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December 2000

Saturday, December 30, 2000

Motor City Q&A Nine11 @ 14:46 Comments

Daily Radar has a little Motor City T&A ... er... Q&A with Michael Waite, Motor City Online producer. MCO is a persistant online world in which players build and race American muscle cars. An economic system is in place which rewards the winners of races, players trade/sell parts, and can bid in car/parts octions. The game concept struck me as a little goofy a few months back but, now that I realize my stepdad will never let me touch my mom's '47 Chevy coupe, I can see some of the game's appeal. Oh yea, the graphics are dialed as well!

Friday, December 29, 2000

Videocard Overclocking Nine11 @ 9:18 Comments

Feel the need for a few extra frames? HardOCP has an article and a few registry files for OCing GeForce and Voodoo video cards. I used the GeForce tweak which enables the Nvidia CoolBits OC functions which are off by default. I gained about 5 frames on the Thunder UT demo on my P3-800/GF2GTS system by clocking the GPU at 210MHz and the memory at 380MHz which are "panzy" settings (I've got no desire to burn a $300 video card). I'm not really impressed but if yer stuck with a slower system or want some bragging rights (I'm totally tweaked, dude), you may wanna give it a try. Remember to keep things cool and check da temperatures in da puter (I use The Card Cooler from 3DCool).

Bakersfield Internet Cafe Cage @ 8:16 Comments

This idea has bounced around in my head ever since I've moved here. Now it looks like someone has done it. nXcaffe is a local Bakersfield Internet gourmet coffee cafe. According to a Bakersfield California story,

"...nXcaffe offers its customers use of 10 high-speed DSL, Internet-connected computers (one of which is hooked up to a big-screen TV), including access to various software, networked games, custom CD creation, scanner use and printing."

A pretty cool idea, and one that's worth checking out if you live in the area.

Browsing through the xNcaffe web site a couple of things quickly become obvious. nXcaffe's message forum is painfully slow, even via a local Internet cable connection. The boards appear to have quite a bit of activity, but on closer examination are chock full of Spam. The average age of the posters is quite likely inversely proportional to their Pokemon collection. Sigh. Well hopefully things get better once you actually visit nXcaffe.

Wednesday, December 27, 2000

Serious Sam Patch Cage @ 14:09 Comments

There is a new patch out for the Serious Sam Test 2. Here's the important stuff from the Croteam web site:

"Here is a short list of most important changes, fixes and improvements from Public Test 2 (build 109) to 2.1 (build 109.2).
1) problem with firewalls/routers should be fixed now
2) added option for choosing address on a multihomed system
3) much faster network packet compression
4) server location reporting
5) true dedicated server
6) client send-behind
7) server limits for client BPS
8) additional server info
9) joystick problems
10) server password
11) wait for all players
12) talk
13) network parameters in single player
14) if-else construct in scripts
15) no more auto adjustments
16) system info cvars
17) memory adjustments in scripts
18) zoom cheat
19) split screen menus
20) keys transfer on player disconnection"

The patch is 1.9 MB and can be found at FilePlanet. Thanks, Stomped.

Addendum: The Serious Sam Test 2 is a lot of fun now. I've yet to try going on-line again. My first efforts without the patch didn't go well. I suspect that is because I'm behind a firewall, and on a cable connection.

Media Jukebox Cage @ 10:49 Comments

Now that I have a new MP3/CD-Player (the soon to be reviewed Encino Voyager), I have found a need to learn all about MP3's and converting or ripping regular audio CD music files into MP3 format files. After searching around on the 'net I came across Media Jukebox 6.0. It supports a wide range of formats, works well with plugins, and is quite handy for the tasks I had in mind. I've started to get the hang of things, and I've "ripped" several CD's with success. I have to work tonight, so further progress will have to wait until I get some more time off this weekend.

VIA Drivers - again Cage @ 10:43 Comments

Once again either Nine11 or myself have had the pleasure of problems with the VIA 4-in-1 drivers. Last night I fired up Unreal Tournament, intent on playing a few rounds. Game play was horrible, with frequent stuttering. I wasn't sure what the problem was, so I went offline and tried the same map and had the same results.

After trying several different things I finally resorted to re-installing the VIA drivers. Apparently one of the instances where Windows ME crashed the drivers got hosed. Note to self: Serious Sam may be a fun game, but the "Test 2" is far too unstable to risk changing video settings etc. After re-installing the VIA drivers all was right once again.

Fallout: Tactics Impressions Nine11 @ 0:14 Comments

I've stumbled through the demo of Fallout: Tactics and walked away with a few impressions. While I got the feeling FO:T is a fine game, they may just have tainted this series by cleaving away the turn-based combat of the previous games and sutured on some squad level RTS combat.

FO:T takes place in the same post-nuclear universe as the previous games. Rather than building and controlling a single person, you're in charge of a squad of soldiers and have to complete tasks like rescue missions and combat sweeps. Each soldier has their own pre-determined stats and skills, and they will fall into the roles of heavy weapons expert, sniper, medic, sleuth, demolition man and the like.

I've played very few turn-based games, but the first Fallout game seemed to pull it off with style. The game would play in real-time till an enemy poped up, then the game would kick into turn-based mode for combat. This mode gave you a turn meter for movement, shooting, reloading, scratchin' yer... head, or any combination thereof. It made you think about what you're doing and what was left at the end of your turn. Then it was the puter's turn and the AI is pretty crafty in turn-based games becasue all the CPU cycles are concentrated on strategy rather than some flashy graphics.

FO:T ditched the turn-based sytem in favor of real-time combat. I can only guess this was to make the game more appealing, but alot of the old stuff from the turn-based system is still there. There's a shot meter for each weapon so you can't just go shooting willy-nilly... which is usually the point of an RTS game. Weapons still have to be reloaded and inventories still have to be managed, none of which can be done with hotkeys. Finally, in the tradition of RTS games, you have to deal with up to about seven units all of which have their own little shot meters, their own little bullets to replace, and their own little inventories to manage while the combat rages on.

Okay, so I'm an old fart who likes turn-based combat. Is the game fun without it? Yep. Surprisingly, the game keeps the feel of the previous games and makes you think more about tactis (it ain't called Fallout TACTICS fer nothin'). Running the squad around and filling the air with hot lead is a guaranteed failure. You're guys are pretty fragile and go down easier than a Presidential Intern. I found myself setting up a sniper for cover and running a machine gunner foreward to flush out some prey. Sometimes I'd set up a "killing box" with a sniper at one end, shotguns/rifles to the sides, and run the machine gunner up the middle. You can experiment with grenades and claymores as well.

The AI is nothing to brag about. The enemy will move around a little but has a tendency to stand it's ground too much and force a standoff. I can see this would get boaring after a while because the fighting doesn't seem to vary too much. Pathfinding is lame as well, and it only gets worse trying to control seven guys.

Still, it's a Fallout game and the universe is killer. I probably wouldn't have been so turned off by the RTS thing if I hadn't played the previous games, but FO:T still makes you dust off the old noggin' and think about what's going on.

Monday, December 25, 2000

Merry Christmas Nine11 @ 7:35 Comments

Merry Christmas from Cage and I. Yep, it's that magical time of year when all the kiddies are looking for the stuff the Fat Red Man left behind. So, have a good one and get ready for the New Year!

Sunday, December 24, 2000

Fallout Tactics Demo Nine11 @ 16:05 Comments

The Fallut Tactics Demo has been set loose, and it's a fattie! Dang thing is 115MB and none of the mirrors have had their coffee today. My download is creeping around 82 kbps on the cable line. On a side note, FO:T has left the RPG thang behind and is a more action minded RTS this time around.

WinME Impressions Nine11 @ 8:33 Comments

I've been up and runnin' with WinME for about a week now and have a new love/hate relationship with Microsoft. The good things are WinME actually boots much quicker than Win98, and certain apps like Media Player are much more stable on the new OS. Downloads are much faster and average around 250-350 kbps. The bummer is WinME still chokes on other apps like Outlook Express (don't mash 3 or 4 keys at the same time, certain combos are fatal) and WinME likes to gimme a weird BSOD when shutting down. Cage gets the same BSOD so I don't feel so special.

Saturday, December 23, 2000

MW 4 Addon Map Cage @ 7:40 Comments

PC IGN has a new multiplayer only Mech Warrior 4 map up at their site. I don't know about everyone else, but I've really started to enjoy playing Mech Warrior 4. It kind of grows on you - like a fungus, or something.

Here's the details from PC IGN:

"Lakefront is a new multiplayer map for MW4, centered around an island base and the bridge that connects the island to the mainland. In the King of the Hill mission, the bridge is the hill... nowhere to hide, unless you get under it! Lakefront supports Attrition, Destruction, King of the Hill (with team variants of those three), and Steal the Beacon (FFA only)."

UT Bonus Pack 4 Cage @ 7:19 Comments

Oh yeah. All us UT fans are going to love this. The UT Bonus Pack 2 has been released. The bonus pack contains:

"* 2 new hi-res player characters with skins.
* 10 new maps spanning 4 UT modes - Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, Domination and Team Deathmatch.
* 2 updated UT Maps - a remixed version of the original Lament map and a slightly modified version of the infamous Facing Worlds map."

Very nice. I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl.

Friday, December 22, 2000

Egghead Credit Cards Cage @ 11:31 Comments

I saw over on Stomped that ZDNet has a story about someone hacking into Egghead and stealing up to 3.7 million credit card numbers. Ouch!

Thursday, December 21, 2000

Creative Leaving Video Card Market? Cage @ 4:16 Comments

I caught this story at Digit-Life via a blurb at the excellent the Guru of 3D site. Apparently there is a yet unsubstantiated rumor that Creative will be getting out of the video card business next year. Here is a slice from the story:

"Our reliable sources close to Creative informed us that next year Creative would leave the graphics cards business. There are several reasons to make such a decision:

1. They produced too many TNT2 M64 based cards, the sales of which are not so good and the profits are low.

2. They were to late to enter the market with their GF2 MX based solution (and this solution look not so good as it should be from NVIDIA's partner No.1.

3. Their product line based on GeForce2 family chips is too narrow (for NVIDIA's partner No.1 - one GF2 MX card, GF2 GTS card, and GF2 Ultra card (all cards are without any additional features).

4. NVIDIA (according to different sources) is not satisfied with this partnership.

At the same time ASUS made a great step forward at the graphics market and in partnership with NVIDIA - from Jan'2001 ASUS is NVIDIA's official partner No.1."

Argh! Will there soon be nothing left but a couple of monopolies for both the hardware and software market?

Best Buy Pulls 3dfx Cage @ 3:37 Comments

I caught this gem over at Voodoo Extreme. It seems that according to an employee who works there, Best Buy is removing their stock of 3dfx video cards from the shelves. Read the post and comments here.

Wednesday, December 20, 2000

A+ Certification Feature Cage @ 16:28 Comments

I've been considering picking up my A+ certification and I finally got around to looking for information about what I needed to do. I was surprised by how difficult it was to get basic information about the cost and process, so I decided to whip up a short FAQ that hopefully will help others who are interested in getting their A+ Certification. The features is called the A+ Certification Guide.

News Links Cage @ 9:27 Comments

I've been visiting the news and sports sites fairly frequently, and thought what the heck, why not add my favorites here? So now for your linking pleasure are my top picks for news sites on the right. Here they are in no particular order:

CNN
SJ Mercury
LA Times
WSJ highlights
CNNSI
ESPN
Fox News
CBS
ABC
MSNBC

UT Saves Lives?! Nine11 @ 8:42 Comments

This one's directly from the WTF bin. Some guy who goes by the handle of HIOP claims his UT SkI11z enabled him to save a lady from getting smacked by a truck. What I want to know is did he jump-strafe or use the Translocator to get at her so quickly? Sarcasm aside, HIOP still did a good job. Here's the original article which was linked from Tweak3D.

Round Cables Cage @ 7:54 Comments

It seems like just the other day that I was talking to a friend about the latest rage for computer nuts - "Round Cables." Club Overclocker has a short review of Round ATA66/100 cables. The also point to one place where you can buy them on-line - Crazy PC. Here's a sample pic from the Crazy PC site:

The hard drive cables go for around $20, and the floppy cable goes for around $18. I noticed that they have temporarily stopped taking orders due to the high demand for these items.

Tuesday, December 19, 2000

Neo35 Car MP3 Player Nine11 @ 8:51 Comments

As long as the MP3 buzz is in the air, I thought I'd point out the Neo35 MP3 player which was featured in this month's ASS Magazine (Auto Sound & Security). The Neo35 is a pull-out device which houses a hard drive (like the old Kangaroo drives) and adds some navagation controls, display, and MP3 compatibility for the car. It connects to the car via the AUX input on the back of the CD/tape player, or it can use a FM modulator similar to some CD changer hookups. There is also an optional bay for connecting it to a home stereo. It hooks to the PC with an internal IDE PC bay or USB cable.

I dig the idea of the Neo35 but it's too expensive ($320 sans HD) and it hit every branch on it's fall from the Ugly Tree. I'd cram this nappy thing in the trunk and mount the optional Remote Display Panel ($70) in the dash or center console. Add another $120 for your average HD and the grand total is near $510.

The Neo35 doesn't look like a Blue Light Special but it's kinda cool and easier than installing a PC in your ride.

Portable CD/MP3 Players Cage @ 7:07 Comments

As many of you know I've been quite interested in picking up a portable MP3 player. For one reason or another I've passed on making a decision since they all seemed to have serious shortcomings. Dedicated portable MP3 players like the Creative Nomad Jukebox and the Rio 800 are either too limited in the storage they have to offer, or are just too expensive.

A new device is starting to make its appearance this holiday season - the portable CD/MP3 player. Even here in Bakersfield you can buy a Philips eXpanium at the local CompUSA.

Second generation products are just now making their way into stores as well. There are now two different CD/MP3 portable players that even support the use of ID3 tags. The Pine D'Music SM-200C has a few quirks and problems, but it is finally available here in the USA. The Classic CM415 also supports ID3 tags, and can be found at Circuit City for a paltry $99. Of course you get about the quality you'd expect at that price.

So which one to get? Is now the time?

I found a couple of sites that had reviews of the products I mentioned. MP3.com has reviews of the Philips eXpanium, Pine D'Music SM-200C, and two other highly recommended and reasonably priced units the Encino Electronics Voyager and the LiKKO MP3/CD Portable Discman. There is even a portable CD/MP3 player that also plays Video CD's (a format popular in Asia), the Napa Dav309 MP3 CD Player.

My first instinct is to pick up the well-rated Encino Voyager. Granted, it doesn't read ID3 tags, but ID3 implementation on the Pine unit is spotty and inconsistent. Also the Pine unit is in dire need of a larger buffer for anti-skip protection. The Philips eXpanium suffers from the glaring omission of a fast forward button, and of course it also does not support ID3 tags.

Currently the Voyager is supposed to ship within 24 to 48 hours from musicGadgets.

In my opinion portable MP3/CD players are going to be one of the hottest consumer gadgets in the next year. Look for drastic improvements in technology and further decreases in pricing. I'll do a full review after I receive which ever player I decide to buy. Look for it in the next several weeks here at Cagesworld.

Welcome, Nine11 Cage @ 6:33 Comments

I've finally managed to get Nine11 to do some news and reviews here at Cagesworld. I think you will come to enjoy his style of writing and knowledge about games and hardware. He's a quality addition to the site, and hopefully just the beginning of some new things I've been planning to do here. Welcome aboard!

Monday, December 18, 2000

VIA 4-in-1 driver headache Nine11 @ 19:59 Comments

Drivers are sooooooo much fun. I added a new hard drive to my system and upgraded to WinME on the virgin drive (the old drive got knocked down to the second IDE channel). My Abit VT6X4 has the Apollo Pro 133A chipset and needs the VIA 4-in-1 driver for Windows, so I grabbed the newest version from VIA's site. Got up and running without any need for K-Y till I tried playing UT. Dang thing wouldn't recognize my GeForce2 card and kept locking up tighter than Janet Reno at the Adult Film Awards. There's some alternate D3D drivers available for UT but they did the same thing.

I reinstalled the drivers for the video card from both Nvidia and ELSA but UT wouldn't play nice. I tried a variety of other games and they ran fine till I loaded the demo for Nascar4 which would crash under D3D but was baby-butt smooth when forced to OpenGL.

Think some of the video drivers got hosed and would work better with another clean install of WinME? Yea, right. After several more tweaks/installs/head-scratchin', I decided to pay a little more attention to how all my drivers were loading and noticed the VIA 4-in-1 drivers were defaulting to "turbo" mode. I sorta noticed this before but didn't make a mental note of it because *I think* MaximumBS was crying about how they defaulted to "standard" a few issues ago and any extreem computer dude would be in "turbo" mode. Well, don't believe everything you read because their little "tip" blew at least one good day of gaming for me.

If ya got flaky D3D and use the 4-in-1 driver, try setting it to "standard" mode before overshooting the problem.

New Kid On The Block Nine11 @ 18:45 Comments

Some introductions are in order. I've been a friend of Cage since he moved to our neck of the woods and share his crack... er... computer addiction. We worked together till he couldn't take the nightly whippings and bailed for other employment. We had a few pet projects on the web and a business building gaming systems which dissolved about a year ago (note: does B-Town Bubba really need a 64MB GeForce Ultra to play Bass Fishin' Xtreme? Guess not). Anyway, we're hitched up again and I'll be doing some news 'n stuff. On a personal note, my turn-ons are a mild case of overclocking and MP3s, turn-offs are mAd SKi11z campers, and my one wish would be for world peace.

Sunday, December 17, 2000

VIAhardware Linked Cage @ 18:37 Comments

While looking around for information on VIA drivers I came across VIAhardware, a site conincidentally enough dedicated to information about VIA chipset based motherboards like the Abit KT7 that I'm using now. The site looks pretty spiffy and has lots of good information.

nV News Linked Cage @ 6:48 Comments

Especially now that I have a Nvidia video card I thought I'd add a link to one of the better hardware sites out there. nV news not only features news about Nvidia video cards, but also about computer hardware in general.

Athlon 1.1 GHz Review Cage @ 6:26 Comments

I finally finished putting together a short review of the AMD Athlon 1.1 GHz upgrade I did last month. Now that everything is humming along I thought it was about time to put up a few details. Instead of putting up a lot of filler material that most folks don't care about the review gets right to the system specs and benchmarks. I also listed some very helpful links for benchmarks, resource sites, drivers, and places where you can get good deals on components. Enjoy!

Thursday, December 14, 2000

Computer Clutter Cage @ 3:05 Comments

Gamer's Depot appears to have snuck into my office and snagged a picture of one of my computer desks! Jeremy Allford has a great article on GD called "Clean up that Rat's Nest Behind Your Desk!"

Misc. Links Cage @ 2:47 Comments

Blue's News has updated it's look. I like it.

Daily Radar has a short preview of the upcoming Diablo 2 expansion pack.

New links have been added for Cornered Rat's Software new Massively Multiplayer Online Game WW II Online.

AMD Price Cuts Cage @ 2:23 Comments

I saw this item over at Guru 3D, a very good hardware news site. AMD has dropped their prices even further. Now is not a bad time to upgrade if you are running something less then 700 MHz. Here's the info:

"Not to be outdone by Intel's price cuts today, AMD is kniving down its prices too. A 1 GHz Athlon is now $179 (per 1000), while other Athlons are reduced as follows:

1.1GHz - $223
1.0GHz - $179
950MHz - $161
900MHz - $143
850MHz - $125
800MHz - $110
750MHz - $95
700MHz - $85"

Un-Caged Cage @ 2:17 Comments

Well here it is, a scant month or so since I last updated the news. My real life job has kept me busy, and what little time I've had to play has been devoted to family and games.

My new systems is up and running quite well. For those that don't remember, I upgraded to a new AMD Athlon 1.1 GHz CPU mated to a Abit KT7 motherboard. I also picked up a Leadtek GeForce 2 GTS video card. My first CPU was defective, but Multiwave was outstanding in taking care of my problem. I have nothing but good to say about Multiwave, whom I've been dealing with for the last 3 years or so. I buy all my hardware, so that's not a blatant ad plug. The prices are good, and I get what I order usually by the next day.

The latest titles that have taken my time are Mech Warrior 4, Heroes Chronicles, Call to Power 2, and of course Unreal Tournament. For multiplay fun on the home LAN it's Age of Conquerors. I'm planning on spending some time with Combat Flight Sim 2, which so far looks pretty good.