Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by DrBlueBox

Batch 8bit x264 MKV encoder

DrBlueBox — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:36:33 +0800

While most MKV files works fine on your phone, some like newly released 10bit animes won't play due to hardware limitations. So if you feel like watching videos on your phone and you find it incompatible, you can easily reencode the video files to something that your phone can play, which is usually 8bit h264

1 - Download this http://www.mediafire.com/?r9kyzsyo3jhohjj

2 - You will get 4 files like so. Put it in the folder of the files you want to convert

3 - Just run the encode.bat if you want to keep the original file resolution, or encode720p.bat if you want to resize it to 720p (for older phones such as Galaxy S that does not support full HD hardware decoding). A CMD Window will pop up and you can see the progress of your encoding

4 - Voila! You should have a new file with an appended [8bit] at the back. This file is confirmed to be playable on your mobile phone!

some additional tips
- You can edit the two .bat files to suit your phones. For Exynos based phones such as Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Note, it could only support "h264 Baseline Profile". Anything higher and the files will become laggy. Tegra based phones and also the new Galaxy S III is said to support up to "h264 High Profile" for 720p videos or "H264 Main Profile" for 1080p. The difference between "Baseline", "Main" and "High" are the filesize where it will be smaller depending on which you choose. To change the profile, edit the .bat file and locate this line:

CODE

x264 --preset fast --profile baseline --tune animation --crf 16 -o %tmpfile% %oldfile%

and change the "baseline" to which profile suits your phone. It's a trial and error, so try converting a smaller file to test which profile suits your phone the best.

We are compiling a test result to see which phone can play what profile. you can see the list here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key...SEZOSmMzMjgwVFE

You can also help with the testing. To test, download the two files below and put it in your phone
http://www.siswajaya.utm.my/test/test_high_8bit.mkv <-- High Profile
http://www.siswajaya.utm.my/test/test_main_8bit.mkv <-- Main Profile

Then play the files using MX Player, and see if it lags.
PM me if you want to add your phone to the list after testing

nVidia Fan Club v9

DrBlueBox — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:21:30 +0800

[center][/center]

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA; /ɪnˈvɪdiə/ in-vid-ee-ə) is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. The company invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. GPUs drive the computer graphics in games and in applications used by professional designers. Their parallel processing capabilities provide researchers and scientists with the ability to efficiently run high-performance applications, and they are deployed in supercomputing sites around the world. More recently, Nvidia has moved into the mobile computing market, where its processors power phones and tablets, as well as auto infotainment systems. Its competitors include Intel, AMD and Qualcomm.

The following are the most notable product families produced by Nvidia:
[.] GeForce
[.] Quadro
[.] Tegra
[.] Tesla
[.] nForce

Two Local Anime DVD company sued

DrBlueBox — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:17:03 +0800

According to my sauces, two local companies, EF Industry and VBG entertainment are being sued for selling pirated DVDs by the Government. The sue will cost more than RM5 Million, and in the case of EF, they were already sued previously for RM2 million ++ and if found guilty could face jail time.

you might think why the Government is taking a long time to crack down on the pirated DVDs. Well companies such as EF and VBG DOES have "some" license to produce and sell anime titles in Malaysia, hence why most DVDs have those Tulen stickers. But what they do is they usually will also print and sell titles that they don't have license for, or for episodes that they never paid yet. For example VBG have license for Naruto episode 1~100, but they also sell Naruto ep 101~300, which they never paid for. So in general they can say they "own" the right to distribute Naruto in Malaysia without actually saying the limit of how many they can actually sell and making profit in the process

Anyways, it's a good news that Japanese studios and the Government are finally working together to weed out these unhonest distributors.

Hari Belia Negara 2012

DrBlueBox — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:38:03 +0800

http://www.kbs.gov.my/dokumen2012/hbn2012/...AN%20SEGMEN.pdf

2nd to last page. Nuff said

Formula 1 2012 Announced

DrBlueBox — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:48:23 +0800

So another skin update for F1 2010. Woohoo!

Dropdown menu validation

DrBlueBox — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:46:55 +0800

I have a drop down menu in a HTML form and I wanted to make a validation to make sure that a choice is made before the user can proceed. Thus in the validate form function, I created:

CODE

if (form.listName.selectedIndex == 0) {
var oLabel = document.getElementById('UniError');
oLabel.innerHTML = ' <font color=RED>*INCOMPLETE</font>';
event.returnValue=false;
}

Where listName is the name of my dropdown menu. But it's not working for some reason. I tried using "value" instead of "selectedIndex" since that is how I validate my textbox and radio button (that works!) but no success. Anyone can help shed an idea? Thanks

Edit: Scrap that. "value" works. I just forgot to clear the webcache and it keep reloading the old .js file for some reason.

Test Drive Ferrari

DrBlueBox — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:48:14 +0800

Developed by Slightly Mad Studios, Test Drive Ferrari will feature 52 Ferrari road & race cars from various decades, including Formula One & sports car machinery. The previews show the cars racing on both modern and historic tracks such as Rouen, the choice of tracks also includes the toughest of them all – The Nürburgring Nordschleife.

Test Drive Ferrari will be coming to the PC, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 starting March 30 2012

[youtubewide]N_DDDpE1tLY&hd=1[/youtubewide]

Signature report button

DrBlueBox — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:47:50 +0800

-- Please keep your post concise to ensure a speedy review from us. We suggest 250 words or less. --

I still see some people using signatures that do not adhere to forum ruling. My suggestion is a signature report button that could be accessed when we click on a person's information.

Thank you

Battlefield 3 Problem FAQ thread

DrBlueBox — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:07:28 +0800

This thread is to centralise solutions for problems that usually happens when you are running Battlefield, and also answer some questions that might have arose when gaming. If you have a problem and an answer for it and you don't see it here, please do post as other people might also have the same problem and would like a solution as well

Please do not SPAM this thread.

First and foremost, the developers usually develop a game expecting there is an OS, the game software, the hardware to run it, and directx. In reality, you have a lot of junks on your PC, especially if you have been using Windows without reformatting for a long time. Thus sometimes things does not always go as the developers hope that it would. But it helps if you can have a clean installation of windows (Windows 7 64bit preferred unless you MUST use 32bit), all the latest drivers and the latest DirectX installed.

Battlefield 3 crashes when I ALT+TAB to desktop
This happens when the graphic memory (read: The memory in your video card, NOT your PC) run out due to the caching that BF3 does. You can lower down the settings in game, eg: using medium/low, or change your windows theme to basic. It's also highly recommend to turn off background apps so that you won't be suddenly thrown back to the desktop due to some pop up

DirectX Error (When starting the game)
Usually occurs for nVidia card. Change the game's compatibility to Windows Vista should fix this

DirectX Error (Crashes in game)
- If you are using an nVidia GTX560Ti, please see the solution on this thread
- If your graphic card is factory overclocked, try underclocking the card using MSI Afterburner and running the game again

I can't download the patch from Origin/patch too big
Direct download the latest patch from this thread

Game seems to lag and stutter randomly
If you are not using a GTX560Ti, this might be due to your system itself is using up too much RAM. While people say 4GB is enough, BF3 caches a lot of information on the RAM, and from my personal experience 8GB of RAM is the sweet spot for BF3 for now. Please note that you NEED a 64bit distribution of Windows to use more than 3GB of RAM. Alternatively, if you are using Firefox/Chrome, try switching to IE9 to launch the game and do not run any other browser in the background

I have been disconnected from the game, will my stats stay?
Your stats will be saved if you are disconnected from the game UNLESS
- The server itself crashes
- You have been kicked by Punkbuster

I can't join server as I keep being kicked by Punkbuster
Check your task manager. If you click on Show Process From All Users, you should see a process named PnkBstrA.exe running. Also you can manually run/update Punkbuster by browsing to your BF3's installation folder, and running pbsvc.exe. Also Punkbuster communicates with it's own server, thus your connection might have a problem communicating with PB's server. Try resetting your modem and see if this fixes your problem.

I keep getting Disconnected from EA Online (1)
This is EA's problem. Reset your router for a new IP and hope that it works.

Time to review signature size?

DrBlueBox — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:47:49 +0800

-- Please keep your post concise to ensure a speedy review from us. We suggest 250 words or less. --

It's been quite a while since we moved on from the time of dial up. And it's also around 9 years since Lowyat.net's forum has been established. With the fast(er) speed that everyone have now, shouldn't it be time to review the signature size rule? 70Kb is quite small, and I can point out that the excuse that it saves bandwith for people using mobile data plan is obsolete since the phone view for the forum automatically ommits the signature as well. And who in the right mind still using dial up? Not to mention that in the post themselves, people are linking to image files that can go up to 1MB in size. Saving bandwith on signature is a moot point IMO

we don't really need to go much larger, 150kb is sufficient IMO. But just enough to let that creativity juice flowing. We keep accusing of people not following the current trend. Is it ironic that our signature rule falls into that category? :3

Thank you

Battlefield 3 Patch Thead

DrBlueBox — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:04:38 +0800

Since there is a small number of Malaysians that can't afford an internet upgrade and can't get the patch, this thread will link to a local mirror of the patch, and also give a tutorial of how to install it

Thanks to Falcon Evo for the tutorial

Download the patch: http://161.139.152.177/Battlefield3-6-12-2011-patch.rar

Patch Date: 6th December 2011

Changelog

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Filesize – 80% compression – 3.12GB / 3,278,464KB
HTTP resumable downloads are supported if your client is capable.

- Please close Origin

- Locate your BF3 install directory, Backup the Update folder
Usually would be – C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\Update **this may be different on your PC**

- Extract the above file to the install directory of BF3
Usually would be – C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 3\Update
If you installed BF3 to an alternate location, please extract to the Update folder inside that directory

- Run Origin

- Origin will automatically detect the new content and update the game as neccesary, this can take time on some slower computers

- IF Origin can't detect your new update, give it a nudge as below

*Note* This thread will in the future also be update with upcoming patches/changelog and direct download IF I can get my hand on it

Malaysia BF3 Community Video project

DrBlueBox — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:13:47 +0800

As with the title above, this is a project to compile videos of Malaysian Battlefield Community in action. How would you ask? Just by recording your gameplay and submitting the link here!

If you are wondering how to record your gameplay video, just do as below

You need:
- FRAPS. Alternatively you can also use MSI's Afterburner built in video recorder, Predator
- Make sure you have a decent graphic card that can go 60FPS
- A LOT of Hard disk drive space
- Video converter (Virtual Dub is a free but not really easy software. It's your choice on what to use)

Depending on your graphic card, you need to do two things
- If your graphic card can do 60FPS easily on high/Ultra, set everything to low and keep your current resolution (GTX 580/GTX570/HD6950/HD6990)
- If your graphic card can do 60FPS on Medium, set everything to low and HALF your resolution OR use windowed mode (GTX 560 Ti/GTX480/HD6870/HD6850)
- If your graphic card can only do 60FPS on low, pray that there is no sudden lag happening during your recording (Any card before 2010)

Why do we need to do the above?
FRAPS takes a lot of computer resources during recording, and WILL drop down your FPS. To counter this we run the game to get a really high number of FPS so during recording the FPS hit won't hinder the gameplay itself. What the good of recording your gameplay if you can't play smoothly right?

What kind of video do I need to record?
Anything! It can be that awesome kill that you did that you wanted to show to everyone, or funny moment that happens 1 in a million. One way to make sure is to record your WHOLE game thus you won't miss that crucial moment

Okay, I recorded the video. What Do?
Convert it. FRAPS record video in uncompress AVI, thus the files will be HUGE (a normal full HD FRAPS video are usually 30~50seconds per 4GB of file). As said above, you can use softwares like Virtual Dub that is free, but it's up to you how to convert it. If you can, use H264 codec to maintain video quality in tandem with low file size.

Then?
Upload it, and post the link here. You can upload the video to youtube, but preferable upload it to an FTP somewhere so we can get the uncoverted video.

And that's it. Also am finding a video editor as well for this project. If you are interested, please PM me.

LET THE RECORDING BEGIN!

WTA Cheapest 120Hz Monitor

DrBlueBox — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:00:40 +0800

Hi, was just wondering what is the cheapest 120Hz LCD Monitor in the market today? From what I can see it's the Viewsonic model, but I could be wrong
Thanks in advance

Nvidia Fan Club V8

DrBlueBox — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:37:28 +0800

[center][/center]

Since mod so nice kolos last tered, I open new one

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA; /ɪnˈvɪdiə/ in-vid-ee-ə) is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. The company invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. GPUs drive the computer graphics in games and in applications used by professional designers. Their parallel processing capabilities provide researchers and scientists with the ability to efficiently run high-performance applications, and they are deployed in supercomputing sites around the world. More recently, Nvidia has moved into the mobile computing market, where its processors power phones and tablets, as well as auto infotainment systems. Its competitors include Intel, AMD and Qualcomm.

The following are the most notable product families produced by Nvidia:
[.] GeForce
[.] Quadro
[.] Tegra
[.] Tesla
[.] nForce

Please note that:
- When you ask a question regarding your hardware, please include the hardware's name, your PC spec, and your budget if you want to buy a new GPU
- Do not ask about "card that has xxGB of RAM". A VRAM on a graphic card is only relevant if you are using a display larger than a full HD resolution (1920*1080). A 1~1.5GB of Vram would be enough for every day gaming use
- Stay on topic
- Please post sources (URL) if you want to post a news or a rumour

6000 copies of MW3 stolen in an armed robbery

DrBlueBox — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:12:05 +0800

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1211793p1.html?_cmpid=ign18

Apparently pirates are getting much more braver and stole a van containing 6K copies of MW3.

Unconfirmed rumours:
- Delivery vans now would contain DRMs so that if you don't have the correct key it won't start
- The robbers tried to shot the tyres but they haven't unlocked sidearms yet
- Contrary to reports, there was no Russian involved

cpu heatsink recommendation

DrBlueBox — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:53:48 +0800

Can you guys help recommending me a good cpu heatsink/cooler around RM200? I am looking at the Cooler Master V6 currently

C.A.R.S.

DrBlueBox — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:41:25 +0800

[center][/center]

What do you get when the head of a development studio feels that publishers are not giving them a chance to produce something that they want and instead keep paying them to develop a something that would only generate more money for the publishers.

Well that was what happened with Ian Bell and C.A.R.S. Ian Bell, the head of Slightly Mad Studios who published the Need for Speed Shift series first came up with an idea of a racing simulator that is community driven and funded on the sim racing forum NoGrip. That idea was quickly put to works and as a result we have C.A.R.S., or Community Assisted Race Sim. the project will allow ordinary sim racers to become investors in a racing simulation title and get a share of the profits and unmatched access to the development process and a say in the title’s direction.

While the fruit of this labour would only appear late next year, the initial build of the game engine has already been launched and shareholders can now download and test it through their official site.

To ensure a realistic experience, Slightly Mad Studios have teamed up with none other than Ben Collins, the man who spent seven years being “The Stig” on BBC’s popular Top Gear automotive show.

“I’m delighted to be working on the C.A.R.S. project to create the best racing simulation in the world! Computer ‘games’ and simulations have become integral to success on the race track and I will be applying all my racing knowledge to provide handling input and advice to the builds on a regular basis,” Collins commented.

Planned Features

- FRANCHISE MODE allows you to carve out a personalized career starting in the Karting world and then progressing on to whichever motorsport specialization you prefer including Rally, Touring Cars, Open-Wheel, GT, Le Mans, and many more!

- Play CO-OP with a friend as Driver/Co-Driver

- FULL TEAM MANAGEMENT… Have a large number of friends? Create, manage, and compete together!

- Experience the excitement of PIT STOPS like you’ve never seen before!

- Revolutionary PIT-2-CAR RADIO gives you the strategic advantage

- DYNAMIC Time Of Day & Localized Weather make every race unique and challenging

- 10+ GAME MODES covering every form of motorsport

- CLOUD-BASED SOCIAL NETWORK allows you to connect with friends, compare times & scores, compete and challenge each other, and share content

- USER-GENERATED CONTENT – Create your own liveries, decals, tuning setups, and even events! Then share them with the world – either for free, in-game credits or even real money!

- PUSHING TO THE LIMITS – Advanced physics, lighting, and AI

To join WMD and start playing the build today, follow the steps below. Interested sim racers can become team members for as little as $10, entitling them to monthly development builds and participation in the WMD forums.

Other membership options even include weekly development-builds, script access to the game, direct contact with the developers and other perks such as your name and face in the finished game and VIP access to future events. For more info on the World of Mass Development concept and the different membership options, check out this page.

To start playing the development build today, follow these three steps.

1.Visit the website & register on the WMD forum.

2. Buy any tool pack to become a member.

3. Download the build (link at the top of the forum main page) and enjoy!

Some videos of the build
[youtubewide]l5bpT4AE0Ps[/youtubewide]
[youtubewide]kmDiiMC_SFw[/youtubewide]
[youtubewide]D0CVQNguFkA[/youtubewide]
[youtubewide]DK8P7s-LecU[/youtubewide]

These are the recommended minimum specs to run the development build:

Quad Core 2.4ghz or better
9800gt 512MB
2GB Ram (3-4GB recommended)

Going to get this later tonight after I topup my PayPal

make youtubewide default

DrBlueBox — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 07:45:54 +0800

-- Please keep your post concise to ensure a speedy review from us. We recommend 250 words or less. --

Since we have both the 'youtube' and 'youtubewide' embed tags, I noticed that not many used the wide choice, especially since it's not even shown, and most of the forumers use the normal non wide option. But when they embed a widescreen youtube video in this non widescreen tag, it compresses the video to an even smaller size, and sometimes it's hard to see the video, especially since it's 360p anyways.

Considering that most new videos and trailers are widescreen nowadays, why not just get rid of the old youtube tag and just use the wide one? Non wide video won't have the compression problem since it would just crop two black bars on the side of the videos.

CPU > GPU?

DrBlueBox — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:00:39 +0800

I had the liberty of "borrowing" two extra HD6850 from my workplace, and as I just upgraded to an i5 system, I tested out the crossfire mode. While I was not expecting an instant performance gain over my old HD5850 (which is faster than a single HD6850 mind you) I do expect to see a significant increase in FPS of around 15~20%.

My first test on Deus Ex Human Revolution shown an improvement that I expected to see, and I was initially pleased with it. So I tried out another new game that just arrived, Codemaster's F1 2011. Surprise - surprise, it was running around 40FPS, nearly HALF of what I get with a single HD5850. Surprised, I tried another game, Fallout New Vegas. There was increase compared to the last time I ran the game on my old Q6600, but checking GPUz, the 2nd card is not really used.

Poking around, my suspicion was confirmed with this article on F1 2011 and it's relation to CPU speed. Apparently the only reason I am getting that high FPS number using the HD5850 in the first place was due to my CPU, and NOT my graphic card. Same can be said with Fallout as countless threads were discussing on the game not wanting to work with crossfire, even after updates of both the game and driver that was said to have fixed this.

And thus the question, in the future would a faster CPU become THE factor when gaming, and not GPU anymore? It can't be denied that majority of the games that we have in the market nowadays are just console ports, and combined with deadlines and sloppy coding means that they are not optimised to use the GPU, but more towards the CPU. Only a few games out there are ported correctly but would the numbers suffice in influencing what would a gamer choose in term of hardware upgrades in say, 5~10 years from now?

Does the developer themselves would continue this trend or would they buck up and finally make an optimised port to the PC that can fully utilise the power of the GPU instead of relying mostly on the CPU? Honestly I doubt it.

And I know what I am getting next year, an i7 for sure

Crossfire questions

DrBlueBox — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:39:14 +0800

Upgraded my PC the other day and was wondering, since I am using a 5850 graphic card, what other cards can I use to crossfire with this? Googling come out inconclusive since some sites says that I need to use a card that is from the 58XX family (meaning that I can use a 5830 to crossfire this for example) but other sites says that I can just use any 5XXX card. Thus I need clarification on this.

Second is since if I am using crossfire, my PCIe will run at 8x on both lanes. Will this lead to any performance drop compared to a 16x lane?

PC spec is as below
- Intel i5 2400
- MSi P67A-GD65 B3
- 8GB Corsair DDR3 Gaming Ram
- Cooler Master GX 650w Bronze
- Sapphire ati 5850

Thank you