I initially thought that I hadn’t done anything to warrant the concern but downloaded and installed a few spyware apps and Spywarefigher found an executable residing in my Program Files that looked like an MS patch that it reported as a trojan as well as a few tracking cookies.  I did the clean up and viola the crashes went away.  While it wasn’t a hard lesson learned, it was a lesson learned that running Virus protection is vital for the integrety of even gaming.

Thought I’d post that even if you think you’re privy to something like this, you may want to think again.  I’m still not sure what I did that allowed this to happen but I went ahead and installed AV even with the hit it takes on resources.

Most of the first person shooters have filters but it seems a mishmash of what we would like to see.

The Battlefield servers have a good part of it with being able to set the minimum number of players and the max ping.  Beyond that, they fall short.  Why not have save these settings each time I enter the game?  Then again they can’t even keep straight what my last choices were on packs/load outs from match to match.

Unreal Tournament use to have some great filters and then they decided to use GameSpy.  They still have “decent” filters.

Quake Wars has a great range of specifications on theirs but again, where’s the limits as in BF (I’ve not played this in quite a few months, so I’ll have to check again).

Steam also does a decent job of filtering servers with their range but give me full range of the ping.  I’d rather game at about 125 or less ms, not 150 but 100 does return decent results in TF2.  The problem with Steam is that admins have found a work around to show their server as “almost full” to trick you in to an empty server.

Call of Duty 4 continues what has been the id configuration since who knows when. No real range on selecting other than Yes and No’s.  They also have the curious “full vs. quick” refresh.  I don’t really know what the difference is as it still refreshes all servers and at this count is 16k servers.  It doesn’t care that it’s Team Deathmatch or another mod.

I’d like to select (and SAVED match to mach, launch to launch):

• SELECTABLE Map
• SELECTABLE Number of “Real Players”
• SELECTABLE Ping
• Specific MOD ONLY refresh
• Bot Options (If applicable)
• Vehicles (If applicable)
• Team Kills
• Time Limit

Obviously there are some more that others would like but that’s my initial list.

So far this year we have Far Cry 2 scheduled for October and Crysis Warhead coming next Tuesday.  Call of Duty: World at War is coming complete with Kiefer Sutherland lending his voice with a November release but I’m not sure where this game really treads new ground.  I guess I’m happy to see another WWII installment but the Pacific theater doesn’t ever seem to be that popular in gaming.  The addition of bushido rules and the reinsertion of vehicles may work out.  Throw in Jack Bauer barking out orders and maybe it’s a more exciting release than I’m expecting.  Battlefield Heroes is suppose to hit as a free download in 2008 (using the branding power of the Battlefield series while using the cartoon look of Team Fortress 2) but as far as I know there’s no solid date and while the seeds of Battlefield 3 have been planted, it too hasn’t really been discussed by EA/DICE.

There’s a few others hitting as well such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (which I have a disc of Shadow of Chernobyl laying around that I have been meaning to try), Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Legendary (Not real sure about this one…not big on mythological shooters), Huxley (on the Unreal 3 engine and in the making for several years),

We’re also closing in on another years end without our famed hero from 12 years ago, Duke Nukem, having nothing announced other than the few typical rumors.  Not to mention we’re 2 years now past the release of Prey from 3D Realms.  Of course you could have watched exclusive footage over the summer on the Xbox 360 but alas it would also cost 80 points to do so.  What the hell?  You have a game in the making for 12 years, I’d assume you’d want people to see the freakin’ thing.  As much as I loved 3D, I’m not paying anything to watch an exclusive video of what’s been vaporware.  Speaking more nicely of Duke, I am looking forward to playing Duke Nukem 3D on Xbox Live…has that hit yet?  I’ve not touched the Xbox for a looooong while and still have to finish Battlefield Bad Company and I’ve yet to open Madden 09.  My Xbox is hating me hard!!

Cry for the Pick-ups:



Other Mentions Available:

I typically rebuild with new hardware but this one went so smooth (and I really don’t have the time to rebuilt right now and the build is about 2 months old) that I think I’m going to keep it for now. When I do a rebuild, I’ll probably (and I hate saying it) go to Vista 64 to fully utilize the 4gb of RAM among other things.

I do have to say that this was one of my easiest and most flawless upgrades. Typically there’s always some small stupid thing I miss, forget or there’s something hardware related causing issues. I dropped the chip on the board, added the ram, attached the Zalman 9700 (a dream to attach compared to the Tuniq Tower), plugged in connectors and it powered on. I finished up with the cards and was booted in no time.That’s not to say it didn’t come without irritation or scars. The biggest irritation is fitting video cards and cabling inside of cases these days and avoiding fans. Part of it could be my Apevia PSU, a part the Antec Nine Hundred’s layout and a final part how they are making motherboards these days. The motherboard is nice but I hate having the SATA connectors on the side of the board rather than on the surface. This is, for the most part, an enthusiast board but Asus makes some of the pieces more difficult for that same crowd that swaps hardware more often. Having a CMOS reset switch on the back is also nice. At least you can keep the case closed while doing OC testing.

I’ll toss some pictures up of the upgrade, more information and some analysis of performance and overclocking differences between this and the Intel E6600 and Asus P5W Deluxe tonight.

I also added the Intel NIC but not installed the other card in my server or started using the 3Com switch as of yet.  I needed more than a 4 port switch (I don’t need my wireless router/switch with the Uverse RG) and I wanted gigabit so I went with the 3COM 3CGSU08.  I’ll get those up tonight as well.

Here’s a few shots of the Battle Freezetag Arena and the last is from Battle Team Arena…

You can read more about it at BeyondUnreal and download it here!

I also added some screenshots from Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament 2004 (I Know it’s old) and Frontlines! You can check them out in the Gallery.

There’s really nothing exciting going on in the FPS world either so I’ve just been playing UT3, BF2 and BF2142. I really need to get back into the single player games that are sitting unfinished (CoD 4, Crysis and both Half-Life 2 episodes). I’ve also ventured back into UT2004 and UT99 with mixed results… I think my weapons only adventures in UT3 has improved my aim in UT2004 on IG and sniper moded servers… I’ve enjoyed a few very good nights… UT99 is another story, it’s really a shock to the system going into that after playing UT3 graphically and in terms of physics. It’s amazing to look at the 3 and how the graphics have changed over the, almost, 9 years. I’d love to see a UT99 10th Anniversary Edition released using the UT3 engine, it won’t happen but get back some of the feel with the updated graphics would be awesome!