Krhis’s Journal

My old mouse was a Logitech MX500, most likely one of the best mice I have ever used. Good for gaming and general desktop use, but after 4 years (~10 hours a day) I decided on getting a Razer mouse.

I received my new Razer Copperhead “Chaos Green” laser mouse in the mail today. It is *the* high precision gaming mouse I’ve been looking for. Up to 2000dpi (for comparison the Logitech MX500 was 800dpi, you can change the dots per inch on the Copperhead from 400, 800, 1600, to 2000 with the click of a side button), a 1000hz polling rate (~1ms response time), and it’s the first mouse I’ve ever bought that had 32kb of onboard memory.

The coolest part? All of the configurations are stored in the mouse, not the PC. So you could plug the mouse into another PC and still have a custom button layout. Not to mention compatibility with Linux is flawless. But to edit the default profiles you’ll need to install some software and drivers in Windows.

I started up Counter Strike Source to give the mouse a trail. My first round with the Razer Copperhead and I ended up making 7 kills and 1124 damage with 1hp remaining. Insane.

The Razer Copperhead is awesome for sniping

Defusing Bomb

At the same time I purchased a XTracPads Ripper XL cloth gaming pad. At 14″ x 17.75″ it’s huge, about four times larger then my old one. Although I’m keeping the sensitivity on my new mouse at 2000dbi, it only takes about half an inch to get to the other side of the screen. I don’t think I’ll need the extra room.

Running Ubuntu 6.06.1 on kernel 2.6.15-23-amd64 with 3GB of RAM, 0.5TB of hard drive space, a Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT (overclocked) GPU, and 20.1″ wide screen LCD monitor. Enjoy the eye candy, you can download the wallpaper from here.

1680×1050, ~1.3MB

At around noon today someone rang my door bell, I ran down stairs to see what s/he wanted. As soon as I got to my door I saw a truck labeled “UPS” pulling away. Fearing that I was too late and being the primitive male that I am, my instinctive reaction was very predictable:

What the fuc… *sees package* It’s here! *screams like a little school girl*

Yes, I screamed like a little school girl…. much like what I do when I get a headshot in Counter Strike Source. Opening the package revealed Swat 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate, after installing it and hacking at some .ini files to get the game to run at 1680×1050x32 I started marathoning the campaign. There are only seven missions in the single player co-op so an experienced player such as myself was able to fly through it in just one day (read: a matter of hours).

Swat is a different breed of FPS’s (First Person Shooter), infact shooting is one of the last things you want to do in a mission. The expansion pack includes new weapons, new equipment, new maps, and most importantly: the ability to issue delayed orders, much like in Rainbow Six. This is useful for rooms with multiple entry points as this allows you to split your team into groups of two and have them each breach through a separate door at the same time. It is truly devastating when you go lone wolf and fallow it in with a flashbang from a third entry point.

My addiction started with Swat 3: Elite Edition back in middle school. In multiplayer I would end the game with 100 more points than the guy who came in second, and I’m not joking. The left mouse button allowed you to fire, the right mouse button would allow you to run. I would hold down both buttons and clear maps much like how I play Quake III today.

1680×1050, ~2.1MB

My old LCD monitor was a 17″ CTX with a 16 millisecond response time. I purchased two of those from Newegg about two years ago and have had them sitting side by side on my desk since, one connected to my server and the other to my work(/gaming)station. Last week I did my nightly hunting around Newegg and discovered that a Black BenQ 20.1″ Widescreen LCD Monitor with digital input and a 8 millisecond response time was on sale. It included a $40 mail in rebate, $15 instant rebate, and free three day shipping (~$20 savings). Going from 17″ to 20″ in size, 16ms to 8ms in response time, 1280×1024 to 1680×1050 in resolution, and 4:3 to 16:9 in screen ratio was a big change I have been looking forward to for some time now. I sent in a postal money order and a week later UPS dropped it off.

Getting my Ubuntu installation to pickup on the new widescreen was not the easiest thing in the world, but far easier then other things I’ve had to do in the past with Linux. All I had to do was set my new HorizSync, VertRefresh, and add the new “1680×1050″ resolutions. It was suggested to me to use a Modeline Generator if I had any problems, but so far there seems to be no reason to. I kept my old 4:3 resolutions just incase if there’s a problem and I need to go back to my old 17″ LCD. Here’s a sample of my xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Generic Monitor"
	Option		"DPMS"
	HorizSync	31-81
	VertRefresh	56-76
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Device		"NVIDIA Corporation NV40 [GeForce 6800 GT]"
	Monitor		"Generic Monitor"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		1
		Modes		"1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		4
		Modes		"1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		8
		Modes		"1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		15
		Modes		"1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		16
		Modes		"1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1680x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

I have been experimenting with a fresh Suse 10.1 install under VMware Workstation and discovered it was a little friendlier excepting my new resolution preference as Yast had a better graphical front end.