The Recycle Bin

Nice article at ExtremeTech about SLI and ATI’s “CrossFire.”

A lot changed during the two years since I last upgraded my PC. I expected the chip sockets to be different, but poor AGP interfaces are no more? I was so happy to finally get an AGP 8x video card, only to see it become a dinosaur so soon? So here are some new terms I learned during my current upgrading process:

SLI � This one seems like some sort of video card developer�s wet dream. Get this. You buy a motherboard that is capable of running two fan screaming and heat producing video cards that are supposed to be equivalent to the current best single video card. This is an all NVidia, all the time model, although ATI recently announced their own double-card solution. In fairness, the idea is that if you own a 6600 NVidia card, instead of spending $600 for a 7800 card, you purchase another 6600 at $170 (or so) and get the same performance. In theory. I�m an ATI-man, so I was not interested in any SLI solution.

SATA � This is a new interface for hard drives and I guess other devices that is supposed to transfer data faster than the old-fashioned �EIDE� interface. Oh wait a minute, no it really doesn�t transfer faster right now with current technology. And there is SATA 150 and SATA II already, so make sure your drives match the motherboard you�re getting.

PCI Express � AGP is dead, long live the new King! There are a couple of PCI Express variants (for what devices I do NOT know), but the one that is replacing the AGP standard is PCI Express 16x. I guess this is supposed to be faster (maybe?) but with current technology there doesn�t seem to be a whole lot of difference between the interfaces.

How you progress down an upgrade path will be determined by which of the above is on the new motherboard. Since I currently own a nice ATI 9800 Pro that runs everything thrown at it, it was a painful decision to keep that in the �old� box and buy a new ATI X800 XL video card. No sense in upgrading if you can�t get the new tech, and PCI Express is where it�s at these days.

Hard drive choice is a bit more complicated because you can run SATA and EIDE drives on the same motherboard. But I wanted one of the new Maxtor 300 GB 16MB buffer SATA II drives, so that�s what I�ll get. I will probably move my �old� Maxtor 200GB EIDE drive over for storage and keep the even older 160 GB Western Digital Drive in the old box.

In part three I discuss my free game maximization strategy�

Well, I gave it the old college try; I attempted to not buy NCAA 2006 right out of the gate. I suppose that I did actually manage not to pre-order the game; that should count for something. This is the first time that I have not placed a pre-order for this game; yep, first time that has ever happened in the history of EA’s wonderful little franchise.

I just placed an order thanks to EBGames.com and their free two day shipping coupon. Deep down inside I think I understood that a certain part of me just had to *have* the game, but I am still amazed that I made it this long.

Now to actually find time to play the darn thing …

I never really followed hockey, except for the occasional Sports Center highlight and a videogame here and there. At any rate, I do not really give a flying crap that players and owners cannot figure out how to get their heads out of their collective ass. Players and owners makes so much freaking money that it is really hard to feel sorry for either side; Lord only knows why it had to come to throwing away a whole season. It is just hard to understand strikes and lockouts in professional sports. I guess I am just a jealous little shit.

Apparently Jeremy Roenick thinks we should all go take a dump. Unfortunately for Jeremy or anyone else that thinks fringe fans – people like myself that just love sports – will bother to tune into hockey when it eventually resurfaces may be in for a big surprise. Who does Jeremy thinks pays for the privilege of playing professional sports?

“If people are going to sit and chastise pro athletes for being cocky, they need to look at one thing and that’s the deal we’re going to be signing in about three weeks … Pro athletes are not cocky. Pro athletes care about the game. Everybody out there who calls us spoiled because we play a game, they can kiss my ass.”

“I will say personally, to everybody who calls us spoiled, you guys are just jealous,” Roenick said. [Just Google for a source.]

Me jealous of the life of a professional athlete? No thank you.

I do not know Jeremy, but I can only assume he is a first class asshole. Whatever; Jeremy does not what me back, so I will not bother to watch (if I can actually find hockey on TV at some point this year). Does the NHL even have a TV contract now that ESPN pulled out?

Oh yeah; I almost forgot. On ESPN radio this morning I heard that part of the new CBA would expand the number of playoff teams by 4. So pretty much any Tom, Dick, and Harry team will make a playoff run, but will anyone give a flying f’?

Expectations were high when Juan Pablo Montoya moved to McLaren from Williams over the winter, and I’ve always like the way JPM races, so I was pleased to watch a perfect drive at todays British GP that brought him his first win for McLaren. Three things have worked against Montoya in 2005. The first is the switch; you’re definately at a disadvantage in F1 if the driver and his race engineer are early in their relationship and have not developed their “ways or working”. The second, I believe, is that Montoya’s desired car setup is not similar to most other F1 drivers and certainly not the kind of car that Raikkonen, Coulthard or Hakkinen liked to drive. Watch Montoya enter a corner with a medium to hard braking zone and you’ll see the car rotate very quickly when he cranks the wheel. Race teams these days are slaves to their data acqusition, and I don’t think you can underestimate the diffuculty that drivers on new teams face in convincing the engineers to move outside established setup parameters (as an aside, I think Jacques Villeneuave had the same trouble both with Williams and with Sauber when he first arrived). The third problem for Montoya was “Tennisgate”; the broken shoulder caused either by stepping on a tennis ball or taking a spill on a motocross bike (you decide). In any case, Adrian Newey has certainly penned another quick car, and Mercedes is back on their game in terms of horsepower (reliability I’m not so sure of…Kimi needed ANOTHER engine change?!?). McLaren looks like it will have two cars able to take on Alonso’s Renault each weekend, and that should provide continued entertainment.

By the way, I didnt watch this morning’s GP2 race, which preceded the British GP broadcast on SpeedTV, but the Sunday GP2 race from Magny Cours was racing at its best. Young lions racing wheel to wheel (or wheel against wheel) in cars that slide around is good stuff.

Every couple of years or so, I embark on a wonderful journey to learn about the marvels of modern PC technology. This experience usually begins when something on my computer breaks, isn�t working correctly, or a game that I want to get won�t run at optimal levels with my hardware.

Yes friends, it�s time for a computer upgrade!

My computer has this annoying problem that it won�t always turn on after I turn it off. Sometimes it will work and other times I need to unplug the power cord, wait a few minute, plug the power cord back in, and then try to start it. I suspected that the power supply is slowly ending its life or couldn’t handle the current load. So my initial purchase was an Antec TruePower 2.0 550 Watt power supply to replace my 300W Antec PSU. My PC was underpowered when I did my last upgrade, so I knew I�d eventually have to do this replacement.

Then I started thinking � which we all know is a dangerous thing. Why not upgrade my AMD 2700+ machine while I�m at it? I�m a big fan of Mwave and Newegg for computer hardware purchases. Both are reliable and with reasonably fast order processing and shipping. And their prices are very good. I like Mwave�s motherboard/CPU combinations and they�ve been providing my motherboards for roughly ten years.

I decided to purchase an AMD Athlon 64 4000+ �939� socket motherboard. There are all sorts of new sockets for CPUs available these days since I made my last purchase. The sockets are how the CPU connects to the motherboard and since I knew nothing about the 939 motherboards, a little research was in order.

Let me first point out that doing an individual upgrade and piecing together parts probably is not the cheapest way to go. The individual components I purchase are generally going to be more expensive when everything is added up and compared to how much Dell would charge me for the same thing. I just enjoy making each individual choice and customizing my PC as much as possible.

I am a big fan of Asus motherboards. There are plenty of other fine motherboard vendors out there, but I know that I can rely on Asus boards, so that�s all I�ve purchased over the years. So here�s where the fun began. I needed to choose from six different Asus 939 socket motherboard variations.

And learn about something called �SLI.� And nForce 4 and Via motherboard bios. And �PCI express.� Read what I learned in part 2!

When I first heard the Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Maps” I thought that Chrissy Hine and the Pretenders made a comeback single. I finally purchased “Fever to Tell” yesterday and the album is, yes, very derivative, but it is an excellent disc. I don’t quite see the “Punk” label placed on this band (even after seeing their live concert DVD), but if you’re a fan of 80s New Wave music, this is a must have collection of songs.

I listened to “Fever to Tell” after forcing myself through eight tracks of the White Stripes new album “Get Behind Me Satan.” Sorry, but I am not hearing the genius I’ve been reading about on the internet. I’ll eventually force myself to listen to the whole CD, but with Green Day and now the YYYs, my dance card is full.

My Weber LP grill arrived yesterday. I must say that other than the slight delay, the overall experience was quite painless. The shipping company, Eagle Global Logistics, called Tuesday evening to schedule a delivery from Houston. I called Wednesday morning around 9:00 AM, they had a truck headed to College Station that afternoon, and the grill was in my garage by 12:30 PM CT.

Not bad for one cent shipping!

Assembly is a breeze so far. I say “so far” because the 100+ degree temperatures in my garage are the biggest obstacle at the moment. I’m at the final two steps after 40 minutes assembling the grill. Everything is easy to understand and Weber even includes a couple of wrenches for use tightening various nuts and bolts. I’ll finish the assembly after I run Thursday’s IOSBL (our online league) OOTP simulation.

I plan to hit the grill hard this weekend. First up – New York Strip Steak with Roasted Garlic Butter. Mmmmm. Steak. Butter.

You can watch all of the performances on demand from AOL. Only problem is that you’ll have to sit through an advertisement each song, but some of the performances are worth the wait.

Furthering my belief that college signing day is really for the birds, Georgia is dropping recruits left and right.

“Two more Georgia football recruits will not be able to enroll this fall for academic reasons, further eroding coach Mark Richt’s highly touted recruiting class.

Corey Moon and Jamar Bryant are the fourth and fifth of Richt’s 19 signees whose academics prevent them from being on the team. Another, safety Antavious Coates, injured a knee last month and is sidelined for the entire season.” [Source: Yahoo! Sports]

Georgia’s class should still be fairly stout, but you really have to wait 2-3 years to see how the classes actually turn out.

…the Reserve games! We checked out the Reserve game between the Crew and the United this morning at the Crew’s training facility in Obetz, Ohio (about 12 minutes from my house). What a fun experience! First off, it’s free (right within my budget). Secondly, although there are a few bleachers, you can bring your own chairs, and set up about 10 feet off of the sideline – just like for my son’s travel games. Talk about feeling close to the action! We were looking straight at the penalty area, and I saw Adu hit a PK, and also serve a corner from about 15′ from where we were sitting. It was surprising to hear the “thwack” of the ball off of the players’ feet and heads, and it was also interesting to hear all of the chatter that takes place on the field (only two curse words, too!). And, just because it was a Reserve game, doesn’t mean the we didn’t know the players. We knew all but about 3 Crew players, and from the United, I knew Troy Perkins, Jamil Walker, and of course, Freddy Adu.

That’s not all… about 20 yards behind us, in another practice field, the Crew players from the night before were doing some running. Szetela was also doing some shooting drills, and my kids even went over and gathered some of his stray shots! Adu, who is good friends with Szetela, came over during the second half and practiced with Szetela. Plus, the players were walking all around us going over to the Crew bench, and back to the practice field. I will make this observation, soccer players are very lean. None of the guys that look fairly big on TV (Szetela, Frazer, Marshall, Buddle), were cut like most professional athletes. The only “built” guy was John Wolyniec, whom the Crew recently acquired. Don’t get me wrong – they’re in great shape, but I expected someone like Frazer to have a little more muscle mass. It just surprised me a bit…

All in all, it was a neat experience for us and the kids. From watching the game up close, to interacting a bit with the Crew mainstays, we all had a great time, for no charge whatsoever! The only downer was that the Reserves suck as bad as the main club, losing 4-1.

I finally purchased and listened to Green Day’s “American Idiot.” I was nearly brought to tears listening to Jesus of Suburbia. What an awesome collection of songs! The only other album that had a similar emotional impact in the post-2000 music era was the White Stripes “Elephant” and that album brought me back to the music scene that I thought was dead and gone. Who knew Green Day had such an effort in them? Seems they aged a bit and became fine wine. One of the few albums where there really isnt a bad song on the disc.

I hope there’s a boxed DVD set of Live 8 available soon. Everyone is chatting about the performances and I didn’t get to see any of it.

Yesterday, after a process of several months, I finally closed on my grandmother’s house. My grandmother passed away a little over two years ago, and while I do not want to go into all the family details, it has been a heck of a process to finally get the house. As of yesterday at 10AM, I am now the owner of two mortgages.

The plan is to start renovations next week; we have a 120-day contract with our construction/remodeling company. Hopefully we can move into sometime in late October or early November. Of course that means we have to time the sale of our current house, which is going to be a not so fun proposition.

The good news is that the house stays in the family – it was built (I think) by my great grandfather in 1902. The house is larger than my current house, and will have great opportunities for entertainment, which my current house certainly does not provide. We are also going to get a deck, a fenced in back yard for the kids (and a much wanted dog), and a garage apartment among other things. The house is a Columbus, GA historic park district casually called Lakebottom. The historic part is another story, but the park is only .3 miles from the house, which is going to be wonderful for the kids. I played there when I was a kid, and now my kids get to experience the same thrills and spills of the neighborhood park.

The bad news, besides needing a lot (and I do mean a lot) of money to fix up the house, is that the garage apartment is in shambles – wood rot, old termite damage, the whole nine yards. I want to keep the garage apartment because it increases the value of the house, and I lived in the upstairs apartment when I was in college. The builders practically have to rebuild the whole damn thing; about 25 percent of it is gone right now, which is also another story for another day. This little project is completely out of pocket, which means pretty soon I will no longer have money in said pocket. Major ouch, and it will certainly cut down on any sort of gaming budget that I think I may have for the next few months.

The good news is that I now own my grandmother’s house. Tonya and I decided that since we are spending so much money to restore the garage apartment that we should somehow get some use out of the damn thing. We are going to convert the bottom area into a game room. Hello pool table and refrigerator full of beer (the beer part was actually Tonya’s idea, bless her).

I just figured I would write/share a little, since I cannot sleep (5AM Saturday morning) – worrying about that second mortgage I guess. Plus this explains why I have not had any free time for gaming – I have been spending most of my free time over at my grandmother’s house sorting out 100+ years of stuff.

Shaun Sullivan is reporting in the PureSim forum that he signed a deal with a publisher. Just who this publisher is remains a mystery since he’s not splilling the beans. As a footnote, let’s all remember that PureSim had a publishing deal with another group before this current arrangement, so no popping the corks quite yet. That deal lasted about as long as a New York minute.

I just noticed that Grey Dog Software posted some new screen shots of its upcoming college football game. So far so good, but we’ll have to see if the code works as pretty as the pictures look.