Corsair Analysis of Memory Performance in BF2

Many people have had questions about how to make improvements to their computers so that Battlefield 2 will run better. Corsair has produced a document that just may answer that question by detailing how performance improves when you upgrade from 1 GByte of ram to 2 GByte for a variety of applications, including BF2. This improvement happens regardless of cpu platform or screen resolution which indicates that for your dollar, it is apt to be a better alternative than an upgraded processor or video card.

Read the document here (pdf): Performance Impact of Changing Memory Size from 1 GByte to 2 GByte

Thanks to Zardon at Driverheaven for posting the link originally.

Official House Band Announcement!

For me, music is an important part of my life. I can still remember being 14, staying over at a buddies house as he plays Motley Crue, Theatre of Pain in a continuous loop. It was the moment my whole musical world opened up. I didnt like it at first, but as the night wore on, it grew on me. Soon after, Motley Crues, Girls Girls Girls came out and I had it the first day. From there my metal head roots were established. I was turned on to bands like Anthrax, Metallica and Suicidal Tendencies and even harder bands like Death Angel.

Slide forward 3 years and Im working at the local Mall music store. Still the same metal head, but once again my music life was about to change. I was the low man on the totem pole, so I didnt get to pick the music we played in the store. That benefit went to the 2 older, openly gay (their words, not mine) guys. Before you start making comments about “my experience” with these 2 guys, remember this post is about the music. They opened up my eyes to bands like Depeche Mode, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, early Electronica Ministry (as opposed to todays Heavier Ministry) and even harder Industrial bands like Nitzer Ebb and Front 242. This metal head was changed once again.

That brings me to where I am today. The fusion of two sounds of music, Metal and Electronica. It is also my inspiration for the First Person Shooter sound of the Gamers Radio Station and my selection of bands like Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Slipknot and Disturbed as core artists. Maybe the station will make more sense now that you understand my musical background.

As you may know, we have been working hard to launch our two podcast shows, Gamers Radio Podcast and Rock Bone Radio. Every show needs a sound, music that invokes an emotion, a feeling of what the show is about. This brings me to the announcement of the Official Gamers Radio house band. For me, this band is a fusion of the two musical genres that influenced my teenager years and ultimately my love of music.

We are proud to announce the Official House Band of Gamers Radio is Ghost In The Machine from Wisconsin. This trio hit upon the soundtrack I had in my mind for our Radio Station and Podcasts. After sending them an email asking if they would be interested in being our Houseband, we knew we had the right band. Not only were these guys glad to work with us, they sent us 20 copies of their last two albums to give aways as part of our Prize Packs for our Podcasts.

So drop by their website, read all about them and check out their music. I know you will be hearing more of it soon!

GITM.net
Music
Info

Hear their Single, Lies on Gamers Radio!

My Thoughts on Battlefield 2: Special Forces

In that same PC Gamer section talking about the upcoming FPS games, they went into more detail on Battlefield 2: Special Forces. This article started making me think about the current state of Battlefield 2. I have seen a lot of people who prefer the city based maps over the larger terrain maps, present company included. There is something about the battles in close quarters with multiple paths of attack that I find more satisfying than the non-city maps.

The focus of the new BF2: Special Forces expansion is going to be close quarters, infantry based battles. There will still be vehicles, but the focus is on the infantry. Additionally, this will be more of a stealth based game. Oh and lots of new toys like Zip lines, grappling hooks and night vision goggles.

The article also mentions the armies will be the British Special Air Services, Navy SEALs and Russian Rebels. Further on in the article it mentions insurgents versus Navy SEALs on one map. Is it me or does this sound a lot like the most popular FPS of all time, CounterStrike? I am not sure if that is good or bad, but I know one thing. After the way BF2 was handled when it was first released, I swore I would not buy the expansion. Having played BF2 and finding the play style I prefer to be city maps, I find myself more interested in this expansion than I initially thought.

Which brings me to my last point. Even though Battlefield 2 has sold over a million copies, is it actually a successful game? I guess that depends on your definition of success. BF42 in my opinion was a highly successful game because it lasted so long. Heck, there are still people playing it, just not as many since BF2 was released. BFV on the other hand was not a very successful game because people quickly became bored with it and moved on. With all the unique features BF2 brings to the table, I really feel it is going to fall somewhere between BF42 and BFV. The only chance of it being played as long as BF42 is a mod as successful as Desert Combat was. Could the Special Forces expansion be that mod? Wouldnt it be ironic if BF2 actually wound up being 2nd to a DICE Canada produced expansion pack for BF2? Think it cant happen? My gut instinct says if it is a bug free game focusing on the tighter aspects of special forces urban combat, it just may surpass BF2. Could it be the game to dethrone CounterStrike? I dont know, but only time will tell.

Interesting Change To CoD2

I received my copy of PC Gamer in the mail today. There was a huge section on the FPS coming out in 2006. One of the things that caught my eye was a change to the health meter in CoD2. Instead of having a health meter, your vision will go wobbly and red will creep over your screen.

From there you are suppose to drop out of the battle, take a 5 second breather and that will recharge you. If you take another hit, you will be dead.

I am not sure if I like this. At least the way it sounds, a person like me who has a hard time playing certain Games due to Vertigo may not be able to play this one. Ill check it out in the demo, but I was always happy with the little health bar. 🙂

Episode 1 – Get Your Question In Now!

Gamers Radio is proud to present their very first Gaming Talk Podcast. For our first show, we have lined up a very special guest. Lars Gustavsson, the Creative Director for DICE Sweden has agreed to do an interview. The topic of discussion will be the process DICE/EA uses to develop and test patches before release. We are also going to discus why a patch was released that had a memory leak given EAs lengthy QA process.

In addition, we want to give you a chance to submit questions for the interview. What would you like to ask DICE concerning the way Battlefield 2 has been patched? We will pick the best questions from the submissions and include them in the interview. If we select your question, you will be eligible to win a Gamers Radio Prize package.

As a tribute to the infamous “memory leak”, we have a special treat for the winner. Besides the few music CDs and Gamers Radio Swag we are going to send your way, Crucial Memory has agreed to send the winner a 1GB kit featuring Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 high-performance memory (http://www.crucial.com/ballistix/). I bet BF2 would run sweet on that! Oh yea, they are also going to include a bunch of cool Ballistix Swag! How cool is that?

Send your question to podcast(at)gamersradio.com. Please include your name(Nic is fine), Location and one question. Make sure you get your questions in quick! We are making our selections this Sunday. Then, keep an eye out for the release of our first episode of Gamers Radio Podcast! I guarantee this is one Podcast you do not want to miss!

Its Official

The Battlefield 2 1.03 patch has been officially delayed. According to EA UK, they could not make the end of August deadline because they want to make sure they get it right. When can we expect it? Your guess is as good as mine as they would not give a tenative date this time around.

Now This Is How To Send Kudos!

Now, this is what Im talking about! Its not every day I rock a womans world just by playing her some music. 😉

Unfreakinbelievable!!! Damn, Ive never in my life run across someone with such similar tastes in music!! Thank you thank you thank you for rockin my world!!! Damn I wish I could get this in my car….Suzi…

Thanks for Listening Suzi. You really made my day. 🙂

Top 13 Tracks As Of August 13, 2005

# Artist Song Title Album
1 Slipknot Duality Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses)
2 Disturbed Liberate Believe
3 Disturbed Stupify The Sickness
4 Disturbed Down With The Sickness The Sickness
5 Slipknot Vermilion Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses)
6 Drowning Pool Bodies Sinner
7 Disturbed Guarded Ten Thousand Fists
8 Disturbed Awaken Believe
9 System of a Down Spiders System of a Down
10 Korn Freak On A Leash Follow The Leader
11 Disturbed Voices The Sickness
12 Slipknot Wait and Bleed Slipknot
13 Slipknot The Nameless Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses)

This list is generated weekly from a ranking based on your votes in the Live365 playlist window.

Ozzy Retiring From Ozzfest

MTV.com is reporting the following:

Its been rumored for months that this summers Ozzfest would be its namesakes last — and on Friday, Ozzy Osbourne announced that he is retiring as the headliner of the annual heavy metal festival. However, the singer is expected to finish this summers tour and plans to make occasional appearances at future Ozzfests.

“After 10 years, the Ozzfests name and reputation have been established,” he said in a statement. “Its time for me to move on and do other things.” His publicist noted in a statement, “Ozzfest will carry on in 2006, however Ozzy will limit his performances to only a few, select cities.”

Atomm Rambles and Rambles

I thought the front page needed an update and I’m too lazy to go search for news, so I decided to write up a little Atomm Nihilo Blog post. I know how much you enjoy my rambling, so here goes. 😛

This week has been unusually good. I can’t go into all the details, but a lot of things have really gone my way lately. Being the optimist I am, I fully expect next week to suck big time.

You may notice we have started a Ranked Battlefield 2 server. I must be honest. I was completely against it. The whole idea of having a FPS act like a freaking MMORPG leaves me feeling a bit empty inside. I use to play MMORPG’s. My Wife threatened my computer on a daily basis. I think marriage counseling was coming soon. My job suffered and I noticed I felt like shit all the time. Damn you Ultima Online. So, I switched to FPS because it’s a hell of a lot easier to walk away from a game of Battlefield, then it is to try to make that next skill point or next level. Ah come on honey, I know it’s 6 am, but if I could call in sick for work, I know I can make an Uber L33t level. To cut off my rambling, let me just say thanks to Jesus for Opening My Eyes. You have shown me the way and it is great to have a full server again, even if it means I have to play 235 more years to make my next rank. My life may go to hell in a handbasket, but at least I won’t be alone. Sorry honey….

If things go as planned, we will have a 32 player map Ranked server and a 16 player map Ranked server next month. Life is good, for the moment. I would also like to thank TCAdmin for the help with the TeamSpeak server. If it wasn’t for them, we would not be able to offer a free TeamSpeak server for anyone to use. They were kind enough to supply us with a 50 player server for anyone to use.

Along with the gaming goodness, we are working on two new podcasts. That’s right, 2!

The first one will be Gamers Radio Podcast. It will feature gaming information and industry interviews. I can’t tell you who our first interview will be with as I am still working out the permission details, but let’s just say it will involve patches 1.01 and 1.02. Cross Your Fingers as this could be good. Along the line of being addicted to video games, we are working on getting a well known Doctor to offer advice to those of you who are struggling with a gaming problem. If we can pull this off, I promise Dr. Kill will help you overcome your Smacktard ways!

Our second Podcast will tie into our 24/7 radio station. As many of you know, we try to do our best to help promote top quality unsigned artists. We have been very lucky to find a lot of great bands. Even luckier, we have recently talked to a few bands about being a part of our second Podcast called Rock Bone Radio. Each show will spotlight an Indie Rock Band, giving a chance to learn more about them and their music. We already have two bands lined up and plan on working to bring you more top notch Indie Artists. We hope you enjoy both shows as much as we will enjoy doing them.

Slightly off topic, I read that the next version of Windows (aka Longhorn) is going to be called Vista. That is a really strange name if you ask me. Or at least thats what I thought until someone explained that it stands for Viruses, Infections, Spyware, Trojans and Adware. Now it all makes perfect since.

Well, I guess that is enough rambling for now. You know, for a lazy ass bastard, it sure took me a long time to write all of this. Maybe I should have just surfed for news to copy and paste.

Frag you on our new server.

– Atomm

Top 13 Tracks As Of August 06, 2005

# Artist Song Title Album
1 Slipknot Duality Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses)
2 Disturbed Down With The Sickness The Sickness
3 System of a Down Spiders System of a Down
4 Korn Freak On A Leash Follow The Leader
5 System of a Down Innervision Steal This Album!
6 Slipknot Vermilion Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses)
7 Disturbed Stupify The Sickness
8 Disturbed Liberate Believe
9 Slipknot Wait and Bleed Slipknot
10 Lollipop Lust Kill Personal Jesus My So Called Knife
11 Disturbed Awaken Believe
12 Slipknot The Nameless Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses)
13 Skillet Savior Collide

This list is generated weekly from a ranking based on your votes in the Live365 playlist window.

More Kudos

I love the station, and I listen to it all the time. Plus, this site is awesome.
– Jake

hello just wanted to say your site is the best.
-Steve from Michigan

I feel like a snapple commercial. You guys have said something nice about us, so we will say something nice about you.

You guys Rock!

Seriously, Its little things like this that make our hard work worth while. Thanks for taking the time to let us know you are enjoying what we do.