Tera Online: After the Merge

We went from 6+ servers to 2. One PvE and one PvP server. That says a lot, especially since they just recently released console ports of the game.

So how is it after the server merges?

IT'S THE SAME LOL.

My beloved archer. I forgot to tone down the skin complexion a bit. She's so fair, when the sun shines on her it leaves an afterimage.

V e l i k a 

Also since the servers were merged, a lot of players were condensed into one server. That means it's fairly easier to get into lvl 50 instances. Low level instances are still shit though, might as well level up and solo them later on.

Only Tera allows grown up men to play as little girls. That's a tad disturbing. But you don't want to hear that from a guy playing as a high elf.

Wingman

Mountain climbing is fun to do, but like the irl activity, it takes time.

So, should you play Tera Online after the server merge? Yes, you should!

PC Building Fatigue

I've brought, traded, and sold individual parts and computers just to build two more systems for me and a potential background artist afk render rig. Currently I have three computers in my bedroom. One I use for my games and game dev. The other two are incomplete and I'm just alternating between them for testing.

Look at my waifu inside a case that gets 50-60c hot on full load. Surprisingly she hasn't melted yet. With an all AMD build, that's really surprising. That video card runs hot even on idle, but then again it's a Strix card so it doesn't have its fan active all the time.

K E T C H U P C A B L E S that I had to press the side panel onto because they were bulging real bad.

What do I mean by AFK render right you might ask. The goal here is to build the scenes in my Ryzen system, then render it in the AFK render rig so I can move on making another scene, or if that someone I would want to depend on for background does agree to work for me, it's gonna be her workstation. Here's the AFK render rig in progress:

Look at that almost 8 year old OEM Alienware X79 board. So clean and shiny with an obscure Intel Xeon E5-2637 processor installed. That shit is so obscure my benchmark of it was the first ever recorded in Passmark history. I should post a review of this OEM board soon.

Having an OEM X79 board with a reputable name like "Dell" being supplied by a reputable company called "MSI" is better than just picking up a brand new X79 Huanan board from Aliexpress. Oh Huanan, the Russians love you so much. Apparently Huanan is a reputable manufacture in the PRC. Currently their X79 boards have 4(?) models. They sure are taking advantage of the "used server chips" market.

Housing it is an equally old Coolermaster USP-100 case, though my dad and I double teamed it and drilled holes on the top for a 240mm rad or just hot air exhaust. 

Does this remind you of that sort of a meme phobia involving lots of small holes? At least we got the fan screws right.

Holy fuck why X79? Because X79 offers $100 used workstation/server processors that can beat up my Ryzen 5-1600 despite being 8, 8 FUCKING YEARS OLDER. Also I got DDR3 RAM lying around so I'd rather use those rather than spend $200 ON A SINGLE PROCESSOR and ANOTHER $200 FOR 16GB OF DDR4 RAM. Papa bless I found this sweet X79 deal at a local dealer. Now I just need to order a E5-2670 or E5-2680 because the bundle E5-2637 is with blender (2 cores 4 threads? Who in their right mind would render with that? Am I a student on a laptop? Lol no).

Moving on to another PC, my artist (please support him on Patreon if you like his content) is almost done with his (it's with me at the moment). BIG COOLERS ARE A MUST, at least for a Core i7. I was really worried because it was running 90c with the stock cooler but apparently I didn't secure the stock cooler securely while I was testing the thing. I've always hated the push-pin design on Intel's stock coolers. 

It's green for now. The board doesn't have an RGB header but at least the case has a built-in controller.

That red led strip built in the motherboard is gonna complicate aesthetics. 

Another complication is the limited space for high-length GPUs, like the triple fan high-end model (lol high-end = high-length). I'll be sure to select a dual fan model, and that's usually MSI or Gigabyte. Zotac makes single fan models of high end cards so that's final choice. But a mini GPU on an ATX board inside a mid-tower case looks stupid...

Currently his build has the following parts:

• Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3 motherboard
• Intel Core i7-4790 3.60ghz, max 4.0ghz CPU
• Deepcool Gammaxx GT 120mm tower cooler.
• Seasonic Focus G 700w PSU
• Deepcool Earlkase v1 mid-tower case.

That WLAN card is mine so I'm not including that in the list lol. 

And oh, remember when I said I'll be posting benchmarks for the X3460 build? None of that will ever be posted because I sold that computer to help fund my Ryzen build and that really long vacation with my stateside relatives. 

At least I know it's in good hands, being used for photoshop and stuff. Funny thing is its current owner owns an internet cafe but still brought that old piece of hardware for his daughter <3 how sweet. ;_; too bad I sold my favorite Aerocool GT black case with it. That's one computer case that I loved. 

I'm tired, I just want all of this done.

RIP: Project Rothera Dev Blog

I made a bet once that if this blog surpasses my original dev blog, I'm gonna nuke the dev blog. Welp, it did. So I finally nuked the dev blog. Here are its stats.

Okay. Lemme cry myself to sleep. It was almost 10 years worth of dev and cringe.

Building A Cheap 8-Core PC: 2009 Vintage Xeon Build "KANZASHI" Part 1

A light gaming and rendering build. Slapped in a Zotac 750ti as I save funds for a K4200 Quadro.

Processor: Intel Xeon X3460 2.8Ghz - $60 equivalent, from a certain buy and sell website

Graphics Card: Zotac GTX 750ti 2Gb GDDR5 - $100 equivalent, from old rig

Motherboard: Asus P7H55M-LX - Free, old board  

Memory: 8gb (2x4) Samsung DDR3 1600mhz, -$40, down clocked to 1333mhz

Power Supply: Generic local 700w PSU, $10 

SSD: ADATA SU800 180gb - $60 

HDD: Seagate 500gb - $40

Fans: 2x Generic PWM 80mm fans, $4 

Case: Ancient case from old pre-built computer. Spray painted it flat black.

No, I don't have videos. Just a series of pictures.

The Xeon X3460 in its LGA 1156 socket.

Deepcool Ice Edge Mini FS 2.0 95W TDP cooler. This is the reason why I can't overclock the X3460 to 4.0ghz. I don't have any headroom to OC, for now.

Testing the Xeon with even older hardware. Turns out that PSU was having power delivery issues. Good thing it worked for this round of testing. The card in the picture is a Sapphire 6570 4gb DDR3 since the Xeon X3460 doesn't have integrated graphics.

The fans are remarkably cheap, considering they're 4pin PWM. The only downside is they're loud AF.

   

The Xeon in it's new home. I should have used metallic black instead of flat black. It's really absorbing light. Also ketchup and mustard wires.

I like ducts ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) too bad the duct blocks the 80mm fan attached to the side panel.

So naturally I had to remove the duct. Blue motherboard, blue cooler, blue fans. But the case doesn't have good cable management so there's wires strewn everywhere. I'll get braided extensions or a true-rated PSU with braided wires. Maybe a better case and cooler later. Kek are there blue SATA cables?

And it runs surprisingly cool considering how small the cooler is.

Benchmarks to follow in a separate blog post. Meanwhile, I'm still doing game dev in my 7850K APU. And that modern CPU runs really hot even with water cooling. Meanwhile is 2009 vintage processor runs 20 degrees cooler in idle and under load. Wew. Intel got their efficiency game on point.

Tera Online in 2018: How Does it Hold Up?

Before you talk to me about the new Godsfall update, let me talk to you about my 97 hours in the Lost Realm.

Honestly I don't know how to structure this blog post. So let's just answer a few questions instead.

Should you play for the graphics? 8/10 YES.
Should you play for the character/character creation? 7/10 YES.

Should you play for fashion and vanity? 10/10 YES.

Actually 5/10 because most of the fashion items are cash shop, and if they're available at auction, you'll probably need to farm a month of gold before you can buy them. Not to mention most of the cloth armor in game is kind of lewd and not really okay for a prude like me who prefers the costumes you'll usually get in Aura Kingdom.

Elves really look good with braids though.

Should you play for the gameplay? 7/10 YES. THIS GAME CAN MAKE YOU DESTROY YOUR PERIPHERALS WITH ALL THE KEYS YOU ARE PRESSING.

Is the community/player base still alive? 8/10 YES. There are still lots of active players and guilds online.

So overall, should you still play Tera Online in 2018? Yes, provided you have a PC that can play it in full, otherwise if you end up with quality like in the following capture, forget it.