New computer!
I finally got my new computer! Hooray!
I have now, for the first time, tried the (in)famous Vista, and I actually find it pretty good! I can't understand why people are so negative about it. Sure, the UAC is a real bugger, but the OS does have better features. It also has (pretty good, unlike XP) x64 support.
A lot of people have complained about x64 being slower than x86. This is indeed true, if you benchmark using 32-bit apps. If you run 32-bit apps on a 64-bit OS, they have to be emulated. If you do the same test with 64-bit-optimised programs, you'll find it's actually faster.
I've had some trouble with my GFX card, a pretty nice HD4870 from Sapphire. According to Sapphire I was the only one having the issue, but I don't believe them. I guess it's got to do with the firmware/ATI drivers.
Computer broken still…
It's been a while since I posted. My computer is still partly broken, which means I almost can't play any games at all. I do play a little RTSes, though.
I almost have finished the Command&Conquer campaigns. I did the NOD one a few weeks ago, and I'm on the last GDI mission. The campaigns are actually pretty good, a game you should consider buying! I haven't tried Kane's Wrath yet, gonna wait until I get myself a new, shiny computer so I can play on max graphics (instead of minimum).
On a side note, I've almost gotten a programming job. It's a one time php coding job, but should do a nice job injecting some money into my scraped account.
Graphics…
Allright, it looks like my PC is breaking down step by step. A year or so ago, one of my hard drives smoked, same goes for my mouse, then my keyboard, and now it appears my graphics card is saying goodbye too.
Well, it still works, but it looks like the memory is being fucked. I noticed this while playing a HL2 mod called Age of Chivalry, pretty cool idea, actually. Well, suddenly my FPS dropped from about 25 to 10, I had no idea what the cause was. A quick investigation using the +showbudget command revealed the "Swap Buffers" field going through the sky. At first I thought this was because of my RAM or hard drive, and notcied my hard drive was excessively fragmented. I tested several mroe games, including a couple mroe mods, Garry's Mod, and even HL2. They had the exact same problem. So I reinstalled everything and reformatted...
And guess what? It's the same problem still. After some more investigation I found it to have something to do with fillrate.
It's not a surpirse my GFX card is having issues. It's pretty old, a GeForce 6800. But it hasn't had the problem before!
I'm getting kinda pissed. Just... Pissed. I guess I'll have to test some more apps before drawing a conclusion, but it looks as if I need a new rig...
Keyboard broken
Allright, now I got kinda pissed. A couple years ago, I got myself a shiny new MX5000 desktop from Logitech, to replace my old rusty Dell PS/2 keyboard. It included a nice MX1000 laser mouse, and a MX5000 cordless desktop. Pretty neat, ehh?
About a year ago, my kissed goodbye, which I didn't care that much about, because it had a very slow response time, which made me miss a lot of stuff. Anyway, I got a G5, a very nice mouse that I like a lot.
A few days ago, my keyboard kissed goodbye too. It still works, it's just the software that doesn't wanna connect. It just wants to reconnect and reconnect forever. Damn Logitech. So here I sit with my rusty PS/2 keyboard again... Guess I'll have to get a G15 some day.