Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 351

Rogue Legacy, Prison Architect, Company of Heroes 2, Capsule, occult chronicles, XCOM iPad, Agricola, Your Emails and More!

This week Shawn, Julian, Cory and Allen catch up on all your emails!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

Chairman_Mao's Timestamps
00.03.02 The Last of Us
00.03.36 Company of Heroes 2
00.07.43 Prison Architect
00.14.49 Agricola
00.21.51 XCom iPad
00.24.20 Capsule
00.26.32 Rogue Legacy
00.36.11 occult chronicles
00.40.35 Rymdkapsel
00.41.41 This week's sponsor: Sawbones!
00.43.24 Your emails!

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Comments

My current (age 33) feelings on PC troubleshooting:
IMAGE(http://media.tumblr.com/3e1da772086378b4c348b0ecff150788/tumblr_inline_mpdmd9vF1r1qz4rgp.gif)

I know the consensus has been that you need Windows 7 for gaming, but I upgraded to Windows 8 on release and I can say I've had no problems with gaming thus far.* Works just fine with all Origin, Steam, abd GOG games I've tried. The aesthetics might not be for everyone but underneath its pretty solid, and quite a bit snappier.

*One exception: I have to manually update punkbuster, but that's nbd. Also Metro 2033 required a reinstall after upgrading but that could be steam issues.

Bad Religion was brought up on the two podcasts I regularly listen to today.

Re: the discussion on PC optimization in these comments, if you have a modern rig, isn't the videocard generally the bottleneck for performance these days? If a game's graphics are simple, you probably aren't going to have a performance problem in the first place.

So, unless you're dealing with a game with particularly complex AI or other processes that are routed through the CPU, the videocard is doing the heavy lifting. If that's the case, all the OS process micromanagement won't make a huge difference, since your videocard isn't gaining any extra resources when you free up CPU time/RAM used by the OS. The only way that'd help is if your videocard's resources are being exhausted by the game (i.e. video RAM is tapped out and system RAM is having to pull double-duty), in which case maybe it's time for a new videocard.

Now, that's not to say you should reach for your credit card every time you're dissatisfied with your PC's performance. And obviously, upgrading drivers and turning off particularly CPU/disk intensive processes is going to help. But at a certain point, you're spending a lot of effort for a few extra FPS, and, if you can afford it, upgrading your hardware is going to be much more effective in creating noticeable performance gains.

Beckett wrote:

Can you post a link to the "The Last of Us" Let's Play video that you mentioned?

+1 please

OMG yay Rymdkapsel mention! I just got the game last week and am LOOOOOVING IT. So, so good, like, impressively good.

RE: the pc discussion. My experience is that anyone who associates with anything has the capability to be an asshole and will use their opinion instead of facts or knowledge. It's very frustrating but it's hardly the remit of pc gamers! Just head to any ps3 or 360 specific forums and you'll see the same disdain for people who ask for help or just questions on things they aren't sure of. You'll also see some nice people who are willing to help and very polite and respectful.

One of the problems at the moment is that, worldwide, much of the population is frustrated by various problems and rightly or wrongly those frustrations can and do spill over into online communities as much as they do in real world communities.

RE: monopoly. I like the game, everyone understands the rules and I've never used the auction rule and we have a house rule for taxes going to the person who lands on free parking. You guys are completely correct about everyone playing by house rules.... But isn't that the hallmark of a great game? Are role-playing games better or worse for allowing user customisation and riffing? Personally, I think forms of play that allow for and encourage experimentation are examples of the best type of game (e.g. aircraft).

I lovevlots of other games but I've never played house rules with settlers of Fagan, for instance - it's always the same game.

Edit:
RE: violence, authenticity etc. I completely agree with and hope Julian is correct about being at the tipping point. I did not find the combat in bioshock infinite to be fun or interesting. It felt like poor controls in 2007 or whenever bioshock was released and it felt like 6-7 year old gameplay in BI. I love diversity in gaming though and don't hold the fear that all games will be turned into something I don't like (or like) like Cory appeared to think. Maybe I misunderstood him there...

Re: people being jerks when you ask for technical advice.

Back in the day when ageing dinosaurs like me played PC games and we did, in fact, have to create boot disks with custom config.sys files designed to optimise upper memory blocks, there was a wealth of technical knowledge about and a good many people prepared to help you solve your problem, whatever it was.

Now, in an age where PC games not only mostly "just work", that knowledge base is not so prevalent as it's just not required any more. However the implied cachet of PC gaming remains that you have to have some kind of technical nous to be a part of it, even when you don't.

People who know the answer to your technical problem are often more than happy to elaborate on how to fix it. People who don't know the answer to your technical problem will do one of 2 things:

(1) Decline to answer your question by being quiet.
(2) Decline to answer your question by opening their facehole and making lots of useless noise.

Said useless noise can range from good natured guesses, through useless quips*, to slagging off the enquirer and heaping them with abuse in some kind of weird ritual wherein they try to feel superior to someone who doesn't know the answer despite not knowing the answer themselves.

Cognitive dissonance is a Female Doggo. Put it on my headstone.

*Yes, I'm aware I'm guilty of this myself.

I got in touch with the dev of rymdkapsel and turns out you cannot get it unless your in one of the following countries.
US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia or Japan because those are the only ones that support PSM.
Could get it on iOS or Android though.

Maq wrote:

Re: people being jerks when you ask for technical advice.

Back in the day when ageing dinosaurs like me played PC games and we did, in fact, have to create boot disks with custom config.sys files designed to optimise upper memory blocks, there was a wealth of technical knowledge about and a good many people prepared to help you solve your problem, whatever it was.

Now, in an age where PC games not only mostly "just work", that knowledge base is not so prevalent as it's just not required any more. However the implied cachet of PC gaming remains that you have to have some kind of technical nous to be a part of it, even when you don't.

People who know the answer to your technical problem are often more than happy to elaborate on how to fix it. People who don't know the answer to your technical problem will do one of 2 things:

(1) Decline to answer your question by being quiet.
(2) Decline to answer your question by opening their facehole and making lots of useless noise.

Said useless noise can range from good natured guesses, through useless quips*, to slagging off the enquirer and heaping them with abuse in some kind of weird ritual wherein they try to feel superior to someone who doesn't know the answer despite not knowing the answer themselves.

Cognitive dissonance is a Female Doggo. Put it on my headstone.

*Yes, I'm aware I'm guilty of this myself.

One of the things I've learned over the last few years is that while some times you do need to get into the nitty-gritty of a problem, quite often it's only as difficult as you make it, and PC usage in general is littered with such situations. It's not just one aspect, but many that contribute to the overall picture.

Not sure how applicable this is in the US.

Around my parts (Southeast Asia) I go to a shop that will sell me the parts from a catalogue (that they will show you if asked) and then the technicians on tap will assemble it while-you-wait, or over the course of a day or so, depending on how long you want to wait and how complex of a build it is.

Parts wrecked by shop technicians are replaced as if defective as they usually are. They will also offer you OS and install. You just have to pick up the machine the next day and take it home, complete. There is no service charge, the technicians are hired by the shop as an added perk to drive customers to their stores, sort of like bike mechanics. Tipping is allowed and ensures goodwill.

If the machine gets borked somewhere down the line, you can always take it to the store from which you bought it, and they will diagnose the problem for you for a service fee (about $10). If you need additional hardware, they'll advise you which one to get, but it's not a hard sell. If you want the machine to run on what it has, they'll try to fix it so it does, if it's capable. If you ask for an explanation of what's wrong, they will try to explain it as simply as possible, while remaining accurate (because you can always cross-check their answers, and they know that).

This essentially makes a PC, to me, just like a console. I buy at the store, pick it up after it's "done" and then buy disk games for it. The only hassle is validating Steam through Singapore (it's a snail-slow overseas connection).

I never knew about that Monopoly rule!
That insight into zombie stuff as analogous to the feeling of being the last sane person in the world is pretty cool. I neither avoid nor seek out zombie media though.

ranalin wrote:
Beckett wrote:

Can you post a link to the "The Last of Us" Let's Play video that you mentioned?

+1 please :)

I watched The Last of Us as a 'Let's play' series of videos. This is it. I skipped some sections just to give me something new to see if I do eventually do get to play it but from what I saw it was consistently good. There is no commentary and the game play sections are nicely done.

After used game sales are a thing of the past it will be interesting to see if 'Let's play' video's become the thing that is killing the gaming industry.

Edit: Wile I'm at it here is a Rogue Legacy video. The guy is quite good:

Shawn, I'm not very active on twitter, but I saw your posts about Rogue Legacy and tried the demo. It's at the top of my Steam wishlist now.

I have to chime in on the PC tweaking necessity debate here. And just a disclaimer that I am going to specifically NOT bring overclocking into the discussion as that is a parallel to NEW HARDWARE not software tweaks.

The single most important aspect by far, and some have spoken to it, is the video card drivers. No other tweak is going to significantly change your performance, this is pretty much it. Everything else is edge case. If keeping your video card drivers up to date is not helping you achieve the frame rates and gameplay at the resolution and details you want, you need new hardware (more RAM, new GPU, new CPU). I would think second to this is using an SSD for fast load times. I bought a relatively cheap 512GB SSD a year ago ($399, probably way cheaper by now) and having a good GPU and an SSD makes a world of difference.

I use ESET NOD32 AV, and it has an option you can enable where it will disable dynamic scanning while a fullscreen app is using the GPU. Most probably do for games these days.

With regards to the conversation of seperating the artist from the art, I have this to say:

Amen Julian! I couldn't agree more. I'll simply link to my response in the recent thread about this in P&C.

Tanglebones wrote:

My current (age 33) feelings on PC troubleshooting:
IMAGE(http://media.tumblr.com/3e1da772086378b4c348b0ecff150788/tumblr_inline_mpdmd9vF1r1qz4rgp.gif)

LOL

Love the podcast, another great episode

Calling all PC gamers elitist assholes because some anonymous internet users were mean to you on some forums is like taking a random sample of XBL users and concluding that console gamers are all horndog, racist/misogynist prepubescent boys.

Anyway, I think there's some exaggerating going on in that first letter. Google "Witcher minimum system requirements not met", and check out some of the forum thread links that pop up. Mostly pretty straightforward, cordial answers. I'm not disputing that someone was probably an asshole to the guy - the internet happens to be full of them - but I don't believe that's the only response he could get.

Jonman wrote:

With regards to the conversation of seperating the artist from the art, I have this to say:

Amen Julian! I couldn't agree more. I'll simply link to my response in the recent thread about this in P&C.

Thanks Jonman ... you say it better in that post than I did live! For sure!

Fyi: Rymdkapsel is Swedish and means space capsule or space pod (rymd = space, kapsel = capsule).

I think Julian mentioned that he'd link the instructions for smoothly linking recorded Skype audio when putting together a podcast. If so, I'd love to see it. Is it on here, and I missed it?

First up, grab Skype MP3 Recorder. Make sure it's set to record Stereo (not Joint Stereo) and recording bit rate of 24. That will record the skype conversation.

Before we start the show, we individually count 1,2,3 and clap so there's a spike in the audio to make it easier to line it up.

Personally I use Audacity to record my own local track but some of the guys use Reaper or Garage Band. We then export to MP3 and upload to Dropbox so Jonathan can grab our local tracks and the Skype track.

Instructions from Jonathan Downin, podcast producer expert man to follow:
-------------

First you want to import your raw files, so just drag and drop them into the Audacity window. You should then have a number a tracks in the main editing area, like this:

IMAGE(http://imageshack.us/a/img834/9708/lzqq.jpg)

I used the files from last weeks GWJ for this example, so there is the track with you two, Lara's track, and the Skype recording.

The next step is to get the audio synced. You will need to zoom in to the beginning of the tracks and find where the claps are. They are usually among the biggest/harshest spikes in the audio, so they should be pretty easy to spot. In this example, there are just two separate audio tracks, and the Skype audio is in stereo, so it's pretty easy to line them up. You just need to make sure that you select the "Time Shift Tool" to move tracks forwards and backwards (right and left) since the curser-looking "Selection Tool" doesn't allow movement of tracks, only selecting of track portions.

IMAGE(http://imageshack.us/a/img836/4453/w0d5.jpg)

Once the tracks are aligned, you can go ahead and delete the Skype track to simplify things. Now that the tracks are in sync, hit the "Sync-Lock Track" icon. This will make it so when you make any changes or delete sections in a single track, it will do the same to the other track(s) as well, so nothing will be thrown off.

IMAGE(http://imageshack.us/a/img713/6730/4wza.jpg)

So now you can make minor edits like cutting out mistakes or pauses by click and dragging over the area you want to edit using "Selection Tool." Once you have highlighted the area you want deleted, just hit delete and it will automatically rip that out and snap the two ends of the edit together leaving no dead space. If you forget to lock the track and try to do this it will just delete the portion on one track making the tracks out of sync. Just make sure you see the little clocks texture on the opposite track you're cutting from and you will be good to go.

Finally, you can adjust audio on a per-track basis using the volume slider on the individual tracks so no one person's audio is crazy loud or anything.

Certis and Jonathan wrote:

Very useful things

Oh how I wish this was available when I first started doing the podcast for my place of work. I work in Reaper mainly because Audacity crashed on me several times and lost data so I splurged for a few Reaper licenses and have had no problems since. I think it had something to do with large files (over and hour in length). Anyway, does anyone know if there is a similar function in Reaper to Audacity's "Sync-Lock Track" button that Jonathan mentioned?

That email about PC gamers being assholes was shocking. The emailer was in the wrong forums. I have never been shunned like that if I had a question about a PC issue. Try various other forums like this one and you'll find plenty of reasonable PC gamers who love to help. If one forum is unhelpful, try other ones.

padriec wrote:
Certis and Jonathan wrote:

Very useful things

Oh how I wish this was available when I first started doing the podcast for my place of work. I work in Reaper mainly because Audacity crashed on me several times and lost data so I splurged for a few Reaper licenses and have had no problems since. I think it had something to do with large files (over and hour in length). Anyway, does anyone know if there is a similar function in Reaper to Audacity's "Sync-Lock Track" button that Jonathan mentioned?

Yes there is. By the way did you know you can create your own toolbar with all the tools you like to use? Right click on the toolbar and hit customize toolbar, there is a giant list of tools you can add to the bar. Look for Split items, as in the plural there is a split item tool as well. Now you can select multiple tracks by holding down shift and clicking however many tracks you need to cut from. Right click the Split Items tool to select it and find the spot where you want to make your cuts. The cut will split all the tracks you have selected at that point. Once the cuts are done you can turn off the tool and voila.

There is probably a more straight forward way, as there are a crazy amount of tools, and I am sure shortcut keys to do all the things I just described, but I am to lazy to learn them all. I am pretty fast at doing things my way.

That's a great tip, I'll try it out the next time I edit. Thanks.

jam3 wrote:

-He lives in Greensboro, N.C. just down the road for me, Greensboro is the San Francisco of North Carolina

I never realized there was a thriving gay scene and politicians in North Carolina, but I've only spent time in Ft. Bragg / Fayetteville.

Julian - I'll definitely be snagging that book. I come from a similar religious background (lifelong Christian, though I've moved through several different denominations before finding one where I feel "at home" and the theology makes sense consistently) but I have more friends who are atheists and agnostics than fellow Christians. As I've moved away from the kind of Christianity I was raised with to the type I currently follow, it's ignited my interest in reading about my faith and how it interacts with other belief systems and topics, so it's always great when someone just unexpectedly drops an interesting recommendation out of the sky podcast on me.

I'm also a little sad you guys stopped that "supporting jerks who make cool stuff" discussion as quickly as you did, because I'd have LOVED to listen to that conversation.

LarryC wrote:

Around my parts (Southeast Asia) I go to a shop that will sell me the parts from a catalogue (that they will show you if asked) and then the technicians on tap will assemble it while-you-wait, or over the course of a day or so, depending on how long you want to wait and how complex of a build it is.

I think people have tried to do this in the US. Maybe it's inventory cost, but I don't know that I've seen the model succeed here.

Certis wrote:

First up, grab Skype MP3 Recorder. Make sure it's set to record Stereo (not Joint Stereo) and recording bit rate of 24. That will record the skype conversation.
...

Great rundown. If anyone wants more along these lines, I recommend the Teamwork Cast "How Do I Podcast" YouTube series.