Fable: The Lost Chapters yesterday for $20. It was either that or KOTOR 2 for the same price. Interesting that it boiled down to such remarkably similar games - though as a side note I saw Unreal Anthology for about the same price and that is SO worth the admission considering the amount of content you can get for the Unreal engine.

Fable runs very, very pretty on CheapBox++. I've got everything maxed out but dropped the res just a tad to kick up some framerate. Kinda like my Dungeon Runners note from yesterday, I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of the game so far - so I can't say anything too comprehensive about it. I remember the debate that engaged over the game when it came out for the Xbox, but I don't really remember the details.

Basically, I didn't get the hype in the first place ... so it isn't disappointing me.

I found it to be an interesting mix of classic RPG elements and that of more free-form styles like the Elder Scrolls series. Everything about that last sentence makes me a happy camper. I haven't figured out if this has any kind of replayability factor for me, since I'm not sure how many of these quests I feel like repeating. For $20, though, it seems like a great deal at the moment.

Game Play: Dungeon Runners

Thanks to the quite wonderful Brinstar, I got a Dungeon Runners beta via MMORPG.com. I just sneaked in at the last of the giveaway late last night - so they may all be gone now.

I only played for about twenty minutes or so, so I can't say this is any kind of definitive review. Dungeon Runners aims to be an MMO lite. It has a free client, like Guild Wars, so there isn't barrier to entry when it comes to price or playing around with the game. The graphics are simple and should run on most hardware out there at some setting or another (the 7600 GS can play it at full tilt). The gameplay is decidedly reminiscent of Diablo - very much a clickfest of attacks. There are MMO style skills and powers which work in the classic sense of having a timer to indicate when they can be reused.

The theme is also directed at the casual gamer. Nothing in Dungeon Runners takes itself too seriously. There is a demon named Karl on your HUD to tell you how many more points to your next level. Items have bizarre qualities like "ludicrous speed" or "something of penguin". The two-handed sword I'm carrying right now is made of cardboard, that kind of thing. It isn't really laugh out loud funny - if anything it could push the cartoony graphics and humor even more - but it does serve well to lighten the mood and add some fun to a genre constantly in danger of taking itself too seriously.

I haven't tried playing with a group because I want to get the hang of the interface first. And for the interface nazi's out there - Dungeon Runners is definately a mixed bag. You can't move UI elements around as has become common. The keybinds don't appear to be customizable. At times combat seems to get needlessly confusing - a number or graphic will appear and you aren't sure what it means.

Plus, signs of the beta status are quite present. I think you can have only one character at a time and currently there isn't a way to "respec" skills (unlike Guild Wars where you can swap out builds while in a town).

Still, I think I'm leaning more to trying Dungeon Runners for a spell than jumping back into Guild Wars. I still believe Guild Wars is pretty brilliant, but I'm finding it hard to jump back in. Maybe if I get Nightfall I might change my mind, but at the moment Dungeon Runners feels like the kind of MMO fling I might desire. No commitment, little obligation.

They have a referral system and I aim to send out a couple tonight. If anyone wants to try it out, let me know. I think they have a waiting list of unknown size at the moment, however.

For The Love Of Hardware - Finale Finally, AGP tips

It turns out that I was confused about the 12V rail stats. The Rosewill has two 12V lines and they need to total more than 20A for some cards, not have 20A each. Thing is, though, that you can't apparently just add up both lines and get the total for the rail.

In truth, there's little you can do to be sure of what the PSU is capable of since as one reviewer put it, "they're just numbers someone wrote on a box".

So to recap: there's a number that you can need but it is very difficult to know exactly what the number is or what number you have. A bit like playing War without either player showing their cards.

In the end, though, it wasn't the PSU. I put the Rosewill back in and bought a 7600 GS from Best Buy. It's worked flawlessly so far and without putting out much heat. It isn't the fastest card, not even as fast as the X800 GTO was, but it makes the CheapBox worth keeping around and staves off the need to put any more console hardware in the study.

I don't know how it will fair against titles like Unreal Tournament 3 (or whatever they end up calling it) - but it certainly breathes new life into most every title currently on the market.

I think I need to build a shrine for my old 9700 however. That card has outlasted almost every computer component around it and done it with admirable stamina. Good times. Good times.

So - in summary, for other AGP gamers looking to upgrade:

1. Check out your current card and compare it to where you want to go. Here's a great list of cards listed out by performance:

The Best Gaming Video Cards for the Money: March 2007

I only went up "two levels" on the chart and am quite happy with the results. The specs on these cards get pretty confusing, so research before you buy.

2. Beware of OEM deals and other discount prices. Video cards have a lot of soldered parts and so sometimes when they die - they stay dead. Even after a refurb.

3. If you're going to get a truly upper tier card - be very mindful of the power requirements. Try and find out specifically what the 12V rail requires and what you are putting out. Price is a poor indicator of a PSU and they are generally no reviews for them, so just find the tech specs and hope they're accurate.

I'd say the Gypsy Curse is lifted at this point - but it seems the Mac Mini is now turning itself off after being on for about fifteen minutes. I'd be freaking out about this now, but I think it's just because enough cat hair and dust gets inside the case that it thinks it is overheating - even though it isn't.

I hope.

For The Love Of Hardware - Gypsy Curse Edition

So I bought a fancy 650W PSU that cost more than the graphics card. It would generate plenty of juice, supposedly has a quiet fan and dance a tango.

If it worked.

Which it doesn't. Won't turn on. Putting in the old power supply - it turns on. New power supply? The LED for HDD activity flickers on briefly and then nothing. Zilch. Nada.

I've triple checked all the connections. Same ending.

I'll return it to Best Buy. Card is going back to NewEgg. I'll put the computer back the way I know it works for now.

A 360 as a gaming rig replacement? Looking better and better.

For The Love Of Hardware - Rail Theory

After some research, I think I may have realized it was my stupid mistake all along.

Here's a funny thing - I got a 380W card because the X800 GTO requires a 350W card. I thought getting a slightly beefier one would be safer.

That sound you hear? That's noise of experienced overclockers and hardware geeks laughing their ass off. Because they know what I'll say next.

Here's the unfunny thing - the wattage doesn't matter so much. Yeah, it's a good point - but it's not the point. You can have a 380W PSU and it might still fail your card - because the card is running off the 12V rail and it simply isn't pushing out enough juice. And when that happens? You guessed it - artifacts galore.

Most hardware types recommend 20A on the 12V rail for modern graphics cards. The Rosewill? Puts out 14 or 15 amps. As it turns out - this is incredibly common. If you buy a cheap PSU - even at a good wattage ... you have to check the rails.

So I'll be picking up a quality PSU on the way home. If this is the culprit (and I haven't fried the card), it should fix it. If this isn't the culprit, I'll still have the proper PSU to upgrade.

For The Love Of Hardware - Finale

The card is going back to NewEgg. I finally got my dot problem semi-fixed by reducing hardware acceleration down a notch (which I thought I had tried before) - but this small victory apparently annoyed the hardware gods because afterwards no game would run properly ... even after switching settings back.

My amateur diagnosis? Heatsink might have been bad causing slow memory chip death. I think card was going to get progressively worse - hence the return. I'll try to replace with a non-open box card of similar strength.

Thanks to Mike for suggesting to turn off Fast Write yesterday - I should have noted that since it is easily one of the most common solutions for this kind of problem.

For The Love Of Hardware

OK, so here's the fallout from this weekend.

It's hard to argue with an $80 video card that can play a F.E.A.R. single player demo at full resolution with a decent chunk of effects flying around. Honestly, it really feels like a whole new game. The Titan Quest demo, as well, is a lot more stunning at the full resolution.

However, the card's video RAM is most certainly corrupt. 3D models will go "spiky" sometimes - meaning a vertex gets dropped in memory and part of the model gets pulled out into the ether. Dots - either green, purple or just miscolored - will appear on any 2D surface, including the desktop. I've even tried underclocking the memory to no avail.

The 3D models will correct, oddly enough, if the game is pushed into its highest resolution. I solved the texture flicker when I turned temporal aliasing off. The dots, however, are unavoidable. Well, they don't really show up much in 3D environments ... but if there's a 2D filter, for instance, on the HUD - it can show up then.

So here's my conundrum - stick with a faulty card that was dirt cheap and can generally push polygons pretty darn well or RMA the thing, pay a little extra for a slightly less powerful card that should work without fault.

I think I'll pick up Oblivion this week and see if that runs OK. Maybe I need a modern game, not a demo, to see if the card makes the cut.

An Alternative To Demos

The current state of my graphics card is that it works pretty well on most games, especially if I forsake a texture or model quality here or there. On newer games, like Dark Messiah, it's a little more hit or miss. And the physics in that game must hit the CPU a lot, because it's the only game I saw a significant frame dip.

I was disappointed to find out there's no Oblivion demo. I get it, though. Just with the whole current debate about how much games should be examined before their ready. My personal take on that is it should be up to the developers. Let them decide if they want public feedback or not. It shouldn't necessarily be marketing.

I propose a compromise. I don't need to play your game. I just want to see if it works on my hardware. I'm betting there are other PC gamers out there in that boat as well.

So give us a non-interactive demo that puts the game through some paces without being indicative of gameplay. It doesn't even need to be proper gameplay, just a quick run down some path to show how hard the game is going to push. Let us adjust things like resolution, aliasing, etc.

This doesn't need to be released any sooner than the game itself.

I don't need to play your game - but I will return it if it doesn't work on my open box card running experimental drivers.

Dang I Hate Windows

I really have become a Mac convert it seems.

Instead of trying to buy a cheap 360 off of eBay, I decided to instead try and upgrade the CheapBox one last time. I did this by spending just over $100 on an OEM version of the X800 card and a new PSU to supply it.

Both arrived in the office today.

It's been nothing since a nightmare since I got home.

I've got the PSU in just fine. It's actually a great piece of hardware - a 380W Rosewill. Unless that's causing the pain I'm about to describe, I highly recommend it. Quality cables, easy to install, dual fans. Good PSU.

The rest, though. Ugh. I install the new drivers. The system reboots. It comes up in glorious color. The resolution is nice and crisp. Everything seems dandy. But icons are gone. The desktop is just text. Rolling over them makes them appear. Sometimes. Maybe.

So I reboot. I mean, it's Windows. Rebooting again is usually good, right? Surely not bad?

Wrong. When it comes back - it's stuck in 4bit, 640x480 hell. This is what I upgraded to?

I'm almost positive it is a driver problem. I just tried a clean install and it did again however.

Updates to follow.

Update 1 - I figure if I got to the manufacturer instead of ATI, Sapphire, maybe they'll point me to reliable drivers.

Their download page forces me to wait 60 seconds for "security reasons".

And then the download link? 404. Nice one, Sapphire. You evil bastards.

Update 2 - Now trying to find the same drivers elsewhere. Mind you, these are several revs out of date. But if they can make this 256MB card display icons and not coward into 640x480 mode? I'd be OK with it.

Update 3 - The old drivers "work", but not without some serious issues. Artifacts abound. Civ IV refused to run. So now I get to try the most stable version of the driver without breaking the system.

Great.

Know what my Mac has never ever, ever, ever, ever asked me about?

Drivers.

Not once.

That 360? Maybe it would have been worth the extra money. I'm beginning to see why Microsoft started to slide into the console camp in the first place.

Fallout: Using the latest Omega drivers, which are some funky offbeat riff of the "official" drivers" - I get pretty good compatibility. Prey played great at 1024, as did UT2004 and the CivIV demo. The X3 demo had some odd 3D artifacts and the Dark Messiah demo had some odd 2D artifacts. I think Guild Wars is OK, but I'm downloading the last year's worth of updates now.

In short, I'm about where I was before. I won't buy a PC game without a demo to prove it works with my hardware ... but at least it runs 100% better when it does.