Last weekend Jacob and I purchased two new Wii games.  Jacob purchased LEGO Batman: The Videogame and I purchased Pikmin 2.

I had already played the Game Cube versions of Pikmin 1 and 2 on the Wii but did not complete either game, so thought I’d by the Wii “New Play” version and give the game another bash. The game is identical to the GC version except the graphics are better. Some of the menu navigation is just as broken as the GC version, so I was disappointed, as they could have used the pointer of the Wii Remote to tidy this up, but the game is still fun.

LEGO Batman is amazing fun. The Lego nature of the graphics mean you give the game lots of slack as it’s not trying to be life like. The game really does look like everything is made of lego, and the characters are really well animated, with great humor. The game has the feel of the 60’s TV show, with lots of biffo and mindless henchmen running closer just to get punched. Biff! Pow! Wham!

So if you have not played either of the Pikmin games I’d give them a try. But definatly play the Batman game also.

Title chosen by wife, while I was out of the room…

The Christchurch City Library had their annual book sale on a few weekends ago.  I popped along, as it was held at the same venue I swim at each day.

The book sale is a two day event, and I actually went three times, first before my swim at 1pm, then again one hour later at 2pm and the last time on the Saturday at 1pm with my family.

The first visit was crowed, and the hall was full of trestles covered in books, one hour later half the books were gone, and the next day half again were gone. It was quite amazing, and also incredibly dirty feeling running your hand over the books to read the titles, while everybody else was doing the same thing.

, because it was $2 and it never hurts to have a good reference book.  The other was [Principles of Programming Languages 3rd Ed by Bruce J. Macleannan](http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Programming-Languages-Evaluation-Implementation/dp/0195113063), as I really have been enjoying language/compiler books recently. Principles is a really good history of and why to it is that way type of book. A great read.

When we got the Sony 32v300A, I chose to connect it to our MacBook via a mini-DVI-to-VGA adapter, as I had read on some forums that people had VGA working well in 1080p mode for their bigger TVs.

Insurance replaced the 32V300A with a 32V4000, but I still could only chose 1360 x 768 @ 60 so was quite unhappy.  Earlier in the week I had read on the NZ MythTV mailing list people were talking about setting up their TVs and ignoring the EDID data. By hand setting the resolutions to <60Hz timings you can get 1080p, as VGA/ VESA are only 60+ Hz timings.

With this extra information I went re-reading forums (via google) and found SwitchResX which lets you manually set you monitor timings. You only need to use SwitchResX Control Panel

Initially I was trying to get 1920 x 1080 @ 60 working.  I got it mostly working, but the screen was horizontally squashed ~10% (underscan)  and hard right justified.  Lots of value tweaking and unpluging/pluging latter, I didn’t really have the problem solved.

I then re-read the EDID page and noticed the 1080p @ 50Hz settings, so tried those settings, and it was full screen, but overscanned.

I originally used the simplified GTF settings with 1920 x 1080 and vert 50Hz as input.  But the bottom 5mm of the screen would flicker every five seconds.  I then noticed the vertical total lines was 2 less than my other attempts that didn’t flicker, so after I increased the vert back porch from 35 to 37, it stopped flicking.

So here are the SwitchResX settings I use:

With settings I lose ~0.5% of the side of the screen. Thus with this 1920x1080 test picture I get this:

Things look much better at 1080p, yippie!

Geek Alert!, here’s the TV’s EDID:

DDC block report generated by SwitchResX version 3.8.6 for display
SONY TV (2)`

\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- RAW DATA ------------------------
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
0  | 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 4D D9 00 FF 01 01 01 01
1  | 14 12 01 03 08 A0 5A 78 0A 0D C9 A0 57 47 98 27
2  | 12 48 4C 21 08 00 81 80 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01
3  | 01 01 01 01 01 01 66 21 50 B0 51 00 1B 30 40 70
4  | 36 00 40 84 63 00 00 1E 0E 1F 00 80 51 00 1E 30
5  | 40 80 37 00 40 84 63 00 00 1C 00 00 00 FD 00 39
6  | 3F 1E 31 09 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FC
7  | 00 53 4F 4E 59 20 54 56 0A 20 20 20 20 20 00 5A

\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
<  00FFFFFF FFFFFF00 4DD900FF 01010101 14120103 08A05A78 0A0DC9A0 57479827 12484C21 08008180 01010101 01010101 01010101 01016621 50B05100 1B304070 36004084 6300001E 0E1F0080 51001E30 40803700 40846300 001C0000 00FD0039 3F1E3109 000A2020 20202020 000000FC 00534F4E 59205456 0A202020 2020005A    >

\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Valid EDID block: checksum passed

\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- MAIN EDID BLOCK -----------------
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-

EDID Version........1.3
Manufacturer........SNY
Product Code........255 (00FF) (FF00)
Serial Number.......01010101

Manufactured........Week 20 of year 2008
Max H Size..........160 cm
Max V Size..........90 cm
Gamma...............2.20

Display Supported Features:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-

Display type:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
RGB color display
Display is non continuous frequency
Default color space is not sRGB standard
Preferred timing mode includes Native Pixel Format

Input signal & sync:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Analog input with:     0.700V / 0.300V
Composite Sync

Color info:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Red x = 0.625  Green x = 0.280  Blue x = 0.155  White x = 0.283
Red y = 0.340  Green y = 0.595  Blue y = 0.070  White y = 0.298

Established Timings:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
640 x 480 @ 60Hz
800 x 600 @ 60Hz
1024 x 768 @ 60Hz

Manufacturer Reserved Timings:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-

Standard Timing Identification:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
#0:    1280 x 1024 @ 60Hz     (8180)

Monitor Description blocks:
\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-
Descriptor #0 is Timing definition:
Mode = 1360 x 768 @ 60.015Hz
Pixel Clock............. 85.50 MHz        Non-Interlaced

Horizontal        Vertical
Active.................. 1360 pixels         768 lines
Front Porch.............   64 pixels           3 lines
Sync Width..............  112 pixels           6 lines
Back Porch..............  256 pixels          18 lines
Blanking................  432 pixels          27 lines
Total................... 1792 pixels         795 lines
Scan Rate...............  47.712 kHz         60.015 Hz

Image Size.............. 1600 mm         900 mm
Border..................    0 pixels           0 lines

Sync: Digital separate with
\* Positive vertical polarity
\* Positive horizontal polarity

Descriptor #1 is Timing definition:
Mode = 1280 x 768 @ 59.870Hz
Pixel Clock............. 79.50 MHz        Non-Interlaced

Horizontal        Vertical
Active.................. 1280 pixels         768 lines
Front Porch.............   64 pixels           3 lines
Sync Width..............  128 pixels           7 lines
Back Porch..............  192 pixels          20 lines
Blanking................  384 pixels          30 lines
Total................... 1664 pixels         798 lines
Scan Rate...............  47.776 kHz         59.870 Hz

Image Size.............. 1600 mm         900 mm
Border..................    0 pixels           0 lines

Sync: Digital separate with
\* Positive vertical polarity
\* Negative horizontal polarity

Descriptor #2 is Monitor limits:
Horizontal frequency range.......30-49 kHz
Vertical frequency range.........57-63 Hz
Maximum bandwidth unspecified

Descriptor #3 is Monitor name:
SONY TV

Build 1.0.17 has now be released. A quick fix release to solve a introduced bug in 1.0.16. Changes are:

• Fixed the order of items in the shop, to be the same as original (after changes in 1.0.15)
• Fixed Character creation class choosing screen
• Made the new demi-human multi-class cheat actually work
• Changed the handling of .dax files to improve the behaviour of original game running concurrently in DOSBox

There may be more bugs, so if you find any let me know… ether here or on the issue list.

Build 1.0.16 has now be released. There  are three observable changes which are:

• Added new cheat, to allows demi-humans to play any class
• Fixed crash when you lose a battle (introduced in 1.0.15)
• Fixed issue 30 , cast screen missing apostrophe in players name

But there has been a lot of changes under hood, related to how game code works.  I’ve restructured how lists of things are managed from Pascal linked-lists to native .Net lists.

There may be many bugs, so if you find any let me know… ether here or on the issue list.

Made a weird discovery this week, my neighbour and I both share the same spelling of our names yet they are pronounced differently.

I’m Simeon (sim-e-on) and he is Simeon (sime-on the same as the name Simon),  so weird to think of different ways of decomposing the same letter tokens.

He was saying he gets called Simeon a lot where-as I got called Simon a lot as a child.  It’s weird to have a semi-unique name, and then find the person next to you have the names spelling but your mistaken version.

If removing a column from a table in your Oracle DB, and you have views that select * from tablename, you need to recreate the view.

I was comparing my old schema and new schema, and had all the correct column changes, and index changes, but was still having some views marked invalid and therefore failing to run.

It was noticed by a co-worker (via the DDL) that the view was still referring to the dropped column.

I had assumed that the code received back from the DB was verbose (every selected item named) because the tools were lazy, but this makes sense once you think about how select * may get compiled by the DB, but can catch you out when just comparing SQL text changes.

We purchased Mario Kart Wii in the weekend, and played it near non-stop for most the weekend.

Quite a blast really, but the real point of this post is to share my Driver ID for those out there also with Mario Kart, that would like to compete on stat’s or race verses etc.

Simii: 2278-2389-2860

Not sure what’s happened today, but all our normal terrestrial channels are in fantastic quality this evening.

This gave me the idea to try Freeview HD terrestrial, which previously could not find any signal.

But today, we have picture prefect TV. woot!.

Now all I want to know is why? What has changed? Has it just been the weather?

Update: When the hard-drive recorder turned on to record, Freeview signal was lost. Now I need to investigate if a splitter will allow both devices to get a good signal or not….

Grrr, see the problem here:

Our TV and Nintendo Wii have been stolen. Besides the matching controllers, remotes and cabling that is all the took on purpose, they (singular/plural) also lucked into taking the game in the machine.  Very luckily the choose not to take the MacBook or the HDD recorder (as seen in picture) so our TV programs are still getting recorded YIPPY!

I feeling so bothered by it all (ring the police and insurance) that I just want to relax by blobbing out in front of the TV, but I can’t.  Or play some games, but again I can’t.  So instead I’ll blog, which happens to be something I’ve not done is ages.  I’ve started to feel really bad about that.

Wii/Game-Cube  games status:

In Zelda Wind Walker, I have gotten all the way to the final boss fight, but could never kill him because the stupid interact with Zelda to win tactic is not my style and she just keep hit me, so I’d die even faster, even though I had 4 fairies and 15 hearts. Argg.

In Need for Speed Carbon, I am stuck with the tier three dude (one stopwatch race won), but can’t win a tier 3 car, and therefore lose all the challenge races as the PC cars are all beefed up now.  So had only just restarted on Sunday.

Books:

I’ve been reading a lot. I discovered the TradeMe can email the new listings each day for areas you’re interested in.  So I’ve enough new books that Michaela has put a trade embargo in-place. But still TradeMe emails me each day, but most people are asking too much for newish books, or are trying to fob off old Visual Basic 3 type books.

Work Programming:

I’ve not blogged about any work stuff because well it’s all fire fighting, very work spefics or just plan boring, like ports our 12 year C/C++ code base from ANSI Win32 to Unicode WinCE with std::wstring instead of _TCHAR everywhere.

Personal Programming:

What with doing the above mentioned porting work at home, and reading those books, I’ve not really done anything.  This last fact is the most depressing thing really.

Reminder: note down the model, purchase dates, and serial numbers of all your >$100 electronic devices….