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January 2002

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Spring Cleaning Nine11 @ 8:12 Comments

Here's some ideas for a special pal of mine who suffers from an extreme case of "cable clutter". I keep telling him to go to the free clinic, but the poor guy just won't listen.

Sunday, January 27, 2002

Good Things In Small Packages Nine11 @ 17:52 Comments

I swung by Circuit City, which seems to have the cheapest software around, and nabbed Medal of Honor for $29.95. The box it came in is about half-sized, and I noticed some games packaged like this earlier this week at Wal-Mart. I had been thinking it was a "Wal-Mart thing", but I guess EA has decided to save a few trees (or some packaging costs) and go with the smaller box. Honestly, it's confusing and I had to stare at it for a while to make sure it wasn't for a console... or maybe I'm slow...

Bakersfield LAN Partying Cage @ 8:07 Comments

I noticed that the Bakersfield Californian featured an article in todays paper about "Computer gamers lost in la-la LAN."

The story talks about a local group of LAN'rs who get together fairly regularly. The story mentions that "Most in attendance are either employees or customers who hang out at Bakersfield's PC Club, a retail computer store." A couple of them are putting together a web site called BakersfieldLAN.com The web site looks pretty bare right now, but we will keep an eye on it in the future. Anything local is worth pimping here at CW.

bit-tech Bits Nine11 @ 7:30 Comments

As you know, I've been pretty keen on the puter mod site, bit-tech. While I'm way too lazy to tackle most of their projects, I did run across a few fairly simple tidbits: installing a case window, glowing hardware, spray paint guide, and Macro's Case Mod which includes stealthed CD and CD-RW drives.

Saturday, January 26, 2002

The Guru of 3D is Back! Cage @ 17:23 Comments

One of my favorite computer hardware sites is back! After a 4 week absence, and a new host provider, The Guru of 3D has returned. Outstanding.

Friday, January 25, 2002

Is That A Heat Pipe In Your Pocket? Nine11 @ 18:54 Comments

While cruising the HSF review at bit-tech, I noticed the interesting lookin' Cooler Master HHC-001 which has an integrated heat pipe. This design incorporates fluid-filled pipes which "pump" heat away from the base of the heatsink and through the fins. It's a pretty slick design, and the reader reviews at NewEgg seem positive (I'm putting more faith in user reviews these days). Overall, the design kept the CPU 5C cooler under load than the popular Thermalright SK6. As is the norm with high-performance HSF, it's noisy but a larger fan/adapter spinning at lower RPMs could solve that. The stock unit goes for $29 online, and pimpin' it out for quieter operation would add another $10 or $15. Cooler Master also has an updated version called the HHC-L61 (be a real man and call it the L69, damnit!) which may be out by the time I'm ready to take the plunge.

Medal Of Honor Patch Nine11 @ 9:10 Comments

There is a patch for Medal of Honor which adds an in-game server browser (who was the dip who left that out?!) and various other fixes. Grab it from FilePlanet.

My Wish List Nine11 @ 9:03 Comments

Since I've been looking toward an upgrade and have been checkin' out all the cool modded cases, I'm fondling the idea of grabbing one of the aluminum variety. Since I've been known to lug my puter over to Cage's pad for some LAN Love, aluminum would be much lighter and have that sexy-geek look... kinda like Stevie Case after she gets wasted at E3 parties and starts to table dance. Anyway, the Lian Li PC-30 is pretty swank, small, and fits an ATX mobo and PS. I could pimp her out with some matching aluminum handles, blowholes, and fan covers. Unfortunately, this adds a little green to my upgrade which could be spent somewhere else. Decisions, decisions...

Naked Puters! Nine11 @ 8:44 Comments

Cage turned me onto the ultimate puter modding site, bit-tech. They've got a mess of cool articles on modding puter parts and cases, and they've started a series on building a clear plexi case. The first part covers the planning stages and introduces some concepts involved. Following articles will cover the actual construction of a plexi case, and is sure to have some nifty eye-candy. It's a pretty good read and covers some interesting concepts of system design even if you don't plan on tackling a project like this.

Tomorrow's Games On Today's Graphics Cards Nine11 @ 8:15 Comments

Anandtech slapped together a mess of benchmarks with today's graphics cards running the next build of the Unreal engine. As it turns out, the ATI Radeon 8500 kicked some serious bootay while the GeForce3 cards ran respectible numbers. Too bad ATI's drivers are such a fly in the ointment (there were some issues rendering fog on the card), and I still don't know if I'd fork over the cash for one.

Wednesday, January 23, 2002

Chill Out... AthlonXP Cooling Solutions Nine11 @ 9:44 Comments

I'm gearing up for an upgrade next month, so I decided to take a look at some cooling solutions for the AthlonXP. I'm shootin' for a bang-for-the-buck upgrade, which means I'll be overclocking and need to keep temps in line. After reading a cooler roundup at [H] and some user reviews at NewEgg.com, I came up with the following wish list:

Thermal Integration "Dr. Thermal", 131F, 62db, $22
Vantec CCK-6027D, 127F, 64db, $20
Global Win SAK38, 125F, 67db, $24
Thermalright SK-6, 122F, 64db, $33

The best performer of that group is the Thermalright SK-6 and [H] slapped the Vantec CCK-6027D with "best all-around HSF"; however, the user reviews at NewEgg.com are swinging me toward the Thermal Integration "Dr. Thermal" which was the only one without major complaints about noise, is easy to install, and offers fair cooling. All that for $22 is hard to beat.

Monday, January 21, 2002

Tribes 2 "Bargin" Bin Cage @ 0:23 Comments

I noticed in the local circular that Tribes 2 has once again made it to the bargin bin. For the low low price of $10 you can pick up a copy at CompUSA. Buy the game that killed Dynamix!

Saturday, January 19, 2002

3000MHz & Beyond! Nine11 @ 8:40 Comments

Tom's Hardware took a little adventure in overclocking with Intel's new Northwood 0.13m Pentium4 processor. With some water cooling and a Gigabyte i845 DDR based mobo, they pushed that little sucker to over 3000MHz, which sounds impressive till you start looking at the benchmarks. Don't get me wrong, the OC'd P4 is faster than chili verde making it's way through a two year old, but the benchmarks start to narrow at 1024*768. As an example, only 16 fps separate the 3000MHz P4 and the +2000 Athlon XP (1666MHz). Most of the other benchmarks followed suit. Still, 3000MHz is pretty sexy, I just don't know if it's worth the extra $700 entrance fee for an Intel system plus water cooling.

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

Quarter To Three Takes A Powder Nine11 @ 9:10 Comments

I don't know if it's the Dot Bomb thing or what, but Quarter To Three is nailing the doors shut. Mark Asher has taken a job at Pop Top software, and it's unclear what Tom Chick will do since he's away at Sundance. Sounds kinda like going to work and coming home to find the door locks changed. I really hope that's not the case, but TC still has his gigs at various magazines. We'd like to wish them both well and thanks for the reading.

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's A... New Chipset?! Nine11 @ 8:11 Comments

According to The Inquirer, VIA is ready to retire their swanky KT266A for the double-secret-probation KT333A. Since reference boards are abundant as Jimmy Hoffa, I'd guess it'll debut around the same time as the next AthlonXP die shrink. The KT333A is pimped out with AGP 8X, DDR 333, USB 2.0, and various other goodies. Many thanks to Cage for the heads-up.

Saturday, January 12, 2002

Bust A Cap With Ghost Recon Nine11 @ 0:11 Comments

I finally loaded the demo for Ghost Recon. Boy, that game is way better than what I saw at E3. It plays like most of the other "realistic" shooters but looks and feels much better. It's got some great sound as well (still diggin' those Z-560s) but I get an odd popping sound here and there... probably something which would be addressed in a patch. I got an online quickie (co-op) through GameSpy Arcade, but there weren't many people connecting through that service and better luck could be had going a different route. Anyway, I got a real kick outta the single player game and will pick up the retail version this weekend.

Thursday, January 10, 2002

The nForce Is Weak With This One Nine11 @ 17:10 Comments

GamePC slapped together a review of the ASUS A7N266 nVidia nForce 420 Motherboard. For some reason, ASUS chose to strip away the Dolby 5.1 sound and Ethernet. I really don't get the logic behind that, and neither did GamePC. Benched against the Asus A7V266-E (VIA KT-266A Chipset), ECS K7S5A (SiS 735 Chipset), and Asus A7M266 (AMD 760 Chipset), it failed to pull ahead of the crowd.

Interestingly, the little ECS board endowed with DDR memory held it's own against the sexier chipsets. This really surprised me and leaves ECS as a good upgrade solution for anyone on a budget or wants to do "baby-steps" upgrades (it supports DDR and SDRAM). Of course, performance is better with DDR. Most places are selling the ECS K7S5A for about $60.

Heads Up Nine11 @ 8:22 Comments

Nothing too exciting has been goin' on around here. Just been doing the daily grind and getting in a little gaming here and there. My online fix has been sorta so-so with a mix of Day of Defeat, RTCW, Medal of Honor, and Urban Terror. The server list and in-game browser has been pretty damn flaky, so I started using The All-Seeing Eye to locate active games. Cowboy Carnage always seems to have at least 10 players for Team Deathmatch, but lots of other servers are running bots which seem pretty stupid. Medal of Honor is growing on me, and it's my best guess it'll be the next big thing for online shooters.

Friday, January 4, 2002

ASUS nForce Mobo Nine11 @ 8:54 Comments

[H] posted a review of the ASUS A7N266-E motherboard, which left a bitter taste in my mouth. The board is packed with features and is a great value, but it's crippled with a flaky BIOS. Basically, that's what I expected with Nvidia's new chipset and it's bound to have some sort of teething period. Having just got rid of a BIOS problem on my end, I can't really recommend the nForce boards despite their speedy performance.

Battle Realms Nine11 @ 8:25 Comments

Firing Squad popped off a review of Battle Realms and slapped it's fanny with an 89%, which is pretty damn high but short of an Editor's Choice. BR had my curiosity before E3, but I've ignored it since being released. For whatever reason, I dunno. Maybe I'm too hooked on Urban Terror to play other stuff. Anyway, BR has some nifty twists on the basics of RTS games with units which can be upgraded, a *general* unit cap of 30, spellcasting, special abilities, vulnerabilities, and general rock-paper-scissors stuff. Unfortunately, BR isn't much of a "beer and pretzels" game and leeches a lot of attention during gameplay. The screenies also don't do much for the game, but I've seen it in action which looks much better. Maybe I'll download the demo or something.