When I’m stressed, I hit the nicotine. I’ve never been a smoker since my lungs can’t stand it. I’ve also used snus on occation but the potential mouth/tooth rot potential for it scares me. I won’t say vaporizing is harmless, as cigarettes were harmless for a long long time. Perhaps sometime in the future we’ll find all the propolol-glycol we were putting into our lungs had a hidden impact. Out of all the ways to get a bit of calm-down in the day I feel it’s one of the least harmful.
1996 – The Year Alternative Rock Died a Messy, Forgettable Death
Some phenomenal hindsight of grunge, alternative rock, and how it became the very thing it stood against. I remember this year vividly. I was 15, at the height of my angst, and this caused me not only to re-live the period but it also provided a unique subtext I was completely oblivious to. On the radio, Goo Goo Dolls’ “Name” bled into Tonic’s “If You Could Only See” into Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars” into The Verve Pipe’s “The Freshmen” into Matchbox Twenty’s “Push” in a watery bouillabaisse of quiet-loud-quiet song structures and sad-bro earnestness. This has to be the most…
Review: The Crew
This may be a bit delayed for some, but sales made this possible at all. I had no interest in it from the start. It didn’t look right and my gut told me no. My gut was right. It is a bad, bad game. It controls like ridge racer meets… a wall. Originally posted Aug 1st. It is now roughly a month and a week later and I’ve played it again. See bottom for updates! Point of note: I didn’t find the e-brake in my first run through. I was using the controller, tried X, B, and A is apparently…
Video: GTA V Gets A Tweak!
Rockstar always rolls them out dialed waaaaaay back. Up until GTA V had already been out for a year the mods were still being applied to IV. They had 4K working in that quite a ways back. I still see a lot of blurring, and the people don’t appear to be optimized but it looks damn good. Here was IV Redux, assuming same author: http://www.moddb.com/mods/grand-theft-auto-iv-redux (warning: autoplay)
Doom Open Beta
I pre-loaded Doom. I wasn’t going to do it, but I am in an endless quest for graphics and gameplay evaluation. I know I sound old when I say this… am I saying this? Yeah — it’s a gore fest. It feels like it’s trying a little too hard with the face smashing and the head ripping and the biting and… well, everyone’s in full armor suits and it just doesn’t feel right for Doom. Of course I have formed this opinion by the opening trailer alone. Despite having pre-loaded it, it will not launch. It did launch, but when…
Division Problems
The Division is beginning to smell a lot like… Ubisoft. My addition to the forray: Game is Stuttering. Cause… it is, like unplayable. You will miss enemies. No good, no good.
The Division #FirstLook in 4K
I checked back on the 4K videos I uploaded about a week ago and they’ve got 4K available as an option now. It’s really delayed, must seem kinda shitty to the people who come when it’s tweeted. Sorry, it’s not you, it’s You Tube. It’s a lot-a ca-chunking. #IsIt4KYet ?
Need for Speed #ShareEveryWinNFS Contest Entry — Please UPVOTE!
Here it is – recorded and uploaded in 4K — we’ll see how long it takes YouTube to process it! I managed to hit all 3 daily objectives in a single chase! If that’s not #ShareEveryWinNFS I don’t know what is! Screenshots!
EA Access – Need For Speed PC Preview
Need for Speed is currently loading, I’m going to give the first 10 hours a shot and see if it’s worth it. I appreciate they allowed it to scale to 4k and supported wheel hardware (assuming force feedback) but really don’t think it’s going to be anything earth shattering. They often go far too arcade. I don’t wish to play Ridge Racer. I want good old Road & Track: The Need for Speed Video is a success! New drivers did the trick. 1080p/60 ** NVidia Driver 364.51+ is a MUST for this game ** [update 3/11/2016 10:46] Attempting 4k resolution……
YouTube Punished Me For a Sun Fish
So long story short, I’m in the penalty box for YouTube. I had the ability to upload longer than average clips all was going well and good. I grabbed a video with viral-potential from Facebook because no one had done it yet. It was from my home state, shared by one of my friends so I figured I had the jump on it and could possibly get some visibility for my channel. I sucked it down and uploaded it to my channel. It was the MA guy yelling at the sunfish “I think it’s a dead whale, Jay!” and apparently…
Checking in with GeForce 3D in the face of VR Headsets
3D was a phase. I was in denial. I know how computer 3D came and go but the underlying technology was sound and would live on. At the time, the next version of my card did not have 3D but this is the 3D that it had, complete with the same NVidia test pattern they use with the N that floats out in front of you. Same one. Anyhow — I still have faith, because GeForce isn’t getting rid of it and games are going to be made more and more sprite-less, meaning no glitches and such. Bad 3D, like…
Fallout 4 Season Pass 15% Off
PC Gamer has some pretty good deals this week: I thought the The Fallout 4 Season Pass was a pretty good deal, but I am still protesting DLCs so only when they’re really really good. It only recently came out and they announced the details last week? a.) Most people have not finished it yet. b.) Step 3.
The Division: Streaming to Twitch: Beta Review
Few screenshots, some 4k, some not. Two EVGA 980ti: 20 to 30fps @ 4k 70fps vsync @ 1080 NVidia doesn’t even have an optimized driver for this one yet. The city looks alive-ish, Multiplayer started out really cool — I had help from real people, we all ran into the fire together. Once I took the base, then I had to go looking for people for each mission. I didn’t discover this until later. They’ve got some reworking to do. You need people all over, fighting for both sides or it might get a little crowded. The cover system could…
Rise of the Tomb Raider et al
Ok, so QTE aside (it’s minimal) they really stepped up the tech. It doesn’t quite look as smooth as it could, snow vs Assassins Creed III, as an example, but there were multiple times I was in awe. It played less like an interactive movie, and more like a book I couldn’t put down. It was all I could do to stop after the obligatory flash back sequence. I can only hope it’s at least as long as the first one. I purposely read very little about games now a days. Prior to that it was 3D Mark, a brief…
Benchmarking Rumble! Round 2
780ti 3g vs 980ti 6g vs 98ti 6g in SLi Please refer to Round 1 for the 780ti numbers Putting this placeholder here, please check back in a couple of days.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Talks to Young Voters • Triumph
Oh my goodness, this had me in absolute stitches! It just goes to show you that no matter what you say, you’ll never not offend anyone!
Spotted in the Wild: NVidia External Thunderbolt Display Support
I instantly thought of the Mac display, and will this resolve the 4k ( 4 x [1920x1080p]) display rate conundrum? I am waiting for the first 120hz display, and then I will happily 4k away.