Now that is the question… And a good question indeed.  I have answered it not to ReadyBoost any longer.  The REAL thing that I wanted to see major improvement for was boot times… and in all honesty I didn’t really notice much difference.  I hear a lot of people saying ReadyBoost made their computer start up 40% faster and some claim even more than that.  I never saw it myself, maybe they’ve got 1gig or less of RAM I don’t know, but it didn’t seem that amazing to me.  Plus, sometime here in the somewhat near future I do plan on making the move to a 4 HDD RAID 5EE array which should take care of any sluggish load times.

Another thing that I HATED about ReadyBoost was that when it cached items… I don’t know what it was caching, but it must of been big, about three times a day (at least every day as I noticed) it would start to cache (I could tell because the HDD light would come on, and the light for the flash drive would freak out) my computer would come to a halt, using 75% of my CPU and sucking down every bit of resiliance my Hard Drive had it would try to make things easier for Windows to find IN CASE it might need to be loaded… And then inevitably it would do it in the middle of the night when I was trying to sleep, although a relatively silent process the wildly random blinking lights were always annoying when trying to fall asleep.  Because I have so much open all the time (Firefox, Games, Thunderbird, etc.) any time I closed anything it seemed to want to cache that item right away.

I will give ReadyBoost credit though.  It did seem to make game map loads much quicker for certain games.  Ones such as Half-Life:2 and a few others that would pre-cache maps it made the loading screens few and far between, which I was very happy about.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1

Most of you have probably seen that Windows released Service Pack 1 for Vista not long ago, along with a release of SP3 for XP users.  I decided that it was time to finally make the leap to Vista, it’s been in the plans for a long time, especially since I used it during the Beta and really loved it!  I still waited for SP1 to come out just because back when I was using it in the Beta some companies such as Logitech still hadn’t gotten around to making any drivers for it… so I figured some maturity time was in order.

One thing that really does bother me a LOT about this purchase is that Microsoft is no longer including the copy of the 64bit Operating System with your purchase!  They dropped the price by $10 and send only the 32bit Windows Vista Operating System with your purchase, then if you want the 64bit version of Windows Vista you’ve got to go online and order it for $10.  To me this is backwards thinking on Windows part, I see the merit in it that the 32bit Vista works on any processor and the 64bit edition needs to be run on a 64bit processor… but honestly who doesn’t have a 64bit CPU now?  And if you don’t why are you trying to install Vista in the first place?!?!

I still really like the operating system none-the-less and have run into very few problems so far… actually a lot of problems I was having (such as with the newer versions of Opera) have gone away… I’m with a lot of enthusiasts who say that if you’re having problems with Vista it’s because your computer is a piece of crap and you need to throw it off a building.  Seriously Microsoft Windows Vista ran smoothly on my comp when I was doing the Beta and back then all I had was a 2.2ghz Dual Core AMD, 2 gigs of RAM, and an ATI x1600 video card… games were pretty darn slow, but really still playable, though some like Company of Heroes needed to be lowered in resolution and settings.  Now with a 2.6ghz (OCed to 2.9) Dual Core AMD, 4 gigs of RAM, and an ATI HD 3850 I’ve had absolutely no major glitches with Vista to date… of course I’ve only been running it for a few days so I’ll get back to you on what I think of ReadyBoost, and whatever else pops up as it comes up.

It seems like not yesterday the number one game on both Credal and I’s Xfire profiles was Stronghold 2.  Now with only 162 hours and in third place it seems like we didn’t play the game at all!  Of course it kind of sucks that Xfire has some sort of glitch with Windows Vista and it shows me as ALWAYS in game for Company of Heroes.  Once I get in the game until I restart the computer it shows me as in game!  Which BTW I absolutely hate!  It doesn’t show a true record of how long I’ve been in game… the past 3 weeks I’ve probably gained 100 hours in CoH alone simply because I can’t get “out of game” without restarting my computer!  (I think it has to do with Vista’s caching system, since the game loads UBER faster if I’ve already had it up once… make use of that 4 gigs of RAM!)

Oh well, I still can’t deny the fact that I’ve got a good 600 or so hours in CoH, and at least 200 in Counter-Strike:Source.

Archmaille’s Xfire Profile

Wow, can we say love at first hear?  I know, being tiny earbud style headphones the Klipsch Custom-1 Headphones wouldn’t be most peoples choice for computer or gaming usage… I have to beg of those people to reconsider!

The Klipsch Custom-1’s have performed amazingly well for daily computer use and gaming.  And by performance I don’t mean just sound, yes the sound is amazing!  The comfort is just as amazing!  Thanks to several ear gels to choose from you can get the perfect fit that doesn’t begin to hurt, or become an annoyance after hours of use.  The eargels aren’t round either, since your ear canal is not round!  What an amazing concept!!  You mean a company actually made something that fits to our body rather thane expecting our body to become acustomed to it?!?!

I was glad that I started using the Klipsch Headphones on my computer at first since it has a tuner that I can change levels and adjust.  The Klipsch Headphone line seems to be very picky to start things off and for the first couple hundred hours of use aren’t completely balanced.  After that you can stop adjusting sound levels and just enjoy all the little details that you’ve been missing all along!

I used to have a pair of Turtle Beach 5.1 Surround Sound headphones, and wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to get used to anything other than complete emulsion of sound… I have to say that I never was used to it wearing those.  Yeah, the 5.1 was awesome, but the sound quality of these Klipsch Custom-1’s is MUCH higher.  I can hear every tiny detail, and still able to tell when someone is sneaking up behind me in Counter-Strike:Source.  I will mention that for computer use I had to buy a six foot extension for the 3.5mm jack as the Custom-1’s only have a cord long enough to reach your pocket because they’re really for Ipod’s and Zune’s.  Maybe one day when I get a Zune I can use this for it… which was half of the appeal of getting these over a pair of Sennheiser’s, can’t say that I was dissapointed.

So I’ve just got the Logitech G9, had the G5 prior.  Loved the G5 when I first bought it and never really had any troubles because I only do moderate gaming so I used to only be on the computer for at most 5 hours a day (between gaming and random other stuff).  Now that I’m starting to do a lot more work online though it’s a constant 10-15 hours a day on the computer most of which my hand is on the mouse.  The height of the G5 actually started to hurt my hand though.  It put it in a slightly weird position and just made things awkward which then caused shooting pains to appear in the palm of my hand.

After doing a lot of research I decided to finally switch over to the Logitech G9, it’s not the fastest mouse on the market at 3600 DPI but that’s okay as I really don’t even hardly feel the difference between the old 2000 DPI to the new 3600 DPI (which isn’t exactly true either since I do suck at Counter-Strike: Source at the moment).  I must attribute that to the high resolution of my monitor (1680×1050) I mean the height of my monitor is the pixel width of your average width of a monitor.  None-the-less I am still very pleased with the purchase.  I love a lot of the redesign features of the G9.  The interchangable grips are nice, not only does it allow me to change grips several times per day and get my hand used to different shapes so it doesn’t hurt as much, it’s also lower so I don’t really end up with the problems I used to.  The scroll wheel is worth mention in itself.  I love the ungeared option so that web pages can be scrolled up/down instantly, and the geared option is great for in game, it gives a precise, quick click that lets you switch weapons fast, and accurately.  Stored profiles is a dream!  I have one for every day use where I can go back and forth on webpages, then I’ve got my Photoshop settings where I’ve got undo and redo programed in for the back and forward web browser buttons, and of course gaming profiles for my favorite games… truly if you’re a gamer the G9 is not one to pass up on!