ddrueding
Fixture
There is only one console-based annoyance (tab to cancel, enter to accept) but less than an hour in that was the new instinct anyway. I understand the principle of the argument, but I can let it slide this time.
PC Gaming = World of Suck
- Thread starter Mercutio
- Start date
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Sadly, you don't really know how much the graphics engine was retarded by the fact that it had to run on PS3s and Xboxes.
I agree that this is a big problem that's only getting worse. There are still a few smaller folks who seem to care about the customers. There was an article yesterday about GoG who actually listens to its customers in hopes to trade some inconvenience for information safety.
Sol
Storage is cool
The controls in Skyrim take a huge hit from the consoles. They are, in a word, dire. There are already some mods which start to fix the issues so hopefully they'll all get sorted. It's pretty sad though that the last 2 Elder Scrolls games both had better controls. (As did Fallout 3)
That said Skyrim is still a great game, and is a step up from Oblivion in terms of open world awesomeness. But then I thought Fallout 3 was still a great game.
That said Skyrim is still a great game, and is a step up from Oblivion in terms of open world awesomeness. But then I thought Fallout 3 was still a great game.
ddrueding
Fixture
Apparently. 2560x1440 with everything maxed is very playable on Home1, and the view distance is long enough to allow ridiculous sniping with arrows if you feel like it. Could it be better? Sure, but it isn't bad. Is there a decent article on the subject?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
As a clarification: How much do you think the game engine was held back by the fact that it still has to work on texture memory and feature-limited platforms?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I think Fallout 3 suffered from its association with games that are truly great. On its own, it's a good enough title with some modest nagging down sides. Unfortunately, I had expectations of getting another Fallout game, something that mixed in trademark humor and the ability to perform a wide variety of off-the-wall activities. Fallout 3 is grim and brown and brown and grim. It's a more-or-less a first person shooter with the occasional interspersed conversation. That's not Fallout.
ddrueding
Fixture
There are quite a few elements to that question. Could it have been prettier with my hardware? Yes. Is it prettier on my PC than it is on a console due to some graphics settings and higher resolution? Yes. Could they have squeezed better graphics without substantially adding to the development costs by abandoning the console market? Did they instead redirect the additional graphical costs into content?
It could have been much prettier, but it is pretty, and it is a good game.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
From Ars Technica's review :
At least that's one classic that did not disapoint.
Somewhere in the review, he warns gamers that the level of difficulty might become frustrating at times. He's right : I punched my Dell U2410 and it's now unrecoverable. It took me three punch to kill my previous Dell FP2005, but I managed to break the glass of my U2410 on my very first loss of control. 400$ in the garbage, oh well.
The game is still a lot of fun.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I suppose there's some kind of analogy between the average gaming PC and some kind of 16-cylinder, 2000 horsepower engine (that's a thing, right?) in a car that has to drive 60mph and no faster because that's as fast as Chevettes go.
There are vanishingly few things that can upper-tier cards, even cards that are three generations old, really break a sweat, and that's because everything that's done has to work on consoles too.
ddrueding
Fixture
I can see that, and I would love to have maximum eye-candy, but I can't see it being a decent business proposition. How many rigs like ours are out there? Enough to fund a top-end game?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
We used to be able to count on id, Epic or, hey, Crotean, to deliver showpiece 3D engines for PC games. The market for PC games has gotten bigger in the years since, not smaller. It shouldn't be THAT hard to get one out the door.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
There are several games that require rigs like your to get fluid gameplay when enabling all the visual effects. Crysis 1&2, Metro 2033, Lost Planet, Aliens vs Predators, Rage and certainly some others.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
As I understand it, Rage has a bad case of Consoleportitis.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
At least Carmack apologised for this...
http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=23760
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
And well he should. id games are largely tech demos but it sucks that their next gen toolkit is built in that way.
Coug, man, don't blame your monitor for what are clearly your desktop's failings. Kick the tower, not the screen. Also, switch to nice, thick Supermicro chassis. Since I use a pedastal server case for a stepstool, I'm pretty sure they can take a few kicks.
Sounds like roid rage. You might want to get some help with that, it's sounding costly. Got any pics to backup the carnage claim? I can't imagine it would take much to break a U2410, so I'm not that impressed. I'm sure I could take mine out with a single hit also. You should have a glass CRT if you want it to withstand some dirty punches. Then I'd be impressed if you were able to break it by punching.
ddrueding
Fixture
i used to punch my 24" CRT without issue. fortunately I moved past that before i went LCD.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
I won't punch a CRT because the implosion might send fragments and seriously injure me. Plus the several thousand volts applied on the tube...
I only have a webcam to take pictures. I gave it a punch and when I saw I killed it, I decide to take a hammer for another two hits. Now there are bits of glass/plastic everywhere in the room.
I only have a webcam to take pictures. I gave it a punch and when I saw I killed it, I decide to take a hammer for another two hits. Now there are bits of glass/plastic everywhere in the room.
My son bought me Duke for my birthday. I just installed it. Yeah it's old skool, yeah it doesn't have the realism, or accuracy of MW3 or BF3. It doesn't require a 990X overclocked to 4.5GHz and a Radeon 6990 to play at medium settings. It's cartoonish. And has a lot of toilet humour. But damn if it isn't fun for the odd 30 minute or one hour session. I think all of those people who gave it a bad rap missed the point.
Sol
Storage is cool
I think a lot of the people who didn't like it, myself included, would disagree about the humor. But it has a lot of toilet.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I'd just like to say that while browsing torrents the other night I found a Duke Nukem porn parody. I suspect it's more interesting than the game you guys are are talking about, but I couldn't be bothered to download it and find out.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
I'd like to find a Zuma-like free game for a customer. Is there any, except for the online-only versions? Someone told me there's another version with a bug instead of a toad, but it's very similar.
The customer likes stupid and simple computer games. I've seen this one on several computers I've repaired and I thought it should please him.
The customer likes stupid and simple computer games. I've seen this one on several computers I've repaired and I thought it should please him.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
My local Walmart has a boxed set called "Popcap's Greatest Hits." It sells for about $15 and includes Bejeweled and Zuma. I bought five copies of it with the idea that I will give them to 60 year old divorcees who keep bringing me their PCs that are full of spyware from the shifty online game sites they visit.
60 year old divorced women should absolutely be the new stereotype for gamers.
60 year old divorced women should absolutely be the new stereotype for gamers.
ddrueding
Fixture
The last hardcore gamers rig I built was for someone well over 60. She ran a WoW clan.
This stuff surprises me but I guess it shouldn't.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
I can perfectly imagine either Bozo or Flagreen playing at WoW. Nothing surprising there.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
flagreen would play the "Left Behind" game.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Someone I know would like to play Skyrim on his low profile computer. The enclosure is an Antec Minuet 350 and he loves it because it is virtually silent. There's no space on his desk for anything else than a small form factor enclosure. Even a shoebox like a Silverstone SG05 wouldn't fit.
The fastest low profile graphic cards I can find are a GeForce 450GTS and a Radeon HD 6750, both with 1GB of DDR5 RAM. I know there's also a Radeon HD 6850 made by a company named AFOX, but it's nowhere to be found around here. With the power supply in the Minuet 350, the only option must be the LP Radeon 6750 as the GeForce 450GTS needs more juice and I'm not sure the 12V rail would appreciate this in the long run.
Assuming the CPU isn't the limiting factor (he currently has a Core 2 Quad Q9650, but it could be easily replaced with a Core i5 if needed), is it possible to play Skyrim at 1920x1080 on a Radeon HD 6750? Reviews on the Net tend to tell me that it's not, at least with a good level of details and an acceptable frame rate, but I haven't played the PC version of the game (or any other for that matter) so I cannot confirm.
The fastest low profile graphic cards I can find are a GeForce 450GTS and a Radeon HD 6750, both with 1GB of DDR5 RAM. I know there's also a Radeon HD 6850 made by a company named AFOX, but it's nowhere to be found around here. With the power supply in the Minuet 350, the only option must be the LP Radeon 6750 as the GeForce 450GTS needs more juice and I'm not sure the 12V rail would appreciate this in the long run.
Assuming the CPU isn't the limiting factor (he currently has a Core 2 Quad Q9650, but it could be easily replaced with a Core i5 if needed), is it possible to play Skyrim at 1920x1080 on a Radeon HD 6750? Reviews on the Net tend to tell me that it's not, at least with a good level of details and an acceptable frame rate, but I haven't played the PC version of the game (or any other for that matter) so I cannot confirm.
ddrueding
Fixture
I've only played on the machines in my sig, so I couldn't tell you. I don't even have a 6750 to test with.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Youtube has a video of 1080p gameplay. I looks acceptable to me. The 6750 is just a touch slower than the Radeon 6770, and those are generally pretty capable for midrange hardware.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Thanks for the feedback. I've looked at the youtube video of Skyrim's gameplay at 1080p on a Radeon HD 5770 and while it was generally good, there was at least one instance when it was choppy (during a fight).
I think a Radeon HD 4870 is a more powerful card than a Radeon HD 6750. One generation older, but more pipelines and RAM bandwidth IIRC.
If only AMD and Nvidia could move their asses and offer newer cards in the 100$-130$ segment. AMD will still offer the same two, if not three years old rebranded Radeon HD 5750/70 with their Radeon HD 76xx and Nvidia has nothing else than their GeForce GTS 450 or anemic GeForce 550Ti. It's quite stagnant.
I think a Radeon HD 4870 is a more powerful card than a Radeon HD 6750. One generation older, but more pipelines and RAM bandwidth IIRC.
If only AMD and Nvidia could move their asses and offer newer cards in the 100$-130$ segment. AMD will still offer the same two, if not three years old rebranded Radeon HD 5750/70 with their Radeon HD 76xx and Nvidia has nothing else than their GeForce GTS 450 or anemic GeForce 550Ti. It's quite stagnant.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I've been recommending Radeon *770 cards for mainstream gaming for years. It's nice that they're consistent enough in their naming that the capabilities continue to match up to that.
Your customer should be fully aware that his system precludes high-end gaming. Get him the card he can get and let him game if that's what he wants to do.
Your customer should be fully aware that his system precludes high-end gaming. Get him the card he can get and let him game if that's what he wants to do.
DrunkenBastard
Storage is cool
The AMD 7750 should be around the $140 mark (which should cause further downward pricing pressure on the 6770 range).
http://news.techeye.net/chips/amd-hd-7770-details-leaked
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
The Radeon HD 7770 will suck at 199$. Can't even beat the cheaper Radeon HD 6850. The Radeon HD 7750 doesn't impress me either, failing to outperform the 120$ Radeon HD 6770.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Ok, looking at all the benchmarks, the 7750 actually beats the 6770 slightly, but not in a way the user will notice. It's similar performance for the same price. To the customer's eyes, nothing changed except the number on the box. Disappointing.