Tag Archives: gaming

Free Software, Gaming, Screen Capture

Capture Game Photos and Videos

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Part of the fun of playing a video game on a PC is sharing in-game photos with friends. Until FRAPS came along, the process was quite complicated. With FRAPS, capturing a photo while playing a game is as easy as a keystroke. FRAPS isn’t new, it’s been around for a few years but you may not have heard of it. Here are some shots from Far Cry, an older game but still one of the favorites around this office:

 

Photo of FRAPS 1
One of the ghost ‘copters that can’t be destroyed but never attacks.

 

FRAPS 2
We like to collect vehicles and boats. These are all one owner vehicles…

 

Download FRAPS here:  FRAPS  and install it. Directions are easy to follow, just make sure you start FRAPS before you start the game. You can choose to have the frame rate shown on your game screen, the original purpose of FRAPS, and then choose to record stills or videos. We’ve found FRAPS to be foolproof, simple and a great tool to test out your computer and/or new video card.

TIP: FRAPS saves stills as BMP files, rather large file size. If you’re going to post or share images, open each one up in Irfanview and change them over to JPGs. File size in the JPG format, because it is a compression or ‘lossy’ system, is much smaller.

Thanks for reading!

Gaming, GT5, NASCAR Series

Gran Turismo 5 – The benefits of practicing

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It’s an off-day today so we’re trying to set up a car to win the NASCAR Series in GT5. There are several very descriptive posts on the different game sites but the one thing that we find most helpful is the practice track.

If you’re racing the NASCAR Series, you can win or place near the top in every race except the last one, the Daytona track. Why? We’re not sure but maybe the AI (Artificial Intelligence) figures if you haven’t won by now, it will make it tough to win there at Daytona. What’s the secret? Well, we’ve found that running practice laps helps tremendously.

In one of the earlier races, the Lamborghini race on the Rome Circuit, we had a tough time skidding out on the sharp right hander near the start. The car we used was slippery as an eel but very powerful, over 800 horsepower. Unless we slowed down almost to a stop, we’d lose control and finish dead last. We decided to run some practice laps, going fast without the adrenaline that you get when you’re racing other cars. That worked perfectly. We were able to win in an excellent time, way ahead of the pack.

The secret to the NASCAR Series seems to be part tuning and part simply not hitting the wall. Daytona is set up in a circle, more or less, and the corners aren’t sharp at all. If you have your ground effects set up correctly, you should be able to  go full throttle around the track with no braking at all. That alone will get you into the pack if your other settings are fine. However, the one thing that will surely make you finish way behind the pack is…hitting the wall. Keep your eye on the guys behind you when you hit the wall. They jump ahead almost instantly. This happens in the other races too but it’s very obvious here at Daytona. Additionally, once you hit the wall it’s very difficult to pull off of it.

The best racing line is to be close to the wall on the straights, of course. Different sites tell you to stick to the yellow line so you won’t get bumped by other drivers but the yellow line isn’t anywhere near the best racing line. This isn’t important at all on other tracks but it’s vitally important at Daytona in this particular race. The AI is completely different here so don’t assume that lots of horsepower will win the day. Just stay off the wall and you’ll finish higher than last.

Practice, practice and practice some more. We like the view with no car showing but that makes it a bit tough to know exactly where the wall is. Practice with the different views, even the one of the whole car, to find out which one allows you to stay close to, but not on, the wall. No matter how careful you are, you will probably drift close to the wall. If you can learn to avoid hitting it, you’ll be able to maintain your speed. If you find yourself drifting towards the wall on the corners, try hitting your brakes while keeping your accelerator full on. Your revs will stay up but you’ll lose just a bit of speed, hopefully enough to avoid the wall which would slow you down even more.

Winning the first three races is easy, just keep your ground effects lowered to the bottom on Indy and the High Speed Ring and drive to the start in the second race and stay there. Make sure you are dead straight before you accelerate, specially at the start until your SOFT tires heat up. Make sure you’re using soft racing tires in all races. Maybe not the last one, now that we think of it. We’ll try it with hard racing to see if there is a difference. Daytona is a 10 lap race and the hard tires might give a bit of an advantage in straight speed. We’ll check and get back to you on this.

Good luck! We love GT5 here at Computers Made Simple.

Thanks for reading!

 

Gaming, GT5

Quickest way to a million credits in GT5 (Gran Turismo 5)

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Here’s a short post on getting a million credits FAST in GT5.

1. Sign in to the Playstation Network every day. After five days, the credits and driving skill increases you receive are doubled (200%). Even if you don’t race every day, sign in every day to maintain the 200% bonus in experience and credits.

2. Get your B-Spec drivers up to around 25 to 30 by entering them in a lot of races early on. As your skill increases in A-Spec, you can add more drivers. Four is really all you need, although I have six. Get four solid drivers in your stable and you’re on your way to some big pay days.

2. Buy the Audi R8 Race Car ’01. It comes up every now and then in the used car department, price is 4,250,000 credits.

3. Remember to change the oil in every used car you buy and remember to change the oil after about ten races…religiously. Your wins will increase just from this small detail.

4. Using the engine adjustment tool in your tuning garage, tune the engine down to 650 PP (Power Points). Leave everything else stock.

5. Head over to the Seasonal Events and enter any of the B-Spec 650 events. Right now, June 2012, the third event 650 PP race run at the Suzuka course nets you 519,900 times the 200% bonus for a winning total of 1,039,800 credits in about 20 minutes. The Seasonal events all have much bigger payouts than the normal races. If you haven’t been online, you’ve been missing out. First, the payouts are huge plus you can buy cars from the Online Dealership. Some cars are only available at that dealership. They don’t change too often, about once a month or so, but there are some real honeys there.

6. Enter the race to see what cars you’re up against. If there is a McLaren at the head of the pack, your chances aren’t great but you can win if you babysit the driver. Back out of the race and re-enter it immediately to bring up a different selection of opponents.  Depending on the skill of your drivers, mine are all around 34 by now with a total B-Spec rating of 40, you can beat any group of cars you come up against. With the Fords at the head, you can pretty much leave your driver alone for all or most of the race. When you come back after fifteen or eighteen minutes you should be at or near the front.

7. Tweak your drivers and the cars they race against and you should be on your way to 3 million credits every hour, more or less. Remember to change the oil on the Audi fairly often or it won’t be able to get to the front of the pack.

The Suzuka circuit is one of the more fun tracks so if you want to grind out your own money, drive the Audi yourself in A-Spec. The car is very forgiving and very fast. After a couple of laps in it, you’ll see that it’s one of the prime cars in GT5. The other Audi R8, the later model one, isn’t as fast or as smooth as the ’01.

Good luck and thanks for reading!

P.S. I’ve been thinking of joining a GT5 forum to share some of my experience with other GT5 players. I may write more posts on GT5 so stay tuned.