acatalept/blog

Since I’ve found this game is frustrating many users (myself included) with its tendency to force your mouse to work like a console game controller, among other things, I did some digging to overcome some of the issues I was having.

• Very sluggish mouse input: Disable v-sync in the game options. You might still be able to force v-sync in your video driver configuration (see here for Nvidia driver) to eliminate tearing.
• Mouse input too slow / “swimmy”: You can only increase the mouse sensitivity so far in the game options, but if that’s still not sensitive enough for you, try editing the setting manually in the config file. Open the file called config.txt in this folder under Windows XP:

  C:\Documents and Settings\<YOUR USER NAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Electronic Arts\Dead Space

  or this folder under Vista:

  C:\Users\<YOUR USER NAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Electronic Arts\Dead Space

  Look for a setting for Control.MouseSensitivity - this only goes up to 1.0 from the in-game options menu, but you can theoretically set it quite a bit higher. I currently have it set to 2.0, which is a pretty decent improvement. Note: setting this too high will make the mouse much too sensitive in the in-game menus, so turn it up slowly and experiment.

• Brightness too high even at lowest setting: this one can also be tweaked in the config file above. The setting is called Window.Gamma - the in-game brightness adjustment only sets this as low as 0.0, but apparently it can go negative. Currently I have it set to -0.5, and it looks much more creepy and atmospheric.

Hopefully EA will patch the claustrophobic, controller-esque feeling of the mouse at some point in the future, but otherwise these settings make a huge improvement over the out-of-the-box experience.

Firefox < v3.0 doesn't have a stable Array.sort() function - that is, it doesn't maintain indexes for elements of equal value. This is undefined in the ECMA spec, and has been fixed in Firefox as of version 3 (and curiously enough has been stable in IE all along). As a result, I set out to find a stable, efficient Array.sort() replacement/supplement.
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Typically, using SELECT in a subquery to perform an UPDATE on the same table, such as:

UPDATE table1 AS target
SET field1 = (
    SELECT field2
    FROM table1 AS source
    WHERE source.id = target.id
)

is illegal in MySQL. To achieve the desired effect, you can perform an INNER JOIN in the UPDATE:

UPDATE table1 AS target
INNER JOIN table1 AS source USING(id)
SET target.field1 = source.field2

Cache control is a potentially hit-and-miss pursuit, but the most reliable and straightforward method I’ve found (that works for IE 6+ and Firefox), although it relies on access to your Apache server configuration, is simply setting Cache-Control headers manually.
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(Lifted from http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/70819-windows-explorer-folder-view-settings.html)

Vista Explorer, by default, tries to determine what type of folder you’re viewing based on its contents, and may dramatically (and seemingly unpredictably) change the folder’s view settings: Details view, or List view, or Thumbnails view, etc., as well as applying Grouping, adding or removing visible columns, and so on. To disable this behavior, and have all folders work more like XP Explorer, do the following:

1. Delete existing folder type customizations in the registry: Open regedit.exe, and navigate to:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

   Delete the keys Bags and BagsMRU.

2. Add new registry setting to enable common behavior: Still in Registry Editor, under the same Shell key (above), create a series of new keys: Bags, then within that AllFolders, then within that another Shell, to end up with this:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell

   Inside the last Shell key, create a new string value named FolderType, with a value of NotSpecified.

   Reboot or logoff and back on again to make these changes take effect.

3. Make changes to Vista Explorer’s view settings: In Explorer, open the Tools menu (if you don’t see the menus, hit the Alt key to temporarily display them, or click Organize->Layout and put a check next to Menu Bar), and click Folder options. Set these as you like them, paying special attention to the option Remember each folder’s view settings - if this is unchecked, and you click the Apply to Folders button at the top of the window, all folders will behave exactly the same.

When you need to update Internet Explorer on a computer without internet access (yes, it can happen):

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=257249

You have to jump through hoops, but it works. Just be careful with the syntax (there really are 3 quotes at the end of the command - good ol’ MS engineering ;).

NOTE: You will be asked a few times throughout this initial download process, “Are you sure you want to install/run this software?” Don’t be alarmed, the installer won’t actually run at this point, it will simply continue downloading more components. When it completes, it will explicitly tell you that the components have completed downloading, and to run ie6setup.exe in the download folder you specified to begin installation.

When you just need to get the job done, sometimes it pays to visit the wayback machine. Recent DOCTYPEs can wreak havoc on even simple layouts when relying on deprecated functionality.

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(Win2k, XP, Vista) Using NET USE in a batch file at login to force-connect mapped drives… useful for situations where mapped drives mysteriously disappear (this script can safely be re-run repeatedly) or to prevent conflicts between network shares requiring conflicting credentials.
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(Requires Win2k, XP, or Vista) Using FOR at the command line to step through every subfolder in a given folder, and create new folders with those names in a different parent folder.

Suppose you have a group of folders under C:\test1, like this:

C:\
|
+-test1
  |
  +-folder1
  |
  +-folder2
  |
  +-folder3

And you want to create a new test2 folder under C:\, which will contain emtpy folders with the same names as those in test1, like this:
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Windows tries very hard to prevent you from replacing or deleting critical system files, even something as mundane as notepad.exe.

Note that this behavior is designed to keep your system functional whenever a critical file is accidentally (or maliciously) deleted or modified, and any actions you take to modify your system at this level, even with the best of intentions and what may seem like reliable information, may very well cause unexpected results to occur, such as an unstable or unbootable computer, or even lost data. BACK UP YOUR DATA REGULARLY, especially before attempting modifications to your operating system files, and make sure you have a backup of your operating system to fall back on in case something goes wrong.

Suffice to say, there is a relatively simple way to bypass Windows file protection. In fact, there are two very different methods for XP and Vista due to the way they protect operating system files:

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