Privacy in Gaming

I’ve been playing Call of Duty 4, and it has lived up to the hype. Unfortunately, my computer as of now is not up to the task of running the program with graphics settings all set to max, but I can live with it. The gameplay is far better than Call of Duty 1 and 2. The volume of fire and the intensity of the action makes you feel like you’re inside Black Hawk Down or something. Check out the pic here:

This is the mission I’m currently on, where we have to prevent the enemy from overrunning a disabled tank, reminiscent of the Super Six crash site in Black Hawk Down. However, I do have problems at times. Even with the lowered settings, I sometimes see problems with the graphics, as you can see below:

But that’s not my biggest concern right now. The graphics problem can be resolved with minor tweaks, and although inconvenient, it does clear up by loading the mission again and removing as many processes as possible in task manager. My biggest issue right now is with Punkbuster. While I understand that this program would be rather invasive, I was unprepared for its onslaught on my PC. Punkbuster is loaded even when you do not play any Punkbuster-enabled game. I understand that it was meant to prevent people from cheating by scanning their computer for suspicious programs. But does that mean it has to be loaded every time I boot my PC? Oh, and it’s not in the startup list, and there is no option to disable its loading. I had to uninstall COD and reinstall it again just to get rid of the damned thing. Also, I’m pissed that I have to reinstall COD once more just to be able to play multiplayer, get patches, and stuff like that. For some weird reason, I can’t get patches to recognize a valid installation of COD on my PC.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I have issues with Steam. But at least, you can get rid of Steam if you don’t have to play any Steam-enabled game. Is there something wrong with me, or other players out there have the same problems as well?

2 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI