The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Do we have an NPB on our hands?
Edit: Yes we did

 

Just a point Rich, I've had crossfire left enabled for the last 9-10 months and haven't suffered a single BSOD or freeze from it, despite having my CPU overclocked over 50%. This isn't a known issue with the HD7 series either. If you've exhausted all other possibilities, you may as well sell the other card until you're willing to get a new board.

 

Would have to agree. Have never had issues with Crossfire being on 24/7 barring a few very old games that simply don't like it being on. And never anything like a BSOD/lockup. Usually glitches like backgrounds not appearing properly or AA causing visual garbage.

 

Hmmm.

So, Sam and Jeff, you think it's a bad card. Well - certainly, for whatever reason, one of the two cards is wayyyyy worse on that one title.

But both cards eventually hang - one maybe in only 10 minutes, the other might go 3 hours. And they both stop transmitting load and gpu temp within about 10 mins, and as soon as they do that, you can't exit the game in a normal way - you can exit and then you will hang at exit, without being able to even open task manager - thereby requiring a reboot. This is on each card individually.

Again - this is not a crossfire issue.

The only reason I disable crossfire, is to get the most sensitive "10 minute" card, out of the loop.

The one that is acting up - not only does it hang in 10 mins but it exhibits artifacts, like bad gun models - you know, you're carrying the gun and all of a sudden the gun you're carrying has an unusual display - the gunstock extends down an extra 3 inches for example. Artifacts I used to see when my graphics card got really hot in my 3850 days - but I haven't seen for a long time.

But to clarify:

When I play any other title, the card is perfect. (Both cards are perfect - either individually, or in crossfire. Perfect!)

And the "good" card is the same way on this BF:BC2 title, just not as bad - meaning I never get any artifacts, and I can get up to 3 hours out of it before a hang. Only this one title seems to be affected - nothing else at all.

The "bad" card is the one that tore through all the crysis titles.

It really puzzles me why this one title acts weird - I must presume some driver conflict. As I mentioned, I have read 7970 reviews at newegg, where a reviewer complained that the latest catalyst wouldn't run his legacy game (I think it was crossfire but I'm not sure) so he went back to an earlier catalyst, since that was the title he played the most.

So I think it is something like that. But you guys tell me. Okay, you think I have a bad card, but so is the other card "bad" only not for 3 hours, lol. I have a feeling that I will not have any problem on any other game. I certainly don't have a problem with sleeping dogs, individually or in crossfire. Nor in BF3.

Since 7950s are getting cheaper and cheaper, selling one now might be a good idea, but at the end of this month, I might need it for crossfire, for Medal of Honor, Warfighter, and then early next year I might need it for Far Cry 3, and Crysis 3 - yeah especially Crysis 3 since per Jeff's link to that interview with Cevat Yerli, he said that Crysis 3 will be the new PC killer.

Tell me again why I should sell the "10" minute card, lol.

EDIT: What's an NPB, and is LA Noire a shooter?

Rich

 

Nope, pretty sure I've never said that.
I think it's a bad board. You've said so yourself, it was discarded for not functioning 100% when you acquired it, so you know that's the most likely case.

With your 'good' card you get "up to 3 hours without a hang".
I must have had over 6 months with my cards, with crossfire enabled continuously.


NPB = New Page Bug.
AD is bugged with long threads where the first post on a new page is invisible until someone else posts on that page.

LA Noire is a Third person open world shooter, a bit like GTA/Saints Row.

 

Oh, I misunderstood when you said "You might as well sell the other card." And when you said Board, you meant my motherboard. Okay, I get it. You're right - it's most likely bad, but in this case of the BF:BC2 incompatibility, I blame drivers.

So, still, bad or not, why should I sell the one card that seems to be super-sensitive to the driver problem, and only gives me 10 mins in BC2? I mean, maybe you're right - maybe I should sell it.

For now that card is "turned off" with crossfire disabled, but again, I might need it in a few weeks for MOH Warfigher, coming on the 25th, and most likely in 4-6 months for Crysis 3. Far Cry 3 probably won't be a problem, but Yerli said Crysis 3 will be the new "PC punisher."

Anyway, I haven't been doing much gaming - I'm trying to restart up my real estate. But when I stop gaming, I always get the stronger and stronger urge to shoot something.

LOL

COUNTER STRIKE GLOBAL OFFENSIVE
So last night, I had to turn the gaming computer on for some reason, and I was thinking about Condition Zero and wondering if I should re-install it. But then I remembered that CS:GO has an offline mode with the bots.

So I turned that on, and for the first time, Sam, I checked out those other play modes that you told me about recently: Arms Race and Demolition, which are great for sampling all the various weapons, and you don't have to buy anything.

You can play them multiplayer, but I was offline with the bots (Kevin are you listening - the game is great, and very cheap, at $14.99, looks terrific, and is not super-demanding graphics-wise: I am adding a little extra description here just for you and Jeff) and I turned up bot skill level all the way, and I played that mode where you get a different gun instantly with each kill, ending with knife, which is Arms Race. That is quite interesting and challenging.

Then I played Demolition which I prefer. They give you about 8 weapons in all, not all the weapons of Arms Race, which I imagine are about 12-15 including pistol types. In demolition, if you kill somebody in that one round, you get the next weapon, which could be better or worse, in the next round. You play potentially 20 rounds, broken in half, terrorist, then counter terrorist. Really good training. All 5 of those maps are new.

I played a couple hours of the Bank bombing until I developed strategies to beat the game consistently, with my team winning every 20-round match, by scores like 11 to 7, 11 to 9, 11 to 6, etc.

They make the terrorists sound a little like New York Mafia types, "Hey guys, let's get this done quick and easy" and when you as a terrorist clobber the other team, you (or somebody) says "That was allllll us." Whereas the counter terrorists are more business-like FBI agents - "Ok men, let's all get home for dinner."

I like the heavy SWAT armored vehicle still running, with the pollution coming out the tailpipe, where we counter terrorists wait for the round to start. I kept looking over wanting to shut it off before I gagged on the carbon monoxide, lol.

Regarding winning strategies, for example, on terrorist, going into the teller cage area seemed the best consistent defensive maneuver no matter which gun I had. On counter terrorist, I alternated between direct front of the bank up against the plywood, versus climbing the ladder and dropping down in back between the two main buildings and then entering the teller cage area, versus going through the building to the left of the bank when you are facing it. Those 3 strategies depended on my weapon and my mood. Overall, terrorist was easier to beat, counter terrorist was more of a challenge.

Then just to check out one more map, I went to Lake House for an hour. That was very cool. It's a beautiful house on a lake, built on a boat house as the garage. You can jump over the boat, but you might fall in the water and have to come up by one of the small ladders. One time a terrorist came up out of the water behind me - I never knew he was there!

On counter terrorist a strategy that worked pretty well was to run (with the knife for fastest speed) up the front stairs, then up to the top, overlooking the bomb area, in the little room with pillows, where I camped. On terrorist, with a long rifle I went to the right, shooting from a distance, but with a short weapon, I went straight to the house, opened the garage side door, then maybe upstairs, or maybe out the other garage door, to shoot some of the counters from the side as they faced the other way, battling my terrorist buddies still up near the raw lumber piles.

And then finally - I couldn't help myself - before shutting down I tried Safe House for one or two matches. In terrorist I either went in the front door and tried to kill a few counters, before the shooting got too hot and I made for the room on the right, or I initially stayed outside, going to the right yard and up and over the fence, and tried to kill them from the living room side window, or still on the porch. When there were just a few counter terrorists left, I often planted upstairs, and then - waiting by the side of the bed seemed to work out best, although the bots usually climb out on the roof after planting.

For counter, when I finally got the sniper rifle, I stayed up on the hill, shooting the bomb planter through the window and other terrorist who were on the roof. For other weapons earlier, I usually went up the ladder on the side of the small garage, from which you can jump to the main house where they plant the bomb (trying to blow open the floor safe in that upstairs bedroom.)

There are still 2 maps that I haven't checked out at all.

That satisfied my shooting urges and it wasn't quite as addicting as in real multiplayer mode, where you get more of a sense of wanting to hang in there and either get revenge, or help your team win.

The bots, even on expert, are not dialed up as tight as they really could be (back in CS 1.6 maybe 6 years ago right after they made the bots, I saw bots that were VERY hard to beat, with lightning fast reflexes and Annie Oakley shooting skills, depending on the server setting.) Anyway, bot practice is still a lot of fun, and a good way to learn the maps.

So thanks Sam for suggesting those play modes - it was a kick.

One thing I learned from both game plays, is that the magnum possibly is not as effective for me as I thought it was, due to the reduced fire rate from the incredible recoil and gun bounce on every shot. With a fast trigger finger, I was starting to prefer the other pistols, particularly at medium range. When I start playing multiplayer again, I might stop buying magnums. I didn't really like the double pistols - but one of the single pistol choices seemed quite good. Not as powerful as magnum, per shot, but faster fire rate, and no recoil - therefore easier to keep on target.

And I am still trying to figure out what is that little pistol-like thing that seems to shoot like a shotgun but very short distance, which I came across in Arms Race. Do you know offhand what that thing is, Sam?

Rich

 

MAG-7 I believe Rich.

Also, the voice pack for some of the maps is the SAS with broad scottish accents. All I can think of is Captain MacMillan from COD4

 

Cool.

So I guess I could google that MAG-7, but what the hell kind of gun is it - does it fire a shotgun shell? And I just read something about CS:GO last night saying they had a stun gun - is that what it is?

Broad scottish accents - sounds great. I haven't come to those maps yet but soon - I almost jumped on last night.

Kevin - this is another valve game, and you know how much you liked Left 4 Dead - if you are game-playing these days in-between working all the time.
Jeff - have you tried CS:GO?

 

Yes it's a shotgun, but it's not reloaded by shell, there are 5 shells to a mag(?), and when they are used, it is reloaded per-mag like any of the other gun types in the game.
It turns out to be pretty effective.

 

No - maybe I can find it in YouTube. If you come across it in YouTube, DDP, post the link - if they have guys shooting that gun I would certainly love to see that! Oh, you said movie - I was thinking TV show. Maybe I'll see if I can ... uh hmm ... preview the movie.

I guess I'll have to google the MAG-7. That is interesting as all hell. A hand-gun shotgun. How does it not break your wrist? I wonder if they use it in Interpol police work?


I was impressed with the multiplayer World at War two nights ago - very large maps - very beautiful graphics. I got on one server that is a crouch-only server. I have been on those before - several years ago. If you want to play in total slow-motion, that is the way to go.

Shaff wouldn't last one minute. I hung in there for about an hour. Finally I went back to walking, but not crouched. The mod came back on and mic'd "Harvardguy please crouch." So I did. But while I often crouch in-game, anyway, to eliminate footsteps, crouching all the damn time is not realistic - you can't see over minor objects. So I had to crouch my way up to some cover, then stand up to see, then crouch my way somewhere else. It was just too slow. LOL

The game has good mood music. I have to hand it to Treyarch, I think they did a good job on that title. And the dogs were great. At first I didn't distinguish between "They have released the dogs" and "Bring on the dogs" and a couple times I almost shot our own dogs, lol.

The main problem was that I was playing a server in Russia, with a 200 ping, and while it was pretty good, when punkbuster kicked me out for the OSD, the server was full when I tried to get back on later, so I decided to upgrade the patches. That involved downloading 5 separate large up to 1.2 gig patches: patch 1.2, then patch 1.2-1.4, then patch 1.4-1.5, then patch 1.5-1.6, then finally patch 1.7. I am not kidding. You had to download and install them in order. These patches total about 2.5-3 gigs of stuff, plus install time, about a 2 hour project. But now at least I get a lot of servers, and a ping of under 100, which is where the crouch-only server came from, hahahaha.

It's been a while since I was on Infinity Ward MW2 or MW3 multiplayer. I think I'll give them another try. I did play Black Ops single player, but I don't own it. I briefly watched a guy play Black Ops multiplayer one time, and I tried it for 5 minutes, and thought it was okay, with earlier weapons again, so maybe I'll buy that game - it's probably way reduced on steam - another Treyarch title. Yeah, it's $35 now, so I guess I'll get it.

Rich

 

On second thought - don't bother with Black Ops multiplayer - nothing special. Maps are meh. I am going to reload Day of Defeat - another mod of Half Life. I used to enjoy playing that - it again is not something you have to do a lot of levelling up in. And for the others, I have already levelled back up to my favorite P90 in COD4, some months or a year ago, so I think I'll bring that out of the closet, plus MW2 and MW3. So Black Ops was a waste of money. For multiplayer I have my favorite, Vietnam maps of BC2, and also Counter Strike GO, Day of Defeat, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, MW1, MW2, MW3, World at War. And I pre-ordered MOH Warfighter that is coming in 2 weeks. Enough already!!! LOL

On another note - last night I played Episode 3 of the steam game Walking Dead the video game, taken from the comic book. Think of it as an animated comic book. The game is incredible.




All the reviews say it is better than the comics and better than the TV show. It is interactive to a point - the decisions you make can make quite a difference, even to the point of whether a character remains in the game or not.

I have watched all the episodes of the TV show in order - I think the TV show rocks also. But definitely, this game, Walking Dead, is a gem. It doesn't require any beefy graphics. Here's the video walk-through.

I would suggest watch the first one, or part of it, to see if it might be something you guys would be interested in.

Rich

 

Perhaps a more meaningful way of illustrating the data? Prices of course from 22-Oct.

 

Having an unexpected amount of fun with Mercenaries 2. The game is very well crafted but suffers from the capabilities of the consoles. Is fairly old now, but still a pleasant discovery for me. Tons of different vehicles and a decent selection of weapons. A boost in quality and fun from the previous game.

Also having fun on Just Cause 2 with a trainer for infinite health as you die too easily to have any real fun with the engine. Just some mindless action. Swinging from helicopter to helicopter lol.

 

Hi,

I've got a realy lag issue when playing BF2 (with A.I.X. 2 -mod).
FPS drops down to 1-10 or something..

In this video, im playing single player game with bots.
here's a link to youtube, so you can see the real LAG please help!

CANT POST LINKS: but -> youtu.be/V9iV0K48IWI?t=20s

My PC:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.20GHz
RAM: 8,00 Gb
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Graphics: GeForce GTX 560 Ti (newest drivers)

Core Clock goes 405MHz Mem Clock geos 162 MHz Shader Clock goes 810 MHz

 

The videos of just cause 2 are bloody hilarious it's what made me go buy the pc & 360 versions,haven't played them yet,will eventually,that grappling hook is too much..lol..

 

WOW - THIS TURNED OUT TO BE A LONG POST, BUT IT'S A WRAPUP OF ABOUT A DOZEN MP GAMES.

Regarding the above call for help from sjaaksola: Hmmm. I looked at the video - some nice tank action. I couldn't see the size of the monitor, whether 1920x1080 or higher. But his equipment should be able to handle it, right? Of course, the software to make the video would be taxing. Other variables - what is running in the background? - anti virus software? is he running an on-screen display? I'll defer to you guys, Sam and Jeff, to help out sjaaksola.

RICH REVIEWS THE BF2 DEMO

Funny that he is playing BF2 - I just told myself an hour ago to load BF2 on my windows 7 gaming rig, but JUST THE DEMO.

Yes, that's right, I like the demo better than the game. The demo has one local Los Angeles server with a low ping, and they have disabled the amphibious vehicles - they auto-explode 3 seconds after spawn - and so they only allow jeeps. It's a riot - always lots of guys playing - and I have had so much fun with it on my old XP gaming rig in the sunroom, that about six months ago I installed the whole game. But then I realized that nothing was as much fun as that one demo map - so I uninstalled the full game and just left the demo.

On the server, sometimes the guys kid around and from time to time somebody will type: "Wow this is nice - if they ever decide to make the full game I'll buy it for sure."

I thought about the BF2 demo, because after yesterday I was just now going through a list of the multiplayer games that I like, versus the ones that are meh.


RICH REVIEWS MEDAL OF HONOR WARFIGHTER MULTIPLAYER

I just forked out $60 for the new MOH with some leveling unlocks, and unfortunately it falls into the meh category. The maps are not that bad, some of them, but not really that good either. One of them has a shut door, and if you spawn on one side, you cannot engage the enemy unless you climb on a pickup truck, and wait for them to occasionally spawn over in that section of the map where you can target them over the wall. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. But the leveling up is not bad - you get a decent weapons loadout to start with. But maybe that's just cause I paid an extra $10.

One big gripe with MOH is that the enemies and you all have the same uniforms. Where in real combat would that ever happen? But in thinking about it now, I realize what is going on, as I remember 2010 MOH whose singleplayer was okay, pretty much the same quality as the new MOH. In 2010 I didn't play the multiplayer, but from the trailers, you could tell friends from enemies. But they had sales problems in 2010, and they apologized to the pentagon, after the military PX colonels refused to allow the game to be sold at PX stores, because they didn't think it was right in multiplayer, for marines to be playing Afghanis shooting marines. LOL

So now I understand - they did it for sales in the PX stores. So because of that marketing decision, if you don't immediately spot the blue or green nametag, you are almost forced to shoot anything that moves - and friendly fire is off, so there is no penalty for unloading on your buddies. Somebody shouts "Hey blue on blue" but that's all that happens. That means you can build some bad habits if you later get on games with friendly fire turned on. I play friendly fire games, and avoiding friendly fire is VERY important to me.

So I REALLY didn't like that part, and I certainly don't want to build any bad habits, so I probably won't go back for any more MOH.

I stuck with it for about 6 hours, doing okay on some maps, getting near 1:1 kd ratio, not so okay on others, getting my butt handed to me. There are about 8 maps. After a while I sort of knew where I was on some of them, and my scores improved. But ......... I was playing max graphics, ultra everything, full 30" gaming, and still the maps were really not that great - they didn't look that good. Very dusty and drab. Even the semi colorful jungle maps weren't that good - the closeup textures of the trees were back to about 5 years ago. Crysis it ain't. It's the same duma game engine as BF3, I understand, and I personally don't like the look of that game - the graphics to me are totally underwhelming - lots of dust and washed out colors. Blah.



..................RICH'S 2012 MULTIPLAYER SHOOTER REVIEW WRAPUP..................


I like:

Counter strike, CS:GO
..... You know whom you are shooting at - counter terrorists don't look the same as terrorists. The new CS:GO is terrific with the demolition gameplay - you have jamaiican pirates, old style middle eastern terrorists, or white collar bank robbers in flak jackets - a total riot with some beautiful maps. And no leveling up to deal with.

Day of Defeat
........ same thing - a German is a German, a GI is a GI. No leveling up. I just went back to it for a while recently - it was fun. And your mic plays a big part in the game - although I think it is actually an open mic - but maybe it is just a team mic I'm not sure. "I need help with the bridge" on the Argentin map. There are two 2-point control flags - the bridge and the church. "Smoke them up" I told the guys. One guy said "we don't really have enough fire power to smoke up the church." I said, "No, I am talking about smoke - throw the smoke grenades so the snipers can't see us as we camp at the church to take the flag." They got the idea and we started winning, lol. I know that map like the back of my hand and I love that map like I love my mother.

Only the assault class has smoke and a frag grenade - the heavy bar rifle has 2 frag grenades. In my Day of Defeat recent gaming day, I was on a map that was a source remake of the famous Normandy map from the original day of defeat - trying to get past the beach and all those machine gunners. It was a map that I had been hugely impressed with and missed it as they developed source. After failure after failure - they were mowing us down - I suddenly realized that nobody in the game was using smoke. So I mic'd out and I typed out - "Don't die with your smoke" - and I threw mine as soon as I spawned in the water. I did the same, mic and type and throw on every spawn, and they all got the idea! Soon we started making some progress, and we actually blew up a few of the objectives, and once we actually won a round, lol. The smoke moved it from frustrating and unbeatable, to almost do-able, except the Germans were very determined little buggars.

Left 4 Dead 1 and 2
...... unless you're an idiot, a zombie is not your teammate. Friendly fire is on, and in expert mode, friendly fire is an instant incap - you incapacitate your teammate and you better not do that very often unless you want all to think you're a loser. LOL

This game is a unique coop experience that ranks with the all-time best games I have ever played, all because Sam reported that he played it for two hours each evening, otherwise I was not even going to load it, lol. I played the coop zombie in black ops, handling horde after ever-faster moving horde, and it IS NOT THE SAME THING! Not yet having played it, a guy was typing: "Let's play the zombie" on a black ops multiplayer map, and I responded, "The only good zombie is left 4 dead." He was aghast. Out of fairness I corrected - "Well I haven't played it so I shouldn't comment." BUT NOW I SEE THAT I WAS RIGHT. Compared to Left 4 Dead those other zombie things added onto military style shooters are weak efforts.

COD4 (I have leveled up once again to my beloved P90)
.......... It's been a while - as I recall, you can tell the enemy from more than just the nametag. Playing on the Eastern front, you look for the white uniforms of the GIs. Anyway, I liked the maps. I was disappointed recently to see that not one server had any players on that newer creek map that I really loved, once I upgraded past the 1.4 patch. That upgrade also brought the chinatown map, which was nice, but nothing like creek. I guess I was the only one who loved that map, lol. I liked the rain map, the bog map, the crossfire map - hell, I liked every single map in that game (except shipping containers - what a confused farce - that map they can keep to themselves.)

MW2 - I leveled up some time ago to a decent weapon set
You can tell enemies from teammates - again there are jamaiicans, brazilians wearing baseball caps, russians.

Enemies don't look exactly like friendlies - where in real combat would that ever happen, except in Medal of Honor trying to get their product sold in the army PX stores, as I mentioned, after they refused to carry the old Medal of Honor because they didn't think it was right for marines to be playing Afghanis shooting marines.

There is an easy way to handle that problem - like the free game the Army has, which I played for a while 7 years ago - America's Army which uses the Unreal Engine. You always play as an American, fighting Afghanis or Middle Easterners of some type. The other team, which is also a team of Americans, looks at you, and sees Afghanis - they see each other as Americans - you look at them and see Afghanis. How hard is it to do that? LOL

The Call of Duties don't give a sh*t about the army PX rules, because they sell millions of copies anyway, including to all the marines who just go off-base and buy the thing, and don't have a problem playing Afghanis shooting marines - it's not real life. I hate Nazis, but in Day of Defeat, if I find myself on the German side, I get into it and try to win - it's not my first choice but I go with the flow and then it's just friendly make-believe competition.

BF:BC2 Vietnam map pack - this game is great without any leveling up - although some guys have leveled up to the Garand, and they are the ones killing me from time to time. You either play as cong or play as GI and you have no trouble telling whom you are shooting at - you don't need little blue or red nametags, a cong looks like a cong, a GI looks like a GI. LOL I like the Vietnam map pack best of all - just a great set of maps, and when you are a cong you hear a lot of "Ung kow, jop pung" and stuff like that, and you know you are surrounded by your buddies so that when you then hear "I dropped that commie" you know an enemy GI is nearby trying to take the hill! Hahaha. They switch sides at half time, so you play as Cong or GI each round. I can't recall if friendly fire is on or not, but no excuse to shoot a friendly.

BF:BC2 Russian map pack - I have actually leveled up to my FC2000 rifle, with underslung grenades, which suits me fine, and more recently I finally got a red dot or optional 4x gun sight. Now I can't complain any more about iron sights. Some of those maps are totally beautiful, like the one with the waterfall. Holy sh*t is that a good looking map. Beats with a stick anything in this MOH Warfighter of last night. The Russians have red caps, and the GIs don't. I think some of the other uniform types however are similar on both teams - so you do have to depend on the nametags. I think friendly fire is off depending on the server. But at least - the red caps - they try to make the uniforms look different.


The games I have decided not to play:

MOH Warfighter - meh maps, all uniforms look identical, no.

MW3 - I was not too impressed with the maps, and of the two, MW2 or MW3, I'll just stick with MW2. MW3 was a cluge of guys left over trying to finish a game after they dumped the key guys from infinity ward who are now over at respawn and apparently settled to big time payouts to the Respawn guys for the crap that Activision pulled by not paying bonuses, etc. No official comments, just "big smiles" on the faces of the main Respawn guys, and Activision posting in quarterly corporate filings that the loss will not affect the numbers too much because of high sales.

BF3 - see above, I don't like the maps nor the look of the game that much - lots of haze, smoke, washed out colors, blah

Black Ops - naw, the maps basically suck - treyarch can't match the now-respawn guys

World at War - there are actually a couple of maps I liked, such as the Japanese temple which really is a beautiful map. I played quite a bit of that game recently - about 15 hours - including some of the crouch maps where my kd ratio was above 1:1. On one map I had 9 kills, and died only twice. That's a KD ratio of 4.5. My all-time best! LOL

If I were playing just for bragging rights about my amazing kd ratio, I guess I'd stay. But moving that slowly kills me - yes it's suspenseful and the music definitely adds to the suspense - and in some ways I know it is more realistic. Sh*t, in real life you don't respawn, so you are not in a particular hurry to get your head shot off. lol.

So yes, it is suspenseful - but it's SOOOO SLOWWWWWWW! If you are not familiar with a crouch server, you have to move around in a crouch the whole time. I do move that way a lot anyway - in CS you are totally silent moving in a crouch, or in a walk. So the crouch servers were a novelty at first, but then the pace got to me. NO - sorry mate - it's just a tad too slow. (I saw those crouch-only servers also over at Black Ops.)

So that's my multiplayer list with my very brief review of each game.

-------------------------------------------------------

Sam that was quite an impressive posting, but I have to disagree, along the lines that my personal experience tells me that the 7000 family is much stronger and therefore much cheaper than you reported, at least in regard to two games that I own and which I have reviewed above:

Regarding BF3 on top of your posting, I have found that I get a playable 32-35 fps on BF3 with one $300 7950 overclocked to 975 core and memory 1350 to match a 7970, with ultra everything, full 30" gaming 2560x1600. I have two 7950 cards, but crossfire is disabled. And I have been on some very large maps - like that one near the port with all those shipping containers, and the train cars on a small hill above - that was just a cluster f**k of activity and shooting in all directions, lol. Fun for a short while I do have to admit. I know you're saying it depends on the number of players on the map, but maybe I wasn't paying attention - I don't really remember having anything slow down on me on that very populated map. So I am saying $300, and you are saying $1410, or $1200. Undoubtedly you are speaking about 60 fps, but again, if there are no mins below 30 fps no matter how much shooting or grenades, that is totally playable for me and my physiology.

The only recent game that has stressed my rig was Sleeping Dogs, max DX11 graphics, max texture pack, 2560x1600. Overclocked, I pulled 28 fps, and just once in a while felt a little lag and noticed I had dropped to 24 fps. When I got crossfire running, I was pulling steady 40 plus fps, but it didn't really feel any smoother to my physiology. That game also pushed my cpu to the wall, in crossfire, on a couple occasions showing 100% on all four cores in-game on the on-screen display, causing wild fluctuation down to fps in the teens. That was solved by reducing gpu clock speed, eventually down to stock clocks, which had just a small effect on fps, dropping maybe from high 40s to low 40s, but which enabled the cpu to keep up, with more like 95% on all cores. Again I couldn't feel any difference. Like you mentioned above, Jeff, I had to get an infinite life trainer to get through the last main karate challenge, where there was no car to use to mow down the villains, having found to my dismay that my PC keystrokes didn't translate over into the same kind of console button instantaneous gameplay reactions that I saw in the xbox YouTube videos.

Regarding MOH on the bottom of your posting, yesterday, with crossfire continuing to be disabled, I was getting 42-45 fps, again max everything, same 30" resolution, never any lagging at any time at all, no matter how many grenades, etc. The one setting that was not high was motion blur, which I had at low - I was unsure if I should turn it off - I tried it high and got nauseous, low was maybe better than off, I was undecided about it. So for me, that was a $300 7950 card, my HIS IceQ which I recommend super highly, versus you are quoting $1140 for nvidia, and $900 for AMD, doubtless shooting for 60 fps.

As you know I have 8 gigs ram, and a core 2 9450 cpu overclocked to 3.343 ghz. I have not turned my crossfire back on, so again, it's only one $300 7950 for now - (maybe on crysis 3 I'll need crossfire.)

Rich

 

The downclock of the graphics card may well be a cause rather than a symptom - if something else (e.g. a bug with the mod causing it to use an immense amount of CPU power) causes the game to run slowly, the graphics card will have hardly any work to do, so will drop to powersave mode and lower the clock speeds. I suspect that this is not the actual cause of the problem, and you'd need to test a normal game install to diagnose it - if the problem only happens with this mod, then it's probably the mod at fault!

 

That sounds like a good theory re that problem.

I DECIDED TO GIVE MOH WARFIGHTER BUDDY SYSTEM A SECOND CHANCE

I have to backtrack on my Medal of Honor rant, because I went back to the game for another 7 hours deciding to give it a second chance after a night of Left 4 Dead where I just got tired of fighting zombies.

Also, in thinking about the game, despite everybody looking the same, and the danger of building bad habits of friendly fire - all still valid gripes - I realized that I hadn't really given the buddy system a chance to work.

You are assigned one buddy - it's a fire team of two individuals.

You can choose to spawn off your buddy, which is the default. But if he is seen by an enemy, then he is considered under threat, so they restart the 4 sec buddy clock and add 2 seconds for the threat.

If you are the one still alive, they give you a little message on-screen telling you to get under cover, that your buddy is trying to spawn in on you. But some buddies seem to ignore this, and to my frustration I sit there watching them fight, and watching the buddy clock restart and restart, until I give up and change the "Spawn on Buddy" to "Spawn on FALL BACK" and also mentally give my buddy the finger while I'm at it, lol.

However, I realized on some of the servers, that some of my buddies don't speak English and may not really be reading that screen message.

Anyway, in yesterday's 7 hours of gameplay, I got a few good buddies, and a couple times we were the top fireteam on our side, and once we were the best in the game. With a good buddy I was able to spawn in fairly fast. In one case we held an upstairs room with a good command of the battlefield. He died defending the stairs, I killed the next attacker, he had time to spawn back in, and we maintained the room for a good couple of minutes.

The other thing that helped, is that I discovered the boob tube - the grenade launcher on the assault rifle that had unlocked which I didn't know about. I used it for about a half hour, with mixed results, until I discovered that if you right-click, you then get the normal grenade launcher sight, which allows you pin-point placement. Of course, when you are right-mouse scoped in like that, you move very slowly. So you can run around the map, and kind of hip fire the grenade launcher, trying to go by the very loose and hard-to-see crosshair dots, but if you run around a corner and meet somebody and fire it without scoping in, sometimes that works. It doesn't explode, but just like in COD4, it has the effect of a giant shotgun blast and kills them instantly.

But when you get to a good position, and you scope in, the grenade scope allows you to pin-point place the grenade, and I was getting good kills that way.

Occasionally, when I decided the grenade launcher was working against me, I switched to the same kind of rifle without it, to force myself to use the rifle more. Later I realized that my grenade launcher rifle was every bit as powerful as the other, and I was getting some good kills with it, even not scoped in, just the rifle part.

But I can see that some of the guys have unlocked a P-90 type of smg, which I think is what they are killing me with when we meet around a corner - those things just spit out bullets so fast it more than makes up for the reduced impact of each bullet. I am dead, and I can see that the guy who killed me has 25 health left - enough to cause him to be gasping with heart pounding, until his health builds back up in about 30 seconds.

Also, of course, it's just about good gameplay - about quickly getting to a defensible position, then camping for a bit. Also if the map is filled with grenades, you can switch to Demolition class with a very heavy suit that resists grenades - if you don't mind moving around at about 60% normal speed. And thinking about it more today, I may have to make a conscious effort to force myself to go for more CS:GO style headshots - that might cause me to win those sudden encounters more often.

So - yesterday's session was kind of fun. The jury is out for MOH.


CROSSFIRE MEANS NOT $300 BUT $600 FOR 60+ FPS 30" GAMING, MOH AND BF3

Also, the jury is out for using one 7950 for just $300. I think it can be done fairly well, but yesterday I noticed that my 45fps had dropped to about 32 fps on one map - the stadium - a night map with lots of fire everywhere - a pretty nice map graphic-wise. (By the way I have turned off motion blur.) I was noticing a little bit of lag, despite full overclock at 975, and saw that I had dropped to about 27 fps at one point. So I enabled crossfire and downloaded catalyst 12.11 beta4. Now at stock clocks of 800, my fps is about 65-75. (But I seem to feel some micro-stutter - I'm not sure what to do about that.) I am not entirely positive that my gameplay is more fluid with crossfire, but maybe. I am wondering if I should enable vertical sync, and if that would help with the micro-stutter.

So regarding the cost analysis, instead of $300, I am now showing the figure $600 for 2560x1600 ultra gaming at 60+ fps on BF3 and MOH. That figure compares to $900 for crossfire 7970s, but at 975 clock, the 7950 can match the 7970. And for crossfire, you can run at stock 800 clocks, and get these 65-75 fps rates as I mentioned on these two titles.

Rich

 

I came across situation that turning on vsync reduced weapon accuracy.

Rich