EvaUnit02 on 4/3/2009 at 08:26
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
Having just finished a 2nd playthrough (first one was about 2004 i think) I can vouch for this. Not being able to really absorb the audio logs without being interrupted sucked. I started playing RoE too. but I gave up after about an hour because.... well really what's the point?
I liked RoE far more than vanilla Doom 3.
1. The double-barrel shotty owned. The original D3 shotgun is the worst of any FPS in recent memory. The pellet distribution is far too focused, leading to sometimes needing 2-4 shots to down an Imp, one of the most basic of enemies.
2. The artefact put a nice spin on gameplay. I really enjoyed the later half of the game where you were forced to use it quite often.
3. The Mars facility actually felt like it was twisting into hell, an aspect of D3 vanilla's level design that was sorely lacking.
4. The gravity gun was fun and frankly far more effective at downing imps than the atrocious basic shotgun.
Volitions Advocate on 4/3/2009 at 14:54
I'm gonna give it some time before I get back into it. Playing them both back to back just feels kind of torturous because the enemies are exactly the same, except for the new ones they added. Right now it just feels like a grind and I'm not having much fun. I started playing it because I wanted to play through all the idtech 4 games because I'm going to make a game/mod and i'm trying to figure out which engine to use. Prey was first. Quake 4 will be next.
michaelg on 4/3/2009 at 15:44
It's not dust in the comp because it's less than a week old. However my processor is a dual core AMD 4450e, which, when I bought it at Staples, the tech guy advised me not to get it for gaming. Said it was strictly for surfing the web ect. Told me the processor would bottleneck the GPU>
However it was only 400 bucks and came with 3 gigs of ram. It only came with a 250 watt PSU, but I put a 450W Cooler Master in there which should run the card, (XFX 8600GTXXX which advises 300W). I've also been playing FO3 with no issues and The Witcher enhanced edition without any issues. Thing is, the tech guy at Staples told me I wouldn't notice much difference between my old comp, (Athlon 2700+, X700 Pro, gig of ram), and this one. But this guy was dead wrong. Everything looks and runs much better and games like the Witcher and FO3 that I could barely run before can all be played now at 1024 X 768 with high settings and all options maxed out.
I know it's not a very good gaming comp, but it seems fine to me. However maybe I need more cooling or something?
Appreciate any help.
june gloom on 4/3/2009 at 18:05
Check the temps anyway- your GPU may be faulty. Get yourself Rivatuner. The card shouldn't ever go over 60 degrees Celsius.
Volitions Advocate on 4/3/2009 at 18:07
your staples tech guy sounds like a moron. I never trust anybody with computer component knowledge unless they work for a real parts store like memory express or something. and even then I take what they tell me with a grain of salt.
The difference between your x700 and your 8600GT would be phenomenal.
The difference between my x1950 and my 8800GT is Huge.
I can't tell you much about your Proc, I was running a P4 3.0GHz before all this multi-core stuff and I really didn't follow any of it until I bought my new PC, I used to be such an amd/ati fanboy but I have no idea what they offer since they've amalgamated.
Dead Space was built on an aged engine, this doesn't mean it doesn't look good but it doesn't have all the dx 10 bells and whistles that most games have nowadays, It should run fine on your machine so you may have other problems. On my computer from a dead startup loading my first game took usually less than 3 seconds from clicking "load" to actual playing.
Are you using a CRT or an LCD? I've found recently that Resolution has a lot less to do with performance than it used to. (playing tomb raider 2 @ 240x300 back in the day etc.) You may find that cranking your resolution up to your monitors native resolution may actually improve performance. Obviously this has nothing to do with the monitor itself but a lot of newer games seem to run better with the resolution cranked. Plus you'll get the best possible picture on your monitor.
Although I'd still be stumped on the crashes and artefacts. It really does sound like a heat issue. Make sure all your fans are working. Maybe you should upgrade them too since you upgraded your PSU.
EvaUnit02 on 4/3/2009 at 23:38
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
Are you using a CRT or an LCD? I've found recently that Resolution has a lot less to do with performance than it used to. (playing tomb raider 2 @ 240x300 back in the day etc.) You may find that cranking your resolution up to your monitors native resolution may actually improve performance. Obviously this has nothing to do with the monitor itself but a lot of newer games seem to run better with the resolution cranked. Plus you'll get the best possible picture on your monitor.
At lower resolutions like 1024x768, it's heavily CPU-bound. But when you start dealing with 1280x960 and higher, most of the grunt work is placed on the GPU.
Quote:
I can't tell you much about your Proc, I was running a P4 3.0GHz before all this multi-core stuff and I really didn't follow any of it until I bought my new PC, I used to be such an amd/ati fanboy but I have no idea what they offer since they've amalgamated.
Yeah, the jump from single to dual core made a hell of a difference in general. Also even low end Core 2 grind P4 into dust, the architecture was far more efficient. They in fact abandoned P4's design and went back to Pentium 3 architecture when developing the designing the Core family architecture.
michaelg on 5/3/2009 at 17:04
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
At lower resolutions like 1024x768, it's heavily CPU-bound. But when you start dealing with 1280x960 and higher, most of the grunt work is placed on the GPU.
Yeah, the jump from single to dual core made a hell of a difference in general. Also even low end Core 2 grind P4 into dust, the architecture was far more efficient. They in fact abandoned P4's design and went back to Pentium 3 architecture when developing the designing the Core family architecture.
Are you saying that I should run my desktop, or games at my monitors native resolution? Or both?
I mean on my old comp, I would usually struggle to play most newer games at 1024 X 768, much less 1280 X 1024 which is my monitors native resolution, and yes it is an LCD. (Dell 1950FP 19 in.) Either way, I changed my monitors resolution to native (even though for me everythings a bit small), and then changed the game res to the same. The results are
unfuckingbelievble! I have
never seen a game look so good.
I played for about an hr without a hiccup, but now I'm wondering if I'm pushing things to far.
BTW; Really appreciate all the help.
EvaUnit02 on 5/3/2009 at 18:42
1280x1024 would be fine for a 8600GT, provided that you have a dual core (which you do). Just stick to DX9 mode (where applicable).
Microwave Oven on 9/3/2009 at 00:06
Well, I bought DS and spent a marathon session playing through it. Overall it was fun, if extremely derivative. It cost me $30 so it was a good play for the money. There was only one thing that got me mad: the controls. The un-remappable keys? I can deal, I have GlovePIE, easy enough to fix. No mousewheel weapon select? Ok, whatever, GlovePIE handled that with a little scripting. Dead zone for mouse movement in aim mode(including the turret minigames)? Akljagkhagkhdagf!:grr:
W
T
F
Who thought it would be a good idea to discard mouse input under a certain speed threshold? It's asinine. The mouse is a precision input device, unlike a tiny gamepad analog stick. It's not known for producing spurious input. Look mode works just fine, so why is aim mode so screwed up? I have to really sling the mouse around to break it loose from the little black hole it sits in.
This, over everything else, needs to be patched.
PS: I might be able to fix even this in GlovePIE, but I really shouldn't be forced to. Of course, given that this is EA we're talking about, it should get patched as soon as Duke Nukem Forever comes out and monkeys fly out of my butt.
