Posts by ReNo

  • I need help finding a monitor

    I've got a couple of stuck pixels (blue) on my HDTV, right next to one another. I know you can unstick stuck pixels with either those crazy flashing videos or by pressing the screen in the right place as you start it up, but I've tried both with no success. To be honest though, they really aren't that big an issue for me. Sure, its fairly noticeable when the screen is all black, but thats pretty much during loading screens alone. In use, I find it pretty hard to notice.

    I guess it might be worse with an LCD monitor though, given how much closer to it you are generally gonna be sitting.

  • Wow

    Has anybody tried the Creative CMSS-3D feature of the new X-Fi cards? I've read in reviews that it does a very good job of creating 3D sound spaces with just stereo headphones (to the point that it is more effective than actual 5.1 headphones), but I've not tried it myself. Thinking of picking up one of those new X-Fi Gamer Fatal1ty cards for around £100 (the full Fatal1ty FPS model doesn't really seem to offer many benefits for an extra £40) you see.

  • Now playing

    Well I've gotta be honest - not exactly many. Typically you are looking at anywhere from 10 to 200 people online (was around 2000 over the free weekend). Use the Steam stats page to see how many are playing at times you would consider playing to get a feel for the sort of numbers you could expect...

    http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=stats&

    I've seen a load of people who enjoy the game that are put off solely due to the limited player numbers, which is a real shame. Of course, the more people that take the plunge and buy it, the more people there will be playing online, and so the more people there will be who are willing to buy it. Bit of a vicious circle really!

  • Now playing

    Oooh ooh oooooh - thanks for the reminder about that Fallout pack, as I tried to pick up Fallout Tactics for bloody ages with no luck and so had totally meant to buy it. Now I shall

  • Wow

    I've got 5.1 headphones, which, while not perfect, are pretty good. For that reason I wasn't exactly blown away by this. I'm currently using the headphones in stereo mode though, so as far as stereo headphones go, thats pretty damn good positional audio.

  • Now playing

    Quote from MrH2o

    Tryed The Ship last weekend, really fun exept the lag.

    Yay, glad you liked it Anybody else here give it a shot over the free weekend? Was a bit crazy and the server situation wasn't really ready for the free weekend, which did indeed result in a lot of lag, but I hope it didn't ruin it for anybody who gave it a go!

  • Phones

    A Sony Ericsson T630, which has a very frustrating joystck that rarely works. Funny that Squirrelly is saying the LG Chocolate is old when I just saw an advert on TV for it saying "the new LG Chocolate" I guess its been out a while in the ol' US of A though

  • Played Wii last night

    Ahahahaha, I was just about to comment that he looks ultra-camp with that pose, facial expression, and Wii-shirt combo

    How good is the Wii gonna look on HD screens by the way? I only ask, because the PS2 and Xbox games I tested on mine looked really poor, and I don't want the Wii to suffer the same fate. Will component cables make a big difference? Would they also make a big difference for my old consoles?

  • Very long compile on VVIS (Source)

    To be honest, I don't use skip on anything other than hint brushes or brushes I make to help move things in hammer that I don't want in game. I don't know what sort of behaviour you would get if, for example, you applied it to the sides of a brush with 1 normally textured face. Would the textured face have collision, while the rest of the brush wouldn't? Even if you approached it from it's back side? Something worth testing I guess.

    In general though, just use nodraw if you have faces you don't want in your map. The only costly parts of having a face when it comes to compile times are generating the lightmaps during RAD, and any implications it has for the BSP. If it's inside your map and you DON'T want the face to be rendered and DON'T want the face to complicate the BSP, then make it a func_detail with nodraw on it. Even if skip does mean the face is completely ignored, the only additional benefit I can think of would be that it doesn't have to account for it in the collision hull...not something the compile process normally takes more than a couple of seconds on anyway. And hey, if you want your brush not to have that, just make it a func_illusionary.

  • Very long compile on VVIS (Source)

    Diss: If a face is to be culled from your map (e.g. its outside the hull), then it really isn't of much importance whether you use skip or nodraw, or any other texture for that matter. Its gonna get culled whatever you plaster on it What texture you use only matters if the faces are inside your hull. In these cases, using skip would mean the face is culled completely (no collision, no lightmap, no BSP cutting, no nothing), whereas using nodraw would mean the face still exists (still has collision, BSP cutting) but doesn't have any properties related to rendering (no lightmap, and not rendered). For these reasons, you couldn't use skip covered faces as part of your hull, such as was the case in the "fake cubic shaped room behind a func_detail arch" scenariobut you COULD (and should) use nodraw.

    Dradz: Area portals should generally be 1 unit thick and placed in the middle of the window/door's depth. The hint brush should be the same depth as the hole, so that its two hint covered faces are flush with the openings (e.g. if you have an 8 unit thick wall with a door in it, place a 1 unit thick area portal 3 or 4 units in from either side, and place an 8 unit thick hint brush with the hint faces flush with each side).