Schmid blog 2009 jul-dec

Schmid 07:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC) Server Setup
Even though I set it up a while ago, I just wanted to list my new server setup:


 * MSI Wind
 * Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz (Diamondville) - single core, hyperthreading
 * 60 GB HD
 * Raidsonic ICY Box 3218StU-B: USB 2.0 SATA
 * 1.5 TB 7200.11 SATA2 Seagate Barracuda HD ST31500341AS

Schmid 11:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC) Liquid Borderland
Liquid Borderland was an awesome event with dub, dubstep, jungle, breakcore, and more from cool artists such as Karsten Pflum and Noianiz. Sune and me did a DJ/VJ set which was very positively received.

Schmid 01:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC) Gamescom and Alien Infestation
It's 02:48, and I've just returned from the international games fair Gamescom in Kőln.

We were there presenting our demo of Musica to possible publishers and meeting other developers. We had a small stand in the Nordic Game section, neighbouring such esoteric game development sections as Iran and Taiwan. The response to the game was positive, so we are hopeful for the future.

When having a bit of time off from meetings, I found my way to the public exhibition, four humongous areas, saturated with flashing colours and thundering noise from hundreds of speakers. The place was crowded with game nerds of all possible shapes and sizes, and scantily clad young booth babes were in abundance in and around the booths. Yesterday, we took a quick look around, and took a closer look at Heavy Rain, which looks good, and God of War III, which looks awesome. Today, I wandered around for about an hour alone, and initially, I went straight for the Capcom booth, trying to find Bayonetta. I was unsuccesful, but managed to pick a fight with an japanese-looking guy on a Tatsunoku vs. Capcom machine. Ryu (Street Fighter) and Morrigan (Darkstalkers) were picked for me, and I actually won, using standard SF moves. Very nice!

Later on, I got in line to try out DJ Hero. I had an idea that the scratching in this game would be entirely controlled by the player, which would make this the only Guitar Hero-like game, where the user actually played the music himself; this would certainly be possible to do from a technical perspective, but judging from the one song I tried, it actually seemed like the scratching was a recording of the actual DJ, not what the player is doing on the controller. I would like to get confirmation on this, as it certainly affects my interest in the game. However, the game was still a ton of fun to play, even though it is quite hard to get into at first (I had trouble with the cross-fader, as I never really used it actively during my own DJ career).

I had a short exchange of words with some of the ArmA guys, and they told me that they were working on a Carrier Command remake. Awesome, I say!

For some reason, we had decided to drive from København to Kőln, which took forever. The trip home was especially lengthy, as we took a slight detour of about 50 kilometers. The detour was not all bad, though, as we decided to get something to eat at the closest restaurant. That turned out to be the Hotel Fromann, which had the best damn tomato soup and ragout I've tasted in years. It came with a huge pitcher of a nice beer, served by women in traditional old german dresses. Sehr gut.

But now, I am finally home ...

... Only to find the horror of all horrors in my apartment! Before I left, I watered my plants, and poured the excess water into the kitchen sink. Now the sink is infested with horrible lifeforms, neither plant nor animal. Dare I sleep without one eye open tonight?

Schmid 13:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC) MAME Box


Retrogaming is pretty big these days, but I always loved playing old games on emulators. The whole concept of emulation is wonderful, because you can run software regardless of hardware, that may eventually fail.

I always loved arcade games and as a kid I spent hours upon hours looking at endlessly repeating demos in fast food restaurants and boats. I rarely managed to wrestle money from my parents to waste on these machines, and later on I felt it was ridiculous, when you have a perfectly good Amiga at home. So in my younger days, the world of arcade games was a mysterious place of games that I wanted to play, but never really played.

When I discovered MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), all that changed. MAME is a monster of a multi-emulator, that emulates almost all older arcade machines, and thus enables playing the old arcade games. Obviously, this is not legal if you don't own the games yourself.

I compiled the newest MAME including my hacks that make it a bit more usable, so now you can select all games from the ingame menu, and state saving always works.

Now, I have a pretty decent arcade-like setup; I have "built" a MAME box using the following hardware:


 * Dell Inspiron 510m with 1.5 GHz Pentium M - plays Neo Geo (Metal Slug), CPS II (Street Fighter Alpha), and older games without any problems. CPS III games (Street Fighter III) start out running smoothly, but then drops to around 70% framerate after a while (CPS III driver bug?).
 * Samsung LE32M87BDX/XEC (32" LCD TV)
 * Mad Catz Arcade Fightstick Tournament Edition (Street Fighter IV version)
 * Titanium S-Joy Converter and PS2 controller for guest players.

The CPS III games can run on my MacBook Pro, and after I succeeded in installing the FightStick on that machine, I can play Street Fighter III, the way it's meant to be played :).

Obviously, my TV and stereo setup is way too good compared to the CRT monitors in the old machines, but I'm prepared to live with that :).

As my newly created gamelog shows, I have played a lot of the different Street Fighter games recently, including 'Street Fighter Alpha 3' and 'Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike'. I also found time for some less well-known fighters like the awesome 'Ninja Master's -Haoh-Ninpo-Cho-', 'Samurai Shodown', 'King of Fighters 98', and 'Garou: Mark of the Wolves'.

2009 is surely the year of the fighter. The huge success of Street Fighter IV has heralded an avalanche of great fighting games coming this year:


 * Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion
 * Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny
 * The King of Fighters XII
 * Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (got it)

By the way, I'm getting all of these :).