_FFC_
As mentioned earlier via email I went ahead and upgraded our Ventrilo server to the latest 3.0.0 version. This was going to happen automatically by month end anyway. This means you MUST upgrade your client to the same version in order to connect!
The upgrade process will uninstall your old client but keep the settings. There are quite a few changes with the new version but most don't concern us. The funky "Guest" label that shows up by your name will be fixed in a forth-coming patch.
Also, I spent some time today trying a few tweaks to improve CoD4 performance, keeping decent FPS (Frame Per Second) rates while enabling most quality settings. It wasn't bad before but I was curious to see if it could be made better. I ended up leaving the Vsync (Vertical Sync, Sync Every Frame) setting "off". I get some tearing (artifacts mainly noticeable on vertical objects when moving quickly side-to-side) but it's not too bad and the trade-off is greatly improved FPS. However, if you are prone to motion-sickness it's best to leave the Vsync "on" as long as your FPS is tolerable.
I then used Nvidia's "Ntune' add-on to slightly OC (OverClock) my graphics cards. Have to really be careful with that since the heat factor can cause problems.
For those of you who run dual graphics cards in SLI (Scalable Link Interface), I found it's best to create a profile for the CoD4 MP startup file and set the SLI Rendering Method to AFR2. If you're interested in trying that out, it's done via the Nvidia Control Panel....I can give you the details on Ventrilo but here's a quick overview of the basic profile process.
_FFC_
Only a few days out the gate and already over 4 thousand MP servers out there! Of course this has caused load problems with the Activision master servers which in turn has caused connection headaches for the user community. Lots of complaints about that on the gaming forums so hopefully the problem gets addressed very soon.
Meanwhile, you can try up'n your connection time attempts from the lowly 10 second default to something more realistic. I set mine to 60. To do so, use Wordpad (not Notepad) to edit your config_mp.cfg file (found in your game's ../players/profiles/yourplayername folder) and add the following using whatever new value in seconds:
seta cl_connectionAttempts "60"
There have also been complaints about the music and volume so we are not alone there either. I expect to see that fixed in a patch soon. But overall, the game is still awesome and a huge hit with the masses.
I also read that ping-wise, CoD4 displays higher than CoD2 even if the actual game performance seems normal. Even so, I'm having our 2 and 4 servers relocated from Dallas to Chicago. That's where we ran from in the past but I thought I'd try Dallas to see if it helped Crow....it didn't. For whatever reason, Chicago seems to have the best response for everyone.
Schultz got on Ventrilo last night and should have 4 in hand soon...he mentioned he already had a gift cert for it, just not been to the store yet. And I heard from Crow that Flop was ask'n about the new game so maybe we'll see "The Token" in there soon too!
We could use a few more "regular" players so if you have friends or know of interested player prospects, let me know. As long as they fit in with our relaxed play'n and fun'n style, the more the merrier.
_PC_
Hope ya'll had a Happy Halloween. But now that there's a short break between holidays coming up, it'll be a good time to load up "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" and blow the crap outta a whole army of virtual BGs. Me? I've been ready for a long while...put my pre-order in at Newegg back in early September. I hate standing in line at the game stores.
Not a lot new over on the official release site. A few silly-style fake "promo" videos from Castro, Putin, and the like. Good to see the IW/Activision team still has a sense of humor I guess.
They did release a CoD4:MW screensaver that has some kewl screenshots from the game. As you need to be a registered site member, I put a copy of the file here if you'd like to download it.
BTW, I did find a few new realistic CoD2 maps that I'll throw in on our WRM server. As they are largish in size, many will have SD or HQ gametypes to aid in up'n the action quotient. You may also have noticed I added Gametracker banners for our servers in the right panel here. Yet another way to see who is on where.
On a personal note, I start back to FT work at the new job in a few days so will have less time to spend on the game server tweaks and the blog here. Will miss that but I'm ready to have some steady $ coming in...been a rough year in many ways.
