Shadowcat on 4/10/2013 at 15:35
Curses. It's fair to say that my GeForce 8600 GTS is really struggling with this (I know, I know, but it's really held up very well to date). I played through the prologue with everything on minimum, but performance still wasn't as smooth as I'd like, and that's no way to play what should be a nice-looking game in any case. I think I'm going to have to shelve it until I buy a new video card. I'm slightly sorry to have shelled out the full retail price in the circumstances, but I'll chalk it up to supporting the devs. Time to figure out what the current best fanless video card is...
EvaUnit02 on 4/10/2013 at 18:55
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
Time to figure out what the current best fanless video card is...
Whatever GPU you end up getting your CPU will probably bottleneck it to hell, assuming that it's similarly long in tooth.
june gloom on 4/10/2013 at 20:49
Yeah, seriously, fanless? You might as well just buy a Gameboy.
Harvester on 4/10/2013 at 22:28
Why not fanless? They might not be the fastest cards around, but if he's got an aging system (like I do) getting an ultra-fast video card for hundreds of dollars is pure overkill since the rest of his system is too slow for him to benefit from it. He needs a video card that's just fast enough to never be the bottleneck of his system anymore. Any faster (=more expensive) is a waste of money, unless he plans to upgrade the rest of his system in the not too distant future as well.
EDIT: but of course, if he does have a modern up-to-date system with the video card being the only old part in it, then he needs a pretty fast card and fanless might not cut it, the GPU might still end up being the bottleneck with a fanless card.
faetal on 4/10/2013 at 22:50
Also, he might be allergic to fan.
Shadowcat on 5/10/2013 at 00:01
I think the CPU should still be decent (Core i5 760 @ 2.8GHz; it's been changed more recently than the video card).
When I got the GF8600 the 8800 was the best there was, and I was willing to sacrifice the performance difference for the quiet. I guess I don't know what the difference between the best and the fanless best is nowadays, but I'd happily take the same performance hit as before to improve the games without increasing the noise.
june gloom on 5/10/2013 at 04:44
I have to say you get used to the noise. I've got no less than 5 fans going -- one on the back of my case, one on the top, one on the CPU, and two on my GPU -- together they're all a little noisy, but they make less noise than a 360, and to be perfectly honest any single one of the three fans i have running 24/7 in my apartment during the summer makes more noise, even the shitty 15-year-old weak one. Either settle for a crap card -- because let's be honest, any card that can get by without a fan is probably going to be about as powerful as an N64 -- or put up with the noise.
Angel Dust on 5/10/2013 at 06:04
Whenever my PC gets a bit noisy, and this did happen with Shadow Warrior, I just play with headphones.
Anyway, finished it last night. The boss fights were a little tedious and it probably could have a used a little trimming here and there, particularly during the extended docks area, but it was a largely fantastic experience. Some of the monster combinations towards the end were forcing me to really utilise my entire arsenal of weapons, powers and katana moves, and it was a wonderful challenge. I also really dig what FWH have done with the character of Lo Wang: they've actually made him, you know, a character with a simple honest-to-god character arc. The mystical/demon side of the story was a bit muddled at first but towards the end I was surprised at how much I wanted to see how it was all going to turn out for Wang and Hoji. It wasn't great literature, of course, but the writing and plot were the perfect accompaniment to a very, very good shooter. It's probably been said before and will continue to be said after but this is what Duke Nukem Forever should have been.
Shadowcat on 5/10/2013 at 15:56
Well I take back a bunch of what I said. After video driver updates, the old 8600 GTS is faring a lot better than it was before. I'm still running at minimal resolution*, but performance is much improved, even with a bunch of the other options turned up. Plenty good enough to keep playing.
(*) That would be 1024x768, but the config panel for the new drivers isn't offering me any scaling options, which completely sucks, so right now the graphics are getting stretched. I hope that won't be too hard to fix. Initial searching was just hopeless -- there are threads going back years about this issue, which gives the disheartening impression that this has plagued nVidia drivers for a very very long time :/
edit: Fixed. The control panel finally showed me the options. Once. Which was enough for me to select a better option, which it has thankfully remembered. It then immediately reverted to pretending those options don't exist. WTF nVidia?
EvaUnit02 on 6/10/2013 at 03:42
I only recall having scaling issues when I had 7900GS and 8800GT/9800GT's. The two Nvidia GPUs that I've had since then have had zero scaling issues (GTX275, GTX560ti), so it might just have something to do with those older chipsets specifically.
