Elvesbane

You’ll be pleased to hear that I finally made my first true Windows application today. Albeit, one that did nothing whatsoever other than exist, and then, exit. But at least it did those things properly. Oh, but it also turned out that it works only on my system.

Damn.

I also managed to finish Okami (Oh-kami) about a week ago, at the end of (a stunning game) which, it gleefully reported that I’d spent 56 hours at the controller, over a period of 95 days. That’s an average of a little over half hour a day. See! There’s proof that my mum’s allegations of “Oh, he’s always playing games” are totally, irrefutably baseless.

I’m also contemplating investing in a spanking new X-Fi XtremeGamer (yuk! that sounds so cheezy) sound card, to replace both my worthless onboard sound, and the 500 rupee(s) stand-in Yamaha… something… that I’d hoped would be better (it wasn’t). This particular X-Fi is the cheapest hardware accelerated X-Fi card available on the market, and at over Rs. 6000 online, it is still over 2000 bucks dearer than in the states. Ah well, that’s the price you pay for living in India. At least this way, I’ll have some justification for the 1.5k I dropped on the Zalmans… well, MM-Gear, really.

So that’s it for tonight. 3:23 seems like a nice time to sink into the pillow. See ya tomorrow for lunch.

Literally. Whoa.

Another game that I really really loved way way back is…

Outcast

You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I had to go through to get it to work on my current system (properly). Actually, I still don’t know whether all of it works properly (I do now, check end of article) since I just made sure that some of the show-stopper bugs have been eliminated (Once again, check EOA).

Anyway, as a record of what I’ve achieved today, here goes:

PC Specs: Core 2 Duo E6300 + 2Gig RAM + 950Gig HDD (total) + 17″ LCD (1280×1024)

Operating System: Windows Vista 64bit (x64) Ultimate

What I did

After a lot of research and testing, I found out that doing the following will fix a bunch of issues that Outcast faces in today’s computers.

1. Install Outcast - Duh, yeah, but you’ll most probably need Patch 1 to do that. Download it from the link.

2. Further patch it with Patch 2 (the same link as above, really), to remove some glitches.

I’m not sure about what Patch 3 does, but it seems like that one can be used to install the game too. Maybe it’s some kind of combined Patch 1 + 2 thingy. Who cares, I haven’t had to use it yet.

3. Get CPU Killer. Install it (I used CPUKiller v2.05).

Yeah, the old version listed there (or not, who knows what you’ll find when you look there). The why, later on.

4. Start CPU Killer in Administrator Mode, and set the bar to around 6%, and start.

This 6% value will, of course, depend on the kind of system you have. Experiment.

5. Open up the Windows Task Manager, set the process affinity of CPUKiller to CPU 0, or 1 (my computer’s only got two processors at the moment. ^_^) , whichever you prefer.

6. Set the compatibility mode of OC1.EXE, OC2.EXE, OC3.EXE to Windows 98 / ME (or equivalent, actually I’m not entirely sure this is needed, but bleh).

7. Fire up Outcast (use the default link) in Admin Mode. Even though I was using images of my really old and now useless Outcast CDs, mounted using Daemon Tools (Really. I’d bought the game. Seriously.), it worked just fine. I guess Patch 2 acts as a no-cd, or something.

8. Alt-Tab out once inside the game, and using the Windows Task Manager, set the affinity of OC3.EXE, the process that’s active when the game is running, to CPU 0, or 1, or N, whichever you selected earlier, that is.

9. Alt-Tab back in.

10. Play.

There you go. Outcast in 10 relatively easy steps. Now you require explanations.

Q1. Why slow down the computer with CPU Killer?

You don’t actually have to use CPU Killer. You can use any CPU slowing program you want. CPU Killer worked for me.

Q2. What I meant was, why slow down at all?!

Certain rather annoying bugs like Mr. Slade (the hero) slowing down to a CRAWL when walking through the paddy fields (in Shamazaar) or the fact that the damned Twon-Ha won’t move can be fixed by lowering CPU Speed. Seems like poor old Outcast can’t handle our super duper fast computers.

Q3. Does CPU Killer version matter?

It didn’t for me. The higher version (CPUKiller3 v1.0.5, right now) was useless since I had to use the older CPUKiller2 algorithm (selectable in configuration) to make the CPU slow down properly (with slider at 2%), so the old version of the program worked for me (albeit with the slider at 6%). In fact, performance with the older version was BETTER for me, since it allowed me to set all the settings to high (in the Outcast loader) and get decent framerates (16-24, according to FRAPS).

None of these slowing down programs work as they should, because even these programs are too old for the new hardware, and their approximation of CPU use is rubbish… which would explain the 2 and the 6% reduction.

Q4. Anything else?

Outcast is a wonderful game. Play it if you can.

See ya!

UPDATE:

1) I’ve finished the game! Everything worked fine, well, except at one point in the game.

Minor Spoiler Alert! In Okasankaar, Cutter is required to accept the assistance of a talan to push two buttons simultaneously in order to open the door to a sunken temple. I was able to bypass this requirement by pushing one button then running to the other and doing it myself. This was before I even had the quest requiring me to enter the temple. However, it worked out fine since it turned out that I didn’t have to complete the mini-quest to satisfy the main quest’s requirements.

2) I actually got a page hit from someone searching for ‘Outcast Patch 2 -jedi’. Haha! I knew there’d be some use to including all those tags! I suppose whoever it was got helped since he / she clicked the link to the download page at planet-adelpha where all the patches reside. Me happy! Oh, and I also changed the title. Duh reason. ^_^

I haven’t gotten around to using my camera in so long. Sometimes I think I ought to leave all the nut cases behind and go riding on my own.

Like I’d ever do anything of that sort…

Over the past two months, I’ve put in over excess of 60 (sixty!) hours into Final Fantasy VIII. I’ve been playing it on an emulator called ePSXe (since Jacob Z stole my console), and using walkthroughs to finish absolutely everything in the game. It plays pretty much the same as on the PSX. Except of course, this is on the keyboard, and I do miss the excellent controller.

I love the game. I really do. It’s one of those games that I played as a kid that I really remember. I think that the opening animation contained the first Computer Generated people I’ve seen.

The music… oh, the music.

You probably don’t understand what I mean, and even more probably think I’m being silly in saying that I love a game. You may be right, but I don’t agree. If you want to learn more about the plot, just click.

I’ve got to go play a game. Bye!

It pulled me into the world and made me believe that I was a part of it. That’s what I felt when I was watching ‘Children of Men‘. No, the plot cannot be called realistic… more like imaginative, but the camera work and the way in which the action scenes are put together gave me the chills.

A must watch. Really. It’s very very impressive.

I’ve been playing a game called ‘The Spirit Engine‘ quite a lot lately. Well, probably because of the fact it’s a 2D game, and that’s all that my oh-so-powerful 7900GT can manage at the moment. Throw 3D it’s way and it’ll throw back a BSOD soon enough. The memory (and perhaps the core itself) seem to have become damaged. Don’t ask me how… I didn’t mess around with anything! Really! I didn’t. About the game, it’s quite good, for a 2D game that is. It’s got a rather engaging story, which is a must as far as I’m concerned, and since it’s an RPG, it’s just the sort of thing I like to spend time on.

I’ve got my lab exams tomorrow, the electronics kind… and truth be told, I suck at it. I don’t think it’s a goner though and I’m hoping that the mysterious entity known as ‘luck’ that seems to shadow me helps out in some way. I’ll need it. Bye!