I’m 7,000 pesos poorer, but look at what I’ve got!

M-Audio Audiophile 2496

New recordings soon!

In collaboration with Pipay Warren, we present

Two-Layer Abstraction
Pipay Warren – Bass, guitar, vocals
John Perez – Drums

Two-Layer Abstraction is a two-piece online band. We record tracks in our home studios and as an online band, the challenge is to preserve quality and consistency of sound and performance, despite the lack of physical interaction. Through the power of the internet, we make music.

Warren and I have been working for more than a year, and this band has been in the works eversince. That is now about to change with Two-Layer Abstraction’s rendition of Trapt’s “Skin Deep.” Despite the track at its rough draft, this is the time we emerge.

If you want to read on Pipay’s side of things, visit her LiveJournal for her scoop. View Pipay’s LJ here.

This track is one of the most fun projects I’ve worked on. Difficulties abound, though. Prior to recording “Skin Deep,” the studio was in shambles due to a previous project. Putting the studio, drums and mics back together, resetting mixer settings and resetting levels took a significant amount of time. Rust settled in my hands after not playing for months, so getting back in the groove takes some time.

As far as drums are concerned, I believe that the drum track was more of an interpretation than a cover. I changed quite a few things. One, I don’t crash ride. I prefer to use the ride cymbal exclusively. Two, my biggest influence is Neil Peart. So adjusting to Aaron Montgomery’s style was challenging. Neil Peart kept his drum parts fluid, mature and sequential, but Montgomery’s playing was more apt for grunge and metal.

As for the drum sound itself, the snare and bass drums are works in progress. Stay tuned for further experiments in future tracks.

I hope you enjoy the track as much as Pipay and I did. Have fun!

Percussion equipment:
1. Pearl Forum Series Drumkit
2. Pearl Omar Hakim 13″x5″ Mahogany Signature Snare Drum
3. Evans Coated G2 on toms
4. Remo Coated Ambassador on snare
5. Evans EQ3 on bass batter and resonant with Kevlar patch
6. Zildjian 14″ ZBT Hi-hats
7. Zildjian 16″ A Custom Fast Crash
8. Zildjian 14″ A Custom Fast Crash
9. Zildjian 20″ A Custom Ping Ride
10. Pro-Mark 5A Drumsticks

Drum Recording Equipment
1. Yamaha EMX860ST Powered Mixer
2. Samson 7-piece drum mic kit
3. Derby balanced oxygen-free cables
4. Sonar 7 Producer Edition
5. Personal computer as digital audio workstation

The recent big buzz on Microsoft’s US$44BN bid for Yahoo! stirred the industry quite a bit. I don’t know much regarding the details of the deal, but I’m really glad it did not go through. The purchase might have been a financial boost for Yahoo! and a Microsoft might’ve had the biggest online platform in the world.

In the February 6 podcast of Cranky Geeks, I actually agree with John C. Dvorak. Dan Goodin and Cade Metz were enthusiastic about the deal, but Dvorak “represents the man on the street.” My main concern was the potential monopoly and invasion of Microsoft in many aspects of my internet experience. I definitely do not want to see “Windows Live”-esque branding on Yahoo! products among many other things. Microsoft’s execution of their ideas are often lackluster, especially in technical aspects.

I’m fine with the way things are, and I don’t think Microsoft can revolutionize the internet with Yahoo! at this point. Good thing Microsoft never got to.

What do you think? Drop a comment!

Note: I am not sure why, but this entry apparently failed to publish for some reason. I only noticed that now. Sorry for the delay.

This semester, I am writing an argumentative research paper, and I’ve chosen to write on open-source.

A few weeks ago, I e-mailed Chris Pirillo, the geek of all geeks, asking if I could interview him for my paper. I e-mailed him a set of 10 questions and I was pleasantly surprised that not only did he answer my questions, he dedicated a 20 minute video answering them.

Receiving something from Chris Pirillo is such a pleasure and an honor. Couldn’t get any more grateful.

Thank you so much, Chris! I really appreciate it. Learned a lot from the video. I’ll write something on the topic when I find the time. Hopefully soon.

I am truly standing on the shoulders of giants.  Thanks again, Chris.

You can find the video here.

So, Ubisoft delays Brothers-in-Arms: Hell’s Highway again, along with some other games. In an older entry, I wrote about why I’m so disappointed in Ubisoft for the series of delays, and I am still holding on to the sentiment I had at the end of the entry. Wait. No. I’m taking it a step further.

 Brothers-in-Arms: Hell’s Highway is now on my vaporware list. I’ll still be looking forward to it, but I’m not counting on it. I do want it to be released, I do want to play it. Unfortunately, Ubisoft is just taking too long.

 I still stand by with my arguments in my old entry. Ubisoft must be under so much pressure from its first-person shooter competitors. Infinity Ward created a storm with Call of Duty 4 by leaving its WW2 theme behind and opting for a more modern approach. Crytek shook the gaming community with Crysis. Other titles left gamers in awe such as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, The Orange Box, World in Conflict and Gears of War. And what do these games have in common? They have all adapted fast and quite adequately to the new technologies offered today, and in terms of themes, these games offer a new setting, new era and a new experience.

World War 2 themed games are lessening fast by the year. The new games have pleased the gaming community. How can a badly delayed Brothers-in-Arms fare? How can Brother-in-Arms 3 be such an innovation to rekindle gamers’ interests in World War 2 games? Can it even make such noise that gamers would actually pay attention to BiA? Yes, BiA possibly is a cult hit. The problem, however is that cult followers are such a small market. If ever, only cult members will appreciate the game, and that makes me doubtful if Ubisoft can actually make their $1.4B 2009 estimates and make up for their research costs. They have to rely on their other releases to do the heavy lifting–not Brothers-in-Arms, unless they otherwise turn Brothers-in-Arms into a Game of the Year release.

Game of the Year?

That was a joke

Haha.

Fat chance.

By the time BiA 3 comes out, it will no longer be a landmark release from Ubisoft. By then, many games would’ve made good use of the Unreal Engine 3 and other technologies. By then, gamers around the world would’ve become sick and tired of World War 2 games.

Where, I believe, Ubisoft made a mistake was in investing in a dying genre and pairing it with such ambitious goals in graphics, game play (How can they make a contextual right-click play different?) and story (The Americans lost in Holland. How can Ubisoft make it feel like a victory?). World War 2 is a supersaturated field, and delaying the game in a world of modern and innovative games does not help Ubisoft in any way whatsoever. They simply held on to an old promise for too long.

Sorry Ubisoft. Brothers-in-Arms: Hell’s Highway to me is vaporware. I’d rather hear that you pull the plug on the project and tell everyone to move on.

 Poof.

Brothers-in-Arms? Nah. Let’s just eat some cake.

I don’t get it. I’m referring to my I Owe ATI an Apology entry.

Suddenly, Crossfire behaved like how it used to. It’s crashing all my games and it’s intermittent again. And this time, with only one Crossfire bridge. I really don’t get it.

And I take back that apology I issued yesterday. Apparently, the “fix”–if you can call it one–was simply a bug in the system that worked for me, but no longer does. Nothing change in my system since yesterday.

 Better fix this problem on your next driver release, DAAMIT.

Now that I’ve got Crossfire working well, I decided to take Crossfire a step further: OVERCLOCKING.

Unfortunately, overclocking Crossfire set-ups isn’t as easy as it seems, especially that ATI Overdrive does not work at all with me. So I followed this ingenius guide from NordicHardware on overcThe overclock showed considerable increase. According the my calculations, SM2, SM3 and total 3DMarks increased by 8.46%, 7.82% and 6.28% respectively from stock Crossfire results. In real-world applications, this translated to about 1 to 3 additional frames.locking Crossfire set-ups. It’s a relatively brute force way around overclocking; tedious and useless when the system is restarted, but it works.

I played around overclocking a single HD2600XT, so I pretty much knew how far it can be pushed with stock air cooling. So I settled for a 860/760 overclock, from a stock 800/700 using RivaTuner.

Without further adieu, synthetic benchmarks. Forgive the cluttered desktop. It comes with the was-frequent troubleshooting.

I am not quite sure what to make of the 1-3 FPS gain with a +60/+60 overclock. It seems too much for too little. Either that or I just need more testing. Is it my PSU bottlenecking? My CPU? Or don’t the HD2600XTs really have much overclocking potential? We’ll see.

What do you think? Feel free to drop comment.

P.S.

Crysis does not respond well to overclocked Crossfire (Far Cry much?). It would fail to launch, crash and cause a BSOD. Even the slightest increment of +10/+10 makes Crysis go haywire. Stock settings make it feel good.

For the past few days, weeks–or month–I’ve been harrasing ATI support for my Crossfire problems. In a nutshell, I couldn’t get Crossfire working despite good components and a good set-up. It looks all very good, even the support people are baffled. Everything should be working, but it just didn’t click. The mystery was the Crossfire took effect only 3DMark 2006 and 3DMark alone. Other games had no benefit at all, and Crossfire would work intermittently.

 Fast forward a few weeks and frustrated argumentation, ATI support suggested three things:

Here are some of the suggestions given by our testing team:

1) power supply could be the cause as it is not certified for crossfire
2) try connecting monitor to a different port
     it should be on the primary board connected to port closest to mobo, but try others
3) try connecting 2 crossfire bridge cables if 1 is connected or try connecting 1 if 2 are connected.

I tackled them one by one, and replied:

Hello,

I tried the suggestions, but as for #2, display would only appear on the primary card. There is no display on the 2nd card. This is confirmed by CCC’s message as Crossfire is enabled. Trying either DVI port has no effect.

As for #3, connecting only 1 bridge–on either places–has no effect. Crossfire cannot even be enabled. 

As for #1, I do not think that my power supply is fault. One, it is SLI certified and online sources indicate that it is Crossfire capable as well. It even has 2 PCI-E power connectors for high-end cards. Second, it exceeds the amperage requirement of Crossfire and SLI. It is capable of producing 32A, 38A and 18A of current for 3.3V, 5V and 12V rails respectively. The Hisper 680W (Crossfire certified for HD2600XT) PSU produces the same amount of current on the same rails. I highly doubt it if the Hisper 680W produces more current than advertised because such higher currents can damage the system. I also doubt that if my PSU is overloaded because I only have the bare essentials plugged-in. One HDD, one optical drive, one fan etc. And there is no evidence of overloading because I haven’t experienced a shut-off whatsoever. And if ever it were a PSU problem, it doesn’t answer the mystery why only 3DMark 2006 consistently receives benefit from Crossfire. Games run within the same session do not. Running 3DMark2006 again shows performance increase.

As of the writing of that reply, all my claims were still true. However, I decided to experiment for the heck of it. I shutdown my computer, removed one Crossfire Bridge–leaving one connected–and booted up the system once again. Then voila, Crossfire everywhere. Crossfire in all my games. Albeit not perfect, Crysis, for example, but it was good enough. Reaching ~30FPS at maximum settings in Call of Duty 4 Demo was a great feeling. Rainbow Six: Vegas, running at full spec and hardly a slideshow. I can keep going, but there’s next time for that. I ran tests and benchmarks, everything was stable and consistent. I’ve been having this problem for more than one month, and the solution was right under my nose.

In my defense, when I tried using only one Bridge previously, Crossfire indeed, did not work. It would not even have the option to enable. Somehow throught the weeks and the thorough reinstallations of drivers, Crossfire with one Bridge suddenly became an option. It wasn’t there before. Also, looking at various authoritative literature, Crossfire looked like it did need two Bridges. My motherboard documentation said so, my HD2600XT documentation said so, the “How it Works” video straight from ATI said so, and the pictures online from various hardware sites say so. Logically, why would it not need two Bridges? I was more inclined to believe that Crossfire needed two Bridges and I believed so. Obviously, I bought two Crossfire Bridges, as detailed in my Pantip Plaza entry, and used them. Turns out that that was the problem in itself.

I guess that ends my “Crossfire Not Working” dilemma. Honestly, it was all a whirlwind and I have lost track of how everything fell apart and came together on a software and hardware level. All I know is that Crossfire should’ve worked in the first place, tracing back to the very reason for buying a pair of HD2600XTs: software Crossfire. But everything went awry from there.

But that has passed. Let bygones be bygones.

As for the apology, I do apologize for all the hassles, frustrations and the pissing matches with ATI support. The solution had just been there. But then, I also have my defense as I have outlined above. I don’t think it’s entirely my fault. On the other hand, I can be evil and simply think that that was their job, anyway. They get paid to get into virtual spitting matches against irate costumers… and have contracts to prove it. (Un)fortunately, I don’t think like that. Or at least, not like it tonight.

Let’s just hope for the best and for a fun Crossfire experience.

Crysis took a little longer than usual to reach Philippine shores, but once it did, I grabbed a copy off the shelf. My wallet tightly shut, but when I saw Crysis’ price at Datablitz, I just had to active Strength Mode and pry it open. At P1395 (~$31), Crysis was a bargain! Usual prices in North America reach $45 to $50.

When I played the demo, all I could say was, “Wow.”

But now I have the (standard ed.) retail version, all I could say is, “WOOOOOOW!“

The graphics are amazing. It’s like nothing that has ever been done before. Like Far Cry, Crysis is another technological and gameplay marvel.

The shadows and textures of the game are so deep they look so realistic. Even far away, the trees, water and mountains look photographic. HDR is lovely as well. It adds to the overall quality of the scenery. Post-effects are OK, but the motion blur gives me a headache after a while of playing. The advantage with motion blur, however is that I get more frames. Go figure!

As expected, I’m not looking for Crysis to run at > 40FPS. The bleeding-edge gaming rigs today bow down to Crysis and I set my standards to a very tolerant level. I grew up appreciating games in 25 to 30FPS at best, and I can do just that with Crysis. I’m fine with an average of 20FPS. As I wrote in my demo entry, I’m very optimistic in my frame rates because the 20FPS average is achieved with a single HD2600XT. And there’s a twist. I play Crysis in Very High (Very High DX9 Hack), except for shadows and shaders. They both take a toll on my system the most, but the rest are maxed out. Hopefully, Crytek and ATI improve Crossfire support for Crysis and we can start seeing better performance. In two weeks, Crysis will release a patch.

In my demo entry, I also mentioned that the weapons feel weak. I would like to rephrase myself. Weapons overall are weak with silencers equipped. They are good at close ranges, but in mid to long range, you need more than 1 clip to kill an armored Korean. Without the silencer, the weapons are entirely new beasts. Either way, the best way to use the weapons is still through headshots.

The nanosuit is a nice addition. I’m played up to the Relic level, and I noticed that throughout the game, cloak mode is used the best. You are greatly outnumbered and outgunned in Crysis, so there are countless times when it’s best to sneak past the guards and take the path of least resistance. Taking on a checkpoint, base or patrol head-on is a suicide mission. You will die in a moment’s notice, even with Armor Mode on. The few seconds it takes to reload is enough to drain your suit’s energy. If you’re lucky to still be alive, you better be in Speed Mode and running away.

This brings me to Armor Mode. One of the hosts in the ExtremeTech podcast raises a point that Armor Mode is, to an extent, useless. And I somewhat agree. Even with Armor Mode on, you will still get mowed down… fast! If you were to compare the damage and life you and the Koreans can take, the Koreans can take more damage than you can even with Armor Mode on. That’s simply unfair. Yes, Armor Mode does give you a “second life”, but not a long one. When you run out of suit energy and you only have your bare skin to protect yourself, there is a strong urge to flee. You are out of suit energy, your life drains fast and you are outnumbered so you fall back. That sounds like a very good and logical idea, but the problem is, when you run out of energy and you switch to speed mode, there’s no more energy to help you! You’re as good as an unenhanced human and you’re as good as meat. Dead. Fried. Steamed. Roasted. Get ready to load another saved game.

Speed Mode is a fun, yet dangerous feature. Normal running under Speed Mode doesn’t tax your suit energy, but some energy is still required to make it work. The speed boost is considerable, and Speed Mode shines when you sprint. Sprinting, unfortunately, drains your suit energy fast. And I mean FAST! The danger with Speed Mode, though is that it makes you much more vulnerable to enemy presence. You make louder footsteps, make louder brushes with trees and you make a louder target. If you’re not careful with Speed Mode, you may end up in the middle of a forest patrol and you’ve been hosed even before you’ve reached the nearest cover.

Strength Mode is… not that useful. Well, at least for my playing style. Loyd Case of ExtremeTech.com plays the game “…like Crackdown! You gotta jump high up in the air and land on top of them and stuff like that (laughs).” But Brett Todd from Gamespot.com thinks otherwise. He says,

“Maximum strength is cooler in theory than it is in reality. Sure, it sounds awesome to be able to dial up super strength and choke the life out of North Koreans. But in reality, you’re generally taking on so many enemies in firefights that getting up close and personal with one leaves a half-dozen or more with clear shots at your back.”

I actually agree with Brett. Strength Mode takes up so much energy. Firing a rifle takes up energy, throwing an enemy costs energy and jumping costs energy. It is very difficult to do something useful with Strength Mode in a hot gun fight. The things you can do with it, however, are cool. You can grab a Korean, throw him at a slum house and you can watch the house collapse. Alternatively, you can jump on the roof a house with Koreans in it and literally bring the house down by punching the roof! This would definitely stir the Koreans and catch them off guard. If you’re lucky, the falling debris will knock them hard on the head. Sorry Loyd! I still love your PC hardware geekery.

Cloak mode is the most useful and is the backbone of staying alive in Crysis. As far as my playing style and experience go, there are a lot of sneaking around in Crysis. I often avoid gun fights, but if the fights are inevitable, then I’d love to punctuate my gaming experience with explosions and gun sounds. The energy consumption of Cloak mode is reasonable. It’s such a powerful tool, and you should use it as much as you can.

On a more technical note, what concerns me is the Crysis disc itself. When I placed it in my drive, it started making a clicking noise that gave me a scare. Apparently, this is a very common problem in standard and special editions. It’s a relief that I’m not alone. There are valid concerns–that includes me–that the clicking may damage a PC’s disc drive. Some think that this is Crysis’ copy protection method. Some say that it’s because of poorly manufactured discs. The discs’ weight is unbalanced, so when it spins, it wobbles and causes damage. Either way, Crytek should resolve this problem, because when damaged CD-Drives do appear, they have a class-action lawsuit in their hands. I personally worked around the problem by using a no-CD crack. The game loads faster and there’s less risk of a damaged drive.

Despite some shortcomings in game play and its unsatiable hardware fetish, Crysis is all in all an outstanding game. It’s truly a marvel and a milestone in the gaming industry and is definitely one of the best releases of 2007. It looks great, it sounds great and it plays great. I only took Crysis seriously a few months ago (it was announced 3 years ago), but the wait and the money are all worth it. Crysis has me in its grip and I can’t wait to get it finished. It’s an addictive title and it’s so difficult to put down. Before writing this entry, I was playing Crysis and I only realized that I’ve been playing for at least 3 hours. With college getting in the way, I’m having a time management crysis.

If you haven’t gotten your copy of Crysis, you’re missing a lot. It’s a great game with great gameplay and visual value. You just gotta’ love it.

9.5 out of 10

Tired of pressing “ESC” to skip the advertisements in Crysis? Solution? Get rid of ‘em.

The advertisements are simple video files located in the Crysis install directory. But instead of deleting them, I choose a less destructive path of giving the game a hard time by hiding them.

Here’s how:

Navigate to your local Crysis installation folder. On a Windows XP system, the typical location would be:

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis

From there, enter the folders containing the videos. From the Crysis root, open “Game”, “Localized” then “Video.” Your final path should be like this:

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Game\Localized\Video

You will see the videos as *.SFD files and let’s start working from there. Simply rename the following files by appending any character at the end of it. Choose anything that the operating system will allow in filenames. In my case, I chose the number “1.”

Rename the following files:

• Trailer_Intel.sfd (Intel logo)
• Trailer_Nvidia.sfd (Nvidia logo)
• Trailer_EA.sfd (EA Logo)
• Trailer_Crytek.sfd (Crytek logo)
• Trailer_CrytekC.sfd (Crytek GmbH text)

Finally, enter the “English” folder and rename

• Trailer_Rating.sfd (ESRB Rating text)

I don’t recommend drastically renaming the files. Just appending an extra character is enough. In the end, my files looked like this:

• Trailer_Intel1.sfd (Intel logo)
• Trailer_Nvidia1.sfd (Nvidia logo)
• Trailer_EA1.sfd (EA Logo)
• Trailer_Crytek1.sfd (Crytek logo)
• Trailer_CrytekC1.sfd (Crytek GmbH text)
• Trailer_Rating1.sfd

If you want the videos back, just revert back to the original filenames.

That’s pretty much it. The next time you start Crysis, it should go straight to the menu.

Enjoy and have fun with your ad-free gaming!