Sunday, May 04, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV.They've been working on it for how long?
It's been a while.
So how is it that with such an extended development period that they can finally release the game with a critical bug?
I'd read reports of freezing a couple of days before I bought the game, and hoped I wouldn't be one of the 37% (allegedly) who suffer with the freezing problem.
On installing, it played just fine, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Next day, I loaded it up, got past the intro screen, onto the game save loading screen and.... nothing. It just sat there with the "loading" text blinking away at me, doing nothing at all.
Reboot... reload.... nothing. "Loading"
Bollox!!!
So, I googled possible fixes, knowing othere people had suffered the same kind of trouble.
The most common suggested fix was to delete the game, and all related data from the PS3's hard drive, and reinstall. So, I gave it a try.
It worked.... for about 30 seconds, and then froze mid-game.
BOLLOX!!!!!
I googled a bit more, for other suggestions, and finally found one that worked.
The solution is simple, but absolutely unacceptable, when one of the major selling points is online multiplayer mode.
The fix?
Log out of the online Playstation Network.
DOH!!!
So now single player, offline mode works just fine, but there's no way to play online.
Oy! Rockstar!!! Get your act together!!!
I can understand this kind of crap happening on PCs, where there is such varied hardware, and the number of possible configurations are endless... but we're talking about a console, for goodness sake, where there is only a very limited variation in hardware.
Steve 9:49 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, April 21, 2008
After a couple of weeks playing the game, and after reading several reviews online and in magazines, I believe it's time I brought you my very own review of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.I may do something similar for Mario Kart Wii in the near future...or I may not. We'll see how things pan out.
Labels: consoles, games, gran turismo, PS3
Steve 2:14 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is out now for PS3.I've been playing it a bit tonight, being off work with a bitch of a virus.
It's mostly pretty familiar stuff, just with prettier graphics... but for one big bonus... online multi-player.
Here's a very poor quality video clip I shot this evening of me playing online.
My apologies for the burp near the start... I was drinking coke. Also apologies for the poor lighting and bad focus... my good camera has a flat battery, and the one I used just doesn't like recording tv footage.
Labels: consoles, games, gran turismo, PS3
Steve 4:13 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I'd started ripping my DVD collection and converting it to play as video files on my PS3.Initially, I used a piece of software to rip the DVDs, and then used DIVX converter to create the playable video files. However, I soon ran into problems, as DIVX converter insisted on converting to 29 frames per second, when the DVDs were only 25fps... causing huge audio sync problems. The films were ultimately unwatchable.
Anyway, after an amount of research into alternative solutions, I settled on a piece of software called Handbrake. I spent a couple of weeks ripping and converting, and then checking the conversions on my PC, just to be sure they'd come out okay.
Big mistake. I'd tested the very first one on my PS3, and it was fine, but for later conversions, I used a higher image resolution, and only much later did I find that this wouldn't play back on my PS3.
Doh!!!
So, after much research on various forums, looking for optimum settings, I realised that really, no-one who had anything to say, actually knew. Solution? Find out myself, through trial and error, and then write an article/tutorial on the subject.
And here it is....
Handbrake Settings For Converting DVD to mpeg4 for Sony PS3
Steve 2:59 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, March 22, 2008
So, July the 26th eh?Big day.
Write it down in your diaries.
What's happening on July the 26th, you ask?
Andrea and I are getting married.
There's still much to get organised and formalities to sort out, but the registry office is booked and the date set.
The plan is for it to be as informal as possible, with just a small group of very close family and friends invited, followed by a meal at an as yet undecided local venue.
So, if you haven't been invited... no, you can't come :P
Anything else happening in the wonderful world of Benway?
Probably, but it all pales in comparison, so I can't be bothered to write anything else just now.
Actually.... expect photos of a holiday in Sunderland in a couple of weeks. Angel Of The North and Hadrians Wall, here we come.
Steve 4:01 AM [+] (1) comments
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Typical.We have an earthquake and I miss it.
I figured out exactly where I was at the time. Walking down a noisey area of work, alongside a rattling conveyor belt... no windows or doors, or anything else that would appear abnormal if it was shaking.
Bah.
Steve 7:06 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The last week has been rather difficult.My computer died... not sure if it was a hardware issue, a virus, or just generally corrupted system files, but whatever the case, it was mostly non-functional.
Anyone who knows me will know just how much time I spend on my pc, and so will understand just how distressing this was.
So... I bought a nice big 750gig external hard drive, and with the computer in safe mode, backed up all of my doccuments and transferable software.
Next I disconnected all non-vital hardware, ie card readers, webcam and gfx cards, and did a full reinstall of windows.
This worked just fine, right up to the point that I tried to re-fit my gfx cards. I have 2... one rather better than the other, but neither would install for reasons that fail me.
What this meant was that while I could have a perfectly functional workhorse of a computer, games were now out of the question.
Oh well.
On the upside though, now that everything was backed up, and my OS installation was fairly minimal, I could take the risk of repartitioning the hard drive, and setting the whole thing up as a dual-boot system.
So now I have a nice clean installation of Windows XP on one partition, and a very funky, not to mention quirky, copy of Ubuntu Linux on the other.
I'm finding this Linux malarky quite fascinating, having never used it before.
It seems to me that modern Linux OS's have something of a split personality.
On the one hand, they can be quite intuitive and very clever, allowing you to automatically install software from a huge list of compatible programs, without even having to launch a browser to find it.
On the other hand, installing things like drivers, which don't appear to be installed automatically, is like going back in time, to at least MSDOS era computing.
Very very odd.
This external hard drive thing is a cool piece of kit.
I'd been planning to buy one some time soon anyway, so the pc failure just prompted me to get the thing a little sooner.
The thing is... it can be accessed by my PS3.
Why does this matter?
Because the PS3 can play mp4 and DIVX video.
So think about it.... PS3 plugged into a 32 inch TV, with a massive hard drive containging my entire DVD (and later, VHS) collection.
No more searching for the right disk or tape... it'll be all right there, available at the touch of a button, not to mention being viewable all round the house (and garden) from my PSP, via wifi streaming.
And there's more....
For Valentines day, Andrea and I bought each other presents.
I gave her a Swarovsky crystal bracelet, which she seems very pleased with.
What she gave me pleased me no end.
It's a watch, but not just any old watch. This watch is also an mp3 player, and better yet... a video player.
It comes with software to convert your typical digital video file into 128x128 SMV video files. These are fairly tiny... 35meg, compared to a 150meg avi, and with the screen being so tiny, you don't notice the lack of quality.
So, I can fit my entire collection of Invader Zim videos into it's 2gig storage capacity, still have room for a load of tunes, and have the whole lot strapped to my wrist wherever I go.
Yay!
Labels: computers, consoles, gadgets, video
Steve 8:11 PM [+] (0) comments
The Benway Empire |
 |