Ross Scott

Good news, it looks like the economy won't be completely destroyed: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/07/obama-boehner-announce-agreement-to-raise-debt-ceiling-avoid-default.html Still have to wait for the house vote though.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to get faster benchmarks from this one: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/eurocom_panther_20_review

Yes, I've heard that as well, I was looking at some videos on the Wall Street Journal's site about the issue and some investors think America has already lost its AAA rating unofficially. As for the debt ceiling being lifted, I agree that's what will probably happen, but it's still quite uncertain as to what terms that will happen under.

Yeah it was announced before the orange box and was going to to be the same thing as the orange box at a lower price, minus half life 2 and episode 1. They later cancelled it and raised the price, making the orange box the only option.

It is a game rip and I was able to contact the original composer of it and even HE doesn't have it at higher quality. It's a shame too since one of the tracks I think had some minor volume clipping that probably didn't in the original. I think the soundtrack comes from the special edition of Black Mirror 3 bundled with it. I haven't played it yet, I've only done 1 and 2. In my opinion 2 was okay, but I didn't like it as much as the original (different composer too).

This is pretty much it. It's not really a matter of challenge, so much as all my best ideas (or what I consider my best) are with other series and not FM. I don't really like neglecting any series I do, though I will say fan interest is keeping FM alive more than anything else. Stuff like CP and some of my other ideas would stay alive almost independent of fan interest just because I have movie ideas that I want to manifest any way I can and would feel much happier if I ever got them completed. For what it's worth, I really do take how much some fans appreciate the series into consideration. Whenever I hear of somebody re-watching a bunch of episodes, it makes me feel guilty I haven't progressed farther in the game yet.

To be honest I do the same thing in my videos, but I try my damndest to credit everyone who created content I use. I probably get more leeway however since I don't actually distribute their files, just use them in making the videos.

Also, anyone want to take guesses as to what will happen? I saw this chart listed here: If I had to guess, I'd say we'll have the 6+ month extension, but the situation seems kind of tenuous. EDIT: The other option not listed on here is that the republicans compromise more to meet more of the democrats' demands, like allowing Bush's tax breaks to expire, but I think the general consensus is that's unlikely.

Regarding spending by democrats and republicans, this might clear up some confusion: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24editorial_graph2.html?ref=sunday As you can see there's been a lot of spending over the past decade, however keep in mind these are CHANGES in spending, it includes the spending that was already in place by the former president. So you can add Bush's spending on top of the Clinton administration's and the Obama's on top of Bush's. So more spending was enacted under the Bush administration, but more OVERALL spending has occurred under Obama's since it includes what Bush's added. So which party spent more? It depends on how you define it. If by "more" you mean: 1. The DIFFERENCE in dollars spent from the beginning of the term v. the end of the term (or equivalent) = the Republicans have currently spent more. 2. The TOTAL dollars being spent during the term (or equivalent) = the Democrats are currently spending more

Yes it is, they're all set to default settings. I recommend re-reading my post to better understand what's happening.

I did do the "clean install" check when I installed it, but I haven't tried the beta drivers, though I'm skeptical that fixes the problem, maybe I'll try it later. This doesn't seem to be the same issue since 1: I didn't use Windows update, I updated manually from SP1 with the Windows update service turned off via the services tab, THEN installed the Nvidia drivers and 2: the problem has existed before and after the Nvidia update. I may try it later, but rolling back the driver doesn't make much sense it if it's been giving me trouble the entire time. Well unfortunately "should" doesn't seem to make it happen. My next step (short of installing a virtual machine, I hadn't planned on doing that so soon), is to see if there's a way to strongarm custom codecs directly into Premiere since it seems to be ignoring the 64 bit huffyuv install.

I replied to another thread specifically asking about that, you can check it out here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1833

I've been at it for days, though I'm still trying to work a lot of stuff out. Finding software replacements for all the functions I was using under Litestep has been a real pain in the ass and still is incomplete. While I could try using Litestep as a shell replacement again, it seems kind of dated compared to some of the GUI improvements Windows has made since then. This in itself isn't bringing anything to a stop, but not having all these shortcuts and configurations I was using is slowing things down a ton. A lot of the slowdown is simply installing (or finding software replacements for) all the programs I was using. I use my computer for a lot of things. Video editing, encoding, audio editing, encoding, legacy gaming, GUI customization, office applications, internet communication, etc. The number of programs I use regularly (not counting games, which I haven't done much of lately) is probably close to around 50, with a larger number for those used less frequently in specific situations. Starting from scratch on all this stuff is an involved process. The biggest problem I'm facing at the moment is trying to get the HuffyUV codec to behave properly under the 64 bit version of windows 7. While I plan on moving to Lagarith for lossless encoding and editing since it seems to behave better under a 64 bit OS and offers better compression, I have a lot of older material still tied up in HuffyUV that I need to access. For the life of me, I can't get the HuffyUV codec to open up in the 64 bit version of Adobe Premiere, nor is it an encoding option in the 64 bit version of Virtualdub. While I initially tried just installing the 32 bit version of the HuffyUV codec (which is a somewhat involved process on Windows 7 64 bit), I do that only to find out that for the LIFE of me, I cannot get the 32 bit version of Avisynth working under Windows 7 64 bit. So I've been kind of screwed either way on this. I think what will have to happen is since I can read HuffyUV footage in the 64 bit virtualdub, I'll have to convert all my HuffyUV footage that I need to access over to Lagarith. However this is kind of a big deal because that's going to take up a substantial portion of space that I don't have at the moment because I'm still organizing my old files, which adds to the time there. It would be a lot easier if I could just leave the old HuffyUV footage alone and simply open it in Premiere. Installing the 64 bit version of HuffyUV is a snap, it just simply isn't recognized under several applications in Windows 7. While I think things will get easier in the long run, the transition process is still hell for me. For example, I recently did some tests to confirm that the colorspace wasn't getting distorted in the Lagarith codec and the new version of premiere (and I'm glad I did, because it WAS). Well on the old 32-bit version of Virtualdubmod, I could simply find a frame I wanted, and output the frame directly to PNG or TGA, allowing me to make good screenshot comparisons in a variety of situations to do an eye-check in addition to making sure the colorspace is being converted properly. Well lo and behold, Virtualdubmod doesn't even open some of the Lagarith clips, depending on how they're encoded, I can only use the updated version of simply Virtualdub for that. It's missing some conveniences like that where I can only copy the frame to the clipboard, so now I need to open up MSpaint, paste it there, then save it to another folder. This isn't a big deal, but I was taking dozens of screeenshots to do a comparison, so the time invested starts adding up for inefficiencies like this. Almost EVERYTHING on Windows 7 has been like this and probably will be until I get more familiar with new software and workarounds. If you want an easier problem to tackle, I have a couple other annoyances I wouldn't mind some help with: 1. Windows 7 is too bright for me for some reason. My videocard is a Geforce 9800 GTX. Nvidia has great color control options, so I opened up the Nvidia control panel and changed them. As soon as I even moved the slider, the brightness was IMMEDIATELY fixed, like this whole time it had been stuck on some incorrect value. However once I rebooted, it's back to the too-bright mode again. I looked up this problem online and only found people where their color settings in the Nvidia panel were getting reset. This isn't my case. If I set the brightness to 47% (the default is 50) and reboot, it still SAYS 47%, but it's still too bright again. I have to manually go and move the slider just a notch and suddenly everything is fixed again. Is there a way to fix this? Or if not, is there a way to run some sort of script to "wake up" the color controls every time I boot up? Also before people say "update the drivers", this is on a formatted drive with a fresh install of Windows 7 with drivers from Nvidia's site from about a week ago. 2a. The latest version of Adobe Audition has some nice improvements and a VERY big annoyance for me. When I seek and play through an an audio clip, I'm finding some problems. If I make a selection, then play it once, it works fine. If I press play again, it continues playing AFTER that. If I press play AGAIN, it plays from the beginning of the clip and completely ignores my selection afterwards. I want it so if I have part of the clip selected, IT ONLY PLAYS WHAT IS SELECTED. EVERY TIME. 2b. If I move the (scrubber?) time indicator to a specific point in the clip, then press play, it plays from that point. After it's done playing, it moves the scrubber to the end, completely resetting where I just had the scrubber. I want it so that if all I'm doing is playing a clip from a specific point, it keeps the time indicator where I left it. I'm hoping like hell these are just default options that can be changed somewhere, but I haven't had time to research if they exist or not. 3. Objectdock (a taskbar / systray / folder group replacement) has a bug where it sporadically ignores commands to bring some windows up to the front. Best I can tell there's no update for this, limitng its use as a replacement for how I was using Litestep. It also has a bug where it ignores icon changes for some programs, though I found a workaround fix for that, even if it's annoying. 4. Nexus dock (another taskbar / systray / folder group replacement) has a bug where trying to access menus from programs running in the system tray will cause it to IMMEDIATELY lose focus, limiting its use as a replacement for how I was using Litestep. This might be solvable, but I need to research it more. 5. Exporting uncompressed audio in the same format as the original project is WAY slower in the newest version of Premiere than before. This might be related to me using Lagarith encoded clips instead of HuffyUV though, since they require more processing and maybe the muxing process is different. I'm not sure and I can't test this until I can fix the HuffyUV problem. EDIT: I've now fixed part 2a and 2b, thankfully there was an option to disable the default control seeings

danielsangeo: I think it will be raised, but it's kind of scary we're getting to this point. Also I think whatever last minute solution will be made will just stall the problem rather than address it. The US government almost shut down in April until a compromise was reached with the budget at the 11th hour, but as I understand it, that whole scenario is due to repeat again in October unless we manage to fix things before then.

Well it's possible I may be wrong about an impending oil crisis with how our economy is being run. If America defaults on its debt, we could have a major economic crisis in just a few weeks, not years! Summary: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/25/us-investment-default-idUSTRE76O22I20110725 Summary by The Onion (seriously, it's not even a spoof, this is 100% true, except for the direct quotes of course): http://www.theonion.com/articles/congress-continues-debate-over-whether-or-not-nati,20977/ This is kind of insane and it's going to be an ongoing topic since something similar was happening months ago. It's essentially a game of chicken between the Republicans and the Democrats, with the consequences being an all-out economic disaster if no agreement is reached. I think in actuality there will be some sort of agreement because no president wants his name tied to what would be the biggest economic disaster in American history, even larger than the great depression. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure how to prepare in the event that the US DOES default (either in a week or else later), but I thought this was worth mentioning here. This is absolutely an issue with the ability to change our entire society for a long time. EDIT: Here's a good visualization of the kind of money we're talking about: http://www.wtfnoway.com/

I don't need much help finding games, I (try) to play a lot of abandonware games and since there are so many it can be tricky deciding if a game is worth playing. Some games simply require more time to get into or get better, but usually I get a good impression of them right away when that happens. I'm trying to see if there's any exceptions I haven't heard of. It obviously varies for everyone, but I'm trying to determine how much time is the right amount to invest in a game before you can write it off as not being very enjoyable (assuming it's not utter crap from the start). There are so many good cheap or free games out there now I'd rather just keep moving to another one if I feel like one is going to plateau and I'm not very drawn in by it. Every game I can think of has fallen into one of these categories: 1. I get a good impression of it initially and it stays as good or gets better 2. (somewhat rare) I get a good impression of it initially, but then it gets worse. 3. I think it's somewhat mediocre initially, and it stays that way the entire game. 4. (also rare) Everything about the game is garbage. I've never played one where it starts off mediocre for me, THEN really draws me in. In short, I'm trying to figure out what the best cutoff point is for declaring a game in category #3.

I've REALLY been wanting something like this, though it looks like it's currently only available to developers: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/07/18/nvidias_new_fxaa_antialiasing_technology There were some comments on hardocp that people have been able to get this to work on the driver level, but only in OpenGL games. I'm really hoping it becomes possible at the driver level for Direct3D ones. AA effectiveness has gotten quite spotty over the past decade with some shaders + deferred rendering, depending on the game, especially ones based on the Unreal 3 engine.

I think most people just have anecdotal evidence, but I've switched cards before and I've had plenty of driver issues on both sides. Before I upgraded to 7 I was having plenty of blue screens related to nv4_disp.dll and one game (Hinterland) absolutely refusing to run without blue screening in full screen mode on my 9800 GTX. I do find they have better options overall than AMD however, but really I don't see as one having better drivers than the other, I've seen too many problems on both sides. My experience has been ATI is more likely to have graphical glitches, Nvidia is more likely to blue screen. As for power consumption, for a while AMD was the clear winner, but with the 500 series it's a more level playing field. There's not really a general rule now, just look at the price range for the cards you're interested in and compare yourself: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/3D-Power-Draw,2678.html

Source engine games don't use PhysX for physics, it uses the Havok engine. Having an SLI setup will give you more speed period in games that support it, but only a minority of games will specifically offload physics work to the GPU like that, PhysX never really took off to the extent Nvidia was hoping. I believe most modern games try and use additional cores for physics now since most gaming machines are multi-core nowadays.

People can keep discussing the topic here, just don't resort to personal insults. If someone's wrong, you can explain why. Video formats are apparently a controversial topic, I'm trying to make sense of what's best myself. Regarding my opinion on VLC player: -Maybe 2-3 years ago I was using it and was obviously able to see some minor framerate drop on it when using MKV or MP4, I don't remember which format I was looking at. I remember the framerate drop being consistent and not only happening in certain situations. I didn't conduct any special tests on it to measure how much, I could just SEE it. I looked up the problem and tried every tweak available (determining GPU acceleration was on, making sure it wasn't hitting 100% cpu usage, etc.), nothing seemed to help. I ended up switching to MPC-HC with the right codecs installed and it fixed up the problem. -When I was doing subtitle tests a couple years ago, VLC player gave very poor results regarding subtitles where more than one would appear during the same time chunk, it simply handled them incorrectly. -I've recently upgraded to Windows 7 and now have a new copy of VLC player. It appears to be functioning better now. When I was on XP, it would lose audio sync after seeking in MOV versions of Freeman's Mind sent to Machinima. I don't remember which version of VLC player I was running at the time. So now that I've updated VLC player seems to be behaving more and may not cause the huge problems it once did. I still need to do more testing with the formats.

I was wondering if anyone has played games they were initially ready to give up on, that got MUCH better after sticking with it. And by "initially" I don't mean after 5 minutes, I mean after an hour or three of giving the game a real chance. I'm not sure I can think of any I've played that I was ready to bail on that ended up redeeming themselves later.

Even though the landscape is shifting, I generally don't care about mobile devices and am just interested in the desktop, where this makes the most difference. I don't think ARM processors are moving into desktop turf anytime soon.

Kain Has better dialogue than maybe 95% of the games I've played, very motivated, has a real can-do attitude, one of the few characters I've seen to have an existential crisis, kills multiple gods, takes over the world and rules it for thousands of years. Curtis Craig Lives a surprisingly interesting life for working as a technical writer, struggles with possible schizophrenia and psychosis, love triangles, homicide, alternate dimensions, paperwork.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G850+%40+2.90GHz Beats an Athlon II X4 610e. $40 less. I usually ignore simulation benchmarks and just go for gaming ones, I think this is a fairer examination: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-g850-g840-g620_4.html It looks like it's neck and neck (they exchange places in different benchmarks) with the X3 455, which is about $15 cheaper than the G850. For the G850's price range, the AMD equivalent would be either the Phenom II X2 560 or the Athlon II X3 460. Also the Athlon II X4 610e is a 2.4ghz processor, for gaming, I don't see how that's an equivalent option since even within AMD you can get faster CPUs for less money. I am surprised, since I think in maybe the past 10 years Intel has never had an equivalent or better performer as AMD for the same price range at the lower end until now. That's bad news for everyone if AMD can't compete in the CPU market, then Intel will turn back into a de facto monopoly.

This looks pretty cool, I like vertical shooters, plus the art style reminds me of Halloween Harry / Alien Carnage. Thanks for the post, stuff like this is why I made this section.