That though, would be an acute nitpick from oneself and rather profuse to the whole topic at hand. Its often seen that desktop computers, being the real focus of these companies’ attention and derision, are on the way out, promptly out the door to never be let back in. The notion seems a little silly, perhaps excusable from the company trying to promote their product trying their very best to be seen as the in-thing; but less so from people who should be thinking more deeply about what they hideously regurgitate.

This particular grievance of mine comes more from the journalists, you see, who seem to assume people do no more than touch up photos, read news and email, and tweet their friends using their various bits and bobs of hardware. So then, its done, lets give those detestable desktops the boot and go on our merry way with our portable devices!

Particular People

I will of course concede that people are different, one person’s needs will differ from another’s; yet the short-sightedness can be tiresome. Tablets and smart-phones, they will and do have their place, for entertainment, for catching up on news and reading articles, for keeping in touch – and of course their portability and weight lends them well to those tasks.

Laptops were supposed to replace desktops, consoles too where set to overrule the desktop; one providing a portable work environment, the other providing comfortable gaming amongst company agape at the television; and both may work together to banish the desktop for good. Yet besides all that, the desktop computer still lingers and in some cases has become more popular.

Oft forgotten is that when you go deeper, you need a longer rope or a bigger oxygen tank – or perhaps a more suitable and durable vehicle to achieve your goal should the task be large enough.

Thinking of the Box

Here arrives the desktop, doer of all tasks, conquistador of heavy duty work and proponent of immovability, extensibility and maintainability. A laptop produces heat, and cools it with a fan, yet requires a farce to clean whereas a desktop box just requires a pop of the case and a blast of air. A tablet lacks this problem, but sacrifices extensibility and heavy duty; so too does the smart-phone in kind.

My aim is not to dismiss the use of laptops, tablets and phones; but just as the e-reader may never truly replace the book, nor will the portable device ever really replace the desktop; perhaps one day imitate it, and perhaps one day match its performance – but then, as that day arrives, technology will perhaps have reached a perfect point.

Overclocking proved fraught, resulting in nary but a good number of errors. Which left the only real route as an upgrade, which was by this point long overdue, even the i3 processors at the same clock speed were performing twice as well as my old E8400 in numerous benchmarks. Audio too was getting hit, and many games wouldn’t go over 30 FPS with my HD5870.

The Old

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3GHz (Wolfdale)
• Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L Motherboard
• OCZ 4GB RAM (2x2GB) @ 800MHz

The New

• Intel i5 3570k (Ivy Bridge)
• ASUS P8Z77V-LX Motherboard
• Corsair Vengeance 16GB RAM (4x4GB) @ 1600MHz
• 2x RAID 0 Crucial M4 64GB SSDs

How it stacks up

My audio issues have disappeared entirely, my framerates in games that performed well have improved to absolutely smooth levels or indeed well above satisfactory. Though the most noticeable difference is from the two SSDs, with Windows booting in a matter of seconds as opposed to minutes. Back to the system in general, I can indeed now record using Fraps at 40FPS, 1680×1050 full and often that framerate will stick; this without recording to the SSD (I saw very little benefit from that too).

I’ve also been using LucidLogix Virtu MVP, but have not yet been able to determine any real benefit outside of its Virtual VSync – indeed its sometimes proven problematic (getting confused between BF3′s Battlelog and BF3 itself for example).

I haven’t seen anything use over 6GB of RAM as yet, leaving plenty of room for playing in – nor have I stuck any games onto the left-over SSD space yet, which I’m likely to attempt to achieve using symbolic links (symlink).

Why not an i7?

I saw very little benefit to it, effectively you pay for Hyper Threading, which is not 4 extra cores, but 4 extra threads stuffed onto the existing 4 cores – this can have its benefits, but benchmarks have also shown that HT can impair performance depending on what the processor is handling at a lower level. Admittedly, it can be turned off, but why bother?

Overclocked?

Not yet, and won’t likely until I see a real valid reason to do so; even then I could probably get away with a quick cheeky turbo – going from stock 3.4GHz up to 3.8GHz. Besides, temperatures would be a problem without a third party cooler and likely a change of case to one with a better thermal design.

Game plan…

I’ve developed a backlog of games, some of which performed just about where I’d be happy to play them, others which would have benefit from an upgrade. In The Witcher 2′s case, I was waiting for patches too, but the timing worked out – so I can continue from the start with it now and get the full experience from the offset.

Otherwise, I’d like to start recording again, or arguably properly – likely some Battlefield 3 once I get more into it. Followed by some Torchlight II once its released (feels like a step back graphically, though I’m looking forward to it regardless). Firefall has also got me rather excited and we might even see some driving footage from the likes of Dirt 3.

• Hulk Smash image by this chap on dA.

Gaming, I love it, sure ’nuff though it has its own problems and I have no doubt everyone has plenty of bugbears of their own. I’m avoiding the biggies: online shopping politics, drm, piracy and whatnot – today I want to focus on the little things as I think they’re worth grumbling about too.

1. AI/NPC Movement Speeds

Please, for the love of my keyboard’s buttons of loving, stop making them walk too slow or too fast. It winds me up as a keyboard user, my button has two speeds, on and off; enhanced only by a run or walk key of the shifting persuasion. If your characters cannot match at least one of these then I want to strangle the living daylights from you!

I will surely catch up with them somehow, or just make them wait a little – but stop it with the partial movement speeds.

2. Handholding & QTEs

Throwing these two in together, QTEs, or Quick Time Events take me out of the action and feel like a cheap way to get extra minutes out of me… though I acknowledge they’re a lovely medium between programming full on movement and combat engines, they still feel cheap.

Handholding then, is pretty similar – with the exception that its often AI buddies doing much of the work for you. Homefront was criticised for this, and Battlefield 3 does it too – though they like to mask it by allowing you to ‘take turns’ as it were. Blocking my impatience off with temporary invisible walls is a real nut grabber too.

3. Move Outta the way Fella

AIs, I can get along with them so long as they stay out of my way and aren’t too obviously dumb or accurate… in any case, when one in all its wisdom decides that where my virtual presence is currently situated should be its only possible position and in turn boots me out to the wolves – oooh, does the air turn blue around me.

Likewise, when they also choose  to put their big silly heads right in my line of site, either because their movement options are too limited, or they feel like having a team-mate commit murder.

4. Broken Record

“Hey, over here!”, “Common – get a move on!”, “Oi, buggerlugs“… I think all gamers have been there at least once, because we’re so ADD that we must be reminded every 30 seconds or less that we should be in that specific spot right now or we shall trigger the apocalypse of annoyance. Please, stop this – I know where I’m supposed to be going, there is a bloody great big pointer right there, and you’ve made a nice game, so much so that I’d just love to explore it a little more closely instead of rushing into the next bit of explodey combat you so fervently want me to gaze upon.

Even worse when you have a bit of fighting to do and the AI has somehow bypassed all the forces in-between here and there to shout at you for being slow; just, just avoid this from now on, you will make me a happy person while I’m puttering about.

5. Worthy Mention: Bendy Fingers

If there was one thing which is neither here nor there, its this idea that my fingers can bend in awkward ways to hit all the keys. This would have been a non-gripe if I was still a leftie mouse-user, as the right hand is in a more natural position when you’re expected to hit z,x,c and v in addition to w,a,s and d.

There was a time when Quake players championed other clusters of keys, getting an extra couple of keys on the side where ‘Tab’ and ‘Capslock’ normally sit; regardless, sticking them all so cramped into the corner is a bit messy unless you do something to clean it up. Indeed, neither should they really be spread out across the entire keyboard.

As a casual-competitive Guild Wars player (to name the most prominent experience of mine), my fingers couldn’t stretch all the way to 7 and 8 without jeopardising 1, 2 and of course movement keys (as a monk primary, my mouse was otherwise occupied). Yet, as a right handed keyboard user at the time, I found my pinky finger as the lovely spare one which could do other bits and bobs… coming into use in shooters for reload, use, flashlight, etc.

All grumbled out though, I could perhaps leave keyboard suggestions elsewhere; and I suspect the lack of change is more an unspoken ‘standard’ of controls, juggling them would probably upset many people in the process.

***

My grumbles are calmed, and all is at rest, with balance restored just a little bit.

This has lingered in my mind more and more recently, especially when asked to try and quantify the impact of overclocking; and it makes me realise how awkwardly dense computers can be for both sides, even for someone who knows the grimy details. So my experiment in written form is to try and identify and put in to words those things which make a computer tick and tock; and keep it simple – hopefully allowing me an easier comparison to draw from in the future too.

Disclaimer: I apologise beforehand for any links with confusing jargon, though I will try to keep my own post as simple as possible.

Bottom of the Bottle

What it all comes down to is data, components of a computer can handle a certain amount of data over time and this varies between these components. The best comparison for this is to imagine all that data is a liquid (it really doesn’t matter what flavour), depending on what you’re doing there is either more of it or less; but, the pipe is only so big and worse still, there might be some other pipes of varying sizes; in this case symbolising the individual components.

Bottlenecking

Sticking with the liquid theme, bottlenecks in the real allow less liquid flow – allowing easier control of the fluid. Its a similar idea in computers hence why the term is used, though the data may be limited because of other reasons, the effect is the same. So bottlenecking in computing perhaps has a more negative connotation, it means something is slowing down that flow of data, impeding the system as a whole.

At this point I ponder whether to mention the various bits and bottlenecks, but its rarely as simple as that. The variability of computers and their various components often mean that saying “upgrade x and see your problem solved” is not going to be beneficial or even effective. It may be a case of “upgrade x, y and z to see an improvement”; even then users may be more inclined to just buy a new system altogether, and for many people that works just fine.

Engine Comparisons

I keep thinking back to the engine comparison, and I just don’t think it works – it doesn’t rule out using engines as a comparison, and I’d like to see it used in this context out of curiosities sake; but it might be better reserved for programming comparisons or examples. I think, in short, its impossible to describe computers in a simple manner – and I think I’ve found the closest example… probably the reason bottleneck as a term started being used was because of flow of data and its comparability to liquid.

As a warning note while liquids are used in comparison, its highly advisable to never mix liquids and electricity; it tends to end with shocking results.

***

You can find more articles like this under the Keep It Simple, Stupid tag. Whereby I try to explain complex computery magics in as simple terms as I can for the masses; and hopefully in turn trigger further interest in computers or at least a better understanding of what I chatter about on a regular basis.

Further reading:

• Computer Buses

Buses in computing are the metaphorical pipes of liquid, the means in which data is transmitted around. If you want a medical comparison, the spinal cord of a computer (or “backbone”).

Beyond my work, I’m also keeping one eye on Ivy Bridge (IB). The 3rd generation i3, i5 and i7 processors are due out in the coming months, with the latter two scheduled around April 29th. I’m already getting a couple of components ready, as the motherboards are already available (and backwards compatible with Sandy Bridge to boot).

The Upgrade Plan

I don’t plan to upgrade to the current Sandy Bridge processors, as the IB processors are probably going to be similarly priced but improved – much to my pleasure. In preparation for the upgrade, I’ve downloaded crisp new installers and zips for many of my favourite applications; and drivers for the motherboard and its various bits will be obtained closer to the date (as they may see updates).

Of course, all the backups need to be done – but most can wait and there certainly is no hurry. Because, there is one other plan which needs to precede all of this…

The Work Plan

My practical project is my main hurdle currently – its a giant monolith in my mind at times and only a few days ago seemed toweringly vast in its scale. That said progress has been rapid if steady, and I plan to have a major part finished come tomorrow – being the backend administration aspects. Once done I feel the user aspect will drop into place quite rapidly; though I may have to cut some corners here and there.

***

My hopes for the upgrade include a larger quantity of RAM to play in, and to play numerous modern games without some of the performance bottlenecking I’m seeing – and if I can record some of the more middling games, all the better! For now, I have work to do…

So I’m likening my programming, with all my plotting and scheming to the Joker’s activities – and Batman’s single mindedness to defeat me to this little bug. I know, I’m shoe-horning that one in. So this bug…

I’m deflated not because I solved a bug, no, not at all. But because it was a rather obvious one, you see I’m using an .htaccess file with mod_rewrite to basically send the URL (user) to a single file, unless that URL points to a file or folder which actually exists. The idea being that the sole file does everything from then on, simple enough? Maybe you’ve seen the problem already in my description of what I’m doing.

Basically I thought the reason I couldn’t see variables, constants and classes (be they static or not) in some files was linked to my earlier tinkering with class files, for the programmers’ – I thought the scope was being limited somehow by a switch (that is, the visibility of said variables to other files); copious searching suggested this does not happen and I was left stumped again.

Effectively I was retrieving a later file via these core files – the core files examine the URL and decide what to do, nothing unusual – except .htaccess was getting there before me, and as I didn’t realise it wasn’t strict about naming and file extensions – it was going to the nearest matching file.

Flattened

I didn’t realise this until I finally got around to making my core files output something, which as you’d expect, didn’t ever actually get output as mod_rewrite simply went direct; I checked the .htaccess, checked similar examples and had a logic-train hit me; rather hard at that.

It hasn’t prevented progress entirely, but has been a constant bugbear – and thats why I feel a bit deflated, probably a combination of the increasing pressure to solve it (leading to a few recodes of sections I had doubts about – I can’t say re-factoring, it had a bit more impact); and now knowing that I can at last get on with everything else, so long as I don’t make the same mistake again.

Hence the beginning of the Human Error series – I don’t hope to post in there often, but hopefully I can save someone the trouble. I’m not sure where this came from, I suspect Watchmen or Chaos – but if you’re struggling to solve a problem, go back to the beginning. I use that, as the the rewrite module was the first thing I did and got working. Ouch.

Just like pinned programs and applications in Windows, both on the taskbar and the start menu; whereby everything I could ever need is only 2 clicks away at most – and a third if I need something less regularly.

So let me tell you of the times when this setup actually worked against me…

PLBKAC

Rest assured, anyone who has spent enough time in IT circles probably knows that abbreviation, but I’ll include it anyway so there is no need to turn to your favourite search engine, and it stands for… the “Problem Lies Between Keyboard And Chair” – that is to state, it is most definitely the user, not the computer.

About 2 weeks ago I realised -as one result of an unpleasant scenario- that my productivity dropped to almost unmaintainable levels. I was already attempting to change that pattern of behaviour before the occurrence, but the fallout of that discovery proved very illuminating. I took drastic measures, quite a few and some which were probably over ambitious, regardless, one of those changes was to remove some bookmarks I’d realised I was going to without much thought – and I sorted out the entire list to streamline it and remove excess.

Then something almost magical happened – but this requires a more paced timescale, in reality it happens in a flash; but that can’t be conveyed in text easily:

I catch myself thinking about one of these sites – but alas, my brain is confused, its gone!

Let me clarify the above, I was just idly thinking about a single site that I may or may not wish to peruse – so why is my brain perplexed it doesn’t exist? In short, my mouse pointer had already migrated and done its merry navigation to the place that this bookmark once resided within my browser; but I’d removed it.

What does that say?! My brain just needed a single word or name to trigger an automatic movement of the mouse, my eyes are complicit in the crime – I need to know roughly where to go, but and I must stress this, I’m a pretty decent gamer, and I play games which require a precise reaction – honed in competitive games as a healer, nearly perfected in shooters (not really, but they’re above average, probably aided by youth). I think its accurate to say my eyes are no stranger to the demands of these patterns either.

The Troll in Question

It so happens that within days of that happening, I ended up watching a Horizon documentary on the human sub-concious, and how it actually does a great deal for us; including providing an illusion of sorts, either way a fascinating watch. Away from that the documentary explains why people become good at repetitive tasks, and basically put, being good at a task happens as their brain programs itself to do them, otherwise known as muscle memory by many gamers – though found in everyone (chances are if you played sport or music, you’ve used it whether you realise or not).

I can only conclude that the thought of a site triggers this pre-programmed routine, and while this is an amazing thing, it sure has some pitfalls. Practice makes perfect they say, little did I know it could work against me even when I thought I wasn’t practising something.

Solidification

The reason I post this now is that I also shuffled my windows menus and icons around, I had Steam on my taskbar and I found removing it meant I was less likely to just offhandedly open it and leave it open. So to get to it in an evening I’d have to navigate with three clicks, well… after about 2 weeks of doing this – even just once or twice a day, the pattern has been memorised.

Today I opened up the start menu, diving 3 menus deep when I didn’t even want to – I was actually looking for Aptana (my IDE) but fazed out in a moment of distraction (I’m male, and I was attempting to multi-task), so muscle memory does what it knows best; and before I know it I was talking to a buddy who was online, quickly explaining what happened before logging off to try again.

It is my firm belief that if anyone ever really wants to improve productivity, especially for habitual computer users, they’re going to need to program a randomiser into their UI. Marked pinned programs stay where they are, everything else migrates just to keep the sub-concious on it’s toes; bookmarks need a similar system, with pinned productive sites.

At least now I have a nice idea to consider developing. In the meantime, a message to my noggin: “Brain… I’m keeping an eye on you“.

A few months ago now (sometime last year) I played Dead Island with a few gaming buddies – It was a rather interesting experience, given that the hype over it died long ago – especially with its release being as contentious as it was.

Note: I found this lying around as a draft… I’ve touched it up and throwing it up.

In the time running up to Dead Island’s release the team behind it released a cinematic trailer, showing an emotional and heart-string tugging situation. This set up the expectation that this game might have some emotional pull – and having finished the game, it had its moments, none as great as that trailer. The game overall wasn’t marketed or publicised too well and there was some confusion over what it actually was.

My review enters here, and I will keep it as spoiler free as possible. In essence, this game is apart from anything I have seen recently – if you saw it compared to Left 4 Dead, I’d say that comparison is flawed. The game has little focus on guns, only one character specialises in them and even then she has melee skills early on; guns only become a later focus and that character being one of the only ones geared towards them. Though I found the loading screen hint of “ammo is precious, don’t waste it” seemed a bit silly later on as I practical swam in ammo, crafted or found usually.

The main focus is very much on melee weapons, or improvised implements – sometimes thrown. It also plays a lot like a first person RPG (Elder Scrolls style), zombies don’t often come in large hordes and there is enough variety in zombie styles and looks that it doesn’t feel overly repetitive; it helps that they are sparse enough for this, and often surprise you if they appear dead or slumped – usually leading to a “just to be safe” kick to the noggin.

It must be noted that I sometimes felt the storyline seemed fractured, either my buddies hurried through quest dialogue so I missed something but it didn’t seem too well orchestrated overall. The general idea of it was satisfactory, but execution just seemed a bit poor in places; hence it felt like I jumped from one section to another. Occurring more often towards the end of the game, earlier segments felt more well put together.

The world size, while not one huge world plays more like smaller map segments (similar in nature to Far Cry 2, but with more variety) – plenty to explore and discover, and likely a great deal that we missed on our first pass.

Overall, I do feel like Dead Island is a good game, marred a bit by its hurried release and some of its imperfections; though it must be said, the game is geared towards at least 2 player co-op – unless you like an often infuriating challenge I imagine. Groups of the once-living are hard to deal with alone, leading to a lot of back-peddling (into more of the critters).

The list starts with The Witcher 2, though in part as I’m waiting for its developer to release the enhanced edition so I can get the ‘complete’ experience. Hard Reset comes next, and I’m oh so close! Yet once again there is an improved/extended edition on the horizon. Quickly followed by Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which just seems to be be trotting along slowly at an all too leisurely pace.

The list goes on though, with games I’ve installed yet haven’t begun to touch: Bulletstorm, F3AR, Fallout: New Vegas, and no doubt countless more I can’t dredge up from my memory. Then take a peek at the list of games I have finished: Serious Sam 3, Saints Row: The Third, Borderlands, Portal 2, Dead Island, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, Dawn Of War 2, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne and more buried in my memory. A keen eye will notice a common element to all those completed games that is lacking in those which remain in a state of unfinish… for those not noticing it, co-operative of some form exists for those games which are in the completed list – most of them being campaign co-op.

The question that begs for an answer…

You may now be asking but Matt, why have you not finished all those wonderful games?! Many are in a state of near-completion it must be said, but I find my time usually drifts towards those I can play with friends. Many people understandably do not want co-operative play in their games, they believe it a taint and attention wasted on something they have no interest in using. Often its from bad experience, certainly in my Guild Wars time I remember playing with many a varied PUG teams (Pick-Up Group) which would create much swearing, sighing and gnashing of teeth.

It helps that I have a group of gaming buddies who are competent and have a similar playstyle to myself – furthermore it allows any hiccup or frustrating moment to be ironed over, and any fatal scenarios are often made non-fatal in co-operative play which allows for a degree of failure which singleplayer often doesn’t offer (I find reloading incredibly annoying and tiresome, it must be said).

Further on

I also find that when I play a singleplayer game, I am very finicky about how I play and I haven’t pinned down what this is. Chances I explore more, I’m much more slow paced (but still like to make clean, precise kills). Stealth tends to be my leaning but not a necessity. Sadly, this has landed me in hot water before, and many games which offer stealth and precision don’t factor it in during the end-game very well. Leading to one struggling to fight one’s way forward.

This is where co-op champions, because my co-op partners in crime don’t share this playstyle – but do accompany it well. Brash, fast and in-you-face… this is a wonderful distraction much of the time which allows me to line up shots and avoid gaining much attention in the process. You see, in a solo situation once you gain attention its often hard to be rid of it – and suddenly, slow, precise and accurate account for very little when you are being eaten, bullet-ridden or have a shield smashing your face in accompanied by melee weapon of choice.

My little secret…

This is something that only dawns on me now that I think about it, but in our co-operative sessions, if the game offers some form of stat tracking – I do often lead on pure kills counts, accuracy and least deaths or incapacitation count. Its led to me reportedly having fast reflexes, though I always doubt this. Then I realise, my buddies are usually the ones getting up close and personal in RPGs, and I traditionally the one trying to stay out of harms way.

I can’t help but wonder if this has translated over to FPS games, whereby they might stand their ground and take more of a beating, whereas I move to a more advantageous position out of habit – allowing me often to slice down the gaggle of zombies or foes chewing on my friends forces. I don’t doubt that reflexes do fit into it somewhat, but I don’t feel particularly fast – usually I’m using my headphones to pinpoint the horde/opponent location.

To conclude…

Basically, there’s no doubt that I prefer co-operative gaming – and that a game with some form of co-operative play will see me at least an 110% increased chance of completion. Partly I do also feel that the effect of achievements, and their tick-box nature also drives another aspect of my gaming which gets annoyed or flustered eventually – which seems to take down overall forward progress.

Rather than that, a singleplayer game actually kept ahold of my wandering attention span which always has something more productive or awesome to be doing (though rarely does in an evening). Of course, this game is non other than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – in all honesty I had forgotten how much I adored the TES series, since my first adventures in Morrowind the Dunmer homeland to my battles and wanderings in Oblivion the Imperial capitol – I realised it was a series that I spent a lot of time playing.

Just as it takes an Elder Scrolls game to trigger my nostalgia and reignite my interests, it also takes a batch of new games to remind me that my system is approaching its own end. Rather, my CPU and Memory (in turn my Motherboard) are bottlenecking my otherwise fine XFX Radeon HD5870. This triggers memories of playing GTA: Vice City at less than 30 (probably less than 20) frames per second, I do believe a CPU and/or Memory upgrade were key back then in remedying my problem – followed by my amazement at how smooth it played.

Experience says…

Basically this is the joy of PC gaming for some, that moment when you realise your rig is at its end and needs an upgrade. You’re reluctant to fork out another wad of money, of course you could consider overclocking but that is a hassle and may not actually sort your issue out (or indeed generate new issues).

Now, dear gamer, it is a knowledge and timing game – you could rush off to your nearest store and buy the bits that are decent now. Or you can see what Intel and AMD have on the horizon and hold out just that little bit longer, this may be rewarded with lower prices on current  components or indeed even better next generation price/performance.

This is my current situation with Intel, AMD already revealed their cards which were rather disappointing (the Bulldozer FX CPUs). I’m now waiting on Ivy Bridge, due April to see what my choices are. I’m also aiming to either double or quadruple my memory, so either 8GB or 16GB respectively (12GB doesn’t seem to be worth aiming for price wise).

What’s next?

My list of incomplete games is still increasing steadily, Deus Ex: HR (and DLC), The Witcher 2, Skyrim and now Serious Sam 3: BFE; all my main priorities to get done – but in no particular order and at varying paces. I have plenty of other real things to be getting in the way of gaming, hence my often slow progress with some of the larger games.

I will probably post some thoughts on co-operative gaming based on some experience, though mostly anecdotal stuff.