Officially a Twitch Affiliate!

When I first started streaming myself playing StarCraft 2 on Justin.tv back in 2011, I didn't have any expectations for what my stream would become.  I mostly just wanted to capture my gameplay and share it with friends who wanted to watch whenever I happened to be playing.  I started out by using Flash Live Media Encoder to stream my games, which was mostly a command-line interface at first.

Soon after I joined Justin.tv, the site moved all gamers over to Twitch.tv, their new domain for video game streamers.  I switched over to FFSplit as my streaming tool and advertised my stream on places like Facebook, Team Liquid, and my blog.  Eventually another IBMer in Tucson found my blog by googling "IBM Starcraft 2".  It was then that I met other players from IBM, which would eventually transpire into our competition in the After Hours Gaming League.  It was my "career" in StarCraft 2 that I grew the most as a name in the community.  But eventually as the game of StarCraft 2 became less popular and the After Hours Gaming League went on hiatus, I stopped streaming for a majority of 2016-17.

The Affiliate program for Twitch started in April of 2017, but I didn't start streaming again until 2018.  At this point, my computer was not as powerful to produce the same quality as other streams out there, but I wanted to share the experience of IBM's return to the After Hours Gaming League in the 2018 season.  I would eventually upgrade my system and with the help of Streamlabs OBS, I was producing a quality stream once again.  However, since StarCraft 2 was just not a popular a game anymore, I had to move elsewhere to maintain viewership, and I found that in Fortnite Battle Royale.

As of August 1st, I was officially invited to join the Affiliate program with Twitch, where I can start making money when playing video games.  And just like when I started streaming back in 2011, I will continue to temper my expectations here.

Twitch will only pay out once you've earned past a minimum $100 threshold.  I'm guessing my earnings over time will be similar to the AdSense for my blog - I've earned $91 since 2010 and still haven't been able to cash out.  Regardless, it's been fun to get here and I'm looking forward to many more days of streaming!

Feel free to follow along at https://www.twitch.tv/atrain64

Watching the Marvel Universe (Movies + Agents of SHIELD)

A friend of mine recently recommended that I watch Agents of SHIELD, which is currently available on Netflix.  I decided to check it out, but I realized there are still several Marvel movies that I haven't seen because let's be honest, there are just so many to keep track of.

In preparation of re-watching the Marvel Movies + Agents of SHIELD, I researched online all the movies and episodes and their viewing order.  In the process, I discovered many sites recommending to watch the movies and shows in either by order of release or by the Marvel universe's chronological order.  To me, it didn't make too much sense to watch the movies in chronological order, since everyone else would have watched them in order of release date.  So I compiled an order that bases the movies by their release and episodes of Agents of SHIELD sprinkled into the Marvel movie timeline.

Movie/Show	Season/Episodes	Release Date
Iron Man		May 2, 2008
Iron Man 2		May 7, 2010
Thor		May 6, 2011
Captain America: The First Avenger		July 22, 2011
Marvel's The Avengers		May 4, 2012
Iron Man 3		May 3, 2013
Agents of SHIELD	S1/E1-7	September 24, 2013
Thor: The Dark World		November 8, 2013
Agents of SHIELD	S1/E8-16	November 12, 2013
Captain America: The Winter Soldier		April 4, 2014
Agents of SHIELD	S1/E17-22	April 8, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy		August 1, 2014
Agents of SHIELD	S2/E1-19	September 23, 2014
Avengers: Age of Ultron		May 1, 2015
Agents of SHIELD	S2/E20-22	May 5, 2015
Ant-Man		July 17, 2015
Agents of SHIELD	S3/E1-19	September 29, 2015
Captain America: Civil War		May 6, 2016
Agents of SHIELD	S3/E20-22	May 10, 2016
Agents of SHIELD	S4/E1-6	September 20, 2016
Doctor Strange		November 4, 2016
Agents of SHIELD	S4/E7-22	November 29, 2016
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2		May 5, 2017
Spider-Man: Homecoming		July 7, 2017
Thor: Ragnarok		November 3, 2017
Agents of SHIELD	S5/E1-18	December 1, 2017
Black Panther		February 16, 2018
Avengers: Infinity War		April 27, 2018
Agents of SHIELD	S5/E19-22	April 27, 2018
Ant-Man and the Wasp		July 6, 2018

Last updated on 7/23/18

*Phew*.  Now that the ordering is done, I can finally just focus on watching.  So far I'm at the end of Season 3 for Agents of SHIELD and I'm loving the show.

Special thanks to the following websites for the suggestions on viewing order for the entire Marvel Universe movies and shows:
List of Marvel Cinematic Universe films (Wikipedia)
Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline (Indepedent)
Marvel Cinematic Universe in chronological order (Digital Spy)

Fighting my Internet Connection - Packet Loss and Downgraded Speeds affecting Upload Performance

So after I finally got that nice new computer, things had run great for a month.  However, over the past two weeks, I've been fighting 10-50% packet loss on my internet connection where my upload speed will just go to crap for 5-10 seconds every other minute.  I've probably called Cox about 10 times in that timeframe, had a tech come out every weekend, tried two new 24x8 cable modems, and still the problem persists.

It's really frustrating having crappy internet and I hope the problem gets resolved soon.  I really want to switch to fiber, but the only service provider in my area is Century Link and they only have a very small 20/1 MBPS plan, which is not enough for my needs.

A fourth Cox technician is coming on Monday to run a new line in my house.  Let's hope it helps.

P.S.  I had really nothing else to blog about this month, heh.

NEW UPDATE - 7/10/18

Last Monday, Cox sent a third-party technician to my house to run a new line from the cable box outside my house to the wall on my bedroom where I connect the cable modem.  The very first technician they sent had only run a new line from the cable box to the main unit across the street.  After this tech ran the line for my house, I was guaranteed a brand new line.  Immediately after he ran the new line, the issues I was having seemed to go away and I was completely ecstatic.  I was able to stream to Twitch.tv for 8 hours without a single packet being dropped.

While I've had pretty consistent packetloss-free service over the past week, I still notice a drop in upload performance from time to time.  However, if I'm not streaming, I almost never drop anymore packets on Fortnite while I'm playing, which leads me to believe that the line was indeed a problem.  I do believe that when I see downgraded upload performance I'm experiencing either poor QoS from Twitch or Cox.  Either way, the internet has been much more stable since the brand new line, so I'm satisfied from that standpoint.

For any random visitors seeking problem resolutions for similar issues with their cable internet, I suggest the following:

• Latest Firmware - Some wireless routers need to be manually updated, so check if you've got the latest firmware.  You can't manually update the firmware on most cable modems, as this is done automatically via your ISP whenever you reboot the modem.
• Cable Modem / Wireless Router isolation - If you're using a wireless router, remove it from the equation and plug your computer directly into the cable modem using an ethernet cable.  This will determine if you have an issue with the router.
• Replace the Cable Modem - If you're running more than 5 years on a modem, chances are it could be going bad.  Sometimes the lifespan of modems is even less than that.
• Have your ISP run a new line - Make sure they run a brand new line all the way from your neighborhood's hub to your house.  For me it took two visits because they only replaced the line across the street the first time and a second tech had to replace the one from the box outside my house to the jack in my bedroom's wall.
• The issue is almost never software related (excluding spyware/malware attacks), so if your internet was working fine beforehand and then randomly went bad, don't bother messing with registry settings or adapter tuning.  Chances are you'll mess things up worse than they were before.
• If all the above fails, it's likely just bad QoS from your ISP or the streaming services you utilize.

New Ass-Kicking Computer!

In December of 2007, I built my first home computer.  It was a computer that lasted me 10 years, having undergone several upgrades between the 5-8 year range.  These days, 5 years seems to be the average life of parts keeping up with the performance and graphics demands of new and upcoming games.  Lately, I've really been getting into Fortnite: Battle Royale, which itself is very demanding of CPU and GPU centered around its 100-player Free-for-All game mode.  I've also gotten back into streaming my games, something that we know only adds more CPU demand.  My old computer was struggling to run both at anything higher than 40 FPS on average...

After a solid 10-year run with the old comp, I decided to build myself a new rig!  Below you'll find my new setup and some pictures during assembly.  Overall, I was looking to spend around $1,000-$1,500 for the system.  Most of my parts are mid-range in terms of performance and cost.  The theory is that I will likely need to upgrade in another 5 years, so getting top-of-the-line components is not really necessary.  Here are the results.  Enjoy!

Configuration and Purchases:

For my build, I did a lot of research on pcpartpicker.com, a great site for putting parts together, reading reviews from other PC builders, ensuring compatibility, and gathering price comparisons from multiple vendors.

	Product	Vendor	Cost
Processor	Intel Core i5-8600K Coffee Lake 6-Core 3.6 GHz LGA 1151 (300 Series)	Newegg	$244.99
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper RR-212E-20PK-R2 LED CPU Cooler	Amazon	$29.99
Cooling Gel	Arctic Silver 5 AS5-3.5G Thermal Paste	Amazon	$6.51
Motherboard	ASUS Prime Z370-A LGA 1151 (300 Series)	Newegg	$164.52
Memory	G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 3000 SDRAM	Newegg	$164.99
Video Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING, 06G-P4-6163-KR, 6GB GDDR5	Newegg	$319.99
Case	RAIDMAX Cobra Z ATX-502WBU Black/Blue ATX Mid Tower	Newegg	$39.99
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G1 120-G1-0650-XR 80+ GOLD 650W Fully Modular	Newegg	$69.99
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64 Bit System Builder OEM	Amazon	$101.08
Primary Monitor	ViewSonic XG2701 27" 144 Hz 1ms Free Sync Gaming Monitor	Newegg	$319.99
Ethernet Adapter	TP-Link TG-3468 Gigabit Ethernet PCI-Express Network Adapter Card	Amazon	$16.29
		Total	$1,478.33

Computer Assembly:
Built on May 7, 2018

For my case, I decided to go with Raidmax, which was the brand I used for my previous computer.  Their cases are not only affordable, but the material feels nice and I like their look and layout.

For the motherboard, I was deciding between ASUS and Gigabyte.  For me, it came down to reputation and BIOS functionality, so I went with ASUS even though they are slightly more expensive on average.  In determining a CPU, I looked at user benchmark results with Fortnite to determine which CPU produced the best benchmark at a reasonable cost.  Because the i5 8600K performed almost the same as the i7 8700K and was some $80 cheaper, it was a no-brainer to go with the top i5 model.  I've always used Intel, so I was not interested in switching to AMD at this time.  While I could have gone for the minimum of 8GB of RAM, memory is so cheap these days that there was no reason not to just go for 16GB and not have to worry about RAM for a while.

Since the CPU didn't come with a fan/cooler, I needed to add one myself.  I went with a popular Cooler Master and honestly, it was the biggest bitch to figure out how to mount above the processor.  The instruction pamphlet had no words, only pictures.  The videos I found online all omitted a very important step for my particular motherboard, which is that there are plastic spacers to add to the mounting screws in order for the cooler to be installed correctly.  Ignorantly, I tried installing it without these spacers and found myself wasting an hour trying to force the bracket on.  Eventually I figured it out and it should have been much simplier than I made it to be.

The power supply was pretty standard.  I selected one that supplies more than the estimated power I needed and had a 80+ gold rating for optimal energy performance. I also wanted a modular one to gain the convenience of easy cable management (the shorter and less needed, the better).

At the time of this build, video card prices were 2-3x more then they should be, due to cryptocurrency mining...ugh.  Again, I looked at Fortnite benchmarks to determine what GPU would produce the the highest average FPS while maintaining a reasonable cost.  I ended up going with the GeForce GTX 1060 [6GB] because it maintained close to 120 FPS and was valued around my price range of $300.

For this computer, I didn't have to buy any storage, as the 2 SSDs (128GB and 250GB) and SATA (320GB) drive from my old computer were fairly new and more than sufficient for my data needs.  I also moved the DVD-RW drive over, because why not?

Overall, it took me 5 hours to put everything together (1 hour wasted on that damn CPU cooler, lol).  I took my time putting the computer together because I wanted to make sure everything was done carefully and properly.  Some of you may freak out that I assembled it all together on my bed, but don't worry, I used anti-static bags to rest the important parts on and discharged myself on a metal chair nearby.

It was then time to boot the computer up and voila, success!  At first, one of the RAM sticks wasn't being detected as well as a case fan, so I had to re-open the case and reseat the RAM and move the fan's power cable to another motherboard port.

I installed Windows 10 on this computer because Windows 7 is no longer being supported in 2020, so might as well get the "upgrade" now than have to worry about it two years later.  At first, I was hesitant to use Windows 10 based on all the horror stories of telemetry and data sent to Microsoft, but I did my research and was able to disable just about all of it.  Windows 10 runs fine for me with no real concerns and now I think it's just as good as Windows 7, you just have to learn how to make it operate how you want it to.

The final step was to purchase a new monitor capable of a 120Hz refresh rate.  Newer games are now able to produce over 100 FPS and I currently play Fortnite at 120 FPS without any latency issues.  I needed a 120Hz+ monitor to actually see the higher framerate and wow, it really is noticeable just how much smoother the gameplay looks.  It makes sense, that's twice the frames as the standard 60 FPS of your common HDTV.  I use a dual-monitor setup at home, both Viewsonic (love the brand, I've now owned 5 total in my lifetime) and at 27" each.

I'm so happy with my new computer.  Everything runs super fast and looks amazing.  Windows loads up in literally 5 seconds.  Fortnite runs perfectly at 120FPS and I'm enjoy every aspect of the new comp.  If you're interested in watching me play Fortnite on my new rig, you can find me on my Twitch stream:
https://www.twitch.tv/atrain64
Thanks for stopping by and happy building/gaming!