Wednesday 27 January 2016

Chrome Flags

This week I have, amongst other things, been playing a newly released to Open Beta game "Crown of the Gods", a clone of a closed game I have lamented on these pages past "Lord of Ultima".

Immediately my impressions where the development team have done a good job, however, I soon ran into issues on my lower powered machines, especially the desktop PC in the office which is woefully underpowered.

Now, I run Chrome, and I wondered whether the tricks Google have under the hood could help, and you know they can...

If you open chrome and browse to the url: chrome://flags/

Then you will be greeted by a rather scary looking screen....


Do not worry, but, if you look down on the list you will see this ditty:


Confusingly labelled, this is saying the accelerated 2D canvas (in JavaScript) is Disabled, when this is Disabled.  Enabling it, enables the disabling of the accelerated 2D canvas... Which is English means, it enables the acclerated 2D canvas... Enabling this option, resulted in a boost to the smoothness feel of the game for me.



Another one further down also was strangely disabled for me:


Enabling this brought my game experience up into the solid 50+ fps range, even on this tired old machine.


And of course, whenever you change an option, you have to relaunch Chrome, which is provided in the page with a button at the bottom:


I'd recommend you change only one option at a time, and make a note what you have changed, because you may want to swap things back later.

Sunday 17 January 2016

Planes, Trains and Plastering Trowels

Today I have mostly been plastering...


This was the opening for the old gas boiler, it was an open hole in the wall, so I had to build a timber frame into the brick work, plaster board that and then skim over it.

It's been a success, though I do have to wet & dry sand the top and sides a little to smooth them in, however, when the whole wall gets a coat of paint, and the new electric fire is hung back over the hole you'll never know.


Ken's train set is also coming along more, as you can see here, he's ballasted and started to decorate the station, there's lighting and tree's.

We've got an Arduino Uno powered dynamic lighting effect set, awaiting delivery of some ultra bright LED's.  And of course the arduino powered detection/occupancy system is still awaiting delivery of the magnets and reed switches.

Finally, I've been broadcasting my WarThunder game-play to Twitch again...


Come join me there for game play, programming, soldering projects and other bric-a-brac.



Thursday 14 January 2016

RIP Alan Rickman

I find myself genuinely surprised and saddened at the news of Alan Rickman's passing.

A talent whom I thought would shine as bright as he always has for a fair few more years yet, taken it seems by the hardest of conditions to beat Cancer.

I hope you all join me in saying "See ya Alan, and thanks for the great times".


Friday 8 January 2016

Happy New Year 2016

So it's eight days into the New Year, and I haven't posted yet!... Oh well, here I am now...

I've nothing to report yet, I'm busy building some kit



Yes, that is a Chinese Arduino Uno clone... Costing £2.39... And it works a treat!


And I've been playing WarThunder....

And I've been cooking home made pizza....


My stories of what happened over Christmas, I'll have to get back to you later about.