ATI Radeon 4850 - How to toggle between 2 and 7.1 speaker configuration
ISSUE: I want to toggle quickly from 2.0 to 7.1 speaker configuration, depending on whether I am listening to music or watching a movie. I can make that switch by clicking Control Panel -> Sound -> Realtek HDMI Output -> Configure -> plus four further mouse clicks to complete the switch. I created a "Sound" panel shortcut on my desktop to save the first step, but it still takes too many clicks. There must be a quicker way to toggle between 2.0 and 7.1. Please share your thoughts and insight.
HARDWARE: I have an HTPC for music and movies. It is built on a Intel 6600 Dual Core, and equipped with an ATI Radeon HD 4850. The ATI card connects to my Sony STR-DG720 Receiver via HDMI, and then from the Receiver to my speakers and HDTV. I have a 7.1 surround sound speaker configuration for movies, but prefer that music play in 2.0 channel stereo–the receiver filters low frequency from the 2 channels to the subwoofer (for 2.1 channels).
While the STR-DG720 Receiver is capable of upmixing a 2.0 HDMI signal to 7.1, it does not support downmixing a 7.1 HDMI signal to 2.0/2.1. Even if it did, I suspect the downmix would do a disservice to the intended stereo sound of the music—which I’d rather avoid. I think this means that toggling from 2.0 to 7.1 has to occur at the HTPC level.
OS & SOFTWARE: The HTPC runs Vista Ultimate 64bit. I use the Realtek driver for the ATI card. I use both MPC-HC and VLC for video play. I use Foobar for music.
QUESTIONS:
1. Is there a quick way to toggle between 2.1 and 7.1 speaker configuration, using the Realtek Driver?
2. If no, is there an add-on sound utility I could try? I installed SpeakerTray a while back, which purportedly allows a quick toggle between 5.1 and 2.0, but the ATI card just ignores it.
3. If no, do you have any other suggestions? It’s ridiculous that every time I switch from music to movies I have to open three windows and make six mouse clicks to go from stereo to surround sound.
Thanks for your help.
Gaming cheats : wow:Paladin PTR Changes Analyzed
Author: kyaura2
Subject: wow:Paladin PTR Changes Analyzed
Posted: 03 Jul 2009 at 10:46am
Many changes are in the works for the Paladin class, some good, some less good, and some are just changes. Let’s not get too
worked up since these are just getting ready to go to the PTR, but it’s always smart to keep your eye on the horizon.
Let’s break down the latest PTR notes as shown in the forum announcements and how they are going to affect the best class in
the game (Paladins in case you forgot):
* Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of
Kings.
Good for those of us running as single Paladins in a 10-man, semi-pointless for the 25-man runs.
* Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
As expected, this concurs with the previously announced mount changes.
* Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
This is going to be an interesting change. Since 99% of my time is in PvE, this will make the spell almost useless to me. I’m
not sure I’d wait that long to cast on an enemy in PvP either.
* Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage
done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.
Making sure to keep this as taunt and not a damage spell, it appears that Blizzard is reworking this into a decent threat
generator with more punch.
* Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell
power and attack power of the judging paladin.
This will reduce the potential for an uber Paladin to boost lower geared players by letting them leech off superior spell
power. On the flipside, it also means that the gear of the Paladin won’t gimp the spell - better geared party members can now
get more potentially.
* Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of
increasing the target’s armor.
Without doing the math, this looks like a reduction in main tank effectiveness - meaning that the armor increase provided
more benefit than this reduction in damage. This will require testing to really understand the mechanic changes.
* Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a
Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
Not a huge change, as this has convenience written all over it. The mana costs were pretty heavy when trying to rebuff a
whole raid, but it was just a few seconds of drinking. This almost turns RF into an Aura.
* Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal over time
effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
This could be nice. I see quite a few more FoLs being cast! There are some questions though. What happens when a second
Paladin casts FoL on that target, does the target get another HOT? As a tank, can I cast SS on myself and get loaded up by
other Paladins? Of course that assumes the buff lasts long enough (it seems to get wiped off pretty fast in tanking
conditions).
* Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
* Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
Interesting. Seems like a pretty substantial nerf to Retribution DPS, but let’s see what they’ve done with Seal of Command.
It was tough when I got caught using these in PvP and killed myself.
* Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once
a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon
damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
More damage is good, but how will it work? What happens at less than 5 stacks? This needs some evaluation on the PTR.
wow
* Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.
While this looks like a substantial downgrade, the overall game effect should go up due to changes in Block Value:
· Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on
shields or block value derived from strength.
· On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified.
Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled.
This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin, Lavanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction,
Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier 8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier 5 paladin
Holy Shield bonus, and the tier 5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
There is some debate on the overall impact since there is little gear with Shield Block Value as a stat. This will require
some testing.
* Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.
Mounts are good. Mostly-free mounts at lower levels is great.
* Talents
Holy
Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done
(including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have
this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
Will overhealing become the new chain heal? This appears to be a nice add to the effectiveness of the spell, we’ll see how it
plays and watch for more changes.
Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
Looks like a downgrade (duh?). Lower mana pools just ahead, no diving.
Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
Another downgrade in the works. Look for less mana returning to the lower mana pools described above. Not a huge nerf, but
Blizzard wants mana to matter, so this is what we get.
Protection
Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is
reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once
every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin’s health to
10/20/30% of maximum.
Let’s see…Guardian Spirit-like with some Will of the Necropolis (a la Death Knight) thrown in and we’ve got ourselves a
pretty good death avoidance ability. Watch this one for changes as it gets tested.
Retribution
Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism
instant.
No more magic crits to help out, but reducing both cast times for FoL and Exorcism (and it’s new 1.5 second cast time) to
instant is nice.
Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4 second cooldown.
Less damage, but more strikes. Buff or nerf, your mileage may vary.
Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially
less judgement damage.
Without Seal of Blood/Martyr, this will probably be the Retribution Seal of Choice.
Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing
Shout.
In the continuing trend of “Bring the Player not the Class” Paladins will now be able to cast Demoralizing Roar/Shout,
leaving the Druids/Warriors to increase health or use other options.
As stated earlier, these changes are being uploaded to the Public Test Realm, not the live servers, so don’t have a Tauren
(cow) if the changes aren’t to your liking. There are sure to be changes to these changes so watch these pages for updates.
quoted form wow forum
Gaming cheats : dofus:Lvl 18 + groupés Powerleveling Guide
Author: kyaura2
Subject: dofus:Lvl 18 + groupés Powerleveling Guide
Posted: 03 Jul 2009 at 10:45am
NIVEAU AVANCÉ 18X GROUPE GUIDE POWERLEVELLING
Je suis un joueur de niveau 18x sur la révolution du serveur Rushu. Je suis sur le point de révéler
et d’expliquer la tactique de notre guilde utilise pour recueillir plus de 5 millions de points
d’expérience par joueur à 30 minutes de lutte.
A la suite de la mise à jour majeure Pandala, l’expérience peut être augmentée de deux autres
façons:
1) Ayant plus de personnes dans le groupe
2) Lutte contre les ennemis à la fois plus
Par conséquent, le groupe de 8 joueurs se bat contre les monstres 8 rendement le montant le plus
élevé de l’expérience.
Ce n’était pas le cas avant la mise à jour de Pandala, mais maintenant, des combats de groupe sont
récompensés par exp sensiblement augmenté par rapport au solo leveling.
Deux conditions doivent être réunies pour obtenir le maximum d’expérience possible à partir d’une
mob.
CONDITION 1) Le total des joueurs au niveau du groupe doit être à plus ou moins 40 niveaux de
l’ensemble de monstre au niveau du groupe.
Par exemple, pour un fantôme mob niveau total de 700, le total des niveaux de joueurs devraient
ajouter jusqu’à 660-740 pour un maximum d’exp.
CONDITION 2) Il doit y avoir au moins un monstre dans la foule avec un niveau au moins égal à la
moitié du montant total du joueur de groupe. dofus kamas
Par exemple, pour un groupe de joueurs de niveau total 700, il devrait y avoir un monstre dans le
groupe d’au moins 350.
Avec l’introduction de Nolifis terre, il est possible de répondre à ces deux conditions.
EXEMPLE DE LUTTE
Prenons un exemple concret de lutte contre un fantôme, nous avons récemment eu.
Les personnages et les niveaux sont les suivants:
Iop 17x
Eni 18x
FECA 18x
Sacrier 18x
Eni 16x
Sadida 16x
Eca 16x
Enu 17x
Le niveau total du groupe était d’environ 1400.
Nous avons mené une foule de 1 pandora fantôme (niveau 400), 1 Yokai firefoux fantôme (230), 2
pandikaze fantôme (180), 2 pandulum fantôme (210) et 2 tanuki chan fantôme (75) avec un montant
total de près de 1500.
Pour le joueur de haut niveau au sein de notre groupe (18x FECA) avec 432 de sagesse, cette lutte a
donné 5,66 million de points d’expérience dans une lutte qui a duré un peu plus de 35 minutes. Cela
est d’environ 9 millions d’exp par heure.
Par rapport à des combats en solo de dire 200k exp lutte pour 5 minute (optimiste, au mieux), qui
permettrait à la plupart des 2,4 millions d’exp par heure, ce qui signifie que ma méthode est
presque de 400% plus efficace.
Tout le monde ne peut lutter contre des fantômes, mais la clé de ma méthode est qu’elle peut être
réduite à presque n’importe quel groupe de joueurs et des monstres. Certains des exemples appropriés
incluent:
Dreggons (4xx, 5xx spawn des monstres en tout temps et sont adaptés pour 6-8 joueurs de niveau 80-
100, probablement 250k-600k exp en fonction de chaque niveau et wis).
Kitsous (niveau élevé de Kitsou nufeu joueur par rapport à la moyenne rend ce travail, la foule de
500-700 + Kitsou nufeus frayer fréquemment feudala et peut produire 500k-1 million d’exp pour les
joueurs de la suite de ma formule).
Firefouxes (si un eni enu à guérir et à unbewitch sont disponibles, près d’une grande foule de 5-8
fouxes peut être vaincu, en particulier avec les soryo firefoux résiste actuellement inférieur. Peut
produire environ 1 million d’exp et de fortes concentrations de 120 — 140 + joueurs de niveau, si
elles ne peuvent pas battre les fantômes).
Des choses semblables peuvent être faites avec un grand nombre de nouveaux monstres dans la nouvelle
zone de Pandala dragoturkey et sur la gravure / brave / arepo fantômes dans le cimetière de Brakmar
comme ils l’ont élevé en moyenne.
J’espère que vous avez apprécié mon guide et si vous le suivez de garantie, je vous et vos amis /
partenaires de la chasse au niveau plus rapidement et plus efficacement que quiconque ne pas
utiliser ce plan.
cité dofus forum
Ashes Cricket Wii shots
Screenshots and details for Codies’ Ashes Cricket 2009.
Ashes Cricket 2009 will be the first cricket game on Wii when it bowls into shops in August, and we’ve got some new screens.
Click here to read the full article
Gearbox’s Mikey Neumann talks about Borderlands demo, DLC
Borderlands is one of the better looking games I’ve seen all year thanks to the new art style. Still, the gameplay is much more important in an open-world game like this. The best way to show it off would probably be by way of a demo, but there’s a chance that we won’t be seeing a Borderlands demo anytime soon.
When asked if they were going to release a Borderlands demo in a recent interview with Shacknews, Gearbox’s Mikey Neumann cited “factors”. Lots of them.
We talk about a demo every day. We would love to do a demo. There’s obviously factors there. If and when we do one, I don’t know if it’d be pre-launch or post-launch, because …there’s a lot of factors there.
We would love to promise a demo, we can’t quite yet, we just want to get the game done. That’s always the hardest thing for developers to do–you never quite know how the time’s going to work out. We’re doing really well, but I can’t promise it.
DLC, on the other hand, seems to be a sure thing. Neumann assured gamers that what they release post-launch won’t be things that were originally in the game, but it’s way too early to be talking about any specifics. He even took the time to explain why DLC is sometimes announced even before games launch.
What happens a lot of the time is you finish your game and it’s time for cert, and during cert a lot of bugs crop up that you have to fix, and a lot of them are really, really big bugs. You are certainly not adding any content to the game at all. A level? No way.
But, during cert, if you have a lot of level designers who have nothing to do–which is pretty common, you pull level design and art off first–they’re gonna be making cool shit and want to make cool shit. That cool shit, that tends to be what DLC ends up being. It’s the stuff we couldn’t add to the game because we’re making it during cert, which is impossible to get into the [retail] game.
You can read the full interview at the source link. Gearbox is shooting for an October 2009 release for Borderlands. The game will be available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.
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Valve is staying true to their promise of continued support for Left 4 Dead. According to Doug Lombardi, Left 4 Dead players can expect a DLC announcement for both the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game before the end of summer.
They also have something cooking for those looking forward to Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360, PC).
“With Left 4 Dead 2 we plan do a demo before the game comes out that’ll have multiplayer in it and hopefully we can continue the free weekends with the full game post-launch,” said Lombardi.
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Splinter Cell: Conviction’s normal mode can be finished in 12 hours
Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360, PC) creative director Maxime Beland wants people who play his games to finish them, so the game will be shipping with two difficulty levels for players to choose from.
Speaking to OXM, Beland detailed the difficulty levels — normal and realistic. Those who choose to play through normal mode will find things easier, and Beland says that in this mode Conviction can be finished in around 12 hours.
Realistic, on the other hand, will be especially hard. “You’re going to need stealth, two bullets is going to kill you, the enemies are going to be super-lethal.”
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iPhone 3GS Gets Jailbroken, Hack Available Online
Apple’s iPhone 3GS has been jailbroken and the hack that allows anyone to unlock their phone is available online.
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