Git Quick Reference Guide

Create git repository: cd /path/to/repo && git init

Checkout a repositoy: git clone user@host:/path/to/repo

Change branch: git checkout -b [branchname]

Add files to local copy of repository: git add [filename] # can use wildcards

List files in local repository: git ls-tree --full-tree -r HEAD

Commit changes to local repository: git commit -am "Message"

Push changes to existing remote repo: git push origin master

Push changes to new remote repo: git remote add origin username@host

Tagging commits (e.g, software releases): git log && git tag [tag] [commit-id]

Replace local borked file with remote copy: git checkout -- [filename]

Reset local repo with remote: git fetch origin && git reset --hard origin/master

Colorize git output: git config color.ui true

 

Sources:
http://gitready.com/ (Beginner Sections)
http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8533202/list-files-in-local-git-repo

Getting the Best Results From MPlayer and Mixed Telecined & Progressive Video

This post is years in the making.  Not that I’ve spent the entirety of those years working on this problem, or even the entirety of my spare time.  This is just one of those things that I’ve relentlessly banged my head up against until I couldn’t take anymore, only to have it nag me somewhere down the line and pick it back up again.

For the longest time, I could not for the life of me process video that was mixed telecine and progressive without having the resulting video end up longer than the original.  The immediate problem is that A/V sync starts out fine but then drifts to whatever the time difference is between the two videos.  I eventually discovered soundstretch, which can adjust tempo (play time) without affecting pitch, but then that introduces the problem of calculating the time difference as a percentage (and the rounding errors involved in that), re-coding an already-lossy audio stream, and the time it can take to process one-to-two hours of uncompressed WAV data.

While I did have most of that down, it was just too much time.

REVIEW: Project Diva 2nd

Project Diva 2nd♯

★★★★☆

 
PSP only

I am a 35-year-old North American male, so what the hell am I doing playing a Japanese import PSP game whose target audience is people half my age and whose main attraction is mashing buttons to music sung by (mostly) underage (mostly) girls? For me, I think the hook is obvious. Not only am I fan of Rock Band, I’m also a fan of Japanese quirkiness and also happen to be a fan of the Vocaloids. So what do you do when one of your favorite console games completely bungles its hand-held port and someone else comes along with another spin on mashing buttons to music, including some other stuff you happen to like, on a system whose games are region-free?

If you need to know what a Vocaloid is, Wikipedia is a friend that can get you started. If you want to know what veered me into Vocaloid territory, I would have to tell you to thank Valve and Ellen McLain for GLaDOS. By making a humans sound like a computer, you’re bound to pique the interest of people using computer software that tries to sound human, and you get Miku singing a translated version of Still Alive, which at first listen could be mistaken as an official translation of the song. After that, I stumbled upon Caramelldansen, and as with any meme like this people are going to incorporate their favorite characters into it, including Vocaloids. The nail in the coffin, though, was Love Is War, an actual full-fledged song, reminiscent of Linkin Park, using Vocaloid as it was intended. Being fully subbed in Kanji, Romaji and English helped greatly.

(Lest you think English users are being totally ignored: English is harder to pronunciate, thus harder for a computer to pull off, thus the popularity problem. It’s become much better in recent years.

Enough digressions! Let’s talk game play.

(Mostly) Asian Persuasion (3 XBLA + 1 F2P MMO mini-review)

It’s been a long time.  How have you been?  I’ve been really busy….playing video games.  So much so that I realize there was a 2-month gap in my posts.  Well, I guess if I had nothing better to write about during that time, I should indulge you with some of the things that have pilfered my free time.

Something that came to mind while writing these mini-reviews is the argument over whether or not the Japanese video gaming industry is declining.  I came to the realization that the answer is both yes and no — the mainstream industry is rotting while the small devs and indies are picking up the ball.  Just like it is here in the States.  Hence, the title of the article and the inclusion of one non-Asian game.

Deathsmiles II X

First up is Deathsmiles II X.  If you’re unfamiliar with bullet hell shmups, I suggest you also take a look at Triggerheart Exelica as well.

The fun in the Deathsmiles series isn’t beating the game — that’s relatively easy with unlimited continues and 3 selectable difficulties for each stage.  The challenge is in mastering the scoring system.  Of course part of that mastery lies in playing on the hardest setting and not getting hit, but haven’t we had enough insanely difficult games where getting anywhere is next to impossible?

The devs certainly thought so and have toned down things a bit in this incarnation. The slowdown in Deathsmiles II X is more prevalent. Getting the true final boss Pigeon Blood Jitterbug in DS2X is a snap.  Level  1 (Easy) can now be selected all the way through the game instead of just 3 stages.  And the penalty to your item counts for getting hit is slashed in half — from 50% is DS1 to 25% in DS2.

Just because penalties and hoops have been reduced doesn’t mean getting billions of points is any easier.  A hit is still ultra-damning to your final score and finishing off each boss with the homing shot to get Jitterbug leaves you wide open.  You’ll have to work for your 6 billion point achievement, and you’ll have to work even more if you want to score anywhere near 150 billion point mark of the top players on the leader board.

One thing to note with this game is that Cave experimented with 3D with Deathsmiles II.  Cave is well-known for some of the most gorgeous 2D sprite-based shooters, and they didn’t quite pull it off graphics-wise with Deathsmiles II.  However, with 720P the 3D of DS2 gets a B.  (Compared to the lower-res arcade version which gets a C by comparison.)

Speaking of Arcade, that mode is a little messed up on the 360 version.  Initially Cave wasn’t even going to bother, but decided to try and stuff it in at the last minute.  Whereas as the the new 360 and Arrange modes have more slowdown than the original arcade version, the Arcade version on the 360 has less.  The incoming enemy markers are also missing.  And there are no leader boards.

The biggest ding against this game comes on its price tag of $30. I don’t suppose the fact that this was a retail disc release in Japan makes that pill any easier to swallow.  Especially seeing as how we get absolutely ZERO translation.  That’s  right — ZERO translation. Whatever you see in English in this game was already in English.  Brush up on your Google-fu.

Afterthought: You may opt to go for the original Deathsmiles NA release, which can be picked up used on Amazon for as little as $19 including shipping.

Trouble Witches Neo

Next up is Trouble Witches Neo.  If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m a schmup fan.  (More precisely, a previously-dormant schmup fan.)  As with Deathsmiles, beating the game is no sweat on Easy with unlimited continues.  The challenge is the high score.

One thing to note is that this game has HORRENDOUS English voice acting.  Consider half of your $15 purchase to be the entertainment value you can derive from that alone.  Here’s the kicker:  You’re going to HAVE to play with the English voice acting if you want to know what the bosses are saying since there are no English subtitles if you chose to enable the original JP voice acting.

The most interesting thing about this game is that it started life on the PC and its creator is very anti-Touhou.  Aside from that?  There’s actually a tutorial and a this game is translated, so it might be an easier pill to swallow than Deathsmiles II X.  Then again, this game brings back the difficulty that DS2X leaves out, meaning beginners aren’t going to be able to count the continues with their fingers and toes alone.

Gotham City Impostors

Hey, we’re still shooting things here, but at least it’s not a shmup and the characters are actually able enter into legal agreements!  The best way to describe Gotham City Impostors is with an analogy: GCI is to Call of Duty multi-player as Outlaw Golf is to Tiger Woods PGA Tour.  In other words, a completely farcical take on the genre that has a surprising amount of depth and thought put into it that can actually put the big guy to shame.

The back story makes no sense — a variant of Joker Gas is turning people into Batman and Joker wannabes — and serves little more than to give a flimsy excuse to set up team of Bats and Jokerz.  There are pre-defined load-outs for Medic, Scout, Soldier, and what-not, but you can either tweak these to your liking or roll your own.  (One of the common ones I saw was a mostly-Soldier load-out save for the megaphone — a soldier that could be a healer in a pinch.)

It’s hard NOT to like this game unless you like to take your games too seriously.  If so, please stick with your Call of Duties and Halos.

Dungeon Fighter Online

The final entry, and the game I’m currently playing, is Dungeon Fighter Online.  Take Final Fight (or Streets of Rage), then add swords, guns, magic, a juggle-happy combo system, a fantasy setting, RPG elements, and some MMO.

Did I mention that it’s Free 2 Play, and that you really don’t have to party with anyone if you don’t want to (though it helps if you do)?

Dungeon Fighter Online has taught me where Phantasy Star Universe has failed so hard.  While both games have you running “dungeons” over and over again, DFO actually gives you a reason to do so (even if it’s something as simple as collecting items, defeating a certain number of a particular enemy, or clearing harder difficulty levels).  DFO’s dungeons are more organized in difficulty, meaning you’re not running all over the game world for harder missions as you level up.  (Counterpoint: Sometimes you’ll be running all over the world for quests pertaining to a particular dungeon.)  While the organized dungeons all but eliminate the need for a centralized party system, DFO has one anyway, as well as a centralized auction system.  And lastly, there’s always some special event (common in F2P), unlike Sega and PSU.

One word of warning: Although the game is very keyboard-centric, and the game itself does include a bit of game pad support, you may wish to use a program like Joystick 2 Mouse to map a controller to keyboard presses and/or mouse movements yourself.  Reason being: The game itself only supports one joystick, leaving out any secondary joystick and/or D-pad you might have.

HOWTO: Get NVIDIA On Linux To Use Custom Resolutions Over DVI

You want something easy? Cut the EDID pin on a VGA cable, hook up your monitor, configure xorg.conf to whateve resolution you want, and call it a day.

You want something scary? Do the same with a DVI or HDMI cable and witness the NVIDIA driver do everything in its power keep you from falling down and skinning your knees like you’re 2 years old.

The problem stems from the fact that digital flat panels have one native resolution. Well, actually, this would be a problem if these monitors didn’t have internal scalers. So now the problem becomes: What device scales better — your NVIDIA GPU or your flat panel? Chances are most people wouldn’t be able to tell. Some might be annoyed that their flat panel just steches everything without regard to aspect ratio.

But what if you actually want to run at a “non-native” resolution because you’re using an HDTV whose actual native resolution is 1368×768, whose actual native resolution is never reported at all, but reports the max 1920×1080 as it’s native resolution?

Here’s the slew of options you need:

Option “UseEDID” “False”

Tells the driver not to use modes that the display device reports it can use

Option “UseEDIDFreqs” “False”

Tells the driver to ignore frequency ranges reported over EDID.

Option “ExactModeTimingsDVI” “True”

IMPORTANT! Tells the driver to use timings as-is. Otherwise, it tries to find a best-fit resolution instead. If you leave EDID enabled while connected to an HDTV, you’ll get a 1368×768 resolution scaled to 1920×1080 resolution. If you disable EDID modes, the driver will fall back to 640×480 and then reject your custom resolution as being too large.

ModeValidation NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck

Tells the drive not to check resolutions agains the reported native resolution. This comes into play when UseEDID is false since the driver will fall back on 640×480 and then reject your custom resolution as too large.

ModeValidation other

Nothing special to note here as these would be used even if you were using a VGA connection.

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"DVI0"
	Option		"UseDisplayDevice"	"DFP-0"
	Driver		"nvidia"
	Option		"UseEDID"		"False"
	Option		"UseEDIDFreqs"		"False"
	Option		"ExactModeTimingsDVI"	"True"
	Option		"ModeValidation"	"NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidModes, NoMaxPClkCheck, NoVertRefreshCheck, NoHorizSyncCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck"
	Option		"NoLogo"		"True"
	Option		"DPI"			"144 x 144"
EndSection

Dungeon Fighter Online Won’t Launch After Re-Installing Windows

You know what I like about keeping my games on another drive?  Most of the time, you don’t have to re-install games to run them.  Steam is a great example, as running steam.exe directly on a fresh installation of Windows will prompt you that Steam isn’t setup and that it will re-launch itself to do so.

Dungeon Fighter Online, however, does something funky.

Correcting Blurry Display Scaling Under High DPI Settings

In pre-Vista Windows land, using a DPI setting higher than the default 96 was like inviting a clumsy person to stand next to your china cabinet.  Something was going to break, you just didn’t know what.  Thankfully it was usually something minor.  The most common defect that cropped up were programs that would size their text boxes and other elements by pixels.  Any programmer that gives two shits about their code knows not to do that.  But hey, this is Windows, the Easy Dev Land where All Are Welcome, so code quality is all over the place, even from sources that you would expect to know better.

To address the issue, Microsoft introduced a flag in the application manifest called dpiAware.  If this flag is not set, Windows will render the application at 96 DPI and then bitmap-scale the entire window up to your specified DPI.  The place that this really sucks is in games, which really don’t need to be hampered by unnecessary scaling as it is.  Nonetheless, a game that doesn’t set dpiAware and tries to run inside a window at 640×480 will render at 960×720 when using a DPI of 144.  On a 1368×768 screen, that doesn’t leave much room.

Chances are you’re using programs that all make an effort to be DPI-independent.  Some notable exceptions exist (Apple iTunes for Windows) but barring those exceptions, you may wish to completely forgo Display Scaling and leave it up to the application to worry about DPI.

Step 1: Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Compatibility Assistant\Persisted and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers.  Here you will find any Compatibility settings that you my have already set.  Feel free to clear out all the individual entries.  (You may wish to keep the ones under Layers that say ELEVATECREATEPROCESS as those are the ones that you or the programs themselves have set to run as an Administrator.)

Step 2: Right-click the desktop, select Personalize at the bottom of the menu, then click on Display in the left-hand column in the window that appears, then click Set Custom DPI Size from the new options that appear in the left-hand column, then check the box that says Use XP Style DPI Scaling, then click OK, then click Apply.  Log off and then back in for the settings to be applied.

Linux And Flaky ATL1C Support

Here’s something I thought I’d never see — the day that wired networking in Linux could ever be considered anything less than “it just works.”

I recently purchased a laptop (Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5518 to be precise) and had trouble out of the gate after installing Arch Linux.  The computer would seem to hang whenever the network was involved.  (E.g., running netcfg, networkmanager, or the ip command.)  I assumed that it was wireless support that was causing the headaches, so I ran hwinfo --netcard | grep "Modules\|File" to find the kernel modules related to my networking devices.

Device Modules: "atl1c"
Device File: eth0
Driver Modules: "rtl8192ce"
Device File: wlan0

I blacklisted rtl8192ce but that didn’t solve my problem. 

Some Display Managers No Longer Require ck-launch-session

Did ConsoleKit shutdown, reboot, suspend, and hibernate recently stop working for you? Unable to mount volumes that you were able to before? Chances are you’re probably using an alternative display manager (as opposed to KDM and GDM) and had to specify ck-launch-session to get things working correctly. Some display managers that have opted out of direct ConsoleKit support (usually in the name of being lightweight and/or simple) have started including direct support (my case: SLiM).

Just remove ck-launch-session from whichever line from whatever configuration file your display manager uses to begin launching an X session.  In the case of SLiM, this is the login_cmd line in /etc/slim.conf.

History Repeats Itself With Metro.

There’s been a lot of vitriol over WP7 and Metro as of late.  And a lot of doom and gloom predictions to go along with that hate.  To plagiarize Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw a bit, the masses are totally totally right…almost.  The reason I agree, however, is a reason that I don’t see brought up often if at all — that shoe-horning an interface for one type of device onto another type of device is never guaranteed to work.