Darkness II (PC) Review

I have not played The Darkness I because it was never released on the PC. Not having played the first game should not stop someone from playing this game. Just watch a YouTube video about the story of the first game, and you will be all caught up on the story. I should also mention that I knew nothing about the comics before playing this game.

A direct sequel to the first game, in The Darkness II, you resume the role of Jackie who is possessed by Darkness, which gives the player control of the demon and its underling.

From a technical perspective, I played this game in 2023 on i7-6700k, Nvidia 1080Ti at 2560x1440. Since this is a console port, it doesn't work well when the game is running at a very high framerate. Enabling VSync, should take care of these issues. This means that the game is going to run at a steady 60FPS, and while this is not ideal, I didn't mind it too much considering how old the game is.

The story doesn't pull any punches. From dialogue to gameplay, this is a game meant for mature audiences.

Combat is the real highlight here. In the right situations, when everything works, it is a lot of fun. Darkness abilities are a lot of fun to use, and using objects in the level to attack enemies is very well done. The one big complaint I had was the visual overload at times. The gameplay involves sticking to shadows, which gives you access to dark powers. Oftentimes in combat enemies will use light beams and these are blinding. They should have toned down the effects. I am willing to bet its not as bad when viewing this on a TV, but on a monitor it becomes really annoying and induces headaches.

In addition to this, the weapon system is clunky as well. You use Q and E to interact with objects. Pressing E allows you to eat hearts, which replenish your health. E is also used to swap weapons on the ground. When there are a lot of enemies and objects on the ground, you have to be careful about pressing E, or else you end up switching weapons without meaning to. It is aggravating in the heat of the battle and can get you killed. This could have been easily solved by automatically getting health from enemies, and without needing to go through the animation.

I got this game in a Humble Bundle for $1 (along with some other games). I got my money's worth. It takes about 6 hours to finish it, and its fun. I would not recommend paying the absurd non sale price of $29.99. If you can find it for around ~$3, and if you enjoy action games, go for it.

Verdict - Buy on deep discount.

Handbreak Settings for ShadowPlay Recordings

I record a lot of gameplay footage using Nvidia ShadowPlay. I play most games on my ultrawide monitor at a resolution of 3440x1440. At times, the file sizes can balloon up to over 10GB with a target bit rate is 50Mbps.

In an effort to reduce the storage size, and not to have to upgrade my hard drive, I decided to explore Handbreak to compress and encode some of the videos I recorded. After doing some research, here are the settings I picked, which seem to find the right balance between compression and quality.

In the Summary tab, check the Web Optimized option.

In the Dimensions tab, set the target video resolution, which for me is 3440x1440.

For Audio, I went with mp3 codec and set the gain to +5

The settings on the Video tab might require some tweaking based on the desired quality. In this specific example, I encoded an 8.92 GB video down to <>. The important things that affect the quality of the produced video are these -

- Video Encoder - H.265 10-bit (NVEnc)
- Framerate - Same as source
- Encoder Preset - Slowest
- Constant Quality - 28

Using the CPU to do the encoding is extremely slow compared to NVEnc encoder. The quality difference between CPU encoding and NVEnd encoding is not discernible to me, and it is also not very taxing on the system.

Constant Quality vs Average Bit Rate

I debated between using Avg Bitrate and Constant Quality. Turns out that Handbreak recommends using Constant Quality over Average Bitrate.

Constant Quality vs Average Bit Rate

It appears that the recommended way of doing things is by using Constant Quality over Average Bit Rate. I did however notice that there are situations where Average Bit Rate is preferable to using CQ, such as when encoding a video file, and I am not particularly concerned about preserving quality as reducing the file size. I tend to look at the existing bit rate, and then perhaps target 30% of it.

The following video is a ShadowPlay recording which was encoded using the above settings.

Here is the encoding log. The entire job took around 30 minutes.

Remote Desktop Connection Stuck In Please Wait State

Resolve the Please Wait state in RDP

I found this solution in the Q&A section of Microsoft Learn. Credit goes to the original author.

This process will involve creatating an .rdp file, and editing it in notepad and adding a flag which will prompt the user to enter their password.

Get the ipaddress of the machine that is stuck in the Please Wait state.

ping [server] -4
-4 flag ensures that IPv4 address is used.




Open Remote Desktop Connection application.

Start -> Remote Desktop Connection or Start -> mstsc

Enter the IP address of the machine noted in the above step.

Click on the Show Options button.



Click on Save As and save the configuration to a file.



Navigate to the directory where the rdp configuration file is saved. Right click on the file, and open the configuration file with Notepad.

Add the following to the bottom of the file and save it. This option will turn off the Network Level Authentication therefore the user will be prompted to enter the password up on connecting to the server.

enablecredsspsupport:i:0




Once the file is saved, double click on it, so launch Remote Desktop Connection and click on Connect. Click Yes on the next dialog box to connect despite certificate errors.



This should show a Windows login page, and up on logging in, will get past the Please Wait screen.

Reset Session

Another way to resolve this issue is resetting the session. It is important to note that doing this will log off the user, therefore any running processes will be terminated.

1. Open Powershell in Administrator mode on another computer
2. Run the following query -
"query user /server:[server_name]"

3. Take note of the sessionname
4. Run the following query -
"reset session [session_name] /server:[server_name]"

This should reset the session and allow logging into the server via remote desktop.

In addition to this, I was having an issue when using Remote Desktop Connection Manager the session would get stuck in a Please Wait state. I was not having this issue when using native Windows RDP.

I found a potential solution on this following page -
RDP to Windows 10 hangs at Please wait screen

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> Remote Desktop Session Host -> Connections

At that level Enable the following setting
- Restrict Remote Desktop Services User to a Single Remote Desktop Services Session

Private Internet Access - Request Timed Out Issue

Short Story

I had to update the firmware on my TP-Link 8 Port Gigabit Switch to resolve the connectivity issues when using a VPN client. I installed Build 20220930 (Published Date: 2022-10-12 ) and that took care of the problem.

Long Story

My plan was to self host my blog using PIA VPN's static IP feature. My website is currently on Blogger, and I get the feeling that Blogger has been abandoned by Google, and won't be around for much longer. Also, this will be some much needed experience with some basic frontend web development, and I could create my own CI/CD process etc.

I did not want to host the website on my main server, so I decided to provision a Windows 11 VM (my Linux skills are subpar, and also I get to play with Windows 11, which I haven't a chance yet) and create my first prototype website. I did the necessary networking in VMWare Player 17; I created a bridged connection so that I could RDP into the VM if I needed to.

Having installed the PIA VPN client, I noticed that my connection was extremely unstable. Running the following command would result in Request timed out.

ping cloudflare.com -t

At first I thought there was something wrong with the VPN service. I disabled the firewall, tried a combination of VPN related settings, and nothing seemed to help. I began searching for any reported outages etc., but there didn't seem to be any. NOTE: I have not yet purchased the static IP. I was only testing the viability of using a VPN to host a website and if I couldn't even get a stable connection, there is no point in self hosting.

After many hours of troubleshooting over a course of few weeks, I gave up on the idea until yesterday when I decided to give it another go. As a part of troubleshooting process, I installed PIA VPN (with default settings) on the main home server, and noticed the same issue. Whenever I am connected to VPN, I had a ton of packet loss. I realized that there was something else going on here, and its not just the VM or PIA service that was having issues.

I decided to connect to PIA VPN (with the settings shown) from my main gaming machine, and monitored ping to cloudflare.com at the same time from both the main server and gaming machine, and I noticed that the gaming machine had no packet loss whatsoever. This obviously rules out PIA VPN.

At this point, it dawned on me that the gaming machine is connected directly to the cable modem, whereas the main server is connected via the TP-LINK switch. I started exploring the settings of the switch itself through the web interface and changing them did not help. As a last ditch effort, I decided to upgrade the firmware. The existing firmware was from 2021 version. Unfortunately, I did not take a note of the exact firmware version. I attempted to update to TL-SG108E(UN)_V6_1.0.0 Build 20230218. This was unsuccessful. I downloaded the next latest version, which was from 2022, TL-SG108E(UN)_V6_1.0.0 Build 20220930.

Updating to this version was successful...sort of. Once I kicked off the upgrade process, the switch rebooted, but the Easy Smart Configuration Utility would show that the update was still at 84%, however, this might just be the UI not updating, because closing an reopening the utility showed that the upgrade was successful.

Following the upgrade to TL-SG108E(UN)_V6_1.0.0 Build 20220930, I am no longer getting the packet loss. Hopefully, this will help someone out there looking to resolve connectivity issues, especially when using a VPN service.

Fix Error When VT-x (Virtualization) is Enabled in VMWare Player

I was unable to enable virtualization on my Windows 10 VM on a Windows 10 host. I did have virtualization enabled in the BIOS, but that didn't seem to help. When I check the box to enable this feature, Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI, I would get an error. 

 

 

I want this feature enabled to run Docker in my VM.

This is my system configuration:

• Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
• Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz, 4008 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
• American Megatrends Inc. 1.I0, 6/26/2018
• Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
• Realtek High Definition Audio
• Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• WDC WD10EZEX-08WN4A0

I know my computer is more than capable of running a VM with virtulization. I found several powershell commands out there, and running them did not help. I did some digging and found that certain windows features need to be disabled for virtulization to work in a VM.

I resolved this problem by doing this:

1. Open Turn Windows features on or off.
2. Turn off the following features:
   • Hyper-V
   • Virtual Machine Platform
   • Windows Hypervisor Platform
   • Windows Sandbox
   • Windows Subsystem for Linux
     
     
3. Save and restart the computer.
4. Open VMWare Player
5. Select the VM and edit the VM settings
6. Enable Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI
   
   
   

Once the virtual machine is up and running, install Docker. This will require installing WSL2 in the VM. If everything is done right, Docker should start successfully.

GUN (PC) Review

I first played this game in 2009, and I never ended up finishing it. I recently picked up the GOG version and I beat the game. The game is fun for the most part, but there are aspects that really set it back.

The story is set in late 19th century America, specifically in the Old West, and involves finding the lost city of Quivira, where this is lot of gold to be mined.

Its somewhat of an open world game, and the player gets to backtrack between cities. There are quite a few side missions as well, and completing these missions reward the player with cash, which can be used to buy weapons and upgrades. I had a very tough time in certain missions and I think its because I didn't do any of the side missions. I went straight for the main missions. I think this was a mistake. Not having weapon upgrades make the game a lot more difficult even on Normal difficulty. 

The game has a thoroughly budget feel to it. It is a poor man's Red Dead Redemption.

The save system is confusing. It appears that you can save the game at any point, but when you load the game (and you have to quit the current game to do so), it begins at the start of the mission. There is no auto checkpoint system to go along with the manual save system. There were times when I forgot to manually save the game, and I lost progress. Very annoying. I would much rather have a manual save system, and a quick save system, but modern games have taught me to expect a checkpoint system, which I loathe.

The story is well told, and the voice acting is quite good. I remember thinking this when I was playing the game, and I later learned that the voice actors included some Hollywood talent, not that having Hollywood actors voice lines in a video game necessarily makes the gameplay any better. 

Visually, the game looks alright. There is no support for widescreen resolutions. I played the game at 1600x1200. I have a computer that is dedicated to playing older games, and on a 1080p monitor, the game is very playable. I would not play this game on my ultrawide monitor because it would not scale very well, and it would end up looking awful. 

I had to reduce the mouse movement speed all the way to 0 within the game, because my Razer DeathAdder's sensor is perhaps way too sensitive for this game. I was having issues with camera control on default settings. The game is a console port, and it shows. The interface, controls are all made with a console in mind. I feel for those that bought this game at full price on the PC.

By far the worst aspect of this game are the boss battles. They are horrible. It feels as if the enemies cheat, and have wall hacks the way can shoot you when you peak from behind the cover for a second. This gets really annoying towards the end. I had to find a way to cheese my way through because it was damn near impossible to play fair and square.

Its possible that the reason I had this problem because I did not play any of the side missions, however, that means there is a problem with scaling the difficulty of the boss battles.

If you can find the game for less than $2, and you are curious to check out this forgotten game, then go for it. Any price more than that is not worth it, in my opinion.

+ Voice acting
+ Visuals in certain locations
+ Gun play in general

- Boss battles
- General budget feel of the game
- Weird save system

Verdict - Worth about $2.

Assassin's Creed Unity (PC) is Looking Good

I recently started playing Assassin's Creed Unity after briefly watching Whitelight's video on this game. I had this game in my library for a long time, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I finished Black Flag and Rogue earlier this year, and those are the only two AC games I finished to date. After playing other games for a while, the time felt right to get back into an Assassin's Creed game.

When I first started this game, my impressions were not great. It felt less polished than Black Flag (which is understandable given its launch). However, once I scaled up the Notre-Dame cathedral my view on this game changed for the better. The game looks beautiful. Climbing up to the top of the cathedral and scanning the vista was done very well. I get the feeling that there is something very special about this game. Whether or not it lives up to its potential remains to be seen. As with all UbiSoft open world games, there is a lot of bloat in terms of collectibles, missions, etc.

I wonder if this is the largest Assassins's Creed in terms of map size at this point. The crowd density was a talking point, and I have mixed feelings about it. The crowd AI is nowhere near as sophisticated as the trailer suggested. Some of the animations can be very clunky.

There are also technical issues with the game. I was able to get the game running running fine at 3440x1440 resolution. I had to run this in a borderless window mode to prevent the game from resizing all the other windows I have open in my secondary display. In addition to this, recording videos at 60FPS in ShadowPlay causes jittering in the video files. I had to reduce the video capture frame rate to 30FPS to get stable recordings.

I haven't formed a strong opinion on the rest of the game, but so far, I am enjoying it. Unlikely as it might be, my hope is that this game will surpass Black Flag as the best Assassin's Creed game.