Welcome
to the 1,330th
edition
of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily
MMOG news and commentary
newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Can changing your NIC really improve game performance that
much? According to Bigfoot networks it can. Today we take a look at
their newest card, the Killer 2100, announced today, in
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/loading/2010/may/11">Loading...
Bigfoot the Olympic Sprint Runner.
The Pulse
You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result
is the Ten Ton Pulse (
target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results:
- World
of Warcraft -
Age
of Conan (UP 1) -
EverQuest
II (down 1)
- Vanguard:
Saga of Heroes -
EVE
Online (UP 2)
Biggest
movers today:
- 2/16
- href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion) - 2/16
- LotRO:
Oath of the
Rangers (content update) -
4/5
- Pocket
Legends (iMMOG - release date) href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1004">
-
5/1
- href="http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/game_updates/issue_17/issue_17_overview.html?utm_source=COHemail&utm_medium=US&utm_campaign=banner">City
of Heroes - Issue 17: Dark Mirror
(content
update)
Releases
-
May
11,
2010 - Age
of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer
(expansion) - May
18,
2010 - EVE
Online: Tyrannis (expansion) - May 27,
2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2422">Craft
of Gods (release) - June
30,
2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998">APB
(US - July 2 in EU) -
style="font-weight: bold;">Q2 2010
- Mytheon -
TBA
2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2079">Final
Fantasy XIV
Upcoming
Events
-
style="font-weight: bold;">6/15 -
6/17 - E3
Expo -
style="font-weight: bold;">6/25 -
6/27 - Looking
for Group
Expo -
style="font-weight: bold;">7/22 -
7/25 - Comic-Con
International -
style="font-weight: bold;">8/5 -
8/8 - href="http://events.station.sony.com/fanfaire/">SOE
Fan Faire 2010 -
style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
9/6 - DragonCon -
style="font-weight: bold;">10/22 -
10/23 - href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/?rhtml=y">BlizzCon -
style="font-weight: bold;"> 3/24
-
3/26 (2011)- CCP
FanFest
Loading... Daily
Before I get into the bulk of today's Loading... allow me to point out
that today is launch day for Age
of Conan's Rise
of the Godslayer expansion. Despite AoC's rocky start in
2008, I've always loved the game. You simply cannot find a nicer
looking MMOG out there right now, nor can you find one with as unique a
combat system - at least for the melee classes. Seeing Funcom really
flesh out the game with the new expansion, and address so many player
concerns... well, it just makes me tingly inside. Don't take my word
for it. Editor-in-Chief, Ethec, and I have regular disagreements about
the quality of the game, often ending in the hurling of marshmallows at
each other, so it was fitting that he be the one to do our
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc/rise-of-the-godslayer/preview">
style="font-style: italic;">Rise of the Godslayer
preview. Does the expansion soften Ethec's heart to the game?
Find out!
Now, onto the other news of the day.
Bigfoot Networks contacted me last week to tell me about their newest
product, the Killer 2100, which was announced to the public today.
Allow me to admit that when it comes to network cards, I've
been settled for some time in the "as long as I get high speed
internet, I don't care" camp. I've never given much thought to network
optimization since my home network consists of my desktop, my laptop,
my Wii and my PS3. And I live alone. So the only traffic happening
there is from what I'm doing myself. I have an 8 meg internet
connection which is plenty fast for anything I do. So, when I spoke
with Bigfoot last week, I was all "what do I need this for?"
They answered.
The Killer 2100 is all-new. The entire concept was redesigned from the
ground up, so we see a completely new product over Bigfoot's previous
NICs. In addition to this, and probably the biggest immediately
noticeable difference is the software package. The new card comes with
a full application that allows you to not only monitor every single
process that uses bandwidth, but also to manage those applications. You
can skip the Windows stack entirely and with Bigfoot's Visual Bandwidth
Control, tweak how much bandwidth you wish to allow to each
application, or block an application all together. What's particularly
handy about this is that since you'll see every single process using
bandwidth, you'll probably notice some that you didn't even know were
running. If those applications were using bandwidth, chances are they
were using processing power too. The enhancements to
performance-tweaking can easily be seen.
As an example, I'm often downloading tv shows in the background. I also
like to keep my MMOGs up to date so I don't have a day of patching
ahead of me when I decide to log in next. Windows could be downloading
some updates, and maybe Adobe Acrobat is updating itself without me
knowing. Previously, I could possibly set the bandwidth limit for
torrents, but my game updates would be coming in at full speed, Windows
would be downloading its updates and Adobe would be doing its thing
without me even knowing, throttling any kind of conneciton I'd have to
the game I was playing at that instant. With the Visual Bandwidth
Control, I could simply move the slider for those downloads to either
throttle those apps or block them entirely, all the while preventing my
game from suffering at all.
As for the hardware, the unit comes with a 400 MHz processer and 128 MB
of DDR2 RAM. What this means is that all of the network and bandwidth
options you have set or are running are managed by the card itself and
not your CPU. In a day where response time is everything the
implications can be significant. To illustrate the improvement, a
network efficiency test showed that a standard NIC connected to a
typical LAN network would have a 22.5 ms response from packets sent and
received to a station on the same LAN (of the worst 10% packets sent).
The Killer 2100 on the same LAN had a 0.71 ms response time, again on
the worst 10 percent. That's a big difference, even if we are talking
milliseconds.
So how does it all measure up? Unfortunately I was not able to test one
of the cards myself, so I can't give a hands-on impression. The
presentation by Bigfoot Networks though, did make enough of an
impression that I'm going to be booking some time with them at E3 to
see the hardware in action and assess if it's worth the $129 USD MSRP.
In the meantime, let me know your thoughts
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=51246">in
the forums.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4">/OOC
(Off-topic) forum
Hey
Boomjack!
The
members of our forum community are in search of the ever-elusive
Boomjack, former purveyor of profound prognostication via this very
newsletter. While Boomjack has turned his focus toward bigger and
better behind-the-scenes (damn, that's a lot of alliteration!) things
at Ten Ton Hammer, he's never far away. (In fact, check under your bed
before you go to sleep tonight; he's just that sneaky.) Can we make Ten
Ton Hammer's very own Boo Radley come out?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=51224">Give
it a shot!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"I have baited the trap! There is no way Boomjack can resist a
shirtless Vin Diesel."
- Annatar
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
New
and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer
6 new Ten Ton Hammer
articles today! 33 Ten Ton Hammer
features
in May! 504 in 2010!
PREVIEWS
Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Expansion - Launch Day
Preview
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc/rise-of-the-godslayer/preview">http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc/rise-of-the-godslayer/preview
Today's
the day: "Rise of the Godslayer," Age of Conan's first expansion, hits
the servers. Will this heavy dose of Asian culture give Age of Conan
the mid-level lift the game sorely needs? Will the dizzying amount of
carefully crafted level 20 through 80 content unleash our inner
barbarians once again? We won't attempt to answer these ponderous
questions... at least, not yet. But we will give you a solid first look
at the expansion's loot, levels, locations, lore, and lurid brilliance
in our special launch day preview of Age of Conan: Rise of the
Godslayer.
FEATURED EDITORIAL
Microcosms Business or Pleasure: Gaming vs. Corporate
Culture
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/84216
The
news cycle this week was spinning with tales of corporate mergers, CEO
departures and lawsuits both settled and filed. Ten Ton Hammer is
beginning to look as much like The Wall Street Journal as it does a
gaming site. While the reality is that gaming is a business, and a big
one at that, it seems like the more companies focus on the
bottom
line the less they focus on fun. Join Jason Medawky Bolton as he
delves into the conundrum this week in Microcosms Business or
Pleasure: Gaming vs.Corporate Culture.
FEATURES & GUIDES
How To Get Rich Off Market Stampedes In EVE Online
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/business/market_stampede">http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/business/market_stampede
In
further preparation for helping readers profit off of the
speculation-happy Tyrannis expansion for EVE Online, Space Junkie,
gives us the skinny on provoking and profiting from market stampedes.
Ten Ton Hammer's Star Trek Online FAQ
http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/faq
With
the release of Star Trek Online a few months behind us, your pals at
Ten Ton Hammer decided to roll up their sleeves and update their STO
FAQ. Hopefully, all your questions will be answered. And, for the
record, no tribbles were harmed in the making of this FAQ.
Discovering the Unknown: WoW Easter Eggs
http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/easter-eggs
Hidden
messages are scattered throughout almost every form of media we can
image. Books, movies, music, and computer games all hold messages, or
subtle jokes, more commonly known as Easter eggs, just waiting to be
discovered by those who look close enough. It comes as no surprise then
to discover that World of Warcraft is full of them.
Cataclysm Leaks, Real ID, and Guild Leadership - WoW Weekly
Report
http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/newsletter/issue66
Our
World of Warcraft Weekly Report - The Overpull arrives every Tuesday
morning to cover the past week's news, features, and more here at Ten
Ton Hammer. Don't get caught behind, be sure to subscribe to The
Overpull so it zips to your inbox each week or stop on by and pick up
the latest copy on our website. This week's news includes some tidbits
about the Cataclysm Leak, Real ID, and Guild Leadership.
Today's
Hottest Articles, Guides, and Features
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc/rise-of-the-godslayer/preview">Age
of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Expansion - Launch Day
Preview - Ragnar
Tornquist Answers Ten Ton Hammer Reader Questions for The
Secret World -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/business/market_stampede">How
To Get Rich Off Market Stampedes In EVE Online -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/interviews/fallen-earth-downsizing">(Prairie)
Chicken Little Be Damned - An Exclusive Fallen
Earth Interview -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/cataclysm-alpha-leaked">Someone
Call Merry Maid - Cataclysm
Leaked All Over the Net -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/reviews/nvidia/3d_vision">Nvidia
3D Vision Review -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/reviews/guildleaders_handbook">The
Guild Leader's Handbook Review -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/podcasts/live/6/transcript">Ten
Ton Hammer Live Ep. 6 Transcript - David Georgeson on EverQuest
II -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/interviews/intro-scott-hartsman">Rift:
Planes of Telara Intro Q&A with Trion's Scott Hartsman - Exclusive
Fallen Earth Blood
Sports Developer Journal
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Benjamin J. de la Durantaye
and
the Ten Ton Hammer team
