I completely forgot that all I wanted was just for NVIDIA to up its game by integrating the ION to chipsets other than the bottlenecked Atom.
I would gladly have a cheapie $600 notebook and trade in that SuperMultiDrive+BD for a nice 9400M. I wouldn’t mind the 2-3 hour battery life nor the 6 pounds it would add to my school bag (my current 15” cheapie is as heavy and as power-hungry as an Alienware M15x!
Quite busy since November (start of school, for me.)
U.P.’s been okay. I like the freedom compared to Ateneo, especially the secular/militant vibe - the religious demographic is more Traditional Folk Catholic compared to ADMU’s, though. What I regret from the break I took was that I wasn’t included in a block, so I start school with initially less ‘mates’. I also have to overload and petition for summer classes so I can have a chance of finishing with the 2009 batch. I’m also in a bit of a dilemma on whether I should even go through with my Bachelor’s on Computer Science at all. I can see myself having a hard time with future iterations of Math and Physics and I’m not really feeling Programming at all. My first choice in ADMU was Euro Studies and it seems I want to switch to Euro Languages in UP. The irony of it all is that ADMU is the best choice when it comes to ‘soft’ courses like BA EU.
Now on to my random ranting…
Worst part of the holiday season is the neighbor douches setting off firecrackers even when it isn’t the 25th or the 1st yet. And so are the carolers who I liken to child beggars, they don’t make the least bit of effort to convince you to give them even your pocket change. They sing a stanza and a half at shaky double time then they won’t bugger off with their pleading, which takes twice as much time as their singing. The good ones are a rarity so it’s a pretty sad situation.
The second worst part is escaping those awful noises and going to the province. My grandparents live beside a sloping thoroughfare (30 degree angle?) so that tricycles (main form of short-distance transpo. there) constantly overwork their single-cylinder two-strokes and make a smoky racket all the time. The rooms are dusty, you wake up and sleep early (like weekdays!), and because you’ll eventually wake up late, the food will be cold.
Now for the ranting: Even if there is a newfound interest in the 20k-40k sector, notebook manufacturers are still having a hard time making that perfect budget computer.
On one side we have the default non-netbook cheapie (like the Presario I’m typing on right now). They have mediocre WXGA screens, adequate dual processors (we’re talking 2GHz Pentium Dual Cores or old Penryn C2Ds), and (the worst part) the obligatory Intel graphics. In this category you’ll find some quite-decent Blu-Ray capable 14” Acers. My friend bought one at around 35k. I’m not looking at this space primarily because you’re getting a heavy (6.5lbs), small-bag-unfriendly (14-15”), Intel-graphics (4500MHD) appliance.
A nascent category for this holiday season is the thin-and-light. They have ‘all-right’ ULV Core 2 Duos, 12” screens, no optical drivers, but for the most part the same Intel 4-series graphics or the equally underwhelming Radeon 3200/GeForce 7300. The thin-and-light I’m eyeing right now is the popular Asus UL80vt. It comes with a 1.7GHz OC’ed ULV C2D and (the best part) a GeForce G210M. The problem is that it retails at around 54 thousand right now.
Another emerging niche is the ION netbook. Powered by a chipset that features NVIDIA’s MacBook-grade 9400M, these netbooks are almost perfect but are letdown by the asthmatic Atom CPUs (even the upcoming Pineview chipset won’t solve it). Examples are the top-of-the-line Lenovo S12, the HP Mini 311 and the Asus EEE 1201N. The HP and the Lenovo have the all too common N280 while the ASUS comes with a nettop-class dual-core Atom 330. The problem with the Asus is that the price starts at 35,000, a price point it shares with the over-priced yet more upscale VAIO X.
My plea to the manufacturers (and NVIDIA, to develop ION for Intel CULVs), in the form of an easily achievable spec sheet:
13/14” 1366x768 Matte Screen on a chassis not thicker than 1.2” and not heavier than 5.5lbs.
1.3GHz ULV Core 2 Duo (overclocked to 1.7GHz) CPU.
NVIDIA ION platform or GeForce 9300M or Ati Mobility Radeon HD 4330. (As I said above, no ION for non-Atom chipsets yet. If NVIDIA decides to make one for non-netbook platforms, consumers will effectively say goodbye to Intel graphics!)
2+GB 1066MHz DDR3 RAM (DDR3 is cheaper to make than DDR2 already).
250GB 5400rpm Hard Disk Drive (not really a priority of mine, I burn my downloaded stuff within a month on our networked desktop. 7200rpm mobile HDDs are still a rarity in this segment too.)
Synaptics multi-touch trackpad (better track record compared to ALPS’ multi-touch offerings.)
VGA-out and HDMI-out (VGA for school presentations and HDMI for increasingly common LCD HDTVs)
Audio I/O.
3xUSB 2.0 (still too expensive to include SuperSpeed USB 3.0.)
Gigabit Ethernet.
Wireless A/B/G (though I hear 802.11N isn’t that much more expensive)
Windows 7 Home Premium x64 (w/o BLOATWARE!!).
6-cell 56+Whr battery.
Price: ~US$599
Rationale: The OC’ed CPU will be a bit weaker than the bargain-basement 2.0GHz PDC offerings today, yet it would be nearly as power efficient and a lot more powerful than a dual-core Atom. The GPU will be adequate for any HD videos thrown at it, yet it can play nearly all modern games at low settings with smoothness. The RAM is more than enough for even the base requirements of modern video games and has some headroom left for Windows 7 x64’s 1.5GB requirement. The 250GB HDD is the default included size in most bargain bin notebooks and is an easy step up from the 160GB one gets from the cheapest netbooks. The 6-cell battery is the same one found on the 9+hr netbooks (think ASUS 1005HA) but it will still be able to churn out 4-5 hours on a full charge on this particular notebook. As for the price, netbooks go for around $349-499, cheap 14-15 inchers ask for $499-599 and ‘cheap’ ULVs max out at $899: $599 sounds like a nice median for this kind of notebook.
I based my machine on the Dell Inspiron 14z. The 14z has 1GB more RAM and a better 2.2GHz C2D processor and it costs $749. If I had that budget I would certainly get it!
EA’s Need For Speed has been “reinventing” itself since NFS: Underground. Cashing in on the ricer/tuner craze laid down by The Fast and The Furious franchise, NFS drastically changed the theme and setting of the series. First was the obvious and controversial change of car line-up. Then came the ‘open’ world of Underground (something I really welcomed, I’ve always like the scenery of NFS and would like to get a more relaxed eyeful of it. And before all this Microsoft’s Midtown Madness was one my fave racing games.) When Most Wanted came along I was very excited because it came with a refreshing change of feel – a less ricer-centered line-up and the beloved return of the Police Hot Pursuit force. Then it was Carbon and it brought little new. ProStreet had very nice environments but was stuck in between the realm of arcade and simulation, with bad results. EA went back to the Most Wanted formula with Undercover but it was already apparent that they were running out of ideas.
Now EA is diversifying the franchise instead of doing a one-fits-all approach. With World Online doing the MMO thing and NFS: Nitro going for the informal, Mario Kart audience, Need For Speed: Shift finishes what ProStreet has started and ups the ante.
You start with your ‘team’ evaluating you so you can be given a recommendation of difficulty and realism level. You then race a borrowed E96 M3 and win a corresponding amount of money from your finishing position. You start out your actual career with a basic ‘Tier 1’ car (there are 4 car tiers). You race in different events like drift and time trials to earn stars and money, which are indicative of the race results. More stars gets you into higher tier events. As you race you also earn points based on either your level of precision or aggression. Doing clean laps and overtakes and following the visual race line (a la Forza 2) earns you precision points while bumping and taking out opponents will earn you aggression points. These points accumulate to race your driver level. Higher driver levels can mean sponsorship money or new paint and vinyl unlocks.
Shift is developed by Slightly Mad Studios, the same brilliant minds behind the GTR franchise. I’ve a copy of GTR2 and its a very well thought out simulator - hardcore and realistic. As I’ve started to play Shift, it’s apparent the the basic core of the game operates much like GTR, including the rather challenging keyboard controls (I gave away my bloody wheel.) As this is a simulator, one just cannot have a binary “on” or “off” approach to control, everything is very logarithmic in feel and response. If one is getting this game, a wheel is a good investment.
As for the driving dynamics, it is very spot on when the realism is turned all the way up. If one wants less of a handful of an experience, Shift includes driver aids that were transplanted from GTR. I’ve played Gran Turismo (2, 4 and 5: Prologue) on PlayStations and emulators and Shift can hold a candle to them. My only gripe with the drivers aids is the traction control: it seems that turning it on increases the adhesiveness of the tires and track and doesn’t to what TCs actually do: reduce engine speed or apply selective braking.
If one is to compare Shift with the big games like Forza and Gran Turismo, its biggest weakness would be its rather miserly and confused car collection. If NFS is going to have a limited selection of cars, the NFS team should’ve made sure it was a though-out compromise. Some of the “new” cars date back from Hot Pursuit 2 and the Underground series. Some of the models aren’t even of the highest specification and some of the models aren’t even in the right tiers. Here’s a bullet-point list trivial* grievances:
*Yes, I’m definitely nitpicking. I’ve been spoiled by Polyphony and Turn 10. Here’s the official car list of Shift.
Aside from ProStreet, Shift is also similar to Porsche Unleashed (best Need for Speed, ever.) Along with Forza 3 and Gran Turismo 5, Shift brings back the in-car view. I’m very pleased with how Slightly Mad Studios have transitioned their GTR technology onto Shift and increased the level of attention to detail. One can see fully functioning odometers, the G-Meter of the GT-R, the oil pressure gauge of the 370Z and the wood-topped gear lever of the Carrera GT. It even gets better as there is a virtual driver that simulates the rigors of full-throttle driving. Your periphery diffuses into a blur as you ‘focus’ on the ever increasing speeds. You can see him (or her?) slam on the accelerator and react to the collisions and extreme forces of longitudinal and lateral gravity as you accelerate and decelerate. Your virtual vision blurs and even turns into black-and-white when you careen of to a tire wall.
I have some reserves about the collisions though. As Shift doesn’t adopt a full-on impact physics systems the cars can’t completely disintegrate (you can turn on ‘actual’ damage though. Impacts will reduce your cars performance for the rest of the race until you total it.) Despite the spectacular graphics of Shift, the suspension of disbelief ends when you see the a clump of cars crashing about. It’s very uncanny. Aside from that, the 2 other problems I have about the animation are the gear changes: the paddles and the gears shift a moment before the hands actually actuate them; the other niggling oversight is that the extraneous elements of some of the cars don’t work.**
** Like the retractable rear spoilers/brakes of the SLR, Veyron and TT.
One element of the game that I can’t put a flaw into is the audio. By default (except for drift sessions) the in-game music is disabled. As Shift focuses on driving, the audio grabs your ears with an aural assault of whirring superchargers, whining turbochargers and the extremely satisfying blip when downshifting, among many things. The audio is so good that engine noise is a factor I take into account when buying a new virtual car!
It’s two biggest downfalls unknowingly affect each other and, in my opinion, nearly destroys the “driving experience” of Shift. Because Shift allows aggressive driving and rewards it, the otherwise unremarkable A.I. can be overly aggressive too. The A.I. doesn’t form a robotic line like it does in the previous installments of Gran Turismo, but they don’t drive defensively too. They will plow right through you and they won’t respect your racing line. This makes the rather packed starting sequence in a race very frustrating. Even as you try to go with the flow, A.I. opponents will shunt you off the track, even in parts of the track where the road is perfectly straight and can sufficiently wide to accommodate two cars! In some tracks, especially the ones with limited width and variable speed corners like the Nordschliefe, London and Laguna Seca, I am forced to restart the race multiple times. It’s fine when it happens once, or even twice (hey, I watch Formula One and NASCAR), but with Shift having aggressive driving as a core of its gameplay, it’s really frustrating.
All in all, I recommend Need For Speed: Shift for the PC racers out there as Shift strikes a good balance between realism and accessibility***. It’s a bit more casual and a lot more multiplayer-friendly than games like GTR or TOCA and there’s a lot more “car” going on than games like Burnout or Blur. EA should definitely keep this up and commend Slightly Mad Studios for their work. EA should stop constantly changing their strategy and stick with this formula. All Shift needs right now is a lot more polish and a lot more cars.
***Maybe a bit too “accessible”: the Endurance races are too short, there are no Race Weekends and the there’s no Formula D type multi-car drifts.
Pros:
Cons:
Overall:
3.5/5
If only Forza or GT had PC versions. Nonetheless, Shift deserves a sequel.
Just chiming in to say that I’ve finally bought a new GPU for our desktop. In the Gilmore branch of PC Express the clearance-bin 6600GT was unavailable and so was the HD3650. All they had aside from some poor 64-bit offerings were GPUs in the upper 4 thousand peso range (9700GT and HD4730) which obviously was way out of my price range. I went to PC-Gilmore and settled for a 512MB 128-bit 9400GT, which sold for 50 less than the unavailable HD3650.
Here’s a comparison (stats retrieved from Wikipedia):
Inno3d 9400 GT:
Compared to the HD3650, the 9400GT has inferior fillrate, bandwidth and Floating Point performance but superior thermodynamic properties. It’s really unfortunate that I couldn’t procure one.
Compared to the 6600GT, the 9400GT has slightly superior fillrate and slightly inferior bandwidth. The 9’er of course has much more advanced technology from NVIDIA like DX10, 3D Vision, CUDA and better AA and AF. With a lot of new games pegging their minimum to the 7600, getting the 6600 may not be a very good idea.
In retrospect, the 9400 GT is leaps and bounds over my old ATI X1550 and NVIDIA 7200GS. Full HD playback is flawless and gaming performance has greatly improved. I could now play Medieval II: Total War with near 100% graphics at 1366x768 without AA. THQ’s Company of Heroes can be played near 90% without AA.
I’m pretty bored with Strategy games right now so I’m going to try getting Need For Speed: Shift tomorrow to try out the 9’er with current-gen graphics. I’ll also try to reinstall Call of Duty 4 to compare it with the 7200, which achieved 15-20fps on low graphics at low resolutions.
I’ve got 2 machines running on 7 already. I think my primary motivation was to use the HomeGroup (haha, Windows Live Writer doesn’t have HG on its dictionary.) feature. So far, I’ve tried out file and Windows Media Library sharing and it looks like its working as advertised. I’ll have to test Printer Sharing sooner or later.
My second machine’s (or my sibs’ primary PC, to be accurate) specs:
I still don’t know if 7 is going to serve the 2nd machine better than XP had. I chose 7 because of the HomeGroup, DX11, better hardware detection and (presumably) better multi-core utilization. Right now, it doesn’t feel different, performance-wise to XP SP3. While the previous XP install bloated up pretty fast, ~6 months to be specific, I hope that 7 can do better.
The real problem at the moment is the GPU. Not only is the 7200 inadequate for even mid-end gaming (The Sims 3, Call of Duty 4, Medieval 2: Total War), it seems that its broken already. It works and it displays the desktop properly, but even with slight provocation from Windows Media Center, it seizes up and brings the whole machine down. This may be due to me trying to overclock it with RivaTuner in its XP days, but there’s not much evidence supporting that because it never seized up when it was OC’ed.
Window-shopping sucks.
I got a PCExpress price list from their Katipunan branch. Here are my candidates for the GPU replacement. With minimal research I picked out 5 at different price points (the last 2 in the clearance section.)
Unless a financial miracle happens I doubt I’ll be able to acquire the Top 2. I’ve never spent more than 2300 on a GPU :(
If it’s just a quick, cheap fix, I’m looking at the 6600. It’s not an exactly spectacular GPU, especially since it came from an era when Radeons from all points of the spectrum kicked the equivalently-priced GeForce rival. But at 540 Pesos, it’s almost painless spending for it. (Even ATI’s new owner AMD kicked Pentium 4 butt during those days. Even today, I consider AMD/ATI to be the leader in the low to mid-end sector, bang-for-buck-wise. Dad just keeps on buying Intel/NVIDIA without any research.)
At Php2000 the HD3650 is a good deal. Considering that at the HD3650’s price point, you only get a 7600 GS or 9400 GT GeForce. The 9’er is slower in throughput and the 7'er runs on old architecture. The only problem I can think of about the HD3650 is that its TDP of 78W looks pretty high compared to the generational equivalent HD4650’s 48 watts.
Just in case I lose it (and Spam.com doesn’t seem to have the recipe themselves). Family loves it.
(Spam® is a registered name. This recipe was acquired from the tin.)
Be careful with the amount of ingredients. Even the standard amounts written above can overpower the meat’s taste.
Sauté Spam and onions in oil until Spam achieves preferred doneness (let’s not forget that Spam is cooked already.) Put the Spam and onion with the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan. Cook until sauce becomes thick (more cornstarch, more viscosity.)
Mom tells me: Never stir a mixture with vinegar on it unless explicitly indicated.
Why my Leopard partition won’t boot: Apparently, it needs to be installed on a primary partition, i.e. on the first 4 partitions.
I installed it on the fifth partition. [sda5 in Mac/Linux, (hd0,4) in GRUB parlance]
*facepalm*
Last Saturday, 4PM-ish, during the power outage due to the typhoon Ondoy, my sister and I were killing time with playing cards. She started making a house of cards, and it fell every time she put a 5 card on it. We ended up making stupid premonitions of our demise on 5:55 PM (‘pm’ having 5 strokes in some versions of Latin cursive).
And speaking of cursive, I’ve relearned how to do Russian cursive and learned a variant of Serbian cursive.
Addendum: Regarding my first post and the typhoon, I'm not really Albanian. 'Tungjatjeta' just sounds cool (ha!)
And our home PC's Samsung SATA drive is failing. I'm thinking of pitching the 320GB Western Digital to dad. Just Php2150 and only Php300 more than the 160GB model.
I’ve done what I’ve written on the previous post with mixed success. Here’s what I did:
