Digital Rumination

World of Warcraft: Mount Collection Guide - Raids (35)

2014-12-29T23:26:00.001+00:00

DROPS - 23
ACHIEVEMENTS - 12

Vanilla/Classic - Lvl 60 - (4)

Ahn'Qiraj (4)

The resonating crystal mounts can drop from most of the trash in the 40 man AQ raid instance, located in the south of Silithus. Unfortunately they can only be used inside the instance but do count to your total:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21218 - DROP - 14%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21323 - DROP - 14%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21324 - DROP - 14%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21321 - DROP - 1.2%

The http://www.wowhead.com/item=21176 is no longer obtainable and was originally obtained by ringing the Scarab Gong within 10 hours of the first person to ring it on your server.
It is also the only legendary mount within the game.

The Burning Crusade - Lvl 70 - (2)

Karazhan (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=30480 - DROP - Attumen the Huntsman - 0.85%

Tempest Keep (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=32458 - DROP - Kael'Thas - 2%

Wrath of the Lich King - Lvl 80 - (12)

Eye of Eternity (2)

These mounts were originally assigned to either 10 or 25, however they can now drop from both difficulties:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=43952 - DROP - Malygos - 3%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=43953 - DROP - Malygos - 4%

Icecrown Citadel (3)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=50818 - DROP - The Lich King Heroic - 1%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=51954 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4602
http://www.wowhead.com/item=51955 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4603

Obsidian Sanctum (2)

To enable these mounts to drop, you must leave all 3 mini boss drakes alive before attacking Sartharion. They do not drop if this pre-requisite is not met.

Cataclysm - Lvl 85 - (10)

General (2)

Requires contributions from Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight and Throne of the Four Winds:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=62901 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4853

Requires 8/10 or 20/25 guild group to gain the achievement, requires exalted with guild to purchase (does not require participation in achievement):
http://www.wowhead.com/item=63125 - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4988

Dragon Soul (4)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=78919 - DROP - Ultraxion - 1%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=77067 - DROP - Deathwing - 4%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=77069 - DROP - Deathwing Heroic - 2%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=77068 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6169

Firelands (3)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=71665 - DROP - Alysrazor - 2%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=69224 - DROP - Ragnaros - 1.3%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=69230 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5828

Throne of the Four Winds (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=63041 - DROP - Al'Akir- 1.5%

Mists of Pandaria - Lvl 90 - (7)

General (2)
Requires contributions from Mogu'shan Vaults, Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=87773 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6932

Requires 8/10 or 20/25 guild group to gain the achievement, requires exalted with guild to purchase (does not require participation in achievement):
http://www.wowhead.com/item=85666 - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6682

Mogu'shan Vaults (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=87777 - DROP - Elegon- 1.3%

Throne of Thunder (3)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=93666 - DROP - Horridon- 1.6%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=95059 - DROP - Ji-Kun- 1.9%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=93662 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=8124

Siege of Orgrimmar (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=104208 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=8454

World of Warcraft: Mount Collection Guide

2014-12-29T23:04:00.002+00:00

I will slowly be adding to this guide over time, each section is broken down not into the traditional Drop/Achievement/etc method, but by zone.

For instance, under the raiding section, there are mounts listed under Icecrown that are obtained by drops and other mounts listed that are obtained via achievements. I hope this makes it easier for you to decide what you can do within each zone to get the most contribution to other mounts you might not have heard of!

Raids

Update: Full Watercooling Loop!

2014-04-28T00:57:00.001+01:00

I'm finding less and less time to update this nowadays.

Just a few shots first:

Most of the hardware is the same, bar the case! A lovely Corsair Air 540. SLI Titans still remain, this time enclosed in EK waterblocks. Alphacool radiators with Corsair SP120 fans. Some fantastic gaming on it now! GPUs running around 1250MHz 24/7 and never push too much over 45-50ish during gaming. CPU (now with XSPC Raystorm block) doesn't normally head upwards of 60 even when tested!

System Update: TITAN SLI

2013-11-22T15:06:00.001+00:00

After the recent price drops both sides have seen, along with the release of the R9 series cards and the 780Ti, there was a wave of people changing up their GPUs.

I managed to snag two Titans in this upgrade bonanza. One is an Asus, the other a Gigabyte.

System looks quite nice now with the glowing green LEDs.

With just an ever so slight bump on the cores, it manage to blast over 21k 3DMark11 score.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7535813

I'll be hopefully adding some benchmark FPS tests later on, to perhaps use as a rough point of comparison to when I ran the GTX 680 SLI benchmarks.

Hoping to test games such as WoW, BF4, Crysis 3 and possibly something fairly basic such as Starcraft 2.

Quick specs:

i7 3930K @ 4.2GHz

SLI Titan +100 core (though that never accurately translates)

X79 - UD5

16GB Corsair Vengeance

Quick System Update - Samsung EVO 740GB

2013-10-30T14:08:00.002+00:00

So, I dropped my RAID Crucial M4 drives. For a few reasons, first because I was quickly running out of storage, but also that didn't do my research and for some reason thought I had 4x Intel SATA3 ports on the board. Due to this I'd have to RAID two drives across the SATA3 ports and stick one drive on the SATA2. Due to potential performance limitations of doing this, plus the large amount of space that would be stolen for RAID overheads, I sold the M4s and bought a single Samsung EVO 740GB drive.

A few of you may know this has a feature called RAPID (Real-time Accelerated Processing of I/O Data), which in effect uses your system RAM as a 'cache' of sorts to buffer the SSD read/writes.

The effect of this is shown as you access the same data several times.

For instance, in a speed test, you can get some incredible figures. These were probably helped by the quad channel memory you have in X79 boards too.

Now I have disabled the RAID controller so bootup time through BIOS is a lot quicker, plus the insane speeds of the drive itself are just fantastic!

AMD and nVidia Price Wars - R9 290X and 780 Ti

2013-10-30T12:29:00.001+00:00

We've had a few interesting establishments over the last 6 months or so. From the green team we've had the new 700 series cards, some fairly good performance shown there, right the way up to the TITAN, which shows some monster performance and compute power.

Then from the reds we've had the 7950 and 7970, two cards which do a very good job of dominating the price/performance sectors of the market. After some drivers issues I think most of the crossfire stuttering problems should be solved now, higher resolution and multi screens may have small issues though.

Recently however, AMD are pushing their new release of the R9 series. The 280X seems to be selling fairly well at the price point of £220-£280, which is a point at which you will see either the high end nVidia 760 cards or the lower end 770's.

Currently, the 770s edge out the 280X on lower resolutions of 1080p, but the 280X overtakes it in certain games as you start hitting 4K resolutions., though some still play better on the 770.

Their new 'flagship' R9 290X card however has hit mixed reviews. While it does have TITAN/780 rivalling performance, it does seem to get extremely hot. We're talking almost 95 degrees here. I've heard some people use the argument "Ah but you have to watercool it, then it's fine.". Just stop it, watercooling should not be mandatory, even with flagship cards. They should work just perfectly well out of the box (and not be heating my entire room), and function just as any other card would. I feel the performance gain here was not worth the immense heat they put out. I'm not certain if the new cooler design is to be blamed, or just the huge die. We'll see when the non-reference cards arrive.

As the news of these cards hit the masses though, nVidia decided that a blanket price slash on their 700 series cards was in order. The 780 dropped $150, while the 770 lost $70 from its RRP. This can only be good news to the consumers looking for a decent upgrade!

Soon to arrive is nVidia's next bump up, the 780Ti. Rumours are that it will be close/better than TITAN performance with a larger amount of VRAM (good news for me as I need more than 3GB, preferably 4GB with some games nowadays).

I'm hoping it brings a card that will run newer games at good fps on a surround system (5760*1080), while sporting some decent VRAM (4GB+) and hopefully in the £500-£600 price range. Cheaper is obviously better though!

New Desk Build

2013-06-24T23:16:00.005+01:00

After a lot of deliberation over what I wanted my new desk to look like I decided to have some large pieces of real wood cut to size. I had a large main section done and a long shelf for the screens along with a smaller end section if the other half wanted to join hers onto it. The wood cost me £240. I spent the weekend waxing and staining it with medium stain. Got the legs from B&Q and they weren't bloody cheap either. £98 for 7 of them! Finally a top shelf from IKEA for my world of warcraft server that my little mage started its life on back in vanilla WoW (the best gaming experience I've ever had in my life I think). Then a few LED strip lights to finish it off.

I'm thinking the server at the top needs a bit more lighting but I'm just not sure what I want to do yet.
I'm so flipping pleased with it though! Took me ages to get it all organised and constructed.

Galaxy S4 (IV) Official Release Specs & Thoughts

2013-03-15T09:19:00.002+00:00

So last night we saw the opening ceremony of the Galaxy S4 in New York. I must admit, I wasn't the biggest fan of the ceremony itself, it's was a classic over the top American production with stages within stages and 'pretend' scenes in which they could use situations to demonstrate the abilities of the new S4. 100 marks for effort, not so much for execution. However, at least they tried something new and different which is fair enough.

A quick rundown of the new hardware features present in Galaxy S4:

CPU: Octa core 1.6Ghz Exynos/Quad Core 1.9Ghz Qualcomm (market dependent)

Display: 5 inch SUPER AMOLED display at 1920x1080 441ppi (Gorilla Glass 3)

Memory: 2GB RAM

Internal Storage: 16GB/32GB/64GB with expandable micro SD slot for card

Cameras: 13MP rear, 2MP front

Mobile: GSM/EDGE/3G/4G technology, Wifi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0

Sensors/Connections: NFC/InfraRed/MHL2/Temperature/Humidity

Physical measurements: 130 grams, 7.9mm thin, Thin Bezel

Battery: 2600mAh

Software Additions:

Operating System: Android 4.2.2 - Jelly Bean (No mention of Key Lime, however one would assume it will receive the update when available)

S Translate: A neat feature that holds 9 languages and can translate between them, it can process text-to-speech and speech-to-text and can apparently be used without data charges!

S Voice Drive: When the phone is running on bluetooth it will accept voice commands without the need for touching the device itself!

AirView: You can 'hover' your fingers over the screen to expand certain items (an image on a web page for isntance), along with using hand gestures to scroll the screen/answer calls etc.

Smart Pause: The S4 can tell when you look away from it, pausing whatever media you are currently watching. It resumes when you look back at the screen again.

Camera Functions:

Dual Shot - can activate both front and rear cameras simultaneously to enable everyone to be in the picture, the same applies to video calls, you can show both cameras at once.

Eraser - if you are taking a picture and someone inadvertently walks across the image, the eraser tool will snap multiple times to enable you to 'remove' said person/object from the end image.

Drama Shot - Does almost the opposite of Eraser, takes many shots in quick succession but will keep the image store from each picture, thus you could show a horse in many stages of its jump, for instance.

Sound & Shot - Allows tagging of a voice memo/message to each image.

In all, you may not think there are many fantastic hardware additions over the Galaxy S3. The screen being promoted to a full 1920*1080 resolution (same as an HD monitor/TV) is a step in the right direction. Going to 5 inch I'm not so sure I am a huge fan of. I'm not really sure where the mobile market is trying to go right now, it seems screens are getting bigger and bigger but they're only 2 inches from a small tablet now (not counting the Note, I don't even know what that is). In the past it was always, 'Who can make the smallest phone?', it seems now to be going the other way now. But I guess if everyone is doing this, you can't really blame one manufacturer for it, they are only following the trend.

Aside from the screen, the camera addition is a decent one, making that standard 'step' to the next level. The same applies to the CPU, either a 1.6Ghz 8 core unit or an almost 2Ghz (1.9) 4 core unit will ship with the S4. To power these units it also contains a 2600mAh battery, around 25% higher capacity than the one in the S3. That screen will drain quite some juice though so it does need it. I can imagine battery levels to be fairly similar, perhaps with a possibility of it having a slightly longer life.

It's nice to have things like a temperature sensor and a humidity sensor but whether they will get used in day to day life is another question. The same applies to the InfraRed sensor, will people use it to control their TV's? I'm not sure, only time will tell.

In all, it's most definitely a worthy upgrade from the Galaxy S2, however a lot of S3 owners have been feeling like the biggest difference is the software and that they will be shunned to the side without any of the updates themselves, but it still seems like it has enough features for the upgrade.

I'll give the phone a 9/10 as it's not quite as much as it was hyped up to be, but it's most certainly one of, if not the, leader in the Android/worldwide smartphone market at the moment.

9/10

Images courtesy/copyright of Samsung

SimCity: Top or Flop?

2013-03-13T23:01:00.003+00:00

Launch

The dust has (almost) settled after a somewhat troubled SimCity launch. Those who have purchased are just about able to play without interruption now, 8 days after the official release.

The launch was plagued with server connection problems, effectively meaning that due to the 'always online' nature of the game, nobody was able to play it! In the rare case that someone was able to get onto a server and create a city, it appeared that once the connection to the server was dropped for longer than 10 minutes, their progress was lost.

EA continued to add servers to their armoury until they finally reached almost double the amount that SimCity originally launched with. A seemingly grave miscalculation was made regarding the sheer number of users that would attempt to login. Either that or they'd written inefficient server side code which was bottlenecking their systems.

The sales of the game was pulled briefly from Amazon's stores stating that EA was struggling to cope with the number of users attempting to play. EA have attempted an apology by stating everyone would registered before March 18th would receive a 'free game' from their portfolio. What this means we don't quite know just yet (personally I'd love Crysis 3).

Gameplay

I'll try not to be too harsh on EA/Maxis here. In essence, the game isn't bad. It does very much feel like you are playing your standard city sim. A few things they seemed to either miss out or execute badly were the following:

Individual Zoning - You no longer control your zoning by creating three separate sub-zones, instead your sims decide, based on surroundings, which areas are suitable for higher development and/or wealth. You can have high density but low wealth areas with large apartments, for instance.

Water Pipes/Power Lines - There are none! So long as you are connected up to a road, your city with be provided with your utilities. I would have liked to see perhaps an option to turn this on/off for a new city, to at least enable you to decide whether you wanted to be an all out anal city planner.

City Size - They should have named this SimVillage, as that's honestly what it feels like at times. It's nowhere near to the scale of SimCity4, for instance. Allegedly they wanted 'every PC' to be able to play it. I call them out on that though. Word on the street is that EA will charge you more for a DLC so you can build 'larger cities'. I can hardly say I didn't expect it from them.

Unit pathing - Cars with always take the shortest route, period. They really will. You can create a long winding highway, yet they will still be adamant on taking the dirt road to work. An incredibly irritating situation as you have to make sure your city can cope with it! My advice would be to work towards public transport as soon as you can!!

Offline play! - You flat out can't play this game offline, forget creating cities on those long flights over the Atlantic, it's not going to happen. The game must be connected to EA's servers at all times, if it detects a drop in connection for over 10 minutes, it will close down and you will lose your progress. The fact that you can carry on playing for 10 minutes without interruption almost proves that the game can quite suitably function in offline mode. Rumours are that it can actually be played as an offline game, EA just won't allow it.

So, what have they added, you might ask?

Online play! - You are able to create your cities within regions (which can hold up to 16 or so 'city' grids within them). What this means is that friends can create cities next to yours, allowing for sharing of resources, public services, utilities. This can be handy if you are just creating a new city and need power or fire truck support on the cheap.

Depth of play - I won't go into the details too much, but there seems to be a large amount more depth to the game with regards to building types and progress paths. You can advance various cities within a region to work towards 'Great Works' goals, for instance a large solar array to provide power to the cities in the region.

Conclusion

I'm not 100% happy with the game as it stands, perhaps that will change in futures patches. That is of course assuming EA bother to actually patch it! (Can you sense the sour taste that's been left in my mouth?) I would really like to forgive them for it, but I'm not sure what it would take for me to do that. It's not just me they would have to appease either, the majority of the gaming community was in outrage.

Taking that aside, the game itself isn't so bad, make the cities larger, give me offline play (perhaps allow syncing to servers and claiming city grids when connected, for instance, to allow for them to retain their 'multiplayer' aspect they keep harping on about) and I'd be happy with it.

Pushing the anger from the server issues slightly aside and thinking with a clear head, I'll give it a 7.5/10, not quite a Top, not quite a Flop. I'm not sure whether they will keep it updated or pull through with their promises but only time will tell. I will say one thing though, I'm glad I only paid £25 for my version.

7.5/10

Edit: Since writing the article another news report has come to light, showing the use of SimCity offline. To say I'm disappointed in EA/Maxis is an understatement.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/14/modder-runs-simcity-offline-maxis-remains-silent/

TP-Link TL-WA901ND v2 problems, now with added DD WRT

2013-03-12T10:03:00.003+00:00

We purchased two of these devices for our offices a short while back, however, after setting one up on our private network and the other for external users, we discovered the one we used internally would drop out every now and again.

Sometimes, it would stop displaying the wireless SSID altogether, sometimes it would stop displaying it to new clients, yet clients that were already connected could still use the network, sometimes it would flat out deny any new connections to the network an IP. It would also display more than one of the problems at the same time. All could be resolved for around 12 hours by restarting the device.

We never had any more than 15 devices connected at any one time to our internal one, at 1 or 2 at most to the external one. I tried swapping the settings on them so we were now connecting to the other device instead for internal use, to no avail. Whichever one we connected the most clients to, would always drop out, despite running the latest firmware from TP Link.

How this issue hasn't been resolved yet I don't know.

(Image is copyright of DD-WRT)

Seeing as we rarely used the external device, I decided to have a play around with it so I flashed the custom firmware from DD WRT onto the spare access point.

To start with I wasn't able to access the GUI. To get into it, I connected to the wireless network 'dd-wrt' that it broadcasts,and within command prompt, had to set a neighbor on the wireless connection.

Open 'cmd' as admin.

Type: arp -a

Then: netsh -c "interface ipv4"

Then: set neighbots "Wireless Network Connection 1" "192.168.1.1" "A0:F3:C1:81:XX:XX"

You must replace the 'wireless network connection' with the name of your connection - check the network and sharing centre for this. Also check the bottom of your access point for the correct MAC address and replace the "A0:F3:..." etc with your one.

Then: exit

Then type 'arp -a' again to check if the MAC address is assigned to that particular IP.

If you can connect to 192.168.1.1 through your web browser, then your work is done! If not, you may need to restart the access point and as soon as the network is picked up by your computer, quickly connect and hit refresh on the webpage - you have to be quick to get in!!

To be able to properly setup the device on your network, you must fill in all the correct values, otherwise you may not be able to connect again.

Setup - Basic Setup:

WAN Connection Type - Disabled

Network Setup - Router IP - all of your network information goes in here, your local IP address is the one you want to connect to your access point on (remember this so you can connect back to the interface in the future!!), subnet mask should be taken from your main router and is normally 255.255.255.0, gateway is the IP address of your main router and if you have a local DNS server, enter it in the box as well.

Tick the 'Assign WAN Port to Switch'

Enable your DHCP server for the AP and input your correct network details

Setup - MAC Address Clone
Make sure this is disabled

Setup - Advanced Router:

Make sure Operating Mode is set to your preferred type, we have ours as a Gateway

Wireless - Basic Settings:

Enter all of your setings in here, wireless mode is AP for us, the channel/bandwidth settings and your preferred broadcast SSID.

Wireless - Wireless Security:

Ensure you enter a password in here, otherwise you will have an open network that anyone can join. We use WPA2 Personal Mixed with AES algorithms.

Great Discounts With CDKeyNexus

2013-03-05T15:50:00.003+00:00

Hi guys, I've been in touch with the guys over at CDKeyNexus.com and have agreed a coupon discount code for all readers.

It will work with all purchases and give you 5% off their already fantastic prices for games!

It's quite simple, all you need to do is type this coupon discount code into their checkout:

Digital

They will email you the game serial key after you make your purchase to add to the relevant platform, Origin, Steam, Uplay and so on! Fear not if the purchase is not in your currency, especially if you use PayPal, it will convert it at a decent rate for you!

They've got some great prices on the new SimCity, Tomb Raider, Heart of the Swarm and Crysis 3 games and are always more than happy to answer any questions you have for them!

Samsung Galaxy S4: Information Imminent!

2013-02-27T17:21:00.002+00:00

Samsung has been fairly good at keeping quiet on this one, however rumour has it that there will be an announcement on March 14th 2013 to showcase their new flagship mobile phone handset - the Galaxy S4 (S IV).

At the moment there is too much information to speculate on, however I'm certain we will see the now-standard 'upgrades' when manufacturers push their new flagships out, such as a higher res camera, higher ppi (pixel density) plus possibly larger screen and a much smoother and more enjoyable user experience in the form of a faster processor.

The Galaxy S3 base specs are as follows: Display: Super AMOLED Screen - 720 x 1280 pixels (4.8inch) at 306ppi, CPU: 1.4GHz Quad Core Cortex A9, Camera: 8MP

If we take the above and extrapolate along with taking some of the circulating rumours in, we could expect the S4 to come with a 1080p 5inch 441ppi display while sporting an Octa Core Exynos chip (with split cores) but also potential for a Snapdragon. The highest bets are currently on the 5440 Exynos Quad Core though, as it has been floating around for a few months now and is much faster than the previous chip. It seems it is all up in the air at the moment due to potential manufacturing issues. We've also heard that samsung have worked on getting the physical size of their flash memory down to enable them to produce thinner phones, this may be something we end up seeing in the new S4. The S3 sported an 8MP camera however we've heard there may be a 10MP on the upcoming S4, that's quite something for a mobile handset!

X79-UD5 IRST TRIM with RAID0 SSDs in Windows 7

2013-02-11T17:50:00.003+00:00

Hi all, just a quick update, to cut a long story short - I developed a problem on booting up since I swapped some drives around.

I swapped the 1TB out and in place put in a 500GB WD drive, setup a RAID0 with the two other 500GB drives and put the 1TB in my new server/HTPC (update to come on this) for remote backup from my main setup.

The problem was my boot times rocketed from around 15 seconds to 1 minute 20 seconds at points. It was a little frustrating especially as I'm running the two RAID0 256GB M4 SSDs. Eventually after a day of working on/reinstalling the OS/swapping drives about, I discovered it was the Marvell drivers having a paddy as, to create the RAID, I'd moved my optical drive onto the Marvell controller. On boot it was hanging for 60s just trying to initialise the DVD drive. Had to create custom event views for it to try and track it all down.

In the process, however, I discovered that on the X79-UD5's new BIOS, there is an option to switch around the Intel Controller's mode. I was presented with two options, either RSTe, or IRST. Now we all know that the new 7 series chipsets support RAID TRIM, however X79 is on the 6 series and was not supported.

Knowing that previously I'd been using RSTe (enterprise version) drivers, I had a dig around and found that if I switched the OROM (option rom) to IRST, I could install the standard version of Intel Rapid Storage Technology. I'm currently running version 11.6.0.1030, which, after a little checking, is now issuing and executing TRIM commands on the RAID0 M4s!

So - hopefully the rest of the motherboard manufacturers will, at some point, be issuing updates to allow this OROM to be switchable, especially as us enthusiasts on X79 won't like to be left out of such luxuries as TRIM, especially considering we are more likely than others to be running RAID SSDs!

Far Cry 3 Driver Crash/Black Screen

2012-12-11T20:40:00.003+00:00

Hi all, another quick fix post here.

Some people have been reporting some Far Cry 3 crashes lately.

A few fixes if you've been having this issue are listed below:

First off the basic ones - drop your GPU and CPU back to stock clocks, if you have overclocked them. Just to rule this out.

Secondly make sure you are using your latest GPU driver, sometimes the beta drivers can throw some screwy things into the mix.

Try running the game in DirectX 9.0 mode (you can find this setting in the game options), this can be a popular solution to some of the nVidia issues.

Some have found that creating a short cut to the far cry executable (find it in the far cry directory - wherever you have saved it to) and adding -offline into the 'target' section can help. For instance: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\FarCry 3\bin\farcry3.exe" -offline

If you use a program like MSI Afterburner, set your power to something like 80 or 90%, not the full 100%, this in a way is almost downclocking your card, but it can help in newer models.

If any of these fixes solve your problem post up! If they don't, let me know as well, even more so if you find a solution so I can add it on the end!

Thanks

GTX 680 4GB SLI Benchmarks

2012-08-23T09:46:00.001+01:00

I've had the opportunity of testing a pair of Palit Jetstream GTX 680 4GB cards in SLI and thought I should share some of the benchmarks and screenshots with you all.

The setup is as follows:

i7 3930K @ 4.2Ghz Cooled by Corsair H100 in Push/Pull
Gigabyte X79-UD5
2 x Crucial M4 256GB in RAID0
2x Palit Jetstream GTX 680 4GB
3x iiyama Prolite 24" E2473HDS screens giving a resolution of 5760*1080

These aren't perfect benchmarks, they were all run for varying amounts of time but in that time I tried to simulate what would be the highest and lowest FPS situations.

BF3 - Operation Guillotine (Max graphics)

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
2464	49412	36	62	49.866

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Flight Around Stormwind) [I am running max graphics with about 5 custom settings which advance them beyond what is controllable in the UI]

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
11028	124856	47	214	88.326

Dear Esther

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
7574	56207	110	204	134.752

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (With texture packs up to 2.8GB and ENB series, Vsynced at 60fps hence max)

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
8292	141952	50	59	58.414

Guild Wars 2

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
3645	79888	32	64	45.626

There are certain games in which it would be silly to benchmark, for example DotA 2/LoL don't run well without Vsync, so with this setup they quite happily sit at 60fps, CS:GO will run anywhere between 140 and 290fps across all three screens. Tera will run at a fairly constant 60fps as well, maybe dropping to 55 occasionally.

DotA 2 Black Screen Fix

2012-08-20T20:29:00.001+01:00

Just a quick note here really, if you're having issues with DotA 2 playing properly with your graphics card setup and just get a black screen when loading (and then sometimes following by a really jittery DotA background music), you should try this:

Right click on your DotA 2 in Steam, go to Properties and Set Launch Options, then enter the following:

-windowed -w 1920 -h 1080 -noborder -novid

Replace the 1920 and 1080 with your actual resolutions.

This will launch the game windowed and maximised without the Valve intro video.

UPDATE: Also try removing your DotA2 config files located in steam/steamapps/common/dota 2 beta/dota/cfg and then in the launch options described above, add +autoconfig

EDIT: If you are still experiencing issues after applying this fix, a good precautionary measure is to update to your latest video card drivers, but to also do a full uninstall of the old ones too, a good program to use to completely clear them is Driver Sweeper.

As in the comments - you have to replace the numbers with the correct resolution of your screen, mine won't always be the same.

Palit Jetstream GTX 680 4GB Overview

2012-06-11T12:14:00.002+01:00

Skyrim was proving incredibly demanding in the VRAM department due to the massive amount of higher definition textures I have installed now. Bearing in mind I'm also running triple 1080p screens the 2GB 680 couldn't handle them.

With the move up to 4GB came a few setbacks, a little less overclocking. The Jetstream does +100 core, the reference 680 did almost +200. That may have given the POV a slight fps boost over the Palit.

Aside from that though, I am very pleased with how quiet this card is, along with obviously the gain in memory size.

Skyrim now registers a decent 2.7GB of VRAM usage and a constant 60fps V-Sync'd.
Diablo III proves no issues for the card either. 60fps V-Sync'd across three screens with GPU usage sat at around 40-50% and temperatures no higher than 48 degrees!

nVidia GTX 680 Surround Setup & Summary

2012-03-28T15:34:00.000+01:00

I was lucky enough to bag myself one of the new nVidia Kepler offerings - the GTX 680. It has been a slightly longer wait than expected since putting together the Sandy Bridge E system. I've been sat with three screens but no ability to play surround as the 570 isn't capable of it alone, it requires another running in SLI and unfortunatley my second one failed.

Point of View were the only models in stock

I've been far too caught up in fiddling with the clocks and playing the odd game to sit down an run a long winded benching session, but a few scores are below.

GPUZ showing the highest clocks/temperatures achieved (MSI Afterburner was clocked at +214Mhz core and +360Mhz memory):

3DMark11 scored 10952 P points.

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3046327;jsessionid=1xso1zmj71y0f13rdzpmbtzxv7

Battlefield 3 Benchmarks running in surround at 5760x1080 resolution:

Ultra Settings (Game used all 2GB of VRAM)

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
3815	141647	21	37	26.933

High Settings (Game used 1.7GB max of VRAM)

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
8198	187708	33	59	43.674

Ultra settings in single player were just about bearable, but an average of 27fps wasn't all that enjoyable. High was just right to play at, only a minimum of 33fps, so I was happy with that across a triple screen setup.

Skyrim isn't really worth mentioning, with everything set to full, official texture pack and the 2K texture pack, it will still return anywhere between 50 and 60 fps (Vsync on) on constant gameplay. I could unlock the vsync and see what more it can give at a later date.

Pics and screenshots to follow!

A quick phone snap of WoW spread across the three screens:

UPDATE: 24/7 Clock at +194 core, +500 mem, scored over 11.5K 3DMark11
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3235185

Kepler Confirmation for April?

2012-03-02T08:27:00.002+00:00

Yet again, no official announcements, however we've seen a lot of very similar rumours flying around now that indicate the release of Kepler cards around the second week of April.

If there is any truth in it, we'll be seeing some form of official statement in the next few weeks I would think.

Links:
http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/35933-nvidia-gtx-6xx-kepler-rumoured-production/

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/26069-kepler-gk104-cards-in-production

Mass Effect 3

2012-02-19T11:20:00.001+00:00

It's been around 2 years now since Mass Effect 2 was pushed onto our shelves. Since then there have been a lot of eager gamers awaiting the launch of the third title in the series.

Well, as luck would have it, we have just under 3 weeks until the official release!

However, without spoiling it too much, ME3 brings the fight home; the Reapers launch an all-out assault on Earth. You take the role of Commander Shepard, as with the previous games, to carve your own path through the Mass Effect universe and to seek out a way to defeat the Reapers.

Expect to see many diversions to the main story arc though, with multiple quests that will take you to far out planets in search of god knows what.

ME3 brings something new to the table though, 4 player co-op mode! You will be able to team up with 3 friends to take on various challenges that will also reflect back on your single player campaign. Taking over enemy strongholds has been mentioned as one of these scenarios.

The demo is currently available to play at http://masseffect.bioware.com/ so if you're a fan of the series I'd grab it now!

Beta Roundup - Tera, Guild Wars 2, Diablo III & Others

2012-01-28T13:59:00.002+00:00

We've got three games kicking around at the minute that are set to release quite soon. Most are now in beta stages or are set to enter beta fairly soon.

Tera Online
Pre-Beta. Registration open.
http://tera-europe.com/home.html

An MMO with a difference. Tera brings a new aspect to the world of MMOs - skill. You can, more often than not, get by in most of the MMOs around with some semblance of common sense and hand-eye coordination, specifically in PvE fights. However, Tera takes targeting to a whole new level.

With a crosshair.

That's right, you have to physically aim your spells. After all of the standard 3rd person MMOs I've played, this has been predominantly the case: Click target, cast damage/healing spell, wait for cast time, boom. Next.

Take a look at this video of the Archer gameplay. The mobs know when you've taken aim at them, there is a skill aspect involved in actually targeting your enemy as opposed to just having them on your targeting pane. I have a feeling this will be absolutely hilarious in a PvP environment and cannot wait to give it a try.

Guild Wars 2
Closed Beta, Open Beta in March. Registration not yet open.
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/

We finally see a sequel to the much loved Guild Wars. Again, another MMO doing something different this year. Guild Wars 2 brings a slightly different take to the traditional roles of tank, dps and healer, they name them Control, Damage and Support. For a start, every class will be able to resurrect, at level 1! There are no dedicated 'healers' in the game so to speak either. All healing will be done via self heals, support heals or defensive abilities, protective domes (positional) and so on.

Death is not the end. When you are pummeled to the ground in GW2, you do not die. Nope, you are given a second chance. You are placed into a 'Downed' mode, in which you can fight to your last dying breath. You can still be attacked and defeated in this state, but you are able to use certain abilities to turn the tides of battle. Certain professions (classes) have instant resurrects, that can get you straight back into the thick of the fight again.

Diablo III
In beta - limited keys available.
www.diablo3.com

It's taking a very, very long time for this to be released. The original promise was Christmas last year if I recall. That didn't happen. It was then 'early 2012', which, I suppose is still around now, but no release date as of yet (but we all know what Blizzard are like with their release dates). I would suspect it will arrive at some point during March as they will want to be competitive with other releases at this time, else they risk losing out.

The beta has technically started, however, I've not spoken to one person just yet who has a beta key here in the UK though that may just be not knowing the right people. If you are signed up for beta access, keep an eye on your battlenet account and the associated email address to see if you get in!

A few more...

It may be worth mentioning a few other releases I've had on my radar for a while. Some of these are works in progress, some are just rumours.

WoW: Mists of Pandaria
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/

We all know WoW is a lumbering behemoth of a game nowadays, so with the current content already complete, yet again comes the time for a new expansion. The next major delivery to the monster is Mists of Pandaria. Information was released last BlizzCon on the zones, dungeons, enemies, classes and so on.

The new playable race (Pandaren) are neutral and can 'side' with a faction at level 10 it seems. A new class (monk) is also being released. No auto attack is present on the monk! Their abilities are all active.

I think we should see MoP beta hit in the next three months some time. I would be disappointed if they released the actual game any later than early August, as with half the level increase in each expansion, they should really be bringing the packs at least 6 months closer between each one, so an 18 month release schedule as opposed to a 2 year one. I would hope for a June/July release of MoP.

Infinity Universe
http://www.infinity-universe.com/

I am hoping for big things from this project. It's being managed by a small team of 8 people but has been going for years now. In short it is a space simulator, similar in a way to EVE, however, there seems to be more emphasis on skill than how long you've had to train a certain ability. Their aim is to create a seamless universe, in which you can travel through space, head towards a planet and instead of a loading screen where you 'land' and then can walk around etc, you should technically be able to fly towards the planet, enter the atmosphere, fly around the surface, and just head towards space again to leave the planet.

This video was recorded almost two years ago:

In conclusion, I think we have a few good games on the horizon for 2012, and some (Infinity) to watch develop into something possibly fantastic over the coming years.

nVidia Kepler Rumours

2012-01-23T00:41:00.002+00:00

So, the mill seems to have been turning! We've seen an article appear on Tom's that has taken some of its information from the Chiphell website. It seems to indicate the timescale for the arrival of the new nVidia Kepler cards:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-Kepler-GTX680-GPU-geforce,14499.html

Again, this is a rumour, not fact. It speculates that the new series of cards will hold the 600 series nomenclature, which opposes some previous rumours stating that the 600 series was being ditched for mobile GPUs, as the 300 series was, and that they were skipping to the 700 series instead.

Not only that but it also states that the new '680' card, may not actually host their flagship core, as has mostly been the case before. Hosting a 780MHz clock speed and 2GB of VRAM, it sounds half decent.

[Speculation]I personally think, if this is to be believed, that this card could be a quick release from nVidia. With AMD currently holding the top spot, they are losing out on cash. I also have a feeling that this is not going to be all nVidia have to offer. Again, if it's to be believed, this card may well be the successor to the '560(Ti)' card, with another release of an even higher single GPU card later in the year. Of course, I could be entirely wrong![/Speculation]

SOPA Stopped Me

2012-01-18T12:49:00.000+00:00

I've taken myself offline for today in protest of SOPA and PIPA. A bunch of ridiculous bills the US Congress are trying to pass.

Read more here: http://sopastrike.com/strike/

Support the strike!

Site now back up - thanks for the support and let's hope it achieved something.

Crucial Release Firmware Fix for M4

2012-01-16T01:07:00.002+00:00

Crucial announced last Friday that their firmware fix for the M4 SSD went live.

The release was to fix the issue with the drives, where once they reach 5184 power on hours, they would become unresponsive and cycle down. This is just over 7 months of power on time for the drives.

The fix includes all of the changes made in 0009 and you can upgrade from any lower firmware version.

I have just run the update across my two M4's in the desktop and the one in the laptop too without any issue.

See Crucial's website for the files: http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

Dell L702X & ThermalTake Massive 23 Review

2012-01-13T20:35:00.001+00:00

Dell L702x

Right, so I'll give you the premise to this upgrade. I purchased a laptop from Dell in around January 2010, it was a Studio XPS 1645 with an i7 720 and the mobile Radeon 4670. It was a nice looking machine but unfortunately there was an inherent issue with it, when you stressed the computer and more specifically, the CPU, the BIOS would clock back the CPU, so that in the middle of a game, it would drop the clock down to 82%, 66%, 32%, and finally around 15.7%, so I was effectively running a 0.25Ghz i7 dual core... great!

After two years of promises, switching to a 130W adapter and trying countless BIOS updates, nothing would stop this laptop throttling, other than a program called ThrottleStop, but even then it a) only worked half the time and b) I didn't want to run a program every time I used my laptop, as it forced the CPU to 100% and got very hot. End result being an angry email to Dell and they promised to replace the machine for their new L702x model.

Specification

L702x
1920x1080 HD WLED screen
Intel i7 2640M 2.8GHz (3.5Ghz on Turbo)
4GB 1333MHz RAM
(I fitted 8GB Corsair 1333MHz)
750GB 7200rpm SATA 2 HDD
(I added the 64GB Crucial m4)
3GB nVidia GT555M GPU (New revision chip)
Win 7 Pro 64bit
2 Years in house, 3 years collect and return

(I must apologise for the quality of some of the images, I need to sort the lighting out in this room)

It has a nice exterior design, I still prefer the 1645's looks, but I'm sure this will grow on me

Good sized screen without a ridiculous bezel size.

Features a backlit Keyboard, complete with numpad. Speakers are JBL, a fairly decent brand.

The package came with installation disks for the OS and drivers/software, the laptop itself and the 150W charger.

A quick look at the ports first:

On the left hand side there is just the one USB2.0 port as the fan vent takes up the rest

Taking the rear top left corner first, it has the charger slot and 2xUSB3 SS ports

Top rear right corner has what I think is the Infrared sensor, a standard size DisplayPort, HDMI and ethernet port

The first thing I did was to put the 64GB crucial m4 in the second bay, which runs at SATA3 speeds and to replace the 4GB standard RAM with 8GB of the Corsair 1333MHz kit. From this respect I can't comment on how the standard system would have performed but technically it should really only alter loading speeds by changing the drive and RAM.

Now, this machine came with the factory set A14 BIOS, however, there is a known issue due to the BIOS build which will not allow you to reinstall certain drivers due to unrecognised hardware (whether this was just not programmed into the BIOS correctly is anyone's guess, Dell have not rectified it yet). This obviously affected myself as I did a fresh install of Windows to the SSD. The affected drivers were the WavesMaxx Audio, Intel HD3000 graphics driver and the nVidia drivers, I'm still trying to rectify the USB3 driver.

It took a frustrating evening to set up the machine and finally get various programs installed. I did run a few benchmarks as standard and recorded the temperature.

Seems like fairly decent colour reproduction (Thanks to Digital Blasphemy for the background!) - the desktop uses the HD3000 graphics on the CPU

A incredibly fast boot for a laptop of 10.56 seconds, mainly due to the m4

Very good read speeds (552.8MB/s) again, write (114.4MB/s) is only low due to the small size of the SSD (64GB)

Shows mobile processors can do alright in a PCMark test! 14089 score

Score of 6150 in Geekbench

Most people tend to be using 3DMark06 on the L702x as laptops aren't quite as powerful as desktops, this scores a decent 10684

Temps still well within limits there at 74.5 average on load and 42 at idle

It doesn't score too badly on these benchmarks, however the real crux of this laptop is the overclocking potential of the GT555M. As standard it comes at 590MHz core clock with a memory clock of 900MHz, however my MSI Afterburner would push up to a stable 760MHz (can get 770 in benches but sometimes not in games) core and 960MHz memory, though pushing the memory won't give you as large of a gain as the core clock does.

Overclocked

12915 3DMark06 score - a 20.9% increase over stock

7043 3DMark Vantage

1555 3DMark11

As you can see it really did improve the performance in 3DMark06, and after running Vantage and 11 benchmarks didn't do so badly in them for a laptop.

I won't run FPS tests in games as it's not primarily a gaming laptop, more so I at least have the option of playing a game or two when I'm out and about. All I can say is that it runs Skyrim fairly well on medium/high settings on the overclock!

ThermalTake Massive 23

Along with the L702x I also purchased this little piece of kit:

The purpose of it is to provide a decent platform for cooling the laptop, be it on a desk or on your lap. It has four rubber feet to provide extra grip and is very lightweight for its size. A USB2.0 lead is packaged with it, which fits into a small flap at the rear of the fan so you can keep it stored in a safe place.

The side panel contains two USB2.0 ports, one for plugging the unit into the laptop, the other as an 'extender' so you don't lose out on the functionality of the port you are using on the laptop. The buttons are quite self explanatory, to turn on and off the LED and the fan.

I'm a fan of blue/black in components generally, as you can tell from my main setup, but I wasn't so sure of the LED on this, I leave it on mostly because it's 'bling' but I still can't scratch the feeling that some LED's can be tacky.

In short, the cooling potential of this varies greatly with the laptop type, as it all depends on where the fan ducts are. If I'm honest, after running a 3DMark11 test, the highest temps reached were only around 2-3 degrees lower than without the unit. So the answer to the question of 'does it do anything?' I would say is yes, it does, but not a great deal. I can imagine it doing more as temps go up, really these CPU's have a TJunction of 100, I think they start to throttle around 95ish, mine only capped at around 75 on load, without the pad.

Test Result Summary

Boot Time: 10.56 seconds

SSD results: 552.8MB/s read, 114.4MB/s write

PCMark Vantage: 14089

Geekbench: 6150

3DMark06: 10684 (Stock), 12915 (Overclocked)

3DMark Vantage: 7043

3DMark11: 1555

Conclusion

The L702x in itself is a fantastic piece of kit. It doesn't look much from the exterior but I'm happy with that. It can take most of the applications and games I throw at it, and run them to a decent standard, especially the games. It will cope with even Skyrim/BF3 on medium settings.

Load speeds are great, very quick to boot and run most day to day programs, primarily down to the SSD I would say though. The standard hard drive isn't so bad though, it's obviously not as quick but I have a few programs/games installed to it and it doesn't do so bad.

One good thing is that it can't take advantage of a 20% price hike because it looks cool and has a certain, *ahem*, extra-terrestrial brand name on it (yes, Alienware, I'm looking at you). Bear in mind that while Dell and Alienware are effectively the same company the equivalent hardware in the Dells are always cheaper.

I would recommend this laptop as I think it's a great unit, however, I would caution you if you plan on reinstalling windows, due to the dodgy BIOS, to make sure you have all the relevant information before you do this reinstall and to confirm you can reinstall the drivers successfully. The only other criticism is that the charger doesn't quite fit properly in the port, an issue Dell is aware of but when issued with a 'replacement' charger, it's the same model! I can't comment on value for money, but I would say this system would cost you around £1100 if you purchased it through the Dell store. I paid just over that for my 1645 two years ago and in my eyes they are around the same performance for their era, but I am impressed with the L702x. Definately think of getting 8GB or more RAM in there and a decent spec SATA3 SSD, does wonders for everyday performance.

The ThermalTake, well, that's all down to you. It does work, a little, looks alright and is quite comfortable when just resting on your legs, however is it worth ~£30? I'm not sure, I found mine cheap, but I'm not sure I would pay quite that much for one, maybe £20 tops.

I hope you find this useful and if you have any queries don't hesitate to ask away.