I was going crazy because it was unplayable and I thought my graphics card was faulty, but luckily I found the solution.

NOTE: This fixed the corruption in Mirror’s Edge too

To fix the problem you will have to open the Windows Registry (Regedit) and change the value of the entry for Geometry Instancing.

To do that, go to:

• If you have Windows Vista:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{----adapter id----}\0000\UMD]

• If you have Windows XP:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video \{—-adapter id—-}\0000\

And there find the entry named “GI” and change it’s binary value to “31 00″. It works better if you also change the string named “GI_DEF” to “0″.

And that’s it, start Spore and enjoy an artifact free session.

For the record, this is what it looked like:

A really big problem for a game purchased and downloaded from the internet, but luckily, after around a year since I downloaded it from the EA Download Manager I found the solution to run the game using the 64 bit executable.

To fix the “Insert DVD” problem just go to your Crysis directory and copy the files “GL.ini” and “paul.dll” from the folder  Bin32 and paste them in the folder named Bin64. Voila, now it loads.

Here are my highlights:

It can rip your CDs to MP3, M4A, OGG, WMA and FLAC  (if you want to rip to MP3 using the free version you will have to download the  free LAME Encoder).

It can convert music between formats.

For playing music it’s much faster than Windows Media Player 11.

The library is very good and includes quick search like WMP11, very useful.

Works beautifully on Vista 64.

I like it so much that i though I should post it here.

I have 3 Good Old Games beta invites that I want to share with the first 3 people that post a coment in this thread. Just make sure you enter a valid e-mail address when posting and I will send you the key and the url to register.

Good luck.

Last friday I purchased the Rockstar Complete Pack from Steam because I couldn’t resist the 50% off offer, and everything was fine until I tried to play Manhunt or Midnight Club 2.

It dindn’t occur to me to check if all the games were compatible for Windows Vista before purchasing, so I had to find a solution to the them run without crashing.

I found a great patch for Manhunt that can be found here, but I still had the problem with MC2.

People suggested to disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention) to make it run, because the problem is that DEP blocks the game from running, but I didn’t like the idea of disabling it just to play a game, so I went out to find a better way.

It turned out that the problem is that the .EXE reports that it’s compatible with DEP, but it isn’t, so that results in an instant crash. After a few tries I found the string on the .EXE that disabled DEP and I was finally able to play MC2 on Vista without disabling DEP.

I have made a patch will automatically update your mc2.exe installed by Steam to make it run on Vista and Windows 7 without disabling DEP.

Download here: mc2_vista_patch

Credit goes to Ryan Govostes for his amazing code and investigation.

Note: it will also work on any other installation if you specify the path.

The simplest way is to create a shortcut for MC2_Vista_Patch.exe, go to it’s Properties and on the Targed box, paste o type the path to mc2.exe following the patcher location.

Here you have the instructions to make the fix yourself if you want to:

1. You will need XVI32 (a HEX Editor) that can be downloaded from here.

2. Once downloaded you have to run it and open your mc2.exe

3. Then press “CTRL+G” and select Go to —> Hexadecimal and type “95E”

4. Now go to Edit / Overwrite String and type “00 00″

5. Now Save the file and it will load without disabling DEP.

The Reference Level of the 360 is similar to the PS3′s RGB Full Range option. As I said on that article, most HDTVs only support a limited range of black to white, for that reason, most people with HD Televisions should have it set to Standard, and people with PC monitors should set it to Expanded, but just as I said in my article about Full RGB, the best course of action is to test it and select the proper setting for your TV or Monitor.

The best way to know how you should configure the “Reference Level” option is to download the following Image and take it to your Xbox 360, be it using a USB device or from your PC using Media Center or Windows Media Player 11.

Once you have it there, you just have to change the “Reference Level” option located in the Video configuration menu to Expanded and then go to the MEDIA blade to display it in full screen and look for the 28 squares.

If you can’t see them at first, try raising the brightness of your HDTV or Monitor, but if even then you can’t see every square, change the option to Intermediate and check it again. If you still can’t see them all, then change the option to Standard and see how every square is now displayed correctly and leave it that way.

I made the mistake of setting it to Expanded and play the Condemned 2 demo without checking it first, and if the game is dark as it is, that way I could see very little in the dark (after raising the brightness level in-game a lot, because at first it was pitch black).

Once I was done with the demo I checked it with my Test Image, and I couldn’t  see a single square, not even by raising the brightness of my Bravia 26T3000 to 100%. Then I changed it back to Standard and I could see them all.

If you want to change that setting, use the Test Image to be sure it works OK.

This problem is caused because Sony decided to include a Power Cord with ground (if you check your other Video equipment you will see that they all use ungrounded connectors), and this causes a ground variance with the ground present in the Antenna socket connected to the TV (to receive the analog television) that results in the annoying scrolling bars (normally they move horizontally).

The solution would be as easy as disconnecting the Antenna Socket when you want to play with your PS3 or using an ungrounded Power Strip to connect your PS3.

It’s worth noting that this problem is unlikely to occur when using a HDTV connected with a HDMI cable, but if you are experiencing it when using one, it’s worth trying the solution just in case.

Luckily  you can change a “hidden” option in Firefox to prevent that.

To change it, follow the following steps:

1 Open Firefox

2 Type “about:config” in the Location Bar and press Intro

3 Find “dom.disable_window_move_resize”

4 Double click on it so it changes from false to true

5 Close this Tab and you are done

That’s all, now you can keep surfing the net without this annoyance.

I’ve been using RoboForm Pro for 1079 days, and since day one, all I had to do was remember a strong master password and RoboForm would save and encrypt everything for me and I never had to worry again about forgetting a password or about password theft.

But not only that, RoboForm has a password generator that you can use to enter in the sign-up forms when you are registering, and then, when you click register, RoboForm will ask you if you want to save the login information, so you will never have to worry about every password, and will be secure against fake web sites, because RoboForm remembers the URL of the website when you save a login, and it only shows the “fill login” button in the right site, not in the fakes.

Of course RoboForm will ask you to save any login you don’t have already stored, so after the installation the process is completely hassle free.

You can also store your personal details including credit card information, so you never have to type those again, and you can have the confidence,  that no one will be able to hack your encrypted information.

As a bonus, RoboForm can save any text and encrypt it in the same way as the rest, so you can use it to store CD-Keys like I do, or anything else you want to be secure. And if you are scared about key loggers, it includes a virtual keyboard that you can use to type your master password without risk.

If RoboForm has managed to catch your attention, you can download it for free here. You can see the difference between Free and Pro here and if you want the Pro version, you can buy it for just 29,95$.

There’s also a portable version called Roboform2Go that only resides in a USB memory stick and it automatically attaches itself to the web browser when you plug-it in the USB, without copying any file to the PC, very useful when you work in different computers and still want to use strong passwords without memorizing them. You can download it for free here and now there’s a good offer that let’s you buy it for just 19,95$ (20$ off)

I know this could sound like publicity, but trust me, try it for free and you will love it just like I do. The only bad thing is that I can’t use RoboForm on Linux, it only works on Windows.

Before it’s release, there were a lot of negative comments that said that the game was totally unplayable, and even we were presented with some videos as proof, but the truth is that it’s not near that bad.

These are my impressions after more than 10 hours of play.

Atention, minor spoilers

Right now I’m on the Chapter “Follow Freeman”, and yes, the have been slowdowns, but:

• The only level that run really poorly it’s the coast level in which you have to use the crane to get your car up on the road.

There have been some very small parts on other levels that also run a little poorly:

• The part in which you have to use a elevator to get your air boat down to the hazardous waters again after jumping to the warehouse.
• When the helicopter launches like one hundred bombs.
• A part when some citizens destroy a huge monitor and there’s a lot of smoke.
• A part in a Follow Freeman level in which you have to flank a combine barricade by going through a building.

Other than that I can say that the game have runs fine, not steel solid framerate on all the levels but it feels much better than Rainbow Six Vegas if you know what I mean.

End of minor spoilers

Now we look at the graphics…

… and the first impression is that the image is more blurry compared to the sharpness of the PC version, but not because of a lack of anisotropic filtering, but because a post filter, and the truth it’s that when you start playing it feels right.

They have updated the textures with detail maps, so when you get near a wall, you don’t see the pixels, but a nice texture, thing that I like very much.

Of course we can’t forget about the HDR lighting, because although you may think it only adds a subtle effect, It adds another level of immersion to the already good graphics. And the new distant fog blends much better than the sloppy old one.

And to wrap up for now, the combination of dynamic shadows and the flash light is perfect for the dark places that you pass through in Hal-Life 2.

PS: Now, all this years after it’s initial release, Half-Life 2 still is the best FPS in my book, thanks to the tremendous variety and clever puzzles (I don’t think that the puzzles from Episode 2 are good because they tell you everything and you don’t really need to think a thing, and also the exploration in the cave tunnels isn’t nearly as good as the exploration levels in HL2).

And because all that, I think it’s still really worth playing HL2 on the PS3, with more reason if you never played it before.