I’ve been playing quite a bit of AOE2 of late; and one recurrent problem while running the (now dated, but still going strong) game on Windows 7 (or Vista) has been an issue with map colors. The colors on the map look muddled, grainy and ugly on 7 and Vista, kind of as if they have been inverted. After a bit of research into the issue, I finally arrived at a working solution.

No, updating the graphics driver or Direct X does not work. First, what you need to do is navigate to the ‘age2_x1.exe’ or whichever exe file is associated with the game for you, right click on it, go to the ‘Compatibility’ tab and select ‘Run in compatibility mode for Windows XP (SP2), ‘Disable Visual Themes’, ‘Disable Desktop Composition’ and ‘Disable Display Scaling on High DPI Settings’. This might just do the trick, if you’re lucky. But if you’re not, like me (which is quite a high possibility), read on.

For some people, minimizing the game just after it starts up and then maximizing it again sets the colors straight. But it didn’t for me; what worked for me instead was to open up Process Explorer with Ctrl+Alt+Del after starting the game up, ending the process ‘explorer.exe’ and switching back to the game with Alt+Tab. This did the trick, and should work for most people.

This solution can also be automated without the need for having to go through the process of terminating explorer.exe before starting the game and rerunning it each time the game ends; this can be done by creating a batch file with the instructions fed to it. To do so, create a new notepad file with the following content:

taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
EMPIRES2.EXE
Start explorer.exe

{if you have the regular AOE2, or)

taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
age2_x1.exe
Start explorer.exe

{for AOE2 Expansion}

Then save it as a batch file, say ‘AOE_fixed.bat’ and then copy it to the folder where the EMPIRES2.exe or age2_x1.exe file exists. Then you may create a shortcut for the batch file on the desktop or elsewhere and then double click on it to launch the game whenever you want. Cheers

Original post at: http://smnitb.blogspot.com/2010/02/running-aoe2-smoothly-on-windows-7vista.html

Some times you experience slow copy and load times on your computer. This could be a problem with your hard disk. Hard disk problems on your computer need excess attention. A crashed hard disk takes away a lot of important data on your computer that you cannot afford loosing.

Signs of a hard disk going down:

1. Long copy and load times. Copy times are measured with data like simple video clips, music and pictures. Software installations and other such folders that contain huge number of files take long times.

2. Click sounds from a hard disk.

3. Spin up and down sounds from a hard disk. constant spin retries

4. Folders take long time to open. Computer gets slow (you can’t think of any other problem).

5. Temperatures more than 55 degrees is a danger sign. Check temperature with HD tune. Ideal temperature depends on the room temperature.

6. Frozen computer, with no mouse activity.

7. Millisecond loops in media (music and videos).

HD tune is a free hard disk benchmark tool that can help detect problems. The normal graph on it should look like the screen shot below. Nature of graph is always going down and no major sudden deviations in the middle. If the transfer rate drops to a very low value frequently, you have something to worry about.

BRAIN TRAINING

Lumosity is a website that features simple and addictive flash based games to help you keep your brain worked up. These games measure your Speed, memory, attention, flexibility and problem solving skills to calculate the final  BPI* (body performance index). They tell you where you stand among others after analyzing the statistical data.

Lumosity also has a facebook application.

*BPI : Your Brain Performance Index (BPI) is how you measure and track your cognitive performance in Lumosity. It is useful in tracking your improvement and comparing yourself to others.

If you have a low score, there is nothing to worry about. The website also has brain training courses to improve your cognitive abilities.

The popular game Chain Rxn is available for download now. For iPhone and iPod touch you can download it here


[DOWNLOAD]

High score guide

Chain Rxn, a popular and addictive flash game on facebook can be played online or downloaded for your apple devices. It is a game that finishes with about just 12 clicks, but needs a good strategy to squeeze out a good score. For a super trick to get very high scores of about 50 million easily you can check out our most popular post here.

[Chain Rxn Trick]

LG crystal GD-900 launched in India now, is a touch screen phone with a see through keypad. It is the first phone which has a transparent keypad. It has a 3 inch responsive and accurate touch-screen.

The touch screen gives you a vibrating feedback when a button is pressed. It has a 8.0 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, HSDPA and a memory expandable to 32GB.

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