Cats, Bufferbloat, R1 and World Domination !!!

Good afternoon interweb and a flipping dull grey shitty one it is outside.
Last night was full of fun, as there was bugger all to watch on the TV as it was a Friday evening I decided to try and persuade Viper to let me have a cat. Ive had 3 German Shepherds and 1 Dalmatian and they take a lot of looking after whereas a cat mostly looks after itself.
You see I have for some time had ideas of taking over the world as an evil genius from Mission Control here at Bagsta Towers. I have had these plans for some time as can be seen in this photograph from my younger days, I was not bothered with the trivialities and cheer of the masses I had plans for World Domination long ago and if you made me spill my milk you were in for some serious hard stare time.

And so a cat to sit on my lap and purr away as I put my plans into action.
So bottom line, I want a cat, Viper does not want a cat. Were not getting a cat. As a compromise she rolled up a furry blanket and fastened it with rubber bands and said there.

Not quite what I had in mind but never mind, and anyway, no matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you're going to fail.
Enough of my rambling and onto bufferbloat.
I did a few tests this morning trying to get mine sorted and it would appear that the device you do the tests on can have a large difference on the results.
Testing through my PC wired and my IPAD2 wireless just minutes apart the results were somewhat different, and surprising to be honest.

The Ipad gave me great results with no big swings on the meter during testing whilst the wired PC gave me less than favourable results with some big swings on the meter during testing.

I'm going with the results from the IPAD as the tech inside it is years newer than my PC and even if it's a placebo effect it's still an effect.
The Netduma R1 is after several weeks now on the new upgrade still firing on all cylinders.
The features of the latest firmware are for me on my connection way more than needed but the Hyperlane for my PS4 couples with the ability to temp ban dedicated servers has for the most part seen my games improve.
It does exactly what it says on the tin and puts me in lobbies with an average ping to host of around 10 MS every single game. Happy days you would think but not all the time.
Now this is what many (probably younger users) people don't seem to get about the Netduma R1. People buy this router and expect to simply plug it in press a button and start dropping Motherships every game because some Youtuber did a video showing that they did.
What these people fail to understand is that many of these Ytubers play hours a day every day and if you watch their streams they certainly do not drop 44-2 games every game by any means. However when they do it will be published like lightening.
So if the R1 puts me in incredibly low ping lobbies with my PS4 traffic prioritised and 8 years muscle memory and playing the game why do I sometimes get a right good spanking. Why do I sometimes just get hit marker after hit marker then die in one shot from the enemy.
The only factor left in the equation is the game itself.
I am so tired of reading on forums how the "R1 isn't working, I'm not going 44-0 every game" The R1 is probably doing it's job very well and either the players skill set isn't quite what they imagined it is or more likely "THE GAME ITSELF IS FLAWED".
For the most part for me it plays OK and I have fun but there are times when it is like wading through mud and you simply cannot get the drop on anybody. Spawning in right in front of the enemy is another major problem with the game which I doubt will be fixed anytime soon and so all we can do is play the game for a bit of fun and when it stops being fun take out the disk and play something else.
When the game does go shitty on me I check my ping and that steady 10-12 MS bar tells me its not on my end. So thank you Netduma.
The other thing you could do when the game goes to shit is continue with your plan on World Domination. Now there's an idea.

And so interweb I will as usual leave you with a few thoughts from the depths of my unravelling mind, "A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: She changes it more often." and if we are all here on earth to help others, what on earth are the others here for?

Peace out y'all, THE BAGSTAXXX

Skins, Easter and violence!!!

Hello interweb, How are we today?
Nearly Easter, you know that Christian thing where the lag was so bad it took that Jesus chap 3 days to respawn.
I have in the past week or so made a few new purchases for mission control.
The PlayStation 4 has had a makeover with a rather new swanky skin to help prevent it from getting scratched.

It also got a damn good hoovering and blast out with some compressed air as it hadn't been cleaned since I first bought it on release date. As a general rule it sits on one of them fan thingies which seems to have kept the level of dust down to a minimum actually and I would recommend one to anybody. They also allow you a few extra USB slots above the normal 2 as well.
I have also invested in a PlayStation Eye camera for the set up as well. For the money I am actually quite disappointed in the whole thing as you cannot even use it to chat to friends across the pond like you could with the PS3 version.
In fact it seems at the moment all it can really do is log you in by face recognition, respond to a few voice commands and do the picture in picture thing if you are streaming to twitch or youtube etc.
I was hoping that I could have done picture in picture whilst gaming with friends so that they could see my friendly gestures when they team kill me but alas my colourful language will have to suffice for now.

I have slowly been getting the hang of the Elgato HD60 capture device and will soon be violating the internet with my videos along side the millions of other useless clips that are out there. At least I will  feel included.
There has been a lot of crap going off in the real world of late, The American elections for instance, the rest of the world is viewing this as an intelligence test for America and it is not going well for them.
Yet more terrorists blowing themselves and others to pieces in the name of their religion.
Please just go and blow yourself up in a field and leave all the normal people well alone to get on with their day. And yes, you do look kind of retarded with your trousers above the ankles. It's a very special needs kind of look. If you are wearing your trousers at normal length "shame on you" I am sure your God will not be to pleased with you when you blow yourself up and go to meet him in long trousers.
In other news Black Ops 3 has become very stale very quickly for me, I never really liked Treyarch's offerings before and this one is no different buy I still play it around 4 or 5 times a week. Now if only there was a driving game like GT5 or 6 out for the PS4.
Viper has finally decided on taking her sister to Mexico for her 50th and so I will be home alone for 10 days next month at some point, I am not quite sure if this is a dangerous thing or not and if it is who it is dangerous for!!
Anyway interweb enough of my ramblings for now, some test videos from the Elgato can be found on my Youtube channel here  BAGSTA69

 And so I will leave you my usual drivel and final thought, Sometimes violence does solve problems and you don't have to attend every argument to which you are invited.

Peace out yall, THE BAGSTAXXX

Elgato, Sponge, Terrorists and Jazz farts!!!

Good afternoon interweb, twice in a week, just.
Well it has been an interesting week and I have actually parted with some of my money which as a Yorkshireman goes against most of my principles but part with it I did and for the most part I am quite pleased with my purchases.
First off having watched a video by a Netduma regular called ImSallad about gaming accessory gimmicks I decided to invest a few quid in some aim assist thingies.
 You can find ImSallads youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUdobRhy_ugRElGsG6eMv4A His is one of the more watchable channels out there.
Anyway back to aiming thingies.

FPS Aim Assist are just circles of sponge that increase the resistance of your thumbstick when you aim helping to prevent over aiming and having to correct your aim all the time. They also stop the click as the stick finds its edge against the body of the controller.
They come in two varieties of Yellow and Grey with the Grey ones offering more resistance for the real thugs out there. I tried both and settled on a yellow one on the right stick.

I was thinking that these things were a bit of a gimmick and after playing a few games with them didn't really feel that they were making a difference. That was right up to the point where I took it off. Wow, my aim was all over the place and that expensive bit of sponge soon got slapped back on.
When playing Call of Duty I'm old with chronic arthritis and as such don't expect to call in Mother ships every game. To be honest in this inconsistent shitty offering from Treyarch I'm happy if my kills are in double figures and I go positive. Over the last couple of days I have not only been going positive but getting kills in the high teens and twenties and even come in top of the leader board winning team first place on three occasions. So make of them what you will but I like mine:)
WOW, Ive just passed wind and it sounded more like a tune from a Jazz trumpet solo!!! I digress so lets get back to my other purchase.
The Elgato HD 60 capture thingymajobee. External one.
I have been wanting to get one of these for a while now and finally decided to just get one. £138.00 from PC World.

The Elgato is very nicely packaged and when opened you do get a feeling of having bought a quality product. It does not however come with any form of instruction manual but does have a link to a website that you need to visit to download the software.

Having downloaded the software I went about trying to get it set up and working. Trust me, this takes a fair bit of patience, a lot of google searches and advice from people who are much more technically minded than I, Starting with ImSallad, JConnor, Iammodbox and Raddy to name but a few. (all Netduma R1 forum regulars)
One of the biggest issues I was having was trying to get the image to display on the pass through TV, the screen kept flickering and just a black display. Having checked all my cables were connected correctly and making sure everything was right in the software I still couldn't get the display working. So after a few google searches I found that on the PS4 before you connect the Elgato you have to go to Settings / System and turn OFF "Enable HDCP"
Would have been nice if Elgato could have let me know that as I am sure I am not the only person who has had this issue.
After setting the thing up I tried a few experiments and tests. Streaming is a lot harder than it looks but capturing high quality footage is a piece of piss.
Turning that into something people might want to watch on youtube is another thing.
One of the biggest let downs on it is the inability to record your voice through gaming headsets without a plethora of wires.
There are ways to do it with after market cables etc but I have simply decided to by an external usb mic which I can set up and when I need to add voice over I can simply hit the live broadcast button or whatever it is called. Or in editing software lay down a voice over.
The main reason for wanting to get the Elgato was to get the with times man, I am hoping when I have learned how to use it properly to use it for a video blog type thing instead of typing things out here, A kind of more up to date Reverends Ramblings if you like.
In other news I have been thinking after all these new warnings about imminent terrorist attacks and what you should do if you find yourself caught up in one. Well all I know is that FPS gamers are not going to have a problem as we have been through that shit a thousand times.

And so interweb I will leave you for today and return to a world where people don't read the fucking instructions and in general have IQ of flip flops but I will leave you with this from Douglas Adams, It would have been his birthday today.
"I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I needed to be"
Peace out yall, THE BAGSTAXXX

I would also just like to thank the following for some watchable Youtube video's (Click on their name to view the channel.)
ImSallad
MrTrakky

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/douglas_adams.htmlI seldom end up where I wanted to go,

Snow, Streaming and Candy, I love Candy!!!!

Good afternoon interweb, I am currently listening to the Levellers, Levelling the land album through my Shure Headphones. They really are bloody good headphones once you get the correct tips fitted. The noise isolation is superb.
The added bonus is that the cable with in line controls arrived a few days ago and they just top things off.
The main reason for wearing them during the day when I am in mission control is simply that Viper is in bed as she has been working overnights at the hospital.
The weather at the end of last week turned a pale shade of shite up ere in the land of flat caps, Snow and loads of the stuff. As is normal when this happens I was straight out with camera in hand and spinning Thumpers wheels up as I drifted the 2.2 ton monster up into the Peak.

It didn't stick around for very long and now there is just a small amount left up on the top of the peaks.

I was also watching a video of Candy Dulfer playing at the Sea Jazz Festival in Aruba in 2011 over the weekend and spotted this likely lad bottom right taking pics of her.

 This is the pic I was actually taking at that very moment,

You know when I think about it I have had a very charmed life so far, and cheated death on several occasions although I can still hear the buggers cloak rustling on occasions.
I think it is more the choices I have made than luck and having a belief in what I am doing will succeed.
Now if only I could turn that belief into actual results on Black Ops 3, lol.
I have over the years had some great and memorable times on my COD career which started with the first Modern Warfare game.
Many of those moments like Knuckles spawning in on a claymore and blowing himself half way across the map, Oh how I laughed, have been lost and it is with this in mind that I have been giving some serious thought as to buying me an Elgato capture thingy.
I have also over the weekend (its been a busy weekend)been pissing about with Twitch and its settings and to be honest the quality streaming straight from the PS4 just isn't there.

I had a look at a lot of streams and to be honest there is a lot of shit out there that is simply unwatchable and yet there are several hundred people watching the feed.
I guess to be honest it will just be an extension of this blog which has reached just under 30000 views which I find staggering as it was originally just a way of helping me to stop smoking.
I am sure that I will invent some new curse words if I do go down that particular avenue before I get things set up and will no doubt enlist the help of some of the brighter members of the Netduma forum.
Speaking of which, I was playing a few games of Hardcore TDM last night with knuckles, I am in UK and he is East coast USA. I was hosting with my Netduma R1 set to the COD ultimate profile and congestion control set to 60% both ways.
Reasonable connection and we were having mostly good games with the odd dodgy lobby thrown in.
Then Knuckles started streaming to Twitch live, He went ham on those douchbags man. I was putting up the best scores of the night as well. He had a couple of games where he went like 34-4 and 38-7 it was insane.
So that got me to thinking which is never a good thing. A feel a few tests may have to be done here.
Oh well interweb my green tea and ginger cup of tea has now been drunk and I better get on with doing something so I will simply leave you with this thought,
Antisocial behaviour is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists!!

Peace out Yall, THE BAGSTAXX

Wings, Earbuds and X2 XP!!!

Afternoon interweb, it’s been a while. I have even had a birthday since last we conversed and a very pleasant time was had.
Myself and Viper went down to Yankees, a popular American themed diner with loads of eighties memorabilia on the wall and even eighties NFL matches on the big screens. Buffalo wings and a cheeseburger the size of a shoebox was summarily munched through all washed down with a few large diet coke drinks, not because I am watching my weight but because I prefer the taste.

Been as I am about as popular as a ginger person at a sperm bank I I didn’t receive too many gifts but did buy myself a set of new in ear earphones.
After spending many hours recently in the Maldives with iphone earbuds shoved in my ear I decided I needed some decent ones that didn't hurt so much after several hours.
I decided on the Shure SE215's in a limited edition transparent blue colour.

They arrive in a neat little box with a carry bag which you can clip on to stuff and 6 sets of tips to choose from.
Now this is very important. To get the best sound from these headphones you really do need to make sure that you have the correct tips on the ear pieces otherwise they sound crap and the noise isolation is not very good.
I used the foam small tips to start with and after a couple of attempts to put them in and get them to sit right in the ear I was good to go. I went to the gym and spent an hour doing cardio, the over ear cable which has a small length of wire inside fits well but I could hear the shite music that was being pumped out and the trainers shouting etc even on full volume. The bass was a bit tinny sounding too and for the £60.00 I paid for them I was not that impressed.
However after changing the tips to the silicon medium tips the difference was quite stark. Off I skipped to the gym again and I noticed the difference immediately. I could hardly hear the ambient sound in the gym even without any music playing. Once AC/DC was in full flow at around 70% full volume the music was all I could hear. The bass was good, treble and top end stuff was clear as a bell, I played jazz, blues rock and a little easy listening stuff and all sounded superb.

Very comfortable as well, they actually sit in the outer ear which means you can lay down and sleep in these bad boys if you wanted to. They are a bit of a fiddle to put in when you first get them but you soon get the fitting right.
On the downside they do not come with any inline controls which I think is a bit of an oversight but you can order a replacement cable which comes with them built in for around an extra £10.00 which I am awaiting delivery of as we speak.

As they are made by Shure I expected them to be good but as the next set up come in at a three figure price I wasn't sure (no pun intended) exactly how good they would be. I was going to get a set of Polk Audio Nue Voe headphones but could not find a set for love nor money. If I could have they would have cost me twice as much as these and I can highly recommend them along with the caveat that you really do need to make sure you use the correct tips and get them fitted into the ear properly.

In other news it was Black Ops 3 x2 XP weekend and what a pile of shite the servers turned into. I tried a few games on Saturday night before switching the PS4 off and firing up the PS3 to play some GT6. Sunday was no better and in the space of about 2 hours myself and Knuckles had not actually won a single match. Monday evening was not that much better and all I can say is that I did mention when the game came out that at around the 3 month mark it would probably go to shit and it has.
If they would only stop targeting young children for an 18 rated game with all the silly downloadable content in the form of cammo's etc and remove half of the score streaks then maybe the game play would improve but alas I will not hold my breath on that.

And so interweb it is time for me to leave you, but not before imparting a little more wisdom on you.
Confidence is the feeling that you have before you understand the situation, and if you are happy and you know it, Please keep it to yourself.

Peace Out Yall, THE BAGSTAXXX