Hosed!--Überclok Reaktor Part 2

OK, that does it!

So I've finally gotten a hold of my sleek new PC. But guess what? I was bombarded by a series of problems when I first utilized it (what an entrance!). It was like facing a firing squad of obstacles. From Crossfire issues to game compatibility cases, all have seen their light of day.

For instance, when I fired up my newly installed Call of Duty 4, I was confronted by an obnoxious flicker on the menu. I thought maybe this is just a temporary glitch in my system. I hastily clicked on "New Game" and prepped to indulge myself with glorious eye-candy. As soon as I entered my character's HUD, the environment was flashing ceaselessly. OMG! Alright then, I quit the game and started up Command and Conquer 3 to see whether these artifacts were perpetual. Ah crap! The Earth animation in the game's main menu was FUBAR! All my other games had identical problems.

Later, I found that the flickering disappeared when I disabled Crossfire. When I brought my problem up to a forum, the members instructed me to download and install the latest graphic card drivers. However, my monitor blacked out completely during the installation, forcing me to retry and reboot my PC. This happened multiple times. But upon completing a successful install, my Crossfire was automatically disabled without my consent! Worse still, my graphic card control panel did not even detect that I had Crossfire, or a dual graphic card setup. It merely stated that I had one ‘Primary Adapter’ and one ‘Disabled Adapter’.

But the problems did not stop there. "Okay then," I mumbled to myself. "If my system can't handle new games (actually, it should have! As I configured this system specifically to handle such games!), let me lighten up by playing an instant action round of Counter Strike Condition Zero. After all, CS is a Vista Certified and graphically non-intensive game." This time round, the game crashed and closed as soon as I loaded up a match. After manipulating my graphics options, I soon found that I could only play when the graphics renderer was in software or Direct3D mode, but not in OpenGL. WTH! I’m sure that both OpenGL and Direct3D are both implemented in my display driver!

I did not expect my system to run Crysis at mind-bending frame rates. I did not expect Crossfire to render all games impeccably. But I did expect my system to run Counter Strike flawlessly.

Now, I’m through with attempting to solve my problems. I’ve spent 2 full days but it has all come down to nothing… NOTHING! So today, I’ve sent my system back to the store for 'servicing'. Hopefully the technicians will not take too long a length of time. As many of you may know, I’ve already waited an agonizing long, long time for my new computer.

The problems may be caused by a malicious file, or a faulty hardware device, or Microsoft Vista, or perhaps even due to my inexperience with the new operating system. Seriously, I have no idea. I’m pissed, totally pissed. I’ll see what the store can do, but till then, please excuse me while I go throw a tantrum and shriek for goodness’ sake.



Ah well… More waiting for me I guess,
T’ang


(Image from http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2326206,00.asp)

WHY SO SЭRIOUS? - A Quick Review of The Dark Knight

precisely...

"Let's put a smile on that face!" - The Joker

Indeed he will! Oh my... I am absolutely dumbstruck. It was bloody brilliant! And with a 94% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, I'm not surprised. I figured that spoilers are not worth mentioning here, as it is crucial that you reveal the movie's magnificent plot by yourself. Worries aside, let me begin.

The best part of the film is the Joker himself. It seems like the Joker, not Batman, is the central character in the film. He really is a devious, lunatic and crafty freak! His pranks and jokes are so very well conceived. His speeches are particularly eloquent. So persuasive that it even corrupted Gotham City's White Knight. Like he personally said, he is certainly the better class of criminal that the city deserves. It's a pity that Heath Ledger's longer here today. What a waste...

The cast for the movie was quite remarkable. With William Fichtner making a short scene in the prologue. There's also this Singaporean, Chin Han, who stars as a Honkie baddie and appears on-screen for a considerable length of time.

Definitely a must-watch for movie buffs. A record setting $66.4 million opening can't be wrong! I feel that The Dark Knight will be, if not, be one of the strongest contenders for the film of the year. Given so, it has my seal of approval and a 5/5 rating.

It's all... part of the plan,
T'ang


(Image from Rotten Tomatoes)

Überclok Reaktor

edit 19 July: Apparently, the technicians over at my pc store have at last begun assembling my pc. However, at 1300 hours, GMT -08:00 Pacific Time, my sales representative phoned me and blurted out something I didn't want to hear. He said in a Chinaman accent,"Hi, is this Felix? Our techs have begun building your pc. But your sound card isn't gonna fit into your motherboard. Since the sound card has to be installed into a PCI slot, I'm afraid that there's gonna be heat problems." (I have dual double slot graphics cards that require a slot beside each card to be free for sufficient airflow - I found this out later) Argghh! Darn, I've always wanted a dedicated add-on sound card to avoid crappy on-board audio. But it seems I don't have a choice since I insist on having Crossfire. In fact, my motherboard has already got what it seems an add-on sound card, the SupremeFX II. But there's nothing to cheer about. It's merely a riser card for the sound output ports as Asus couldn't manage to cram them onto the board's PCB itself. So, it's plainly still crappy on-board audio :(

looks can be deceiving

(Image from http://www.sweclockers.com/imagebank/200803/AsusRampageFormu001.jpg)

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edit 18 July: Again, I'm changing a few components. I'm through with waiting for my Gigabyte motherboard to be available again. The descripition says that it will be "In Stock Soon" as "This product is currently in transit from a supplier. Expect 2 to 5 days processing time when you order it." It seems like more like 2 to 5 weeks! More stock just never comes! Anyway, I'm moving back to my original plan to get an Asus motherboard (Bryan is highly supportive of this change). This time round, it's an Asus Rampage Formula with the same Intel X48 chipset as the Gigabyte. You may be thinking that I should get a DDR3 motherboard and DDR3 RAM to compliment it as over the months, their prices have been gradually plumeting. But I feel that real world performance gains are too diminutive to merit an upgrade. Also, my graphic cards, the ATI HD 4870s, will be reverted back to HIS from Diamond. The HIS models have become available again after my long and futile wait for my Gigabyte motherboard. Fingers crossed, this will be my final configuration :)

And Amos, this space is for you. In the tagboard, I mentioned about adding another 8800GT. Yes, this is argubly the best performance per dollar setup. For roughly 299 US for both of them, you can get the equivalent, or even exceed the performance of a GTX 280. Which is the most formidable single GPU card out there right now. I know that you have an Intel X38 motherboard, so this isn't possible. Well, in that case, your only option is go for a single Nvida or ATI card, or ATI's Crossfire. Your single 8800GT is still good enough though.

(benchmarks courtesy of anandtech)

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edit 8th July: Wow! Great find there, Amos! You spotted something that I myself overlooked when I uploaded the WIC picture. You do keep a sharp eye, ha! For those of you who still do not know what went wrong, the word "trial" is misspelled "trail" in the graphic. I suppose banner designers should use spell-check and re-read their sentences before posting the banners up, lol. Plus, I left out my monitor and speakers (I purhased them separately from the computer) when I originally posted the article. The manufacturer of my ATI video cards has also been changed due to availability issues. It has since been updated.

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That's it!

After seemingly endless delays, my new rig has finally been acquired. It won't be rated among those "Extreme Editions" though. But at least it gets the job (gaming) done. It will be ready in a week or two.

Now for some comments on my new build.

Surprisingly, I have defected to ATI from Nvidia for my video card, or more specifically, video cards choice. Mostly due to the apparent bang for the buck (BftB) advantage ATI has over Nvidia. See, what I picture Nvidia is a company with an endless supply of resources that relentlessly pumps in raw horsepower into their graphic cards. If you take a glimpse at the number of transistors and physical size of the GTX 280, you'll know what I mean! Whilst ATI is a company with notably less resources that aims to keep their graphic cards slim and at the same time, beefy enough for the mainstream market. It seems that ATI has made the right move this time round, targeting the mid range rather than the enthusiast level. With the unparalleled success of ATI's 4800 series, ATI has gone for a little dip in the high end level with its upcoming dual GPU 4870 X2. It will blatantly target the GTX 280 and the 9800GX2 for supremacy. The 4800 series has even forced Nvidia to push their GTX prices lower. But this is a particularly tough pill to swallow, due to the massive number of transistors they feature.

"Darn!" ATI's performing better than expected! - featuring Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia

Also, for a dual GPU setup, I have no choice but to get an Nvidia motherboard chipset if I want SLI. While for ATI's CrossfireX, I have the option of getting an Intel or AMD one. According to various forum entries, I know that the Intels are a tad more stable than the Nvidia models. Plus, with recent news that Nvidia's stock taking a plunge due to their faulty chips, I have gradually lost trust in the company. Anyway, it's great to have you back in the game, ATI!

For my sound card, I have picked an Asus model over a Creative one. Why? It's simple. Creative X-Fi drivers just has a thing or two against Microsoft Vista. They are highly problematic when installed together. But what about EAX? I'm glad to say that Asus has the solution. Their Xonar DX model has the capability to emulate EAX 5.0. Neat huh. Though it will seldom perform as well as the original X-Fi. (the differences will be negligible anyway)

A free copy of the game, World in Conflict, goes along with my Intel quad core. There's also a 10 day trail copy of the game for a friend. Any takers? Haha.

(Again, take note of the typographical error)

My Vista will be in a 32bit flavour. I know of the 4GB RAM limit and all, but I fear for compatibility issues when I take the leap to 64bit. And err, forget about Windows 7. It's out of my league at the moment.

Aright then, this is what most of you will be looking for: the final components. Here goes...

CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz 12MB cache
CPU Heatsink
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink
Motherboard
Asus Rampage Formula Motherboard (Intel X48 chipset)
RAM
Corsair XMS2 Dominator TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15 (with fan)
Video Card
(x2) HIS Radeon HD 4870 in CrossfireX
Enclosure
Antec P182 Black
PSU
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad 750W
OS
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 32BIT
HDD
Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB
Optical Drive
Samsung SH-S223F 22x
Sound Card
Asus SupremeFX II
Speakers
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 digital
Monitor
Dell 2407WFP-HC 24 inch widescreen

Still won't be able to play Crysis at 1920x1200 with 4x AA, 8x AF and details pushed to the max with this config, I guess. I'll see to that when I get ahold of it.

At long last, finally,
T'ang


(Jen-Hsun Huang image from http://www.tgdaily.com/index.php. WIC image fromhttp://www.ncix.com/go-intel-wic)

A Review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I watched the film yesterday with a couple of friends. Well, it's an okay movie, with nothing to write home about. Honestly, I didn't enjoy the film (I despise the titular character in the first place).

The movie encircles round a predictable, "end-of-world" plot. Where an evil elf wants to awake a long dormant army to wipe out humanity. And the red devil arrives just in time to save the day. The film features a panoply of mythical creatures and lovely eye-candy, while the fighting scenes are well-conceived with lots of martial arts and firepower (gotta love the mega-revolver). However, the ending had me questioning: why didn't the elf heroine do that earlier? I'll leave that for you to find out yourself. Plus, we may even get to see two Hellboy juniors in the next installment. And yes, the couple got busy.

Simply put, fans of the character certainly won't be let down by this sequel. But the bland storyline has left me wanting for more.

Oh yeah, one more thing. The young Hellboy featured in the opening of the movie is HIDEOUS! urgghh...

T'ang

(image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy_II:_The_Golden_Army)

This Is Where Science Defeats Belief

I think not...

It is generally accepted by audiophiles that vinyls sound better than CDs. However, science has proven them wrong.

Well, through a certain point of view.

If one deems "sounding better" as music that most accurately replicates the original recording, then, sorry to say audiophiles, but CDs does the job better. Before you audiophiles rant and rave, let me give a brief explanation to how vinyls work. Data is stored in the vinyl through grooves that are engraved by a needle. For the "most accurate" sonic experience, the needle that reads the record has to be the exact same shape as the needle that has engraved the grooves. This, however, is sensibly not probable. CDs, on the other hand, encodes the data mathematically. This almost gives an exact replica of the original recording. Therefore, it is safe to say that CDs should be rightfully prized by discerning audiophiles.

Others say that vinyls give a "warmer and fuller sound". However, this claim is probably due to an artifact of harmonic distortion and signal compression. See, what the turntable needle does is that it picks up vibrations of the spinning vinyl and turns them into what I call, "extra notes" in the tune. Then, in this case, the defects are a virtue.

So which is better? CDs or traditional records? Honestly, not many of us have golden and acoustically tuned ears. The minuscule differences between them can't even be picked up by average ears. After all, it all boils down to personal preference. Not to mention the psychological effects that clouds our final decision. If audiophiles believe that CDs can never reach the standards of vinyls, then, to them, this discovery would mean nothing.

Besides, I still prefer MP3s :P
T'ang


(With references from http://www.popsci.com/entertainment-gaming/article/2008-07/are-records-really-better. Image from http://recordbrother.typepad.com/imagesilike/images/big_vinyl_rules_1.jpg)

Notes From The Lab

I was reading a couple of magazines from my school library the other day, and this was what caught my eye:


Cruelty-Free Bacon
Scientists in the Netherlands have grown minced pork in a dish by adding water, glucose and amino acids to pig stem cells. Expect artificial ground meat by 2012 and bacon within the decade. (Rena Marie Pacella, from Popular Science)


What?! We can now grow meat? This is something unheard of! Darn, we are messing with mother nature big-time I assure you. I presume that in the next 5 years or so, we can be expecting something called "home-grown meat" lying in the "Instant Aisle" of a grocery store. Inside the pack will include all the necessary nutrients, conditions and space for harvesting your very own slice of meat. On the 'Instructions' at the back of the packaging, it'll simply read, "Just add water!" I guess animals can prep for a sigh of relief.

Another note, the US military have a new weapon at their disposal (what a surprise indeed) - a humongous flying laser turret. It is a laser cannon built into a C-130 Hercules. It uses a mixture of iodine and oxygen to produce a pernicious beam of light. After the beam has been readied, make sure nothing other than the intended target gets in its way. For everything in its path will be sizzled and obliterated within seconds. My sympathies, birds. To the pilots in the plane, fret not. The beam of laser itself isn't hot, and is only capable of heating things up.

A mean little sucker huh

If you're interested, feel free to read more on this here and here.

Well, that's it for another weird day at the office. Your comments are greatly appreciated.

T'ang

(image from http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2008-03/how-it-works-airborne-laser-cannon)

The Way It’s Meant to Be Heard: A Review of the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro

I was supposed to leave this review for later, perhaps after my exams. However, I just can’t help it! My pleasurable experience with my new earpieces has forced me to blurt this out right now. In short, it truly has been a lovely start for my online shopping trend.

The payment and selection process was easy enough that’s for sure. I just had to pick a seller with my product and one which offered the lowest price. Of course, I can’t trust the seller just because his price is the lowest. You may never know if the product is an imitation model from China. So, I had to look at the feedback given by previous buyers. I was flabbergasted. It was a grand total of 47,900+ ratings and 99.7% of them were highly positive. Wow! The description of “Power Seller” given by eBay is spot on! The seller, Yogi Computers, gained my trust in a matter of seconds. The next few steps couldn't be simpler: just pay the fees via Paypal and an email confirming payment and shipment is sent almost instantaneously.

The shipping cost was certainly not cheap (US$26.99 to be exact). However, I have none but one choice: I had to use United States Postal Service’s (USPS) Express Mail International shipping. This is USPS’ fastest shipping method. It seems a little pricey for a product weighing in at merely a few hundred grams though. Nevertheless, the package’s ETA was within 3-5 days and it had to be sent from Pennsylvania all the way to Burnaby, BC (that’s more than the entire width of North America). The estimation was dead right. Within 3 short days, I came across a note from the post service. It said an attempt to send me a parcel has been in vain, and recommended me that I pick the parcel up myself at a post office nearby. And so I did.

The packaging itself was aesthetically pleasing. A matt blue and white paper bag with a quality leaflet attached to its side indicating all the necessary postage details. Also, I noticed that the package made a stop at JFK airport, and then Jamaica before arriving at its intended destination.

Upon opening the bag, I was immediately confronted with a stench of foul smelling gas. It smelt like the odor found within plane cargo (of course!). And there you have it, the very box housing my earphones.


After reading numerous articles on reviews of these earphones, I couldn't wait to try them for myself. However a ridiculous impediment stood in may way: the hard plastic box was a hassle to open. The plastic was so reluctant to break itself apart. I had to resort to brute force ripping with a set of DIY tools! By the time the box finally gave way, I ended up with blister-ridden fingers. Darn, this box could have even withstood a ton of C4 explosives! I guess quality products go hand in hand with quality packaging.

The box neatly housed a bag of ear tip sleeves; a ear-junk cleaning tool (LOL); a sound volume attenuator; a chic and elegant looking metallic case; a ¼ inch adapter jack; and of course, the earphones themselves. I had a fair bit of time sampling the myriad of sleeves and adjusting the reinforced cables so that it loops round my ears securely. The intended method of wearing these ‘phones aren’t the normal one of simply letting the cables dangle from your ears. These required the cable to be wrapped round the back of your ear, perhaps to attain a more secure fit and to minimize the microphonic effects (cable thumping noises).



Without a moment to lose, I seized my iPod and booted it up. I first song that I played was Jay Chou’s 发如雪 (hair like snow). To me, this is the perfect song to test my new earphones. It starts of with a clear and sparkly drizzling sound and later climaxes to produce a deep bassy sound. Besides, the song is encoded in Apple Lossless. To make a long story short, the sound was absolutely stellar! The detail of the Super.fi 5 Pros outstripped my Sennheiser CX300 by a mile! Bass reproduction was deep and tight. When directly compared to my Sennheisers, the bass was clearly less muffled and muddy. The midrange was also proficiently controlled too. In other words, the lows, mids and highs were flawlessly balanced. It was a definite upgrade for my now aging Sennheisers. As expected, the upgrade in sound quality was certainly not as radical as moving up from the despicable pair of iPod pack-ins to my Sennheisers. But the stepping up from my CX300 was a profound difference nonetheless. With twin balanced armatures per earpiece, the reason for this can’t be too hard to comprehend I guess!

Additionally, the ear loops worked exactly as advertised. No matter how hard I shook my head, they kept the earpieces from falling off. The earpieces go deep into my ear canals, but never felt overly intrusive.

So at long last, after agonizing lengths of earphone testing in a store over in Singapore, I have finally found the perfect model that satisfied my cravings perfectly. As I recall, I have tried various models from Shure and Etymotic, but none them seemed to entice me. With above average comfort levels, superb sonics and a relatively low price tag, the Ultimate Ears Super.fi Pro 5 is one earphone which justly lives up to its name!

The complete package

"The Ultimate in Super Fidelity", that is what it stands for.
T’ang