My own private Mercury retrograde
Mar. 26th, 2007 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharanWell, since I'm still waiting around for my computer to search my files for something I might as well post about the insane past couple of weeks I've had since GDC. I had a homework due the Friday of GDC that SHOULD have been simple: a 1-2 page paper on the surround sound in a game. I ran out of time before GDC but told the TA (who was there) that I'd get it in that weekend. Hah.
For some reason, despite the fact that I had a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card (top of the line when I got it) and a Creative 5.1 speaker system, all I could get out of it was the front 2 speakers. So I was going to try playing a console game in the living room, until I got my roommate to hook up the center speaker and he mentioned "You do realize if you write about it in here you'll be lying, since none of the consoles are hooked up for surround sound?" So it was back to the drawing board.
I wound up heading to the Creative site and downloading new drivers, and suddenly 5.1 worked perfectly...but with a catch. Now pretty much every game I tried to run caused my machine to reboot with a stop error. I was really hoping it wasn't the Creative drivers (they only HAD one version on the site) and it was just because my os hadn't been reinstalled for over 3 years and badly needed it, so I backed up and reinstalled windows. When it rebooted AGAIN with a stop error when I'd only installed 5 programs (including those drivers) I knew I was screwed and it was time for a trip to Fry's.
So I went to Fry's and bought a new $279 top of the line Soundblaster X-Fi Elite Pro (the next one down was out of stock, and I didn't want a cheap one). For good measure I bought a nice little Turtle Beach USB 5.1/7.1 surround sound adapter. I decided to try that first on my laptop, only THAT machine had recently developed problems where programs like Flash (which I needed for a class) and iTunes were crashing whenever I tried to load them. Well, the installer for the drivers for that USB thing was doing the same thing, so I finally had to do yet another Windows reinstall on THAT machine (which also hadn't had an os reinstall for about 3 years and was probably overdue for one).
I finally installed the new soundcard (and re-reinstalled the os for good measure) on my desktop and wound up spending a lot of time reinstalling software. After trying a few different games (including the Lord of the Rings Online beta I got at GDC, which seems to be permanently full so I haven't managed to get on) I finally managed to get Prince of Persia: Sands of Time to work in surround sound and got my paper in last Thursday night, 2 weeks late.
On top of that, I came in to work last Monday morning looking forward to working on a computer that actually worked, only to have it crash before I even logged in (and blue-screen the next day), my roommate's laptop hd died, and my 2gb usb Flash drive (only a few months old) died while I was trying to copy files onto it for a class last Thursday. *sigh* Oh, and I didn't manage to get a full time week in during spring break either, because I came down with the "GDC Death Flu" as people are calling it.
O.K. My computer finally found what I've been looking for so I'm going back to that. Besides, I lost track of time and have to leave for class soon. I just hope my computer woes are over!
For some reason, despite the fact that I had a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card (top of the line when I got it) and a Creative 5.1 speaker system, all I could get out of it was the front 2 speakers. So I was going to try playing a console game in the living room, until I got my roommate to hook up the center speaker and he mentioned "You do realize if you write about it in here you'll be lying, since none of the consoles are hooked up for surround sound?" So it was back to the drawing board.
I wound up heading to the Creative site and downloading new drivers, and suddenly 5.1 worked perfectly...but with a catch. Now pretty much every game I tried to run caused my machine to reboot with a stop error. I was really hoping it wasn't the Creative drivers (they only HAD one version on the site) and it was just because my os hadn't been reinstalled for over 3 years and badly needed it, so I backed up and reinstalled windows. When it rebooted AGAIN with a stop error when I'd only installed 5 programs (including those drivers) I knew I was screwed and it was time for a trip to Fry's.
So I went to Fry's and bought a new $279 top of the line Soundblaster X-Fi Elite Pro (the next one down was out of stock, and I didn't want a cheap one). For good measure I bought a nice little Turtle Beach USB 5.1/7.1 surround sound adapter. I decided to try that first on my laptop, only THAT machine had recently developed problems where programs like Flash (which I needed for a class) and iTunes were crashing whenever I tried to load them. Well, the installer for the drivers for that USB thing was doing the same thing, so I finally had to do yet another Windows reinstall on THAT machine (which also hadn't had an os reinstall for about 3 years and was probably overdue for one).
I finally installed the new soundcard (and re-reinstalled the os for good measure) on my desktop and wound up spending a lot of time reinstalling software. After trying a few different games (including the Lord of the Rings Online beta I got at GDC, which seems to be permanently full so I haven't managed to get on) I finally managed to get Prince of Persia: Sands of Time to work in surround sound and got my paper in last Thursday night, 2 weeks late.
On top of that, I came in to work last Monday morning looking forward to working on a computer that actually worked, only to have it crash before I even logged in (and blue-screen the next day), my roommate's laptop hd died, and my 2gb usb Flash drive (only a few months old) died while I was trying to copy files onto it for a class last Thursday. *sigh* Oh, and I didn't manage to get a full time week in during spring break either, because I came down with the "GDC Death Flu" as people are calling it.
O.K. My computer finally found what I've been looking for so I'm going back to that. Besides, I lost track of time and have to leave for class soon. I just hope my computer woes are over!
