Bill Gates Retires

I just read Tom's Hardware article about Bill Gates' retirement from Microsoft. 0_0

Yep, you don't need new glasses: the 53-year old visionary has indeed left Microsoft. This caught me by surprise. Like so many icons, I thought he would always be there. Oh well, goodbye Mr. Gates; I've always appreciated what you have brought on the table for us gamers.

Now, kick ass with your philanthropy efforts! :D (Kick ass. Philanthropy. That didn't sound right. Lawl!)

Bill Gates retires. Dang.

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GeForce (Forceware) 175.19 Doesn't Detect Games

[Another "WHQL" kunuhai. Tut.]


Hmm, the rumors are true, Nvidia has dropped the "Forceware" label and has now simply named their drivers "GeForce." (Or at least they have erased the Forceware label from their driver page.) It's a bit confusing for PC beginners IMO.

Anyway, I've been using the latest 175.19 drivers for my humble Palit GeForce 7300 GT 512Mb video card and right off I noticed this bug:

Yep, that's right, no games were detected. I had to browse and add the executables for the single- and multiplayer components of F.E.A.R. myself.

Also, I'm not too sure if they really went crazy with the image quality (IQ) of this one, or maybe the "Texture Filtering" settings are simply not "sticking" --- I purposefully dumbed down settings that involved textures because of a problem I am having. I got surprised though because everytime I start the game, the textures still look sharp, which is odd, since activating all the "Texture Filtering" settings in the Nvidia Control Panel really waters down the graphical quality of one's games (and boosting performance in the process).

With version 175.16, the textures really looked dull when the said changes were applied. With this new version though, F.E.A.R. still looks good. (Well, "good" to one who has been accustomed to lowered graphical quality because his game stutters lol!)

High Performance setting applied with all Texture Filtering settings activated. Take a good look at the wall on my right. Activating High Quality in the Nvidia Control Panel (thus turning off all Texture Filtering settings) and (for good measure) resetting the game and...

... voila! No changes at all. This wasn't the case in 175.16. In that version I even exclaimed "F###! I have to wade through this ess just to eliminate stutter somewhat" the first time I activated all the Texture Filtering settings.

I'll be doing benchmarks tomorrow if time allows. Happy weekend all!

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Some of my Friends are now Looking at the High-End Range

[Yay!]


I got surprised --- and quite excited --- when GadgetGeek, a friend of mine, put up an article about the Nvidia 9800 GTX. With memory and core speeds reaching up to the Ghz level, this is one monster that's going to crush your neighbor's system (if you think that way haha!) . Maybe my friends are going to dabble into the high-end range now! Can't wait to see what their LCD screens will churn out!

Which reminds me --- I still have to update my Budget Gaming PC article. Busy these days. Tut, tut. (And how many times do I have to remind my other friends about the 8800 cards sitting there: those are for my New Yorker friend. He can afford. Quit whining "We can't afford it. Why is it there?!" The guide is for all my friends, not just for a select few. Anyway, what with the 9600 GT's presence in the market, I'll be deleting those in the next days so hush now.)

One last bit: Gadget Geek, I don't overclock; my video card's still under warranty. Thorax might read this post haha! (/me adjusts my Kevlar jacket...)

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Homeworld Sequel?

[All this fuss about copyright]



Don't get your hopes up though. It's still unconfirmed and this news was released almost a full year ago. Still, for Homeworld fans, I am happy to share this with you --- there is NOW a possibility that there can be a Homeworld 3! Vivendi had given up its rights over the Homeworld franchise and it's now back in the hands of Relic, the series' developers! (This all reminds me how copyright issues can affect a game in one way or the other. Case in point: the official sequel to F.E.A.R. doesn't have the word in its title.)

I have just stumbled on these goldmines:

Homeworld Wiki: Homeworld 3

Homeworld Wiki: JPEG Image showing a news header proclaiming: "Homeworld Franchise Returns Home"

Eurogamer: THQ Does own Homeworld

Screenshot is not mine and is taken from the official Homeworld 2 site for the purpose of inciting renewed interest in the game. If there will be complaints about the presence of this pic on my site, I will promptly remove this.

And no, I still have not finished Homeworld 2. Will those saying I'm one of those neophiliacs cease and desist? You wanna play new games everyday, knock yourselves out and have a good time. Me? I stick to a few. (And if I finally find a game as perfect as Starsiege: Tribes, I'll stick to that until its servers close.)

It's getting old.

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BSOD: Stop: 0x0000008E

[Fubarred.]


It's been a week. Tut. Last Sunday after playing a 3-hour marathon of F.E.A.R., I surfed the Net --- and forgot to turn AVG 7.5 back on. I know --- 3 hours is a marathon? AND I forgot to turn my AV back on? Sue me. Haha!

Just 30 minutes after surfing, my PC restarted --- and started a confusing ordeal of restoring from several restore points, registry cleaning, and reinstalling drivers. These were all for naught --- my PC still randomly BSOD'd. It would intermittently stop and show the "Stop: 0x0000008E" error message when I scanned or surfed.

It wouldn't pop the "Stop: 0x0000008E" BSOD in Safe Mode however, which led me to believe that a vital driver file had gone kablooey and scattered the remnants of its digital hull all across the virtual Hiigaran galaxy that was my OS, lighting up the spacescape with minute but myriad novas of 1s and 0s.

This is so ironic since a few days ago just after this happened, I was editing an article about how malware are now finding their way to numerous (not all!) legitimate sites. (Read: Turn on your anti-virus even if you surf legit sites.)

After three (? Four? I can't remember) years of faithful service, it was time to reformat the aging hulk that is my PC. Now I'm back up and running and so far, no BSOD "Stop: 0x0000008E " error message has shown up.

Which is just as well, I know my registry was as bloated as a Warcraft undead abomination.

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