June 21st, 2007
Well it's been a while, eh ? Lots has happened, and Chapter 6 is out !.
January 22nd, 2006
3DMark 2006 is out. My score ? 3560. I haven't seen such a low score
since I tested my GeForce 3 ! Ooh, wait. My Radeon 9800 only
scored 2466 on an XP 3000+ in 3DMark 05. Well, that means that in
two video card upgrades and one CPU upgrade I might get back to my
current 7200+ range. Maybe.
January 19th, 2006
I have finalized my proposal on the research tree. Did you like
Imperium Galactica ? You might be interested in reading this.
July 11th, 2005
Major change this time : an XFX 7800 GTX and an AMD 64 3500. These numbers are impressive !
June 27th, 2005
I have published my overview of id Software's landmark title : Doom III (warning, satire-heavy).
June 3rd, 2005
Another Forceware update : version 71.89. Nothing interesting in the benchmark numbers.
March 15th, 2005
After downloading the new 71.84 version of Forceware drivers, I benchmarked the performance.
March 4th, 2005
Following some constructive comments, I have updated Chapter 1 of my fiction story.
January 13th, 2005
A long-overdue hardware upgrade : GeForce 6800 Ultra. Check out the benchmarks here.
September 30th, 2004
Futuremark publishes 3DMark 2005, and I have published my results. Nothing worth gloating over, I can tell you !
july 2nd, 2004
To my great dismay, my adventurous cat met an early end this morning. We will regret her passing.
july 1st, 2004
It has been a while, and I have been working in the background, so nothing much to say except for one thing : my site is now listed in Google ! Hooray !
october 15th, 2003
Finalized my benchmark data on my NForce 2/Radeon upgrade
may 13th, 2003
Updated info on the specs for the GeForce FX-II
may 9th, 2003
Info on the GeForce FX-II
april 16th, 2003
Finally got my site back on-line !
march 18th, 2003
Well it's been a while, but I got up the courage to benchmark my system last night. 10355 points in 3DMark2001SE. Click here to see what an AMD XP 2600+ and a GeForce Ti4400 can do to your scores.
february 26th, 2003
I have finally gotten around to setting up a page on my watercooling experiment. Check it out for some nice pics and explanations. I also have some news on the graphics front, for those who are interested in an update.
june 28th, 2002
News from the graphics hardware front : Tom's Hardware has a magnificent review of the new graphics card from Matrox,the Parhelia. The short version is : it's as expensive as a GeForce 4 and does not perform as well, either in framerate nor in quality, save a few exceptional cases. Get the full review here, or check this page for my take on the issue.
mai 23rd, 2002
Updated my video hardware pages to keep up with the developments of these past months. I'm going to have to think of another way of doing this, since updates erase previous information, which prevents getting a sense of the history of this fast-changing arena.
march 12th, 2002
At last my gaming dreams are answred : LucasArts® has released a Q3 model for the Stormtrooper. It is a heavy beauty, almost 2700 polys (average is more around 800-1000), and it looks marvelous. Except for the team skins. The blue and red s'troopers are ALL blue and ALL red. Yech ! Sorry, LucasArts®, but they just don't cut the mustard with me. I prefer the all-white look myself, replacing the black armor-joints with the team color. If you agree with me, you can download my mod here. A work of caution, though : to use these tga files, you need to unpack the model pak files and replace the files in models/player/stormtrooper with the ones in the zip. I would gladly post a whole functional .pak file, but I don't think copyright would appreciate that ;-)
february 6th, 2002
The GeForce 4 is out ! All hail king nVidia ! Check out my little summary here.
december 14th, 2001
Another little update on my XP1600 upgrade : added 3DMark 2001 scores and tech details.
december 13th, 2001
Cosmetic update un my Museum pages : added the Ti logos for nVidia's GeForce 2 and 3 product line.
december 10th, 2001
Another hardware upgrade. Check on my account of what an AMD XP 1600+ can do for you. Soon, I will have installed Windows XP professional, and I'll post something on how that impacts performance.
october 30th, 2001
After years of thinking about it, I finally decided to write down my idea on research in games. Check it out and tell me what you think of it.
september 16th, 2001
Added Sharok's Store to the Hardware section. In there, I list the hardware I buy and how it stacks up in the gaming world. Got a review on the Detonator XP and how it stacks up on performance. I also have acquired a GeForce 3, and I show here how much it brings now.
august 27th, 2001
Finished the intro page on Total Annihilation - the best RTS of the last millenium.
august 13th, 2001
Got all approvals for my hardware section. Now, I can publish all the images related to the info I put on the web.
august 1, 2001
Whew ! Change in directory structure for images. Given the bilingual nature of the site, I want all images in one place. Straightened up the hardware section with technical data.
july 30, 2001
Added my hardware section. A brush-up for now, but my museum is already starting to get good content.
july 13, 2001
Added Syndicate review. This good ol' game used up hours of my time and it was a remarkable title in its day. Also added Incubation review. This game is the eeriest turn-based squad game I have ever played.
july 3rd, 2001
Added Dungeon Keeper 2 section.
july 2, 2001
Added the French section to this site.
Decided that the sooner I started, the better it would be. There is therefor a French section and an English section now. All pages will be be published when both sections are ready, unless I write a page that I consider specific to one section.
Indeed, I do not intend to mirror exactly the two, they will evolve individually while keeping the same general content.
june 29, 2001
Sharok's World opening day.
The content of this site is destined to stay centered around one main topic: gaming on the PC and the hardware used for it. Now, I am not a hardware professional, nor a gaming professional. I've just been using PCs since the first IBM 8088 came out, and mostly I've been playing games. So it is out of the question to try and emulate hardware test sites that will do a much better job of it than I possibly could.
However, hardware testing sites tend to always use the latest and greatest CPU for their benchmarks. So, without any pretense of righteousness, I would like to provide the benchmarks on my PCs, just for the purpose of comparing.
After all, I'm just an average user, so there is a fair chance that my results could be in the area of what you could expect on your machine. Bear in mind that I'm only talking about a chance.
It is true that I do spend a lot of my money on PC hardware, but if you average it out, I hardly spend more than a smoker does for his cigarettes in a year (okay, a heavy smoker). So you might find here a few tips on what the latest GeForce (or whatever it will be in a year) does for Pentium 500. And yes, not everyone jumps at gigaherz speeds because it remains a respectable budget for a lot of people.
Aside from hardware, Sharok's World will mostly concentrate on games; the meat of my PC time. As fun as it can be to try out a new video card (3d of course), and as thrilling as it can be to see that in Quake III my configuration has gained 20-50% speed or more, I still want to play games and not just look at benchmarks. So, over time, I will provide here information on new games I am playing (mission tips, walkthroughs when I can) and on nostalgia items that are dear to my heart (Transport Tycoon, anyone ?).
On a final note, I wish to make this site bilingual English/French, because I can. It will be more work, obviously, but I will attempt to do so. Expect to see the home page sport two flags when that happens !