If you came here through a search, you’ll probably have to dig (sorry). On the other hand, if you’re cyber-stalking me, this probably won’t disappoint you any more than the usual stuff (hurray!).

—

On the iPad

I was always of the camp that thought “iPad” sounded more like a feminine product than a brilliant piece of technology. It didn’t click with me any more than the iPhone – it sounded cool and had neat features and everything, but I didn’t need it. I had a computer (and in the case of the iPhone, I already had a phone too).

However, lately the notion started to grow on me. I’ve been lugging the laptop all over the place, and just when I thought “I couldn’t be any more lazy than I am now“, I realized the iPad might make my life immensely more convenient. We’re a privileged generation.

So anyway, I bought an iPad. And it’s pretty nifty. It’s now the 1 device that pulls email from all my accounts (Apple Mail is great). I can work & browse the web comfortably while in bed. And using AirPlay to stream video to the AppleTV… just awesome.

I think the best part is… I probably wouldn’t have considered the thing if it weren’t for Microsoft.

Wait, what?

—

On Microsoft

Microsoft is dumb. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure smart people work there, but the company as a whole is clueless.

You’re probably wondering how I’m about to connect the dots between Microsoft and the iPad. It’s actually a short trip. Windows 8.

For anyone who’s followed Windows 8, you’ve probably learned (or heard) about Metro – the new Windows UI. Microsoft decided that they’re going to bridge the desktop/mobile markets with a single UI. When you start up your Windows 8 machine and are presented with the Metro interface, instead of the desktop with Start/Taskbar, you’ll be interfacing with what looks like a smartphone.

The desktop you’re used to seeing when you start up Windows will now be changed to this:

It’s like using a tablet, but with a mouse instead of touch. Brilliant thinking, Microsoft!

Just in case you think I’m making it up, or that it could never happen, I’ll run you through the logic at Microsoft:

1. We have the largest desktop marketshare.
2. We’re doing terrible in the phone/tablet arena and can’t break in.
3. If we provide a consistent UI between PC/mobile, Windows users will be more inclined to use a Windows-based tablet/phone because they’ll be comfortable with the UI.
4. Since a Windows Desktop doesn’t transition to a phone/tablet, we’ll bring the phone/tablet interface to the PC.

The reality of the situation is that they’re just not going to make it in the tablet/phone area, just as they failed in the music area (Zune, anyone?). And Windows deskop PC users are going to get the joy of inheriting a UI that not only wasn’t intended for a desktop, but also failed at the thing it was actually intended for.

Joy.

Windows PC users are about to get a bolted-on, force-fed, tablet/phone UI on their desktop. And I thought it was a little funny. Because Windows 8 is all about upgrading your PC to a smartphone.

Maybe that’s more sad than funny.

Anyway, if I had to be exposed to a tablet UI, I wanted to see what was out there. So I looked at the iPad. And the iOS UI is better than the Metro UI by miles.   …and then I started realizing that maybe I need Windows (and PC’s in general) less than I did before. The iPad’s fast. It’s got a pile of apps. The thing’s really versatile.

So good job, Microsoft, the Metro UI got me interested in tablets, just like you wanted.

Only problem is, it wasn’t yours it got me interested in.

—

On Dishwashers

Getting away from the computer-area of things, I recently fixed a few washing machines, and wrote about bearings here, and spiders here.  I was actually about to throw up a “what-manufacturers-should-do-to-avoid-some-of-these-problems” post, when I realized that the new models already took the suggestions I was about to make.

So I guess they’re trying. And since they’re making some of the mechanical changes I was about to tell them to make, I can’t rag on them for being idiots as much any more. Oh well.

In any case, I think I’m in an appliance-phase. And I’ve moved from washing machines to dishwashers.

—

Most people buy a dishwasher because they need a dishwasher.

Not me, I go against the grain. I bought one because I found it interesting.

…and they are rather interesting. They have fewer complexities than a standard front-load-washer, but still… did you know that Bosch models don’t use a heater to dry your dishes? They use condensation drying. After a final hot-water rinse, the stainless steel interiors cool faster than the dishes. So the water evaporates from the dishes, condenses on the stainless steel interior, and runs down the drain.

As far as top-of-the-line models go, did you know it’s possible to get models with a built-in water softener? I mean really. That’s pretty crazy. Now to be fair, that only solves problems for rich people with hard water who don’t have a water softener in their house already (a rare set of circumstances), but I think it’s a bit neat none-the-less.

In any case, the dishwasher I grabbed is in the process of having a website built around it. At the moment, it only covers a few of the comparisons I made while trying to determine what to buy (more to come), but if you feel like checking out the site’s progress, you can read about the Bosch 300-series dishwasher here.

…and as a note: If you’re looking for a dishwasher, once you’ve hit the price-point where they offer stainless-steel interiors, any upgrades beyond that tend to revolve around looks & features (until you get to the crazy water-softener price-point anyway). If you’re grabbing a dishwasher, don’t go super-cheap, but there doesn’t seem to be any functional need to go super-expensive either.

—

Well, that’s enough random for this month.

Back to irregularly scheduled programming.

So, this time around, grabbed a Whirlpool Duet GHW9400PW0 (used, with a known broken spider), and thought I’d give repairing it a shot. As a side-note, purchasing all these non-working bargains has resulted in me having too many working machines.

Note that before you continue reading, it’s worth mentioning that in my case, 2 of the spider arms had cracked off near the center of the spider (3rd arm still connected to the center & shaft). If yours completely disintegrated, you’re in a different situation, and this isn’t going to help you very much (alignment would be a massive issue).

Little Rant

In any case, this certainly isn’t the first GHW9400 out there with a busted spider. A little searching will show it’s a common problem. Whirlpool makes the spiders out of aluminum – not the good kind, but the terribad “pot metal” (or so I’ve read) kind.

Because Whirlpool hates the environment so much, they don’t sell the spiders separately. Not only are they one of the most vulnerable components, but to get a replacement, they force you to buy the entire stainless steel basket at around $400-500. They know you probably won’t spend that much (and will just buy a new machine for a little bit more). Your old washer goes to the dump. Of course if you break down and buy the whole basket, your old basket goes to the dump. So no matter what you do, something is going to the dump. And this makes Whirlpool happy. Internally, I wonder if their motto is “Whirlpool – Killing the environment one machine at a time“. 

—

Anyway. On to the repair.

Disclaimer: This is probably dangerous. I may have done something wrong. Or I may have neglected to mention something vital (I’m writing this from memory). If following anything I say here results in damage, injury, death, or the end of all mankind, I am not taking responsibility. You’re doing this at your own risk. It’s worked for me so far, but it was a “fingers crossed all the way” thing, and for all I know the thing could blow up on you.

Here was the spider’s condition (sorry, didn’t take images – hopefully you’re looking at yours and can see what I’m talking about):

-arm #1 was still “intact” and attached to the shaft/spindle and “center” section
-arm #2 had cracked off from the center
-arm #3 had cracked off from the center
-the basket itself had rubbed through the plastic tub, but was itself, fine

Essentially, everything was still “there” as in “attached to the basket”, hadn’t completely disintegrated, and was more-or-less in position. Obviously when the machine was run, having arm #1 as the only one connecting the spindle to the basket meant it was flexing and wobbling like there was no tomorrow.

—

NOTE THAT THESE STEPS BEGIN WITH THE SPIDER STILL CONNECTED TO THE STAINLESS BASIN

—

STEP 0 – CLEANING & DRYING

The thing was covered in white gunk (aluminum’s version of rust), soap scum, and much else. Used high pressure water, “Simple Green”, sandpaper, and scrubbing to clean it up.

Rinsed everything and dried under a heater.

—

STEP 1 – putting everything into position (risky):

Why is this risky? Assuming you’re in the same situation and looking at your spider/basket, if you grip the shaft, you can probably pull it towards you, or push it away. The remaining arm that’s still connected to the shaft (arm #1) flexes. There’s no method I know of to figure out how pushed in, or pulled out it actually should be.

In my case, based on the damage to the *tub* during operation (concentrated at the front of the machine), I surmised that the arm had pulled/flexed away from the basket and was probably sitting too far away from the basket at rest.

I pushed it towards the tub, and did so with the other arms. Fortunately, cracks tend to be zig-zaggy, and the pieces fit together. They ended up lining up pretty well at the crack.

To hold them all down at an even level (yet pushed down), I threw the concrete weights from the tub on 2 of the arms.

—

STEP 2 – measurements/alignment

I had to make sure that the spindle wasn’t cockeyed.  Obviously, if it were, the basket would rotate all wonky once everything was done (and inevitably break + smash things). I took a tape measure. Here’s a paint image to give you an idea:

(Remember that the spider itself is still connected to the stainless steel basket. Obviously this paint image doesn’t show the cracked arms, but if you mentally “snap off” 2 of the arms, you’ll get an idea as to where the cracks are.)

The yellow/orange lines are where I used the tape measure. I measured the distance from the nut (which I loosely threaded on the top) to the edges of all 3 spider arms. DISTANCE MUST BE THE SAME FOR EACH – if it’s not, the spindle is almost certainly cockeyed and bad things are pretty much guaranteed to happen.

All distances were the same.

—

STEP 3  - PRE-MENDING THE CRACKED OFF / BROKEN ARMS

Ideally, if you’re doing this, you should probably use a welder. We have one, but I didn’t use it because (1) i’m successful when welding steel, but i usually end up simply melting new holes in aluminum. (2) I didn’t have the aluminum wire for the mig (and the gas you need).

I used a combination of JB Weld and Fibreglass.

I started with JB Weld. If you decide to go my route, grab the “real” stuff (red/black tubes), and grab a lot. Don’t use the JB “Quick” Weld, as it’s not as strong, and you need every advantage you can.

I Mixed the JB Weld, used a toothpick to push it in the cracks, then used my finger to smooth it over.

Then I waited for it to cure.

Next, I cut strips of fibreglass, contoured to follow the “perimeter” facing me. This stuff is a pain to work with, but I figured the JB Weld on it’s own probably wouldn’t hold up forever (if at all), and like I said earlier, you need to take every advantage you can.

Mixed the resin, doused the fibreglass in it, and placed the fibreglass in position, making sure that I crosssed the part of the “perimeter” where the breaks/cracks (and now JB Weld) were. The thinking was that if the fibreglass crossed the cracks and I made use of all the surface area I could, it could only help if the JB Weld wasn’t up-to-the-task.

I let the fibreglass dry and then smothered the entire thing (including over the fibreglass I’d just put on) with more JB Weld.

Beyond giving the JB Weld as much surface area to work with as possible (and smoothing out over the fiberglass), so much of the arm had deteriorated that I figured if by some chance this worked, the arms were likely to break off somewhere else soon anyway. May as well get a pre-emptive jump on things.

So everything I could see/access so far (the other side wasn’t accessible due to the stainless tub) was covered in JB Weld and fiberglass.

I let it all dry a loong while.

—

STEP 4 – REMOVING THE ARM FROM THE BASKET

Obviously doing 1 side of the spider probably wasn’t going to be enough. Time to remove the spider so I could get to the other side.

This was the first test of strength for the spider, as it has to be pried out. To remove it from the stainless basket, there are a total of 6 screws holding the spider in.

Once those screws are out, you have to pry in 2 places at once – I picked a spider arm and used a screwdriver to pry between the basket lip & the spider arm (because the screw-holes are bevelled in, you have to force a gap between the arm & lip), and pried the arm itself up at the same time with a prybar.

This is quite a bit of force being exerted – fortunately, I didn’t hear any cracking. The spider was already pretty solid.

—

STEP 5 – THE OTHER SIDE

With the spider (now one piece more-or-less) out of the basket, I had access to the opposite side. I began by cleaning it up (washing, cleaning, sanding, scrubbing) and drying it.

You can guess what I did next. That side pretty much took a bath in JB Weld, starting with the cracks, letting it dry, and then smearing JB Weld over the rest. I ignored the far edges because most pictures out there show cracks/breaks being concentrated around the center, and I was already running low on the JB.

More dry/cure time.

—

STEP 6 – PAINTING THE SPIDER

Since I hadn’t used JB all the way to the edges, I figured paint might help to keep water/soap/minerals from attacking the little aluminum that was exposed (and perhaps catch areas I didn’t quite perfectly cover with the JB.

I painted the entire thing with some pretty standard Tremclad.

…and more dry time.

—

STEP 7 – REATTACHING THE SPIDER – SILICON CITY

As you’ve probably figured out, throughout the process I had days of drying time to ponder/plan. During this down time, I wondered why the spider was never attached to a more central part of the stainless basket to any degree (why limited to the edges?). Was the arm supposed to flex a little and absorb shock? Was the tub expected to flex? Dissimilar metals issues? Physics/leverage? Oversight?

I almost considered drilling through some of the “compartments” in the spider, right through the stainless basket and bolting the 2 directly together in a few spots for added strength, but because there were so many possible reasons it may intentionally *not* have been that way, I decided to go with a flexible compromise.

I grabbed 3 tubes of the Permatex silicon stuff (1 silicon, 1 RTV high temp gasket stuff, 1 black RTV gasket thing), dumped all of 1 tube in the middle of the basket, and the other tubes in thick lines down the “arm” runs.

Then I plopped the spider back on, sandwiching the silicon down between the two.

Silcon Notion was 3-fold:

1. the silicon (when cured) should transfer *some* of the energy directly to the basket, starting at the center, which *should* result in slightly less energy being transferred down the arms.
2. if the spider actually shouldn’t be direct-connected to the basket anywhere but the edge, this stuff would/should flex enough not to hurt things too badly.
3. in the event this whole endeavor failed and the arms were going to crack off again anyway, the silicon would hopefully at least keep the arms from instantly slamming in the wrong direction – keep them kinda in place so that instead of a big boom, I get a more gradual crunch-crunch-bang.

The biggest concern I had here was that the silicon might not adhere super-well, go flying off at high spin and end up plugging the drain system. Figured it was a relatively small risk for the possible potential.

—

STEP 8 – REASSEMBLY

After letting the silicon cure (more waiting….), I started reassembling.

Once back in the plastic tub, I rotated the stainless basket by hand to verify it wasn’t cockeyed, and to make sure it wasn’t rubbing the tub (if I had a problem here, I’d have to snap everything back apart and start over).

Fortunately, all seemed well.

I tried prying between the basket + tub, and there was no play, and no cracking.

Things were looking good.

—

—

I then:

• Assembled the rest of the machine.
• Ran a number of empty test cycles (using a flashlight to watch the space between the stainless + tub the whole time to ensure it wasn’t coming loose).
• Made sure it seemed balanced. Listed for noises, etc.
• Ran cycles with clothes (again, watched with flashlight).
• Checked the drain catch to make sure I didn’t have JB Weld, paint, fibreglass, or silicon in there.
• That was it!

—

CONCLUSION

As far as I can tell, it’s worked fine. Of course, it all could end in a catastrophic bang, but I’m optimistic.

One thing I have avoided is the use of the “Extra High Speed” spin – I ran it once, that particular load wasn’t balanced (washer tried a few times to rebalance) and the thing was banging away – I realized I couldn’t tell whether it was the load or if things were coming apart, so I shut down the washer, checked the basket for integrity/play, and when I found it was still solid, I figured I’d rather stick to “High Speed” instead and forgo the worry every time I hear a noise.

I probably should have allowed the JB Weld (everything really), cure for a week. While the stuff should generally be done within 24 hours, it seems to continue curing & getting harder after that.

If I were to do it again, I’d use real weld the next time and just learn to deal with welding aluminum. Going the JB Weld route seemed like the quicker/easier/cheaper solution at first, but as you’ve seen, I spent days waiting for stuff to dry, and resorted to fibreglass + silicon to help ensure integrity. Maybe I didn’t need the fiberglass/silicon, but to my knowledge, nobody’s tried to repair one of these things before and I had to operate under the assumption that whatever I was doing might-not-be-quite-enough.

In hindsight it would have been much better to weld the thing, maybe use JB to fill out any holes/gaps & weak areas, and then just paint it and go. Welding is quick, and when done properly, incredibly strong – much stronger than any epoxy ever has been in my experience anyway.

—

In any case, if your spider is gone and you’re looking to repair it, it’s certainly possible, though whether it’s worth the time & effort is questionable. Of course, longevity’s still a question too. As you can probably tell, I’d be inclined to suggest a proper weld rather than the precarious JB/Fibreglass method (still no guarantees, but should be easier, quicker, & more reliable), but I realize that starts to become a “do as I say, not as I do” thing.

Regardless, if you decide to tackle a repair on your spider, hopefully something above has helped you.

In this case, the bug revolves around the following mission:

Citadel: Hanar Diplomat
Salarian Spectre Jondum Bau suspects that a member of the Hanar diplomatic staff is indoctrinated. Find evidence on the hanar in the Presidium Embassies.

If you’re stuck here and have played ME2, you already know why it’s particularly frustrating that you can’t proceed. It’s worth noting that the only way *not* to trigger this bug in the first place is to do this entire mission as soon as you get it – don’t leave the Citadel, don’t talk to anybody else, etc.

In any case, if you’ve hit the bug, the fix is to edit the saved game. Here’s how you do it (thanks to Fasalina from the thread in BW’s forums here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/344/index/9687936/6#9959316):

1) Just to be safe, back up your savegame directory first. Head to your Documents folder, and find it within BioWare/MassEffect3. I’ll assume you know how to either zip it or make a copy elsewhere.

2) Run the game, and head to the location on the Citadel shown in the image below (click for a larger version):

Note that the terminal is actually near #5 on the map (even though it looks like it should be near #4). Verify that it’s not working/clickable, then create a new save. Remember the save game number. Exit Mass Effect 3.

3) Grab  Gibbed’s Mass Effect 3 Save Editor. If that site is down at some point or <insert-other-problem-here>, I put up a local copy here: saveedit-r62_b77.zip

4) Unzip it, and run the program (the icon is pink). Note that it requires Microsoft’s .NET framework – in my case (running Windows 7), trying to run the program simply brought me to the download page and I had it downloaded & installed in under a minute.

5) With the program running, look at the following image (click for larger version):

You start by hitting OPEN – for me, it found the save game location automatically and I simply had to choose the Career and Save  Game number.

Then you go to the RAW section – it may be selected by default.

Head to the Uncategorized section, and select Streaming.

Now that you’ve selected STREAMING, at the location of #5 in the image above, there will be a little button with 3 dots (…). Select that button.

6) A new window will pop up:

Click ADD. A new entry will show up, called Gibbed.MassEffect3.FileFormat (as seen in #7 above). It should already be selected. Move the mouse to the circled region by #8, click, and start typing….

The entry you are adding (typing in) is as follows:

SS_HanarPlot

It’s probably case-sensitive. Once you’ve entered it, you’ll be changing the “Active” section from False to True. The image below should help:

Now that you have SS_HanarPlot (#9), set to TRUE (#10), verify that it’s showing up correctly in the left pane (#11). Once that’s done, hit OK (#12).

7) You’ll be back in the main program window. Hit SAVE. It should present a list. I suggest making a new save-game, though I suppose you could overwrite an existing one if you wanted to (hopefully you backed up just in case!).

8 ) Fire up Mass Effect 3 again. I WOULD NOT hit “Resume” because I have no idea whether it would load your newly created save, or load a previous one. Instead, manually load your new save.

9) The terminal should now be clickable (again, on the in-game map it’s closest to the #5 point of interest – NOT the #4). Make sure to follow the entire quest chain through immediately (don’t pick up other quests, don’t leave the Citadel). Basically, after you’ve used the terminal mentioned, you’ll have to use a couple terminals in the Docks:HoldingArea and then return to the Embassy area again.

—–

Hopefully BioWare manages to patch this bug out soon – in the meantime, editing the save-game is the only method I’m aware of to currently fix it, and let’s be fair – not everyone is comfortable dabbling in an editor, and others don’t want to lose hours of progress by reverting to a save that took place before the bug was triggered.

If you have additional tips, or have found another way to work past the bug, feel free to leave a comment below.

Otherwise, hopefully this has helped you to continue enjoying ME3 !

Now technically, you’ll find that all the major Whirlpool parts outlets include these as part of a $400-500 rear tub. Yes, Whirlpool wants you to buy the big honking tub because 1 or 2 $10-20 bearings stopped working. Presumably you’re then supposed to throw your old tub away. If I ever start an “I hate the environment” club, Whirlpool’s the first company I’m asking to join.

So bearings are a bit of a pain to find. Well, maybe not that bad. These are the bearing numbers:
6205
6206

(I pulled the numbers from http://www.hometask.com/washerrepair.aspx where you can find bearing numbers for a number of Kenmore & Whirlpool Duet machines). It’s worth noting that you can buy seals or seals+bearings directly through their site as well.

Otherwise, you can find bearings online for anywhere from $3.50 up (depending on the quality of bearing you’re looking for – I doubt I’d opt for anything less than something made in Japan which is a good bit more, or a stainless steel bearing which starts at around $20), or find them at your local bearing shop. Now finding a new seal is a pain, though the site mentioned above carries them.

—

Installation:

I was going to write up a big massive guide with pictures, but as it turns out, others have already put together impressive YouTube videos. The one I’d recommend using as a guide is embedded below.

Again, to give credit where it’s due, this excellent video was created by Jerrod from http://www.hometask.com/washerrepair.aspx – and again, they sell the seals and bearings for the Whirlpool Duet WFW9200SQ02 as well as other models.

They also have a short version available on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd5NKbpVSRM

If you’re interested in getting a general idea as to the process, I’d suggest the short YouTube video. When you’re actually ready to buckle down and start disassembling, watch the long one.

—

In case you wanted some pictures anyway, I took a few during disassembly before I realized that my pictures were never going to compete with a video. Here they are if you want to see them anyway.

A few notes (watch the video first, or you won’t know what I’m referring to):

• The 4 shocks that connect the tub to the bottom of the cage… In the short version of the video, he mentions that you just twist and they come out. I found that there’s a little clip/lock on opposite sides of each shock (not opposite as in top/bottom, opposite as in the side you can see and the side you can’t) and to release them you’ll have to put a little screwdriver in the slot and pry a little to open each one. Ideally you’d have 3 arms and do both clips while you twist – however since most of us aren’t that fortunate, I twisted as far as I could without snapping it, and while twisting, did 1 clip/lock, did the one on the opposite side, went back to the 1st side, etc. As long as you’re twisting, the clips/locks will catch a little each time, it’ll twist a little further, and eventually the whole thing will twist 90 degrees and come down.
• the video doesn’t show every possible wire/connector/hose that you disconnect. They’re generally pretty easy to figure out, but make sure everything’s disconnected from the tub before you drop it – the thing’s heavy enough to rip/destroy anything you forgot to detach.
• for the front drain pump – in the video, it’s a screw that comes out. On my model, there are no screws – just a big rubber “latch” on the front that pops out toward you (you can wiggle the pump assembly out from there).
• the main nut on the shaft (15/16 “) was very tight on mine. He uses a ratchet with a pipe – I needed an impact gun.
• he’s not kidding when he says lifting the tub isn’t for the feint-of-heart. I think I pulled 2 or 3 muscles. I’ll either have a helper for reinstallation, or I’ll remove the counter-weights.
• the shaft was seized to the bearings on mine.Thus, I needed a small sledge hammer to pound the shaft through once the tub was split (a regular hammer didn’t cut it). If you do this, make sure you partly thread the bolt on (to protect the threads), put the socket on the bolt (to protect the bolt head), and hit the socket (preferably an impact socket, but wear gloves & eye protection regardless in case it shatters) with the hammer. If you just smack the shaft directly with the hammer, you’ll destroy the threads.
• Take Pictures As You Go!!! Very important, and I can’t stress it enough. Particularly with the wiring, if it takes you a few days in total, you might not remember where everything went. Just about every cell phone has a camera nowadays, so even if you don’t have a regular camera, you should have an option. It’s a good idea to label things with tape (or write with a sharpie marker where appropriate) as well. A few extra minutes being careful in this area might save you hours troubleshooting later.
• keep the screws separate. I like to take a piece of duct tape, and tape screws to whatever panel they came from. I duck-tape clamps to their respective hoses so they don’t get lost. As a side note, for some reason, my rear panel had a mix of fine/coarse threaded screws. By the time I realized it, I’d already pulled 5-6 out and had to guess which went where. Every time you pull a screw it might be worth checking to make sure it’s the same size/type as the other screws you just pulled.

My original bearings were… well… in bad shape. It’s clear why the previous owners couldn’t stand the noise from the unit anymore:

These are the inner bearings, and they’re obviously toast. Things got so bad that some of the bearings wore through the cage and fell out (there was a mess of rusted metal shavings left behind). What’s left of this bearing ws seized to the shaft, so I had to use a grinder/dremel to cut away until I was close enough to the shaft to snap it off.

You can see the seal behind the bearings (black, covered in rust) – upon removal, it actually looks to be in great shape, but obviously it didn’t do it’s job.

The outer bearings were in surprisingly good shape, but they’ll be replaced anyway.

—

Thoughts:

on The Process:
-Despite the many things that need to be disconnected/labelled, it’s a pretty quick process.
-Once I got to the shaft/bolt/bearings… let’s just say it took about 80% of the time I spent.
-While you could use a hex screwdriver for everything, the 7mm socket on a ratchet is probably a better idea where possible (easier on the wrists, and less chance of stripping). You WILL need the hex screw for a couple items though, so don’t go thinking you can do it all with the socket.
-Bearing replacement reminds me very much of bearing replacement on cars (the process, and the headaches I ran into). If you’ve ever swapped brake drum bearings, this should be comfortable territory for you.

on Whirlpool…
-Very disappointing that they don’t sell the bearings & seal separately.  Clearly a conscious effort on their part to rake customers for cash.
-Based on reviews I’ve seen around the web, bearing failures are very common. From the sounds of it, the bearings/seals that Whirlpool uses aren’t that great to begin with, and if you use non-HE detergent, it’ll suds up and quickly get in behind the seal and start wrecking the bearings. You HAVE to use the HE stuff.
-Another common issue on these washing machines (usually noticed when draining) is that either they won’t drain, or you’ll get a nasty noise from the pump.  There’s a “catch” by the pump (filter) which has usually picked up coins/socks/etc. I found a penny and a foam bra insert left by the previous owners in my washer. If you’re doing the bearings you’ll be pulling off the pump anyway, so you may as well open the catch and clean anything out of it.
-I wouldn’t buy another Whirlpool unless it were being sold used for cheap (in need of repair). Unless of course they change their ways (for starters, have the bearings as a serviceable item which they sell parts for).

on The Video (linked further up)…
-A fantastic video, and a big thanks to Jerrod from HomeTask for putting it out there to help people around the globe repair their own machines.
-Again, make sure everything’s disconnected from the tub before you drop it. The video isn’t quite as thorough when it comes to all the connectors.
-If the video helps you, by all means consider buying the seal (and possibly bearings) from his site. If for whatever reason that won’t work for you (need a specific method of international shipping that isn’t listed on the HomeTask site for example), it’s possible to find kits on eBay, though I suspect the quality of Jerrod’s seals is probably better than the average eBay kit (and cheaper too).
-As a reminder, the seals/bearings on the HomeTask site are located at http://www.hometask.com/washerrepair.aspx .

Finally, I’m not in any way associated with the HomeTask site. The video’s simply awesome, and I think HomeTask deserves some positive word-of-mouth for putting it up. If you find other videos that you believe are super-helpful in repairing/maintaining/etc a Whirlpool Duet WFW9200SQ02 Washer, have some tips of your own, or found additional places for bearings/seals/etc for these washing machines, feel free to post it in the comments below.

• Garmin 1500W Oil-Filled Heater – 043-5963 (Canadian Tire)
• Bionaire 1500W Oil Filler Radiator – BOF2001-CN (Wal-Mart)

Both have a thermostat that can be set, a digital display, and claim to have a frost protection feature.

Here are a couple pictures of them, side-by-side. Bionaire (black) is on the left. Garrison (white) on the right:

Both are powered on – it’s a bit dim in the room, so in the 1st image, the camera’s flash is off. In the 2nd image, the camera’s flash is on.

As you can see, the Bionaire has a blue backlit display, with some pretty large numbers. You’ll have no problem reading it in the dark. On the other hand, the Garrison has a small display, and it’s not backlit – it’s very difficult to see in the dark. A couple more images closer up:

It’s really tough to read some of the indicators on the Garrison model (right-side). Particularly the stuff on the top and bottom. If your room’s not very well-lit, it’s an exercise in frustration. Try reading/making-out as much as you can in the image above. See what you can pick out.

Now here’s another image with the flash on:

Really, the Garrison’s not meant for a dark room, assuming you plan to read the display. If you’re planning to set-and-forget, it might be just fine though.

—

With that out of the way, let’s get this comparison / review moving….

—

It’s worth noting that Bionaire’s also has an “Energy Savings Heat & Save(tm)” mode. What it actually does is has the heater run on high for 10 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of medium. This cycle repeats. Unless there’s some particular reason you want the thing automatically switching between high/medium while it’s running, you’ll probably never use it. If you actually want to save energy, you’ll just use the thermostat.

—

Conclusion

The Bionaire has a great display and is easy to use. Being able to see the current temperature is a definite plus. If you like to monitor your heater at a glance, prefer big displays, or want something you can figure out without the manual, it’s probably the model to get.

The Garrison has well-rounded wattage settings, locking wheels (a good idea on what’s essentially a hot case of oil on wheels), and is pretty strong when it comes to programmability. It’s not as intuitive, and the display could really use a backlight, but functionally, it’s superior in most ways.

-

One major flaw with both models is the lack of any sort of memory when unplugged. This really diminishes the value of the “anti frost” features. Power loss means you have to get back to the oil based radiator/heater before the temperature in the room drops from 5 degrees to 0. Technically, this makes the “manual” models superior for those applications. You might not be able to set the “manual” models to a specific temperature, but at least when the power comes back on, they do too.

—

The Bionaire BOF2001-CN is currently available at Wal-Mart Canada for $69.96.
The Garrison 043-5963-6 is currently available at Canadian Tire for $79.99.

A really oddball situation recently arose in Plex. Namely, all of season 3 was picked up in Plex Media Manager except for the 6th episode (“Chuck Versus the Nacho Sampler”). Basically, it jumped from 5-7. I tried a pile of tricks to no avail – moving the folder out and back in, renaming the file to use periods instead of spaces (Chuck.S03E06.Chuck.Versus.the.Nacho.Sampler.mkv), having it as the only episode in the folder (in case for some reason I had a duplicate), etc.

Turns out, the problem is having “sample” in the filename (I suppose there’s a filter for those.. *ahem*… torrents which include samples). To be clear, I’d named the file as so:

Chuck – S03E06 – Chuck Versus the Nacho Sampler.mkv

The fix was dumping “Sampler” from the file name. I changed the name to the following and it worked:

Chuck – S03E06 – Chuck Versus the Nacho.mkv

An ALT-refresh (the files aren’t stored on the local machine, hence the required “alt” to actually rescan the network folder) allowed it to be picked up by Plex.

I’d assume dropping the title completely (and having Chuck – S03E06) would work too, though I like having the episode name in the filename when I’m playing videos on another machine through VLC (Plex clients shouldn’t care – it should show you the properly scraped name including the “Sampler” part). If you’re really irked/OCD about losing part of the episode name in the file name, you could always be creative and try using S4mpler or fudging the name enough that it doesn’t look like it’s a “sample”.

-It’s paired with a Winegard HD 8200U
-There’s an improvement over the radio-shack 10db antenna
-The 3 towers less than 20 miles away didn’t cause overload (though it’s not aimed directly at them and we’re running through 100 feet of coax)
-Between the 2, we’re getting a digital station ~60 miles away perfectly, with a closer digital station (which it’s not aimed at) still artifacting every once in a while (which I’m sure will be cured when Mr Saw meets a family of trees causing multipath). Most of the analog stations are coming in perfectly with a couple having you-have-to-look-for-it-to-see-it ghosting. One analog station is a bit snowy at the moment, which will likely be cured when the antenna’s re-aimed (it’s in the antenna’s ‘blind spot’ right now).

–

Okay then.

In the last write-up, I’d grabbed and installed the Winegard HD 8200U antenna. Due largely to a 100-ft cable run, it was using a cheap 10db in-line amplifier – something that probably cost around $10-15 about a decade ago. If you want to read up on the remaining issues it left, you can check out the Winegard HD 8200U review (scroll to the bottom).

Moving on, with some tweaking the issues were minimized but still existed at certain times of day (well.. night actually). I decided to grab the Winegard AP-8275 antenna amplifier to see if it would help. Turns out, it gave quite the improvement…

I’ll start with the bad. The thing only includes 1 cable, and that’s for the power inserter, so if you’re currently runnng an amp-less setup, you’ll probably need to buy/obtain/make 2 cables. Like the antenna, the amplifier costs a fortune in Canada. To avoid paying $100 for the thing, which is within the ballpark every Canadian retailer wants to charge, I grabbed it from Amazon.ca for $66.

So that’s the bad. Now the good.

—

The un-necessary concern

Before buying, I was a little concerned about the possibility of overloading the TV-tuner with the high-gain amp. Really, the AP-8275 is about the highest-gain consumer-oriented preamp you can buy. If you overload the tuner, all channels suffer.

I’ll explain a little further with the pros/cons I’d come up with:

Reasons TO get the 8275:
-one of the transmitters (~60 miles away) could use improvement
-potential to possibly get Grand Forks station (~120 miles away) during tropo events
-100-foot cable run

Reasons NOT TO get the 8275:
- 3 transmitters fairly close (10-20 mile range) risks overloading
-the weakest Winegard (the HDP-269) would be slightly stronger than the current 10db amp, and less noisy anyway, which might be a safer bet.

The things I had going for me were that I was running a 100-ft run which would probably eat around 10db of the gain anyway, I wasn’t planning to aim the antenna directly at any of the near stations, and that I was planning to throw in a 4-way splitter at some point which would undoubtedly drop the signal some anyway.

Turns out, the concern was unwarranted. No overloading, so I’m glad I went with the beefiest amp I could find. At least now I won’t be left wondering “could I have gone higher?”

–

The install

It installs pretty easily, and includes a couple rubber boots to help weatherproof the connections. The amp mounts to the antenna mast (a black box of sorts with a U-clamp), while the power inserter (about the size of a common splitter) goes inside near the TV.

I’d throw up pictures, but it’s pretty unexciting and you can find images all around the web.

–

Reception

Reception-wise, there was a notable improvement over the 10db amp, although it took a little while to fully realize it. The “signal meter” numbers on the TV didn’t increase drastically or anything (though they moved up slightly), and we didn’t instantly pull in the stations that are 120+ miles away (which are the only “new” stations we could possibly get at this point), but…

…artificating/cutouts reduced in severity rather significantly. One of those stations (around 120 miles away) are also picked up by the tuner for a few seconds every so often. The antenna isn’t aimed yet (I reset the aim to where the Antenna was pointed in the previous writeup so that I’d have a fair comparison), but it’s very possible we’ll end up seeing those channels periodically and during tropo events once the thing’s aimed well.

–

The next step…

The antenna’s obviously got to be aimed again, and we’ve got a few trees that’ll have to be murdered as well. Between the HD8200U antenna and the AP8275 amplifier, I’m very pleased with the results thus far though. Once the rest of Winnipeg goes to digital OTA in under 90 days, I have no doubt we’ll get all the local stations + US FOX perfectly, 24/7 (minus some glitches during lighting of course).

6 – CBC
7 – CTV (CKY)
9 – Global (CKND)
12 – FOX (from Pembina, ND – very tough to get)
13 – CityTV (CHMI, previously A-Channel, previously MTN)
35 – JoyTV

There’s also a french channel on 3. Channel 35′s relatively new. Aside from FOX (12), you’ve generally been able to get the others without much difficulty in rural areas around Winnipeg.

Canada’s in the midst of the Digital Over-The-Air transition, and while Aug 2011 is the deadline, only Global has transitioned thus far (over 40.1 & 40.2 though the HD stream’s currently remapped to channel 9.1). If you live near Winnipeg, you might want to check it out – it’s pretty sweet. If you can grab FOX’s digital (channel 12.1), it’s worth a shot too.

—

Now I don’t watch much TV, but the goal was to pull in FOX. It’s a challenge, but challenges are usually pretty fun. For reference, we’re about 60 miles (90-100km) away from that transmitter.

Turns out, it can be a bit tough. I started out with an RCA CANT711 (from Walmart), which mounted outdoors about 25 feet in the air, using the built-in 10db amplifier, shockingly managed to pull in FOX’s digital station… sometimes. It’s one of those tiny antennas in a plastic tube, and surprisingly it beat out the massive standalone YAGI antennas I tried (a 14-foot and an 8-foot).

—

Of course, nothing’s more frustrating than a signal that only comes in some of the time. After a pile of research, I decided to give the Winegard HD8200U a try. It’s supposed to be similar to the 8200P, except that it’s in sections so that it can be shipped by standard delivery services (UPS/Purolator/FedEx/etc) rather than having to be shipped by truck.

I ordered it through xtek.ca, who shipped it via Purolator.

Here’s the box:

I left the sandals there (large mens) to give you an idea as to how big this box is. It managed to obtain a small hole during shipping, but didn’t sustain any damage inside.

Opening the box, you can see things are really packed in there:

It’s all loose in there – if you stand the box up and shake it around you’ll hear everything rattle around, but it’s a “tight fit” if that makes any sense.

One issue was that a loose bolt was in the box, with no nut (I’m assuming it fell out). I’ve read complaints about this elsewhere (it was something I actually expected). I’m actually surprised the screw didn’t make it’s way out too. I found a nut lying around which saved me a drive to the hardware store.

Incidentally, the loose screw (and missing nut) were the ones to connect the 2 booms together.

Note to Winegard: spend the nickel for a ziplock bag, put the nut/bolt in it, and staple it to the inside of the box. Alternately, thread it through one of the booms the way all the other nuts/bolts were done to keep things together.

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Assembly

Instructions are included, though they take some careful reading. Once you’ve pulled everything out, you’ll want to find a large area to work in while you assemble it. Above, you can see one of the elements that has to be moved into position.

You might notice a little circular plastic “nib” on the lower black plastic piece. I actually ripped these off, but it turns out that by default, 4 of the elements swing out to the “wrong side”, and these nibs (4 of them) are supposed to encourage you to swing them out all the way around to the “right way”. For clarification, in the above image, based on the orientation of the element, you might think you’d rotate CLOCKWISE, when in actuality you need to rotate this one COUNTERCLOCKWISE, which means bending the element up and over the others (hopefully without permanently bending anything).

The instruction sheet that comes with the antenna shows the orientation. Essentially, you’re supposed to end up with a left-right-left-right-left-right pattern (same thing on the opposite side of the boom). Breaking off the nibs and orienting things where they slid easiest into place I had something like Left-right-left-right-right-right-left-right-left-left which was INCORRECT (and I had to change it afterwards).

I’m not sure why they didn’t just orient everything to be a little easier. Rotating the element over the boom isn’t fun, and despite the solid construction, I wasn’t pleased about forcing the element over the others + rivets.

The UHF elements were non-complicated, though the plastic mounts here felt a bit chitzy. I was careful to hold them while I rotated the metal elements into place. You’ll see 2 little holes in the metal (and 2 corresponding bumps in the plastic to lock them in once you’ve rotated). Unfortunately, the metal elements basically shaved off the tops of the plastic bumps (though they still held tight in place).

Above, you can see both main booms (VHF and UHF) with all the elements extended. This was right before connecting the 2 booms together.

NOTE that you have to flip the VHF boom at some point (since you have to do the elements on both sides). Be careful so that you don’t bend/break/put_any_stress_on any of the elements as you flip the thing. Might be handy to have a helper here.

Sliding them together took a bit of work. It’s possible for one person, but there are a few issues:

• It’s a very tight fit (which is good, mind you – nobody wants a wobbly antenna). You’ve gotta line up very carefully and wiggle them together. There’s 0 clearance.
• The booms are heavy, making it tough for 1 person to wiggle.
• The UHF “phasing lines” (the 2 wires you see) have to be worked into the black box and into the guides at the same time.

It took me about 3 minutes – I didn’t want to smash the phasing lines into the side of the box and bend everything up, so I had to go slowly. Really, if somebody else is around, have them spend a few seconds giving you a hand. One person can be the muscle, while the other guides the lines in – it’ll probably take 15-20 seconds that way.

Make sure the phasing lines aren’t touching the metal boom (now’s a good time). It’ll screw up your reception if they are. I had to bend the phasing lines a little bit because mine were touching the boom.

Note that there’s a single element (reflector actually) in the box. This is supposed to attach with the bolt that connects the booms together. I missed it and installed it later, so you won’t see it in the next few pics (it’s easy to install after-the-fact if you forget).

Above, you’ll see one of the corner reflectors being installed. They just slide between the metal plates and are locked in with a bolt/nut. The instructions are pretty clear that the clip tips have to point away from the boom. Basically, the 2 metal “tabs” that you see in the image holding the reflector element in place have to be positioned/oriented the way you see in the pic.

Above, you can see another shot of it from a little further away. Fairly straightforward.

The opposite corner reflector is exactly the same, and installs exactly the same way (just with the antenna flipped over). Be careful not to bend/break anything when flipping the entire antenna over – get a helper if need be and take it slow. With both installed, you get the image above. Might not be the greatest idea to have all the weight on the reflector (the way I did), though I didn’t notice any bending/damage by sitting it that way and didn’t really have anything to distribute the weight along the boom anyway.

A quick close-up in case anything has you confused. Remember that I still hadn’t put on the single reflector/element that attaches to the bolt you see coming out of the main boom yet (if you installed it now, it would go on the top as you see it, in this case by taking the nut off, plunking it on, then putting the nut back on).

Now, the “boom brace” goes on. It’s basically the bar without any elements on it. Above, you can see I’ve attached it to the top reflector, though I haven’t tightened the screw just yet (you need the boom to rotate so that you can attach it to the main boom next). Positioning is important – the black balun box (the one the phasing lines went into) is facing down. If your black balun box is facing up, you’ve got the antenna upside-down and have gotta flip the antenna over.

Above’s a view from further away. Once you’ve attached the “boom brace” to the element, you attach it to the main boom. Unless you bent the bananas out of something, all the holes line up. Make sure to tighten the bolt to the main boom (as well as tighten the bolt on the reflector-side).

PROBLEM ABOVE! The U-clamps (that will mount to the mast) are on opposite sides (naughty, naughty, Winegard!) Fortunately, it’s easy to reverse the apparatus on the “boom brace” by yanking out the bolts.

Above, I’ve reversed the clamp so that they now line up.

That single element/reflector I mentioned forgetting earlier… Well here’s where I realized it was the only piece I had left over. It’s on now, as seen in the image above.

At some point, I popped the cover for the balun box on (sorry, forgot to take a pic). It’s a bit tight – there are metal prongs inside that have to grip the “phase lines”, so make sure you line it up right before pushing it on so that they don’t bend instead of gripping.

Done, and installed up on a tripod.

Observations/good stuff/flaws

The 8200U is pretty darn solid. The holes lined up, booms fit tightly together, and the metal’s just plan strong. There’s a lot more metal than there is plastic, and everything just feels sturdy.

All the bolts/nuts (aside from the 1 missing/loose one) were attached to the places they were supposed to go. This was a big plus – no guessing as to which bolt goes where – this made it very obvious, which was quite helpful.

Putting it up on the garage was a 2-man job, though it wasn’t particularly difficult. The 2 reflectors would make it really tough to solo it up the ladder. I’d be particularly careful if you’re installing it on a tall roof (or a tower) mind you (anywhere you have a high chance of dying if you fall) – maneuvering the thing around is a bit clumsy, so you’ve gotta be slow and accurate.

Once mounted to the mast (an 11mm deep-socket for the bolts on the U-clamp btw) the thing just didn’t move, even with the trees blowing around. I’m sure the boom-brace helped quite a bit here.

The “flaws” were mentioned in the writeup above, but:

• missing nut (due to the nut/screw being loose in the box)
• 4 of the VHF elements had to be rotated/bent over the boom to rotate into the proper position. I don’t know how/why those plastic “nibs” are in there rather than simply riveting the things on in the ideal position.
• The plastic UHF clips felt like they might break while rotating the UHF elements, and the 2 plastic points were generally shaved by the elements during rotation.

—

Performance – the improvement

We’ve got 2 digital stations to work with. Global (within 20 miles), and FOX (about 60 miles or 90-100km). It’s hard not to get Global, even with rabbit ears. FOX on the other hand is a challenge, as I mentioned earlier.

With the amplified RCA CANT711, we typically saw a 17-20% signal on FOX (when it worked), although we managed a peak at 30% one day (for a couple hours until we lost the signal completely). It was *very* picky about aim. About 1-2? of rotation to work with, and about 1 foot on the mast to work with for height (too high or too low = no signal)

With the Winegard HD 8200U, we get approximately 40% on the signal meter on FOX, so far with a peak of around 50%. A pretty solid improvement, though we’re still using a 10db pre-amplifier (we have a 100ft RG-6 quad-shield cable run, so we absolutely need the pre-amp). It’s not as picky about directionality as the RCA (closer to 5? to work with where we still get a signal on the Winegard), and ghosting on the analog channels is minimal. That said, despite strong signals (40%+ FOX and 90%+ Global), there’s still some tuning to do – for whatever reason the digital channels are being a little crazy – we’re getting periodic artifacting despite the stronger signal on the meter. My guesses are either noise, or strong reflections that are wreaking havoc. The weather’s been rough today, so that could have an impact as well.

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Conclusion

So far I’m quite pleased. 2 old yagi-style antennas wouldn’t pick up FOX at all. The newer dinky (but surprisingly good) RCA 711 did, but not all the time, and it was very picky about placement.

We do have a new kink to work out (the artifacting), but with a considerably stronger signal strength, it’s a new issue, so at the very least it’s a fresh challenge.

Tomorrow (weather permitting), I’ll play with the antenna positioning a bit and do a little tree trimming and update. I may look into a low-noise preamp to replace our 10+ year old Radio Shack whatever-was-cheapest-at-the-time-preamp, since if the antenna’s grabbing noise I’m sure we’re not helping it with the current preamp. Another option would be to try the attic – higher elevation (and fewer trees), but we’re bound to lose a chunk of signal going through the shingles.

I bought DA2 through Steam (PC) and have been playing it there, and decided to give it a run through OS X.

The good news is… if you bought the Windows version (through a service like Steam), your serial number will probably work on the Mac (mine did anyway). You’ll have to borrow an install disc from somebody however. If you have the retail box copy, it includes both installers. In fact, if you have the retail disc copy, you can try it out on OS X, and if you hate it, bootcamp into Windows and just install/play it in Windows. And the game itself is quite good. So that’s the good news.

The bad news is… the Mac version blows.

Update/Edit: That statement has been controversial, so let me be clear. The Mac version blows compared to the Windows version (you’re reading a comparison after all). The Windows version is well-tuned. The Mac version isn’t tuned at all. The Windows version gets 2x the frame rate of the Mac version. The Windows version was QA-tested, whereas the Mac version clearly wasn’t (2 of the 3 bugs I came across were very obvious and there’s no way they’d miss QA). The Windows version is native, the Mac version is a Cider port (wrapped and translated rather than actually programmed for Mac OS).

That’s not to say that you’ll necessarily have a bad experience with the Mac version – you may very well have an enjoyable experience. If it meets your standards then great. If on the other hand you find the experience…. wanting…. you may want to consider trying it through Windows. This is in stark contrast to other Mac games out there (Blizzards, Valves, and even the latest Civilization), where the Mac experience is just as good as the Windows experience.

UPDATE2: Ran the game again through a brand new 2011 MacBook Pro, with the 6750m GPU. It plays very well, and is a very reasonable gaming experience. That said, it’s truly disappointing that you need a top-of-the-line Mac for DA2 to have what I’d consider a reasonably good playable experience in OSX.

If you’ve got a mid-range Mac, or a Mac from 1-2 years ago, you have my condolences. Try the game in Mac OS X first, and if you find it “acceptable”, then great. If you find the performance to be wanting, fire up a Windows bootcamp partition, and you’ll get the higher framerates you expect/deserve.

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PART 1 – A FEW QUICK SCREENSHOTS

Let’s hit up some details.

First, a quick couple screenshots to show the location that was loaded:

The Windows Screenshot - Click the image to see it in full-size (warning... it's kinda huge)

The OS X Screenshot - Click the image to see it in full-size (warning... it's also kinda huge)

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You probably won’t find any substantial differences between them. Meril’s face is lighter in the first one, but I believe it’s just the lack of clouds overhead (in previous testing with the demo, I noticed that it was tough to get consistency when it came to face brightness).

You can skip the following grey section if you’re not interested in the game’s overall differences between quality settings – it’s not terribly important to the Mac/PC comparison.

The above screenshots are at the “low” setting, with everything else turned off. I have screenshots of the higher quality settings, but for anyone interested, rather than upload them all, it basically goes like this:

• Low (as you see above) seems to rely on ambient lights (no difference between PC and Mac). Objects don’t appear to cast their own shadows, and this includes characters. You don’t see shadows coming from anyone in the party, and if you look at the dwarves in the scene (left-mid), there’s only a circular shadow below them. Note that I also grabbed a “low” with the DX11 renderer, but it looked identical.
• Medium adds character shadows, and objects appear to cast their own shadows as well. Much of the scene looks different – everything from the stone shadows on the left (the shadows add depth) to the wall/pillars on the right (shadows add realism). Fairly important to note that “medium” on the PC is the same as “high” on the Mac. Yes, the Mac has “low” and “high” settings, but they’re actually “low” and “medium”. Note that I compared “medium” under DX9 and DX11, and there didn’t appear to be any difference in visual quality.
• High (PC-only) actually had no discernible difference from Medium. It’s possible that some of the character shadows were slightly smoother, but I didn’t take enough screenshots to verify it. Important to note that this is just 1 area – there could actually be significant differences when it comes to spell effects, or in other locations, but since that wasn’t the primary focus of this write-up, I didn’t do further testing.
• Very high (PC-only) had fairly significant differences. In particular, shadows were smooth and had blur (couple ways of doing this, but from the screenshots, I don’t believe every light was able to cast a shadow or anything… possibly raytracing rather than shadow maps, or shadow maps with really high depth map resolutions). The other largely obvious change had to do with the ground tiles. Rather than explain it, I’ll just stick the very-high screenshot below…

Here’s the very-high screenshot (only available in the Windows version of DA2):

Very High settings in Windows (DirectX 11) - Note that all the fancy options were turned OFF. No ambient occlusion, no AA, no AF, no "high quality blur", etc.

—–

Here’s the gist of the visual quality: The Mac version basically has “low” and “medium” settings. Basically, the same settings as a Windows user with a DX9-only video card. The Windows version on the other hand has “high” and “very high” as well for those with DX11. Nothing quality-wise seems to be lost in the conversion from Windows’ DirectX9 to the Mac’s OpenGL, aside from the higher DX11-only options.

However, that doesn’t mean the total experience is anywhere close to the same. Read on to find out why.

—

—

PART 2 – FRAME RATE COMPARISON

A playable framerate’s kinda important. Does the Mac port hold up?

Nope.

I also tested at medium, but since "low" is about all you'll be using on the Mac (for reasons listed below), I didn't upload the chart. 52/48/35 are the numbers (dx9/dx11/mac) if you're curious. On High and Very High (only available on Windows in DX11), the numbers are 42/19. Yes, "very high" is quite taxing on the video card.

—–

Windows hit about 60FPS. The Mac OS X port hit about 40FPS.

Still playable though, right?

WRONG.

Normally 40fps would be reasonable. However, the Mac OS X port of DA2 suffers from serious graphical anomalies when VSYNC is off. Visually, it looks like screen-tearing without actually tearing. As you walk through Kirkwall, flickering lines appear across buildings, and “blocks” along the walls update sporadically. It looks pretty hideous.

Unfortunately, when VSYNC is turned on to correct the anomalies, the Mac’s numbers plummet from 39 FPS all the way down to 26 FPS. That’s a whopping 33% drop in framerate to correct an issue that shouldn’t exist. Below 30fps things start to get into “painful” territory.

I don’t think I can express how absurdly poor this is. For reference, this is running at 1600 x 900 on a mid-2010 iMac with an ATI/AMD 5730m. That’s a fairly high card, not even running the iMac at full resolution. What’s worse is that the game is basically using DirectX 9 – something that hasn’t been cutting-edge since 2004.

-

So in Windows, the game hits a very respectable 60 FPS at low settings. Run the same game on the same machine, but through Mac OS X, and it’s choking along at 26 FPS.

Half the quality options? CHECK.
Half the frame rate? CHECK.

If you wondered why I said “the Mac version blows” at the beginning, you’re probably starting to understand why.

Not convinced? Don’t worry, there’s a part 3.

—–

PART 3 – MAC BUGS

UPDATE2: I tested for all 3 bugs on a 2011 MBP, and it appears they no longer exist. It’s possible they were quashed in the OS X 10.6.7 update, or the DA2 1.1 patch. You can see the original write-up for this section here, though note that since the issue doesn’t present, it’s no longer a good argument against the OS X vesion:

To be fair here, the following are only the bugs I came across during this test. There are probably a lot more in this broken Mac port of a game that I’m not giving it proper credit for.

1) VSYNC switching. If you’re in the game, and decide to turn VSYNC on or off (perhaps to deal with the above problem I mentioned), I hope you saved first. The game becomes unresponsive. You have to quit and restart. Actually, the game still runs in the background – the display just never refreshes. You get to look at the options screen until you realize that’s all you’re going to be looking at if you don’t do something, and quit.

2) Anti-Aliasing. The good news is that it works. You’ll be running at 15-20 FPS, but it’ll remove those unsightly jaggies. The bad news is that the same non-responsive issue occurs here as with #1. Hope you saved.

3) Poor OS X integration. I tried to make this sound nicer than it is… you know like they just left out some cool integration feature or something. The truth is that certain actions in the Mac OS (like taking an Apple-Shift-4 screenshot of the game window as I did a few times) cause the keyboard to go unresponsive in-game.  Again… hope you saved your game before you popped into OS X.

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PART 4 – WHY IS THE MAC VERSION SO AWFUL?

The Mac port is done through a “wrapper” known as Cider (made by a company called “Transgaming”). The game was never actually made for the Mac OS.

What Cider does is… it essentially fakes a Windows environment. The Mac version of DA 2 thinks it’s running on Windows. Cider intercepts all the DirectX (Windows) calls, and converts them to an OpenGL (Mac) equivalent on the fly, along with a bunch of other system calls. This is a very slow, lazy, and buggy way of doing things.

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EA’s been working with Transgaming for years. That’s why games like the Sims, Dragon Age, etc all end up with substandard Mac ports. The Windows version is always better, because the Windows version is done properly. To make the Mac version, rather than doing the work they should, they hand the game to Transgaming who crams it into their aging Mac wrapper. Everyone crosses their fingers and hopes for the best.

If the Mac wrap kinda works (as in doesn’t instantly crash and burn), it’s released as the Mac client.

That’s what we have here. Dragon Age II for the Mac OS is buggy (update: fixed), and performs poorly even on new hardware. Boot up Windows on the same machine, and you go from a painful game experience to a quality game experience.

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Unfortunately, this all creates a self-fulfilling prophecy:

1. They don’t create high quality native mac ports, because they don’t believe there are enough Mac gamers to make it worthwhile.
2. Instead, they create awful Mac ports through a wrapper (and have to split some of those profits with the wrapping company – Transgaming in this case).
3. Mac users buy the game. Being an awful wrap, it’s unsurprisingly… awful. They say “never again”.
4. Go back to #1.

As it stands, the behemoth known as “Blizzard” is the only large developer to consistently create quality native Mac ports (though Valve’s started recently as well). This actually works out well for them, because most of the Mac users buy their quality games, knowing they’ll have as good or better experience than the Windows users. This is in stark contrast to EA, who presently allows wrapped Mac ports which ensure a worse experience than their Windows counterparts.

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Part 5 – CONCLUSION

Quite clearly, the Windows version is superior, as it’s not done through a wrapper the way the Mac version is. Really, the Mac version is just the Windows version, but crammed through Cider which makes it slower and buggier (appears to be fixed).

In Windows, you get twice the frame-rate, no bugs when adjusting video options, and have the option to utilize DX11 if your video card supports it. On the Mac side, even a high-end video card can’t make up for the massive performance hit caused by Cider. You’ll be playing at the lowest of settings, yet your framerate will be so poor you’ll wish you could turn something down. It’s that bad.

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If you have an older Mac, the game probably won’t be playable unless you choose a very low resolution (800 x 600 for example). You’ll probably get twice the frame rate if you bootcamp into Windows however.

With a newer Mac, at the lowest settings you might survive at a higher resolution, though the native resolution on the iMacs might be tough – the frame rate doesn’t drop much at full-screen-native-resolution (compared to a lower resolution in windowed mode), though the large screen makes the < 30 FPS quite obvious.

Regardless, if playing on the Mac, be sure to save before changing video options, and turn on VSYNC to remove the tearing-but-not-tearing graphic anomalies (appears to be fixed).

Playing through Windows is almost certain to garner twice the frame rate, and provide a better game experience overall. You’ll have to run bootcamp, have a copy of Windows, and restart your Mac every time you want to play, but it’s almost certainly worth it. The Mac port’s just too awful to recommend.

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PART 6 – TESTING

The machine used was the iMac (11,2) with an i3 processor (3.2Ghz), 8GB RAM, and a Mobility Radeon 5730m.

OS X 10.6.6 was used on the Mac-side, and Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) was used on the Windows-side (through bootcamp).

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Screenshots and FPS testing were done by loading the same save-game and essentially sitting/watching the meter.

In Windows, frame rates were grabbed with fraps. Frame rates were consistent in this location (+/- 1 fps).

On the Mac, OpenGL Profiler (part of Xcode) was used to grab frame rates. The fps tended to wander, so I ditched outliers, leaving me with numbers in the +/- 1 range.

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I’d hoped to do full-screen testing at the native resolution (1920 x 1080), but since I couldn’t watch OpenGL Profiler when in full screen (only when Apple-Tabbed), I decided not to use those numbers, and to stick with 1600 x 900 in a window on both sides. Since full-screen-full-resolution was pretty brutal on OS X (and I don’t expect many would find it acceptable), windowed seemed to make even more sense.

There aren’t FPS numbers while moving/playing, as it’d be tough to run/fight a specific path. The only notes I can provide are that on DA2 for OS X, moving forward seemed smooth enough, but any rotating was painful. The stealth effect also severely dropped the frame-rate from what I could tell visually. I didn’t specifically test those 2 aspects on Windows, as I’ve played an entire playthough on Windows (medium settings through DX11 at native resolution) and didn’t come across similar issues.

I’ll sum up the positives by saying that on the surface, it’s a typical BioWare game, with a great story and huge level of immersion. Your choices have consequences, sometimes immediate and other times, in the future. For someone who’s never played a BioWare game, it’s similar to the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books some may have read when they were younger. Or for the non-book-readers, has aspects similar to the movie “The Butterfly Effect”. Your choices change what happens, for better or for worse. It’s all wrapped in a cinematic, fully voiced story. Ever watched a TV show or movie and thought “if the main character did this instead of that, imagine how things would have turned out!?” In BioWare games, you’re the main character, and you’re making those decisions. And yes, the consequences will change.

On top of that, it’s a new game engine with a polished UI. DA:O (and Awakening) didn’t have that cutting-edge game feel to them. The epic story was the saving grace. In DA2, the game looks and feels stunning. The combat’s got a quicker pace to it, with nice visual effects. It feels a little less like a chess game, and a little more like a high-pace shootout. You can still play tactically if you want, pausing and issuing orders (you’ll need to at higher difficulties), but for a typical player, you can treat the combat like an action-RPG.

That said, there’s so much awesome in it, that rather than spew out all the positive changes (and there are many improvements over the original Origins), I’ll focus on the things that could still use some improvement. I’ve tried to leave out Dragon Age II spoilers, but there’s a small degree of spoilage from the original Dragon Age Origins and Awakening. It’s color-coded:
Red means it really annoys me.
Orange means I’ve got some strong feelings about it.
Green means it’s probably not as big a deal as I’ve made it out to be.

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Companion Gear – While I really love what was done with the companion base gear (changed to an upgradeable companion-specific armor), I wish rings/trinkets/waistbands had something similar. I still end up with way too many rings in my inventory and spent too much time sifting through companions to make sure they have what’s best. I suppose BioWare might have only gone half-far so as not to alienate the people who love customizing their companions, but this is something that should probably be 100% one way, or 100% the other way… not half-and-half.

Junk Item inventory – I love this new category (and the “sell all junk” button), but I’d prefer it if gear that nobody can wear ended up here too. Specifically I’m talking about stuff like chestpieces… if I’m a warrior, nobody can wear any mage chestpieces (since my mage companions have their own stuff), so I’d prefer if it went straight to junk by default. The saving grace is that it’s dead-easy to move stuff to junk with a right-click while I’m equipping items, making for a 5-second stop at the vendor to quickly dump everything I don’t want.

Set bonus clarification – Everything in Dragon Age II has a better description… talents, abilities…. everything except for the item set bonuses. I’d heard it was supposed to be more clear about these, but I sure didn’t come across it. It’s either not there, not clear, or too hard to find.

Tactics screen navigation – The new interface for everything is amazing, but it doesn’t translate well to the tactics screen. You could navigate through the Origins tactics pretty easily to see what all is there. In DA2, you’re constantly clicking “back” unless you know exactly which trees to follow. That said, I won’t be too hard on this oversight… the increased tactics slots, and certain conditions (STAGGARED, etc) in the tactics are aweseome.

Default tactics – Particularly with casters, and this is an Origins carryover…. As an example of the problem, when I set a mage as a healer, I want them to prioritize healing, but use ALL the damage/control/etc spells at their disposal. Why else would I have given them those extra talents? Yet they don’t. Certain spells/abilities will never be used with certain tactics. The only way to have everything used is to create custom tactics. I’m not sure why this is… if it’s mana concerns (a risk that your healer burns out all their mana on DPS and doesn’t have anything left to heal with), having a built-in condition set where they won’t DPS once their mana drops below 25% or 50% would solve it. Alternately, a few more default tactics would work. Something like “Balanced (focus-healing)” and “Balanced (focus-controller)” would be alright.

Nowhere to equip all your characters – In Origins, you could access the inventory of all your characters at camp. There’s nowhere to do this anymore though, so if you want to upgrade weapons or jewelry on your companions, you have to take them out a few at a time, upgrade, go back, take out the new characters, go back, etc.

Loot delay – It’s massively improved. Insanely improved actually. It’s still there though. Kill a wave of enemies, and they might not be lootable for a few seconds.

Bugs – They’re few (fortunately we didn’t get a repeat of the nightmare known as Awakening), but I still hit a quest that wasn’t completable, and a couple quests that claimed they could be done but couldn’t until another trigger took place. I also had a companion conversation that obviously triggered hours later than it should have. That’s the stuff that should be ironed out in QA. The other bug I hit was a delay/freeze periodically during cutscenes, where I’d miss 10-15 seconds of what was happening, though to be fair I suppose this might only affect certain systems (hopefully it’s quashed in a patch though). On the plus side, I had 0 crashes throughout an entire playthrough of DA 2 – something that was impossible in Origins and Awakening.

Unobvious quests – there are a couple places where side-quests can show up (certain boards, NPC’s, and clearing certain areas), where you don’t find out until/unless you check. This is a different situation from Origins – in DA 2 you’re largely travelling across the same areas multiple times (as opposed to Origins where you were travelling across different areas very few times and things like the chanters board or mage bag were available in multiple locations). It’s incredibly time consuming to completely walk through 7+ locations once during the day, again during the night, and then repeat that during the next act just to make sure you don’t miss anything. A cure would perhaps be an additional Side-side quest that says “it’s been awhile since you walked through ____  at day/night, and there are reports of sinister activities should you wish to check them out”, or NPC’s that say “I just saw a new notice going up at ____ board. I wonder what _____ wants?”. Really, any indication that avoids having to trial/error every location would be nice.

Overhead map views that don’t change – I don’t mind that locations were reused multiple times – it saves having to completely explore a new-but-similar area over and over again to ensure you don’t miss anything. Blocking off portions through doors to make it a bit different is fine with me too. However, I HATE that the overhead map still shows the un-open portion as available. It’s like a slap-in-the-face-reminder that “OH BY THE WAY THIS IS A REUSED LOCATION”. It’s even a bit immersion breaking. The cure? There’s 1 major location that changes during the game and has the overhead map “fizzle out” the now-inaccessible area – do the same with all the reused locations. It’s just an overhead map, and shouldn’t take an awful lot of time.

Healing talents – let’s be honest, there aren’t a lot. The DA2 talent overhaul is awesome, but there isn’t a lot for healers to do. You have 1 direct heal on a massive cooldown (no HoT’s). Maybe a group heal (on a long cooldown) if you content to enable a mode that doesn’t really let you do anything else. In DA:O, Wynne was pretty awesome. Healing, buffing, casting spells that restore mana/energy, and casting DPS spells in between. Healers in DA2 are a bit bland. The only benefit they get over a non-healer are that they have the group heal. Honestly, your best option is taking one of the mages with a healing tree and using them as DPS (micro-ing them when you need the group heal), or simply taking a DPS class and giving them the single-heal. There’s no real difference.

Journal/Inventory/Character buttons – they’re tiny,out of the way, and on the right now. Not terribly easy to use (compared to Origins where they were large, at the top, and easy to see/use. I suspect at this point, most people will either hit escape, or use hot-keys.

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One thing I would have preferred to see would have been more, smaller acts as opposed to the few larger ones. As I mentioned in the beginning, I completed the game in 34 hours, but some acts actually felt a bit long. I suppose if I’d skipped the many sidequests it would have felt really quick, but since the sidequests are tied to each act and can’t be done later, I didn’t want to miss any of them.

Compare DA2′s 34 hours of game time to Origins where my playthrough took something in the neighborhood of 100 hours, and you’ll see that Origins gave more entertainment-time per dollar. Though even Origins started to feel a bit long, the portions were well spread out.

My hope is that they add further acts in the form of DLC or expansions. I’d be a little dismayed if new DLC simply made the current acts longer, but would certainly be willing to shell out money for content that advances the game further.

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Honestly, despite the things I took issue with, I’d give the game a 9.5 out of 10.

I tend to enjoy the BioWare level of storytelling though, with VO, cinematics, and with choices that have consequences. Other games simply don’t have that level of immersion, that level of defining your character, or that level of determining how the game plays out. Sometimes other games give you a “choice” but the consequences often don’t affect how things turn out. Important to note that my rating takes that story/choice/experience into account. Most of the other stuff (combat, etc) just has to be “good enough” that I’m able to enjoy the BioWare experience. That’s in stark contrast to other game genres where visuals and combat take precedence (FPS’s), or game balance and strategic depth are important (Civilization series). If I were basing DA2 on those types of games, it’d have a mediocre rating (not bad though all things considered).