I just got a HD4870 reference card after swearing off ATi for awhile. Ok seriously, I thought they would have fixed their shitty drivers by now. A big fat NOPE at that.

First off, come on it has been 2 weeks since the card been on the shelf and where is the official driver? Oh there are BETA and HOTFIX drivers Then how about drivers that takes up 60megs of memory? Ok CCC disabled and got my memory back. Oh, now I don’t have access to settings and monitoring. This is the most annoying part: everytime I close a fullscreen 3d game or go from fullscreen to windowed, it blinks the display like it is changing the resolution. Seriously annoying. nVidia doesn’t do this. I mean resolution wasn’t changed, 1920×1200 to 1920×1200 and it takes a 1-2 seconds to do whatever it is doing. Um… ya Come on, that is seriously annoying. It is always the little thing that grinds on your nerve. Yes the card is fast and a good card for the money, you just have to put up with alot of shittiness, as compared to just a bunch of crappiness from nVidia. Meh. Color me underwhelmed from all the annoyances that comes with every ATi. Free with every purchase, y0! Man, I miss the old ATi control panel. Wish they would bring them back. Who gives 2 shits about live preview of the settings?

I guess I’ll give it a score: 79%. Almost, but not quite there. Buy it if you don’t mind the crappy drivers from ATi. It is just good for the money. A Dodge neon was good for the money; it just isn’t very good in grander view of things. GTX280 and 9800GX2 are still much faster. At least I know nVidia don’t have this annoying blinking problem and the driver are less bloated (still bloated of course). *GTX280 is quite mediocre too, perhaps even more so than the HD. I am an equal opportunity hater.

PS: The review is negatively biased on purpose. If you want to read the good things, just go flip through any other HD48xx review. I mean, people are giving too much credit to this card. Sure it may be an unbelievably good card compared to what ATi was churning out for the last few generations, but it doesn’t make it a grand slam. Someone need to balance out all the ATi dick sucking.

Excuse me. Mass Effect. Thank you Securom for ruining another game. Game I won’t buy. DRM and shitty games are killing PC games, not pirates. Yes consoles games are more profitable now. Except how long will it continue to be profitable if games developers keep makes shitty games for the consoles too? Yes console gamers are usually lighter gamers than PC gamers, but even they would know shitty games when they see it. Don’t blame pirates. Blame shitty developers flooding the market with generic games.

Many people are missing the point of these new ultra mobile PCs like the eeePC and 2133 Mini-Note. They keep screaming that for 4-500 dollars, you can buy a much faster machine. Very true. That means these notebooks aren’t for you. These machines are for PORTABILITY. For the purpose of these UMPC, performance is not that important. Eventhough I may be one of those idiots who would pay 50% premium for a E85 over a E84 for the tiny bit of performance gain, I could see the uses for these low powered computers. They would be the perfect computer to take to class. The mini-note in particular. The larger keys will help taking notes easier. Except of course, nothing beats pen and paper for note taking. It just isn’t intuitive to do things on the computer that could be easily done on a notepad, such as drawing a quick graph. I personally log around with a 14″ notebook. Although I am big enough not to care about the extra 5 pounds on my shoulder, but it does take away desk space when I do want to take notes the traditional way.

Although the performance doesn’t matter that much, I do still somewhat care about it when I use it for other purposes. I do own more computers than most people. I mean, my NAS server is faster than most people’s desktop (C2D equipped ). I am still thinking about waiting for the updated version of the Mini-Note with Atom or Isaiah processor. Not only these will have a bit more oomph, they will be easier on the battery too. Though by the time those come out, I doubt I will need that much mobility. I am still tempted to buy the Mini-Note. Of course, I could just get a Macbook Air and call it a day

PS. How come people say the forward tilt from the extended battery for the 2133 is ergonomical? As an ex-Carpel Tunnel sufferer, I can’t agree It it puts the keyboard LESS ergonomically position. A negative tilt is eaiser on the wrist.

I mean, I love April fools as much as the next person. It is fun playing pranks on your buds. Except… websites doing it is extremely stupid. Watch for a huge outbreak of stupid pranks and fake news soon.

What in the WORLD is hardware maker thinking? Mouse drivers that is 42megs. JUST WTF. ATi control center: Bloatware. NVidia control center: Bloatware. MS Intellitouch and point: Bloatware.
I can almost forgive the graphics card drivers, but the peripherals drivers don’t need to have fluffy interface. It is one of those things that we’ll look at may be once when we are setting it up and never again. Just give us basic look and free up ram for other things. I mean, I’ve refused to buy Logitech stuff for ages eventhough the mouse they have are really awesome. Why? Because the drivers suck donkey bawls (not to mention that it sucks for precision). It wasn’t that bad back in the days when you can simply not install the driver and have it work. Now you NEED the driver just so basic functionality like the back button works. Ever wonder why a simple mouse driver need 15-20 megs of memory? FOR WHAT? Mouse and media key binds DO NOT take up that much memory. Jeebus. Hey, how about releasing some non-bloated drivers for those of us who know what we’re doing. We don’t need fancy interface. It just need to work Oh Razer. YOU TOO. Stupid. Fucking. Driver.

So hardware vendors are not just writing shitty drivers, they are writing shitty drivers that looks like ass, slow, and takes up many times more memory than they need. Remove thumb from ass. Unbloat the drivers PLEASE.

I just tried Bioshock for a few minutes. I am so sorry that I ever said GoW’s control sucked. This is 100x worse. Being a pr0 CS player CS n00b terminator, you can bet i am a super low sens player. I touch the mouse and I did a 720. I was like wow. Turned the mouse sensitivity down to lowest and it gets stuck here and there. It just won’t move. So I tried some tweaks and it is better, but it still feels like crap. Chalk one up for another game dumbed down for console with retarded controls. Ierno, I am gonna restart the game on easy and just blast through this. I am in it for the story as the combat BLOWS GOAT’S SWEATY BAWLS. Or dare I say, use the trainer

Game looks pretty good with very interesting art style. It is a bit too cartoonish for my taste, but not THAT bad

Well, since I am already on the topic, may as well make this a full blown pitch my bitch post. I’ve already written about how games suck when they are controller oriented. This game brings it into a whole new territory. It isn’t the first, but it is the one that makes me want to cut off my fingers. I just want to play this stupid game. Tight controls is necessary for a FPS. Mouse and keyboard should be their focus, not an afterthought. This game is bleeding edge. In terms of technology AND crappy controls. People saying the control in this game is fine should go try some other shooters and come back to this game. Then you’ll see how much it SUCK DONKEY BAWLS. I don’t mind loosey goosey controls in games like Oblivion or some other non-combat oriented game. If you’re going to make a FPS, get it through your skull that KEYBOARD AND MOUSE COMES FIRST.

So anyways, tweaked the game setting for mouse again, and about to go for another session. Hopefully it feels better this time

Edited impressions:
After tweaking the mouse setting for awhile, it finally feels OK. Just OK, no more. I don’t understand how the control is so butchered considering all the other games built on the UT3 (or UT2.5 hybrid) engine are really solid. As for the story, the game feels like an advanture game in FPS guise. Not bad so far. I really like the over the top atmosphere. Will finish this game later

In no particular order of annoyance, just off top of my head:

break != brake
who’s != whose
your != you’re
faze != phase
heroin != heroine
vain != vane != vein
summary != summery
strait != straight
rational != rationale
moral != morale
led != lead
site != sight != cite
weigh != weight
weather != wether != whether
reign != rein and dare i say != rain
wear != ware != where
bear != bare != beer……… You’d think they would at least know this one.
expansive != expensive

Don’t get me started on the mistake fixable by spellcheck. Dear god help us from people who doesn’t bother to spellcheck when they spell like a 10 year old stuck in first grade. Sure it is fallacious to use misspellings and grammar mistakes to discredit other’s argument, but it does make them look like an ass.
I don’t have much to say on the implicit meaning of the title, except that truer words have not been said They may be able to spell correctly, whether through education or spellchecking, but it doesn’t make the junk coming out of their keyboard any more intelligible.

PS: my favorite spelling mistake is kniving for conniving. You’d be surprized by how many people can’t spell it correctly

Disclaimer: I make no claim that I could spell better nor smarter than anyone else. I never did won any spelling bees ya know. I do use the Retardese once in awhile, because there are those who cannot understand regular ol’ English. BLAME INTERNET!

Who writes these fawking game reviews. I just do not understand how Gears of War gotten an average of about 90%… WOW. It is just a rolling piece of turtle shit wrapped up in shiny UT3 powered graphics. Ok, game isn’t THAT bad, but the controls makes it stupider than a pack of dogs licking their privates. It is yet another game dumbed down for the console retards and forced down our collective PC gamers’ throats.

All I want is to reliably being able to enter the run mode. No I don’t want cover now, I want to run. Sometimes the game will throw you a curveball and make you do sideway matrix dodges. Hey, that is nice and all, but how about making it predictable about what you’re gonna do. Don’t use 1 stupid fucking button to make it do all those things. I mean, it isn’t a hard game or anything. I got killed mostly because of the retarded controls. I seriously doubt the Gamespot reviewer played the same game I did. Holy wow, they actually gave it an medal for having tight controls? How much is Microsoft paying you to write that junk? Remove mouth from Gates’ pole please.

Then there are the guns. WTF am I shooting? Pieces of marshmellows of love? I mean, I could spit on those enemies and make them die faster. It doesn’t help when they are about accurate as a 3 year old boy at the public restroom. It just goes every where. They can make people bulge to that size, yet they can’t figure out how to make guns that actually that shoots where you’re pointing. Our alternate universe looks bleak. No wonder it is war torn. Otherwise they would have zero problem taking care of those monsters. Oh I get it. If they actually had an accurate gun, there would be no story. Gotcha!

So in summary, the story is forgettable, combat lame, but hey it looks nice. Ooh, it is another of THOSE games. I can’t believe how hyped this game was. I don’t understand how people who’ve played this game can say it is good. It is average at best (then again, those console tards actually liked Halo series… ). I mean, if you’re 12 years old and get your kicks from hearing someone saying FUCK. Then this is the game for you. Otherwise, ya, go waste your time on some other game.

I’ll be nice since it looks nice: 65%

insist on talking to me when I have my full sized sealed headphones on. They keep talking and talking before I have a chance to remove my headphone, as if I could hear them because they can’t hear the music I am listening to. When I have music blasting in a sealed headphone that reduces outside noise by around 10dB*, is it any surprise that I can’t hear a single word they say while my headphone is on? Then they act like I am fawking deaf when I asked them what they said?

Proper procedure:
1. Tap me on the shoulder
2. wait for me to take off the phones
3. Talk.

Not talk before I know that you’re even there, while I have my headphones on

*For those of you who skipped math in grade school, dB is based on 10 based logarithmic scale. So -10db is 1/10th of the power of the sound, which is about 1/2 of perceived “loudness” (-3dB is 1/2 the power: 10^(-3/10)= ~.5). With music blasting, you ain’t going to hear something half as loud as a normal conversation.

Same thing with my computer speakers. They think the music is not that loud because they are standing outside of the optimal range of the speakers. Note that most computer speakers are near field. They are designed to sound the best at <5ft range, and outside of this sweetspot the sound isn’t that great, metaphorically and literally.

My computer speakers. The best sounding (affordable) 2.0 computer speakers. They spank Monsoons, Creative Gigaworks, Klipsch ProMedia etc.

They look small here, but they are a towering 12″ tall. I’ll write a review for them when I feel like it.

PS, I am taking donations for the Beyerdynamics DT990. I can’t get it out of my mind since I heard it at the store. Need Money NOW

5-600 dollars plus a 60 dollar a month plan minimum, on top of a 24 month service agreement. Ya… How is Apple going to sell 10 million of these.
Ignoring taxes for a bit, 60*24+500 = 1940. Whoa? Did the is the iPhone suddenly more expensive than it originally appears? On top of it, it tries to lock you into AT&T service and iTune (you need it to activate your phone!?!??!!?). Sorry but no thanks. Steve, you can take that phone and shove it where the sun don’t shine

I almost died laughing watching this

This is a Link
Another link

Well, Xbox360 controller for windows isn’t a bad invention. I mean, i use it and are quite happy with it. Here comes the problem: the dumbing down of computer games to console level. While there is some overlap of console gamer and computer gamer, the expectation of the gamers are a little different. On the console, you have no choice but the controller to interact with the games. In contrast, there are a plethora of choices for inputs on a computer. Looking at the 2 opening links makes me sigh. Those are computer games dumbed down for the sake of consoles. Shadowrun’s multiplayer implemented a stupid autoaim to balance the console and PC users. Yes, PC users have a definite advantage with mouse and keyboard, but why screw with our joy for the sake of balancing with console players? Sure it may be nice to play with friend’s on consoles, but it takes away too much of a shooter’s enjoyment.

Then there is the Overload type of dumbing down. Computer’s input should be primarily keyboard and mouse, unless it is truly unsuitable, such as a driving games and such. So having a tight control scheme built on the KB&M is important. Don’t dumb it down to controller level by default. If we want to play with a controller, we’d have bought a console instead. So, you computer game programmers, please think about keyboard and mouse before working on the controller. DAMMIT, this is why i prefer computer games and please don’t strip down my enjoyment of the game because some n000000bs are t3h sux with keyboard and mouse. Let them learn instead of punishing the rest of us with a stupid interface to the game.
/rant.
Ya I still like my xbox360 controller I do wish the thumbsticks feel as good as a Dualshock one though. i don’t like the weird flip of the hat switch and the left thumbstick. it just feels too weird, coming from years of being on a Dualshock.

PS, this is the first post of my new “pitch the bitch” catemagory thingamajig

Few things: (list format because… well you know how i love lists)

• JSP still sucks
• read this
• shit happens. no shit?!?
• I want another Prelude….
• lost all semblance of motivation. If you find mine, please fedex it to me asap
• HD2900 still sucks. Better drives ploz :ο~
• click me: open source videocard drivers? HOKAY, most windoze system instabilities are caused by shitty drivers written by people with deadline and a budget. In keeping with my rebooting once every other month or more tradition, I’ll stick with my “crappy” closed source drivers. Thanks.
• o’reily?
• yaarrrrg. when will people code a p2p program called iPirate?
• I have an headache. Physically and metaphorically
• why do I have so many email accounts when I don’t bother checking any of them?
• Life only gets harder with time. sigh…
• On a good note, it is summer. mmmm air conditioning and lots of sleep <3

This concludes my once in an eon update/random ramblings.

I like bewbies

PS, I do have a 8800gts now Color me a fanboy if you will… except I’ve owned almost every generation of Radeon
PS2, Note on the 2nd item. Respect people’s choice as seen on the bottom most paragraph. That is one thing you cannot say about Christians. People are individuals. Respect people’s wish, for better or worse. Being godless doesn’t make people rude or selfish. Being an asshole does. And yes, it is quite possible being an asshole and a Christian at the same time. Look in the mirror before you pass a judgment next time. If you believe in god or God and follow it truly, good for you. Remember to separate the rituals from the beliefs. Remember the reason for the decision and not to follow blindly. I really shouldn’t say this, but this is my blog Christians: do as I say, not as I do Ok that is off my chest… and no. no stereotyping there HOKAY?!
PS3, I want one for folding@home :ο~