[Tuturial] Remove PhysX Logo

More and more lately games are utilizing the PhysX technology which is great.  Anything that makes the eye candy in our games is a treat.  But for some reason they decided that it (I don't know who they are) would be a great idea to constantly remind us which games had physX built into it.  Real quick I'm going to show you how to remove the logo so you can get back to uninterrupted gaming as usual.

The video is pretty quick, so be prepared to have to pause if you need to.  Any questions, comments, or concerns, are welcome.

[Hardware] Christmas PC Gaming Build (~$1000)

Here's a short video showing the components to build a sub $1000 gaming PC build just in time for Christmas.

[Hardware] Best Creative Budget Gaming Build ($500)

I was browsing youtube and came across a budget build guide that I feel is one of the best and creative I've seen.  Best?  Creative?  Well I feel it's one of the best because most sites will say they'll get you a super inexpensive build but they usually sit you down in the $600 department.

The one and only  jwolf2277 managed to get his budget gaming PC build in at a whopping $500 with the operating system!  Now that's a deal especially when you consider this is gonna have better specs then the next generation of consoles and gonna have a cheaper starting price.  Now to the creative.  I find his build to be a little more creative because he doesn't auto recommend you to all the latest and shiniest components on the shelves right now.  Recommending the Pentium G630 as a CPU was genius in my opinion.  This low price starting point is excellent to dive in at and gives you the same socket to move up to the more mainstream CPUs later as an option.

He really did us a favor on that and you should leave a like on his video to show him the appreciation and work done here.  Even though this build won't satisfy the PC vets by a long shot, it is a highly competent gaming PC that will play games at 1080p with good to great visual settings and leaves the user room to grow.  Overall, I would have to recommend this build to anyone wanting to get their feet wet in PC gaming.

Obviously this build is good at the time of writing but may not be so in 6 months.  If you have any questions, ideas, or thoughts, be sure to leave a comment and I will try to address them.

[Tuturial] Steam No Font Fix

If you're having the problem where when you start Steam in Wine and you can't see any fonts or text this may help you.  This guide will show you how to fix the problem using Play On Linux.  Feel free to ask questions.

NOTE: This is for Steam installs that run in Wine only.  Not the new native Steam client for Linux.

The no text bug looks something like this.

Can be very annoying.  Especially if you want to use Steam for anything besides launching your game.

1.  Start by opening up PlayOnLinux.

2.  Select the Steam install that you want to fix the fonts for.

3.  Press the configure button.

4.  You'll get a screen that will look like the one below.  Type in:

 -no-dwrite 

That should be it.

Try launching Steam now.  You should have all your text/fonts displayed the way they should be.

[Tuturial] LMMS Shortcut Fix

When installing Linux Multimedia Studio (LMMS) to Ubuntu with Unity the shortcut does not get installed to the dash or desktop.  Here's a quick fix to that I found on here on AskUbuntu.com.

Code to copy and paste to .desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Linux MultiMedia Studio
GenericName=music production suite
GenericName[ca]=Programari de producció musical
GenericName[de]=Software zur Musik-Produktion
Comment=easy music production for everyone!
Comment[ca]=Producció fàcil de música per a tothom!
Icon=lmms
Exec=lmms
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Qt;AudioVideo;Audio;Midi;
MimeType=application/x-lmms-project;

[Software] The Best Linux Emulators 2012

Do you got an itch to play some of those games that you so fondly remember as a child knee high to a grasshopper? Emulators is where it's at.  With emulators you can turn your Linux desktop into a Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, Atari 2600, or almost any other console, DOS environment, or arcade cabinet you can think of.  Below I compiled what I think is worth your time for each of the main system and linked you to the website.

I chose each of these emulators based on popularity.  Why popularity?  Because the more popular it is in the open source community, the better your chances of getting updates, fixes, and support.  Also there's a good chance that it will be a packaged version ready to download for the different Ubuntu / Debian desktops out there.  I would recommend that you start with your software center or package manager before googling.  If you can't find it then head over to the PlayDeb website and add it from there.  (You will have to add the PlayDeb repository once, but after that everything on playdeb should show up in your software center.)  Quick disclaimer from my legal department, lol.  Emulators aren't an exact science yet.  That means while these should work in theory but not all games and roms will run the way they're supposed to.  Google my friends.  Happy gaming!

Playstation 2
pcsx2

Playstation 1
pcsx

Nintendo 64
mupen64plus

Super Nintendo
zsnes

Gameboy Color
gngb

Nintendo DS
desmume

Gameboy Advance:
vba-m

Gamecube / Wii / Triforce
dolphin

Sega Genesis / MegaDrive
gens/gs

Sega Saturn
yabause

Atari 2600
stella

Arcade
mame

** UPDATE **
I couldn't get bsnes to recognize most of my Super Nintendo roms and zsnes is only available for 32bit Linux.  So here's a ling to install snes9x-gtk.  This will work on 64bit Linux.

https://launchpad.net/~bearoso/+arch...ric1_amd64.deb

[Hardware] Newegg TV: PC Maintenance and Optimization

Newegg TV gives some really good to know information on how to optimize and upkeep your PC in this funny PSA style video.

[News] New Facebook Page!

I have a new Facebook page to help you keep up with updates to this website.  Please go there and support us by hitting the like button.

OsirezTech on Facebook

[Tuturial] Fix Sound Settings App In Ubuntu 12

There's a bug in Ubuntu 12 that causes the sound app in system settings to crash.  It seems like it only is effected by USB audio devices but I can't confirm this.  If you have this problem, hope this helps.

[Tuturial] Unity Dissapears After Reboot

I'm not sure if this is a big problem in general or just some isolated incidents but there seems like there's a definite problem with Nvidia drivers and Ubuntu 12.10.  I've isntalled the latest version of Ubuntu several times and have come up with the same problem every time.  Once you install the proprietary drivers for Nvidia and reboot it seems Unity and Compiz decide they're not going to be coming to work today.  After doing some digging, I found what seems to be the problem.

I'm not a kernel expert or even really remotely knows what goes on at that level but from what I understand someone left the kernel headers out for the Nvidia drivers. What does that mean to me and you in regular people terms?  Simple.  It doesn't work.  I would like to thank KAding for the resolution over at the Ubuntu Forums.  If you would like to read the thread yourself go >here<.

Here's what the fix looks like though:

Bring up your terminal by pressing:

• ctrl+alt+t.

Type:

• sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic
• sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current
• sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
• reboot

NOTE: Some quick things to know.

1. Make sure you put YOUR kernel version in the command above. If you dont know it type "uname -r" in the terminal.
2. It seems at least for me when I type "sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current", I get zero as the results returned.  Doesn't seem to matter though.
3. This only seemed to effect me on 12.10.  Didn't have this problem on 12.04.

 
Hopefully after the reboot Unity will be back in all its glory, or lack thereof depending on who are.

[News] HP bets big on Linux | PCWorld

Several hardware manufacturers have supported Linux distros in some capacity.  The reason I see this as "news" is because with Steam making its platform native to Linux, Nvidia officially ramping up its drivers, and this HP news, it looks like Linux may get a lot of love in 2013.  This could lead to better support and more big name applications possibly finding their way over to Ubuntu or others. Let's hope.

HP bets big on Linux | PCWorld:

'via Blog this'

[News] The Gaming Near Future

Gabe Newell of Valve has been openly venting his displeasure for newly released Windows 8. He's been quoted as saying that “I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space,” Valve engineer Drew Bliss elaborates on this at the Ubuntu Summit in Copenhagen pointing out that Apple has a pretty much a closed economy and environment with their OS app store and Windows is headed in the same direction.

It is more than obvious at this point how Steam feels about the current state of gaming with the recent comments like these. Valve who is a leader in the PC gaming community holds a lot of weight, and when they speak people listen. They are the default go to game store on this platform for good reason. I think they feel like they're being squeezed out by Apple and Microsoft.  They're essentially elbowing their way into Valve's market space.

This situation would normally turn out bad for consumers resulting in possibly multi-billion dollar court cases, broken relationships, and the gamer taking on these effects through increased prices and/or less consumer content. But fortunately for us Valve has done what I consider the single most important thing for gaming since the release of the Nintendo way back when.  Drum roll please and wait for it...  Development for Valve on Ubuntu!  It is in the beta stages right now and has been received with a lot enthusiasm.  I personally am very excited and have tried it out for myself.

Steam (beta) running on Ubuntu 12.04

Now I couldn't get any of the Source games to run through this client yet (you have to be a beta tester) but I did manage to download the World of Goo demo and play it just fine.  No issues at all.

This could be a major game changer for PC gaming.  When game developers finally figure out their is a market for gaming under the Linux platform maybe they'll stop riding their high horse and start making games for it, without excuse.  Matter of fact, I think I'll even say that if games are successfully developed for Ubuntu, you could see them as a more recognizable name with Windows and OSX.  Not only that, more and more of the average desktop user will consider Ubuntu.

Information taken from Valve Engineer Drew Bliss Explains Why They Favor Linux Over Windows
Read more at http://gamingbolt.com/valve-engineer-drew-bliss-explains-why-they-favor-linux-over-windows#rXmXHbKEOE4ifKFZ.99 Of course these are my opinions and you're free as usual to leave yours below in the comments.  Happy gaming!