Sentimental Gamer

Ah, excellent stuff. So after a few issues between Mass Effect and Vista’s User Access Control (hint: turn it off ), got the game up and running on this machine. I had been testing out some other games on it, and was simply dumbfounded at the performance (though I guess it’s easy to blow away somebody who’s previous laptop was a Latitude D610). Basically, it easily handles total max settings and max resolution for any game over a year old. Specifically, Sims 2 gave it no issues, HL 2 was bee-yoo-ti-ful, and LOTR: BFME 2 ran smooth as butter (wait, is butter smooth?).

So Mass Effect was the only game that I have now that really challenged it. Pretty insanely, it was giving playable performance at max res (this is on a WUXGA 1920 x 1200 widescreen) and high settings! However, it did dip for the complex scenes. So, since I value a consistent 30 - 60 FPS over pretty looks, I reduced to something like 1280 x 800 or whatever it is for widescreens. At that, ran just fine. Cinematics ran at 60 FPS (I think they reduce background complexity during these) and regular gameplay usually up above 50 FPS. Some people say that running at non-native res leads to blah visuals. Personally, I didn’t feel that way at all. Sure, there’s fewer pixels being pushed, but it didn’t seem muddy or anything as a result of the res reduction. Sweet deal.

And then there’s the temps. I’ve got the lappy sitting on our kitchen table with a little notebook shoved underneath the far end to get a little height, though I’m not sure what would happen without it. Basically, the CPU runs at about 30 - 35 C while “idling” (read: light web use), the GPU is at 40 idling. Nice and cool. Running Sims 2 the GPU was still in the high 40s, low 50s (again, on max settings). Finally, checking it on Mass Effect (using Rivatuner, no OC’ing), looks like it never went above the quite reasonable 65 C.

So that, I would say, is a good sign. Doesn’t look like this lappy’s going to melt like the Wicked Witch during monsoon season on me. Good first day. Hope the next 3 - 4 years are similar !!!!

Gigs of old digitized family home videos: ~19
Gigs of family pictures: ~58 and rising (12 from 2007 alone… what a year…)
Gigs of music: ~75 and rising
Trying to keep all this data synchronized between my external WD drive, our family’s home PC, and any other backup drive I can get my hands on while avoiding duplicate file creation, making SyncToy ignore iPod photo cache, and not having the internal drive make a fairly scary whining sound from overheating:

Byteless.

Some days, you’re on fire. Everything you do works out, and you just have this giddy sense of accomplishing anything you want effortlessly.

Other days, you accidentally stab yourself and cause minor bleeding on your upper lip while trying to lick the jelly off the end of a butter knife.

Today is an example of the latter.

Final project? CS 569 Interactive Graphics game. Behold the first official screenshot of Grand Theft Droopy IV. Coming soon to …. nowhere.

This weekend: Macy’s graduation on Saturday, Nate’s on Sunday, and Spore on Monday. Fun stuff.

Well, that makes the choice easy.

I really thought that Microsoft interviews went well. Apparently I was wrong. No offer… blah. Course, it’s entirely ok because I’ve now officially accepted for EA and Spore. So it’s like I got rejected by Penn State, but Princeton is glad to have me :). (just to be clear, I was accepted by PSU, but didn’t apply to Princeton. Metaphors, my good sir. Metaphors.)

But see, there’s some theory that economists have that is something along the lines of “In terms of magnitude, it hurts more to lose $10 than it feels good to gain $10″. So, yeah here I’m losing $10, but my gain is still greater… but you know it’s like… well, to continue both metaphors… it’s like “Well, I still got rejected by Penn State, didn’t I? And I still lost those $10.”

I dunno… maybe Microsoft was just some big ego trip for me that backfired. On the other hand, I tell myself that I really did want to see if they had a better offer. Answer was no… they didn’t have any :(. And I guess it hurts all the more because it’s like… I’ve gotten kinda far on 4 possible internships in my life…. Oracle, EA, Microsoft Games, and Insomniac. Half of them REALLY tested my CS knowledge and logic skills, and half were more or less “behavioral” interviews. I got an offer on half, and the other 2 rejected me. Guess how those two facts map? Yeah… technical interviews = no job for Ben. That’s really a bit of a downer… as though I must look really good on paper, but then prove a total disappointment in reality. I’ve always thought that my GPA masks that I’m really just not that great at my core, that I somehow just have lucked out on my schooling so far. Well, ok… lucked out isn’t the term. But you know, that I’m just one of those kids who does so well at school but then fails miserably in real life.

Ok maybe that’s all a bit extreme, but I’ve got no evidence to deny that that’s how things are, you know? I’m 0 for 2 when it comes to technical interviews. That’s all I have to go on at the moment, and it’s not very promising. Reactionary? Maybe, but I’m just calling them like I see them.

So, on that somewhat depressing note, I’m officially going to be working on SPORE! God help me…I will PROVE that I’m something more than a good student on that job. If not, then I might as well stop trying so friggin hard to do well and accept mediocrity.

Which opens up a whole new can of worms about how I really need to modify my general attitude to life such that I can accept not being “the best of the best”, but I won’t go into all that just now. Maybe some other time.

Ok… this pretty much speaks for itself. I thought it was um…. fairly hilarious. Oddly enough, it’s an ad by Google? Huh… wonder how it figured that was the ad for me. It was on some article relating to the Daily Show.

Actually, the best part is probably the “Christians join for FREE” notification. Sorry, but all Muslims, Jews, atheists, etc. wishing to join have to pay a “forever shut away from paradise” penalty fee. But it’s a LOW LOW $10, so join up anyways and start talking to tank-top sporting blonds NOW! Ok that’s enough…

So, this past weekend I visited Redmond, WA for an interview with Microsoft. Fortunately, they actually let me interview with a division of Microsoft Game Studios! That was a bit unexpected. I’d figured that I’d just get railroaded into some other division since game internship spots are so few. Anyways, it was a ton of fun and I like to think of it as more of a “field trip” than an interview… definitely was a bit tough, but I also got to learn about how a professional game studio works. Fun stuff.

Incidentally, I’d forgotten that DigiPen also resides up there. Funny thing about DigiPen…  I first heard about the school quite a few years ago, back in grade school. I forget exactly when… maybe early high school? Middle school? Can’t remember for the life of me. Anyways, I heard of them because EGM (I think) did a big write up on life at this cool new “video game school”. It was all about how the kids worked their buts off to make games, and they had this nice alliance with Nintendo, etc…. Very romantic sounding stuff for young Ben. The thing that stuck with me most was a comment on the caffeine consumption habits of the students. The interviewed kids joked of how they would go to the nearby 7-11, get a “Big Gulp” or whatever it was called of Mountain Dew. I forget the figures, but I think a “Big Gulp” is something like 60+ oz. of soda. Anyways, point was that they would get their fill from this nearby 7-11 and that’d keep them going through the night.

So, as my Microsoft-campus van traveled back to the recruiting building from MGS, I look out the window and see DigiPen! Cool deal, but eh… not too exciting. But then…aha! There it was! A 7-11 convenience store right on the corner next to the school! Call me nerdy, but this was a bit of a fine moment… there it was, that legendary building that fed the game students that came before me. And here I was, interviewing for a spot with MGS, already with an offer from EA. Dunno what exactly I’d call the feeling, but it did kinda have a bit  of deja vu to it.

Anyways, can’t talk about it much more. There’s shadows to be mapped and wood to be finished with lacquer (aka CS 569 shader work). I’m off!