Games
Thank you, EVE Dominion [NSFW]
Mar 5th
Thanks to the built-in Chrome-based browser now in EVE Online: Dominion, you can look at anything except Flash.
Therefore, you can also see the below… extremely useful for long journeys.
Thank you, Dominion
Captain’s Log…
Feb 27th
…supplemental. The Kusanagi has entered orbit around Jel III to work out a long-term strategy to maximize efficiency of harvesting ore from asteroids with as little investment as possible. Orbit is maintained until a strategy is determined.
[Log entry end].
Above The Asteroids
Feb 25th
“It could be said the world is almost completely full of honest people. But I prefer to say the world is completely full of almost honest people.”
DJ AlienHand
Above The Asteroids
Special Mix for EVE FanFest 2008
If Farmville were a country…
Feb 24th
“Farmville boasts 118 million total installs. It has more monthly active users than the population of France.”
“Zynga’s top title, FarmVille, is played by an estimated 75 million people each month — roughly equal to the number who have played the classic arcade and desktop game Tetris during its entire existence.”
CNN: The Facebook games that millions love (and hate)
In the comments, one person says it best:
Tomoyo – No plot. No characters. No prizes. I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. It’s like throwing time right into the trash can.
At this point, may I make some suggestions as to what real games are please:
Ice Ice Baby
Feb 24th
Sometimes, when you travel through space, you find these little gold mines. I found one yesterday. In EVE, blue ice is amongst the most valuable raw ores as it is used to fuel player owned stations (or POS) for the most part. In the outer rims of space it isn’t so hard to come by – but you can always get shot. At this place however, which is in a protected area, shooting you is not that easy.
What I saw made me open my mouth wide and long. I have never EVER seen so many Hulks, Covetors, Retrievers, even Orcas (the super uber mining ship), and other transporters, in one place. Also, note the yellow diamond-shaped things floating around the rocks… They are all giant containers, minimum distance between them is 5 kilometers.
Where it all began: the EVE Gate
Feb 22nd
Located in the Genesis region, it is what is left of what once was the most massive natural phenomena mankind ever witnessed. When it collapsed a long long time ago, it severed the human colonies on New Eden’s end from Earth, which lead to the evolution of the four races that populate the cluster today.
A truly impressive sight, and since I got back into the game, I just had to see it.
Mass Savings Effect
Jan 29th
They don’t expect you to survive this time around when you take the role of John Shepard once again. The Collectors abduct entire human colonies, and no one knows why. However what we do know, is that Mass Effect 2 has been deemed ‘the avatar of video games’. I’m yet to see the whole thing, I just bought it.
For an incredible price. I was set to spend 60 Euro.
The Reapers arrive in Spring
Nov 8th
So if you have played and been blown away by Mass Effect, which released in 2007 I think, then you might already know that a second part is the making and on its way. So last night on my way to the cinema I quickly went into the nearby game store, which was updating the display of release dates. It has shown that “Mass Effect 2: The Coming Of Reapers” is coming next Spring. I am so gonna buy it!
Some new wallpapers
Nov 1st
So I managed to get some good shots, and I thought I kinda change them a bit to make them cooler.
Ye olde Gate
To the stars
Eye Of The Storm
To The Power Of Three
Oct 12th
Last EVE related post in a while, I promise! If you had enough of me and EVE, you should stop reading now… otherwise read on to see my latest trickery and hack.
So. On this year’s keynote of CCP held in Iceland (Fanfest), they had shown quite a cool feature: the game on multiple screens. This kinda inspired me, I thought it has to be possible to do this already. And what followed was yet another odyssey into technology and the question: can it be done?
The inspiration for me was one photograph… this one:
New Eden extended by 3
Obviously you have to be able to connect three screens. Now you see the problem is, that most graphic cards, even expensive ones (apart from things like ATI’s EyeFinity) only let you connect a maximum of two screens at any one time. However for EVE, with your ship always in center view, having the ship in one piece is quite important to the experience of the game, so you need either 1 or 3 screens.
Here’s where the first problem comes in. Most mainboards only allow you to connect ONE PCI-Express graphic card. With 16x speed that is for immense bandwidth and thus graphical processing. How do you fit it a second PCI-Express card when your board only takes one? Well. You see it is technically possible to connect a second 16x speed card onto a slot with only 1x speed. Problem is there is a physical blockage. So I went and by hand removed the block on the right side, allowing another card to fit in. Obviously you only get 1x speed instead of 16. This isn’t pretty and voided my warranty – but it works!
A bit crammed, but… well:
Don’t worry, the cooling is perfectly fine. They are not touching – even if it looks like that. Besides the cheap one is a passive cooler – so everything’s… cool. With those two finally placed in, I could in theory attach a maximum of 6 screens… Whoa!
Fancy a TV wall? Six screens, maybe? For now, let’s just use three.
Everything is working. Drivers installed, and the screen is in fact detected and Windows says it now has a new display adapter. The screen is showing its wallpaper. I am impressed about myself how far I have gotten already.
Next problem is that Vista does not allow for horizontal spanning (like you have 3 monitors on your desk, but Windows thinks it is one). This was removed in Vista and is not coming back in Windows 7. Windows XP however did this. With the so-called Windows Display Driver Model, or WDDM, which Vista and W7 uses, spanning is not possible. So full-screen on 3 screens is a no-go. But my journey didn’t end here.
There is this little nifty hack called SoftTH (Software Triple Head). This effectively forces any DirectX based game to use all screens. How does it work?
The image is rendered on your expensive beloved graphic card. This tool then takes care of the rest and divides the image by three, and sends the parts onto its respective screens. Left to left, center to center, and right to right. This involved a bit of configuration and I can provide you with my config file if you need it.
And that was it. EVE is now forced to use all screens! Thus, my command bridge is now complete. Bask in the presence of the most immersive gaming experience. EVE To The Power Of Three.
Threesome: Main view in the middle, communication and information on the left, sensors on the right