Finally got a local TypeScript environment up and running that works similar to how it compiles it work adding `.ts` to the file name and saving in the folders where they are found. Took a lot of Goggling and looking at the config at work but it gave me a better understanding of how it works. Figured I would blow through the "Tour of Heroes" site on Angular.io. I figured I had don e the vanilla javascript "Tour of Heroes" so how hard could the TypeScript version be not realizing right away that it is also not Angular 1. That became almost an all weekend long thing. The tutorial is kinda confusing because they tell you whet file to put code into but they don't tell you where and after entering some code and breaking the browser, I ended up having to go to the completed files at the bottom and add the code from there because following along with the article was not working. Not to mention VS Code thinks some code is error but it is exactly what is in the tutorial. Anyway, the tutorial burned me out and now I don't want to actually write any code in TypesScript now.
Saturday April 22, 2018
Had to lower the videocard settings in Overwatch the other day. May have been too warm in the house as I was right in the middle of a big fight for the control point and my video went out. It came back after a reboot but hten like an hour later it happened again. I turned down the quality and took the side off the case to allow more airflow but the weather has cooled off since so I don't know if that resolved the problem or not yet.
Friday April 13, 2018
Thanks to FaceBook, we can't have nice things. Take for example the DOH! Network Steam Game Achievements page. Now that FaceBook has sold out everybody's personal information, Valve has locked gamer stats xmls so the stats page can't display any information anymore. Luckily I have been playing so much Overwatch lately that I didn't have any recent stats and I saw the page broke if that happened so the page was already prepared for the xml lockdown before it happened.TypeScript is really kicking my butt this week. Had to update a page I have been working on at work to display previously entered info and the majority of the page was pretty easy to get working in plain javascript but the typescipt filter console wouldn't take the info the same way and I had to do some goofy code that I just know is not gonna pass code review and the filter console can't handle more than two filters. technically it can only handle two at the moment. I'll have to see on Monday if the guys that worked on the function I am calling to display the filters have some trick I'm missing or if I need to do something else completely.
Sunday April 08, 2018
That deal on the NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce GTX 1080 is still going on but whenever I google "overwatch low high resolution", the differences aren't that noticable. Sure the edges are smoother but is there stuff I don't see with my 460 that would be cool to see with a 1080? Then I remembered I have access to a matching 460 videocard that I could drop in the PC and run the two 460s in SLI mode and turn up the settings a bit. After installing and configuring, I started turning up the settings to see how far I could push the cards. After bumping up a couple of options here and there, I finally said "Let's see what epic setting does". Epic doesn't set the texture level so bump that up if your videocard can handle it. Surprisingly, the game is running without complaining or locking up in some test rounds with bots at 2560 x 1600 resolution. I have frames per second set to 30FPS that I set a while back to see if that fixed the problem with the keyboard locking up in the middle of games. I will have to set that back to the default and see if any lockups occur.So what visual changes are noticable between low and epic settings? In one of the first video setting changes I made I noticed if I punched a counter, it left a mark. In another change, leaves started falling from trees. With Epic settings, I can see balloons in "Blizzard World" and dust blowing in the "Hollywood" "Old West" set. I don't recall if there were weeds on "Hollywood" but in epic, the weeds don't look all that great. Will have to check the other maps but on low settings, Overwatch isn't too far off epic. I don't feel I need to spend $600 for a new videocard yet. The dual NVIDIA GTX 460s should work fine for a while longer.But then... I found the Advanced > Render Scale setting. Default is Automatic and it's sitting at around 56%. Setting that to 100% really starts to show some differences graphically. Render Scale basically doubles you resolution from what I have seen but it really makes a difference to the visuals. Everything is a lot smoother. I can see where Chevy031 says it starts to look like a cartoon. A couple of sites I read said there is no need to go higher than 100%. I will have to try these settings in an actual game and see if it plays as smoothly as it plays with bots. Also have to see if my videocards catch fire from all the work they will have to do and that will make it easy for me to know I should upgrade my videocard.
Sunday April 01, 2018
What a week of coding. Had to hook up a form page with Validate.js. Got it working pretty easy but then had to include our in-house filter console to the list of required fields. After spending like 3 days I had the filter console lighting up like the other fields when it was in error but adding a filter first would fire the page validation so every other field would go to error mode and then deleting the filter wouldn't reinitiate the error on the filter console. Then I realized I was overthinking it. By default the 'Save' button is disabled until all required fields have a value. I already had Angular validation going on to disable the other form fields but the filter console isn't a single input field. It does set a value though so I included that in the check if the 'Save' button should be active or not. Removed all the presence: required calls in the validejs data-constraint attributes and like magic, it all works as expected. I was still able to use validatejs to check that the input field that requires a number has a number and the freeform text fields don't go over 255 characters so that was a nice bonus. And before you ask "Why don't you use <input type="number" />?", the app I work on supports multiple cultures so numbers aren't always xxx,xxx.xx. Number type input fields would really be sweet if the people that decide these things could fix them to work with different cultures.Saw a really good deal on an NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce GTX 1080 yesterday. Still kind of expensive but I have alsmot enough in the points system at work. But with summer coming, I just know I am going to need a whole house fan because it's cheaper than replacing our weak air conditioning system and even though Dairy Queen said we should move so why bother with a fan, I doubt we will be able to do that any time soon. If my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 would just fry itself instead of reving up the fan to the point where I can't hear people talking right next to me every time I boot up Overwatch. Maybe I can say the videocard will save money since it will use less energy than my existing NVIDIA GeForce 460. And ye, I could save a ton of money and get a lower version of the 10 series card but this 1080 is like $300 less than other places. It's available in store only. I should totally go to the store. They probably won't have it anyway and that will solve my problem. Unti then, I think I'm going to have to limit frams per second to 30 to prevent Overwatch from locking up like it has been known to do lately.
