Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Do you necessarily need Windows to play PC games?

Posted on by Viljami

Linux as an operating system of personal computers has been competing to this day against Microsoft’s Windows. Linux has advantages. First of all it’s free and mostly open source. So anyone with a decent knowledge about programming and computers and operating systems has an opportunity to learn and even modify this system. But is Linux capable of running the latest games? To this question I am trying to answer in this blog post.

Windows has a large support as an operating system that delivers reliability. It can run latest PC games and it is an answer to many electronic music producers as Linux currently doesn’t fully support VST instruments or many sequencer applications like, for example, FL Studio. Linux has some free music production apps. like Ardour, but to get your software and hardware to run decently is to my own experience a bit difficult.

Windows is not free. Windows still supports many hardware drivers that are important when running newest PC games. Take graphics processing units for example. Most of the GPU´s are supported. You have to pay for Windows. Usually you get the new Windows with a computer that you purchase. Usually you also get the update to a newer version when it is released. Still sometimes you might have an old computer and you don’t want to spend about 150 euros for only getting the newest operating system. Then Linux definitely is a good choice.

There is a war going on between Linux and Windows. It has been this way for decades. While Linux is supported by heavy users, technology nerds and programmers Windows is still holding on to it’s position as the default personal computer operating system. Of course there are also Mac users. So this also messes up the picture a bit. I definitely like to use Linux for programming if I can make a free choice. This is because it is more secure and it doesn’t need necessarily a virus protection application. It also has more opportunities to get deeper into technology of computer. You get to work with command line and the apps are mainly free and open source. You also get more updates and get to tweak your system a bit more.

You can get Windows games working with Linux. Older games certainly can be run through DOSBox, if they are DOS games, and through Wine, if they are Windows games. There has been a discussion goin on how clearly are Steam games running on Linux. There seems to be a certain distinction between Windows and Linux games that I am not so clear about. The software seems to be in question. I cannot reply to this question fully and I admit that. But it is an interesting point.

So if you plan to play the newest games my answer to you is – get a computer that runs Windows. That is to make sure that you have the latest drivers and have yourself the full support from hardware manufacturers and game developers. Since we are moving more and more towards digital markets when purchasing games it is also important that you have Steam or GOG.com or some other place to buy yourself games for your PC. This is how the situation seems to be. Linux has it’s own supporters and you have to keep in mind that Linux has it’s native games that run only on Linux. So to conclude – Linux is developing and it might be possible that it makes a takeover in the future but currently you will have to use Windows.

Learning Some Java

Posted on by Viljami

Learning to program takes lots of time. When I first got interested in it I started with basics. I started making small websites with HTML. Then I learned more about CSS and got myself into some basic image manipulation that I had to do to make my websites look nice. Back then I got curious about actual programming. I tried my hand at JavaScript and PHP. As I was trying to learn by myself and not in any school or even in a single course I didn’t get far.

I really got into some, so to say, “real” programming when I started studying in a local school of applied sciences. I completed a course that was named something like “Basics of Programming in Java”. I learned many new and interesting subjects. First thing you have to do when you are just starting is to learn how to set up the environment for the actual programming. You might be using Linux or maybe Windows as your PCs operating system. You might want to install an IDE which stands for Integrated Development Environment. You also have to install, if you are going with Java, Java. I recommend using NetBeans as your IDE. It enables you to do so many other things also.

Learning to make games is based on learning how to program. You have to master the basics first. Then you can slowly progress to some advanced matters. While studying programming you also get to see a lot about how the computer that runs all these games is actually working. This is one of the most interesting thing for me and it also motivates me. I have alwaýs been a bit of a holic learner. That means that I want to analyze what I am learning deeply and know the subject and figure out how it actually works. The opposite of this learning attitude is atomistic attitude. It means that the learner is learning some plain facts that are true about the subject being learned and trying to memorize these.

The picture related to this blog post represents the first Java book that I bought as I started my studies. It got me really far. It took me years to learn almost everything in this book. I haven’t fully stomached all of the contents. It has been about ten years since I bought this book. So that tells you a bit about the quality of the text. This book is now already a bit old. I think today Python has become more popular than Java for the first programming language.

Where you usually start in programming is that you learn what are variables, how you construct the code with control structures,  like if-else-statements, how to use the most common functions that the language provides, how to read in text from user and how to print it and also how basic arrays are used. This small list doesn’t include everything. How I started was that I basically started a short course. Then I started a bit more advanced course. And then another course about object oriented programming. Since we are talking about Java OOP is important. I think with Python this subject isn’t as important.

Programming is only one part of what a graduated software developer has to know to be able to work professionally. While studying I learned a lot about databases, user centered development, testing, communications, foreign languages, physics, electronics, mathematics and so on. I took a course about processors also. I deepened my knowledge in software development as I had to choose my main subject from telecommunications, embedded systems and software. This choice was made after one and a half years of studying.

One thing I would like point out about studying. When it is summer the school is closed. You have to figure how are you going to spend the time. You might be working. You might want to take some remote courses like I did. Just don’t be too lazy andjust  try make use of this time somehow. Otherwise it might be hard to start working on your studies again when the summer is over. So keep that in mind. Resting is required but a pause too long can be harmful.

A huge part of getting employed is how well you understand what it takes to be a professional. You have to find the best frameworks and the most useful programming languages. Teachers know a lot but always someone knows a lot about one thing and someone else knows a lot about other thing. Keep your eye on the companies that are doing the things that you would be interested doing. Make some hobby projects to display your skills. It might be a good idea to share your projects in for example GitHub. And remember to build your resume. You can even add some supplement pages that give the employer an idea about your skills.

If you are going to study programming keep in mind that it takes time. Keep your focus. It’s a long road. Go for it if you really are interested in it.

The Smallest Xbox Ever Released

Posted on by Viljami

I’m looking at it. I like it. It’s the smallest Xbox that is to this day released. It’s almost as small as PS2 Slim was or is. What got me to buy this thing? Well, I had been thinking about buying a newer Xbox for a while. My thoughts were centered to Xbox One. But why would I buy it for 250 euros when with 310 euros I’ll get a newer Xbox?

There are some things you have to consider when thinking about buying this gaming device. It doesn’t give you 4K video output when playing games. It only goes as far as 1440p resolution which is still a lot better than Full HD. To make this point clearer you can think about PS4 which gives you 1080p resolution and 1080 pixels being the actual height of the display. So, to make this even more understandable, Full HD means a picture that is 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels tall.

With not going in deeper details about the sharpness of gaming displays we shall continue this quick explanation about what are my feelings towards Xbox Series S. That’s basically what this thing is called. Why is it called this way? I guess Microsoft wanted to give it some basic name to make it clear what kind of a device it is. There is also another new Xbox model that was recently released. It is called Xbox Series X.

The main difference between these models is that S doesn’t have an optical disk drive at all while X has. X has also this 4K gaming display supporting ability. X is also a bit more expensive. It costs about 520 euros. The situation globally has been  tough. There haven’t been many opportunities to buy this new console be it the S or the X. I am also very satisfied that I got mine so fast as I’ve heard that some people have been waiting for their console for as long as six months.

What more would I want to tell you about this new console? It has been working nicely. The first game I bought for it was Remedy’s Control. I also bought Halo 5 and a remake of Final Fantasy 8. I wasn’t actually thinking about sales but I found out that there was, and actually still is, going on a sale in Microsoft’s Xbox Store. Getting a fully digital gaming console with no physical play and installation disks made me consider about getting faster internet connection. My solution to this problem was to let the game that took about 42 gigabytes to download over the night. I’m still considering updating my connection because I  might need a faster one.

I like the controller. The layout is your typical Xbox controller layout. I am not going to argue about if it is better than PlayStation’s. It is enough said that they differ a bit from each other. The controller works with two AA batteries. I am also considering some other solution as I don’t want to keep changing the batteries to it all the time. I think there is at least a cable available. That would be a USB-C cable that is at least three meters long.

One thing you should really think about is that this thing only has a bit over 500 gigabytes of storage. So you can’t really install so many games to it. You can actually buy storage upgrades. I haven’t thought about this so much as I have only three games right now and I think that is a lot for starting the experience and getting to know the device.

I went and bought this thing. Right now I am really enjoying it. I am very proud of it. One thing that really pushed the purchase for me was that there were only a limited amount of these devices available and that the price was actually as low as it was. Right now I’m playing Control. I hope I will get to know more about Halo 5 soon.