DExUS

4th UAC almost here?

Some time did already pass after I spoke about UAC4. So here are news and updates.

I did told you last time that the status is about 85% finished. Current status is about 87% , so there was almost no progress in the last two months. And why is that?

All the main major stuff is already done, detection systems are in place and working, new definition file layout and system, server – client communication. Though we miss one vital part , which is screenshot system. For testing  purposes currently UAC4 uses the same system as UAC3 which has the black/gray screen issue (BSI).

I can’t wait any longer to release UAC4, I already feel the need for several features that UAC3 is missing and UAC4 will have so we can ban cheaters forever and deliver much better detection rate. That is why I decided to continue even with the BSI. The code will be open to changes so after we will have the solution it can be added anytime.

Anyways, the new UAC4 will support games for DX9 at first  SWAT4 after that COD2 and COD4 etc… and we will add support for new games once the def file for them is finished.

So yes.. we are back on track of development!

Battlefield3 Multiplayer experience

Battlefield3 is out for few days now, and trust me the article below is bound just to single player.

The multiplayer is something almost epic, very nice and detailed maps, superb sound, and under my opinion even better graphics than in the singleplayer.
Multiplayer of BF3 is in many ways superrior to any previous battlefield multiplayer game. I did not expect such good game out of it. Now I don’t want to review the multiplayer here because that is task for several hours and I do suggest to look on other sites for the full reviews.

For those who did not buy the game yet, here is a link where they sell CD key for under 20€ (game is downloaded from origin)

http://cdkeysmarket.com/battlefield-3-cd-key-buy

enjoy!

Battlefield3 single player, is it any good?

I got the chance to see my self the single player campaign of PC version of this game for about hour and half.

So I think I really have the full picture about it now.

First of all the taste of console was everywhere “press enter to start” at main screen was just a leftover from console version and their longer loadings. However the looks of the game are way to much superior to any console version since the consoles have 6year old VGA’s in them and low RAM and yes there is a need for new box and station since the games are degraded due to outdated hardware in the consoles.

Enough about outdated hardware and let’s talk about the game, I am happy that the game did run much more faster than the BETA. With ULTRA settings I was able to enjoy all the effects with playable 30-50 fps, that is very positive. Though I was shocked that the cut scenes were done with pre rendered vids that do not look that well, it is easy to determine when do you look at pre rendered video since once you enable FPS display you see 200FPS in the cut scene and 40 in-game, but what ever it’s not a big deal.

Thing I noticed at first was the sound which is lovely. I doubt there is any other game that has so stunning and well done sound effects. The graphics, how can I put this … did not met my expectations. They are awesome, but there are so many “empty”  looking spaces, there are other AAA game titles that have more emptiness than BF3 but somehow it just did not felt right. Even the buildings that were “off scene” were looking super mega poor, once again I know that that’s not the main point but I did expect more. Now there are moments of where you go WOW, very nice done scenes with lots of action and stunning graphics, yes I did like those. Don’t know if it’s just the VGA drivers or something but the lighting was not as great as shown in the trailers.

The story seems to be ok with a bit of mystery but it felt like they took the most very good idea from COD Black Ops and used it their way, you will see what I mean once you play the game in first 5 minutes of game-play

So far so good so it seems, until now I did wrote almost only about the good things and now the bad things …

Game-play, oh good god, every single opponent that I met can be killed with one single shot from pistol and if you shoot with machine-gun they need 3-5 shots to get killed, I mean WTF! At first I thought that it is due to NORMAL difficulty, but it was all the same on HARD setting. Opponents are mega ultra stupid most of the time, just like you expect from any other FPS game, in normal setting there is almost no way to die even if you play RAMBO style, however the opponents are deadly, if you get to near them or they manage to get near to you, you can expect finding your self in a pool of blood with knife in your neck.

Progress through the levels poses almost no challenge (at least for me), it’s just strait forward, go there, kill that and get back etc… everything is guided so you can experience the game just like you would an action movie.

Final thoughts : I do beleave that this is AAA game that looks awesome and has pretty good ingame moments, however so were and will be the other FPS titles within their single player campaigns, the true power of this game will be in the multiplayer. I will get back to you with report about multi player in comming days.

Battlefield3 BETA, does it suck?

Nowdays everyone around gaming talks about the Battlefield3, and I was excited as well so once the BETA was out I did download it 1 minute after it became available.

After download which was very fast and suggests that EA was ready for the load, the testing had begun.

First of all the installation needed Origin, which is EA alternative to STEAM… no big deal but another client?  Ok , let’s say that this is not a big deal for most of the players, but then you need to install browser plug-in in order to access features on http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/  so you can join server via web browser… weird enough but I see what is their aim. Since people use facebook or google+ or any other social network it is only logical that EA thought that the interface and look of  BF battlelog will appeal to the users.

Ok ok, that is not important, everyone want’s to know if the game is any good.

So I did get to start the game and join the server super fast without issues, again sign that EA was ready for the load of players. That’s all good but the game started in window, that was odd. Fine, re-size to full screen was super fast, probably due to new engine. I did set the game to ULTRA settings and tried. Was not that bad, 25-32 FPS , it is playable but not smooth, when disabled AA and filtering lowered to 4x, everything went 30-50fps. (using : i7 2600, 8GB RAM, Radeon HD5850).

First thing I did notice was inability to set any options while dead, so if you want to setup button layout, graphics or anything else, you have to LIVE ingame, if you get killed while changing the settings the menu will close, canceling your changes, great…. If you want to correctly exit the game, again you must be alive to do so or else there is only ALT+F4 option which works (thanks god).

The graphics are a bit odd for my taste but I got use to it  in about 30 min of game-play. Ability to customize the guns and the menu system is not much confusing but certainly different as it was at BF BC2. I am use to hardcore mode so the guns did feal a bit weak for my taste but that’s fine. But after just few minutes of play I noticed so many bugs that are just absurd for game that has to be on the shelves next month. Sure it is BETA, but it did sound like PRE ALPHA to me. White flickering of whole screen, clipping problems, I did walk under the map for a while, walking with exploded weapons that extend several meters above the players body etc. Even the chat edit window was super odd.

Generaly I am not happy what I did saw, however there are some super cool featuers that are done very superficial and I realy hope it is only due to the BETA.

[UPDATE]  I did play it today on PS3, and the game feels much more better on the console , controlls feel right even the menu system makes a bit more sense.

What are your thoughts on the BETA?

RTPC6 version 6.10 was released

I did purchase new camera in past month. And it has some features that none of my previous camera had.

That is why I had to add support for these new features in to RTPC.

The new features are extended EXIF info view and added support for GPS location data that is stored within the EXIF information.

Now you can use RTPC to view the GPS position of the place where photo was taken within google maps, all embedded in to RTPC.

Additionaly there will be ability to upload photos on to picasaweb and maybe to other popular web picture storages.

There were few user friendly changes done, like saving the multi compress options and the language selection menu is easy accessible within the main menu.

Click here for free DOWNLOAD

Windows8

Yesterday had Microsoft shown to us in their 3 hour long presentation what is Windows 8 about.

I was watching about 2 hours from that presentation and I did like some of the new cool features like ISO and VHD mounting, new awesome task manager, multi monitor settings and behaviour , the “up” button in directory structure etc…

There were also things I did not like at all, and that goes for the ribbon menu for the explorer (not talking about the IE) that you know from Office 2007 and newer. Also I am not a big fan of the Metro UI, even though I know that normal “user” will be happy with it  and it can be disabled. But Microsoft does really push the developers to develop apps for this UI.

There will be also alot of cloud services going on, you will be able to login to any PC with your Windows Live account and it will setup the way you like, and you will have access to all your files that are on the cloud and even on other computers or devices (phone, tablet etc.).

Generally, seems nice and usable. Anyways you can see for your self. 

Here are official links to download Windows 8 dev preview version.

Windows8 x64 64bit + dev tools DOWNLOAD  (4.8 GB)

Windows8 x64 64bit DOWNLOAD  (3.6 GB)

Windows8 x86 32bit DOWNLOAD  (2.8 GB)

For those who do not want to test it, here is the link for the presentation http://www.buildwindows.com/

[UPDATE]

I had finished testing both 32 and 64bit versions on virtual box. All worked well, except you need to set 128mb of VGA ram and intel network card to have network running. VGA drivers from the host additions are not functional yet. It did not work using MS Virtual PC at all … so , yeah… lol.

After I tested few things, and the boot-up is really 6-9 seconds long, wow … I must say, that I hate it… , mainly because of absence of START menu, inability to use desktop as it was in any other previous windows, and the Metro UI… only good for “non super users” , but do not take my words seriously try it by your self.