Evil Empire Gaming

Tweak Town's BF1942 tweak guide offers more than you thought you needed to know about the workings of the game. It's worth a read if only for this awsome tip:

To avoid the intro movie and the EA Games and Dice logo animations add ' +restart 1' to the shorcut target.

The game now jumps straight to menu in a few seconds. Tell all your friends!

Evil Empire wishes one and all a very merry Xmas. Hoping all of you have the geek Xmas you've been dreaming of. =:0P

Tom has released a new set of VGA charts benchmarking a whole bunch of popular cards on highend P4 (3GHz) and AMD (XP2700) systems. Couple of interesting points; the Radeon 9700Pro is lightyears ahead of the GF4 4600, except when it isn't, like in Jedi Knight II where the 4600 beats it by a thin margin. It's also interesting to watch the Radeon 9500 Pro jump all over the place. At one point it's ahead of the GF4 4600 (UT2003) and somtimes behind the GF4 4200 (Jedi Knight II again).

According to Razor Prices the cheapest 128MB Radeon 9500 Pro is $440 inc. freight (AusPC Market) while the cheapest 128MB GF4 4600 is $479 no frieght, internet order only (Umart). Does that make the 9500 a 'bang for buck' bargain?

It looks like a lot of people are happy with the new Coral Sea map. GameArena have 2 servers dedicated to the level! Purists may argue that the best characteristic of a BF1942 game, the variety available to a player, has been taken out of this one but I mean, c'mon, flying planes is fun! And we've never had so many planes in the sky at one time!

Here's a few screenshots showing the chaos that usually occurs on this map.

As a treat for the holidays, EA has released a new map for Battlefield 1942: Coral Sea. This map has a total of 24 planes available! From the EA page:

"Coral Sea is an exciting new map set in the Pacific theater. The action is fast and furious as players test their piloting skills with a total of 24 planes available on the map. The action isn’t limited to dogfighting however as each side has a carrier that they need to defend at all costs. To win, you’ll need to sink the enemy carrier, and then fly through a buoy that appears amidst the wreckage of the ship. Throw in some land-based AA guns and a defensive gun or two in the mix, and you’ve got our latest recipe for a great Battlefield 1942 holiday treat!"

Downloads available from EA: Map and server.

With the use of compressor powered cooling Tom's Hardware team have clocked the P4 to 4.1GHz... stable!

"We can say without any exaggeration that our lab computer is a bundle of superlatives - P4 running at 4.1 GHz, dual DDR400 memory and a FSB speed of over 700 MHz (quad pumped). This ultimate performance has been achieved thanks to a modified Chip Con cooling system, a selected CPU, and the Granite Bay board in the form of the Asus P4G8X. The PC operates with a cooling temperature of at least minus 46 degrees Celsius"

Check it out here. Astounding!

Overclocker Warehouse have reviewed another cool computer accessory from Xoxide (the makers of that CD rack that looked like a bug zapper, according to some). This time it's a PC tachometer ! Yep, this gauge displays CPU usage ike an automotive tachometer shows engine RPM. How can you have lasted so long without one?

The "Save Tha Smack Domain Campaign" has worked and Gamesmack is alive for another year. Well done.

Well I Decided to make some lists of the local servers for Server Query.

http://www.evem.org.au/evem/archives/silicondawn/iinet-full-list.txt
http://www.evem.org.au/evem/archives/silicondawn/3fl-full-list.txt
http://www.evem.org.au/evem/archives/silicondawn/eftel-full-list.txt
http://www.evem.org.au/evem/archives/silicondawn/axg-full-list.txt

Just add those to a new QStat Server List.

Yes, I know, yet another Quiet PC news story from Xtro, the PC fan nut. However I think this is an interesting approach. He's scanvenged a few of those circular blower type fans and completely sealed the case, only allowing intake holes for the blowers. This has mean't he can remove the power supply fan as that it the only exit for the air. There's also a few extra tricks with ducting and aluminuim! Check it out.