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• Windows 7 delayed file delete

  - by GregoryM

  I'm stuck with a pretty rare problem that happens on Windows 7 OS only. Every time I'm deleting the file with *.exe extension through explorer, the file doesn't get deleted immediately. I'm forced to wait for around one-two minutes before the system will delete the file. The main problem is that I cannot develop in such situation, because every time I build my solution, the old executable gets 'deleted', but is still there. So the new one cannot be created by Visual Studio. This problem breaks the Steam update progress and a few other installers functionality too. Fresh installed Win7 doesn't have this kind of trouble, so I guess this must be some bad registry entries or some services. Browsing the internet for solutions I found only this: http://www.sevenforums.com/software/72091-several-minute-delay-when-deleting-any-exe-file.html. But the solution the author found is not working (change the userName :)). Is there any ideas how to find what causes this to happen? BTW: when I place the file into Trash bin, no delay occurs. When I delete file with Total Commander - no delay too. Tech details: Windows 7 x64 Ultimate.

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• Windows 7 delayed file delete

  - by GregoryM

  I'm stuck with a pretty rare problem that happens on Windows 7 OS only. Every time I'm deleting the file with *.exe extension through explorer, the file doesn't get deleted immediately. I'm forced to wait for around one-two minutes before the system will delete the file. The main problem is that I cannot develop in such situation, because every time I build my solution, the old executable gets 'deleted', but is still there. So the new one cannot be created by Visual Studio. This problem breaks the Steam update progress and a few other installers functionality too. Fresh installed Win7 doesn't have this kind of trouble, so I guess this must be some bad registry entries or some services. Browsing the internet for solutions I found only this: http://www.sevenforums.com/software/72091-several-minute-delay-when-deleting-any-exe-file.html. But the solution the author found is not working (change the userName :)). Is there any ideas how to find what causes this to happen? BTW: when I place the file into Trash bin, no delay occurs. When I delete file with Total Commander - no delay too. Tech details: Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. UPD: maybe some shadow copying or system restore services (though I have the system restore turned off) block the files? Can't even guess...

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• computer randomly restarting. both in game and out of game

  - by eric

  first my specs are. AMD Phenom II x4 955 processor 3.2ghz 20gb ddr3 ram 4Gb Nvidia Geforce GTX 770 850w Corsair tx850w psu Gigabyte ud3 mobo Windows 7 professional I recently uprgraded my vid card to gtx770 and upgraded my psu to the 850w thats in it now. i did a reformat with the installation of the new gpu and psu and started fresh and only have a couple programs installed (diablo3, nvidia control panel, wow, and steam). all drivers are up to date and everything is hooked up correctly. the problem is it will randomly shut down. no blue screen. just turns itself straight off and reboots after a couple seconds. occasionally i will have to unplug the power cable from the psu for a few minutes then reconnect and it will start up. it seems pretty random. sometimes it does it when my pc is just sitting there on the home screen. and sometimes it does it during games. and sometimes it doesnt do it for days at a time. i noticed the psu felt hot so i put an extra fan blowing straight onto both the psu and gpu and neither feel overly hot after it shuts down now. could it just be that it is a psu problem. the psu was taken from another machine but wasnt having this problem in that machine. i have seen a few articles online about gtx770 doing the same thing. but i havent found any answers or solutions. any help will be appreciated. im sure the 850w is enough to power my machine, im just stumped and ran out of ideas to fix it. i have even returned the video card for another thinking it might have been an issue with that particular card, but still gettin the same problem.

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• Unreal Tournament 3 vs UDK: What Should I Choose?

  - by Matt Christian

  Many people in the mod community were very excited to see the release of the Unreal Developer Kit (UDK) a few months ago.  Along with generating excitement into a very dedicated community, it also introduced many new modders into a flourishing area of indie-development.  However, since UDK is free, most beginners jump right into UDK, which is OK though you might just benefit more from purchasing a shelf-copy of Unreal Tournament 3. UDK UDK is a free full version of UnrealEd (the editor environment used to create games like Gears of War 1/2, Bioshock 1/2, and of course Unreal Tournament 3).  The editor gives you all the features of the editor from the shelf-copy of the game plus some refinements in many of the tools.  (One of the first things you'll find about UnrealEd is that it's a collection of tools grouped into the same editor so it really isn't a single 'tool') Interestingly enough, Epic is allowing you to sell any game made in UDK with a few catches.  First off, you must purchase a liscense for your game (which, I THINK is aproximately $99 starting).  Secondly, you must pay 25% of all profits for the first $5,000 of your game revenue to them (about $1250).  Finally, you cannot use any of the 'media' provided in UDK for your game.  UDK provides sample meshes, textures, materials, sounds, and other sample pieces of media pulled (mostly) from Unreal Tournament 3. The final point here will really determine whether you should use UDK.  There is a very small amount of media provided in UDK for someone to go in and begin creating levels without first developing your own meshes, textures, and other media.  Sure, you can slap together a few unique levels, though you will end up finding yourself restriced to the same items over and over and over.  This is absolutely how professional game development is; you are 'given' (typically liscensed or built in-house) an engine/editor and you begin creating all the content for the game and placing it.  UDK is aimed toward those who really want to build their game content from scratch with a currently existing engine.  It is not suited for someone who would like to simply build levels and quick mods without learning external 3D programs and image editing software. Unreal Tournament 3 Unless you have a serious grudge against FPS's, Epic, or your computer sucks, there really is no reason not to own this game for PC.  You can pick it up on Steam or Amazon for around $20 brand new.  Not only are you provided with a full single-player and multiplayer game, but you are given the entire UnrealEd 3.0 including all of the content used to build UT3.  If you want to start building levels and mods quickly for UT3, you should absolutely pick up a shelf-copy. However, as off-the-shelf UT3 is a few years old now, the tools have not been updated for quite a while.  Compared to UDK, the menus are more difficult to navigate through and take more time getting used to.  Since UDK is updated almost every month, there are new inclusions to the editor that may not be in UT3 (including the future addition of 3D!).  I haven't worked enough with shelf UT3 to see if there are more features in UDK or if they both feature the same stuff in different forms, however you should remember that the Unreal Engine 3.0 has undergone numerous upgrades between it's launch and Gears of War 2 (in fact, Epic had a conference to show off what changed just between the Gears of Wars games). Since UT3 has much more core content, someone who wants to focus on level editing or modding the core UT3 game may find their needs better suited with an off-the-shelf copy of UT3.  If that level designer has a team that is generating custom assets, they may be better off with UDK. The choice is now yours...

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• How to get bearable 2D and 3D performance on AMD Radeon HD 6950?

  - by l0b0

  I have had an AMD Radeon HD 6950 (i.e., Cayman series) for a couple years now, and I have tried a lot of combinations of drivers and settings with terrible results. I'm completely at a loss as to how to proceed. The open source driver has much better 2D performance, but it offloads all OpenGL rendering to the CPU. What I've tried so far: All the latest stable Ubuntu releases in the period, plus one Linux Mint release. All the latest stable AMD Catalyst Proprietary Display Drivers, and currently 13.1. The unofficial wiki installation instructions for every Ubuntu version and the semi-official Ubuntu instructions. All the tips and tweaks I could find for Minecraft (Optifine, reducing settings to minimum), VLC (postprocessing at minimum, rendering at native video size), Catalyst Control Center (flipped every lever in there) and X11 (some binary toggles I can no longer remember). Results: Typically 13-15 FPS in Minecraft, 30 max (100+ in Windows with the same driver version). Around 10 FPS in Team Fortress 2 using the official Steam client. Choppy video playback, in Flash and with VLC. CPU use goes through the roof when rendering video (150% for 1080p on YouTube in Chromium, 100% for 1080p H264 in VLC). glxgears shows 12.5 FPS when maximized. fgl_glxgears shows 10 FPS when maximized. Hardware details from lshw: Motherboard ASUS P6X58D-E CPU Intel Core i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (never overclocked; 64 bit) 6 GB RAM Video card product "Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950]", vendor "Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics)" 2 x 1920x1200 monitors, both connected with HDMI. I feel I must be missing something absolutely fundamental here. Is there no accelerated support for anything on 64-bit architectures? Does a dual monitor completely mess up the driver? $ fglrxinfo display: :0 screen: 0 OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series OpenGL version string: 4.2.11995 Compatibility Profile Context $ glxinfo | grep 'direct rendering' direct rendering: Yes I am currently using the open source driver, with the following results: Full frame rate and low CPU load when playing 1080p video. Black screen (but music in the background) in Team Fortress 2. Similar performance in Minecraft as the Catalyst driver. In hindsight obvious, since both end up offloading the rendering to the CPU. My /var/log/Xorg.0.log after upgrading to AMD Catalyst 13.1. Some possibly important lines: (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fglrx (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@3:0:1) found The generated xorg.conf. The disabled "monitor" 0-DFP9 is actually an A/V receiver, which sometimes confuses the monitor drivers when turned on/off (but not in Windows). All three "monitor" devices are connected with HDMI. Edit: Chris Carter's suggestion to use the xorg-edgers PPA (Catalyst 13.1) resulted in some improvement, but still pretty bad performance overall: Minecraft stabilizes at 13-17 FPS, but at least the CPU load is "only" at 45-60%. Still 150% CPU use for 1080p video rendering on YouTube in Chromium. Massive improvement for 1080p H264 in VLC: 40-50% CPU use and no visible jitter glxgears performance about doubled to 25-30 FPS when maximized. fgl_glxgears still at ~10 FPS when maximized.

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• Fresh Ubuntu Install - Grub not loading

  - by Ryan Sharp

  System Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit Windows 7 SP1 Samsung 64GB SSD - OS' Samsung 1TB HDD - Games, /Home, Swap WD 300'ishGB HDD - Backup Okay, so I'm very frustrated, so please excuse me if I miss anything out as my head is clouded by anger and impatience, etc. I'll try me best, though. First of all, I'll explain how I got to my predicament. I finally got my new SSD. I firstly installed Windows, which completed without a hitch. Afterwards, I tried to install Ubuntu, which failed several times due to problems irrelevant to this question, but I mention this to explain my frustrations, sorry. Anyway, I finally installed Ubuntu. However, I chose the 'bootloader' to be installed on the same partition as where I was installing the Ubuntu Root partition, as that was what I believed to be the best choice. It was of my thinking that it was supposed to go on the same partition and on the SSD, which is my OS drive, though with my problem, it apparently was wrong. So I tried to fix it by checking guides and following their directions, but seemed to have messed it up even more. Here is what I receive after I use the fdisk -l command: (I also added explanations for which I used each partition for) Disk /dev/sda: 64.0 GB, 64023257088 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7783 cylinders, total 125045424 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x324971d1 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 208896 48957439 24374272 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 48959486 125044735 38042625 5 Extended /dev/sda5 48959488 125044735 38042624 83 Linux sda1 --/ Windows Recovery sda2 --/ Windows 7 sda3/5 --/ Ubuntu root [ / ] Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xc0ee6a69 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 1024208894 1953523711 464657409 5 Extended /dev/sdb3 * 2048 1024206847 512102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sdb5 1024208896 1939851263 457821184 83 Linux /dev/sdb6 1939853312 1953523711 6835200 82 Linux swap / Solaris sdb3 --/ Partition for Steam games, etc. sdb5 --/ Ubuntu Home [ /home ] sdb6 --/ Ubuntu Swap Partition table entries are not in disk order Disk /dev/sdc: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x292eee23 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 2048 625141759 312569856 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT sdc1 --/ Generic backup I also used a Boot Script that other users suggested, so that I can give more details on my partitions and also where Grub is located... ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks for (,msdos5)/boot/grub on this drive. => Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb and looks at sector 1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks for (,msdos5)/boot/grub on this drive. => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdc. Now that is weird... Why would Grub2 be installed on both my SSD and HDD? Even weirder is why is Windows on the MBR of my backup hard drive? Nothing I did should have done that... Anyway, here is the entire Output from that script... PASTEBIN So, to summarize what I need: How can I fix my setup so grub loads on startup? How can I clean my partitions to remove unnecessary grubs? What did I do wrong so that I don't do something so daft again? Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you can help me. I've been trying to have a successful setup since Friday, and I'm almost at the point that I'm really tempted to throw my computer out the window due to my frustration.

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• Possible to change the alpha value of certain pixels on iPhone?

  - by emi1faber

  Is it possible to change just a portion of a Sprite's alpha in response to user interaction? A good example of what I mean is iFog or iSteam, where the user can wipe "steam" off the iPhone's screen. Swapping images out wouldn't be feasible due to the sheer number of possibilities where the user could touch and move... For example, say you have a simple app that has a brick wall in the background that has graffiti on it, so there'd be two sprites, one of the brick wall, then one of the graffiti that has a higher z value than the brick wall. Then, based upon where the user touches (assuming their touch controls a sandblaster), some of the graffiti should be removed, but not all of it, which could be accomplished by changing the alpha value on a portion of the graffiti sprite. Is there any way to do this in cocos2d-iphone? Or, do I need to drop down into openGL, and if so, where would be a good place to start my search on how to accomplish this? Ideally, I'd like to accomplish this on a cocos2d-iphone Sprite, but if it's not possible, where's the best place to start looking? Thanks in advance, Ben

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• Problem with non blocking fifo in bash

  - by timdel

  Hi! I'm running a few Team Fortress 2 servers and I want to write a little management script. Basically the TF2 servers are a fg process which provides a server console, so I can start the server, type status and get an answer from it: ***@purple:~/tf2$ ./start_server_testing Auto detecting CPU Using AMD Optimised binary. Server will auto-restart if there is a crash. Console initialized. [bla bla bla] Connection to Steam servers successful. VAC secure mode is activated. status hostname: Team Fortress version : 1.0.6.1/15 3883 secure udp/ip : ***.***.133.31:27600 map : ctf_2fort at: 0 x, 0 y, 0 z players : 0 (2 max) # userid name uniqueid connected ping loss state adr Great, now I want to create a script which sends the command sm_reloadadmins to all my servers. The best way I found to do this is using a fifo named pipe. Now what I want to do is having this pipe readonly and non blocking to the server process, so I can write into the pipe and the server executes it, but still I want to write via console one the server, so if I switch back to the fg process of the server and I type status I want an answer printed. I tried this (assuming serverfifo is mkfifo serverfifo): ./start_server_testing < serverfifo Not working, the server won't start until something is written to the pipe. ./start_server_testing <> serverfifo Thats actually working pretty good, I can see the console output of the server and I can write to the fifo and the server executes the commands, but I can't write via console to the server anymore. Also, if I write 'exit' to the pipe (which should end the server) and I'm running it in a screen the screen window is getting killed for some reason (wtf why?). I only need the server to read the fifo without blocking AND all my keyboard input on the server itself should be send to the server AND all server ouput should be written to the console. Is that possible? If yes, how?

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• How to forward a 'saved' request stream to another Action within the same controller?

  - by Moe Howard

  We have a need to chunk-up large http requests sent by our mobile devices. These smaller chunk streams are merged to a file on the server. Once all chunks are received we need a way to submit the saved merged request to an another method(Action) within the same controller that will process this large http request. How can this be done? The code we tried below results in the service hanging. Is there a way to do this without a round-trip? //Open merged chunked file FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read); //Read steam support variables int bytesRead = 0; byte[] buffer = new byte[1024]; //Build New Web Request. The target Action is called "Upload", this method we are in is called "UploadChunk" HttpWebRequest webRequest; webRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(Request.Url.ToString().Replace("Chunk", string.Empty)); webRequest.Method = "POST"; webRequest.ContentType = "text/xml"; webRequest.KeepAlive = true; webRequest.Timeout = 600000; webRequest.ReadWriteTimeout = 600000; webRequest.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials; Stream webStream = webRequest.GetRequestStream(); //Hangs here, no errors, just hangs I have looked into using RedirectToAction and RedirecctToRoute but these methods don't fit well with what we are looking to do as we cannot edit the Request.InputStream (as it is read-only) to carry out large request stream. Thanks, Moe

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• GZipStream not reading the whole file

  - by Ed

  I have some code that downloads gzipped files, and decompresses them. The problem is, I can't get it to decompress the whole file, it only reads the first 4096 bytes and then about 500 more. Byte[] buffer = new Byte[4096]; int count = 0; FileStream fileInput = new FileStream("input.gzip", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read); FileStream fileOutput = new FileStream("output.dat", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.None); GZipStream gzipStream = new GZipStream(fileInput, CompressionMode.Decompress, true); // Read from gzip steam while ((count = gzipStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0) { // Write to output file fileOutput.Write(buffer, 0, count); } // Close the streams ... I've checked the downloaded file; it's 13MB when compressed, and contains one XML file. I've manually decompressed the XML file, and the content is all there. But when I do it with this code, it only outputs the very beginning of the XML file. Anyone have any ideas why this might be happening?

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• Mac OS X: Getting detailed process information (specifically its launch arguments) for arbitrary run

  - by Jasarien

  I am trying to detect when particular applications are launched. Currently I am using NSWorkspace, registering for the "did launch application" notification. I also use the runningApplications method to get apps that are currently running when my app starts. For most apps, the name of the app bundle is enough. I have a plist of "known apps" that I cross check with the name of that passed in the notification. This works fine until you come across an app that acts as a proxy for launching another application using command line arguments. Example: The newly released Portal on the Mac doesn't have a dedicated app bundle. Steam can create a shortcut, which serves as nothing more than to launch the hl2_osx app with the -game argument and portal as it's parameter. Since more Source based games are heading to the Mac, I imagine they'll use the same method to launch, effectively running the hl2_osx app with the -game argument. Is there a nice way to get a list of the arguments (and their parameters) using a Cocoa API? NSProcessInfo comes close, offering an `-arguments' method, but only provides information for its own process... NSRunningApplication offers the ability to get information about arbitrary apps using a PID, but no command line args... Is there anything that fills the gap between the two? I'm trying not to go down the route of spawning an NSTask to run ps -p [pid] and parsing the output... I'd prefer something more high level.

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• GridView will not update underlying data source

  - by John Christensen

  So I'm been pounding on this problem all day. I've got a LinqDataSource that points to my model and a GridView that consumes it. When I attempt to do an update on the GridView, it does not update the underlying data source. I thought it might have to do with the LinqDataSource, so I added a SqlDataSource and the same thing happens. The aspx is as follows (the code-behind page is empty): <asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server" ConnectionString="Data Source=devsql32;Initial Catalog=Steam;Persist Security Info=True;" ProviderName="System.Data.SqlClient" SelectCommand="SELECT [LangID], [Code], [Name] FROM [Languages]" UpdateCommand="UPDATE [Languages] SET [Code]=@Code WHERE [LangID]=@LangId"> </asp:SqlDataSource> <asp:GridView ID="_languageGridView" runat="server" AllowPaging="True" AllowSorting="True" AutoGenerateColumns="False" DataKeyNames="LangId" DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1"> <Columns> <asp:CommandField ShowDeleteButton="True" ShowEditButton="True" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="LangId" HeaderText="Id" ReadOnly="True" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="Code" HeaderText="Code" /> <asp:BoundField DataField="Name" HeaderText="Name" /> </Columns> </asp:GridView> <asp:LinqDataSource ID="_languageDataSource" ContextTypeName="GeneseeSurvey.SteamDatabaseDataContext" runat="server" TableName="Languages" EnableInsert="True" EnableUpdate="true" EnableDelete="true"> </asp:LinqDataSource> What in the world am I missing here? This problem is driving me insane.

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• WPF - Transparency - Stream Desktop Content

  - by Niels Willems

  Greetings I'm in the process of making a Scoreboard for a game (Starcraft II). This scoreboard is being made as a WPF Application with a C# code-behind. I already have a version which works for 90% in WinForms but I lacked the support to easily make it look a lot nicer which are available in WPF. The point of this application will be to form a kind of overlay on top of a running game. This game is in Fulscreen(Windowed Mode) so when in WinForms I coded it so that it should always be on top. It would do so and that was no problem. Since the main look of the app in WPF is based on an image with a transparent background I have set most Background values to Transparent. However when I do this the entire application does not get registered by streaming software. For example it just shows my Desktop or the game I'm playing but not my application even though it IS there. I can see it with my own eyes but the audience on the stream cannot. Does anyone have any experience with this matter because it's really doing my head in. My entire application will be useless if it is not visible on streams. If I have to put the background on a color rather than transparent the UI will be completely demolished as well in terms of looks. I'm basically trying to make a game-overlay in C# & WPF. I have read you can do this on different ways as well but I have little to no knowledge of C++ nor do I know anything about DirectX Thank you for your time reading and your possible insights. Edit: The best solution would be an overlay similar to that one of Steam/Xfire/Dolby Axon. Edit 2: I've had no luck with all the suggestions so I basically made the transparent bits of my image non transparent and let the user decide which one to use depending on what streaming software they would be using.

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• So I want to separate my Program Files from the hard disk with the other system files. What is the b

  - by grg-n-sox

  So I am running Windows 7 as my only OS. I have two hard drives on my computer. The first one is a 74GB Western Digital 10K RPM Raptor. The second one is a 1TB Seagate Barracuda (couldn't remember if it was a 7200.12 or some other decimal after the 7200). The OS in installed to the Raptor and I am just using the Barracuda for storage. With this setup, in case you couldn't guess already, the Raptor fills up quick and I am constantly having to maintain file locations. And although it is nice to have that quicker boot time and program loading, the time spent maintaining the drive makes me waste more time overall. So I am looking for a way to try to keep it clear while still keeping up system loading speeds. A performance hit on games and such is easily acceptable and as long as I can guarantee a 5GB space on the Raptor, I can always just temporarily move the disc image there. So I am figuring that having games installed like Boarderlands and Mass Effect, as well as having large files such as linux distro DVD disc images in My Documents, I probably should be moving my personal files and Program Files directories to the Barracuda. I currently have folders on the Barracuda for this, but this means routinely copying files over and I can't really do anything with the Program Files folder that already exists. The best I can do is remember to designate the install directory of any program installation to the alternative install directory, which I can't seem to get to ever work right with Steam. With that in mind, is there a way that is not too drastic to let me just change some folders and system settings once and everything works fine afterwards for my setup? I have considered just reinstalling Windows 7 to the Barracuda but that would defeat the purpose of the Raptor except for running disc images off of. I am also heard a bit about being able to use symlinks to fix this, but I have also heard that symlinks in Windows are not necessarily the same and not as well supported on Windows. An example a friend mentioned was something about how if you have a symlink in Windows on a small hard drive to a large hard drive and the contents the symlink points to is larger than the small hard drive's capacity, then Windows will think the smaller hard drive is full. So is there a fix/workaround that will let me use symlinks across hard drives without the issues or is there a better solution I am not being told about, not mentioning, or not thinking of?

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• External USB HD issues with a twist (works on Windows7 but not XP)

  - by Eruditass

  I have this older external USB HD, 160 GB. I was using it to copy my Steam games to another computer. On the source computer, Windows 7 64-bit, everything worked fine. Drive reported no errors, had no hiccups, etc. Plugging it into the Windows XP 32-bit computer, it worked fine for looking through the files, moving files around on it (no real reading/writing, just modifying the filesystem table). However, when copying files from it to my internal HD, after a couple seconds to tens of minutes (seemingly random times), the USB device becomes unrecognized and it reports a delayed write error. Events in system log go like this, chronologically: (number times displayed)xSource (Event ID): "message" 2xdisk (51): An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\D during a paging operation. 1xftdisk (57): The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur. 1xApplication popup (26): Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file E:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere. 1xntfs (50): {Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file . The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere. These repeat for a while, then there is 10+ disk messages or ftdisk messages. Other notes: This occurs on random files at random times. This problem cannot be replicated on the Windows 7 source machine when copying from the HD to a different location on its local disk chkdsk /f was run and found no errors. chkdsk /f/r has the delayed write issue. drive was set to quick removal. Setting to performance in device manager yielded same result I am not writing anything to the USB external drive, so I am not sure why there is even a delayed write error (writing file access times?) local Windows XP was chkdsk'd without problems Windows XP machine has no problems with other USB HD's Various USB ports were attempted Rebooting did not help Occurs with SyncToy as well as windows explorer SMART status is good on both local drive and the external one Lack of gaming is making me cranky

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• How can I fix Problems with interlaced video jerking/flicking when playedback on DVD players? (Mixin

  - by Simon P Stevens

  I'm trying to make a DVD and the final DVD jerks when played on standalone DVD players. It seems to play fine on PCs. I think the problem may be to do with interlacing settings when rendering the final output, but I'll outline the whole editing process I have followed in case I've made a mistake somewhere else. Most of the footage comes from a sony handy cam (one of those mini DVD ones) so isn't great quality. It was set to "high quality" (haha) and 16:9 aspect ratio when it was recorded. I copy the files directly from the mini DVDs onto the hard drive and import them into Cinelerra. In Cinelerra I set the format to 25fps, 720x576, RGBA-8bit, 16:9, interlaced bottom fields first. When I've finished the editing, I add a Fields to frames effect (set to bottom first) to each video track. I render to audio and video separately: Audio: AC3, 128kbps Video: YUV4MPEG steam, video pipe settings: ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -y -target dvd -flags +ilme+ildct mpeg2video % Cinelerra often crashes during the rendering, so I set it to generate a new video file at each label, and combine them using cat when I've got a sucesful render of each one. Once I've combined them, I use mencoder to re-index them: mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy merged.m2v -o mergedReIndexed.m2v I combine the audio and video files using ffmpeg: ffmpeg -i AudioFile.ac3 -i VideoFile.m2v -target dvd -flags +ilme+ildct FinalMovie.mpg Then I build the menus with spumux and I create the DVD file system with dvdauthor, and finally I write it do a dvd-r like this: nice -n -20 growisofs -dvd-compat -speed=2 -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video -V VIDEO ./ && eject /dev/dvd Originally, when I did it the DVD flickered badly, so as suggested in a guide I added the fields to frames effect in cinelerra. Now it doesn't "flicker", but has become "jerky" when there is lots of motion, particularly when the camera is moving, so the whole background moves. This is what I've tried so far: Removed "mpeg2video" from cinelerra video render pipe. Removed +ilme from render pipe. Removed +ildct from render pipe. Removed +ilme from render audio/video rejoin command. Removed +ildct from render audio/video rejoin command. Added -alt to render pipe. Added -alt to render audio/video rejoin command. Tried with and without the frames to fields effect in Cinelerra. and various combinations of the above. I've also tried this: change the Cinelerra fps to 50, use fields to frames (instead of frames to fields), render to an intermediate QTforlinux jpeg video stream, re-importing that back into Cinelerra, adding a frames to fields effect and then rendering that output as normal (@25fps), and I still have the same problem. Has anyone experienced this "jerking" playback before? Can anyone give any suggestions on how to fix it? (Like I say, it plays back fine on a PC, but not on any of the standalone players I've tried)

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• Getting an boot error when starting computer

  - by Rob Avery IV

  I was in the middle of watching a movie on Netflix, then suddenly everything started crashing. First, explorer.exe closed down, then Google chrome. I had multiple things running in the background (Steam, Raptr, etc.). Individuality, each of those apps closed down also. When they did, a small dialog box popped up for each of them, one at a time, saying that it was missing a file, it couldn't run anymore, or something similar to that. It also had some jumbled up "code" with numbers and letters that I couldn't read. Ever since then, everytime I turn my computer on, it will run for a few seconds and give this error "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key_". No matter how many times I try to reboot it, it always gives me the same error. A day later after this happened I was able to start the computer, but before it booted, it told me that I didn't shut down the computer properly and asked how I wanted to run the OS (Run Windows in Safety Mode, Run Windows Normally, etc.). Once I logged, everything went SUPER slow and everything crashed almost instantly. The only thing I opened was Microsoft Security Essentials and only got in about two clicks before it was "Not Responding". Then, after that the whole computer froze and I had to restart it. Now, it's back to saying what it originally said, "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key_". I built this PC back in February 2012. Here are the specs: OS: Windows 7 Ultimate CPU: AMD 8-core GPU: Nvidia GTX Force 560 Ti RAM: 16GB Hard Drive: Hitachi Deskstar 750GB I'm usually very good taking care of my PC. I don't download anything that's not from a trusted site or source. I don't open up any spam email or such or go to any harmful websites like porn or stream movies. I am very clean with the things I do with my PC and don't do many DIFFERENT things with it. I use it pretty often especially for video games and doing homework in Eclipse. Also, good to note that I don't have any Norton or antisoftware installed. I have Microsoft Security Essentials installed but never did a scan. Thanks!

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• Initial Review - Mastering Unreal Technology I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3

  - by Matt Christian

  Recently I purchased 3 large volumes on using the Unreal 3 Engine to create levels and custom games.  This past weekend I cracked the spine of the first and started reading.  Here are my early impressions (I'm ~250 pages into it, with appendices it's about 900). Pros Interestingly, the book starts with an overview of the Unreal engines leading up to Unreal 3 (including Gears of War) and follows with some discussion on planning a mod and what goes into the game development process.  This is nice for an intro to the book and is much preferred rather than a simple chapter detailing what is on the included CD, how to install and setup UnrealEd, etc...  While the chapter on Unreal history and planning can be considered 'fluff', it's much less 'fluffy' than most books provide. I need to mention one thing here that is pretty crucial in the way I'm going to continue reviewing this book.  Most technical books like this are used as a shelf reference; as a thick volume you use for looking up techniques every now and again.  Even so, I prefer reading from cover to cover, including chapters I may already be knowledgable on (I'm sure this is typical for most people).  If there was a chapter on installing UnrealEd (the previously mentioned 'fluff'), I would probably force myself to read it, even though I've installed the game and engine multiple times on different systems. Chapter 3 is where we really get to the introduction piece of UnrealEd, creating your first basic level.  This large chapter details creating two small rooms, adding static meshes, adding lighting, creating and adding particle emitters, creating a door that animates with Unreal Matinee and Kismet, static meshes with physics, and other little additions to make your level look less beginner.  This really is a chapter that overviews the entire rest of the book, as each chapter following details the creation and intermediate usages of Static Meshes, Materials, Lighting, etc... One other very nice part to this book is the way the tutorials are setup.  Each tutorial builds off the previous and all are step-by-step.  If you haven't completed one yet, you can find all the starting files on the CD that comes with the book. Cons While the description of the overview chapter (Chapter 3) is fresh in your mind, let me start the cons by saying this chapter is setup extremely confusing for the noob.  At one point, you end up creating a door mesh and setting it up as a InteropMesh so that it is ready to be animated, only to switch to particles and spend a good portion of time working on a different piece of the level.  Yes, this is actually how I develop my levels (jumping back and forth), though it's very odd for a book to jump out of sequence. The next item might be a positive or a negative depending on your skill level with UnrealEd.  Most of the introduction to the editor layout is found in one of the Appendices instead of before Chapter 3.  For new readers, this might lead to confusion as Appendix A would typically be read between Chapter 2 and 3.  However, this is a positive for those with some experience in UnrealEd as they don't have to force themselves through a 'learn every editor button' chapter.  I'm listing this in the Cons section as the book is 'Introduction to...' and is probably going to be directed toward a lot of very beginner developers. Finally, there's a lack of general description to a lot of the underlying engine and what each piece in UnrealEd is or does.  Sometimes you'll be performing Tutorial after Tutorial with barely a paragraph in between describing ANY of what you've just done.  Tutorial 1.1 Step 6 says to press Button X, so you do.  But why?  This is in part a problem with the structure of the tutorials rather than the content of the book.  Since the tutorials are so focused on a step-by-step (or procedural) description of a process, you learn the process and not why you're doing that.  For example, you might learn how to size a material to a surface, but will only learn what buttons to press and not what each one does. This becomes extremely apparent in the chapter on Static Meshes as most of the chapter is spent in 3D Studio Max.  Since there are books on 3DSM and modelling, the book really only tells you the steps and says to go grab a book on modelling if you're really interested in 3DSM.  Again, I've learned the process to develop my own meshes in 3DSM, but I don't know the why behind the steps. Conclusion So far the book is very good though I would have a hard time recommending it to a complete beginner.  I would suggest anyone looking at this book (obviously including the other 2, more advanced volumes) to pick up a copy of UDK or Unreal 3 (available online or via download services such as Steam) and watch some online tutorials and play with it first.  You'll find plenty of online videos available that were created by the authors and may suit as a better introduction to the editor.

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• XNA Notes 005

  - by George Clingerman

  Another week and another crazy amount of activity going on in the XNA community. I’m fairly certain I missed over half of it. In fact, if I am missing things, make sure to email me and I’ll try and make sure I catch it next week! ([email protected]). Also, if you’ve got any advice, things you like/don’t like about the way these XNA Notes are going let me know. I always appreciate feedback (currently spammers are leaving me the nicest comments so you guys have work to do!) Without further ado, here’s this week’s notes! Time Critical XNA News The XNA Team Blob reminds us that February 7th is the last day to submit XNA 3.1 games to peer review! http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xna/archive/2011/01/31/7-days-left-to-submit-xna-gs-3-1-games-on-app-hub.aspx XNA MVPS Chris Williams kicks off the marketing campaign for our book http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/01/28/143680.aspx Catalin Zima posts the comparison cheat sheet for why Angry Birds is different than Chickens Can’t Fly http://www.amusedsloth.com/2011/02/comparison-cheat-sheet-for-chickens-cant-fly-and-angry-birds/ Jim Perry congratulates the developers selected by Game Developer Magazine for Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games of 2010 http://machxgames.com/blog/?p=24 @NemoKrad posts his XNAKUUG talks for all to enjoy http://twitter.com/NemoKrad/statuses/33142362502864896 http://xna-uk.net/blogs/randomchaos/archive/2011/02/03/xblig-uk-2011-january-amp-february-talk.aspx George  (that’s me!) preps for his XNA talk coming up on the 8th http://twitter.com/clingermangw/statuses/32669550554124288 http://www.portlandsilverlight.net/Meetings/Details/15 XNA Developers FireFly posts the last tutorial in his XNA Tower Defense tutorial series http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/26442/451460.aspx#451460 http://xnatd.blogspot.com/2011/01/tutorial-14-polishing-game.html @fredericmy posts the main difference when porting a game from Windows Phone 7 to Xbox 360 http://fairyengine.blogspot.com/2011/01/main-differences-when-porting-game-from.html @ElementCy creates a pretty rad video of a MineCraft type terrain created using XNA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw1f7wnl9I Andrew Russel gets the first XNA badge on gamedev.stackexchange http://twitter.com/_AndrewRussell/statuses/32322877004972032 http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/badges?tab=tags And his funding for ExEn has passed $7000 only $3000 to go http://twitter.com/_AndrewRussell/statuses/33042412804771840 Subodh Pushpak blogs about his Windows Phone 7 XNA talk http://geekswithblogs.net/subodhnpushpak/archive/2011/02/01/windows-phone-7-silverlight--xna-development-talk.aspx Slyprid releases the latest version of Transmute and needs more people to test http://twitter.com/slyprid/statuses/32452488418299904 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/ SpynDoctorGames celebrates the 1 year anniversary of Your Doodles Are Bugged! Congrats! http://twitter.com/SpynDoctorGames/statuses/32511689068908544 Noogy (creator of Dust the Elysian Tail) prepares his conversion to XNA 4.0 http://twitter.com/NoogyTweet/statuses/32522008449253376 @philippedasilva posts about the Indiefreaks Game Framework v0.2.0.0 Input management system http://twitter.com/philippedasilva/statuses/32763393957957632 http://indiefreaks.com/2011/02/02/behind-smart-input-system-feature/ Mommy’s Best Games debates what to do about High Scores with their new update http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/02/high-score-shake-up.html @BinaryTweedDeej want to know if there’s anything the community needs to make XNA games for the PC. Give him some feedback! http://twitter.com/BinaryTweedDeej/status/32895453863354368 @mikebmcl promises to write us all a book (I can’t wait to read it!) http://twitter.com/mikebmcl/statuses/33206499102687233 @werezompire is going to live, LIVE, thanks to all the generosity and support from the community! http://twitter.com/werezompire/statuses/32840147644977153 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG) Making money in Xbox 360 indie game development. Is it possible? http://www.bitmob.com/articles/making-money-in-xbox-360-indie-game-development-is-it-possible @AlejandroDaJ posts some thoughts abut the bitmob article http://twitter.com/AlejandroDaJ/statuses/31068552165330944 http://www.apathyworks.com/blog/view.php?id=00215 Kobun gets my respect as an XBLIG champion. I’m not sure who Kobun is, but if you’ve every read through the comment sections any time Kotaku writes about XBLIGs you’ll see a lot of confusion, disinformation in there. Kobun has been waging a secret war battling that lack of knowledge and he does it well. Also he’s running a pretty kick ass site for Xbox LIVE Indie Game reviews http://xboxindies.teamkobun.com/ @radiangames releases his last Xbox LIVE Indie Game...for now http://bit.ly/gMK6lE Playing Avaglide with the Kinect controller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqAYbHww53o http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/30/kinect-hacks-take-to-the-skies-with-avaglide/ Luke Schneider of Radiangames interviewed in Edge magazine http://www.next-gen.biz/features/radiangames-venture Digital Quarters posts thoughts on why XBLIG’s online requirement kills certain genres http://digitalquarters.blogspot.com/2011/02/thoughts-why-xbligs-online-requirement.html Mommy’s Best Games shares the news that several XBLIGs were featured in the March 2011 issue of Famitsu 360 http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/33455/451487.aspx#451487 NaviFairy continues with his Indie-Game-A-Day http://gaygamer.net/2011/02/indie_game_a_day_epic_dungeon.html http://gaygamer.net/2011/02/indie_game_a_day_break_limit_r.html and more every day...that’s kind of the point! Keep your eye on this series! VVGTV continues with it’s awesome reviews/promotions for XBLIGs http://vvgtv.com/ http://vvgtv.com/2011/02/03/iredia-atrams-secret-xblig-review-2/ http://vvgtv.com/2011/02/02/poopocalypse-coming-soon-to-xblig/ ….and even more, you get the point. Magicka is an Indie Game doing really well on Steam AND it’s made using XNA http://www.magickagame.com/ http://twitter.com/Magickagame/statuses/32712762580799488 GameMarx reviews Antipole http://www.gamemarx.com/reviews/73/antipole-is-vvvvvvery-good.aspx Armless Octopus review Alpha Squad http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/01/28/xbox-indie-review-alpha-squad/ An interesting article about Kodu that Jim Perry found http://twitter.com/MachXGames/statuses/32848044105924608 http://www.develop-online.net/news/36915/10-year-old-Jordan-makes-games-The-UK-needs-more-like-her XNA Game Development Sgt. Conker posts about the Natur beta, a new book and whether you can make money with XBLIG http://www.sgtconker.com/ http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/01/a-new-book-on-the-block-and-a-new-natur-beta/ http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/01/making-money-in-xbox-360-indie-game-development-is-it-possible/ Tips for setting up SVN http://bit.ly/fKxgFh @bsimser found tons of royalty free music and soundfx for your XNA Games http://twitter.com/bsimser/statuses/31426632933711872 Post on the new features in the next Sunburn Editor http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/01/28/new-editor-features-prefabs-components-and-more.aspx @jasons_novaleaf posts source code for light pre-pass optimizations for #xna http://twitter.com/jasons_novaleaf/statuses/33348855403642880 http://jcoluna.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/xna-4-0-light-pre-pass-optimization-round-one/ I’ve been learning about doing an A.I. for turn based games and this article was a great resource. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1535/designing_ai_algorithms_for_.php?print=1

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• Oracle SQL Developer v3.2.1 Now Available

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Oracle SQL Developer version 3.2.1 is now available. I recommend that everyone now upgrade to this release. It features more than 200 bug fixes, tweaks, and polish applied to the 3.2 edition. The high profile bug fixes submitted by customers and users on our forums are listed in all their glory for your review. I want to highlight a few of the changes though, as I recognize many of you lack the time and/or patience to ‘read the docs.’ That would include me, which is why I enjoy writing these kinds of blog posts. I’m lazy – just like you! No more artificial line breaks between CREATE OR REPLACE and your PL/SQL In versions 3.2 and older, when you pull up your stored procedural objects in our editor, you would see a line break inserted between the CREATE OR REPLACE and then the body of your code. In version 3.2.1, we have removed the line break. 3.1 3.2.1 Trivia Did You Know? The database doesn’t store the ‘CREATE’ or ‘CREATE OR REPLACE’ bit of your PL/SQL code in the database. If we look at the USER_SOURCE view, we can see that the code begins with the object name. So the CREATE OR REPLACE bit is ‘artificial’ The intent is to give you the code necessary to recreate your object – and have it ‘compile’ into the database. We pretty much HAVE to add the ‘CREATE OR REPLACE.’ From now on it will appear inline with the first line of your code. Exporting Tables & Views When exporting data from your tables or views, previous versions of SQL Developer presented a 3 step wizard. It allows you to choose your columns and apply data filters for what is exported. This was kind of redundant. The grids already allowed you to select your columns and apply filters. Wouldn’t it be more intuitive AND efficient to just make the grids behave in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) fashion? In version 3.2.1, that is exactly what will happen. The wizard now only has two steps and the grid will export the data and columns as defined in the visible grid. Let the grid properties define what is actually exported! And here is what is pasted into my worksheet: "BREWERY"|"CITY" "3 Brewers Restaurant Micro-Brewery"|"Toronto" "Amsterdam Brewing Co."|"Toronto" "Ball Brewing Company Ltd."|"Toronto" "Big Ram Brewing Company"|"Toronto" "Black Creek Historic Brewery"|"Toronto" "Black Oak Brewing"|"Toronto" "C'est What?"|"Toronto" "Cool Beer Brewing Company"|"Toronto" "Denison's Brewing"|"Toronto" "Duggan's Brewery"|"Toronto" "Feathers"|"Toronto" "Fermentations! - Danforth"|"Toronto" "Fermentations! - Mount Pleasant"|"Toronto" "Granite Brewery & Restaurant"|"Toronto" "Labatt's Breweries of Canada"|"Toronto" "Mill Street Brew Pub"|"Toronto" "Mill Street Brewery"|"Toronto" "Molson Breweries of Canada"|"Toronto" "Molson Brewery at Air Canada Centre"|"Toronto" "Pioneer Brewery Ltd."|"Toronto" "Post-Production Bistro"|"Toronto" "Rotterdam Brewing"|"Toronto" "Steam Whistle Brewing"|"Toronto" "Strand Brasserie"|"Toronto" "Upper Canada Brewing"|"Toronto" JUST what I wanted And One Last Thing Speaking of export, sometimes I want to send data to Excel. And sometimes I want to send multiple objects to Excel – to a single Excel file that is. In version 3.2.1 you can now do that. Let’s export the bulk of the HR schema to Excel, with each table going to it’s own workbook in the same worksheet. Select many tables, put them in in a single Excel worksheet If you try this in previous versions of SQL Developer it will just write the first table to the Excel file. This is one of the bugs we addressed in v3.2.1. Here is what the output Excel file looks like now: Many tables - Many workbooks in an Excel Worksheet I have a sneaky suspicion that this will be a frequently used feature going forward. Excel seems to be the cornerstone of many of our popular features. Imagine that!

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• How to I serialize a large graph of .NET object into a SQL Server BLOB without creating a large bu

  - by Ian Ringrose

  We have code like: ms = New IO.MemoryStream bin = New System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter bin.Serialize(ms, largeGraphOfObjects) dataToSaveToDatabase = ms.ToArray() // put dataToSaveToDatabase in a Sql server BLOB But the memory steam allocates a large buffer from the large memory heap that is giving us problems. So how can we stream the data without needing enough free memory to hold the serialized objects. I am looking for a way to get a Stream from SQL server that can then be passed to bin.Serialize() so avoiding keeping all the data in my processes memory. Likewise for reading the data back... Some more background. This is part of a complex numerical processing system that processes data in near real time looking for equipment problems etc, the serialization is done to allow a restart when there is a problem with data quality from a data feed etc. (We store the data feeds and can rerun them after the operator has edited out bad values.) Therefore we serialize the object a lot more often then we de-serialize them. The objects we are serializing include very large arrays mostly of doubles as well as a lot of small “more normal” objects. We are pushing the memory limit on a 32 bit system and make the garage collector work very hard. (Effects are being made elsewhere in the system to improve this, e.g. reusing large arrays rather then create new arrays.) Often the serialization of the state is the last straw that courses an out of memory exception; our peak memory usage is while this serialization is being done. I think we get large memory pool fragmentation when we de-serialize the object, I expect there are also other problem with large memory pool fragmentation given the size of the arrays. (This has not yet been investigated, as the person that first looked at this is a numerical processing expert, not a memory management expert.) Are customers use a mix of Sql Server 2000, 2005 and 2008 and we would rather not have different code paths for each version of Sql Server if possible. We can have many active models at a time (in different process, across many machines), each model can have many saved states. Hence the saved state is stored in a database blob rather then a file. As the spread of saving the state is important, I would rather not serialize the object to a file, and then put the file in a BLOB one block at a time. Other related questions I have asked How to Stream data from/to SQL Server BLOB fields? Is there a SqlFileStream like class that works with Sql Server 2005?

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• Make a compiled binary run at native speed flawlessly without recompiling from source on a another system?

  - by unknownthreat

  I know that many people, at a first glance of the question, may immediately yell out "Java", but no, I know Java's qualities. Allow me to elaborate my question first. Normally, when we want our program to run at a native speed on a system, whether it be Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux, we need to compile from source codes. If you want to run a program of another system in your system, you need to use a virtual machine or an emulator. While these tools allow you to use the program you need on the non-native OS, they sometimes have problems of performance and glitches. We also have a newer compiler called "JIT Compiler", where the compiler will parse the bytecode program to native machine language before execution. The performance may increase to a very good extent with JIT Compiler, but the performance is still not the same as running it on a native system. Another program on Linux, WINE, is also a good tool for running Windows program on Linux system. I have tried running Team Fortress 2 on it, and tried experiment with some settings. I got ~40 fps on Windows at its mid-high setting on 1280 x 1024. On Linux, I need to turn everything low at 1280 x 1024 to get ~40 fps. There are 2 notable things though: Polygon model settings do not seem to affect framerate whether I set it low or high. When there are post-processing effects or some special effects that require manipulation of drawn pixels of the current frame, the framerate will drop to 10-20 fps. From this point, I can see that normal polygon rendering is just fine, but when it comes to newer rendering methods that requires graphic card to the job, it slows down to a crawl. Anyway, this question is rather theoretical. Is there anything we can do at all? I see that WINE can run STEAM and Team Fortress 2. Although there are flaws, they can run at lower setting. Or perhaps, I should also ask, "is it possible to translate one whole program on a system to another system without recompiling from source and get native speed?" I see that we also have AOT Compiler, is it possible to use it for something like this? Or there are so many constraints (such as DirectX call or differences in software architecture) that make it impossible to have a flawless and not native to the system program that runs at native speed?

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• Best of both worlds: browser and desktop game?

  - by Ricket

  When considering a platform for a game, I've decided on multi-platform (Win/Lin/Mac) but can't make up my mind as far as browser vs. desktop. As I'm not all too far in development, and now having second thoughts, I'd like your opinion! Browser-based games using Java applets: market penetration is reasonably high (for version 6, it's somewhere around 60% I believe?) using JOGL, 3D performance/quality is decent; certainly good enough to render the crappy 3D graphics that I make there's the (small?) possibility of porting something to Android great for an audience of gamers who switch computers often; can sit down at any computer, load a webpage and play it also great for casual gamers or less knowledgeable gamers who are quite happy with playing games in a browser but don't want to install more things to their computer written in a high-level language which I am more familiar with than C++ - but at the same time, I would like to improve my skills with C++ as it is probably where I am headed in the game industry once I get out of school... easier update process: reload the page. Desktop games using good ol' C++ and OpenGL 100% market penetration, assuming complete cross-platform; however, that number reduces when you consider how many people will go through downloading and installing an executable compared to just browsing to a webpage and hitting "yes" to a security warning. more trouble to maintain the cross-platform; but again, for learning purposes I would embrace the challenge and the knowledge I would gain better performance all around true full screen, whereas browser games often struggle with smooth full screen graphics (especially on Linux, in my experience) can take advantage of distribution platforms such as Steam more likely to be considered a "real" game, whereas browser and Java games are often dismissed as not being real games and therefore not played by "hardcore gamers" installer can be large; don't have to worry so much about download times Is there a way to have the best of both worlds? I love Java applets, but I also really like the reasons to write a desktop game. I don't want to constantly port everything between a Java applet project and a C++ project; that would be twice the work! Unity chose to write their own web player plugin. I don't like this, because I am one of the people that will not install their web player for anything, and I don't see myself being able to convince my audience to install a browser plugin. What are my options? Are there other examples out there besides Unity, of games that have browser and desktop versions? Did I leave out anything in the pro/con lists above?

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• pecl-ssh2-0.11 Freebsd Compile error after upgrading to php 5.3.2

  - by penfold45

  Hi I've been looking for answers for this all day and can find nothing to solve my issue. I also came across a question about this port on serverfault that I just answered and will hopefully help someone else. however my problem is this. While running "make" in /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2 I get this error === Building for pecl-ssh2-0.11 /bin/sh /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/libtool --mode=compile cc -I. -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11 -DPHP_ATOM_INC -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/include -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/main -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11 -I/usr/local/include/php -I/usr/local/include/php/main -I/usr/local/include/php/TSRM -I/usr/local/include/php/Zend -I/usr/local/include/php/ext -I/usr/local/include/php/ext/date/lib -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -O2 -pipe -fno-strict-aliasing -c /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c -o ssh2.lo cc -I. -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11 -DPHP_ATOM_INC -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/include -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/main -I/usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11 -I/usr/local/include/php -I/usr/local/include/php/main -I/usr/local/include/php/TSRM -I/usr/local/include/php/Zend -I/usr/local/include/php/ext -I/usr/local/include/php/ext/date/lib -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -O2 -pipe -fno-strict-aliasing -c /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/ssh2.o /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c: In function 'zif_ssh2_methods_negotiated': /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:502: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:503: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:507: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:508: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:509: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:510: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:515: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:516: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:517: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:518: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_string_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c: In function 'zif_ssh2_poll': /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:891: error: 'zval' has no member named 'is_ref' /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:891: error: 'zval' has no member named 'refcount' /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:901: error: 'zval' has no member named 'is_ref' /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:902: error: 'zval' has no member named 'refcount' /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c: In function 'zif_ssh2_publickey_add': /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:1011: error: 'zval' has no member named 'is_ref' /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:1012: error: 'zval' has no member named 'refcount' /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:1044: warning: passing argument 1 of '_efree' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c: In function 'zif_ssh2_publickey_list': /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:1103: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_stringl_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11/ssh2.c:1104: warning: passing argument 4 of 'add_assoc_stringl_ex' discards qualifiers from pointer target type *** Error code 1 Stop in /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2/work/ssh2-0.11. *** Error code 1 Stop in /usr/ports/security/pecl-ssh2. I am trying to recompile this port after upgrading from php 5.2.12 to php 5.3.2 which was released on freebsd over the weekend. I have run out of ideas and steam with this so if anyone has any ideas on what this might be I would be truly grateful.

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• XNA Notes 010

  - by George Clingerman

  With GDC 2011 wrapping up there were a LOT of great interviews and posts with and about XNA and XBLIG and some of our more notorious developers. Definitely worth spending many, many hours watching, listening and reading all those. Very inspiring! Also, don’t forget to get signed up for Dream Build Play! And just as an early warning reminder do NOT, I repeat do NOT wait to submit your game the last day. There are major issues submitting the last day every year and you do not want all your hard work to be hanging on whether your entry actually went through in that last day. Plan on submitting a few days if not a week before. I’m serious, you’ll thank yourself later! Now on to what’s happening in the XNA community! Time Critical XNA News: PAX East Meet Up (really wish I was going!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71921/439262.aspx Want to stay panicked about the countdown to Dream Build Play? Mike McLaughlin shares his DBP countdown clock http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/44454458960252928 XNA Team: Nick Gravelyn Only needs less than 600 new users in his unique marketing plan for Pixel Man 2 http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ And hares his ad revenue numbers with his XNA WP7 games http://theoneswiththelight.com/2011/my-results-with-ad-revenue-for-wp7-games/ XNA MVPs: Andy “The ZMan” Dunn posts his 15,000th App Hub forum post and shares a few thoughts on the MVP summit http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx Chris Williams shares his thoughts on the MVP summit http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx XNA Developers: Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best games Wraps up GDC http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-wrapped.html And shares the wonderful screenshots from Serious Sam. (I’m so jealous people at PAX East willl be playing a demo of this game!) http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/serious-sam-double-d.html James Silva of Ska Studios announces http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/09/vampire-smile-at-hotel-sierra/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/08/vengeance-begins-april-6th/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/04/good-morning-gato-52/ Michael McLaughlin writes an extremely useful set of tips for XNA WP7 developers http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/10/tips-for-xna-wp7-developers.aspx Robert Boyd “the one man XBLIG improving machine” posts his 9 tips for marketing an Xbox LIVE Indie Gam http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110309/7183/9_Tips_for_XBLIG_Marketing.php http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/77534/470586.aspx#470586 And shares his day by day experience at GDC this year http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7118/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_1.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7123/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_2.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110303/7129/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_3.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7133/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_4.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7160/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_5.php Phillipe Da Silva releases new IGF Pong Sample preview http://www.vimeo.com/20904070 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Gamergeddon posts XBox Indie Game Roundup for March 6th http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/03/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-march-6th/ Dealspwn interviews FortressCraft developer Projector Games http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-minecraft-clones-venting-haters-part-1/ http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-part-2-trials-tribulations-indie-development/ Writings of Mass Destruction continues the Xbox LIVE Indie Game a day campaign, here’s his take on FishCraft (be sure to check out his other posts!) http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/03/05/day-116-fishcraft/ Tom Ogburn shares his GDC notes on the XBLIG panel jotted quickly while attending the panel http://twitter.com/#!/TOgburn/status/44454191028125696 http://www.starlitskygames.com/blogs/site_news/archive/2011/03/06/802.aspx Dave Voyles of Armless Octopus has crazy good coverage on XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers at GDC 2011. Interviews and articles all extremely well done! http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/06/gdc-2011-successful-indie-developers-share-insight-on-microsofts-self-publishing-service/ There’s honestly so many posts and interviews you should just hit his front page and scroll down through all of the latest ones. http://www.armlessoctopus.com/ GameMarx Episode 12 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/27/ep-12-march-4-2011.aspx B.U.T.T.O.N now on Steam! http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/button_party_game_now_on_steam.php German Xbox Dashboard gets review program from GamePro http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/07/gamepo-indie-review-show-debuts-on-german-xbox-dashboard/ XboxIndies.com (one of the best XNA sites out there at this point!) continues to add review sites to it’s main review feed. (And don’t forget to play with that awesome XBLIG pivot control!) http://xboxindies.com/ Kris Steele of FunInfused Games shares early footage of his game World of Chalk http://twitter.com/#!/kriswd40/status/45007114371989504 Raymond Matthews of Darkstarmatryx reviews FunInfused Games Abduction Action http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=264 TheVideoGamerRob reviews Zombie Football Carnage http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/xblig-review-zombie-football-carnage/ XBLIG Square Off Making the Jump to WP7 http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/03/08/xblig-square-off-will-make-the-jump-to-windows-phone/ Mommy’s Best Games making the news round with their Serious Sam announcement http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/serious-sam-gets-serious-indie-cred-with-new-indie-series/ Most quoted and linked XBLIG article of the week with the least amount of actual facts and reporting. Shared only because it makes me sad that this is the best coverage we get. (Hey reporters, there’s LOT and LOTS of XBLIG and XNA experts you can contact if you need to check up on facts or wonder why on questions like, Why can’t XBLIGs have Nazis? There’s actually a real answer for that..) http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/06/xblig-facts-nazi-killing-a-no-no-revenue-a-yes-yes/ XNA Development: Mort8088 has been in an XNA tutorial writing frenzy releasing 4 XNA 4.0 entry level tutorials this week! http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-0-intro/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-1-fonts/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-2-sprites/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-3-input-from-keyboard/ Interesting discussion on what it means to be a community (you do have to sign up to be a member of the XNA UK forums to read it...) http://twitter.com/#!/XNAUK/status/44705269254594560 Slyprid continues his incredible pace on Transmute and shares screens of his new Animation Builder http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/45169271847911424 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/blog/ Philippe Da Silva wants to know who is using IGF for their games. If it’s you, drop him a note letting him know! http://twitter.com/#!/philippedasilva/status/44325893719588864 New Sunburn Video Tutorials released http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/03/07/new-documentation-video-tutorials.aspx Loading and rendering animated collada models using XNA 4.0 http://bunkernetz.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/loading-and-rendering-animated-collada-models-using-xna-4-0/ XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 6 Accelerometer Input http://buzzgamesnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/xna-for-silverlight-developers-part-6.html

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