Which games would you always reinstall?

Some of you know that I've recently updated my current gaming rig with a new 320Gig drive from Seagate (see post here for the juicy details). Having completed the install of XP and a bunch of utilities I can't live without (future post subject), came the time to start to install the games.

The first one to be installed was an easy choice: EVE Online. And don't tell me you're surprised! The second, was also a given, Guild Wars -- the first two since I don't have Nightfall yet. But then came the questions; which would I reinstall, which would be next, should I install all of them, or just the ones I play regularly.

After giving it some thought, I took most of Wednesday evening reinstalling the following games, since CCP was making some hardware upgrades, which meant that EVE was down -- duh! So without further ado, here are the games I deemed important (which means FUN) enough to take the time to reinstall.

1. EVE Online: The Second Genesis
2. Guild Wars (original and Factions)
3. Homeworld 2
4. Dungeon Siege 2
5. Starcraft (original and Brood War)
6. Battle Realms (original and Winter of the Wolf)
7. Warcraft 3 (Reigns of Chaos and The Frozen Throne)
8. Lord of the Ring: The War of the Ring
9. Neverwinter Nights (all 3 versions)
10. Aquanox 2

So there you have it. These are the games that I'll pretty much install every time I do a Windows reinstall. Don't get me wrong, I still spend most of my time playing EVE and Guild Wars, but I also like to come back to old games. There's nothing like a good Starcaft match against an opponent half-away around the world.

So what are the games you would reinstall? Let me know.

A 320Gb gorilla comes home

Last Tuesday I got the ok from the VP of finance (aka the wife!) to purchase a new HDD. I'd been using an old 13Gb from Fujitsu, which was the original drive in my first ever PC; an IBM PC 300 PL 6892. This goes back to 1999-2000 era, in the previous millennia!

I can hear you now, "but that must have slowed down you computer so much so!" Indeed, it did. In my defence, I did add a few years back a second HDD, a reasonable 80Gb IDE from Maxtor. But I knew that one of my next upgrade would have to be changing the HDD with something bigger and better. And that's where the Seagate 320GB SATA2 16Mb Cache comes in. Out with the 13Gb, in with the 320Gb behemoth!

So Saturday morning, I started going over all the software I had installed and downloading all the installers I would need for the new install. Here an almost complete list of all these utilities and software. Some are common, some I wouldn't live without!

Utilities:

• CCleaner
• Disckeeper
• RegistryFix
• McAfee Security Center
• McAfee Virus Scan
• McAfee Firewall
• Windows Defender
• Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor
• SiSoftware Sandra Pro Home 2007

Web:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera
• Internet Explorer 7
• Gmail Notifier
• Pando
• Smart FTP Client 2
• Windows Live Messenger

Multimedia:

• Picassa 2
• iTunes & Quicktime
• Divx
• Windows Media Player 11
• iriver plus 2
• Nokia PC Suite
• Roxio Easy Media Creator
• PlexTools
• BOINC: Stei@Home

And of course EVE Online: The Second Genesis

There is one utility I did not have to install, which was a big help during the new drive installation, the Manage utility which can be accessed by right-clicking My Computer. This is the best little drive utility I never knew about. During the installation I noticed that Windows XP only saw 127Gb of my 320Gb (137,000 bytes that is). After checking a few things and thinking there most have been a setting I did select, or selected and shouldn't, I started to search the web for help. After googling a few searches, I came across a post on a forum which mentioned the Manage utility. After having a bit of fun with it, and setting up things right, I had a a new 320Gb drive partitioned into two and a third 80Gb drive. Now cam the installation and configuration.

I have to say, overall it went pretty smoothly and by bedtime I had most of it done.

Just for fun, I then ran the Windows Vista Upgrade utility just to see if any warnings came up. None did. I'm now Vista-Ready. Bring it on Redmond. Let's make a move to the 21st century and start to catch-up to Mac Os X.

Before you go though, I would love to know if you've got any cool and practical utilities that you use that I did not mention. Any information would be appreciated.

T'ill the next upgrade!

Gaming: Getting ready for next year

I've been trying to keep myself abreast of the latest Vista news, making sure I stay on top of things so that I don't get a nasty surprise when the time comes to upgrade.

The main reason for me to upgrade will be the new Trinity II graphics engine for EVE Online. Hell it might even be the only reason. I really don't give a monkey's ass about the 'look' of Vista - I currently run Windows XP with the bare minimum graphics fluff (the Windows 2000 look). Not that I don't have the hardware for it (1Gb of RAM, Radeon 9500 Pro 128Mb), but I prefer to keep things lean and fast. I like things to look good in EVE, not in Windows.

And so, I keep looking for information, advice, tips and all in knowing if I'll need to upgrade any parts of my current PC in order to run Vista and its new graphics engine - again, the only reason is for the new EVE graphics engine (check this flickr slideshow and you'll understand why). This morning I came across this news article of at GameSpot that has a load of goodies. Here you'll find links to the Microsoft Vista Home and to the Get Ready beta utility with which you'll be able to see if you can run Vista when it comes out or if you'll need to upgrade anything. In my case, I'll have to change my main (master) hard drive - a very old (2000) yet very sturdy and reliable Fujitsu HDD.

While you're at it, head over to these previous posts to learn about Windows Vista: "Gaming: Windows Vista review on Gamespot" - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4. I also suggest you take a look at my growing Windows Vista blinklist, with which I keep track of everything related.

Gaming: Windows Vista review on Gamespot - Part 4

The final part of the Windows Vista review, Windows Vista Part 4 - Gaming and DirectX 10, was published prior to my trip to Vegas. I meant to post about sometime ago, but the whole Vista mess/delays/unknowns has prevented me from doing so. I just wanted to gather more information on it before sharing it with you.

DirectX 10, or whatever they decide to call it, will be the single most important update to impact the gaming community. Once it's available to card manufacturers, game developers will be able to start creating games to take full advantage of it (as in the new EVE graphic engine). But we're far from there, as quoted in Part 4:

The problem is that DirectX 10 video cards don't exist yet. Nvidia has the G80 in the works and ATI is polishing up the R600, a GPU based on the Xbox 360 "Xenos" core, but cards won't appear until the second half of this year. Even the game companies are having a tough time getting early-development GPU hardware right now. Several game developers we've spoken to have told GameSpot that they're still waiting to see DX10 reference cards.

And until they do, we certainly won't. And with Vista being pushed back to early 2007 (read mid-2007), then the chances of seeing EVE Online in a new light anytime soon, are just unrealistic. Or are they? We'll just have to wait to read about it in the next issue of E:ON.

Gaming: Windows Vista review on Gamespot - Part 3

The third part of the Windows Vista review, Windows Vista Part 3 - Networking and Security, has been available for sometime now.

Some of these security features will make for a welcomed improvements of XP. And the various new (updated) protocols that Vista will support will be interesting to have if the improvements they claim to add are actually noticeable to us users and not just to testing softwares.

Gaming: Windows Vista review on Gamespot - Part 2

The second part of the Windows Vista review, Windows Vista Part 2 - Navigation and organization, has been available since mid-last week. This time they go over "Searching" where we learn that Vista will use meta-tagging for easier and faster searches. The article also covers "Organization" and the new "Explorer" interface.

Overall things should be faster to find and Vista takes away some of the difficulties of filing numerous items. It's a shame WinFS won't make it until after Vista ships as this would provided an even better user experience. Guess you can't have everything at the same time.

Gaming: Windows Vista review on Gamespot

So by the end of the year, if all goes according to 'the' plan, we should finally get a long overdue update to the Windows platform. Long overdue because if you've recently taken a look at Mac OSX than you know that 'we' on Windows are seriously behind in terms of a having a modern, sleek, powerful and stable os. It's really funny when you think about it, because it used to be the opposite; before OSX the Mac OSes were lagging behind Windows in a number of features.

Having said that, this is the year where we PC gamers need to think seriously about the next iteration of Windows, how this will affect our gaming experience and what we need to do to take full advantage of Vista's capabilities.

There's a running article over at Gamespot Video: Windows Vista where you can read about it. I'll certainly keep an eye on it. Speaking of being on the lookout. I came across this disturbing piece of information over at Firing Squad which after some exhaustive research has found out that none of today's graphics card will be able to fully support Windows Vista. Disturbing news to say the least.

If you have other information on this matter, please let me know. I'll keep you posted.

[Links: Windows Vista]