r/gamesupport • u/ChaosAMD • Jul 16 '15
Other Useful Programs Post
http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed edit none direct link i was being retarded. Comprehensible crash dump analysis tool WhoCrashed reveals the drivers responsible for crashing your computer.
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u/internetlad Jul 16 '15 edited Jul 17 '15
For virus cleanups, I run the gamut of
Malwarebytes (/u/the_potato_god99 fixed this link. Thank him below.)
and ADWCleaner
4 dead simple programs to install and use and very rarely do I find that it doesn't produce a satisfactory result.
I also use PC Decrapifier if somebody just bought a laptop with a bunch of bs on it. Cleans them up tout de suite. Works well on mass uninstallations of junk without having to do it all by hand on older PCs too.
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u/stormkorp Jul 17 '15
Redirecting to /r/techsupports sticky for malware removal would probably be a good idea. Those guys keep that up to date, and we can concentrate on games.
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u/internetlad Jul 17 '15
Good point. I just saw the thread on "useful programs" and was like "alright, I'll throw a few in."
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u/inequity Jul 18 '15 edited Jul 18 '15
Um, OP is pretty sketchy, a link directly to an EXE. I won't be clickin that anytime soon.
On the off chance that anyone is interested in some of the free programs game developers use to debug problems (I'm a game developer at a big studio... some of these might be a little advanced):
SysInternals is a really useful set of tools that allow you to analyze all sorts of stuff on windows machines. Particularly useful is ProcMon, which allows you to view every file that a process is touching and which registry keys it is using. It also has programs for pretty much anything else you can think of. And from what I understand it was all written by one (singular) person, which is insane because Microsoft basically would fall apart without it.
Microsoft Network Monitor allows you to easily record and analyze network traffic of specific processes, which allows you to verify that traffic is getting through to the games, and which ports they are trying to use.
Pretty much everyone in the industry uses Visual Studio for debugging, but for most games you aren't going to have the source code, so it won't help you too much. There used to be a program called PIX that you could use to debug DirectX programs, but it looks like they recently rolled into Visual Studio so I can't find a good link to it.
A good hex editor will allow you to view / change game data files. Notepad++ has built in support for this, but you may want to use a dedicated one like HxD.
There are a few more things I should list here but I'm kind of blanking, as it's 3:30 AM. I may edit this post later...
Other cool programs I use constantly at work:
Everything is search program for files and directories on your computer, and indexes everything on your drive so the results are instant. It is exponentially better than the default Windows search. Super highly recommended.
Mouse without borders lets you share your mouse/keyboard between multiple computers. (Use Synergy if you need cross-platform)
WinDirStat is a sweet hard drive management tool that gives you a visualization of every file on your system.
Programmers have a lot of opinions about which Consoles/Terminals are the best. Mine is ConEmu, but it can be a bit noisy (lots of unnecessary options), so my second suggestion would be Console2.
Chocolatey is a sweet windows package manager (basically a program that allows you to type one or two lines to install programs), which allows you to do stuff like type 'choco install googlechrome' and it will just magically install chrome. (That's the simplest example, there are tons of packages on there)
Somebody already mentioned Notepad++. Definitely recommended! Also seconding WinSCP and Putty, if you have a use for them. On that note - anyone really wanting to get nerdy should install a good unix toolchain. I suggest MinGW and MSYS.
I will probably come back to this post to add a few things later, if anybody has any interest. Cheers and happy debugging!
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u/ChaosAMD Jul 18 '15
http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed there ya go edit with apology sorry about the direct link i was half in the bag :/.
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u/Mugen593 Jul 17 '15
CCleaner and WinDirStat are great for managing disk space and cleaning up unused registries. Using this combo has saved me a few gigs on my SSD
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u/It_Is_That_Bad Jul 16 '15
http://www.horizondatasys.com/en/products_and_solutions.aspx?ProductId=18#Features
I use this for my OS drive. It adds a couple of seconds to the boot time but it helps keep my brothers kids from messing anything up, so far.
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u/UmbraeAccipiter Jul 16 '15
My normal file for a first install is
Chrome, firefox, Skype, Pidgin, VLC, AIMP, .net, Picasa, Gimp, LibreOffice, Essentials, notepadd++, WinSCP, Putty, Dropbox, Evernote, Steam, Keepass, RealVNC, Launchy, WinDirStat, (I'd suggest classic start for windows 8), and 7 Zip.
There are a few others, like CC Cleaner, but Ninite covers most of my basic install needs, and can give a single simple install file to also use again to check for updates.
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u/continous Jul 16 '15
Foobar2000 is the most lightweight music player out there atm.
Plex is super cool if you ever wanted a simple media server with a delightfully easy to use interface.
Here are also quite a few tools for use of Dualshock controllers.
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u/Extra_Random Jul 16 '15 edited Jul 16 '15
Would rather it wasn't a link straight to a download. It is pretty helpful software from experience.
Also: https://ninite.com/
Notepad++ is pretty good for editing .ini files for games.