Crysis Ends

Finished playing Crysis, it was a great fun ride with a lot of action and also with a last moment crysis. Last level of Crysis has got a huge memory leak, it starts using 100% RAM and hangs. Patch 1.2 helps and running the game in DX 9 mode improves performance. This is how to set the Crysis in DirectX 9 mode: Open the Game Explorer (Vista) and right click on the Crysis icon.

The game is smaller than I expected, I was thinking in the line of FarCry but still it was fun playing Crysis. Downloading Crysis Warhead. One screenshot from last level of Crysis:



Also finished playing NFS Undercover, it is similar to Carbon, but again its just another NFS (Let me forget the Prostreet Horror!).

State of Broadband in India

Today I received a surprise call from my Broadband provider, Tata Indicom. The person on the other end talked about their new Fair Usage Policy for those who have unlimited plans. The details of this policy are given here. The Indicom guy said that it was forced by the government (a lie!!). I have an unlimited 384Kbps plan, now according to this policy I can not upload+download more than 70GB (limitation!). I wonder if both speed and data transfer are restricted, why they call it an unlimited plan. On asking the same question from the Indicom guy, he said that this policy enables other users to use the Internet fairly (I use it unfairly!).

I have around 200GB in the downloading queue and with these restrictions in the place it will take around 4 months to download (not to forget the downtime and power cuts!). I can not get rid of Tata Indicom because Airtel does not cover my area (heard they also have similar policy!), Reliance broadband is worse than Indicom, BSNL guys are deaf and they don't really care about a thing in the world (govt employees!). Other option, USB Modems is another nightmare, never heard a good thing about them. Only BSNLs EVDO is good (based on rumours!) but again its availability and support is NIL in the Indian IT Hub.

To be frank, India (a third world country!!) is still far behing in this field, we pay huge amounts to get nothing but headache in the name of broadband. Lets pray that one day after hundred years we'll get an unlimited 32 Mbps connection.

Here are my speedtest results:



And I pay 1100+ Rs. for this, which works 15 days a month and 15 hrs in a day.

Gaming Begins

I bought my first PC in 2004 having configuration: 2.5 Gz P4, 128MB of RAM, 40 GB HDD, CD-R, 15'' Monitor. With 16 MB shared graphics I was left with 112MB of RAM but the worst part was its SiS chipset which is known for its bad graphics and also a 4x AGP slot (not 8x !) and with this combination gaming was just a dream. However in 2007 I did a full upgrade with 1GB RAM (Max supported!), an Nvidia FX 5 series 8x 256 MB card and a 160 GB hard drive, this enabled me to play the games which were released in 2005 or before. This was a branded PC from Compaq IL-5030 Series.

This time I decided to assemble a PC with my configuration, which can play latest games coming out in the market as well as next two years games with a little part upgrades. So I went for this configuration:

AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE
ATI 4870 1 GB DDR5
4GB DDR2 800 MHz (will upgrade to 8GB soon!)
Biostar TA 790GX 128MB Mobo with Crossfire (I can put one more Gfx Card :D)
500GB HDD + 320GB (Ext) + 500GB (Ext) - will add another 1.5 TB internal HDD

Here are a few screenshots of NFS Undercover (with 1440x900 @ 75 Hz):







Click on the image to see the full resolution image. FYI currently I am playing NFS and Crysis.

Re-Turn

After a big confusion between Wordpress and Blogger I had to come back here. Since I rarely write anything, I have decided not to use any of the seven domain names I own. Wordpress (endex.wordpress.com) was my first choice but after coming across its limitations, I had to choose Blogger. My other two sites vikasing.com and viks.in will be redirected here.