The USHSC YouTube channel reached a new milestone, with 600 subscribers and 225.000 views! Be sure to subscribe if you wish to follow the latest SID tunes!

Yesterday marked the completion of the fully automated upload of more than 50.000 Commodore 64 SID tunes to a single YouTube channel, check my VLOG of it. I started this project at the end of April 2016, and coded the program that would automate the upload. See this picture here to see the number of uploads per day! It took 66 days from first upload to finish. Effectively, there were 57 days of non-stop uploading, day and night (since I went on a holiday in between). Here’s a link to the readme.txt of the tool I coded to do the job. Phase 2 will be expanding the channel, checking/fixing tunes, and much more. Stay “tuned” for new updates. To keep track of it all, go to the USHSC Facebook page and like it!

I recently started a new project, unrelated to game research. Wait what? Then it has got to do with Commodore 64 right? Indeed. I used to compose SID tunes actively on the C64, back in the day. In this day and age, I still try to release at least a few products for that machine each year. It’s hard to find any time though, but I get by I guess. However, the love for SID and her composers will not die. I love to listen to the works of all SID composers, and I really want t honour them. Let;’s combine the two – listening and honouring – and create a gargantuan YouTube playlist with tunes by ALL composers. Not those few that the majority of people will know. No, ALL of them, as there are some brilliant compositions in there that we all should know. They deserve it. So check out this playlist and YouTube Channel. Be sure to subscribe if you wish to keep track of the uploads. Play the list while doing whatever, or just play to listen. You will discover some real gems, I’m sure. And you will never run out of new SID tunes to listen to.

Due to limited time available for the front page news updates, you haven’t seen anything here for a while. No matter! The Game Research Forum is alive as ever, and kicking like never before! If you need to keep track of what is going on at the forum, which tools have been created, models and archives have been cracked and much more, simply follow us on Facebook!  You won’t regret it! Like, and you will hear about the cool stuff!

Since we have now sufficient donations to keep up the website this period, the forum is now again open for everyone to join! A huge thanks for those members that went through the trouble of donating 5 euros to the cause to join our boards. The Summer is now a good time for all, and the bills can be paid! Head over to the forum to register, now is your chance if you didn’t already!

I started a new series on YouTube where you see me do real-time file analysis as a means of a tutorial. Let’s MultiEx! Check this playlist for the videos! I hope you enjoy them, and perhaps even learn a few things as you watch.

The 4 month period of free forum registration is over this evening. If you haven’t done already, register there now! After that, registration will be limited to donation of 5 euros.

As part of the 25th Anniversary of XeNTaX you can now download MultiEx Commander for free without donation first. Go here!

So I had a problem with my USB 3.0 controller in Windows 8.1. I had hooked up a Kensington USB 3.0 Dockingstation and this worked correctly, until I started some GOG games (Clive Barker’s Undying) that ran on old 3DFX graphics. The screen started to flash (blank to black) intermittently when the game were started. So I tried to install “updated” drivers, using this post. But that failed somehow, and this showed because now my USB 3.0 controller was completely missing in Device Manager. I tried reinstalling from the Intel website, but that failed with “minimum requirements not met” errors, and compatibility changes also did nothing, while the Windows 8.1 Installation DVD also failed to be helpful. Finally, I used AIDA to check the chipset, and lo and behold it came up with Intel Panther Point PCH – USB 3.0 xHCI Controller. The intel website was not supportive, but I googled it and found drivers with that name. These to be precise. Those installed and immediately the Kensington stuff reinstalled itself automatically! Huurah!

25 years it has been since XeNTaX started as a Commodore 64 scene graphics/demo group. A very short history of what followed you can find here. Of course, we want to celebrate, and the first thing to happen this summer: free forum access for an indefinite period of time!  So if you were not registered yet, or were thinking about it, but did not want to donate that one time only 5 euros, now is the time to register! Register here now!