Many gamers know that there are several poorly coded games that do not support vsync and triple buffering in Direct3D correctly.  One of the games that doesn’t support either is the original “Witcher.”  For such games, D3DOverrider, a tool included with RivaTuner, does the trick.  However, this great little tool doesn’t seem to work correctly with games and Windows 8.

I have found the solution!  This should make D3DOverrider work correctly with any game in Windows 8 that it worked with in Windows 7.  You are going to slap your head at how silly and easy this is to fix:

Step 1)  Don’t do anything to D3DOverrider.  There is nothing wrong with the application.

Step 2)  Locate your game’s exe in explorer.  Right click on it and select Properties.

Step 3)  Select the Compatibility tab, and check “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and select “Windows 7”

Step 4)  Run your game and D3DOverrider will now see the application and it you will hear the system beep telling you that it is working.

In the case of the Witcher, I had to create a custom profile in D3DOverrider.  Once you set compatibility mode on the game itself, that’s all you have to do!  I am running ATI hardware, but there is plenty of nVidia hardware that this fix should be useful for.  I hope this helps many people that where feeling down about D3DOverrider not working correctly.  I’m glad that I stumbled on this silly tweak that anyone can do!

So, no one on the entire internet seems to want to run an English Cardfight!! Vanguard IRC channel.. well, I have decided that I will!

I may not be around 24/7 because I lack a connection to do so, but I’ll help organize some admins and keep a channel open! We’ll focus on English Vanguard, but we can also discuss and play Japanese Vanguard for the super hardcore, and mock Korean Vanguard while we’re at it!

I want to make a newb friendly environment where we can teach people how to play and maybe even form a amateur league where we can test our skills and enhance our play level!

So if you speak English and play Vanguard in either Japanese or English, join my new IRC channel on #cf-vanguard @ IRCHighway.net.

Anyone who is new to IRC chat can read this guide by TV-Nihon that explains the basics! This channel will be located on IRCHighway, but the rest like registering a nickname still applies! mIRC is the preferred client for most people using Windows.

Remember, IRC can be slow. Just because there are people in a channel and no one is around, if you hang around (aka lurk long enough) someone will get back to you. I am just starting this channel, so its even more important for people to lurk until we develop some regulars! Hopefully this will turn out big and we’ll have a cool online Vanguard spot to meet people to play with!

Click here to use Java for #cf-vanguard Online Chat

Hello to anyone reading this.
I am just leaving a list of things that I want to do and things that need to be done here as a way of keeping track of everything as well as informing others about the status of various projects. The following information is NOT a definitive list and can change at any given moment. (The last group in this list is TLWiki. If the list is cut off, click “read more” to view the entire list.)

 - mirror moon

   - Farland Symphony (Complete)

     - Check forum reports

     - Update Known Issues in Readme

     - Update installer
   - Alliance of Illusionary Eyes

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer
   - Bootfighter Windom XP sp-2.NET

     - Update installer
   - Tsukihime Plus+Disc

     - Update to phiber's word wrapping code

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer
   - Utawarerumono

     - Dump scripts

     - Check forum reports (Me, possibly Ryuusoul)

     - Check installer
   - Melty Blood

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer (Message)
   - Melty Blood: ReACT

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer (Message)
   - Melty Blood: Act Cadenza

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer (Message)
   - Men at Work! 2

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer (Message)
   - Fate/stay night

     - Update to phiber's word wrapping code

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer (Message)
   - Tsukihime

     - Check forum reports

     - Update game code (Message)

     - Update installer (Message)
 - Yandere Translations
   - Majikoi

     - Translation (TakaJun)

     - Insert translation (Me, TakaJun)

     - Beta testing (Yandere Translation staff)

     - Create installer
   - Wanko to Kurasou

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer
   - Brass Restoration

     - Update to phiber's word wrapping code

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer
   - Swan Song

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer
   - Sengoku Rance

     - Check forum reports

     - Update installer
 - TLWiki
   - Ether Vapor

     - Time script during cut scenes

     - Create installer
					

Why am I posting this here? Because this is so awesome, everyone needs to know about it. Right now you can get Portal FREE. That’s right, free, until May 24th. And for the first time ever, you can get it on MAC too! How awesome is that?! This is one of the best games ever made, even if it is only about 2 hours long.

So what are you waiting for! Go get your free Portal… doesn’t really help me, I paid money for it… but YOU don’t have to!

The last two months have been really REALLY boring for me. Not having any internet access at all now, plus no money to do anything about it… it’s a giant pain in the ass. The real issue is that I don’t really want to be working full time and really far away from home right now. I can’t help but feel that the choices I have left before me are: a) Work some dead end job the rest of my life and never have enough money to support myself, let alone anyone else. b) Go into the military and let the spell of “Get out of debt” but possibly lose my life doing something I don’t believe in, and even if I do survive, I might end up totally mentally screwed up to the point of never being a functional part of society again… it’s daunting. This is why I’ve been working so hard on my legacy now, in case the 2nd choice is forced on me.

Originally, back in 2002, I thought my only choice was to go into a computer carrier in IT that I didn’t really want, just so I could make enough money quickly to start working toward my true goal of writing TV shows and living a life of creating various different kinds of art. Composing music, writing comics, directing TV shows and video games of my own creation… it’s what I’ve always wanted to do: create entertainment that I could actually give a damn about it in this washed up abyss that is the beginning of the 2010 decade. I’ve felt it for years, the mediocrity of current entertainment choices. Moments were I’ll be watching some kind of entertainment, and the irrationality of its design will drive me into mad and violent fits were I’ll pretend I’m stabbing its producer and/or writers in the eyes or something painful along those lines. This is one of the reasons I stopped watching TV almost altogether, so I wouldn’t go mad with rage. Where did I go wrong? Why did things turn out the way they did.

Going to collage was the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life. Going into a debt of over $36,000 to get an education that I thought would at least land me a job at some place like Best Buy’s Geek Squad, only to find out after-the-fact that I stood a better chance before going into collage to get that kind of job. I just wanted some easy computer ‘mechanic’ job to tide me by while I figured things out…

Going to collage was one of the best things I have ever done in my life. Because of it, I met my old roommate Kyle, which eventually led me to FL, which eventually lead me to working at 7-Eleven and meeting Piner. Meeting Piner and then moving in with him eventually me watching Kamen Rider…

…and watching Kamen Rider, lead to me creating not only a Rider I can call my own, but creating what could become an entire franchise that could stand apart, or even making this character be his own thing, his own, completely original thing… it’s too bad nothing in this word exist without influence from the outside. This conundrum of not being able to truly create something original has always frustrated me. Whether a story or music, everything has influence of some sort, and nothing can ever be considered original. Even Matt and Tray had to write an episode about how “Simpson’s did it.” (Which in watching said episode, I was able to open my eyes about this conundrum) But this is where we can talk about the evolution of art.

Is what I am trying to create truly an evolution, or just another take on something? How much more time and effort will I have to put into this ‘idea’ for a story before it really starts being something concrete? Even now, after having finished writing the 48/49 page pilot script for Kamen Rider Rising, it seems to be now that the most daunting task will be writing the next two episodes. I have no experience at this sort of thing, and simply revising this pilot script has been daunting in itself. Should I leave this event in, should this character know this already? These are all details I am trying to work out on my own, and so far I’ve been satisfied with the results. But at what point does revising a finished script need to be stopped, and I need to move on? How do I move on when I am trying to create an entire TV series that is more like Valkyrie Profile (with a focus on individual characters), while still maintaining the essence of a Kamen Rider series by having a plot, back-story, and trials that the main characters must have all on their own. How?

Should I create all of the characters or most of them ahead of time? Should I try a Toriyama approach and hope it all works out in the end? But is doing it either of those ways the way I would and should do it? Perhaps the clues to this are already right in front of me? I’ve already started creating a relationship chart for the Egyptian God’s that will be in this series, perhaps I need to do it for the normal people that are a part of Raymond Bright’s life? What of the method I have figured out to have random events? How do I merge this with the events I know must be in the series? Can I meet my goal of having a series that can last longer than 49 episodes, and not in some Den-O like way (My goal is a standard 49 episode series, one movie, plus a 30+ episodes finally series)? How does Decade and Den-O affect my universe and the things I want to do? What about the other Rider Series I’ve thought of that are nothing more than mere sloppy ideas? Do I even want to do the one series that may use too much/all of the material I developed for my Project Lifetime years ago?

Difficult questions that keep spinning around in my head, I wish I could silence them long enough to have a clear train of thought. I haven’t even touched the revised pilot script in 2 weeks, but I know I need to finish editing it. But with all kinds of thoughts spinning around in my head about real life and eating and even getting a freakn’ drink of water… why couldn’t I have some stroke of luck and be able to do the things I want easily. I guess I need to think more about being an Ace and less about being a King. I feel like Hayate from Hayate no Gotoku. “How can I have a girlfriend if I can’t even afford myself?” I’m lonely too, but I know finding a girl around these parts will be next to impossible without getting some slut who doesn’t really care about me or what I want to do with my life.

I need a profound change in my life, and I need it soon. Here’s to hoping for a part-time summer job that is close to home.

The following review may unveil spoilers of past games, and is not recommended to read unless you have played the previous games in the series.

The Ace Attorney series of games (known as Gyakuten Saiban [Turnabout Trials] in Japan) has been one of the best selling series to hit the GBA/DS. Even though it uses low tech graphics and was extremely low budget in its first incarnations as “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney,” the series has turned into one of Capcom’s most profitable franchises with minimal development cost. It is without question that we owe this series of games a huge thanks for successfully reviving the once dead “adventure” genre of games. The real question with this newest spin off is whether it lives up to the hype and quality of previous Gyakuten games.

Presentation:

Followers of this series will be instantly familiar with the interface of this game, using the classic stylus input for navigating the text/evidence. This is also where the first major change to the interface can be seen, as there is the new logic button that Edgeworth can use to piece together different pieces of information that Edgeworth thinks of along the way. Cross examinations are performed the same way as they are in previous games, but this time you are not in court and are interviewing witnesses directly.

This is also where the first issues of the game can be seen. Even though the interface is essentially the same, the interface can feel slow and laggy at times, and not nearly as polished or responsive as previous games. At times I was left wondering if this game engine was built completely from scratch and was made to closely mimic previous games as closely as possible, while failing to do so. That is the only explanation I can come up with, although it may be sloppy programming (such as the Phoenix Wright 3: Trials and Tribulations, where several times when music starts playing, there would be awkward pauses before resuming of animations and camera pans, which did not exist in the Japanese text version of the game).

The famous camera panning between the person on the left and the person on the right appears slower, and this lowers the excitement levels of the classic Phoenix vs Prosecutor formula. I can’t say that the upgraded graphics play a part in this, as Apollo Justice does not suffer from this issue.

Overall, the presentation of the game is sloppy and unpolished, not at all characteristic of the previous games.

Graphics:

The kids at newgrounds making Phoenix Wrong flashes will, without a doubt, be having a field day with all of the new sprites. All of the sprites in this game appear in profile, and are highly detailed and upgraded. Even Miles Edgeworth doesn’t appear “off” such as he did in PW3 when he replaced Phoenix Wright during the final case of the game. As well, all of the older sprites such as Von Karma (both of them) have received upgrades from GBA quality to DS quality. It’s too bad such attention to detail wasn’t done to Payne’s sprite in Apollo Justice, but who cares about him anyway.

Overall, the graphics are pretty damn good, and fans’ of past game won’t be disappointed.

Sound:

The music of this series has always been highly important for enhancing the story, and the places you visit. This is where the game really starts to fail at life Shinji. No care was taken to upgrade or rearrange past tracks that were used in previous games. I find this curious because it was done pretty well in Apollo Justice. The new composer for this series was not a good fit at all. Theme’s such as “Kay’s theme” will begin to annoy the hell out of you because they are played every time the character comes on screen from out of nowhere, even though it has already been established that the character is around. Memories of watching many Disney movies with the #2 attached come to mind during these moments.

This is really bothersome during the final case of the game, where Von Karma is often running off to investigate on her own, only to later return and have her damn theme play. It WAS a great piece of music, and provided for a nice impact in PW3 when she appears for the final case in the game out of nowhere, but the song is overused and will quickly get on your nerves. This song also hasn’t been upgraded or rearranged at all, adding to the sloppiness of the sound track.

The sound effects are what they are, but the few people that shout “Objection!” did not receive a bit-rate upgrade in their audio tracks. This is really odd since almost everyone (except for poor Phoenix) in Apollo Justice featured a much cleaner sound recording then that of Miles Edgeworth. Voice actor choices such at Yew seem really off, while the actor for the final boss seemed damn near dead on. I know it’s just a few sound clips, but they play an important role in this series. It would have also been nice if important (and no doubt recurring) characters such as von Karma and Kay had received sound clips for “Hold it!”, I think even voicing the traditionally silent Gumshoe with an Objection or two would have been a fantastic add… even add “pal” to the sound clip to stop of the awesomeness!

Overall, the music is fail with the exception of Edgeworth’s “Turnabout” theme, which I think is comparably worthy to the other important Turnabout theme’s in the series. The sound bites of characters show a complete lack of consistency and preparation on Capcom’s part.

Gameplay:

Here is where we get into a mixed batch of like and dislike. I like all of the features, such as the logic system, and using it to counter argue against witnesses. This system could easily be used in courtroom scenes, if they ever decide to have Edgeworth in a courtroom. However, the first and final cases of the game appear to be the ones that received the most thought. While the natural flow of logic can come out of the first two cases, the middle cases are sometimes incoherent and hard to follow. This shows a totally uncharacteristic style that does not match up with past games.

The 3rd case, being without a doubt the longest of all of the cases, seems to drag on and on at the very end for no apparent reason, and you will quickly get several game over’s trying different combinations of logic + presenting evidence. While this may happen once in awhile during previous games, it seems to be exceedingly more frustrating in this game.

You will quickly notice that you are not presented with “Captain Obvious” moments were you will receive huge penalties when the answer is obvious (because it NEVER is), and the ONE moment you are presented with a stiffer penalty, it may still not be completely obvious which piece of the possible few pieces of evidence that could prove the contradiction might be, adding to the frustration you’ve built up slowly while playing the game.

The default navigation system of using the stylus for moving Edgeworth around has been done poorly. I think having the moments were you can move around on the touch screen and being able to directly point at where you want to go would have been far more intuitive (such as in The World Ends With You), but because of Capcom’s choice to still have the main action on the top screen, you’ll find yourself using the input pad more often. I ended up playing most of the game using the classic GBA controls and ignoring the stylus entirely because of this.

Overall: The gameplay ends up frustrating and is not as polished as past games. I think a “version 2” of this game would be wise just work these things out, but hopefully another game in this series will warrant the interface upgrades I have talked about.

Story:

This is another part, and without a doubt the most important part of this series, where sometimes it shines and other times it sh-.

The first case gets you very interested in what may be going on in the larger picture of this game, but as the game progresses you start to wonder why plot flow seems so rough. The setting of the 2nd case just blows. I can’t explain why it blows, but it just seems the entire murder on a plane thing, and the choice of characters to introduce wasn’t well thought up. There is not a single memorable character in the 2nd case until the plane lands and von Karma is reintroduced.

In the 3rd case Kay is introduced, and while she seems like an interesting character, I would hope that her larger role as the series progresses shows her maturing. Having a little girl at your side isn’t much different than the other games in the series, and I honestly thought that von Karama or Gumshoe would be filling the assistant’s shoes more than they actually did at this point. I can only hope a new character comes along to fill this role, and JUST ONCE it’d be nice to see a romantic interest take shape.

The unnecessary appearances of Ema Sky and Wendy Oldbag for one short scene simply do not make sense, even though Oldbag’s appearance in the final case was hilarious, but disturbing (giving unnecessary flash backs to the poorly made H-game “Phoenix Drive”).

The forth case was okay, although I found it odd that the Judge appears to know nothing about being a lawyer, since I’d imagine most Judges were lawyers once. Maybe it’s not the same in Japan as it is stateside?

The 5th case really had the spark and polish of past games in the series. Hopefully Capcom will get their act together for any possible sequel and have a flowing story that is much like this case. I think the entire game was based on this case alone, which is why it shows the most polish of all of the cases (that may seem obvious since it is the climax, but I mean it from a development standpoint).

Overall, the story and characters are lacking and plot flow is not as smooth as it could be. While past games have been relativity smooth with a few hitches, Miles Edgeworth has many hitches with very little smoothness.

Lasting Appeal:

I have always felt that the reply value of this series was very high, much like rewatching your favorite TV show on DVD. However, unlike past games in the series, I don’t see myself replying this one anytime soon, if ever again. The game simply lacks new, memorable characters.

Perhaps the entire “rivalry” aspect is the one thing that has really been lost. Phoenix always felt a rivalry against the Prosecutor, but there is no one directly opposite Edgeworth most of the game, with the exception of Shi-Long Lang, the only real memorable new character (sorry, I just do not feel that Kay is all that memorable).

ArchDemon said I should write a short story, here it is:

TheXev: What should I write a story about?

Rising: I don’t know, you’ll think of something.

TheXev: Why am I talking to you?

Rising: Because talking to yourself is the only real intelligent conversation you get on most days.

*bud-um chee*

TheXev: Point taken.

Rising: You could talk about your Kamen Rider script or something.

TheXev: Naw, I’ve been lazy and haven’t worked on it lately. Too much personal stuff in the way.

Rising: You could talk about your gag series, Kamen Rider Spork.

TheXev: Great idea!

Kamen Rider Spork was a stupid idea I came up with after watching the very first episode of Kamen Rider W. Instead of a W belt, he has a X belt that he can put a fork and spoon into, transforming into Kamen Rider Spork. He is both a fork and a spoon!

Rising: Is that what he looks like? He looks more like Sonic the Hedgehog like that. I think I’ve seen something like him befor-

TheXev: Listen, I haven’t drawn anything really awesome since High School, okay?

Rising: That 3 page comic you drew of Planetarion back in 2000 during Round 3 doesn’t count.

TheXev: I had a whole lot more planned for that!

Rising: Ohh, you were going to show poop coming out of interceptors, how original!

TheXev: I was going to have Planet Chev turn out to be one huge turret!

Rising: Cloaked PDS would have ruined the game.

TheXev: Any more then adding races did?

Rising: Touché

TheXev: This is wandering off topic, I’ve been watching too much Gintama.

Rising: I’ll say, but no one knows what it is because it didn’t get fansubbed past the first/second ep special for such a long time.

TheXev: You can always get it at crunchyroll children.

Rising: Are you sure you don’t want to give up on me and write a comedy instead?

TheXev: I’ll save that for Drift Sentai TougeRanger.

TougeBlue: Why am I here?

TheXev: Because no one knows who TougeRed is.

Rising: Get him out of here; your A.D.D. is getting in the way!

TougeBlue: I’ll just stand here and be quiet.

TheXev: Right, as I was saying…

Rising: You haven’t said anything this whole time.

TheXev: …It’s an important announcement.

Rising: Don’t bump the links with this post, you’ll anger the Anon’s.

TheXev: I’m pretty sure we won’t do that again.

Rising: Anyway, that Kamen Rider Spork picture, he looks constipated.

TheXev: Not anymore then Kenzaki.

Rising: Mad burn, but I think Kenzaki only gets constipated while he’s transformed.

TheXev: I totally agree.

Rising: Now, when you transform into me, you’ll probably have to turn back all the time during battle just so you can pee.

TheXev: No way, this is why we’ll use stunt doubles.

Rising: It’s not because you are a complete wuss?

TheXev: That’s right, it’s because when they are filming the action, I’ll be secretly off peeing somewhere.

ArchDemon: Xev, what are you doing?

TheXev: Writing a short story.

ArchDemon: This isn’t what I meant for you to do.

Rising: You’re so dense.

TheXev: You’re me too, so stop making fun of yourself!

ArchDemon: Tell them that revolve-trans.org is back up.

TheXev: Why?

ArchDemon: Because that is what I was suggesting all along.

TheXev: You just did it for me, so I won’t do it now.

ArchDemon: No, you do it yourself.

Rising: How about I do it?

ArchDemon: Sure, you’re just Xev talking to himself anyway.

TheXev: Don’t do it, it’s a trick. If you click the link Sakuranbou will play forever !

Rising: Revolve-trans.org is officially back online! Don’t expect much…

TougeBlue: This better not be Mou Ikkai!

TheXev: No, THIS is Mou Ikkai, Rising is correct!

Rising: This doesn’t look good in IE.

TheXev: Get a new browser!!!

Enjoy revolve-trans.org being online again… I don’t really know what good it will do ya, but perhaps we’ll do something with it… eventually.

*edit – Friday morning*
Rising: Did you know your short story draft crashed mirrormoon.org?

TheXev: It’s only because this story was so awesome.

Rising: About as awesome as your face?

TheXev: You’re me! Stop making fun of yourself!

TougeBlue: I’m doing donuts in my car! Weee!

TheXev & Rising: No one cares, Paul.

TougeBlue: I can tandem drift! You can tandem talk at the same time! That’s so weird! At least I didn’t crash the server with this post!

TheXev & Rising: It wasn’t me, the server moved!

For anyone on planet earth left caring, I am still working on one of my idea’s that I blogged about a few years ago… and it is actually progressing. I have thought of a decent back plot, which is something that I wasn’t able to think of until doing more research into my idea. Now it makes simple sense… and my pilot script is flowing pretty naturally.

It seems my idea to back track and watch Kamen Rider Blade was a wise one after taking nearly a month off my pilot script. I have been further encouraged by the few people that have read my script up till now that I seem to be on a much better track. I may have even found a way to remove the dreaded “getting hit by a truck” thing to put Rising into a coma… instead something far more sinister may occur.

Getting to this point was rocky. Now that I am unemployed and have tons of free time, I am more easily able to focus on my writing then before. I think the real breakthroughs came between reading more about Egyptian gods and watching Blade more than anything. It is really difficult to find information on Egyptian gods rather than say, Roman… which is why you see more media being made in that. I’ve really found what little can be found to be quiet captivating and refreshing. Even though I highly doubt I have done enough research into the subject.

On another note, I started a twitter account. Since “TheXev” appears to have been taken by some spambot, I have decided to use a new nickname of “RisingStart” which I had been considering moving to for quite awhile. I just it kinda strange that twitting took off so fast, while idea’s like boxthought.. or was it thoughtbox? Gah who knows.. were similar, yet didn’t take off. I suppose this can go back to Twitter being easy and allowing you post repeatedly under a username, where as boxthought/thoughtbox made you wait and hour to post again, and your username was only a series of numbers that weren’t allowed to mean anything (even though I made mine my ICQ UIN lol).

I was even thinking it might be fun to try and find some independent artist that are interested in doing artwork or concept art for this, but I’ll save that for another time… I highly doubt mainstream Kamen Rider fans are even aware of my venture, let alone care about it.

Been looking for Windows 7 64-bit for your Dell Vostro V13? I just tracked down all the drivers in an hour for a friend of mine, and he said that every single one worked. How is that for some guesswork without the machine in front of you!?

So, here is the list of drivers for anyone to get on their own, for people wanting to move to 64-bit Windows 7 on their Dell Vostro V13 laptop. I’m assuming Google and Bing will take care of getting the word out on this blog post. As for anyone wondering why Dell didn’t include 64-bit drivers on their own site for this, my best guess is that it is because the machine can only support a maximum of 4GB’s of ram, which matches well with Windows 7 32-bit’s max memory range of 4GB. A few of the drivers linked come from the official V13 support page, but others come from other Dell links and 3rd party venders.

View the full version of this article to see all the driver links!

Intel Video Driver (64-bit)

Intel Chipset Driver (64-bit)

Realtek HD Audio Driver (64-bit)

Hard-drive Driver for Preinstall (F3 RAID DRIVER – 64-bit)

Pointer Driver (64-bit)

Bluetooth Module (32-bit & 64-bit)

Free Fall Sensor Driver (64-bit)

Realtek RTS5159 Card Reader (32-bit & 64-bit)

Dell Dell Wireless 1397, 1510 Half MiniCard Driver (64-bit)

If you guys are looking for the backup software, I’d assume the 32-bit version would work, but who knows.

You take responsibility for any damage incurred to your hardware by using these drivers. (Getting the legal E’s out of the way.) I hope this helps others out, not just my buddy 😉

Please don’t leave comments asking me to find drivers for other laptops. It didn’t take me much effort to find these, so unless it’s going to be a paid job, I’m not interested!