Western Digital Working Drive
So yes, as I mentioned last month, I bought a new hard drive for Brian-Brain-1, my current PC (my own brain is “0” or “∞”, take your pick). I stopped by Bellevue computers and picked up a Western Digital 7200 rpm 160 GB SATA.
Choke. That mouthful cost me only $99. I paid more for each of my defective Seagate Barracuda drives, which both only ran 120 gigs. This new disk runs like a dream. I can actually get Norton Internet Security to work smoothly on it, firewall and all. My AOL Spyware remover actually downloads updates and detects much more spyware than it did before. My system boots slightly faster, and programs load about the same time. Norton seems to be able to scan my harddrive for viruses and errors more quickly. My games don’t stutter and freeze anymore, of course. Otherwise I do not notice a game performance improvement.
In fact, I noticed a performance hit after I installed a patch for Grand Theft Auto V. The game now has great difficulty in rendering map objects. It’s possible the various mods I installed fucked things up; most of the mods weren’t compatible with the patch. But I removed those mods and reinstalled the original files. Other than for the particle mod, I just remembered. And I also didn’t replace the weapon textures and character addition mods. Perhaps replacing the original files may clear things up. Otherwise, I’m beginning to think the patch needs a patch.
This has become as prevalent a problem as games being released buggy to begin with. Far Cry’s second patch damaged more than the original release of the game itself, causing game and possibly even system crashes. That was the first game patch I had ever seen recalled. So it wouldn’t surprise me if, in trying to fix certain issues, Rockstar inadvertently raised new issues.
Otherwise, I’m happy to have a stable system again. Only time will tell if this drive prematurely tits up as well, a problem telling me perhaps something else about my system damages harddrives. I actually couldn’t afford the money I paid; I needed it for my Unarmed Security Officer application. But I can’t afford to lose data either.
Some more observation on game performance. I booted up Half-Life 2 and found it ran more reliably. I still encountered some audio stuttering in areas where I am driving a swamp boat, but otherwise it runs great. The levels load a touch faster too.
I can also see Valve took the time to touch up the game in a recent update. The blood decals look different. I noticed some minor changes to character animation as well: for example, there’s a scene where a man tries to pull an alien “headcrab” off his head, only to pass out; I don’t remember seeing the headcrab twitch and settle about the unconscious victim’s body before, but it did now.
Also, metal and rubber textures appear to be shiny and reflect the world, at least more than I remember. Part of these latter changes might be playing with a gig of RAM on a new, functioning hard drive. But the improved lighting and reflection may also be the inclusion of Valve’s new High Dynamic Range Lighting (HDRL, or commonly “HDR lighting”). Valve developed HDR lighting to make the game environment reflect and project light more realistically. One developer in an interview I read contrasted lighting with Doom 3’s shadowing technology. The D3 engine draws much more realistic shadows, but HL2 will be able to draw even more realistic light bounce and bloom than it already does. I’m not sure if I can see more realistic bloom, but the interviewee claimed some HDR support will be updated to my copy of the game.
Valve released an HDR tech demo last month. It consisted of a single short level that takes place during a Half-Life 2 level, and I don’t know for certain yet if Valve has also added the demo to the game proper. The demo definitely showcases the new effects, such as simulating human iris adjustment to changes in light; stepping from a dark room to a sunlit room will produce a glare sufficient to momentarily blind the player. Wet rocks appear to be wet rocks, and wet, soggy sand appears glazed somewhat like real sand covered in water. The developers also included a commentary system, in which the player can approached dialogue icons and activate them to experience an in-game explanation of something. Beyond HDR, the commentary covered basic Valve level-design philosophy.
Overall, HDR lighting means not just light emission simulation, but a great deal of code rebuilding; for example, a new type of texture must be created for any surfaces to accurately reflect this light technology. Additional textures and reprogramming must be created for items such as water and opaque glass.
So far as full games are concerned, HDR lighting has apparently only appeared in Day of Defeat: Source, though this appearance amounts to hearsay; I haven’t tried the game yet. Half-Life 2 does not yet appear to sport either the new, realistic textures, nor the iris simulation. However, some lights appear to be brighter and produce more of a bloom or ambient effect than I recall seeing before; but this could just be my imagination. Introducing HDR to HL2 sounds like it will basically require rebuilding every map and model, and not every computer than can run HL2 meets the higher system requirements. Since HDR is now listed as a display option, granting full HDR capability will mean the game might need to maintain two separate sets of textures and models-one for those who can run the eye-candy, and the original set for people who have trouble. Of course, I don’t consider my 1 GB RAM, 128 MB 8X AGP, 64-bit 2.2ghz PC to be high end anymore; it runs Lost Coast fine. Since 256 MB PCI express and SLI card configurations are all the rage, and the latest 64 bit processors are in the 3-4ghz range to my knowledge, the capabilities of even a modern low-end computer comes up if only because today’s top tech becomes yesterday’s old tech.
A Quick Digression on Games
Computer Gaming World released a demo DVD disc for this month. It contain demos of many of the top FPS games this fall, including FEAR: First Encounter Assault Recon, Call of Duty 2, and Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood. They all look pretty good, and they play okay.
FEAR looked the best in most respects, but mainly in special effects; I’d put the engine as a whole behind Doom 3 as the third best looking engine around I’ve seen. Some of the special effects compete with both Doom 3 and Half Life 2. But the shadowing on the demo wasn’t quite as good as D3, and the graphics overall aren’t as good as Half-Life 2; though of course the Source engine and the Half-Life 2 materials are the best ever programmed for the PC market that I’ve seen. Call of Duty 2 and Earned in Blood clock in at about the typical appearance for a current FPS.
I’m not going to buy anything soon though. I’m tired of paying full price for games. And I need to spend the time on writing. I want to play all of these games. But I’m going to have to wait until I have the money and the time. I don’t much want to play anyways until games grow up in story telling and features, stop shipping so buggy, and just generally do what I want to see. That pretty much means I am going to have to make those games myself.
Nothing for Something
On this subject, I’ve been thinking about selling my games for sometime. I took a cruise on Ebay.com and researched current offers for Empire Earth II, a title so hot on Amazon.com that my review of it gained more votes than any other product review of mine. On Ebay, nobody was willing to bid more than about three dollars for even new copies; the search page was filled with “BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED” copies with a price of $9.99, and just a few hours left in the auction. Nobody wanted to buy it then for that price, apparently. I’m sure before I showed up, a few copies went, but those customers are now requited and I cannot guarantee anybody remains with a desire to spend ten bucks.
I could use the money, and I inflate profit by imposing a two dollar shipping and handling fee. At the same time, spending the time and effort to post and maintain a single item for a measly seven bucks, some of which must go to Ebay and PayPal fees, some of which must go to the packaging materials, leaves me cold to the idea. If I put up every game in my collection, I might earn just enough money to pay my $47 cell phone bill for October, less Ebay fees for all of the games which did not sell, which would be at least half of them. In fact it would probably take years for me to stumble across enough willing customers to take all these dated Windows 95 era, non-XP compatible games off my hands.
The profit gap seems to widen when one realizes the average price I paid for my games: about forty dollars. In the case of EEII, I paid fifty dollars. Selling it for $3.25 is not even ten percent of the original price-that is terrible value.
The bottom line: it isn’t worth it to sell my games because it will take too long to earn too little money. I could better spend the time applying for better jobs or working on my fiction.
This leads me to consider the best investment for my games. Playing games also takes up time better spent on applying and working. But games fulfill a purpose: when I want to relax alone, a game can satisfy me greatly.
Except I find myself increasingly dissatisfied by the boundaries of PC games. In my review of GTA San Andreas I labeled it “an almost boredom-proof game.” Almost isn’t enough anymore: I am bored by GTA V. I got about halfway through the game and I just felt like it wasn’t realistic enough or involved enough to sate. The game features this enormous world but it has great difficulty in simply rendering that world even on a machine as slick as mine. The draw distance problems approach ridiculous. And aside from graphical complications, the world just doesn’t contain enough activity for the size of the maps, and it doesn’t adequately reward exploration.
I’ve pointed out before that later chapters would benefit from a few extra missions. For example, I’ve recently considered the Badlands could benefit from a series of moonshine missions through the heart of the map, which stands otherwise unused. I previously thought about getting rid of all the weapon power ups on the map, and instead make them rewards for mission completions, albeit rewards limited to logical locations, to increase the challenge. I thought about adding robbery missions, again to fill up portions of the map. I thought of adding gang warfare to the San Fierro map. Perhaps modify the turf wars to balance the weapon availability. Or adding the M60 machine gun from Vice City. And so on.
Off to bed…