Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is the most significant change in the Sins universe since the original release. Not only are there twice as many factions to choose from but the already impressive scale of warfare gets a big boost with the introduction of the Titan class ships which absolutely dwarf the existing capital ships (see in screenshot a favorite TEC battle cruiser class capital ship).

Not surprising, the Sins of a Solar Empire engine (the Iron Engine) required a significant upgrade to deliver these spectacular enhancements in scale.

If you don’t have Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity already --  get it now.  It’ll be the only way to get into the beta for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion which is due out this Fall.

Here’s a quick demo I did of Tiles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dPmRbyAY5s&feature=youtu.be

• Developer: Stardock Software
• Availability: Fall 2011
• Will be part of Object Desktop 2012

So what video games are you playing these days?

I’ve got Star Wars, The Old Republic (Collector’s Edition) on pre-order.  Looking forward to getting HOMM 6 and Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

I’m currently playing Fallen Enchantress.

Was trying to figure out why my windows are resizing so slow and then I realized that my new PC, with a state of the art video card, is not running WindowBlinds yet. 

Most people think of WindowBlinds as eye candy and that’s really a shame. For me, these days, the fact it turns things over to DirectX and double buffers so everything is crazy smooth is key.

I was hoping that Windows Vista, then Windows 7 would catch up in this area. The fact Microsoft hasn’t fixed this year makes Windows look bad. You shouldn’t need WindowBlinds to make Windows function as it should.

It would be like having to download an Android app to get the display smoothness as good as an iPad/iPhone (of course, there isn’t such an app, Google just needs to fix it).  Microsoft needs to fix this.

If I wasn’t afraid of Android users (and I am), I’d say that WindowBlinds is akin to making an Android display as smooth as an iOS display.

In the meantime, get WindowBlinds.

So Stardock is working on its successor to Impulse. As some of you know, Stardock sold Impulse to Gamestop this past spring.  Stardock is out of the digital distribution – for third parties – business.

So with the knowledge that we’ll only have our own stuff to purchase, download, and update, we’ve been building something new. And guess what? It’s practically invisible.  I don’t even have a cool screenshot to show you because, well, there’s not much there. It’s just about updating “your Stardock stuff”, largely automatically, largely in the background (all options of course). 

This isn’t default? Jesus. So I recently discovered the wonders of AHCI and decided to look at how my Toad-2009 machine was set up.  Sure enough, IDE.  My wonderful Intel SSD drive was fast and could copy the WinSXS directory onto itself at 30MB/sec.  Switching the bios to AHCI however changed that to 50MB/sec. 

So for 2 years, I’ve been getting half the drive performance I could have been getting because the PC manufacturers still default to IDE.  Heck, why stop there? Why not use MFM or something too “just to be safe”.

Grrr.

Got my brand new monster machine up and running. Now to start loading software onto it. First stop, Object Desktop. Now, I’m not saying you have to have Object Desktop on Windows to do work. I mean, I’m sure my aunt or mom could function without it.  Maybe. But for people who actually use Windows, I just can’t imagine functioning without it.

I used to get a new PC every year. But we’ve so long been in diminishing returns of noticeable performance that I’ve stopped doing that.

So first off, my new monster machine has a 240GB OCZ SSD and a traditional 1TB Seagate drive. I ordered a SATA 6G controller with the machine. Naturally, they had hooked the non-SSD to that (ack).

Second, the machine supports the new AHCI standard which, when enabled, gives about a 20% boost to write performance on any drive. However, it MUST be enabled in bios before installing. If you do it after, you have to reinstall Windows 7 and it's not on by default as I discovered.

Third, while Windows 7 works like a champ out of the box, it turns out that the generic drivers are pretty conservative and if you want to eek out max (and measurable) performance, you need to download drivers for system components like the Intel AHCI Controller (or better yet, an nVidia one), as well as a JMicron controller and of course you'll need the Marvell controller driver if you want to actually access that 6G speed (otherwise it's 3G).

Fourth, Windows 7 still doesn't come (even in SP1) with USB 3 drivers so you have to install them separately.

Fifth, since I ordered a custom system from Cyberpower, the front case USB 3 connectors do nothing because...the motherboard doesn't have any connectors to it, only ones on the back. So I'd need to get a separate USB 3 PCIe card, put it in, tear apart the case to connect those things on the front. Unbelieveable.

Sixth, once you get into looking into updating drivers, you realize that there’s a ton of obscure stuff that can be updated/improved…the network card works out of the box and I would have not realized how much better the specific driver was if I wasn't already diving around for drivers anyway. The difference is how fast they connect on bootup (very noticeable now that I've seen it).

Don’t get me wrong, I'm loving the machine's speed. It's sick fast. 12 cores (well, really 6 but hyperthreaded). That'll make compile speeds insane. And "real world" copy from drive A to drive B on here is about 600 MEGABYTES per second (which doesn't come up often but if you're moving a lot of video around, it's very nice).

And one piece of advice for those of you looking to get a custom PC: Get the quiet components. This thing is quieter than my Mac book Pro.

I miss Impulse. I really do.  I also think that it would have wiped out Stardock’s games unit if it had gone on for another year. Profit is something all businesses strive for – within reason.  The problem is, profit can become such an overwhelming motivating factor that it can warp all other considerations.  Was Stardock making games in order to make cool games or what it making games to enhance the installed base of Impulse?  By the end of 2010, it was starting to get blurry.

Now, we live in a world where we still keep an eye on the bottom line but it is a much more abstract, long-term concept.  I don’t have to care about the profitability of Fallen Enchantress, for example. It would be great if it makes a ton of money. But our primary objective for it will be to be seen as the #1 PC strategy game of the current age.  And we’re willing to do what it takes, even if it doesn’t make short-term business sense, to make that happen.

Moreover, I’ve forbidden any PR on it. I’ve been nixxing interviews and preview shots being sent out. ONLY when the beta goes out does the press or anyone get stuff.  Because, and I shouldn’t say this, but many members of the press are friends of mine and they have great integrity and it’s important that tends of thousands of users, who have the beta in hand, will be in a position to back up the early previews that yes, Fallen Enchantress delivers the goods.

Let me put it another way, in 2012, if you want to play a modern PC, turn-based fantasy strategy game. Fallen Enchantress better be the #1 choice, by far, or we failed.