I need to update the SPRY based multi level search tute, and a few other bits and bobs.

For now if you like an occasional blast away at like minded individuals on xbox or pc you might have ben slogging away through Modern Warfare 2 for the last few months. Some players get to Prestige 10  legitimately apparently- gawd knows how. Anyway no doubt they ar enow slopig over to BF Bad Company2. Had a go onthe Xbox of this- single player was OK but the multiplayer left me cold- think it might be better on PC- I tried xbox. Anyways here is a review!

1) First issue is if you try to install it anywhere but on a c: drive expect issues. The program does not appear on the start bar, the desktop or in the games explorer in Vista (32).

All these issues can be fixed by a c: drive install.

2) Once installed, don’t expect it to run easily- you start it from the Play button fired up from the DVD menu. Then it tells you to insert a valid disc in the drive! A work round for this is to run up the menu but don’t hit play, eject the dvd and insert dvd 2 inthe drive, this seems to then work oddly. However thats not a permanent fix.

The real fix for this is to install a Vist Hot fix available from the kaos website. However you need to install the 1.0.1 vista patch first and as the game won’t load you might be stuffed as it auto updates- though see bodge round in point one. The solution is to copy down the hotfix and the 1.0.1 patch to your PC as exe’s before installing the game- do a clean install then patch it then hotfix it.

This seems to sort all these issues out.

3) Finally if you have a Nvidia graphics card you may experience the game freezing every 20 seconds or so between bursts of running smoothly. As my sons PC is base don Nvidia GT8800 in SLI mode it might be an SLI problem only- I don’t know, however the fix for this is to grabe the Nvidia beta drivers for vista from the Nvidia website version 169.28

My original plan was to load the game on to my sons PC- this is much higher spec than mine- and less critical should anything bad happen. This I did and the Single player game run beautifully- looks glorious with the high spec Graphics (Twin Nvidia 8800GTS’s in SLi mode).

However Multiplayer was dire- ping was at lowest over 100ms and often more so no good. This is because his machine is on a wireless bridge. It doe snot seem to affect a lot of games but COD4 was unplayable. On the few times I got it going though I was getting kicked around 60 seconds in by Punkbuster. The error was initially indicating PunkBuster was not responding to the server.

I did a bit googling and found out that there are many and various issues here.

First Firewall: If you run one- and you probably should then you need to ensure UDP port 28962 is open both ways. If you can’t do this as you don’t understand firewalls, you don’t have the rights or whatever- the only thing I can suggest is (assuming you can) disable any firewall to all traffic while playing COD4 online. On my machine I run FSecure 2007 and I had to set up a specific service rule for Punkbuster- allow all networks bothways, All IP addresses UDP Port 28962 in and out.

Next having sorted this the reachability kicks stopped and the Restriction Service Communications Failure: PnkBstrB.exe initialisation failed errors started.

I would love to say I totally got tot he bottom of this but probably haven’t- however I do have it working.

First of version control: the version that comes with COD4 is well out of date, its meant to update automatically when online, but then if your having network problems your going to be stuffed there I reckon. You can go to the Evenbalance website and download PBSVC to install the service properly (you need to be running this as admin in Vista- right click the icon and select run as admin).

Next there is an updater which ensures you have the right versions for your game. You can download PBSETUP here. Its worth running this even if you think your installed OK because it runs through a test that dumps to your screen and lets you see any obvious issues.

Run this , select COD4 and let it do its thing- takes about 60 seconds to complete. You could if you like now try your game but I suspect you will be unsuccessful.

You probably are not aware (or maybe you are- so why read this!) but when PunkBuster installs the executables for the services reside in C:\windows\system32 (PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBstrB.exe). The former appears to be a resident service that runs all the time in your machine once its installed. The latter is initalised by the game, which in turn is detected by the former- ie, A detects the game is starting and kicks B into life. You can see PnkBstrA running as a service if you go into Control Panel/Admin tools/Services and list them alphabetically- it should be running. If its not investigate why- check the properties and ensure its running with high enough privileges, it needs admin rights. If it snot use the “log in as” tab and set it to run under an admin account.

Also there are potentially compatibility issues. You can try these- I did on the way to getting things working but have since turned them off. Righclick on your icon for COD4 Multiplayer and in the properties option, select the Compatibility Windows XP service Pack 2 Option. Also select Run as administrator in the check box at the bottom.

Do the same for PnkBstrA and PnkBstrB in your windows\system32 directory. Now as I say I have since turned off the Windows XP setting but you DO need to leave the run as admin in place. According to the Punkbuster FAQ at Evenbalance.com this is not necessary. Well I would dispute this as if I set mine back to run normally I get the error back within 60 seconds of starting a game.

Its worth playing around with these settings but just change one thing at a time to ensure you know whats having an affect.

Another factor in the problem I discovered is that in C:\windows\system32\logfiles\PunkBuster there are service logs- for the kernel, and services a and b. I found when i was getting the init error the logs were populated with the following:

[01.12.2008 21:50:34] ERROR: File “C:\Program Files\Activision\Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare\pb\PnkBstrB.exe” does not exist.

[01.12.2008 21:50:34] ERROR: C:\Program Files\Activision\Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare\pb\PnkBstrB.exe does not contain a valid certificate; Load denied.
[01.12.2008 21:50:39] ERROR: Ignoring load request coming within a few seconds of prior load

The first error seems to suggest a missing file in the COD game – and indeed it did not exist but how it gets there looks to be down to the game running under admin privs. Its not as far as I can tell just a matter of copying the file there are there appear to be other files spawned here too. Again- don’t be afraid to try at worst you can delete them again! The second error appears to indicate a security issue. You can see the certificates associated withthe programs in the Security tab in the file properties- both seem OK, again it appears to be an admin rights thing.

Having tried this the game appears to run OK, however on my first session of about 30 minutes I suffered a total hang of my PC which takes me back to my opening lines that I probably should not run this on this PC, as I ended up having to hard reset it. This is the first total hang/crash I have had under Vista I have to say. Tomorrow, armed with this info I am going to tackle my sons machine again so at least it does not get the Punk Buster Issues, the high ping will be solved when I get some Ethernet over Mains adapters this week.

Have now decided to venture on line, much as I really enjoy gaming, I am a bit crap in competitive online games, of aany type to be frank but probably moreso on the console. I seem t lack the required finesse in my movements, usually over shooting the ideal position so missing my targets. Noen the less got off to a reasonable statr online in Halo3. Won a handful of games in the training matches, though was seriously humped in a few too. Have now ventured onto the ranked matches and so far done OK. Came second- nearly winning one match and  mid placed in a couple of others.

A cool feature with HALO3 is the ability to upload images to bungie which you can then pull off on your PC, So for a starter- here is me with a spiker in campaign mode. I really only uploaded this to see how it came out- I will try get some more imaginitive ones for the blog later.

Had a game of team survival on Rainbow 6 Vegas and the guys playing were very cagey about me ( a relative noob- only pfc rank) hitting the A button. However in what was an otherwise reasonable game I discovered they were playing on a glitch that allows the host to keep everyone in the ranked match but to repetitively restart the game thus getting everyone loads of experience points and rankups.

I am not going to detail how its done as other people have more detailed write ups than I could provide- try here- this is about as explicit a posting of how it works…. enjoy your new rank ups! Having been through this once I benefited slightly I am now rank: Specialist but don’t think I could be bothered with doing this all the time, plus it rather defeats the point of the game.

Managed to get GoW finished on the Xbox360. Beating Master Hellborg95 into second place too- he couldn’t beat Ramm the boss on the train in Act 5. I showed him how to do it though- twice!

The site is ProcessLibrary.com and it contains a useful download which attaches itself to your Task Manager allowing you to directly access info on the web about any proces sliste din the Task manager.

Highly recommended.