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IT SUCKS.

IT SUCKS.

IT SUCKS.

  Most new MMOs combine the best of previous innovations with a new twist and some new innovations of their own. Vanguard developers bought a time machine back to 1999 and copied everything from Everquest including the 8 year old graphics. Somehow they managed to consume 17g of disk space and the game still looks like shit. Even with all the settings turned up, it looks like one of those startup company game releases that get developers to work for pennies only in the hope that they might get rich, or hired. Here's a good example of the shitty animations. Just about everything looks that bad. Graphics aren't really what sell me on a game so I'll leave this dead horse alone.

  The next noticeable flaw is the shitty code that the game runs on. If played for more than 30 minutes game performance takes a huge nosedive as the OS starts swapping pageable memory to disk. When I opened my task manager it reported the Vanguard process taking up 1.8g of ram. The client usually starts up at around 600mb of used memory. This is by far my biggest concern because it shows how poorly it was developed since most developer teams use automated debugging software to track possible memory leaks. If they can't get the basics down how can consumers expect a quality product to ever be released?

  Another example of sloppy coding is the game rendering lag. My gaming machine is fairly pimped out eve thought it's nearing 1yo and I get 40-60fps in most areas even with a lot of the settings set high but some places take a huge hit, down to maybe 10fps. Freaking out that my video card was now junk I set all my settings as low as possible and I still got the exact same framerate in that area. The other annoying rendering lag is easily reproducible by spinning my camera view around. It seems like they did some tricks to improve forward movement rendering for slower computers but that spinning your camera around causes it to choke while it recalculates any new data in the current view direction.

  UI modification is another requirement for me in any new MMO and at least Vanguard is moving down the right path. It will likely take many months to achieve anything like Blizzard's World of Warcraft UI API but currently it seems to be in its infancy. Unfortunately I haven't researched this area much because of all the other problems the game has so I'll just leave it at that.

These are my current opinions of the game and you can see that I didn't even get far enough to review the game content. If they can fix all these performance issues within the next 6 months it might be a viable MMO but for now it's nearly unplayable.

I almost died laughing when I saw this.

Omg_kittens

Let's get serious for a moment since it's "World AIDS Day" and show some respect for all the AIDS victims in the world. Just kidding, AHAHAHAHAHAH.

This is about my personal search as a seasoned and competitive gamer looking for the ultimate gear. These headphones tested are all geared toward the professional gamer looking for portable surround sound technology to increase their performance. Unfortunately, all of these models tested are disappointing. If you want superb audio quality, get some stereo studio headphones, as there are no studio quality surround sound models on the market at this time.

Everglide S-500 Gaming Headphones Stereo link ($89.99) rating: 1

  Lets start off with this hunk of junk from Everglide. I've never felt more cheated in my entire life as I have when these arrived. They are extremely expensive for cheaply made stereo headphones. Yes, I said stereo. Despite their use of many deceptive words likening their product to something surround sound, it's not. It was my mistake not asking before buying because it doesn't list them as stereo. The product description is very vague and the reviews on it are equally as vague. Seriously, check out this scam review. Owning a pair of Sony MDR-V900, I don't need any more stereo headphones.
 
  My story with this pair continues. Feeling scammed, I decided to email the retailer where I purchased these, performance-pcs. They were friendly and agreed to let me exchange them. Originally I only planned to review one model but, I still had not found the ultimate surround sound headphones so I kept looking.

Pros: none
Cons: overpriced, flimsy, deceptive

LTB Platinum Series AC97 5.1 link ($59.95) rating: 4

  It seems the product description doesn't match the unit I received. Mine didn't come with a microphone and instead of 3 stereo plugs, it has an SPDIF interface. The optical SPDIF interface is a step up from 3 stereo plugs but missing the microphone makes them worthless for gaming. These were also ordered from performance-pcs so I've sent them another email asking for clarification. I'll update the review when they reply.
 
  From what I've used them for they fit comfortably but the positional quality is not all that much better than stereo headphones. They're still flimsy but, for $60, what can you expect?

Pros: light weight, comfortable, small
Cons: flimsy, requires SPDIF

 
Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA 5.1 link ($99) rating: 7

  These were purchased from a Frys Electronics store for about $90 even though they are no longer listed on their website. They are much sturdier than the other models but this makes them heavy. Although, the extra weight doesn't bother me, even playing for many hours. The increased circumference of each ear piece seems to add to the positional quality of the surround sound compared to the LTB Platinum. They use 3 1/8" stereo plugs to interface to your 5.1 soundcard and come with splitters so you can keep your desktop surround sound speakers plugged in.

  Playing Battlefield 2 I was able to determine an approximate direction of a distant sniper shot with only one shot. Usually with stereo headphones I have to turn to the side and wait for a second shot if the shot came from directly in front or back.

  At first I didn't have the crossover filter setup and everything sounded like it was inside a tin can and would sound distorted any time something exploded near me. Luckily I have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty which has a configurable crossover filter that redirects any sound below a certain frequency to the subwoofer. Everything began to sound much clearer and the subwoofer was doing its job.
 
  The only downside to this pair is the overall audio quality. The subwoofer tickles your ear in a bad way if it's too loud. It feels like some kind of vibration motor to simulate loud low frequency sounds and seems really cheesy. I'd have it turned up to hear the rumble of approaching tanks but when they'd fire a shell it felt like my ears were going to fall off. It was definitely not this bad when using stereo headphones so I figure it's some side effect of the bass redirection and amplification.
 
  They also add some kind of effect to the rear speakers so they sound almost muffled. It helps with the positioning because having a difference between the sound of footsteps behind you and in front of you. Maybe this is also why they don't sound very good when used to listen to music.  Just use the splitter plug that comes with them to plug in a set for listening to music.

Pros: great positional audio, sturdy
Cons: bad audio quality, heavy

I'd definitely recommend the Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA out of these three for gaming. I just wish some company would step up and make something that blows them all out of the water.

Do you play any musical instruments?

The screams of dying children.

Is it okay to laugh when someone dies? It is when it's Rob Levin! Twice the cocksucker than Hans Reiser ever was, he was even hated by Linux developers. Anyway, I happened to stumble apon a memorial channel on Freenode called ##lilo-rip. Someone noticed that the #1 google result for "rob levin dead" was to the parody site EncyclopediaDramatica and started plotting to destroy the article. They had no idea I was an  editor and so I egged them on, all the while logging the conversation for the lols. The logs are on the ED page.

Hans Reiser is a Jr. High dropout and a complete aspie faggot. He invented the most unstable filesystem ever to be in the "stable" official Linux releases. Using reiserfs for anything besides storing porn on your 486 will cause it to hang during writes. Now that he killed his wife, I have atleast one irrefutable fact to win my case against reiserfs in production.

This news is a couple days old at the time of posting but I felt like doing some EncyclopediaDramatica promotion.

Show us a picture of someone that can always makes you laugh.

Halt_hammerzeit

2 comments

Nazi officer breakdancing. "Halt, Hammerzeit" translates to "Stop, Hammer Time".

Share a photo of something written on the sidewalk or written in concrete.

Bukakke-sidewalk

BUKKAKE. I stole this from gleam's vox blog.

Take a photo of an accident or a mistake.

Crikey_1

23 comments

The late Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) being stabbed in the chest by a stingray. Oops.