Posts by BaRRaKID

It helps to play the game a lot to understand it, and in games like CS to try to at least watch some competitive matches since competitive players tend to focus on the most efficient and advantageous parts of the maps.

Regarding CS defuse maps this article sums the basic layout http://www.egir.dk/index.php?page=vhe_layout.htm if you understand that you can change it to make yours more unique like for example on de_nuke where the bombsites are on top of each other

Besides that you need to take into account the timings of the map, how much time it takes each team to reach the chokepoints and bombsites, if Ts can switch sites fast enough to make a fake, if CTs can get to each bombsite after the bomb plant with enough time to retake and make the defuse, etc. It seems like nowadays smaller maps are preferred due to those timings being smaller making the games faster, that's somethoing that you can play with as well.

Finally you need to take into consideration each type of weapon, that is you need to have separate sections that favour long, medium, or short range weapons. You can solve this by looking at the lines of sight in the map, that is how much of the map the player can see in a certain point, long lines of sight help snipers more than rifle players, and tight areas are better for pistols and smgs. So ideally you want two or three areas with long lines of sight for awpers, another two or three that are more cramped like small corridors and stuff like that to help in pistol rounds and have the rest of the map with average lines of sight for rifles action.

Hope this helps.

Regarding which card to buy, just look at benchmarks sites. I still use Tom's Hardware lists, here is their July update:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming…eview,3107.html

If you just want to follow their recommendations go to the chart on the last page of the article and see what's the best one on your price range.

Rule of thumb though, in the below 150€/$ range ATI cards perform better, above that price range NVIDIA is usually better

That's a lot of dust!

I can take a wild guess on why the gfx card broke. You see those black squares around the GPU? That's the card RAM, notice how no part of your GPU cooler touches them, meaning that there's no way for them do dissipate heat besides the air that is flowing inside the case. With that amount of dust restricting the fan and the air flow one of those puppies probably burned.

For future reference there are passive coolers that make them less hot:

http://www.zalman.co.kr/global/product…ead.php?Idx=136

http://www.swiftech.com/mc800smccoolingkit.aspx

They are fairly easy to install, they've an adhesive on the base so you basically just have to glue them to each RAM piece, and what they do is transfer the heat from the component to the metal that they're made of. Simple but effective.

Regarding air flow inside the case it's easier and mos effective to have one fan at the front (or more, some cases have brackets for two fans at the front in order to blow fresh air directly into the hard drives) pushing air into the case and one at the back pushing air out. This works well on most computers, there's usually no need for more than that. It can be a bit tricky to mount the front fans since this usually requires removing the front panel, but it's not that hard. You should have this setup regardless of what the power supply fan is doing (some push air into the case, some push air out, it depends), look at the PSU as a separate system.

Like mentioned before it's also important to have air filters on the fans to avoid pushing dust inside the computer. It's usually enough to put the filters only on the fans that are pushing air into the case, in this case that would be the front fan. Even more important is to clean the dust regularly, but DON'T use a vacuum cleaner since they can generate static electricity and brake some of the components. If you've an air compressor use that, if not most computer stores will also sell compressed air cans, they're just spray cans that throw air instead of paint or whatever, you only have to be careful and not press on the cap for too long since the can starts to freeze if you do. If you can't find any of that just use a brush to clean the dust.

Finally you should change the thermal paste as well. If you remove the heat sink there is usually a grey paste (it can also be white or an adhesive instead of a paste) between the heat sink and the component, that's thermal paste. It's used to create perfect contact between the heat sink and the component, since the metals used are not perfectly smooth (this is also a good way to check the quality of your heat sink, look at it's base and check how reflective it is, the smoother the surface of the metal the more reflective it will be meaning that the heat sink is of higher quality) there will be some small (microscopic) spots in which the heat sink doesn't touch the component making those spots hotter than the rest. The thermal paste will fill those spots so that the component heat is dissipated evenly along the component.

To change the thermal paste first remove the old thermal paste using cotton swabs with alcohol (some of it may have turned solid by now, just try to take it out with your fingernail without scratching the metal), then apply the new thermal paste in a very thin layer on the surface of the component, not on the heat sink. It's easier to apply and to measure the quantity it if you buy the ones that use a brush (like the ones from Zalman http://www.zalman.co.kr/global/product…ead.php?Idx=221) instead of a syringe or a squirt. After changing the thermal paste and assembling everything turn on the computer and let it on for a few minutes (around half an hour) to let the thermal paste "cook", this means that it will take a couple of minutes for the paste to start acting and for the temperatures to drop.

And that's it, it might sound hard but it's actually something fairly easy to do.

Hope this helps

Worldcraft and hammer 3.4 demotivated you from the beginning because it was insanely complicated to set everything up, specially after steam came out and all the options names became meaningless. You also needed a modified FDG, the VHE update, Zones Tools, Nems Batch compiler, GCFScape, Wad files (from the wadfather) and Wad compiler, and even after getting all that you would compile the map and ge a file not found error because hammer didn't copied the bsp to the game maps folder and you had to create expert compile configurations or use nems batch compiler and learn what all those options meant. And finally after all that you could play your fully lit oversized box filled with leaks.

Quote from 3Dnj

But the card game was cool !!

I guess that it's no surprise that you can play the card game online http://ttadvance.ca/

And if you've a android phone you can download FourFront TCG, it's the same game except that the cards are not from the FF universe. You can also play it against friends over bluetooth.

The Card Queen/Car Club side quest was actually challenging, meaning that it was really frustrating specially when you got weird trading rules and lost all your good cards.

I also lke FFVIII more than FFVII simply because the characters are more belivable, even the GFs (summons) had some depth and personality traits that made you care about them.

The story in VIII was also good, but like I said here before it's a shame that most of it was spoiled in the intro cinematics.

Quote from knj

and this is ?

Daft Punk

Looks like shit, basically.

But it will probably still have a huge user base, so who cares? It's crap, but it sells, good for apple.

(and to think that MS got so much crap just because they removed the start button from Windows 8, to the point that they had to make a new OS version whose major feature is the comeback of the start button, and then apple does crap like this and is praised by everyone)

Quote from blackdog

(i read [url='']an intersting article on this subject[/url] the other day)

That's one of the best articles I've read about this entire flat design thingy

Information overload is the biggest problem with this kind of systems. You shouldn't profile every part of your game/system just for the sake of it, you need to plan it properly and look at profiling as a complement to real testing. If your testers (or you) complain about a certain part of the game or detect a problem you should profile that part, and only that part, during a certain period of time (this is another common mistake, usually these type of systems are on all the time, you don't need that, one week of data is as good as two weeks if you haven't made any changes in between). If there is a problem with map balance for example you don't need two months worth of data on how many kills per weapon you've on all maps, you just need to know for that specific map, where most of the battles occur and which team/player won the battle, basically who killed who and where. You can add weapon stats if there's a problem with a certain weapon being too advantageous at a certain location, but only if that's the problem you're trying to solve.

About database overload, for multiplayer games there is usually a server/computer that hosts each match, that host should be the only machine responsible for gathering the data, you don't really need to measure players (unless you want to have leaderboads and stuff like that off course) what you want to do is measure matches and that's the host job. Also you usually won't need real time data, what you want is to gather data during a certain period of time and analyze it later, so database updates should be done after the match ends, or once an hour or once a day if the host keeps running after each match is over. You can also invert it and keep the data saved on each host filesystem (or whatever) and then have your profiling sever ask the hosts for it when you need it. Basically instead of each host saying "Hey Profiler, I just finished a match here is what happened" have the profile say to each host "So, what have you been up to in the last few days?".

If you really need a system that does lots of queries just use a scalable cloud solution like Amazon or Rackspace.

That A site chokepoint on D2 (i'm guessing you're talking about long A) is for control of the sniper pit/alley, the actual chokepoint to control the bombsite from that route it's when that path crosses with the ramp that leads to the CT spawn.

Obviously depending on the map timing and location of chokepoints work differently, but it's a CS convention that both teams should arrive at the same time at the secondary bombsite, and that the CTs arrive first at the primary bombsite.

[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/rmQpTcm.jpg]

That's not as bad as it seemed, you could test moving the T spawn just one second closer to the bombsites to push those chokepoints abit back. It seems to me like it would work better that way.

Have you tested the timings? It seems like the Ts will take much longer than the CTs to reach the bombsites and that will put the chokepoints in the middle of the map between the T spawn and the bombsites. Ideally they should be closer to the bombsites.

Take a look at bombsite B on dust2 for example, if both teams rush that bombsite they will meet in the tunnel that connects the bombsite to the dark hall and whoever wins the battle there has easy access to the bombsite, you should aim for something like that.

Quote from 0kelvin

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I like this one also, but it spoils half of the story which shouldn't really happen in a intro.

It would probably be a good idea to reduce the amount of lights. Use just a couple of them to accentuate the architecture or to give more focus to important areas.

If everything else fails try copy-pasting your map into a new vmf file, it usually solves these kind of weird errors.

you should check out http://didyouknowgaming.com/ as well

NS2, 9€, finally bought it.

Regarding game design, "Theory of Fun for Game Design" was the most mind changing book I've read, it really made me look at games in a different way.

Besides that I'm a big fan of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. There are 7 Books in the series, the first 5 ("The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", "Life, the Universe and Everything", "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" and "Mostly Harmless") are the originals made by Douglas Adams, the 6th ("And another Thing...") was made Eoin Colfer after Adams death, and the 7th ("The Salmon of Doubt") has some of Adams unpublished material and an unfinished novel that is part of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy universe.

Quote from Buddy

Yes but on the other hand you would get insanely frustrated by looking for a specific animal for 5 hours to get an ammo pouch, or after hiking for 25 minutes because there is no vehicles around.

Worked for Pokemon

You should definitely make the stone roads less flat by turning them into displacements and making them more irregular.

There's something wrong with the DNS settings, https://www.mapcore.org goes to the forum, mapcore.org (without www) goes to a blank page saying "Welcome to nginx!".