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PS4 Remote Play

February 23, 2016 by Belghast

Strange Days

ASUS-ROG-GL551JW-DS74 Yesterday was an extremely strange day, because an event happened that was largely unexpected. As I have talked about over the last several months, my laptop is definitely seeing its age. At the time I got it, it was an amazing power house of gaming with dual GT 650m video cards… that could pretty much run whatever I happened to throw at it. The problem is the laptop is from 2012, and in that time a lot of stuff has changed and we have gone through three generations of video cards. So long as games were largely based on the PS3/Xbox 360 architecture everything was peachy, but as games dropped support for that generation and started to focus on the PS4/Xbox One it began to struggle. The first game I can remember that it flat out would not run in a way that I could stand to play it… was Dragon Age: Inquisition which is shockingly taxing on a video card… especially one of this age. Then came Fallout 4… and a long string of games that I had to run at 720p with greatly stripped down resolution options to get them to run at all. So since before Christmas I had been watching the local Craigslist to see if there were any options out on the market that could be snatched up on the cheap. I have a mixed past when it comes to Craigslist, because I have been able to get some insane deals like a Playstation 4 in early 2014 for only $200. I have also gotten insane run around that seemed to last for weeks over a couple of laptops that the other party simply flaked out on.

Still I was not in dire straights and part of me was wanting to wait to see what the next generation of Nvidia cards looked like before purchasing a brand new laptop… which seemed to be the direction I was heading towards. Then over the weekend I actually saw something good on Craigslist, which surprised me in the midst of all of the over priced machines… and laptops that predate my current one. Someone was selling a Asus Republic of Gamers laptop with an Intel Core i7-4720HQ processor, 16 GB of Ram, a Nvidia Geforce GTX 960m video card, with 1TB data drive and a 128GB SSD. At first I apparently texted the wrong phone number, as I missed a zero in a sequence of four zeroes in a row. However after texting the right address the guy responded pretty quickly. I asked the standard questions… like does it have any issues, why are you getting rid of it, etc… and then started making offers. Miraculously I apparently started off the bargaining in the right place, because I was able to talk him down to $600 which is a significant deal for that laptop. So last night I spent the ever so fun game of starting to install everything I “need” to be happy with a laptop, but I have to say anytime I upgrade like this there is a little bit of sadness too. I develop a personal relationship with my computers… and I guess part of me feels a little bad about kicking one to the curb to spend time with a newer model. I know that is a strange sequence of thought… but I can’t help but feel a little sad that I am moving on.

Remote Play

One of the great promises of the Playstation 4 was the ability to remotely play the system from a Vita, Android device, or the Playstation TV set top box. For the most part this works… but with certain constraints. The Vita appears to do an amazing job of remote play, given its limited real estate and the slightly wonky control scheme. However the Playstation TV set top box has been nothing but a disappointment. There are threads all over the place talking about how to somehow get it to perform well, but most of these involve having a hard Ethernet connection back to the same router that the Playstation 4 resides connected to. The problem here is… the entire idea of having it is to be able to extend the reach of your PS4 to another television. Basically for a long time I was looking for a way to play my PS4 somewhere other than sitting up in my office, where I have it for the purpose of recording gameplay footage. Awhile back I read about an unofficial side project that extended Remote Play to the PC, but never actually got around to checking it out. The software is currently in active alpha development, but from what I was reading online it seemed like it actually worked well. The author charges $10 for access to the alpha client… which is the only thing that had kept me from playing with it already. So last night I took the plunge hoping that I could sit there and play PS4 as my laptop downloaded and installed various bits of software.

RemotePlay 2016-02-22 21-43-03-25 — Screenshot taken with Fraps while Streaming from PS4

Firstly I have to say… this thing is phenomenal. There are a few hoops that you have to jump through like registering your PC with your Playstation 4 as a remote play device. Additionally in order to get the native DualShock 4 to work I had to track down LibUSB which honestly took longer than any other part. Once installed my DualShock 4 installed on my system and was recognized by the Remote Play application. Unlike the native Remote Play options… this thing connects insanely fast to your PS4 and even the wake on lan functionality seems to work great. The real test however is if I could manage to play Destiny on my PC without being frustrated by the control input lag. Sure enough I managed to complete several duties and even hopped into some crucible where I managed to rack of some decent kill streaks… all running remote over my wireless network. Every now and then there is a slight bit of artifacting… and occasionally there might be an input hiccup… but in the grand scheme of things it works insanely well. There are some constraints… you are limited to a maximum of 720p running at 60 fps. For the most part I ran the default of 720p at 30 fps and the experience was not necessarily perfect but good enough for me not to care about any imperfections.

RemotePlay 2016-02-22 22-17-20-64 — Screenshot taken with Fraps while Streaming from PS4

Where the really awesome bit comes in is the fact that the software author currently is working on mouse and keyboard controls, and for a little bit I actually tried playing Destiny with mouse and keyboard. There is some work that still needs to be done… and the mouse just doesn’t quite move fast enough yet to make game play truly viable… however since this software is actively being developed on I have a feeling that at some point soon… or with some configuration tweaking I will be able to sit on the sofa and play Destiny without the Dualshock 4. Part of me wants to throw money at this guy to get him to add more features… because seriously this thing is working amazing. Folks have already chimed in with “But Bel, Aren’t they adding official support?”. This is true, but I have a feeling that Sony isn’t going to add in all of the features that this software is already starting to support, like the ability to pretty much play with ANY usb controller and not just the Dualshock 4. I have a feeling that without any doubt Sony is not going to support Keyboard and Mouse emulation either. In any case… it is $10 well spent even if you just want to play around with it. Over the course of the night I played Destiny, Rayman Legends, and Farcry 4 all without issues. Also of note… ALL of this was while I was downloading a game from steam, a game from origin, and copying files across my network… and STILL the remote play session refused to lag.

Cat Hangers and Raptors

February 21, 2016 by Belghast

Returning to Life

I am getting a really late start today, because I had to edit an extra long podcast this morning… then from that point on we have been doing adult type activities. We walked to lunch at the local Pho place, and then went grocery shopping. Finally I am now settling in to write my blog post. Anyone who has kept up with my blog over the last month will realize that PAX South kicked my ass in so many different ways. Firstly I was in significantly worse shape this year than I was last year. In 2015 I had been walking every single day… and in 2016 I had pretty much fallen out of that habit. So physically the exertion was real of walking 25 miles over the course of the days I was at the convention. I think I simply wore myself down to the point where it likely made it easier for me to catch something at the convention, because starting that Sunday on the drive home I struggled with this crud quite literally until right now. I am still in the process of fully getting back my voice, and I still go into random coughing fits. That said I am feeling so damned much better than I did, and yesterday really helped that. Also if you have read my blog for a very long time… you will know that one of the pastimes that my wife and I like to partake is what I lovingly refer to as “junking”. Generally speaking this is us going to a bunch of flea markets, thrift stores, and other “junk” shops in search of something. For me personally my constant hunt is for cheap Legos… and for her… the mission varies greatly. Recently she has been on the hunt for cheap board games for her class room.

The other thing that I really enjoy about the process is that I find some really strange shit while roaming around. I tend to take photos of these and either blog about them… or simply post them to twitter throughout the day. Yesterday was no exception, and you can see in the above image gallery some of the oddities I found. The first image…. is apparently a Cat Hanger…. for when you want it to look like your cat is wearing your clothing. The second was this insanely huge raptor mask…. that I thought I really needed, but had zero clue where I would actually put it. I thought it would have been amazing to try and stuff and hang on the wall like a trophy. Next up is the Freddy Krueger “Fright Squirter” which… is a disturbingly named product and I am just going to leave it at that. I really like old school technology, and while roaming around I came across what I can only assume is a key punch of some sort? Either that or a really strange adding machine. I also happened across this insane deal on Funko Pop Vinyl figures, and I managed to exercise real restraint in that I only managed to bring four of them home. They were roughly $10 each before the special so I picked up Illidan, Tyrael, the Lone Wanderer, and the Borderlands Psycho. There were so many that I wanted to pick up, and I probably would have if they had any of the Mass Effect series or some more of the Blizzard ones. Basically it was this awesome day of running around and for once the weather cooperated, making it what seemed to be needed to greatly improve my spirits.

Teetering On the Fence

I am guessing as the day went on yesterday, the folks at Ubisoft made some significant infrastructure changes because this morning I was able to play the Division PC without any of those hiccups I was experiencing yesterday. Now unfortunately I am on the fence as to which platform I favor. There is something nice about being able to play on the PC, especially since in theory my laptop is capable of running it…. albeit extremely ugly. The big thing that concerns me about this game is that I think the Dark Zone will actually be somewhat fun to play around in, especially with a team. On the PC how nice your system is will absolutely dictate how well you perform out there, and there is just something reassuring about knowing that you are on an even playing field with all of the other players you might encounter. I had quite a bit of fun this morning, because I finally completed the cleaner mission unlocking the tech operative and restoring power to the section of the city. I also spent a good bit of time wandering off the beaten path. Last night on the AggroChat podcast I talked a bit about my lament for the lack of content density, and I guess in truth I just needed to wander around off of the main streets. While roaming the back alleys I seemed to encounter quite a few more people than I did in other areas, which also seemed to be lucrative when it came to drops and other rewards.

Essentially I need to see who all is interested in playing the game, and what their platform of preference is. This is the sort of experience that is only really going to be fun if I can get a group of people to play with. The other question is…. do I really have the time to devote to something else. This game is only sixteen days away at this point, and I have so many other things that I want to be playing. After the discussion last night about Warframe I really want to give that another chance, and there is so much left that I want to be doing over in Elder Scrolls Online. Basically I question if I have enough time to devote to this new game, even thought I think it is going to be really fun. One of the problems that Tam and I talked about last night on the podcast was the lack of “space guns” or that the game was essentially locked down to guns that actually exist today. That said it does seem like there is a huge variety in weapons available, because I have at least a dozen different weapons right now that I have picked up as drops and they all perform vastly different. In any case… I guess I need to be making up my mind soon so I can get my pre-order in and lock in those pre-release bonuses. Mostly they are cosmetic in nature…. but you know me and my love of cosmetics. Though I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised in just how many outfit drops I have found by roaming around. The game looks to be a lot of the things that Destiny promised to be… which in some way makes me sad…. because I still very much love Destiny.

Please Mind Spoilers

February 15, 2016 by Belghast

Spoiler Town

Last night was the second half premiere of Season 6 of the Walking Dead, and man…. was it a roller coaster. I am not however going to talk much about the show, because I don’t want to give anything away for those who have yet to see it. This seems like a sensible position, and it also tends to color my reactions on twitter… because just like Star Wars Episode VII I didn’t want to be the one to rob the magic of the moment from anyone. With a big show like this, there is always talk on Twitter about the inconsiderate nature of some, who start emoting about specific events on a show or a game immediately. For me personally… spoilers don’t mean that much and if I was going to watch a show or play a game in the first place… I am still going to play said game/show even if I know the entire plot. However I realize most people are not like this. There are a lot of folks who love the thrill of not knowing if our team of stalwart heroes will survive the episode, or if they really can get out of this jam. For the sake of the people who are not me, I’ve learned over the years how to share my excitement over something… and emote freely… without actually giving much detail away. So this largely involves focusing on my feelings, or the overall experience and not necessarily plot details. Once I got used to it, I honestly find it a much more enjoyable way to share my experiences.

Holy hell this episode….. so many ups and downs

— Bel@NotDeadYet (@belghast) February 15, 2016

The above tweet is an example of something I said last night while watching the show. It helped me to get the jitters out that were building up inside of me, but at the same time… gave away nothing. What Walking Dead episode doesn’t have a bunch of ups and downs… and while everyone who was also watching knew exactly what I was talking about… it didn’t do anything to spoil the folks who get the show two full hours behind. This isn’t just Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones, or whatever else happens to be the hot “It” property. I would love to see this same logic applied to almost anything. Games like Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online, and The Secret World all have deep story content… that involves the same sort of ups and downs and plot twists you might expect from a novel. In the guilds I have been responsible for, I have always tried to stress keeping guild chat as a spoiler free place so nobody had to accidentally log in and get all of that build up spoiled. Some however are always careless, and while you can scold someone…. once the spoiler is in an open channel it is impossible to remove. Mostly what I am asking for is for folks to be more considerate about the shared space we have be it Twitter or the chat channels in games themselves. It is lovely that you don’t mind spoilers…. because largely I am in the same camp as you… but be thoughtful of the folks who really do. Is your few minutes of excitement really worth ruining someone else’s entire experience?

RWBY Season 3

Another event from yesterday that could have been spoilerific… was the public release of the final episode of RWBY Season 3. There is so much amazing stuff happening in this show right now… and a lot of stuff that also makes me super sad inside. For similar reasons to Walking Dead, I am not going to go into a bunch of detail since I know folks are still catching up. Over the last few weeks I have gone through this interesting evolution of not actually knowing what RWBY was really, to getting interested… to binge watching my way through the entire series run to this point. This means that I actually got to watch the last three episodes with the rest of the world as they were publicly released around noon on Sunday. Now for sponsors they get access to the show on Saturday, and I honestly expect that come next season I will be counting myself among this number. It isn’t often that I find something that I literally want to tell people to stop everything they are doing and “watch this thing now”, but with RWBY it definitely falls into that category. There is just so much to love here, that it is going to be hard to cram it into a blog post. Basically RWBY takes all of the parts of Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Naruto that I truly love…. and gets rid of all of the parts that annoy the fuck out of me. On top of that… it is populated with tons of awesome women characters…. who are not simply there for gratuitous eye candy.

There are a lot of aspects of Anime that are just lost on me, mostly because I don’t understand the Japanese Cultural references… or at least not all of them. I’ve called RWBY an American Anime… but in truth it is more than that… it is a global internet Anime because in truth… the references and reactions that it draws upon could be understood by pretty much ANYONE using the internet and social media. The most impressive thing about this show is how watching it compressed like this… has made me realize just how damned impressive the improvement from season to season has been. The first season… while really good… was cludgy as hell, and it quite literally felt like they were using poser to do this (which they were). From that point on however… they started to master the tools and by season 2 it was already feeling more like traditional animation. Season 3 however skyrocketed that quality bar, and I would pretty much put the show up against anything in the air. I really look forward to seeing just how much improved Season 4, because they are teetering on that edge of what traditional animation can provide…. but with motion capture and 2D rendering. If you are already indoctrinated into RWBY, we need to talk… because so much shit is going on. If you are not however… I highly suggest you catch up… this playlist has through S3 E6 but it is the best playlist I was able to find on YouTube. Once you are hooked then it is time to go to the actual source and the Rooster Teeth RWBY page. Most of the episodes are 12-16 minutes long, and it is well worth your time even if you squeeze them in between other activities.

Golden Tickets

February 5, 2016 by Belghast

Ultimate Movie Edition

It seems that last night while I was in my own little world of coughing and clicking the mouse button aimlessly… some more information came out about a promotion that will be landing along with the Warcraft movie. Over on reddit there is a thread with a screenshot taken from a supposed survey that was being passed around. Basically this is them giving away a free copy of the game, because now when you buy the base game you get through Mists of Pandaria for free. In theory once they release Legion it has been their standard to give everyone playing the game everything but the latest expansion, which is also the method that SOE chose to end up with on Everquest and Everquest II. So I guess the only real question is… will this work? There are most certainly going to be former players of the game that go to the theaters and see this movie out of a sense of fond nostalgia. Even if I was not currently playing Warcraft, I would be going to see it because it is a world I have deeply cared about. This would be the case for pretty much any other world I have loved in the past… and no matter how much of a debacle the Dresden television series was… if they made a movie I would be there on opening night.

So for former players this is basically a ticket to play the game for free for a month, and I have a feeling that pretty much every single one of them will at least poke their head in for a few days. Nostalgia is a very strong motivator, and is absolutely the reason why I keep ending up subscribed to this game. Now for the folks that are going to the theaters because they like big fantasy action movies… I think that is a potentially bigger prospect for new players. World of Warcraft has always had this ability to convert non-gamers into WoW players, in a way that no other game than Pokemon has seemed to be able to do. This movie, if it ends up like I think it will… seems like it is going to be the perfect primer course in the “history of the world” and give watchers enough of a taste for the setting that they might just check it out further. It does not hurt at all that some of the movie stars like Robert Kazinksky are being extremely public about their own experiences with the game and painting it in a very positive light. This feels very much like… “you watched the movie, now you can go home and live in the world”. I think it is going to work better than they might have even imagined, because the barriers between gamer and non-gamer keep slowly breaking down. It is not a far stretch for someone who is already playing Candy Crush, to go home and play Warcraft instead. After all the only way this genre is going to grow… is by converting a brand new generation of players.

Second Seasonal

I have to admit that my spigot of post ideas has pretty much been closed down to a trickle. It is really hard to think when you go into a coughing fit and would swear that you just felt your brain rattling. In this state I am just not doing much gaming other than logging in each night and playing the garrison game, and ending up over in Diablo 3. The simple fact that it is pretty lightweight on interaction, other than your mouse hand makes it something I can stand to do. Yesterday I had managed to get to within four levels of 70 when I finally caved and pestered my friend Rae for a boost. We ran around doing Torment VI for a bit, because I believe that was the highest that a sub 70 could go do. I managed to ding 70 in very short order, but when I sat down to craft something…. I realized I was almost completely out of the white parts. So I am guessing I will roll something new again if for no reason other than to run around and collect white weapons to turn into parts.

The next goal is to do the steps required to unlock the armor set, and then try and sort out exactly what I want for a spec to go with it. The irony is this is actually my first monk to hit 70, which reminds me that at some point I should really push up my non-seasonal monk so I at least feel like less of a slacker. I am sitting in this place where pretty much every game I think of playing leaves me uninspired. I am not entirely sure what can pull me out of this rut, or if it is simply a side effect of being sick. We have a clinic at work that employees can go to for free, and I went down there and got checked out. Turns out this “pox” is simply a virus, and there isn’t much that they can do rather than simply let it run its course. In theory over the weekend I should start to feel significantly better, and I am pretty much assuming that whatever the maximum recovery time will be the case for me. I have a largely broken immune system, and not only do I seem to catch everything… but I seem to get over them extremely slowly. My plan is to chill out, and get lots of rest this weekend, and hopefully by Monday I am a new person. My biggest concern right now is whether or not I will actually have a voice come Saturday when we record AggroChat.