Left 4 Dead: Fixing Black Textures/Missing Textures/Video Problems

Recently, Left 4 Dead has gone dark on me. In my search for solutions, I stumbled across the following for nVidia card owners:

If you are using Riva Tuner, please follow these directions:

1. Launch Riva Tuner
2. Click the "Customize" button next to "ForceWare Detected".
3. Click the Direct3D/DirectDraw button
4. Set the "Surface Format Settings" to "for DirectX8- Applications"
5. Check the "Enable FOURCC DXT..DXT5 surfaces" box
6. Select "OK" and you will be prompted to restart your computer

For step-by-step with pictures and a guide for ATI video card owners, click here.

Favre Retires, and This Time It Must Be True

I know I'm late, but I had some other business to attend to on the day Favre re-retired.

Favre Retires, and This Time It Must Be True.

Quarterback Brett Favre has told the Jets he is retiring from the N.F.L. after 18 seasons, according to his agent and the team. On Wednesday morning, Favre’s Web site linked to an article on ESPN.com, which first reported that he had decided to retire.

“I had a great conversation with Brett this morning,” Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets, said in a statement released by the team. “Considering that he came from a totally different environment and joined our team during training camp, his performance last season was extraordinary.”

All I can say is that Favre had a rough end to the season, both physically and in the media. I'm still a Favre fan at heart.

The Greatest Improvement to World of Warcraft

Now that the lead designer on World of Warcraft is officially stepping down, I thought it would be a great time to point out World of Warcraft's single best improvement since launch: Dual Spec.

Dual Spec, part of WoW's new patch, allows characters to maintain two talent specs at a time and switch freely between the two. Having played a Shaman or Paladin for my entire WoW career, I can't count the number of times I wanted to change specs for a dungeon run or a guild event, but didn't do so because the cost in gold was outrageous.

I missed a lot of events in WoW because I refused to swap to a healing spec on my Shaman or Paladin. I even had the gear needed for each spec on my characters, but it just wasn't worth it to pay to swap and thirty minutes later watch my group disintegrate because the Warrior we picked up wasn't defense spec.

Dual Spec is fundamentally game changing, in a way that nothing else in a WoW patch has ever been. It truly brings the player to the forefront, and not the spec. The beauty is beyond just letting hybrid classes fulfill their various roles at any time. The pure classes benefit greatly as well, able to try off specs and pure specs at the drop of a hat.

I honestly can't state how great of an improvement this is for WoW. Unfortunately, Dual Spec is a couple years too late for me.

Hmmmm...

All,

We are pleased to announce the following promotions within the Heartless Reproductive Team (HRT).

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless have both been promoted to parents.

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless spearheaded the PUP-E team in May of 2007, and shortly thereafter were promoted to pet owners. This team is responsible for raising and educating one dog, including all care and support that is involved. Currently the team is involved with such endeavors as teaching sit, stay, come, fetch, and NO! Mrs. Heartless and Mr. Heartless focus on providing for the team, project management and coordination, and working to provide an environment in which to succeed.

During this past year, December in fact, they had briefly decided to not upgrade the team’s peripherals to version 2.0 having been quite satisfied with the 1.0 version received through PUP-E. Maintaining PUP-E was easy and they were looking forward to simply seeing that through until it was phased out.

However in early December fate stepped in on the project planning, as it often does, and provided an expected addendum to the previously gathered requirements. Both Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless, choosing not to use any Change Management software at all, encountered a situation in which the bios was flashed on the motherboard and the firmware thusly affected upgrading the team to version 2.0.

And so, after years of project planning, at times going over budget, rewriting requirements and attending endless “meetings”; it is time to announce that the family is officially expecting a new addition later this year.

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless are to be commended on their efforts thus far and we look forward to this new and exciting version 2.0 of the Heartless family.

Monpy Tython

Star Wars: The Old Republic is still looking OLD! I present: The Making of Tython.



After watching the video linked above, please read the following.

Is it just me, or does every new video for SW:ToR make the game look absolutely boring? Bioware better have some wiz-bang combat previews coming up or I am officially jumping off the train for this one.