September 11th, 2010

September 11th: never forget!

I got to play around with my toys today, which was cool. Got a second Radeon HD 5770 in my rig, only to learn it's core clock is slightly faster than the primary, so I need to switch them around, hah. Debating upgrade the motherboard to one that can do CrossFire with x8 PCI instead of x8 and handle DDR3 RAM as well as all the various USB ports I can't access currently!

Battle Fantasia (360): I got this in the mail yesterday ($7 from Amazon new, and I had been eying it for a bit!), but wasn't in much of a condition to play, heh heh. Seems pretty neat, if unexceptional. I do like the concept, though, a fighting game with RPG elements.

All the characters are based of typical JRPG archetypes, and it actually shows, in addition to their energy bar, a numbered hit points counter, and damage numbers appear on screen as attacks connect. It's cute, didn't quite hook me, but it's cute, and I like the concept.

I made it several battles in on the "Very Hard" setting on my first try, mostly because the guy I grabbed ending up playing like Ryu. <_< Final Fantasy XI: Checked for Besiegeds, didn't get one! Come along now, lamia! Final Fantasy XIV: Didn't play so much as tested. It took a third party program to get CrossFireX working, and it seemed to up the graphics to where they often hovered around 40 FPS, but I noticed I'm actually getting high 20s/low 30s with just one card! Now I'm completely confused - has the code just been optimized that much in the last several days? Has server lag decreased, as well as the load with the initial rush gone? Also XIV doesn't support hardware mice, and CrossFireX isn't supported, and performance can be increased by third party programs that have been in development a few weeks. Go Square! Either way, my hope is that by the time it launches CrossFireX will be available and in Windowed mode too. Regardless, I'm happy to see XIV playing at a decent speed! I was worried it'd be unplayable for me when it came out. >_<