Here’s yet another open signup update for you private tracker fanboys. Libble, a leading music torrent tracker, has increased its maximum user limit and opened public registrations allowing new users create accounts on the tracker without the need for an invite. The maximum user limit has been almost doubled to 10000 and currently there are around 4500 more free slots remaining – you can expect the open signups to last for a while. In case you haven’t heard about this site before (unlikely if you have been reading us for a while), Libble is a ratio free specialized music tracker running on Gazelle RC2 codebase. This tracker is known for its exclusive mixtapes section, Share Rank bonus system, user friendly interface and of course, nowadays as a large & growing music torrents repository.

Ever since it’s inception several years back, Libble has gone through many changes. It was one of the first trackers to switch to Gazelle codebase (which happened back in 2008) and  the site went through yet another major change by switching to a ratio free model in 2009. Today, Libble has grown into a decently sized music tracker which indexes nearly 16000 active torrents including 13000+ albums by 16000 artists. The site has also been gifted with a helpful community of members – a good example of this is the request fill percentage, which currently stands at 81%.

As we mentioned in a previous article, Libble has a special system called ‘Share Rank’ instead of the regular ratio system commonly found on most private trackers. A brief summary of Share Rank may be found below (information is quoted from Libble Knowledgebase):

Share ranks are a system we've implemented to replace ratios. It is a measure of your contribution to the site based on several factors:
Ratio - If your ratio is between 0 and 3 you will get a positive or negative bonus based on how good (or bad) your ratio is.
Torrents Uploaded - The more torrents you upload, the higher bonus you get.
Data transferred - The more data you transfer on torrents (up or down) you higher bonus you get.
Torrents Snatched - The more torrents you snatch the higher your bonus.
Torrents seeding - The more torrents you're seeding the higher your bonus.
Hit and runs - Your total hit and runs in the last month is subtracted from your score.
These factors are combined (with different weightings) to give you a final score. This will determine your user class and whether you are put on Share rank watch or not. In general you should keep your share rank positive.

It’s highly recommended that you read the ‘Share Rank’ section in Wiki if you are thinking of becoming a member of this tracker. It explains things in greater detail.

Speaking of the content indexed on Libble, it pretty much has music related to almost every genre on the planet. Majority of the torrents are music albums, with tracks in either MP3 or FLAC (lossless) formats. Some of the music albums are scene releases while some, such as Libble mixtape releases, are exclusive torrents unique to this tracker.

As mentioned in the title of this post Libble has opened registrations to the public. The site’s maximum user limit has been extended to 10000 – currently there are around 5600 registered users which leaves around 4400 free slots remaining.

Site Name: Libble (http://libble.me)

Signup URL: http://libble.me/register.php

Libble is the third ratio free tracker to be featured on FILEnetworks Blog this week, other two being Creative-Bits and DeamonBytes.

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In the last couple of weeks we saw the launch of several successful specialized torrent trackers such as TheGeeks and SceneVids. Here’s yet another niche private torrent site that’s shown a lot of promise for the short period of time it’s been online; Creative-Bits (CB). CreativeBits is a BitTorrent tracker dedicated to tracking templates, graphics, fonts, E-books, video tutorials, content management systems (CMS), Flash & Photoshop content, software, etc. In short, it’s a torrent site that’d come in handy for software engineers, web developers, web designers, graphics designers and even to students of pretty much any field related to information technology. CB is one of the handful trackers that cater to this particular niche, other similar sites being GFXnews, Torrent Script (now defunct) and TemplateP2P (which is not a tracker but a DDL forum). CB is currently accepting new members and there’s recruitment going on in their official IRC channel.

During the initial stages of the project, CreativeBits went through an extended beta testing period of nearly two months. The site is built on a customized version of Gazelle codebase and has been functioning smoothly since their public launch early September. Although it’s only been a couple of weeks since CreativeBits officially launched, several major changes have already been made based on user feedback. For instance, CB is now a ratio free tracker. Quoted below is a news post explaining in detail the the changes made recently:

We have some changes for you guys today, and they are outlined as follows:

• We have gone Ratio Free! We asked you guys how you felt about it, and the majority of you want it, so here it is. We're currently working on an HnR background system, and you will be notified when it's fully in place. Please take note: That doesn't mean we aren't keeping HnR logs right now, because we are. Please seed everything you snatch for at least 72 hours. The content is very small, we hope our users can show some spirit and seed for longer.
• We have a new Bonus Points System. I said in a thread earlier that we wouldn't have this, but it was input so points can be gathered in case we figure out a use for them in the future. You earn 1 point every hour for each torrent you're seeding, and the base items on the bonus page will change over time.
• User class requirements have changed as well. Member class must be on site for 4 weeks and have 10 uploaded torrents, while Power User class must be on site for 6 weeks and have 25 uploaded torrents. We believe this is easy to accomplish due to extremely small filesizes and abundant content.
• A couple other behind the scenes things for staff, like category editing and such.

We hope you guys are excited about these changes, and we'll be delivering content more steadily from now on. So download what you want and seed away, collect those points in case we offer something special in the future!

As you might be aware, CreativeBits is yet to have an open signup – their preferred mode of recruitment so far has been through IRC interview on the official invites channel. As of 26/9/2010, the number of registered users on CB stood at 175 – this isn’t a lot but still it’s a respectable number for a three week old niche tracker. CB hasn’t been shy on building their torrent index though – at last check it indexed nearly 650 active torrents (and they are not common content you’d usually find on General/0Day trackers either).

Although some might brand CB an E-learning tracker, educational material isn’t what this site is all about. A detailed explanation on the type of content you can find on this tracker is given in the following forum post by hxck (SysOp):

We are striving to be the place to get anything you need to be creative. Whether you want to create a Word Doc or a Web Site, a Video or Flier, a Blog or a Forum, we will have it all. The site is all about creativity and the resources it takes to be digitally creative. We're planning on having: Fonts, Vectors, Templates, CMS (Content Management Systems), eBooks, Video Tutorials, Flash files, & all the Photoshop resources you could ever want. Although, that won't be all we offer. We will also have Apps, eBooks and Comic Books available to you, and we hope you enjoy the variety!

Some of the torrents already indexed on CreativeBits can be seen in the screenshot below:

Naturally, you’d by now be wondering how to get into this tracker. Like we said before, signups are currently closed – the only way in is via the IRC interview (or if you get invited by a friend). If you don’t know anything about coding/development/web design/graphics design, etc. you might find the interview to be hard. CB staff are looking for candidates who will actually use the site instead of collectors. Interview channel details are given below:

Site Name: CreativeBits
Server: irc.omgwtfhax.net
Invite Channel: #CB-Invites
Direct Link: irc://irc.omgwtfhax.net/cb-invites

Please make sure to follow instructions in channel topic. If you are new to IRC, please read this brief tutorial on how to join a channel.

Related Articles

• Torrent Script – New Tracker For Templates, Scripts, Clones, Flash And More
• Templates, Scripts, Graphics & Web Developer Resources Forum TemplateP2P
• GFXNews and AudioNews - Free invite codes every hour

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Lately there’s been a lot of talk about P2P release groups setting up their own private trackers and forums to distribute exclusive material. For example, the P2P movie release group iMAGiNE recently launched their own private tracker – apparently many people seem to ‘dig’ this type of sites and it’s been quite a hot topic of discussion on various file sharing forums and blogs such as FST & FSF. Anyways iMAGiNE tracker is not the first of its kind and nor is it the only site run by a P2P release group. There are countless others including tpsBB (Nhanc3 releases) HD-UNIT3D & BIT-UNIT3D (UNIT3D releases), Darkside_RG (aXXo & several other groups), PeerAccess (T0XiC releases), etc that are run by P2P groups. Today’s post is about another similar forum; FraMeSToR-HD (FHD). It’s home to well known movie encoding group FraMeSToR. FHD forum gives you advance information on upcoming encodes from FraMeSToR, FLAWL3SS and The Revolution (RVL - untouched Blu Ray release group), allows encoding requests and even group recruitment.

For those of you who haven’t heard about FraMeSToR before, here’s a brief description of them (quoted from a FHD forum post published back in mid 2009):

It is time to reveal our cloak of secrecy! Many of you have been wondering what our group is about, and who we exactly are. FraMeSToR is a new high quality movie encoding group. Some of our group members are in fact ex-EuReKA members but of course not all. We have welcomed some of these EuReKA members with open arms simply because they have great encoder skills. FraMESToR is a new name in the high quality encoder tracker scene, and we wish that our encodes are welcomed on all trackers. (feel free to contact us!). We are internal encoder on chdbits, but you can find our encodes on many other trackers, simply because you guys still know how to recognize quality and spread our releases! Thank you for that! If you wish to discuss our encodes or want to see what's in store for you, simply visit http://framestor-hd.org

FraMeSToR is no longer an internal group at CHDBits – they moved onto bit-HDTV and later onto HDME, which is the group’s current home ( read this article if you want to read full announcement on moving to HDME – HDME is currently closed for signup but most of our readership should have accounts there thanks to the recent open signup). FraMeSToR has strong ties with FLAWL3SS and RVL (The Revolution Blu Ray release group) and as a result both these groups have release index threads on FHD forum.

At a glance, FraMeSToR-HD might look like yet another DDL forum but it’s not. In fact, this forum does not index any download links at all (actual releases are uploaded to either bit-HDTV (old) or HDME (new) ). This is more like a pre-release environment where upcoming releases are listed, checked and validated before being uploaded to a private tracker. Release threads on FHD maintains a list of upcoming FraMeSToR, FLAWL3SS and RVL encodes along with screenshots and full NFO. In addition, the ‘FraMeSToR HD’ section of the forums let you make requests, stay up to date on group news and even join FraMeSToR if you have the skills. The forum has a very good tutorials section which has plenty of useful resources on video encoding, playback guides and so on.

Registrations for FHD are currently open and interested members can instantly sign up for an account. It’s not a fully fledged direct download link forum as other sites mentioned in our DDL Forum section but if you are a fan of FraMeSToR, FLAWL3SS or RVL release groups, you might want to check this site out.

Site Name: FraMeSToR-HD (http://framestor-hd.org)

Registration URL: http://framestor-hd.org/ucp.php?mode=register

Related Articles

• tpsBB – HD Direct Download Forum For NhaNc3 & Other P2P Group Releases
• HD-UNiT3D & Bit-UNiT3D : Download HD Movies, TV Shows & Documentaries
• DarkSide Release Group – What Is It?
• PeerAccess – Find Latest R5 Dates, Download Movie Releases From T0XiC Group & More

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This is again a busy time for PC gamers – there are several popular titles out at once and TBH they all look pretty good. Dead Rising 2 is one of those highly anticipated titles of the year and it’s due to hit the shelves on 28th of September in North American markets. The game reminds me a lot of Devil May Cry and fans of the action, survival horror genre should enjoy this title from Capcom. As usual, here’s our troubleshooting article for Dead Rising 2 – this post aims to provide help with most common annoyances and issues people seem to be having with the game. I haven’t run into any major showstopper bugs with the legit version of Dead Rising 2 but some of the pirated copies floating around in file sharing networks seem to be somewhat buggy. Note that this article is a work in progress – we will be adding new fixes/solutions as they are discovered.

Missing msvcr100.dll file error

One of the most common errors users seem to be running into with Dead Rising 2 is the missing msvcr100.dll file error. Fortunately, this is easily fixed:

1. Download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package from here.
2. Try running the game now. If the error is fixed, your problem is obviously solved. Else continue to step 3.
3. Download the msvcr100.dll file from this location (choose the free download option).
4. Extract and copy the file into your System32 directory. This is usually C:\Windows\System32
5. Run the game.

Game crashes to desktop (CTD) at launch, black screen or won’t start

There can be a number of different reasons why this can happen but here’s a fix for a common culprit with almost all recently released Capcom games. Dead Rising 2 might crash if your sound card’s audio sampling rate is set to any value above 24 bit/48000 Hz range. To fix this issue, follow the steps below (applicable on Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems):

1. Open Control Panel –> Sound.
2. In the ‘Playback’ tab, select ‘Speakers’. Choose ‘Properties’.
3. In the Speaker Properties window, switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
4. Under the ‘Default Format’ drop down, choose 24 bit, 48000 Hz (Studio Quality) option.
5. Close all Windows by pressing Ok. Run the game.

Note that you should try this fix if you have run into audio issues including noisy sound, stuttering or lagging audio, no audio, etc. as well.

Unable to save progress in Dead Rising 2

Dead Rising 2 is a Games For Windows Live (GFWL) based game. Saving in such games is usually handled by the xlive system. However, some pirated copies of the game that are floating around have the Windows Live component partially disabled or modified in a bid to circumvent the copy protection mechanism. If you are using a pirated version of Dead Rising 2 and have run into a save issue, this is the likely cause – there is no possible fix unless whatever release group who leaked the game comes up with a fixed version.

Another reason why game progress is not being saved could be because you are not logged into Games For Windows Live account. If you don’t have an online account, follow the step by step instructions here on how to create an offline account and continue playing (same fix for F1 2010 applies here - refer to the first section ‘How do I save progress’).

Dead Rising 2 won’t detect my game controller

Controller issues including the 3rd party controller not being detected by the game can also be related to  xlive modification. For example if you are using a pirated version of Dead Rising 2 and trying to use a wireless XBOX 360 controller, chances are that it won’t work. Controller detection is handled by the GFWL component and as mentioned earlier in some pirated versions of DR2 this appears to be disabled. If this is the case, you might try your luck with Xpadder but I can’t confirm it really works or not.

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Civilization 5 is probably the most anticipated strategy game of this year. Judging by comments on various gaming forums, latest installment of this popular franchise is already a hit among the gamer community. Civ 5 features a brand new game engine, challenging multi tiered artificial intelligence (AI) and of course, the same addictive gameplay. Needless to say the game has a lot of depth to it and you can pretty much waste hours and hours going at it. Anyway, this article isn’t another game review. This is our routine troubleshooting article for Civilization 5 – here you will find fixes, workarounds and solutions for the most common problems associated with the PC version of Civ 5. Of course, we can’t guarantee this’ll fix all of your problems, but some of the fixes mentioned might actually work :p

How to manually tweak Civilization 5 settings by editing configuration files

Before we move onto other fixes, I think it’s best to know how to edit Civilization 5 configuration files manually – most of the other fixes involve changing values in these files.

1. Navigate to the Civilization 5 game settings location. This is usually Documents\My Games\Sid Meier’s Civilization 5\
2. In this folder you will see various files ending with .ini extension. Open any one of these files with a text editor such as Notepad and you are good to go. Some of the files you may find inside include:
   Usersettings.ini – holds user preferences
   GraphicsSettingsDX9.ini – graphics settings for DirectX 9 mode
   GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini – graphics settings for DirectX 10/11 modes
   Config.ini – general game preferences

It’s always recommended that you backup the original file before making modifications, in case anything goes wrong.

Civilization 5 crashes to desktop (CTD) after or before the intro movie

On certain video hardware configurations and resolutions, the game might crash to desktop just after or before the intro movie is played. You can try disabling the intro movie and see if this fixes the problem.

1. Open the usersettings.ini file with a text editor.
2. Look for the string SkipIntroVideo – the current value should be 0.
3. Change the SkipIntroVideo value to 1. This will disable the intro movie.

The game crashes when trying to run in full screen mode

Civilization 5 might crash upon launch if the game is configured to run in full screen mode – I haven’t found why this happens but I’ve got a hunch it’s related to default resolution. Anyways you can try running the game in windowed mode as a workaround:

1. Open the GraphicsSettingsDX9.ini file (or GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini file, based on whatever DirectX version of the game you are running) with a text editor.
2. Look for the string fullscreen. The current value should be 1. Change this to 0.
3. Navigate to the cache folder. Delete all *.db files inside the folder.
4. Run the game – it should now start in windowed mode and hopefully the startup crash should be gone.

Civilization 5 black screen upon launch or out of range error

Black screen errors that don’t give any sort of feedback are some of the most annoying issues you can have with a game. If you are having such problems with Civ 5, it could very well be because your monitor or video card is incompatible with the screen resolution autodetected by the game. To see if this really is the case, you can try running the game in a lower, widely supported resolution and try increasing it if the fix works:

1. Open the corresponding GraphicsSettingsDX9/DX11.ini file with a text editor. Look for the strings WindowResX and WindowResY.
2. If you want the game to run in 1024x768 resolution, change these values so that they read
   WindowResX = 1024 
   WindowResY = 768

Crashes due to DirectX incompatibilities

Before you try anything, run the following two installers to ensure that your installed DirectX version and Visual C++ runtime libraries are up to date.

1. Navigate to your Civ 5 installation directory – default is C:\Program files\Steam\Steamapps\Common\sid meier's civilization v\
2. Run \Steamapps\Common\sid meier's civilization v\VCRedist\vcredist_x86.exe to update VC++ libraries.
3. Run \Steamapps\Common\sid meier's civilization v\DirectX\DXSetup.exe to update DirectX

You may also download the latest DirectX monthly runtime from here.

Civilization 5 supports multiple DirectX versions including DX9, DX10 and DX11. You can run the game even in DX11 provided that your operating system and video hardware supports this newer DX version. Windows XP supports DX9, Windows Vista supports DX9, DX10 and Windows 7 supports all three. However, just because your current operating system supports DX11 does not mean you can run the game on the this mode – your video hardware needs to be compatible too. For example, you might run into issues if you try to run the game on DX11 and on a non fully DX11 compatible hardware such as Geforce 8800, Geforce 8600 etc. The game might start up but corrupted textures, sudden stuttering, freezes, random lags might be clues to DirectX incompatibilities. If you encounter any crashes or any other odd behavior, be sure to check if the problem exists in a different DirectX mode.

How to enable Anti Aliasing in Civilisation 5 DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 modes

1. Open GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini with a text editor
2. Look for the string AllowLeaderAA string.
3. Change the value to 0.

Unable to save game progress to hard drive

If you are having trouble saving your progress in Civilization 5, it could be due to a improperly set save folder location.

1. Open Config.ini file with a text editor.
2. Look for the FileName string in [Game] section.
3. If this appears blank, set a proper saved games directory – default is C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier’s Civilization 5\Saves\
4. Save and close the file. Run the game.

Update your graphics drivers

This is pretty basic stuff buy many people seem to ignore this – always update your video card drivers to the latest build before running the game. Update your video card’s drivers – if latest drivers do not work, try downloading and installing latest beta drivers (do this at your own risk).

• ATI Drivers: Download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers from this link: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
• NVIDIA Drivers: Download latest official NVIDIA drivers from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
• Beta Drivers: Check here http://downloads.guru3d.com/

This article is a work in progress. It will be updated as new fixes are discovered – feel free to share your experience in comments. If you liked this article:

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• Read our Private Trackers section for latest BitTorrent news.

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It’s always bad news when a BitTorrent tracker shuts down. It’s even worse when the said community is a well established one, such as PeerPortal. PeerPortal was a veteran private torrent tracker that was more than 4 years old. Unfortunately, the site permanently shut down a couple of days ago, leaving its loyal members stranded and without their beloved file sharing home. There is however, some good news – shortly after PP went down an official replacement for the tracker surfaced in the form of DeamonBytes. DeamonBytes is a new General/0Day torrent tracker that’s ratio free. It’s run by the same staff of PP (minus one co owner) and has more or less the same user base as its predecessor. Signups for DB are currently open and both old PP members and completely new users are now are able to register without the need for an invite.

If you were an old PeerPortal user, your PP account is likely to work on DeamonBytes if it meets one condition – the account must be older than 1 year. You can of course create a new account if the old login doesn’t work -  it wouldn’t make much of a difference as upload : download statistics are not migrated from PP into DeamonBytes. Although the main site functionality including torrent downloads is working, some features are still being worked on. A news item posted on the homepage is quoted below:

We hope you like your new site and that it more than makes up for the loss of peerportal.
The site is in its early stages of construction but the main functions for uploading/downloading are fully functional for your pleasure. Please be patient while the rest of the work is being completed, the good news is our coder will complete any work while the site is live so unless i myself (Glen) breaks something, there will be no downtime.
Signup's are open until further notice "so spread the word".
All user stat's have been wiped for a fresh start and the site will be ratio free,(site rules apply).

Although DeamonBytes starts off with a strong user base of over 8500 members, its torrent index is being re built from scratch. The site currently indexes over 330 active torrents – lots of new releases are being uploaded daily. DB is a general/0day torrent tracker so there’s nothing revolutionary in terms of content here – if it’s popular scene and non scene releases you are looking for, chances are that this tracker will have them.

Registrations for DeamonBytes are currently open. It’s not just old PP users that are welcome here – site is open to completely new members as well. If you are looking for a community based ratio free general tracker, check this out.

Site Name: DeamonBytes (http://www.deamonbytes.net)

Signup URL: http://www.deamonbytes.net/create_account.php

Related Articles

• Private Tracker Watch: PeerPortal (PP) signups open

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Another quick update on private tracker open signups and IRC recruitment. BitHQ and InspireThe.Net (iTN), two well known torrent sites are now allowing external users gain membership of their respective private communities. For those who don’t know that these sites are, BitHQ is a long standing untouched DVD & full Blu-Ray movie/TV torrent tracker while iTN is a ratio free general/0Day tracker. Although it’s yet to have an open signup, iTN has once again opened IRC interviews (for the second time since their re-launch), to allow potential new members into the tracker. BitHQ’s open signups on the other hand may not be so ‘official’ – there’s no word of it in their forums and the site appears to be recovering from a hard drive failure. Open signups could be intentional or it could merely be the result of a glitch in their registration system. Anyways as it stands right now, BitHQ signups are open to the public.

BitHQ

Site Name: BitHQ (http://www.bithq.org)
Signup URL: http://www.bithq.org/signup.php (Leave ‘Promotional Code’ and ‘Inviter’ fields blank. Note that open signups may not be official and could close at any moment – get in while you can)
Stats: 5300+ users and 11500+ torrents
Description: BitHQ initially started out as a site that specialized in untouched DVDRs. Today it has expanded to include full Blu Ray releases (with BD25 and BD50 as source) in addition to the regular DVD5 and DVD9 uploads. You won’t find any DVDRip/BRRip/BDRip here but if you are a fan of untouched video content, this is a must have torrent site.
Full Review: [Click Here] (this is an old review)

iTN

Site Name: inspireThe.Net (http://inspirethe.net)
Interview URL: irc://irc.inspirethe.net/interview (For step by step instructions, please refer to full review)
Stats: 850+ users and 1650+ torrents 
Description: A ratio free private torrent tracker, iTN has been resurrected after a long downtime. The site comes complete with an auto upload bot for scene releases, a new visual design, new bonus system along with cool upgrades for your account in the bonus shop. We recommend you read the full review if you are thinking of applying for an invite over IRC. 
Full Review: [Click Here]

Special thanks to DMV for the heads up.

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Another high profile video game hits the PC and here comes our routine troubleshooting and help article for F1 2010. F1 2010 is the latest racing game from the veteran developer Codemasters and it was released to the public on the 22nd, in North American markets. As the title of the game suggests, it’s based on the 2010 season of the Formula One motor racing series. I have had the opportunity to play the game for quite some time and I found the experience to be enjoyable. I wouldn’t call it a hard core F1 simulation since there are a lot of arcade elements but it’s definitely a fun game to play. Either was this troubleshooting article should hopefully help you avert some of the most common issues with the game, namely display and save issues.

How do I save progress in F1 2010?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in our troubleshooting articles. F1 2010 is a Games For Windows Live (GFWL) based title and you need access to a GFWL account in order to save game progress. But don’t worry,  in case you don’t have an online profile, you can still save the game using an offline account. Step by step instructions on how to do this is given below:

1. Launch the game. Open the Windows Live menu (or it will open automatically, prompting you to log in or create a new account).
2. If you are not logged into any GFWL profile continue to step 3. If you are already logged onto a profile (local or online), try launching the single player component and try to save progress. If saving and loading works fine, you obviously have no problem. If it does not work, you’ll need to sign out of the current profile before continuing to step 3 (Create profile button will only become visible when you aren’t logged in).
3. Click on ‘Create new profile’ button.
4. In the dialog box that pops up DO NOT hit continue. Hitting continue will take you to a registration page for an ONLINE profile – this is not the requirement.
5. Once in the ‘Create Gamer Profile’ window, scroll down so that you can see the bottom paragraph.
6. Look for the hyperlinked ‘created a local profile’ link in last paragraph. Clicking this will allow you to create a new offline profile.

Note that an offline GFWL account will not let you play online. But you should be able to play single player mode without any issues whatsoever.

F1 2010 does not run in full screen after ALT + TAB

This seems to be another common issue with F1 2010. If you for any reason ALT + TABBED out of the game (and many of us do this), you might find the game no longer starts in full screen mode – it will always run in a maximized windowed mode. Not only does this ruin the gameplay experience but it might even lead to crashes or black screens when trying to start a race.  The solution however is very simple. When this happens, all you have to do is to press ALT + ENTER to re enter full screen mode (this is a standard windows keyboard shortcut).

Avoid crash in race mode by forcing the game to run in DirectX 9 (UPDATED)

In certain computer hardware configurations (including on certain multi core processors), the game might crash when trying to start a race or during your first race. The crash may be due to a number of reasons but here are a few things that might help avert it

1. Install everything found in the ‘redist’ folder in the game’s installation DVD. These are support runtime components that are required for Formula One 2010 to run properly.

Force the game to run in DirectX 9 mode:

1. Navigate to the My Documents -> My Games -> Formula One –> Hardwaresettings folder.
2. Open the hardware_settings_config.xml file with a text editor.
3. Look for the string <directx forcedx9="false" /> inside the file. Change this line so that it reads <directx forcedx9="true" />
4. This will now force your game to run in DX9 mode.

As of right now I haven’t heard about any other showstopper bugs with F1 2010 apart from those mentioned above. I will update the post if new issues/fixes are discovered. Feel free to share your experiences in comments.

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Its been almost three weeks since our last invite giveaway and the time has come to conduct yet another one. This time around we are giving away free invites to a ratio free movie torrent tracker – PTN. PTN has never had an open signup during its lifetime and has been invite only from the start. However, as we have reported many times before, PTN occasionally opens invite applications to allow external users join the tracker. These applications however are considered quite tough (read the comments in previous threads if you are not sure :p) and obviously some of them do get rejected. So, is there really a difference between this giveaway and a regular invite app opening? Yes, there is. This is an official event organized with help from PTN staff targeted exclusively at FILEnetworks readership and therefore, usual entry requirements do not apply here. In other words you do not have to submit an application to get in – all we need is a profile link and a screenshot of the same profile page from any private tracker that you are already a member of (this is the standard requirement for most our giveaways). UPDATE: We have received over 600 requests. Please do not send any more E-mails. Although the giveaway was limited to 100 invites, we will try to fill at least the first 250 requests.

If you are one of out regular visitors, you probably already know all about PTN. For those that do not, it’s a ratio free, specialized private torrent tracker that indexes movies and movies only. The site has been online for a couple of years and despite tight rules regarding unwanted publicity and permanently closed signups, PTN has managed to amass an active user base of over 3500 members. The site’s most significant milestones during its lifetime was met early last month when PTN v2 was launched with a brand new look and a number of new features. Speaking of v2, we highly recommend you read this post which includes a detailed description and screenshots of the newly introduced features.

As mentioned earlier, PTN is a niche tracker. You won’t find games, music (except for a few official soundtracks or OSTs), books or other general content here. But yes, you will find a ton of movies related to a number of different genres ranging from action, adventure, fantasy, comedy, drama to thriller, horror, western and more. As at 20/10/2010, the indexed torrent count on PTN stood just above 5000, some of them being movie packs (multiple related films grouped into a single torrent). A screenshot of the torrent index including some of the available torrent categories can be seen below:

With the help of PTN staff, we will be giving away 100 free invites to our readers, no strings attached. As stated earlier there is no invite application involved – all you need to do is to send us an E-mail with the following format:

• Subject of the E-mail should be ‘PTN 01’. We use an automated software to filter the mails so don’t get this wrong.
• In the body of the mail, please include a link to a profile page on a private tracker of your choice– for example http://trackername.org/user.php?id=2447424 (you can visit the profile page on most trackers by clicking on the username located next to your ratio stats).
• In the body of the mail, include a link to a screenshot of the same profile page you included in previous step. Note – screenshot should be un-edited and un-cropped. Please do not send images as attachments – upload the image file to an image host and include the link in the body of the mail.
• Send your email to invites[dot]filenetworks[at]gmail[dot]com

Please allow one week for your invite to arrive – we have to send them out manually and it’s a time consuming task :p Currently the giveaway is limited to 100 invites. Depending on the demand, we might be able to increase this number perhaps in a future giveaway but this is unconfirmed as of now.

Either way if you manage to get in, please do respect the site’s rules. Relaxed entry requirements does not mean you will be immune to rule violations – staff will probably hunt down collectors, cheaters and hit & runners and ban them immediately after the giveaway. Good Luck!

Special thanks to lfc4ever (a PTN SysOP) and the rest of PTN staff for the excellent support given.

Note: Our Twitter Followers and FaceBook Fans should have received a heads up on this giveaway. You can follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook to stay up to date.

Related Articles

• PTN v2 Goes Live With A New Look And New Features

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Before we move on to the planned PTN invite giveaway, here’s a quick update on two more private torrent trackers that are currently open for signup. The DVD Club (TDC) and Kraytracker are both accepting new user registrations as we speak. TDC is a highly respected untouched DVDR and Blu Ray movie/TV tracker while Kraytracker is an alternative music tracker with punk, ska, hardcore and other music torrents. Both of these sites are usually invite only and don’t often have open registrations. They are both pretty decent trackers that have been around  for several years so feel free to check them out if you are interested. As it’s always the case with our open signup updates, site statistics, signup URLs and links to full tracker reviews are given below.

The DVD Club

Site Name: TheDVDClub (http://thedvdclub.org)
Signup URL: http://thedvdclub.org/signup.php
Stats: 4900+ users and 2200+ (active) torrents
Description: The DVD Club is not just another tracker that indexes movie and TV rips – in fact, you won’t find any DVDRips, BRRips, etc on TDC. It only has untouched, non-ripped versions of DVDs (Or Blu Rays) that come complete with interactive menus, bonus features, extras and all the other goodies that usually aren’t available in rips. Read full review for more information and screenshots of this tracker.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Kraytracker

Site Name: Kraytracker (http://kraytracker.com)
Signup URL: http://kraytracker.com/?cls=56
Stats: 6500+ torrents
Description: Kraytracker is a private BitTorrent tracker and a torrent community which specializes in punk/ska/hardcore and other alternative music genres. This site will have open signups for at least two days starting 18th September.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Related Articles

• The DVD Club is open for signup – Full DVDR torrents
• Kraytracker – Alternative music torrent tracker signups open

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This came as quite a surprise for me but apparently Bolt.org is open for registration once again. Bolt is a huge direct download link (DDL) forum or a link sharing community where you can download everything from movies, music, software, games, E-books audiobooks to TV shows, music videos and even magazines. Bolt claims to be the world’s first link sharing forum – it’s been around for ages and is currently home to a huge community of over half a million members sharing download links every day. If you tried to become a member of this site during the last few months, you’d have noticed that new registrations were disabled. Good news is that they have now been re opened. This re-opening was done without much noise and it doesn’t seem like many people are even aware of it yet – but yeah, it’s real and Bolt is open. In case you still aren’t a member, this is a great opportunity to get into this awesome forum.

There really is nothing much to say about this site in terms of member activity and content – it’s excellent. As of 18/09/2010 Bolt had an active user base of 581000+ registered members who had created over 300000 threads. What’s great about the statistics is that vast majority of those 300k+ threads are actual releases – there are very few spam threads and other unrelated topics on this site. Almost every open topic leads to something that you can download :p

As for the content indexed on Bolt, it pretty much has everything – scene releases, P2P releases as well as exclusive user uploads such as re-encoded movies and TV shows which you probably won’t find anywhere else. This includes nearly 30000 movie threads, ~15000 TV threads, ~70000 music threads and ~12500 E-book threads among dozes of other categories. Basically it’s an all in one solution for all your downloading needs. A screenshot capturing some parts of the main index and downloads sections on Bolt can be seen below (these threads are only visible to registered users):

Bolt.org functions pretty much like any other DDL forum. It does not host any of the files on its own servers. Files are hosted on various one click hosting services such as HotFile, RapidShare, Megaupload, etc and only the download links are posted on Bolt’s threads. These links are reliable, non spam and fake free (we recommend you use JDownloader to download from this site – it works great on one click hosting links).

Registrations for Bolt.org are currently open. As we said earlier, they did not accept new members during the last few of months so this should be a great opportunity for those who waited in line to get in. Although there was no official announcement, re-opening is real – it was confirmed by one of the admins on the forum itself. However, we are not sure till when the open signups would continue – doors may remain open for a few days or they may close in the next few minutes. Get in while you can.

Site Name: Bolt (http://bolt.org)

Registration URL: http://bolt.org/board/register.php

For other interesting DDL sites similar to this site, check out our DDL forums section.

Related Articles

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Over the past couple of months, several new music video trackers joined the BitTorrent scene. However, sites that initially looked promising such as MVidBitz and SilverSeed disappeared all too quickly, leaving only a handful well established sites (i.e. Music-Vids) to cater the needs of music video fans. SceneVids is a brand new private tracker that aims to fill this void – it’s a specialized music video torrent site which is only a week old.The site appears to index scene released music videos and non scene uploads are not allowed. SceneVids is probably ratio free – a ratio system exists but there was a news post on site which said ‘we don’t care' about ratio’ :/ For those of you interested in becoming members, signups are currently open. It might not be the most hyped hot new tracker on the block, but it definitely has the potential to succeed.

During the week or so it has been online, SceneVids has managed to add over 200 torrents to its index. Over 100 of these were added yesterday (17th) alone – if SceneVids could keep up this pace with new daily torrent additions, this tracker is definitely going to be a hit among the BitTorrent community. Sites statistics as of 18/9/2010 read 215 active torrents and 800+ users.

As far as the content goes, this tracker indexes music videos and music videos only. All of the indexed torrents are scene releases and as mentioned above non-scene uploads are not allowed. As you can see from the screenshot below, videos are organized into music genres for easy browsing:

Signups for SceneVids are currently open. It’s not known whether registrations would close after a certain number of users join the site or if doors would remain open forever. Either way, check it out if you are a music video fan.

Site Name: SceneVids (http://scenevids.info)

Signup URL: http://scenevids.info/signup.php

If you prefer Direct Download Link (DDL) forums over torrent trackers, you may also want to check out the sites below:

• MVHive Forum – Direct Download Hundreds Of Scene & Non Scene Music Videos
• MVDDL.Net – Another Music Video Direct Download Link Forum Now Open

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More drama from PassThePopcorn (PTP), a hugely popular dedicated movie torrent tracker. It was only a month ago that PTP switched over to a new management due to an internal dispute – although it was announced earlier that the site would shut down, new management wowed to continue operations. Things have since been fine with PTP, until a strange message was Tweeted from the tracker’s official Twitter account earlier today. According to the Tweet, PTP had run out of donations money and was going to close down. The Twitter account had more than 500 followers and needless to say some loyal users of the site panicked. However, there is nothing to worry about – apparently it was just the site’s previous owners messing about, trying to create confusion among members.

Quoted below is the message Tweeted from http://twitter.com/passthepopcorn several hours ago:

After being open for just over 2 years, PTP will close its doors. We have run out of money and can no longer afford our cars off donations.

This however was denied by PTP staff – according to what esophagus posted on the forums, staff no longer have access to the said Twitter account:

Current PTP staff don't have access to that Twitter account. Feel free to ignore Pham/DAQ/whatever old sysop that is and anything they are spouting.

This wouldn’t normally make into news on this blog but having featured the same Twitter account a couple of months ago in our “BitTorrent Trackers on Twitter – 25 Torrent Sites You Can Follow” article, we felt we should let our readers know. At least for now, you should check PTP forum if you want updated site news.

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Just a quick update on three more private torrent trackers open for signup. All of these are high definition torrent sites and if you are a fan of HD content you might find these useful. Two of the trackers mentioned in the post (HDBits.CN and THDBits) have never been featured on this blog but we have talked about BDMKV before. Content on all three sites is pretty much similar - you can find and download untouched Blu Ray Movies, high definition encodes of TV shows, documentaries, sports content and even HD music videos here. Note that they are not huge huge trackers but medium sized torrent communities. If you download a lot of HD stuff, go ahead and check them out.

THDBits
 
Site Name: THDBits (http://www.thdbits.org)
Signup URL: http://www.thdbits.org/signup.php
Stats: 5800+ users and 2500+ torrents
Description: THDBits claims itself to be Thailand’s largest HD tracker (which it probably is). The site tracks a mix of Thai and English content including movies, TV shows, music videos and sports content. Site interface is English.

BDMKV
 
Site Name: BDMKV (http://www.bdmkv.org)
Signup URL: http://www.bdmkv.org/signup.php
Stats: 6700+ users and 550+ torrents
Description: BDMKV tracks a lot of untouched Blu Ray movies in addition to other HD content. This tracker indexes releases from the scene as well as from a lot of non scene groups including CHD, Remux, ESiR, etc. If you are an English speaking user, BDMKV supports English as an interface language –  change the language from the dropdown located on the top right corner of signup page.

HDBits.CN
 
Site Name: HDBits.cn (http://hdbits.cn)
Signup URL: http://hdbits.cn/signup.php
Stats: 6100+ users and ~600 torrents
Description: We’ve seen HDBits.org , HD-Bits.ro and now we have HDBits.cn. A torrent site originated from China, HDBits.cn is not a partner of either HDBits.org nor .ro. It’s a relatively new tracker which primarily indexes HD movies and documentaries. HDB.CN is off to a good start and hopefully it can keep up the pace with new torrents.

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Good news if you are looking to be part of a new General/0Day torrent tracker. Three large, well established private trackers that are usually closed to the public have opened signups for a limited time. Romanian ShareReactor (RsR), LeechersLair (LL) and TorrentHR (THR) all now accept pubic registrations and you can now create accounts on these sites without the need for an invite code. RsR is one of the oldest private trackers based in Romania (launched in 2005) and the last time this tracker had an open signup was back in 2009. LeechersLair is another veteran tracker in the BitTorrent scene and it recently celebrated their 4th birthday. TorrentHR, a Croatia based ratio free tracker which has over 10000 torrents in its index, is opening signups after almost a year. All three of these tracks general content including movies, music, games, television shows, EBooks, Sports and so on.

Romanian ShareReactor (RsR)

RsR is considered to be one of the oldest Romanian trackers around and it has average pre times, decent download speeds plus a healthy flow of new daily torrents. Since this tracker’s name has the word ‘Romanian’ in it, most people mistake it for a torrent site indexing releases native to Romania. This is not the case – RsR has almost 100% English content including scene and P2P releases. It has a decently sized user base but note that it by no means is a another IPT or Zamunda – there are probably around 10k registered members on the site. This tracker makes up for the ‘not so large’ user base by having excellent download speeds. Ratio rules are very strict around here and even torrents with 2-5 seeders tend to have pretty good speeds. As of 12/9/2010, it indexed over 7500 active torrents.

Speaking of the content on RSR, it has everything a General tracker should have and then some more. RsR is home to the well known p2p release group iAPULA – expect to find a lot of their releases on this tracker ranging from individual movies, music to torrent packs. They haven’t been active a lot lately but you can find plenty of their old releases here.
Site Name: Romanian ShareReactor (http://tracker.sharereactor.ro/)
Signup URL: http://tracker.sharereactor.ro/registration.php

TorrentHR

TorrentHR is Croatian BitTorrent tracker. Although you don’t often hear about this site in BitTorrent forums and news blogs, it’s in fact one of the few torrent sites that successfully adapted the ratio free model. THR went ratio free back in September 2009, almost and year ago, and the site has been stable since then – unlike in many other cases, seeder/leecher ratios have not been affected and torrent lifetime does not appear to have reduced (and the text ‘No Ratio’ placed in the logo itself is a telltale sign that staff is proud of their achievement ) . THR has been online for several years but public registrations had been closed for the most part. Last time this tracker opened sign ups was in last September.
 
THR being a Croatian tracker, they do index a few releases that are native to Croatia. Default site language is Croatian but you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding your way around if you are an English speaking user. Anyways most indexed movies and TV series have English audio and there is plenty of English content available for download. You will most likely be able to spot the non English content based on torrent title. In addition to local, p2p and scene releases, this tracker is home to some good packs - their ‘Packs’ category now has over 300 torrents.
Site Name: TorrentHR (http://www.torrenthr.org)
Signup URL: http://www.torrenthr.org/signup.php

LeechersLair

Here’s another torrent site that has not failed the test of time – LeechersLair (LL), a veteran General/0day torrent tracker recently celebrated their 4th year online, despite having to face various obstacles such as forced server shut downs, multiple URL changes and extended downtimes due to various issues. LL has stabilized in the past couple of months and it now functions smoothly as one of the better General/0Day trackers around. The site has a large user base exceeding 15000 active members and tracks over 7500 active torrents (stats as at 14/9/2010).
 
Thanks to its large users base, popular torrents on LeechersLair usually have 100-200 seeds each. Scene releases, P2P releases as well as LL exclusive torrents can be found indexed on the tracker (LL exclusives are torrents unique to LeechersLair – you probably won’t find these anywhere else). For those interested in getting in, signups are open for a limited time only.
Site Name: LeechersLair (http://www.leecherslairywot.com)
Signup URL: http://www.leecherslairywot.com/signup.php

Special thanks to Smece for the heads up on THR.

Related Articles

• TorrentHR goes ratio free, signups open – Croatian BitTorrent tracker
• LeechersLair down but will return soon
• LeechersLair Celebrates 4th Birthday, Signups Open
• Romanian ShareReactor (RsR) – Excellent 0-Day private torrent tracker open for signup

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BitTorrent trackers and IRC channels go hand in hand. Most torrent sites have an official IRC channel where you can chat with fellow members, get support from staff, idle to get bonus points, etc. We’ve featured several P2P friendly IRC networks in the past and this article is about a new IRC server; Corrupt-Net. It looks pretty stable, has over 900 users and already hosts official channels of several well known private torrent trackers. But that’s not all, the network has fully working Pre and Tracer channels which are currently open to all (a web based version of the the Pre database is also available). For those who are unaware of the terminology, a Pre channel announces new torrent releases (Scene and P2P) while a Tracer channel rates and ranks private trackers based on the speed they take to upload a particular release. Contrary to popular belief, IRC is not rocket science and it’s not remotely as complex as it sounds – it’s actually pretty cool so check it out :p

Among the private torrent trackers that are already on board Corrupt-Net (irc://irc.corrupt-net.org) are DigitalHive, Tophos and fux0r. IRC channels of several start up private trackers are also located on this server. On a side note, if you are planning to launch a new tracker of if you are looking for a new home to move your existing tracker’s IRC channels, Corrupt-Net can be a viable option. Anyways let’s move on to the part where most of our readers would be interested in – public Tracer and Pre channels.

Corrupt-Net Tracer Channels

Corrupt-Net operates a set of Tracer channels where private torrent trackers are rated and ranked based on the time they take to upload a release. A unique points system is used to rank the sites and you can track statistics by day, hour, week, month or total. Additionally, you can also compare sites, track average pretimes, track times on certain categories like xvid or by groups like CRiMSON etc. Currently there are over 35 sites raced, including AL, AT, BCG, BMTV, BTN, DA, DDT, DH, EZTV, FF, FTS, GOEM, HDB, IPT, iTN, MAT, PT, PTF, PTM, SB, SCC, SCI, ScP, SeX, ST, STR, TB, TC, TD, TDS, THS, TL, TTS, TV, VIP, XNT and XS. Tracer channels you can join include:

• #Tracer  – Main Tracer announce channel – notifies whenever a private tracker indexes a new release.
  Direct Link: irc://irc.corrupt-net.org/tracer
• #Tracer.search – Search for particular releases, get site rankings and other info.
  Direct Link: irc://irc.corrupt-net.org/tracer.search
• #Tracer.spam –  Announce for spam releases.
  Direct Link: irc://irc.corrupt-net.org/tracer.spam

Once on the Tracer.search channel, type !cmd to get a list of commands you can use to retrieve information. There are tons of commands and switches available and even complex searches and filtering is possible. According to Corrupt-Net operators, n web based version where users will be able to easily track race statistics will be implemented soon.

Corrupt-Net Pre Channels

Corrupt Net operates public pre channels where new scene and p2p releases are announced as soon as they are pre’d. There are three different channels which you can use:

• #pre – Main announce channel. New releases are announced here along with the full release name and category.
  Direct Link: irc://irc.corrupt-net.org/pre
• #pre.spam – Announce channel for spam scene releases.
  Direct Link: irc://irc.corrupt-net.org/pre.spam
• #pre.search – Allows you search for a particular release in the pre database.
  Direct Link: irc://irc.corrupt-net.org/pre.search

Corrupt-Net Pre Database – Web Interface

For those who prefer web search as opposed to IRC, a web based version of the pre database is also available. You can access the web version from following URLs:

• Web interface with live updates- http://pre.corrupt-net.org/live.php
• Pre database search - http://pre.corrupt-net.org

P.S. – If you are new to IRC, read this brief tutorial on how to join a IRC channels using mIRC client.

Special thanks to ACiD and ‘Excite User’ for the heads up.

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Yeah it’s kinda late for posting the June 2010 edition considering it’s already September. I somewhat forgot about TGSC in the last couple of weeks on top of it I couldn’t issue #44 anywhere else until Defacto posted it a couple of days ago. Anyways for collectors and fans of this awesome pirate magazine, here’s the June 2010 edition of ‘The Game Scene Charts’. If you don’t know what this mag is all about, it rates and ranks groups in the PC game scene based on the number of pirated game releases they make every month. Issue #44 covers releases in the month of June 2010. Sadly, there are no interviews with release groups in this issue (unlike the last edition where SKIDROW was interviewed) but rest of the features including editorial, monthly overview, etc are there.

As far as the monthly rankings go, SKIDROW has managed to secure the first place yet again. If I remember correctly, this is the 5th time in a row they’ve come up first (as said above, if you want to read the interview with SKID read the last issue which you can find here). TiNYiSO, a group primarily focused on releasing budget games gains the second spot while the all time rankings leader RELOADED follows in the third place.

Download

You can download TGSC issue #44 from Defacto, a scene resources site we featured in a previous article.

[Click Here] to download Game Scene Charts Issue 44 (June 2010) from Defacto.

Note: Your screen may flash and flickering text will appear during the magazine’s intro screens. This is intentional since it’s modeled after old school scene cracktros.

If you are looking for older editions, Defacto has the complete collection of TGSC magazines since Issue #1 (September 2006) in this page. And it’s regularly updated with new editions as well.

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