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.
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:
Open Turn Windows features on or off.
Turn off the following features:
Hyper-V
Virtual Machine Platform
Windows Hypervisor Platform
Windows Sandbox
Windows Subsystem for Linux
Save and restart the computer.
Open VMWare Player
Select the VM and edit the VM settings
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.
DICE released their latest Battlefield 2042 briefing. It was underwhelming and disappointing. They repeatedly insist that they are listening to feedback from the community, yet they continue to persist with the awful specialist system. To add insult to injury, there is only one map in the season 1 update. The only new content we are going to get until then are weapon skins (which are not that great to begin with).
DICE, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the problem with the specialist system was that they were too clean looking, and proceeded to add some smudges to their face.
This is someone's idea of improving specialists in Battlefield 2042
I am at loss for words here. Its sad to see a beloved series, a truly one of a kind franchise suffer this way due to the incompetence of the studio. I decided that I am going to take a break from Battlefield 2042. So what are my options? I could play an older Battlefield game, but I spent approximately 4200 hours in Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 1 combined. I want something new.
I started scouring for a new shooter. I know that Call of Duty Warzone is very popular. I played the beta of Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019), and to me it felt like a bad budget clone of Battlefield 4.
I remember thinking there was a decent game underneath the obnoxious interface, the constant radio chatter, the kill streaks and every other bad decision the designers made to break immersion.
This was 3 years ago. Call of Duty has come a long way since then with the release of Warzone, which is a free to play title. So I decided to give it a try. I was prepared to have to play Battle Royale, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there are other modes as well. I am playing the large scale TDM to get a feel for the game, and I will jump in Battle Royale at some point. Maybe.
Technical Details
After an 80GB+ download, I started the game, and it did not like my ultra wide monitor. It launched at a 16:9 resolution and after attempting to install shaders (which it does when you start the game for the first time), it crashed. After a few times of doing this, I started the game, and left it for a while, and it successfully finished installing shaders.
At this point, I was able to customize the graphics settings. When I set the resolution to the native value of 3440x1440, the game would around move all the windows that I have open on my secondary displays. This happens every time I started the game. It was quite annoying. Do developers not realize that most PC gamers have more than one monitor? Its the current year, and its disappointing to see modern games still struggle to work right with a multi monitor setup. In addition to this, any change to the graphics settings would make the game window flicker, and all the other windows I have open would go on a little adventure. Some would disappear entirely, and I would have to use the Move option in Windows to bring them back into view.
The fix was easy enough. Running the game in borderless window mode solved all the problems. I was hesitant to run the game in this mode because Battlefield 2042 had performance issues when running in anything but fullscreen mode. I was impressed with number of graphics options in this game. There are so many ways to tweak the game, and if I had to guess, it will run fine on mid to lower end machines. At the highest settings, the framerates are quite good. I was getting anywhere between 115 - 120 FPS. I did not notice any drops in performance even when there was a lot going on.
The Interface
This game has by far the most obnoxious UI ever. There are almost no options to customize it. I cannot disable any pop ups. There is so much information on the screen at one point, I have no idea how anyone can make any sense out of it. What actionable information is the UI presenting to me, when the screen so cluttered? I have trouble identifying enemies when there is so much on-screen litter.
I was complaining endlessly about how the UI in BF2042 was not good (and I standby that), but in comparison, even at its worst, its not as bad as Warzone.
The awful banner...I could not find a way to disable it.
Everything about the UI is garish. The ads when the game is started, the in game UI and prompts, the music cues, the player characters...it never ends. Its an all out assault on the senses. The developers seemed to have never heard of the concept of subtlety. All this would be alleviated if they simply gave players the options to customize their experience. Something as basic as disabling in game messages is not available.
Even the audio is annoying. The menu music, the screams of Godzill and King Kong in the background, the irritating in game voice over...it just never stops. Of course, its not as bad as Battlefield 2 can be at times.
If I paid full price for this game, I would be livid. I cannot play for more than a couple of rounds because of the overload. I have new found respect for those that I can play this game for hours on end. Maybe I am getting old? Sometimes, I get the feeling that I am in the minority when it comes to wanting a clean, minimalist UI. Often times, I see Battlefield videos where every single UI option is enabled with 100% opacity. I am so thankful that Battlefield allows UI customization.
What is the point of creating a beautiful game, if the UI is constantly distracting and breaking the immersion?
Closing Thoughts
Its not all terrible. Notwithstanding my objections with the game, there are certain things that Call of Duty is doing right. Weapon customization is fantastic. Battlefield can learn a thing or two from this.
There is definitely some fun to be had, but this is not a game that I can take seriously. While it is possible that I missing something here, and I am not getting how this game is supposed to be played. I will play this game until the Season 1 update for Battlefield 2042 is released. I will try to discover as much as I can, and see if there is something I am missing. That said, in an ideal world, I will never resort to installing a Call of Duty game, but the sheer incompetence of DICE made me have to look for another multiplayer shooter.
As much as I am disappointed with Battlefield 2042, I am glad it exists. I shudder to think of a world where Call of Duty is the only viable alternative for me.
I purchased this case on Amazon for $107.89 on February 9, 2022.
I
was planning on buying NZXT H510 Flow, but I decided against it because I have
an MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB GAMING X TRIO. The length of the GPU is 324
mm (12.76"L x 5.51"H). I was unsure if the case would accommodate this GPU,
therefore, I began searching for another case that wasn't too expensive.
This case was listed as being 450mm in length, and it was highly
rated on Amazon, so I went for it.
For the most part, I agree that the case is excellent. The build quality
is solid, the airflow is very good. It also accommodates a 280mm radiator quite
easily. I did not have any issue mounting it on the front with fans pushing
outside air onto the radiator (push config).
To get RGB lighting to work, there is a SATA connector that needs to be
plugged in to a SATA power cable from the PSU. Provided the front panel is in
place, this should make the base RGB effects to work without the need of any
software. This is excellent because I do not want to install RGB software to
control the case lighting. The out of the box effects are very nice.
However, I did have an issue getting all this to work. After I
finished the assembly, RGB lighting wouldn't work. I checked the SATA power
cable, and everything seemed fine. I thought something was wrong with the
front panel (more on that in a bit). I contacted the support fully expecting
them to give me some generic answer.
I was pleasantly surprised
when they responded and were actually helpful. The issue was with the
connector on the back of the front I/O; this was not fully plugged in. I had
to push it into place and that did the trick.
As far as the performance goes, absolutely no complaints here. The fans are
very quiet and even under heavy load, I wouldn't say the fans are loud. The
case allows for excellent airflow, and the dust filters are much appreciated.
Temperatures in idle can vary anywhere from 29C to 35C depending on the
ambient temperature, and how long I have been gaming etc. I am quite happy
with this.
I certainly do not regret buying this case, but I have two big issues, and I
might have reconsidered this case had I known about these.
Removing the front panel is a pain. There are no screws holding it
in place, instead its held in place by a notches on either side, and the panel
needs to be yanked hard by pulling at the bottom. This is just not good design
in my opinion. For a case that costs over $100, I would have expected a better
way to hold the front panel.
The second issue is the length
of the case. While the case is barely spacious enough to accommodate as MSI
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB GAMING X TRIO. There is not enough clearance between
the GPU and the radiator to mount a fan on the radiator. For this reason, I
had to switch the position of the fans and mount them on the front frame of
the case. Its not a big deal, but a full push pull configuration is not
possible. There is only enough room for one fan in the pull config.
The height of the case prevents me from mounting two exhaust fans on the top
of the case; the tubing from the radiator uses all the room needed for one
fan, therefore I only mount one top exhaust fan. So now, I am left with a
spare 140mm fan, and I decided to mount it on the radiator to pull air out. So
I now have a full push, and half pull config. Not ideal, but it works just
fine.
In addition to this, there is not enough room to mount a mechanical hard drive
in the case. This is because while there is a mounting tray in the bottom of
the case that is specifically designed for mechanical hard drives, I had to
disconnect that to route PSU cables. I tried my best with PSU cable
management, but I failed. Therefore, if you intend to use a mechanical hard
drive, this is something you will want to consider.
I am kicking
myself for not having come across the be quiet! Pure Base 600, which seems
perfect for my build. Its even more painful considering its $10 cheaper at the
time of this writing.
Upgrade kits from Amazon are shipping with incorrect number of parts. I had to buy two upgrade kits to get all the parts I needed. The first kit I purchased only had three O-rings, while the second upgrade kit only had three LGA 1700 standoffs. My suggestion, buy two kits and RMA the other once you are done building. Someone at Arctic totally dropped the ball on this when packaging the kits.
Note - The video shows ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II, but backplate installation, and mounting is the same for ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280.
Most importantly, use the right mounting standoffs. I made the mistake of getting the standoffs mixed during the build. This was totally my fault.
I realized there was something wrong with the setup when I rendered a video, and the temperatures were hitting 100c. I would have expected synthetic benchmarks to do this, but not video rendering.
Here is an article on Arctic's website that mentions this fact.
Out of the box, the fans are mounted on the side with the tubes, with air pushing on to the radiator. I had to the change the position of the fans, and fit them to the back of the radiator. This was necessary to accommodate the cooler with my case. There was simply not enough clearance because of the GPU.
In addition to this, the size of the case restricted me from installing all three case fans. Therefore, I installed one of the spare case fans into the radiator. Refer to the picture for more information.
Performance
In a blended test in Prime95, the temperatures hover around 65 - 75c, and the torture test will hit 100c. This didn't matter with or without the wrong stand offs. Torture test will push all the cores to 100% utilization, and at this point, I expect the temperate to hit the thermal limit.
Real world tasks on the other hand, are far more forgiving. Playing Battlefield 2042 at ultra settings, the CPU temperature is around 65c, and video rendering has never crossed 70c.
Conclusion
I am quite pleased with the cooler. I truly wish Arctic had gotten its act together with the upgrade kits. I am going to rate this 4/5.
Today, I played the Conquest of the Ages playlist on Battlefield 2042 Portal, and it was amazing to see Noshar Canals and Caspian Border in the new Frostbite engine. The last time I played Battlefield 3 Conquest on Noshar Canals was on 5/12/2013, and Caspian Border was on 5/3/2013. That was 8 years ago. Life was very different back then. Battlefield was very different back then.
Noshar Canals in Battlefield 3
Caspian Border in Battlefield 3
To be able to play these two maps again in Portal mode feels unreal. The feeling of nostalgia when I saw this for the very first time is unreal. Running through the center of the map brings back memories of the countless hours spent on TDM. I learned to play Battlefield on this map. Playing as a support player in TDM was the way to go back then. Without this map, I probably never would have gotten into Battlefield.
DICE has something special on their hands with Portal. I hope they do the right thing, and support this mode for the foreseeable future.
When using Nvidia ShadowPlay to record gameplay clips, I often found that the video was getting saved with a resolution of 1280x720, even though ShadowPlay is configured to record at in game resolution, which in my case was 3440x1440 (Ultrawide resolution).
This is probably because when the game first starts, it opens a window with a smaller resolution, and then scales up to the native resolution.
The only fix to this that I could find was to stop ShadowPlay recording (Alt + Shift + F10) and then start it at which point, the recordings are in the current native resolution.
This is the recording after stopping and starting ShadowPlay.
