Rig’n’Roll russian release date announced, and new screens

Posted on 06-05-2009 by Benie

Though Softlab-LSK, the developers of “Rig’n’Roll”, didn’t attend this year’s E3 Expo, the site has some new news, with a Russian release date.
I could say “God damn fucking communists getting this game before us!!”, but it was stated before that when the thing would be released, it would go to Russia first, then the US. This is what it’s like following a game being developed by Russians.

There’s also talk of a series, and EP’s, after this is released in Russia. So that’s good news.

There’s also two eye candy-filled screenshot packs of trucks in the game that you can download for free. I’ve listed the links below for your convenience.
Pack 1 (3.1MB)
Pack 2 (2.8MB)

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DTV transition in one week, are you ready?

Posted on 06-04-2009 by Benie

Are you ready for the big switch from Analog TV to Digital? It happens in one week from now; June 12th.

I for one am glad for two reasons. 1. We have DirecTV so we’re covered. And 2. Finally the annoying commercials about it will stop!

As all of you know, The Big Switch was originally going to be on February 17th, 2009. But Barrack Obama, our President, found this unjust and had the FCC bump the date to June 12th, 2009, to give us americans more time to buy converter boxes.

I don’t have to tell you what will happen once June 12th comes. How all TV will go digital and how you gotta get a converter box and yadda yadda yadda. You’ve seen the warnings enough, so I hope all of you are ready for the big switch.

If not, there’s still time. So if you’re waiting ’till the last day, don’t. June 12th can and will sneak up on you.

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A new source of help to fix issue / Cosmicduck goes insane and mass bans

Posted on 06-03-2009 by Benie

Yesterday, with severe weather all around me, angry suggested that I talked to his dad. He said that his dad knows alot about computers.
It took awhile (and constantly watching the radar of this storm heading towards me) to type what I wanted to say to him. When the bad weather cleared, I continued typing, asking him if this 9800GT would overheat more.

Today, I got a reply from him around 7PM in the evening. Hesitant to read it, I very slowly scrolled up, reading what he said. I didn’t know what he would say.
Now I know what he said, he pretty much answered my question.

He said I need to have a 1/4 clearance between the two cards for the GPU to breath correctly. And also, a GPU doesn’t blow air out, and blows it in, and exhausts it though a vent, or something.
I didn’t know either of these things.
He also said that I wouldn’t need to get a new PSU, saying my no-named 500W is powerful enough for the 9800GT. Nor would I need a new case.

This means…. this means if my lock up issue is indeed in my video card. I WILL FINALLY KILL IT IN JULY!! 😀
However, he wants to know the while story — the steps I took to attempt to fix this little fucker. And he will know them.

.
.
Other news, I came back to Facepunch after dinner, and decided to check out the Event Log. I noticed a few permabans going on by cosmicduck, giving a strange reason. Banning them all with “So what’s the craziest thing you’ve done lately?”
I scrolled down the list and found he’s been busy on a mass banning spree. But the kicker is, he permabanned himself.
Here’s a link of all the people (and mods) he permabanned;
http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/24/cosmicduckspreeq.png
Later on it was said that someone hacked his account, and he was demoted by garry for some strange reason. Probably something that he did when I was playing my games.

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Facepunch got Punk’d, and no one cares

Posted on 06-03-2009 by Benie

A guy named MicVance showed up in the General Discussion forum today, saying that his little sister scratched up their brand new HDTV.
The majority of Facepunch users in this thread said to kill her, dunk her head in water, rape her, trap her.
I had no idea what was going on. I stayed out of the thread. Then the guy posts another thread saying “What the fuck is wrong with facepunch?”, asking why was Facepunch so idiotic with people saying mean shit. I wanted to post but I refrained from it, thinking “This guy has to be a troll or something”, and I was right.

All of this was a “trap”. This guy as this MicVince, suddenly said that he was Aston Kutcher, from the TV show “Punk’d”. And Facepunch just got punk’d.
He used the HDTV thread to prove a theory that Facepunch has gone down the shithole with idiots saying whatever they want, and he was right.

I’m not surprised at all with the finding. Facepunch has “gone down the shithole” eversince it was created. But with easy access to the OIFY, it’s even worse now. Idiots are breeding like rabbits in there and coming out to affect the other categories.

Still, that was pretty amusing.

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Lock Up Issue not affecting all games the same way, as previously thought

Posted on 06-02-2009 by Benie

Oh no, not another one. Well, I tried to play Farcry 1, and it locked up the same exact way as Calamity.
Everything locks up, but the sounds keep playing for about 10 seconds, then loop very quickly, then loop slow, loop quick, loop slow.. over and over until I reach over and turn the computer off.

Only these two games are doing this. This FINALLY gives me a way to say “hey. Try playing this game. It locked up on me before around so and so time, everytime”, without the fucking thing being so random.

But the majority of my games.. Gmod, Mirror’s Edge, WoW… and now Crysis too.. are random, unpredictable… god damn FUCKING lock ups!! I can only pray that if I fix these the two games above, my lock up issue will be murdered.

I am really thinking it could be something I couldn’t bare to think could be the culprit.. again, but I believe it is. My Video Card.
Well, I believe I know what to get. However I got a burning question that still haven’t been answered.

These 9800GT cards. Most, if not all of them have the heatsink right over where you plug the card into the motherboard. I’m concerned that the poor thing will overheat, because I have my sound card pretty much directly under my video card, in the 2nd PCI slot.

My slots look like this;
PCIEX1
PCIEX16(video card)
PCI1(video card slightly covers slot)
PCI2(sound card)

No one has been able to help me yet. I’ll probably end up calling the guy that built my computer, and asking him personally if he would know.

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Left 4 Dead 2.. a reality

Posted on 06-01-2009 by Benie

This thing has been a rumor until it was officially announced by VALVe.
I, like most people think that this is some kind of joke. Left 4 Dead isn’t even a year old yet, and they’re already working on a sequel.

The characters have changed, and so have the boss enemies. There’s a slightly changed HUD, new weapons, new maps, and AI Director 2.0.

If you want my opinion, I’d say they’re trying to redo L4D the way I thought it would be in the past.

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NOTICE: Updating all blogs to latest version today

Posted on 05-31-2009 by Benie

Currently installing a plugin called phpMyAdmin to backup the Databases of all of my blogs, then will be backing up my files, and updating all blogs.

So don’t panic if the blog suddenly goes poof. I hope to have this all done within the next half an hour. Give or take how fast my Cable Modem can download and upload.

I’ve been meaning to do this update for quite awhile, but I’m still leary that this theme, Ocean Mist v1.2, won’t be compatible with the 2.7.1 version.

I’d like to thank angry for ‘fucking’ with the directory structure of the site. Took me a good minute to figure out where the blogs where located, and he’s offline right now. 😛

EDIT: Looks like it’s gonna be longer. I need access to my domain’s Control Panel to access phpMyAdmin directly, and angry has control of it, and has pretty much locked me out of it and won’t tell me the password. And since he’s offline right now…

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Meet The Lock Up Issue

Posted on 05-31-2009 by Benie

Yep. VALVe finally released a new, 11th Player Class to TF2. The Lock Up Issue!
It’s strengths are causing grief to the player and the player’s games, causing the players computer to freeze up.
It’s weakness, being fixed. But it doesn’t stay fixed forever. It can only be weakened for so long, then it will come right back.

Seriously, this shit is getting old.
How many of you are getting tired of reading these? Well, I am. I’m getting tired of writing them. The only thing I do in this blog anymore is post of “Omg I think I finally found the culprit!”, then find it does nothing.

I’m tired of wasting money on shit I never needed. Like these two wide screen 19″ LCD monitors I have. I thought it was my monitors overheating that “could be causing it”. It wasn’t. It’s always a fucking ‘temp fix’.
Paying for a diagnostic I didn’t need, because it found nothing. Then paying for a cheap ass PSU that only fixes my issue for less than two weeks, then it comes RIGHT back.

I’m tired of posting “oh, this is what I think will fix it”, when I’ve repeatably posted all of the steps I’ve taken, and nothing works.

I’m also sick of having to depend on others to make my hardware decisions for me. Why can’t I have the smarts to think of how to do it myself?

I’m pretty much obsessed to fix this issue now.

Since all I do is apparently rant about the same thing over and over again, I’ve decided to just stop posting until something more postworthy shows up.
Speaking of that, tomorrow I’m going to try to upgrade all three of my blogs to Version 2.7.1, finally. I found a new theme I like, and a plugin that looks like it should have clickable smilies I can add to a post. So that will help.

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System Maintenance Friday / Some HL2 Mods, and some more lock ups

Posted on 05-29-2009 by Benie

I’ve been running antivirus scans, and spyware scans. So I might as well preform system maintenance. Not just to potentially (which it won’t. Because I did this before and it didn’t) fix my lock up issue, but to prolong the health of my PC.
So far it looks like I have no Malware.

A good ole fashioned Defrag never hurt anyone, and it should help speed up the boot time of Windows.

As I was doing this, I noticed gop playing a strange HL2 mod I never heard of before, called “Calamity”. I asked him about it and he said he found it on Moddb. So I went in and took a look, and downloaded it.
Also got a few others. This modified version of the original “Pumpkin Night” mod for HL2, and a strange, spooky mod called “Dear Esther” that reminds me of the Myst series. These will give me something to do for awhile.

And of course, my lock up issue has to come to the party. The modified version of Pumpkin Night locked up one second after the menu popped up, everytime. Calamity locks up in 1 minute and 50 seconds after playing, everytime.
But the Dear Esther mod. I played that for a good 10 minutes until it locked up.

I’m beginning to wonder why I upgraded in the first place. I should’ve saved up and just got a new computer instead of spent the money to upgrade this and expect everything to work.
It was because of Crysis, and the mounting pressure I was feeling in Facepunch, that everyone had a nice computer, and I didn’t. Back then I didn’t care about having the best shit. I was happy with what I had… until I tried to see if I could run Crysis with Low/Medium settings, and somehow manage to keep the shadows that make the game scream “WOW”. Unfortunately my computer seemed like it was going to sweat, scream and smoke when I tried.
So that convinced me it was time to upgrade, not thinking about the issues that would await me for doing such a thing. And now look at me. Nice hardware, and yet I have more problems than I did with my old hardware.
Funny thing though. Even with these issues, and how graphic-intense this game is, it seems virtually resistant to lock ups.

I guess… Better hardware = More issues? This may not be the case for everyone, but it is for me.
But I believe I have this thing narrowed down to three things;
1. The PSU. No-named, 500W. But still it may not be reliable enough for my computer.
2. The case. Not enough cooling can cause lock ups, and it’s the one thing I haven’t replaced yet. Either that or the way the case is designed, it isn’t made for anything more powerful than my old hardware.
3. The video card(again). As gop and the guy at the computer repair place both said, it could be my GPU’s RAM overheating, and causing lock ups.

All three things share one trait. They all cost money! This is why I’ve decided to make out a list and buy what I need, and then take all three items up to the guy and have him install it. Any one of the three could potentially fix the problem.. once, and for all.
Trouble is, I’m going to have to suffer for four months. But with my birthday coming in August, maybe it won’t be as long.

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Another computer ordeal, and a lead to lock up issue

Posted on 05-29-2009 by Benie

Well. Good to see the ole Blog back up. At first I was thinking “Oshi-… is my cable modem not letting me on fully again?”, and finding out angry took it down to… restructure the folders in the site. The fuck?
He claimed it was “too messy” to work with, so had to backup then remove everything from the site. I never had to do this when it came to my years of being a webmaster.
But anyway, all I really cared about was him getting the blog back up so.. I could talk to myself again. Well. That’s what it feels like anyway. But it’s better than seeing “Ohh QQ man!” or other random insults after someone reading my blogs.

Anyway, to post why I made this entry. On Tuesday(real early in the morning), I… flashed, my BIOS. All because of goppend asking “have you updated your BIOS?”, due to wondering if it could be my CPU that might be causing my lock up issue, after him handing me an old entry from 2007, one year before I got my upgrades to this computer, that AMD Phenom CPU’s have been known to have lock up issues.
So I went on Gigabyte’s website, got the BIOS update, found Award’s own version of WinFlash, and proceeded to backup my current BIOS, and then update it. It was successful….until after I tried to reboot.
When I did, my monitor refused to turn on, and my hard drive was acting like something was wrong, and something was… my motherboard was FUCKED!! D:
My heart started to race, my stomach got upset, I started to get into a “OH SHIT, NO!!!” feeling. I tried to boot it again.. same thing. I felt like I was about to scream.
I unplugged the shit from the back of my computer, tried to think and grabbed the book to my motherboard, only to find it was telling me the correct way to update my BIOS, to use this Q-Flash or @BIOS.
I flipped through pages after reading from a site that says there’s a way to save your motherboard, by resetting the CMOS. Both things (sticking a screwdriver on these two pins, and taking out the Clock Battery for a minute) didn’t work. I knew my only option was to go to the guy that built my system, and get a new motherboard.
Anyway, a few days passed of waiting, sitting on my bed all damn day, desperately trying to watch something good on TV. Today, we where under a Slight Risk of severe weather. And that’s the same day I get my computer back. Fortunately all the bad shit stayed back far and weakened enough for me to get my computer back home.

I wanted to type this but that’s when I noticed I couldn’t access the site, and angry wouldn’t respond. So I played Mirror’s Edge, because I missed it(it’s such an awesome game!, despite the graphics). No sooner than 5 minutes after I got in, I heard “Hello!! I’m still here!”(not heard, but felt).. yep. My friend the Lock Up Issue was back.
In a way I’m glad it is, because I had my computer back the way it was before I fucked it up.

Back before I left them, he told me that there’s a 90% probability that it’s my GPU(video card) that is causing my lock ups, because of my card’s RAM could be overheating… deja-vu from my 9400GT. He said to get something like a 9800GT or higher; a high-end card. After it locked up, I decided to check Newegg to see what I could find, at a reasonable price.

The first thing I noticed, the 9800GT’s with their different manufactures ranged from $100-$150. Also, they all had the same two ports. Those ports reminded me of the adapter I had to attach to my video card to make my secondary monitor work, and they BOTH looked like that.
Also, the XFX cards. There was only two of them there. The majority of reviews I’ve read where about “it’s huge! I had to move this and that to get it to fit!”, and also disgruntling news of “you need a 600+Watt PSU to make it run smoothly”.
UGH… money, money, money!!! And if I haven’t spent enough on this computer already!

I have noticed when I first got in, Windows is really slow to boot up, and still is. I wonder if this is a side-effect of not reformatting my drive and reinstalling XP. But it takes like 20+ seconds until I see the desktop.
I now have a copy of Avast! antivirus on my computer. goppend tells me it might be malware causing it. He also says that it could be a virus, not my video card, that’s fucking up my games by fucking around with my RAM.
If it’s not, then I know my computer is virus free.

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