FEAR: Perseus Mandate Game Demo

When fear was introduced about two years ago we saw top of the line graphics. The following year fear extraction point was developed with good first person combat action. Unfortunately the after sales service of extraction point was very poor. There never was any updates to allow for larger capacity viewing screens such as 1680 X 1050. (The original FEAR was updated to alllow for this). Here we are with Fear Perseus Mandate and the demo doesn't even support the higher screen resolutions. This is a very poor introduction to the game. In Vista colors are not displayed well in the fear engine because the engine wasn't built for it. You can still see terrible color banding in dark areas and I don't see an improvement in graphics but I suppose we'll have to wait for the 2008 fear sequel before that happens.

Cooler Master Mystique 631 review

I finally said good-bye to my old Chieftec computer case and changed over to a Cooler Master Mystique 631 case. I'll give you my review of the case today:

The all aluminum case makes the case lightweight and keeps the inside cooler than a regular steel or plastic based case. The intake and outtake fans do a terrific job of taking in cool air and pushing hot air out of the case. I found the method to insert the DVD drives a little bit difficult but the locking mechanism works very well. The case handled the insertion of an NVIDIA 8800 GTS videocard with plenty of room to spare. I was able to fit my Cooler Master 850 watt PSU into this case but for large PSU users I recommend a larger Cooler Master case such as the Cosmos 1000. The side cover funnel works well with a stock Intel cooler but doesn't work well with many 3rd party CPU coolers but it is very easy and quick to remove. Overall this is an excellent experience and I'll rate the Cooler Mystique 631 as an excellent buy for your money.

My response to a Microsoft Vista blog posting

Not many things get me upset but this blog did get me upset:

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9785337-7.html?tag=tb

Here is my response:

Vista may not be the greatest operating system ever built but I tell you that neither is the mac and especially not any form of Linux. I really don't want to tell you how many times we've had errors with Macs and an equal number of problems with all versions of Linux. Vista is the 21st century and there is more right than wrong with the system as built. SP1 not only fixes holes but provides operating system improvements as well. Apparently you're not very well versed in the law. Congress passed laws which state you're not allowed to copy any COPYRIGHTED digital media not even for a backup reason unless there is a specific license from the COPYRIGHT owner that says you can. Vista helps to protect industries from pirates and unfortunately there are more pirates than legit customers who want to do backups. Microsoft poured millions into its software and has a viable reason to protect it and license it. Just prior to release of Vista there was a big controversy about the licensing but Microsoft listened to its customers and made changes. Of course people like you are never satisfied. Most software companies have rebuilt there drivers and software to work on Vista. If they haven't they'll soon have to or fall behind in their business. I will agree with you on only one point and that is that Vista Ultimate is priced too high. This is a new century. It's time you started living in it. I am very satisfied with Vista stability and performance. It is true that you need very good system components and memory to run it at the optimum level. I run Vista 64 bit with 4GB of DDR2 ram. It's a very good system and with time Microsoft will make it a better and greater system.

Computer Case Technology

I'd like to comment on the current trend of computer cases. There are still far too many computer cases being built that do not adhere to customer needs. There are two primary concerns:

1. Noise
2. Heat

More companies need to engineer their computer cases to resolve these two aforementioned problems. I recently saw a cooler master cosmos 1000 and I have to say that this seems to be the correct direction but at the same time computer case manufacturers need to find a way to lower costs.

Microsoft Vista nvlddmkm NVIDIA driver error

I am still surprised that there are quite a few people still receiving the nvlddmkm error when using NVIDIA based video cards. What I'll try to do here is to see if I can help to solve this error. Are my methods going to fix this problem for all of you? Perhaps not but I hope that the actions below will help many of you:

1. Go into the control panel of your Vista PC and remove any NVIDIA drivers that are there.
2. Restart your PC and then download a driver removal program similar to this one:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1672

3. After this has been run restart your PC again.
4. After rebooting your PC do a search for nvlddmkm and make sure you do a thorough search of your entire PC file system to include hidden and system files. Delete it if found.
5. Reload your PC and/or motherboard manufacturer's chipset drivers
6. Load the last NVIDIA WHQL driver posted on the NVIDIA website for your Microsoft Vista operating system.
****Added on October 13: If for any reason the above steps do not work and you have 2GB of ram try safely removing one stick of ram to see if the problem continues. Some people have reported that a faulty memory module may also cause this****

Microsoft Vista 64 bit

Ever since the beginning of the year I have been working quite successfully with the Microsoft Vista 32 bit operating system. I needed to test a program written specifically for Microsoft Vista 64 bit so I took the plunge, bought a copy this weekend, and installed it. Having worked with XP Professional 64 bit, which left me with a rather bad feeling, this newest version of Microsoft's attempt at a 64 bit operating system caught my interest. The stability is wonderful, most everything I've tried actually seems to have software and/or driver support and perhaps more importantly it allows me to take full advantage of 4GB of DDR2 memory I've had installed for many weeks. The 32 bit version of Vista has a 2GB barrier so you can't use any amount of internal memory above hat amount. This 64 bit flavor of an operating system has my full support and I personally congratulate Microsoft on the work that has gone into the stability of this system.

New videocards to come in November?

Christmas is coming and the smell of new videocard technology is in the air. Probably in November we'll see some new videocards from both ATI and NVIDIA just in time for the Christmas shopping season and in plenty of time for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to include the videocard hardware in their PCs for Christmas.