My PC Perspective audition tape...

Ok, that's a little overshooting for the title of this post, but here's a video of me rebuilding my computer in PC Perspective style:

(unofficially) PC Perspective System Rebuild from Jack Zhang on Vimeo.

Disclaimer in video and on video page.

A world apart, not a world together

We hear today that Kim Peek, the guy who was the inspiration for the character Dustin Hoffman played in "Rain Man" has died.

Then, I hear today of something that I cannot spread to the public at the moment. It has affected me to become passive for the next few days.

I will say this though, it reinforces the quote "A world apart, not a world together." rather than the more positive "A world together, not a world apart."

General Purpose Ustream Show up

This is for general stuff not related to TF2, it's also in 720p HD.

As of the day I posted this post, right now it's playing a video of me finishing a drawing called "Spy's sappin my VT5".

Updated the blog template to fit bigger videos

If you noticed my blog got a bit wider, you're right.

To accommodate the 640x360 embeds I'll be placing from here on out, this blog is now WIDER than before.

And since most people are now using higher resolution widescreen displays, this move should have been made a while ago.

I'm Ustreaming now

In the best interest of curiosity, I have managed to get a Ustream account and am streaming my TF2 playing sessions.



So, if you want to see me play TF2, this is the place.

My attempt at trying to be "The Tech Guy"

Jack Zhang: The Tech Guy from Jack Zhang on Vimeo.

Disclaimer on video page.

Proof that I am in the TV program

...is here.

First image... that's me on there.

It's nearing the end of the semester, so exams loom upon us...

Windows 7 Problems and Solutions

When it comes to problems in Windows 7, it is obviously not bug free.

It seems like TF2 isn't as stable as it should be in 7 since it crashes possibly due to a GPU Memory Leak since Aero takes up over 100MB of GPU memory and we all know TF2 is highly inefficient when it comes to GPU memory.

In some multi-stage levels (like Goldrush or Dustbowl) it gets up to 600 or 700MB of used GPU memory. So, the action to fix this: turn off Aero. But it is a recoverable crash from the Game Engine and not from the 7 drivers so it doesn't crash the system.

AudioDG.exe was carried over from Vista to 7, and along with it comes the problem of it being a CPU hog. It's the same fix for this as it was on Vista: Go to Playback Devices after right clicking the speaker icon in the taskbar, go into the properties of each audio device and under the enhancements tab, check the box that says "Disable all sound effects".

Those are a few Problem/Solutions for Windows 7, I have yet to encounter a unfixable problem in 7, other than my Jmicron SSD controller sucking when it comes to small writes (but that's hardware).

Oh yeah, did I mention I'm running 7 on a (cheap) SSD now? 100MB/s read speed makes TF2 and it's levels load in and around 7 seconds now. SO FAST. (yet so slow on the writes)