Raj Agrawal – Page 27

Razer Naga Hex Gaming Mouse – Demo, Specs and Price

January 22, 2012 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

Welcome gamers and Razer fans! We have in our greedy sights, the lovely Razer Naga Hex MOBA and action-RPG gaming mouse!

The latest addition to Razer’s Naga series, built for MMORPG players the Hex comes in after the popular Razer Naga Molten Edition which featured as many as 12 user programmable buttons on the thumb side of the mouse. The Hex has 6 buttons around the thumb rest, each button placed in a hexagonal fashion around a central nub where the thumb can rest when not frantically pushing away those buttons.

A major improvement of the Hex over the previous models will be the mechanical button feature which dramatically improves usability. One need not apply full pressure on the buttons to register the press, mechanical buttons only require a little amount of push to actuate. Razer mentions that they have been specially optimized for MMORPGs.

Features

6 MOBA/action-RPG optimized mechanical thumb buttons
5600dpi Razer Precision 3.5G Laser Sensor
11 total programmable Hyperesponse buttons

Demo from CES 2012

The previous naga model has 12 buttons on the side, which might be too cumbersome for a gamer to accurately use when in the midst of a game session. Therefore, having just the right number of keys in a comfortable layout seems nicer than having too many keys in a grid layout making you press the wrong keys. When you need to use a button, you only have to move the thumb in one of 6 directions and the central nub will also give it guidance, increasing accuracy.

Razer has included High performance buttons up to 250 clicks per minute and the buttons have been designed to last upto 10 millions clicks. And to top it with a cherry, the Hex will be synced to a cloud server through Razer Synapse 2.0 for firmware upgrades and to store individual user settings. Razer will also be expanding to storing in-game UI settings for MOBA and RPG-players.

Availability – Yes

Price – ₹ 5,000 or $ 79.99

Can Video Game Storytelling Ever Match A Good Movie?

January 19, 2012 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

Games are not often considered the best medium to tell a good story. Whenever you, irrespective of whether you’re a gamer or not, think of a good story, it usually stems from a favorite book or movie. It is often the case that when we play games, we hardly pay attention to the world, the history of the game world, and how you fit in into all of it. Stories stem from the mind’s ability to create a situation where there is a prologue, an epilogue, a start, an end, and everything in between. When you think of a game, you think about graphics, sound, action, interaction and then the story, which sadly for the majority of games out there is an afterthought.

A good story doesn’t necessarily ensure a good game, but it does serve as a time well spent when other mechanics may fail. Not many games have been able to mix story and gameplay into a good gaming experience, but those that have, have become masterpieces. And that is what separates great games from masterpieces most of the time – the story. Below is a list of games I have played which have blended a good gaming experience with a good story. Most of these games will be known to the majority, for obvious reasons.

Bioshock

This is the first name that came to my mind when i thought of writing this article. Bioshock is one of the few games which has its entire game mechanics built around the story. The big daddies and their relationships with the little sisters, the underwater dystopia, the civil war over the fight of adam, all talk of a fantastic idea gone tragically wrong. And this is what brings out feelings of sadness as you explore the world, feelings which are seldom experienced while playing games.

Metal Gear Solid

Okay, anyone who has ever owned a Playstation console will agree with this one. The metal gear series is one of the few series of games which has blended fantasy and tactical action with a gritty and gripping story, and blended them so well. A testimony to the greatness of this series are the cut-scenes, some of which can last for an hour. But you don’t see many people complaining about them, do you?

Half life

Out of all the game characters I love, the one I pity the most has to be Gordon Freeman. The guy almost brought the world to an end, and although it was more of an accident, he now has to shoulder the responsibility to free it of the combine. And what primary weapon does he get to meet this task? – a crowbar! And the poor bloke doesn’t ever complain about it. It’s not a very original story; alien invasion stories stopped being original a long time back. But its told very well; so well in fact that you will start empathizing with the characters and feel bad about them as the story progresses.

Portal

Valve is addicted to making characters that find themselves in hopeless situations but don’t ever utter a word to show their discontent, and portal is another shining example of this. Portal has one of the most unique stories ever told in any medium of entertainment. What starts as a puzzle game will probably end up shocking you and leaving you disturbed. The second game loses its shock factor, but makes up for it for an even better story, which provides us with a better insight of the world of Aperture Science. For all the unique puzzle mechanics that this game boasts of, it’s the story that has made it the masterpiece that it is.

These are just a few examples of video games which can tell a good story. Games such as the Zelda series, GTA series, heavy rain, grim fandango, planetscape: torment, Baldurs gate, all have amazing stories which up the immersion factor by several notches. Which brings us back to the all important question – Can video game story telling match its movie counterpart? I would say not yet. Movies have had that 100-150 years head-start in which they have evolved in the way stories are told and characters are portrayed. Movies like Schindlers list, the Shawshank Redemption, the godfather all exemplify great stories with great acting, something which games haven’t achieved yet.

Videogames have characters, yes, but none of them are as fleshed out as characters in movies. We haven’t seen a videogame counterpart of heath ledger’s joker or hannibal lecter in a video game; such characters make the story come to life, and videogames just haven’t reached there yet. But they’re getting there, that’s for sure. With games like L.A. Noire and Mass Effect, which have changed the way people have conversations in video games, we’re getting to the point where conversations and cut-scenes will have as much of an effect on the player as blowing up the town of Megaton in Fallout 3 has. Stories are an important part of video games, but only when stories and characters occupy a more pivotal role in video game design, only then can we make a fair comparison. And with games like Uncharted doing exactly so, I don’t think that time is far off.

Compile A Custom Linux Kernel – An Essential Guide

January 19, 2012 by Raj Agrawal 4 Comments

You might question – why compile a custom linux kernel when the distro vendor already provides you with one? The answer is simple, the kernel which ships with your distro is a generic kernel, it means it’s designed to run on any machine on which it’s installed, it supports almost all types of processors, graphic cards, storage devices, wired/wireless networking, etc. As the generic kernel has support for plethora of PC hardware, you might argue that it is better to use a generic kernel instead of custom built kernel, but that’s not the case. A generic kernel has all the features you want, more specifically, your hardware wants, but it also has many features that you may never need. A simple example would be of the processor support, suppose you have an Intel processor the generic kernel will support it but it also has support for AMD processors which is redundant as you will never run the same kernel on an Intel processor and an AMD processor simultaneously. Thus a custom compiled kernel is more suited to your PC requirements and thus is smaller in size. Smaller size means your kernel occupies less space than the generic one but supports all the hardware you have installed in your machine.

To sum it up you might want to compile your custom Linux kernel to/for:

Build a kernel customized for your hardware setup
Improved performance
Learn how kernel works
Fun 😀

Requirements

Kernel sources: These are the source files of the kernel. You will need to compile these source files later. The latest kernel sources can be downloaded from HYPERLINK “http://www.kernel.org/”www.kernel.org.

Build Tools: These are the tools which you will require for compiling the source files. The method to install these tools depend on your distribution.

The packages required on Ubuntu/Linux Mint can be installed be executing the following command in the terminal,

sudo apt-get install -y build-essential kernel-package libncurses5-dev bzip2

On Fedora, execute the following,

sudo yum -y install gcc ncurses-devel

The command begins with a “sudo” because root access is required for installing packages, if you do not have access to the root account then you cannot install these.

Once you have installed the build tools and downloaded the kernel sources you are ready to compile your custom kernel.

The kernel source you have downloaded is in an archive, first you will need to extract the sources. Execute the following command without the ‘quotes’:

tar -xjvf ‘kernel archive file name’ ‘folder in which you want to extract the sources‘

Example, the command with the appropriate paths may look like:

tar -xjvf linux-2.6.25.tar.bz2 /home/casper/kernel/

After the kernel sources are extracted navigate into that directory and create a soft link named “linux”. Some Kernel sources require a path from the linux directory in order to compile, so the soft link needed. Run the following command to make a soft link,

ln -s ‘kernel source folder name’ linux

Example,

ls -s zen-stable linux

Now navigate to the linux directory and execute the following commands:

make clean && make mrproper

These commands clean the directory structure deleting any files from the previous builds.

Configure

Now we are ready to configure our kernel, but we have to choose whether we want to configure the kernel from scratch or use current kernel configuration as a base and develop on it. As we are beginners in the realm of kernel compilation we will stick with the easy method i.e. use the current configuration as a base. The current configuration can be found in “/boot/”.

Run the following command to copy the current configuration into your source folder,

cp /boot/’your config file name’ ‘your kernel source path/linux/.config

Example,

cp config-3.1.5-casper.kernel-v.1.1+ /home/nishikant/kernel/linux/.config

Now we need to compare the old configuration to the new one, so run the following command,

make oldconfig

In the screenshot the command doesn’t give any output because I am current running a custom kernel, but on your PC you might be prompted to select new features that are available.

Now run the following command,

make menuconfig

After executing “make menuconfig” a GUI interface will appear, here you can select the features you want. Say, processor type, cpu schedulers, IO schedulers, filesystem drivers, networking drivers, etc. Once you are done with the customization, select exit and then save the configuration.

Now you have finished customizing the kernel and it’s time to compile. The command to compile the kernel is,

make -j’number of cpu cores+1′

Example,

make -j3 (without spaces in between. Enter 3, if your processor is Intel core2duo)

If your processor supports hyper-threading then the number is twice the number of cpu cores,

Example,

make -j9 on Intel corei7 2600/2600k

The compilation process make take 15 minutes to an hour depending on your PC.

Once the compilation is over (without any errors), you are now ready to install your kernel, to install the kernel execute the following command,

sudo make modules_install install

After the kernel is installed you have to update your bootloader so that you can boot using your kernel.

On Ubuntu/Linux Mint the command is,

sudo update-grub

While on Fedora, run,

su -c ‘grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg’

If you are using a different bootloader instead of grub then the above commands won’t work.

That’s it, you’re done compiling your custom kernel, after you restart your PC you’ll be able to boot into your kernel from the bootloader’s menu.

If your PC won’t boot into your kernel or some drivers don’t work then you can always boot into the generic kernel(that’s why having more than one kernel on your PC is always useful).

If you want to delete the kernel from your PC just delete the following file/directories(root access required):

/boot/’config-kernel name’

Example,

/boot/config-3.1.5-casper.kernel-v.1.1+

Next,

/boot/initrd.img-‘kernel name’

Example,

/boot/initrd.img-3.1.5-casper.kernel-v.1.1+

Next,

/boot/vmlinuz-‘kernel name’

Example,

/boot/vmlinuz-3.1.5-casper.kernel-v.1.1

Next,

‘kernel name’ folder in /lib/modules

Example,

3.1.5-casper.kernel-v.1.1+

Finally update your bootloader,

On Ubuntu/Linux Mint the command is,

sudo update-grub

On Fedora run,

su -c ‘grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg’

So, this is it. Drop in your feedback/ questions about this tutorial. I’d be glad to hear/ answer them!