Tag: games

Terraria: So Addictive It Turns Minutes Into Hours


Once in a while you come across a game that is so much fun to play that you just can’t put it down. I recently came across the title Terraria which was produced by a small team of programmers a couple of months ago this game has quite often been the reason for some really late nights.

Recently I have been making a return to indy games and moving away from the more serious titles that I usually play like Counter-Strike, Call of Duty and Starcraft and I am glad I found Terraria.

It is the kind of game you sit down to play for 5 minutes but end up playing for hours. A word of warning, if you get addicted to video games easily approach this one with caution because you might end up wasting away glued in front of your computer screen! Continue reading “Terraria: So Addictive It Turns Minutes Into Hours”


Starcraft 2: How to increase digital download speed

Throttle your upload speed on the Starcraft 2 downloader to increase download speed.

 

Running NetLimiter on the Starcraft 2 downloader to increase download speed.

As I write this I have just begun downloading Starcraft 2 after purchasing the digital download copy off of battle.net. I don’t know about anyone else but when I buy a game, especially one as long-awaited as Starcraft, I am itching to load it up and start playing it straight away!

Anyway, I started the 6.99gb download about half an hour ago. To begin with, the SC2 downloader gave me an estimated time of about 4 hours, which is ok I guess. But a few minutes later I watched in horror as the estimated time increased, 6 hours, 8 hours and so on. I looked at the connection details and realised that the downloader uses peer-to-peer sharing and that my upload speed was now higher than my download speed!

Fortunately within the downloader there is an option to switch off peer-to-peer sharing and just use direct downloading. I tried that but the speed barely increased. A quick scan of a few forums put me on to a little piece of software called NetLimiter. After installing NetLimiter I was able to re-enable the peer-to-peer method of downloading and limit the upload speed (within NetLimiter) to around 30kbps which saw my download speed eventually increase to around 900kbps.

A few points to be aware of:

  • Limiting your upload speed too drastically seems to also drag your download speed down as well, so don’t go cutting it back too much.
  • Inside the preferences for the Starcraft 2 downloader there is an option to disable background download throttling which I would also suggest you set.
  • NetLimiter runs as a 28-day trial. Should you need to use it past the trial period then it only costs $30USD for a single user license.

I’ll let you know how Starcraft goes!

Also if anyone has their own experiences, suggestions or comments please leave me a comment.

For a detailed and comprehensive guide to the art of Starcraft II be sure to check out the Shokz Starcraft II Strategy guide as well.

Thanks for reading.

8 Ways To Get Through A Boring Day

Everyone has suffered it before, long slow days at work where nothing exciting is happening, there is nothing to keep you occupied and the clock seems like it’s stuck in suspended animation. Well  I have taken the liberty to compile a quick list of time wasters for crappy work days. Continue reading “8 Ways To Get Through A Boring Day”