I-4 Brigade Website

Hey folks,

Denny upgraded us to the Call of Duty 4 - 1.7 Patch. Most of the fixes of the patch don’t help us with the gametypes we use in the server, however some people do play on other servers. Now they can visit us if they’ve already upgraded. The download is small, it’s only about 40mb.

Here is a link to the patch:
Call of Duty 4 - 1.7 Patch
Let me know if you have any problems with the link.
[I-4] Sgt. Pookiebear

Hey guys,

I burned a little midnight oil last night installing a new discussion board that integrates with this blog that we’re using now. You can login with the same user logins you use on here. If you’re already logged in here you should be able to click the discussions link in the upper right side of the page and go to it. For now it looks a little plain. I know some people have expressed that it doesn’t “look like” one of the other gaming sites. We can change the looks. It’s just going to take some time to make the skins look a different way.

As far as installing other software… one of the main software packages folks use is php-nuke for the gaming sites. Although it looks like it has all of the functionality in the world, it’s got a couple of setbacks. One is it’s no longer an open-source product, meaning that you have to pay to get it. That also means that only a select few people are working on the code. If someone hacks a major open-source project. Word gets around and it’s fixed fast. Php-nuke is not that great of a product and has it’s own exploits, etc…

One of the other packages I experimented with was phpbb. I actually installed that one on this box and configured it. Due to a glitch in the software, it locked out my admin access. I spent about 30 minutes last night trying to figure out what happened. I uninstalled it because that particular problem was due to a skin that I decided to try for a couple of minutes. When I changed it back apparently it messed some things up. So that one is out of the picture for now.

One of the other discussion boards I’ve used in the past is called vbulletin. It’s another pay board with a select few people working on it. It’s a nice product with tons and tons of features. The drawback. It’s $180 for the software and $60 a year for updates. Unless you want to pay $100 a year for the life of your board. If you do actually pay the $180 for a major version you can not upgrade to the next greatest version for the $60 maintenance you have to spend another $180. Also your skins are trashed after you upgrade and their support staff is horrible.

Here, we’ve used and skinned a forum in the past called Phorum. I was on another web host at the time where we only had the one site and someone used an sql injection attack to write a backdoor into the site. They then used an ftp hack they wrote to rewrite all of the pages for the site. While it was probably fun for the script kiddies (not hackers) who took credit for defacing our page, it cost us a lot of content. Plus a lot of time and effort. So I took the old forum down. I ran the old skins on the site for a while but people wanted to post news items and discuss things. Rather than taking the time to write something I installed wordpress instead. Originally it was simply for news related topics, but since we’ve grown from about 10 members to over 30 I hear your cries.

There is already content in the discussion boards, so feel free to join. Registered users can post.

Happy Gaming,
[I-4]Sgt.Pookiebear

[UPDATED 6/22]

When the maps rotate, if you’re having trouble with the server kicking you for invalid IWD files, then go to My Computer, then the drive you have the game installed under (usually C:). Select Program Files > Activision > Call of Duty 4 > Mods > i.4b

Here is the list of custom files and directory contents you should have:

• mod.ff
• mp_burgundy_bulls.iwd
• mp_desertglory.iwd
• mp_dunes.iwd
• mp_eisberg_uboats.iwd
• mp_tchernobyl.iwd
• mp_island.iwd
• mp_pow_rld_n.iwd
• mp_rats08.iwd
• mp_sconsegrad.iwd
• mp_shipment2.iwd
• mp_spbase.iwd
• mp_wolfsquare.iwd
• mp_p_o_w.iwd
• mp_sipins.iwd
• screenshots
• zzz_mp_ammo_dawnville.iwd
• zzz_mp_pk_harbor.iwd
• mp_city_assault.iwd
• mp_waldcamp.iwd
• mp_matroska.iwd
• mp_yard_n.iwd
• zzz_szm.iwd
• z_awe4.iwd

There may be a few folders, leave them alone, but you can remove the extra files in that folder.

Happy Gaming,
[I-4]Pookiebear

Hey Folks,

I’ve had an NVidia 6800 with 512mb of RAM on it for a while now, but with some of the newer games I was having trouble playing in things like grass, leaves and fog. See the problem is that all of the people who make video games make them based on the latest and greatest architectures. Although I’ve got a decent video card, the bus architecture for my machine only allows AGP cards. So all of the new video cards requiring PCI-X16 slots like the new 9800X2s and even the 8800GTXs meant that I would have to upgrade the motherboard, which also means new processor. This means my RAM doesn’t fit, so now I would need to get new RAM. Oh yeah, the new video cards also drain the power too, so that meant I would have to get a new Power Supply. After having my eye on a $1300 machine for months, I realized that I needed to either find another hobby or do something else. When Frontlines - Fuel of War came out I realized that it had installed the AGEIA PhysX drivers.

Basically the way the AGEIA PhysX works, is between your computer’s processor and your video card’s processor, the PhysX software determines how things are going to react based on real physics. Well a lot of other games rely on the video card and the processor to perform similar functions. So for instance some of the motion calculations, lighting, shading and shadows, how the objects moving around appear, etc… It takes a little bit of processing power to show those ejecting shell casings too.

I got to reading some of the reviews for the hardware physics cards on NewEgg.com. I noticed a lot of the people posting said although not all games are PhysX enabled games, the cards were in fact speeding up their machines in other games… like Call of Duty 2, Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 4. So for $150 as opposed to $1300 I figured I would give it a whirl. I bought an Asus Ageia PhysX P1 PCI card for my system (Here’s a link to a comparable card on newegg.com). It turns out it was just the thing my PC needed to be revived again. With my memory maxed out, and having the fastest processor for my motherboard I needed to do something.

At first I didn’t notice much of a change. Since COD4 I’ve been playing everything based on the “default system settings”. I figured there was some sort of mysticism taking place. In fact there’s not. There are config files that tell COD4 what to select based on your video card, regardless of anything else you have in your system. With most of the settings on medium, and all of the textures on high, the highest resolution I could run was 800×600. So I started disabling features, blurred fog and smoke, anti-aliasing, dynamic lights, shadows, etc… and before long I was able to set my screen resolution as high as my monitor would go 1680×1050. And it’s fast… I mean really fast. You loose some of the detail on textures at a distance but overall, it plays nicer. COD2 I can play with everything full-on at the same resolution, whereas before I got half of that.

So if you’re at the end of your budget but can afford the $150, go for a PhysX card. It’s well worth the money. It might be just what you need before you go fork out more for a beefier gaming rig.

Until Later,
[I-4]Pookiebear

Hey guys,
Frontlines Fuel of War is out. Take a look at it, tell us what you think. I’ve been playing it for about a week now. (I say a week, it’s been more like 2 or 3 hours total way late at night.) They’ve got some pretty neat weapons(tactical nukes, remote controlled bombs). It’s a capture the flag style game similar to CTF in the CoD series and BF2. I think it’s cool. Flying the choppers doesn’t compare to BF2 though. We’re waiting on the Kaos folks that make it to release server software so we can get a server somewhere within the states. Right now there are tons of european servers and a few US servers in Virginia and Texas that you can get a decent ping on.

That’s all from me for now,

[I-4]Pookiebear

Time to mix it up a bit. I hacked the Tactical Night mod by ZeRoY to produce a Sniper Mod. It’s sniper rifles and pistols only with health packs enabled. There’s a bit of time where you’re protected when you spawn as well. I also believe I was able to make it impossible to get helicopters and UAV fly-overs as well unless you reach 999 points. Drop in the sniper server, check it out and let me know what you think.

[I-4]Pookiebear

Hey Folks,

I’ve been a little busy with life things going on. I’ve installed a new interactive application for the site that will allow multiple people to write posts and comment. If you’re not signed up, you should be able to. Let me know if you have any issues with the new site. More content will come as more of the site administrators gain access and figure out how to use the new tools. Until then, happy gaming.

[I-4]Pookiebear

Currently we have an I-4 Call of Duty 4 server and a TeamSpeak server. For information regarding the TS server contact one of us online.

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
4.79.145.99:28960