This is not much of a how-to but rather an important note. When upgrading from a single core to a dual core processor several games, especial Command and Conquer: Generals and games based on the same game engine such as Battle for Middle Earth may not run correctly if at all. After a lengthy search no standard solution was found other than to reinstall windows and the games. This ensures that they are installed and configured correctly for your hardware.

I was mighty displeased with the spontaneous crashing of my Acer 8103 laptop after a few minutes of any intensive gaming. I had added a 1 Gb stick of Kingston ValueRam to the computer while keeping the factory-installed Hynix 512 mb stick of ram in the first slot.

Mixing these two brands of RAM does not work. If you experience random crashes during intense graphics & cpu usage (e.g. during games) and have mixed memory, it might be your problem. So be sure to buy memory in pairs or find Hynix to match the default stick – though I know nothing of Hynix’s quality.

Prior to removing my Hynix RAM, I tried Centrino Hardware Control (edit: software renamed to Laptop Hardware Control, available here) to set custom voltages for the CPU speed-stepping. That worked to a point, but I had to underclock my processor to make games just semi-stable. A bus multiplier of 14x resulting in less stability than 13x.

I then tried a better cooling solution. Note, you can keep the Acer laptop 2C-3C cooler if you prop it up off the table desk a few inches. Still crashed randomly.

Finally, I tried different versions of Acer’s bios (3C17, 3C22) and random rebooting still occured.

Right now I am stable, haven’t crashed for over a week, running with only my Kingston ValueRAM and bios 3C17.

keywords: Acer TM 8100 laptop, tm8100, 8103, spontaneous rebooting, random crashing, RAM matching, bios 3C17 3C22

as you may or may not have seen, apple has added scrolling capabilities to its new powerbook trackpads:

Just drag two fingers over the trackpad to scroll vertically and horizontally or pan around any active window.

for those already owning an apple portable, it makes one wonder, “why wasn’t this implemented before?”

now is your chance.

keywords: ibook, powerbook, apple laptop, enable scrolling, trackpad feature

Game makers want people to pay for products they provide, which is fair. A lot of people want to get around the fact that they should pay, which is understandable.

This leads to game makers creating software protection to prevent their products’ unavoidable piracy. Perfectly alright, in my opinion, though not always handy for the casual lanner who certainly does not want to keep track of fragile CD’s when he can have them in the click-of-a-mouse with a CD image.

Read on to mount a mini-image.

keywords: nocd alternative, nocd patch, securom / safedisk workaround, mini-image, cd image, daemon tools

The gosh darn time it takes to open a game these days… and most of it isn’t spent actually loading the game! Seems like big players such as EA are trying to cram as much advertising into the stuff you buy as they can, so let’s remove those intro movies/videos, shan’t we??

Taking Battle for Middle Earth, for instance…

Changing C: to whichever drive BFME is installed, go to the installation directory:

C:/Program Files/EA Games/The Battle for Middle-earth ™

While peering into the folder /data/movies, rename the following files by selecting each and pressing F2 or right clicking:

EALogo.vp6
Intel.vp6
NewLineLogo.vp6
THX.vp6
242.vp6

to

EALogo.vp6.no
Intel.vp6.no
NewLineLogo.vp6.no
THX.vp6.no
242.vp6.no

You could simply delete these files, but lord knows when you’ll need them! Anyway, you’ve skipped the intro films, enjoy!

P.S. I found this works in Generals and Zero Hour if you find the corresponding movie file names.

keywords: EA Games, Generals, Zero Hour, Battle for Middle Earth, BFME, intro video, movies, opening cinematics, annoying, skipping, disabling, deleting

In order to install the Silicon Image 3114 RAID controller to a 64-bit version of Windows on Asus K8N-E motherboards, you must modify the SI3114r.inf file in the amd64 directory of the SI3114 RAID drivers from SI’s website.

Alternatively, skip this and download my repackaged drivers: SI3114.rar.

FIND in SI3114r.inf:

; List of controller subsystem IDs to be supported by the SI3114R.sys driver.
[SupportedSubSystemIds_AddReg]

AFTER, ADD (all one line):

HKR,SupportedSubsystemIDs,"%PCIVEN_1095&DEV_3114.DeviceDesc% (ASUS 8136)",0x00010001, 0x81361043

Now you can manually install the driver by clicking “Have Disk” and selecting the modified .inf file.

keywords: si3114 raid controller, windows xp 64, asus k8n-e motherboard, drivers

For those of you experiencing the agony of non-native LCD resolutions in Generals and Generals Zero Hour*, I give you the amazing, incredible COMMAND LINE SWITCH!!!!

drop the text “-xres 1280 -yres 1024” into the shortcut to the game

You may change those values to match whatever resolution you prefer.

*This may work for Battle for Middle Earth and other EA titles as well.