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Yeah, competitive multi seems to be the biggest split for folks that think the minimum for great performance is 30 vs. 60. (Not to forget the motion sickness sensitive). Cinematic single player kind of games I like 30 a little better sometimes for the TV/movie feel and I'll trade >60 for max eye candy. Any twitchy games though, every time I miss/die/etc. from frames dropping goddamn I go straight for bottoming the video options->tweaking OC->buying parts till I don't have to worry about it. That's why I lower res and all for NS2 - I can run it solid at 1080p and medium+ settings most of the time, but later in the round when there's poo poo everywhere I start losing a few frames and missing some shots and it drives me nuts. The minimum rate is the important part I think for communicating "runs fine." Whenever I see folks (usually elsewhere, not trying to jump anyone here  ) talking about how awesome <new game> runs at max on their Fischer Price My First Laptop goddammnn they crazy. You see 'em in NS2, teleporting around the map. Yeah I thought some games ran OK on my aqua iBook back in the day. Then I got a real PC and realized how poo poo it really was to try and play anything on the iBook besides Snood.^^^I've been using D3DOverrider to enable VSync and triple buffering as recommended a while back in the thread with good results. I haven't gone back to games that tore a lot to see if it went away, but haven't been noticing tearing in any games since. No mouse lag, no cutting the framerate in half. Don't know about Nvidia land, but for AMD the CCC option only works for OpenGL so you have to use D3DOverrider to actually get triple buffering in everything but..um..iD games I guess. It's part of the Rivatuner install. e: vv Cool, thanks for linking. I dug around some more, and here's some folks saying you have to hack in triple buffering 'cause the way D3D is designed it should be built in the game code and not from a driver for everything to function properly: http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-2101620.html. I'm gonna try disabling it for NS2 to see if it's my culprit for crashing every ~3-4 hours of gameplay. teh_Broseph fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jan 3, 2013 |
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Jan 3, 2013 21:12
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DrNutt posted:I've heard of people forcing things like AA and triple-buffering through their cards' utilities programs, but I've scoured the programs I've installed and can't seem to find any options for that sort of thing. I have a Nvidia GTX 560 if that helps. EDIT: And beaten. And for the record, I haven't experienced any mouse lag at all using it myself either, but I'm also not a very competitive player so can't guarantee that there isn't any. And yeah, neither Nvidia nor AMD allow you to use triple buffering in their control panel with DirectX games. No clue why if a third party tool can do it just fine. kuddles fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jan 3, 2013 |
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Jan 3, 2013 21:35
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Right-click your desktop, click the nVidia control panel, and under 3D settings go into the manage 3D settings menu. Hmm is there any benefit to using D3DOverrider over nVidia's own control panels to force settings?
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Jan 3, 2013 21:42
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In Far Cry 3 I run the single player at 1920x1080 with the max fps 30 command and settings set to ultra high, but I have a different config xml file for the multiplayer. It's set to low settings and 1280x720 at 60fps. In general PC gaming the mouse lag is increasingly becoming common as gently caress too. It's annoying as hell. I have to use a gamepad or I get pissed off. edit: and I hate having to download so many little programs like rivatuner or d3doverrider just to get my games running the way they should be. If the game's vsync doesn't work properly I have to use my CCC's vsync. If that doesnt work properly either then I have to gently caress about with d3doverrider. This applies to half my PC games, oddly enough they are mostly Ubisoft games. Zedsdeadbaby fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jan 3, 2013 |
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Jan 3, 2013 21:43
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Does anyone have recommendations for a decent, affordable mic or other audio capture solution? I've been shopping headphones and headsets lately and ultimately just gave up on headsets because finding one at a good price that fits, has good sound, and good recording quality all in one just doesn't seem to happen. I tried a pair of Sennheisers that had an amazing microphone but weighed a ton and had fairly lousy audio. Almost nothing else fits me so I went with a pair of Bose headphones, but now I still need something better than this decade-and-a-half-old $10 Labtec POS to record with. I'm looking for desktop or clip-on stuff but most of what I find on Amazon has reviews to the effect of "works for streaming, but don't try to record with it". I don't need anything in the way of fancy noise cancellation or voice detection, just something that doesn't sound like it's a $10 microphone, and preferably with a physical mute switch.
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Jan 3, 2013 21:47
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averox posted:Right-click your desktop, click the nVidia control panel, and under 3D settings go into the manage 3D settings menu.
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Jan 3, 2013 21:53
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Zalman ZM-Mic1 is a surprisingly decent clip-on for ~10bux I've been using after goons recommended it: http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-Zm-Mic1-Sensitivity-Headphone-Microphone/dp/B00029MTMQ The Logitech desk mic has been recommended here too as standard for cheap-but-decent: http://www.target.com/p/logitech-de...ci_sku=13252207 If you want to step it up some, the Blue Snowball is a pretty awesome USB mic for ~60. A friend in town used it for a while to record guitar/vocals/etc. and I think Day9 uses it for his dailies: https://www.google.com/search?q=sno...biw=784&bih=471
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Jan 3, 2013 21:55
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Buy separate. I think there's all of one company that makes good headsets and I can't remember their name right now. Their stuff's also quite expensive. Get good headphones, get a good microphone. There's a headphone thread over in IYG where you can find some good recommendations for your budget, and Logitech's USB mic is a great deal for the money they charge.
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Jan 3, 2013 21:57
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I'm not satisfied with low medium settings, when I upgrade it has to run 99% of everything on max. I usually don't run things on low/medium, I was just phrasing it that way to cover stuff like The Witcher 2. I was just wondering if there might be something wrong with his setup, but it seems that it's either something I don't happen to notice or something that doesn't crop up in the games I own.
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Jan 3, 2013 22:13
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My 7870 arrived, clean install and I've been playing Far Cry 3 on the highest settings without any crashes, instability or serious FPS drops like on the 560. You were a good friend to me NVidia, but I'm afraid someone newer, shinier and more reliable has captured my heart now. 
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Jan 3, 2013 23:43
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SilentD posted:I shelled out for dual 8800s and a pair of waterblocks when they hit. They lasted me all through the DX10 era (9800, 280 ect). While it's true that at the end they were 10.0 and 10.1 was out, only ATi supported it at the time and virtually no games actually used it other than HAWX where it did nothing. If you went out and bought an 8600 or the cheaper 8800s on release (320,640) they rant out of oopmh much earlier than the full blown 8800gtx. Compare that to buying a cheaper 8600 and then having to buy a 9600 to keep up and then getting sucked into the 260/275. 
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Jan 3, 2013 23:56
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poptart_fairy posted:My 7870 arrived, clean install and I've been playing Far Cry 3 on the highest settings without any crashes, instability or serious FPS drops like on the 560. You were a good friend to me NVidia, but I'm afraid someone newer, shinier and more reliable has captured my heart now. That's good to hear. I used to do tech support for ATI before AMD acquired them and stability was always a nightmare. There was a huge amount of motherboard chipsets that the cards wouldn't play nice with, and digital monitors at the time had lots of compatibility issues too. They kept releasing firmware updates just to play catchup with the various monitor models being released (this would've been 2005-2006 or so). My manager went on to work as a liason between the sales team and the driver dev team and he said that the latter would have been content to release the same driver every month. Good times!
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Jan 4, 2013 00:00
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Yeah, I originally went for the NVidia card because I'd heard the horror stories about Radeon stuff. Unfortunately over time the card began to hardlock my system when any under any sort of load; bearable at first (and I initially put it down to software issues), but when it starts crashing in stuff like Legend of Grimrock and Twisted Sisters...welp. Maybe it's time to do some reading and look at what's hot in the market right now.
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Jan 4, 2013 00:12
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I've used a few Radeons, but if you want to dual boot into another operating system, NVidia are a little better than ATI in OSX, and far better in Linux. I don't know about anyone else, but I pretty much use Windows for games and that's it. I may be too shell-shocked from the days of XP, but after so many "visit this web page or open the email and you're immediately infected" warnings I figured I had to stop using it for the old 2D office tasks. That may especially be the case if you're an online RPG fan, since stolen WoW accounts are supposedly worth more money than stolen credit card numbers.
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Jan 4, 2013 00:18
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Awia posted:What would they been named instead? "Good", "Better" and "Best"? Back in the day they called them "Voodoo" "Voodoo 2" and "Voodoo 3" and that was just fine god damnit. 
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Jan 4, 2013 00:21
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Ciaphas posted:Back in the day they called them "Voodoo" "Voodoo 2" and "Voodoo 3" and that was just fine god damnit. You forgot about the Banshee.
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Jan 4, 2013 00:27
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poptart_fairy posted:Yeah, I originally went for the NVidia card because I'd heard the horror stories about Radeon stuff. Unfortunately over time the card began to hardlock my system when any under any sort of load; bearable at first (and I initially put it down to software issues), but when it starts crashing in stuff like Legend of Grimrock and Twisted Sisters...welp. Maybe it's time to do some reading and look at what's hot in the market right now. True story, when the Radeon cards first came out, we had a panicked customer call us, convinced that our RADON cards were giving him radiation sickness. I was pretty glad I didn't have to take that call 
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Jan 4, 2013 00:46
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Mega Comrade posted:Unless you're playing a fast paced twitch shooter or a fighting game then having 60 fps won't make a difference to the experience for the vast majority of people. Yeah, a LOT of this. I cut my online MP teeth in Quake World and played Q2, Q3, UT99, UT2003/4, all 1v1 and TDM. Those games I still strip out all details and keep ye old 22inch NEC Trinatron CRT around for (still has an amazing image). I'm used to 125hz @ 125+ FPS for those, anything less and I can feel it. For modern LCDs they obviously don't really do that, especially the ultra high res ones, but having to look at anything other than native resolution is a pain, and frame rates below 60 are really obnoxious and distracting. If I'm playing something like Witcher 2 or even Crysis where I want to immerse myself in the game, not running it maxed out isn't getting my times worth out of the game. Though I noticed that people who don't play a lot of frame rate sensitive games found The Hobbit and it's high FPS distracting, it felt normal and just fine to me.
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Jan 4, 2013 00:48
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SilentD posted:For modern LCDs they obviously don't really do that, especially the ultra high res ones, but having to look at anything other than native resolution is a pain, and frame rates below 60 are really obnoxious and distracting. If I'm playing something like Witcher 2 or even Crysis where I want to immerse myself in the game, not running it maxed out isn't getting my times worth out of the game. SilentD posted:I'm not going to waste my first single player take through on a game not maxing it out, that ruins the entire point of it. By the time you can see it in full glory most of the stuff will already be spoiled. I won't even waste money on a game in that situation. If I can't run it properly I won't buy it. Someday I hope to have an income that can support such exacting requirements.
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Jan 4, 2013 00:57
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macnbc posted:Someday I hope to have an income that can support such exacting requirements.
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Jan 4, 2013 01:07
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macnbc posted:Someday I hope to have an income that can support such exacting requirements. It's not nearly as expensive as you may think. I've used the same 4x120mm and 2x120mm radiator, 2x liang DDC pumps, 2x res, fittings, and CPU block through socket 775, 1366, and now 2011... didn't change out anything but the tubing and some biocide. Well, I migrated one CPU block partly through 1366 because I broke the injection plate, but I could have kept it, and it's still an EK supreme, I mostly just wanted the new mounting mechanism which wasn't on sale on it's own. Granted, the GPU blocks are about 120 each, but I don't upgrade willy nilly either. I got 2x g80 based cards and ran them all the way through the DX10 era, I upgraded again at the start of the DX11 era GF100 fermi's and bought new blocks. I'll buy two new of whatever the best DX 12 card is when they come out, and 2 EK waterblocks for them as well. I'll buy the games when I can run them and what it takes to run them. Take Crysis, it's actually a pretty good game all things aside... but it's really only great your first play through when it's fresh, and if it's not maxed out it's just not the same. It's far better to make sure your first play through is maxed out than it is to try and go back and get that feeling after you've blown through it all with it looking like trash.
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Jan 4, 2013 01:35
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poptart_fairy posted:My 7870 arrived, clean install and I've been playing Far Cry 3 on the highest settings without any crashes, instability or serious FPS drops like on the 560. You were a good friend to me NVidia, but I'm afraid someone newer, shinier and more reliable has captured my heart now. A pity that apparently the NVIDIA option(s) aren't as good in that price range and you have to get to the 660 Ti to beat that out.
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Jan 4, 2013 02:18
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SilentD posted:Though I noticed that people who don't play a lot of frame rate sensitive games found The Hobbit and it's high FPS distracting, it felt normal and just fine to me. It's annoying for film because we culturally don't associate that sort of content with that rate of speed. And with a particularly with a big Peter Jackson or George Lucas style epic it's particularly bad because the limitations of CGI animation begin to show, and the special effects begin to look, well, like a video game. CGI Hulk might be impressive at 30FPS, but crank up the framerate and he looks like Barney from Half-Life when standing next to Captain America who moves and and twitches like a real person because he is one. Even just a blu-ray of Fast & Furious running all sped up on a 240HZ TV in your nearest Best Buy showroom, will look like someone playing Need For Speed. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 02:42
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BgRdMchne posted:You forgot about the Banshee. I had a Voodoo Rush..... 
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Jan 4, 2013 03:02
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Sir Liquid Jerk posted:I had a Voodoo Rush..... Wow, so did I. I think I musta blotted that out of my memory.   (edit) kuddles posted:I usually don't play mouse-based games on my television, but there have been a few times I have played an FPS campaign from my couch, and I just use an IKEA Dave like some people have recommended. I find it works pretty well for that, although the combination of being further away from the screen and obviously not having the fluidity of sitting at a desk with plenty of space means that I don't bother doing multiplayer from the couch at all. My computer desk is remarkably bad for gaming anyway, the main desk sits too high for comfortable mousing and the keyboard shelf doesn't have enough room to share with the mouse. (I tried using a trackball for a while to ameliorate this. It was... not pleasant.) Ciaphas fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 03:27
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I think I'm going to have to stick with my 6870 for the time being. It's a pretty decent card but I don't think my expectations out of a video card are really realistic right now, especially not for an extra $300 over what I already have now. It's kinda depressing, but I hope the new console generation will come out soon and give us some really great hardware.
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Jan 4, 2013 18:32
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Ularg posted:I hope the new console generation will come out soon and give us some really great hardware. Consoles might be keeping game graphics back a little but I don't think they are having the same effect with hardware.
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Jan 4, 2013 23:37
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Consoles are terrible, they made it okay to make 4 player multi-player the standard. Have four friends? Then you can't play together. Hell, R6 Raven Shield came out a decade ago and had 8+ player co-op. That said, I think there's gonna be some serious convergence after this next round of consoles: I feel like pretty soon (4-5 years) you'll be connecting your smartphone to a screen or dock and that's gonna be the game console/computer/everything.
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Jan 5, 2013 00:07
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Mega Comrade posted:Consoles might be keeping game graphics back a little but I don't think they are having the same effect with hardware. Yeah. The current rumor mill on the next generation consoles is that their hardware specs will be akin to a basic-to-midline gaming PC. Don't expect hardware innovation. Do expect PC games to look better. Honestly I think what we can expect with the next-gen on the horizon is more focus on physics rather than polygons. The major advancements in PC gaming graphics since the PS3 and 360 launched have all revolved around it. Particle effects. Smoke and water rendering. Tessellated surfaces. I think these are going to filter down to consoles in the next go-around, and we'll see a lot more games using DX11 than have the past year or so in the year ahead. macnbc fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Jan 5, 2013 |
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Jan 5, 2013 00:42
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The best thing PC gaming has from a business perspective that it has none of the downsides publishers, console manufacturers and retailers are always beefing over. As a publisher, there's no need to appeal to retail's requirements to get shelf space -- you can't buy used PC games and the bulk of it is done through DDL. Also, publishers don't need to pay royalties to the console manufacturer and they're not forced to use manufacturer mandated pricing structure (this is part of why there was/is a lot of day 1 and on-disc DLC - publishers want to charge more than $60 at release for some games). There's no need for their game's updates go through onerous QA. You're also not stuck with the weird de facto ban on F2P titles like you are on PSN and XBL. Publishers/devs have a lot more control, so with the explosion of games with niche appeal running on a F2P model (or cheap/pay what you want indie games), a $60 for a DVD-ROM in a store always trying to rip you off seems antiquated.
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Jan 5, 2013 01:19
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Bathtub Cheese posted:The best thing PC gaming has from a business perspective that it has none of the downsides publishers, console manufacturers and retailers are always beefing over. You have to admit though, developing for PC comes with its own set of downsides.
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Jan 5, 2013 02:27
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, but most have to rework the entire thing or get lambasted by the players and reviewers.
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Alkanos posted:You have to admit though, developing for PC comes with its own set of downsides. It does make me laugh that iOS and Android developers flip their poo poo over "fragmentation" and having to deal with different resolutions and graphics chips when PC developers have been doing it for 30 years.
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Jan 5, 2013 02:33
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Alkanos posted:[*]Piracy is ridiculously easy compared to consoles, unless you add in terrible DRM that alienates your customers. You can always go with Steamworks for this, which most gamers don't mind, but then you're relying on a competing publisher.[/list] I think that is debatable. There have been several console releases which hit the streets before launch in the past couple years before the PC pirates even have a chance to get started on a crack. I'm not really a buff on these subjects but isn't the burden for getting pirated games on the console rather than the software? I mean that once you mod your console you're good to go, burn whatever game you can download and pop it in or put the files onto the HD and play while for a PC game you need to wait for some hacker somewhere to crack it then release it separately for every game. It seems like piracy is actually slightly easier for consoles.
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Jan 5, 2013 03:25
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Death Himself posted:I think that is debatable. There have been several console releases which hit the streets before launch in the past couple years before the PC pirates even have a chance to get started on a crack. I think it varies from console to console. It's been a while since I've kept up, but last I checked, while the PS3, 360 and Wii (U?) were relatively easy, there's still no reliable break-ins for the 3DS. Then again, I haven't kept up with PC piracy/protection either, since if it's not on Steam/Steamworks I'm probably not gonna buy it because I have OCD
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Jan 5, 2013 03:31
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Fallom posted:It does make me laugh that iOS and Android developers flip their poo poo over "fragmentation" and having to deal with different resolutions and graphics chips when PC developers have been doing it for 30 years. Yeah, but this is nowhere near the issue it used to be. General performance is way more predictable and a huge amount of the various settings and optimization are handled by the engine you've licensed.
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Jan 5, 2013 03:39
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For me it's 30fps as a minimum. If it's screen tearing, that's even worse. My "optimal" minimum or soft minimum is probably 45 fps, and things like low textures or no shadows is irritating. 20fps lows are tolerable but I won't be pleased.
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Jan 5, 2013 03:44
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Fallom posted:It does make me laugh that iOS and Android developers flip their poo poo over "fragmentation" and having to deal with different resolutions and graphics chips when PC developers have been doing it for 30 years. Bear in mind that iOS and Android are designed to be a lot less malleable than Windows or Linux. They need to "just work", where that expectation isn't common for PCs.
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Jan 5, 2013 05:38
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I'm definitely with Valve in that I think the problem of piracy on PC is something certain developers vastly overstate. These are often devs that make mediocre games for with specific, dumber console audience in mind and/or don't bother porting the game to PC properly. It then doesn't meet sales expectations, obviously. Said devs then go on to pitch a fit when it becomes apparent that people were torrenting it, like they always do with every game, and like they always will. Another thing the publishers fail to mention is their idiotic regional pricing and staggered release availability of their game in other parts of the world provide an incentive to get it early by illegitimate means. It's worth keeping in mind that piracy is very much a global thing partly due to all this. Of course, devs' complaints become non-existent or something they come out handwaving if their game does well commercially, even if it's a game that's trivially easy to pirate like Minecraft. Console piracy was much easier during the PS2/Xbox era also, when PC games started hitting a serious decline. iOS and Android have rampant piracy, but they're gaining a lot of ground on the 3DS and Vita (the latter being nearly dead in the water ), both of which do not have easy ways to pirate games. So really the correlation between (ease of) piracy on a given platform and decline sales is impossible to prove either way, but it's becoming increasingly clear that it's a scapegoat for devs who make stuff that isn't that good anyway. All I wanted to say otherwise is that the console side of the business has become stagnant in more ways than just hardware and PC has seen plenty of renewed interest in the past couple years as a result. Things are looking up Up UP! Bathtub Cheese fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jan 5, 2013 |
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Jan 5, 2013 05:50
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Bathtub Cheese posted:I'm definitely with Valve in that I think the problem of piracy on PC is something certain developers vastly overstate. These are often devs that make mediocre games for with specific, dumber console audience in mind and/or don't bother porting the game to PC properly. It then doesn't meet sales expectations, obviously. Said devs then go on to pitch a fit when it becomes apparent that people were torrenting it, like they always do with every game, and like they always will. Another thing the publishers fail to mention is their idiotic regional pricing and staggered release availability of their game in other parts of the world provide an incentive to get it early by illegitimate means. It's worth keeping in mind that piracy is very much a global thing partly due to all this. Piracy is an issue, but I do certainly agree that some developers vastly over state the problem. Many devs moan about 3 million pirated copies what they often don't mention is that 80% of those downloads came from countries such as Russia and China. These countries simply would not play the game if they had no option to pirate it and in some ways it's hard to blame them. Very few devs put in any support for countries that are not in either North America or Europe. I used to be a terrible pirate for both PC and Xbox360. For PC I haven't pirated a game for about 5 years for 3 reasons mostly, I have disposable income now, games are more fairly priced on PC and steam makes it easier to buy games than pirate them (I also have learnt through working the value of being paid for a hard days work and a job well done so like to give developers money for a game I have enjoyed) With XB360 though, even after I stopped pirating games, developers saw no more money from me. I bought all multiplayer games new anyway to play on a none flashed xbox and pirated short single player games. The only thing that changed after I stopped pirating is that I started buying those short single player games pre-owned. The console pre-owned market is worth millions and developers don't see a penny of it, I'm pretty sure 'lost revenue' from piracy is far less than it is from pre-owned games (they aren't the same of course, revenue lost through pre-owned is even more difficult to judge since so many people trade in games and put the amount towards a new game, but it's still a lot) This is of course something that the developers don't talk about much as its bad press but behind the scenes they are working hard to suppress sales. First they introduced one use only codes and there have been strong rumours of the next consoles featuring technology that will tie games to those consoles or accounts, stunting the 2nd hand market. Of course there are legal complications with something like this so I doubt it will become reality but I have no doubt they are trying to find ways to implement it in some way. Mega Comrade fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jan 5, 2013 |
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Jan 5, 2013 18:44
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Anyone have recommendations for mice? I need something that's fairly cheap and dependable, and preferably something wired.
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Jan 5, 2013 19:58
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