The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

I have solid ~60Mbps speeds. 7MB/s downloads easily.

Wolfenstein The New order was exquisite. One of the finest on rails shooters I've ever played. Far superior to the poorly made Rage, its older cousin on the same engine. I rather liked the weapon and mecha designs. The guns are all designed to look like they really could have been made if history went that way. And the mechas are just plain awesome and very imaginative. The story is excellently crafted and two storylines to the game with a mixed up cast of characters means there is tons of replay value. Overall I found it highly enjoyable and brilliantly well made, despite being a basic corridor crawler. The graphics are also quite easy on the eyes. Not the best ever, but the engine is starting to stretch its legs and show what it can do.

Very much in the same vein as Crysis 2 and 3, which truly warrant a second look with some mods in place. Stunning graphics. Solid gameplay. Interesting story.

Also just picked up Avengers on Blu Ray. Excellent picture and mmmmm loving that DTS-HD Master Audio 5200kbps 7.1 soundtrack. Beautiful 700k lossless for every channel. Rocking the complete Polk Monitor setup now. 2 x 60s, 2 x 70s, CS2 center. Brand new receiver with all the goodies, plenty of power and Bi-Amping! Oh yeah!

 

Just went out and bought a nearly mint, early revision, Sega Sports Black Dreamcast. Easiest backup playing ever. Simply acquire the proper format of game image, burn with the proper software, and presto, plays any CD-R game without any mods whatsoever. Almost laughably easy process. Only requires that a set of custom files be in ImgBurn's install folder. Nothing else. Only early revision Dreamcasts do this however, roughly half of the models made. Later revision Dreamcasts need a mod chip like any other console.

Also, got the Tomee VGA cable for the Dreamcast. Works great on my HDTV. Roughly 60-75% of the Dreamcast library supports VGA. The ones that don't require a physical cable swap to composite. A good number have hacked ISOs available that allow VGA anyway. Not the best implementation of progressive scan, but very workable considering the console's age. Surprisingly decent composite output however. The N64 pales in comparison of composite output quality. The N64's S-Video is comparable though.

Very pleased with this purchase. Works beautifully. Enhanced ports of many 5th gen PS1/N64 games plus early versions of many 6th gen games. Power roughly between an N64 and a PS2, leaning towards the PS2.

 

As you'd expect given that generation-wise the Dreamcast sat between the N64 and PS2

Interesting that the early consoles have no protection against copied games though, that's news to me!

 

No copy protection at all. I have a stack of about 100 games here all tested working perfectly. Freshly burned last night. No special techniques or anything. Just some files dropped into the burning software's folder.

As I recall, it had to do with a Japanese popstar who wanted their music CD to be able to play a Dreamcast game as well. This meant Sega had to make it capable of running an executable directly from a CD-R. The deal never happened, but they left that loophole in the hardware until they did a major revision. Any Dreamcast from roughly early 2000 and earlier can do it.

I was surprised by that information as well. A friend pointed it out to me and I hunted one down within the hour, lol. It was cheap and easy to find, and the VGA cable was only $20. The first and third party VGA adapter boxes allow hookups to both composite and VGA and have a switch for which mode they're using, but they're also ludicrously expensive. The VGA cable is much cheaper but you have to physically swap the cables when a game doesn't support VGA. The image quality is exquisite though. Easily on par with a Gamecube, ie perfect 480p. Really enjoying the console. Good blend of fifth and sixth generation software. Very decent library of software, including tons of homebrew.

 

The games selection on the Dreamcast is incredibly diverse. Everything from JRPGs to Western platformers and everything in between. No lack of any one game type. Even a few RTSs. Also, since it used off the shelf components like its much later opponent the Xbox, it was excellently suited to running PC ports, also like the Xbox.

It was decidedly superior to the PS2 at running PC ports due to the difference in architecture. Quake 3, Unreal Tournament '99, Starlancer, Half Life 1, etc. In particular its port of Half Life 1 is superior to the PS2's in just about every way. Better resolution, better framerates, better textures, etc. It just takes to ports much better. Another thing worthy of note, the Dreamcast has superior texture capabilities to the PS2. The PS2 is simply very weak in some areas of performance and strong in others. Regarding raw processing power, the Dreamcast and PS2 are a fairly decent match. Sega's sleek little box certainly could have played a large majority of the games from the late 6th gen with a little tweaking. The PS2 has significantly better graphics capabilities though, even if it lacks power, which was eventually shown as more titles were released.

The Dreamcast also shared most of its hardware with the Sega NAOMI arcade board. The NAOMI was really just several Dreamcasts with double the RAM running in parallel. This meant the Dreamcast got lots of high quality arcade ports from one of the most successful and longest running arcade boards in history. The NAOMI 2 is still in use today.

The Dreamcast's downfalls were twofold I think. First was a lack of AAA 3rd party Western publishers. It sold great in Japan, but had mediocre sales in the USA and Europe due to a lack of advertising and mass-appealing games. It was only produced from 1998 to 2001, and officially supported not much longer. It did manage a decent enough lifespan to amass a large library though. Certainly way more games than the beloved and fairly successful N64. Second major issue was its controller. It simply lacked buttons, and you can tell when playing certain game ports. Another pair of shoulder buttons and a second joystick would have been extremely easy to implement. Most mid to late 6th gen games simply wouldn't work with the Dreamcast's controllers. The few FPSs it has do work very well though due to smart design on the part of the dev teams. Unreal Tournament being a really great example. It simply plays and feels just like the PC version I dumped hundreds of hours into.

It has the perfect mix of 5th and 6th gen games. Lots of PS1 and N64 remakes.





The differences in the versions make for some interesting conversation on their own. The N64 version of Resident Evil 2 was a complete remake to take advantage of the unique abilities of the N64. It lacked many things from the PS1 version like high quality sound and FMVs(though it DID have all the FMVs which is bonkers for any cartridge console) but had superior graphics and performance, period. The Dreamcast version is a direct port of the PS1 Dual Shock Edition release, but obviously with everything noticeably enhanced and in 480p via VGA. This makes for a much better comparison to the N64 version, and honestly cancels out most of the N64's superiority over the PS1. This is common for almost every game that was on all 3 platforms. The Dreamcast, much like the Xbox, basically had the best version of a lot of games.

Ketola, I do not know if this applies to PAL consoles as well, but certainly all NTSC U and J consoles of the right date will do it. Google is your friend here I think. Thankfully they are dirt cheap because so many went unsold. Their real end of life was around 2003 or 2004. Mine was $40 and the VGA cable was $20. Reliability-wise they seem to be quite good, though not perfect, so your chances of having a working console seem reasonable. Mine works great.

 

And now, you're a lowly moderator on afterdawn... lol. Totally jerking your chain LOL!

 

Sorry to hear that. I once believed, that I would self teach myself programming. While I still have the desire, it seems to have been put on the back burner :S I suppose I'm still young yet. Perhaps one day. And who knows, perhaps I'll develop a core algorithm, to control all others LOL

 

That's a good one. That explains how you can keep warm in your igloo - short circuits always generate additional heat.

By the way, was I just hallucinating, or did Kevin call you a lowly moderator. Why don't you get together with Ketola and see if that is sufficient grounds for a banning, or maybe even better, a stoning. I'll pitch in and throw a couple of rocks.

Man!

Consoles! Do you guys, especially Jeff, know your consoles or what?

By the way, I never got a response. Other than myself, has anybody ever heard of an old system called Coleco-Vision? It was ancient - but I got to see it in action. (No doubt it's in some garbage dump by now - but it was sort of cool.)

Sam, you're quite right that the 5 or 6 MB/sec I get from my steam downloads is not the 100 Mbps that we are paying for from our cable company. I'm happy with that speed, but I wonder if that's a steam limit, or if it has to do with the fact that, out in the trailer, I'm on a 100-foot Ethernet line to the switch box.

However, I'm happy to report that I confirmed our 100 Mbps speed. Inside the house, in the sunroom 3 nights ago, my visiting brother jumped up and down screaming that he was getting upwards of 12.3 MB/sec on a torrent download, where usually he says he maxes out at 6 where he lives. He was inside the house on a short 15-foot line. Not that I care, really, but would you suppose that the 100 foot cable is responsible for cutting my steam downloads to about half that speed?


ARDENNES ASSAULT
Speaking about steam, I very recently downloaded the Company of Heroes 2 DLC called the Ardennes Assault, recounting the World War II Battle of the Bulge.

I played the heck out of the "Elsenborn Ridge" part of the campaign, the very first part of the campaign after the introductory mission. It is a hellish attack where the Germans really try to throw everything at you to break through the ridge and take the town of Elsenborn. We Allies didn't have all the massed infantry and armor that they did, but after initially retreating, we were able to draw a line of defense at that strategic position. We had entrenched artillery sighted in, plus the advantage of higher ground, and the advantage of air superiority.

However, in this battle, bad weather is keeping our planes out of the sky, so you have to hold out for about 20 minutes until the clouds clear.

Initially I tasted DEFEAT several times. But then I started to turn it around. After each success, I went back and restarted the campaign, soon switching to the Hard difficulty setting. On Hard, you start with less, and get hit with more. But it didn't matter. I could have beaten a Hella Hard setting if the game had it - my defense became iron-tight!

I re-played that battle 20 or 30 times over several days - minimum 10-15 hours - each time starting from scratch and steadily building an impregnable fortress.

F*** those attacking Germans if they thought I would make it easy on them! Pinning their infantry with multiple machine gun nests, my mortars had a field day. Two mortars worked out well. Four mortars was lovely.

With 4 mortar crews along the back line, it's a veritable mini-artillery barrage going non-stop.

Truly a joy to behold!

And then I accidentally discovered that the engineers with the chess-piece "king" icon, could be out-fitted with flame-throwers.

When the enemy pours down through the center, and flame-throwers are on duty behind the trenches on each side, the effect is so striking that you can almost smell the flesh burning.

But the enemy also threw lots of tanks and half tracks at me, so my line of 4 anti-tank guns really came into their own.

The anti-tank gun is one of my favorite weapons in COH2 - more powerful against armor than any allied tank with the exception of the Russian elephant fixed-turret tank killer.

And against infantry, unless the infantry includes bazooka elements, you can't beat a half-track with mounted 50 carrying two squads of flame-throwing engineers.

Man that smells good! "Throw another steak on the barbie."

Oh sorry. They might be Nazis, but they are still human beings. With feelings. Shame on me!

However, after I finally got my fill of that ridge, I actually got a little turned off to the game on the next three missions. Like out of nowhere, random artillery would come in wiping out my squads. WTF! And it wasn't a single howitzer, it was 4 or 5 giant shells raining down all at once on a single position marker, like from an off-map 105 barrage.

That happened several times - it came out of nowhere.

Now in all fairness, I guess it's possible that the Germans could have had artillery somewhere which a local observer could call in for some good indirect. That's what I was doing on the ridge. So I guess it makes sense.

And in terms of gameplay, I suppose that what it means is that after the first mission, the DLC is looking for me to utilize more of a quick attack-and-keep-moving kind of offense. So can I adapt to that? Yeah, I adapted. I deleted all local cache.

They at least might have warned me. I have been challenged before. But I have to say this - getting hit with that kind of weird, frustrating turn-off absolutely never happened to me with COH1 or COH2, or the two similar games of the terrific World in Conflict RTS series. So it really makes me wonder if this DLC is actually any good or not.

I had obviously made up my mind today to not play it any more. But tonight I was interested in seeing what a YouTube walkthrough video on Ardennes Assault might point out.

I looked at one player and I bookmarked his video. Interestingly enough, at the very start he also talked about having some doubts about the DLC, and he speculated that maybe they were testing concepts and maps to use in a future COH3. He goes by the name EmpireErwinRommel.

Anyway, no doubt the guy is good, quite good.

But I will tell you this - his defense was VERY messy compared to what I finally evolved into (after 30 run-throughs, lol.) He was losing guys right and left and hopping around frantically micro-managing the battle - throwing grenades here, re-positioning anti-tank here, pointing rifles here, etc.

I need to do more of that - more pointing rifles for example. But watching him made me dizzy. Of course, that was his first time through, whereas I had taken the time on MULTIPLE PLAY-THROUGHS to polish my technique to a shiny luster.

I liked how he used the ambulance to keep healing and replenishing his front-line troops. Also I liked how, after the battle, he was able to figure out what the combat logs were showing, and how you could increase your abilities after each mission. I had absolutely no idea what all those strange diagrams were for. The DLC is a little weak on tips - they DO give you SOME tips, but they leave out a lot. Again, it seems a little patched together.

But getting back to EmpireErwinRommel and his Elsenborn Ridge defense:

WITHOUT A DOUBT, MY DEFENSE WAS SO MUCH MORE SOLID!

I did not need to jump around like a crazy man and micro-manage the battle. He built one small section of barbed wire. By contrast, I started right out with all 3 engineering squads working like maniacs to weld tank traps at all possible entrance points. I politely left an inviting open center funnel, if the enemy really wanted to come in and get a piece of me, and if they were foolish enough to think that they could get past the two 50s and the two anti-tank guns who dealt out punishment to those who tried.

(Kind of similar to the very first mission of COH1, where I sent out a column of enough troops and tanks to rescue the distant soldiers under assault, while I kept back one small tank and a few units to help me capture about 5 or 6 anti-tank guns that were spread out all over the beautiful countryside. When my guys returned I built a totally impregnable tank trap defense against all the panzers that came later, which allowed me to venture out and accomplish my other objectives without my base suffering any damage.) ​

Add to that four mortar crews along the back line steadily raining down explosives, and you have my vision of a total hell-hole defense that the enemy wished they had never been crazy enough to try to breach. I OWNED that 20 minute battle.

I couldn't get enough of it, flipping the bird at the enemy every time I defeated them, haha. (That's the same thing I do when I hold off the combined arms counter-attack on Arma 3. How dare they!)

Before this new DLC, about a year ago I posted about a skirmish called Pripyat River, which I played dozens of times, on a beautiful map that included a railroad line crossing a river. That was the only skirmish available that wasn't online, and which didn't involve me being on the German side of the combat - I take WWII personally - damned if I will play on the enemy side.

Unlike ddp I wasn't actually IN the war, but I still take it personally.

For now I've had my fill, and I'm ready for something closer to my normal fps. But if I ever go back to Ardennes Assault, maybe in a year or two, I'll first watch and see some more EmpireErwinRommel on YouTube.

Rich

 

I have my HP 42S sitting right next to me, and I have used it every day since I got it in 1990.

 

Rich, Company of Heroes 2 is a lot better than the original for realism and historical accuracy. My great uncle Stubb fought from the landings at Normandy to the Siegfried Line just inside of Germany where he was wounded by shrapnel from an Axis mortar shell. He wasn't discharged but actually well on the road to recovery and going back to combat, until Germany surrendered a few weeks before he was to return to Europe. He fought in the Hurtgen and the Ardennes, including having passed over the Elsenborn ridge after the battle. He described it as a massacre. A few small companies basically sat up there and called artillery and airstrikes until the artillery ran out of ammunition. They were literally out of shells when the Germans finally ceased their attacks. It was an extremely hard fought battle from both sides.

The Germans made the great mistake of not using weather to their advantage until we had re-taken half of France. It was due to equal parts confusion and surprise. They simply did not have time to make efficient plans, and were scrambling to make an effective defense. They were scared of American artillery but their own was also excellent so at least they had a level playing field there. What really frightened German soldiers were the American and British Jabos(Pronounced Yay-Bow/Yah-Bow) or Jeager Bombers ie fighter-bombers. Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and Hawker Typhoons. The Axis had nothing even remotely like that and the Luftwaffe was all but useless in Western Europe since the Battle of Britain, so they usually couldn't even shoot back. When the Germans could send planes to intercept, the allied Jabos could drop their bomb loads and drop tanks and go toe-to-toe with any German fighter. Yeah that's right. Not only were the Thunderbolt and Typhoon excellent ground attackers, they were also highly competent dogfighters.

Ther American P-47 Thunderbolt was a good jack of all trades plane, and was generally a better fighter than the British Typhoon. They had great performance at all altitudes and deceptively good handling for their large size. They could also carry a punishing and impressive load of bombs and rockets. The P-47 was rightly feared by any enemy combatant with a brain.

The Typhoon on the other hand lacked high altitude performance, even though it was designed for that, and had poor acceleration and handling characteristics at all altitudes. The Typhoon itself was a general disappointment for its intended interceptor role but was very suited to the ground attacker role, and often flew alongside the P-47 killing tanks, armored cars, and bunkers. They were still not a terrible fighter though, and the upgrade version dubbed the Tempest fixed almost all the issues. The Tempest was actually withheld from most combat situations in favor of patrolling the English Channel for V1 flying bombs, as it was one of the only aircraft fast and powerful enough to climb to altitude and chase one down. They would either shoot it or given a lack of a good shot, they would fly next to it and flip it over with the wing of their aircraft and send it into the ground. That's how good it was.

Hilariously, the V1 flying bomb's monster big brother the V2 rocket was only ever shot down by a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. They caught one taking off at 10,000 feet at it climbed through their formation, so one of the waist gunners took a burst and down it went. Only aircraft of the war with a V2 painted on its fuselage.

BTW, the Dreamcast has surprisingly good S-Video output quality, and the built-in deinterlacing on my receiver achieves its maximum effect here. Really stunning image quality from Sega's little white box. The N64 just cannot do S-Video like this, it is more comparable to the Dreamcast's composite. Probably due to the lower 320 x 240 internal resolution on most games. I'm finding the S-Video with deinterlacing to be a passable stand-in for when VGA is not available, plus it outputs through my receiver's HDMI which simplifies the whole operation a bit. I need to plug it directly into the TV for VGA video and the receiver for sound. With S-Video the receiver handles both.

 

You're so right Ketola. Google. YouTube. Internet, and lots of practice to get good at some of these games.

I did a crazy thing last night. Prior to last night I would have said "Yes, there are two crazy people on the AfterDawn official gaming thread, Ketola and ddp."

Sorry Kevin, didn't mean to leave you out. I would have said "There are 3 crazy people on AfterDawn, Kevin, Ketola and ddp."

But now I have to wonder about the guy in the mirror.

Last night, in writing the post, I was so propelled back into Ardennes that I re-downloaded all 19 gigs, and went through in Hard to get to the dreaded Marche mission.

MARCHE
The Marche mission was one of the things that sent me to see EmpireErwinRommel's YouTube videos in the first place. It is a very difficult "drive down the opponent's points to zero" contest.

But to get there and watch EmpireErwinRommel teach me how to beat it at hard, I of course first had to get through Elsenborn Ridge again.

Well, that one is a breeze - I OWN that mission. (Literally. I paid for the DLC.) No, what I mean is that when it comes to Elsenborn Ridge, I rule, I kill, it is my bi*ch! So no problem there.

The next mission, Bastione Road - not too bad either. Under cover of a blizzard you clear out 4 position outposts overlooking the main highway, so that a friendly caravan of about 10 heavy ambulances can travel in and out - 3 trips transporting in fresh troops and taking out the wounded - welcome relief to the surrounded paratroopers outnumbered 5 to 1, who have been in heavy fighting for a week.

So now, beating that one also, finally here I am watching EmpireErwinRommel do his micro-managing on YouTube, beating Marche on hard.

And he freakin totally gets his ass kicked!

I kid you not. He gets destroyed, wasted. He is the Nazi's favorite bi*ch!

After a disastrous defeat, his one-hour long video has him coming back sheepishly "Well, I restarted, and now I'm at Standard level of hardness - I totally under-estimated the difficulty of this DLC and some of these missions."

But the problem for me is that he comes back in and he does not play the Marche - he plays a different one that I didn't get to until I barely beat Marche on standard two nights ago. That is because the game is a bit randomized, so you don't get all the same stuff on later play-throughs.

So I was not going to get any help with Marche. But yes, I HAD beaten it before. The good thing was that on standard, you only have to occupy 2 of the three command posts to drive your opponent's score down, not all 3.

I know how to do that from my rigorous Priprat River skirmish a year ago.

So I restarted the campaign, got to Marche, and at first I set up my paratroopers very badly. I decided to have two squads drop each time, along with a 50 caliber machine gun. The manpower price per drop would be 425, rather than about 234 with just one squad and no mg.

That was a fatal mistake, and I was DEFEATED. Worse, the game would not allow me to undo my company "upgrades."

So I restarted once again.

Then I got to Marche, and I just BARELY - I mean by the skin of my teeth. I had about 6 guys left total on the two points, no AT cannon anymore, no ambulance, no mg, no bazooka, and no manpower points to order from my base, or from the paratrooper button. And while the Nazi points finally hit single digits, I was attacked by a full-health half-track (not really a half-track - only the allies had those - but the equivalent nazi "scout" vehicle, more powerful than a squad car, but not as heavy as a light tank.)

But I got very very lucky and was saved from another replay of that mission.

My points had dropped to 50 from 250. But I had taken command of the middle several times, and finally got the opponent also to 50. But I seemed slightly stronger than they were. So, with several turnovers, dropping the paratroopers whenever the button lit up, I worked them down to just under 10 points.

And then I did a very lucky thing by sheer accident.

Waiting for the clock to run out, I had a couple of support engineers up there with me on the left, and I decided to at least build some sandbags during the lull. But then I decided instead to build a circular dirt fighting position - which I had been building all over the Elsenborn Ridge defense for days.

It goes up in about 15 seconds.

By the time it was ready, the half track appeared. He started shooting the newly built fighting position - nobody was even in it. So as the clock ticked, and the Nazi score dropped, he just kept shooting that empty fighting position. Like a complete moron. This AI is really smart - Rommel kept saying that as he was wiped out - but I see that some parts of the AI programming can also be very dumb.

I was completely out of gas - I had pulled an all-nighter - and I was out of tricks and options. But suddenly, accompanied by the thump thump of the scout car attacking the empty fighting position, I looked up and there was the score: Nazis Zero.

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Well, I'll be. There IS a god.

Guess who is going to start building lots of fighting positions throughout the rest of this damn DLC?

And not only to distract the idiot AI, but I later realized that if I had been building them all along, my guys would not have been getting killed so easily.

For example, a guy with a bazooka is virtually worthless with no cover. They have to be micro-managed - you practically have to beg them to fire the weapon, they are so intent on avoiding the on-board machine gun - you can't blame them for that. While the AT cannons have their own shield, the bazooka has no shield. But put that bazooka squad inside a small circular dirt fighting position, and until the cover is destroyed, the bazooka now is a major tank threat, almost as potent as the cannon.

Why had I not thought of doing that until sort of by accident at the very end of the mission.

It had to be fatigue. I was out-numbered 5 to 1, and I had been gaming for a week. I needed an ambulance rescue.

ONE LAST ITEM: A LOT OF ANGRY PLAYERS!!
I googled Ardennes Assault Marche to see how to spell the city, and there are some angry people out there who have also been frustrated by this DLC.

Look at this forum:

Wow, and I thought I was frustrated. But that guy was definitely going about it the wrong way. You have to work the AT cannons. I learned that over the last 3 years on all of these RTS games including World in Conflict. AT cannons. That is your big ace up your sleeve.

Here's what another guy had to say, in the same forum, and this guy sounds like he really knows how to play this game:

That guy was totally talking about my philosophy - AT cannons. And bazooka, maybe, but especially if you can take a few seconds and build a fighting position, or maybe find cover in a building - some kind of cover for the bazooka guy.

But in addition, he was talking about a lot of stuff I never heard of: tank crush, +5 VP per tank kill. What is vp, victory points? The key thing is manpower points to order new troops. Maybe they call that VP.

And I thought Rommel was good, but this moderator is GREAT! And Kevin recently said "lowly moderator." I would have to amend that in light of the above quote, and say "God-like moderator."

(Don't get a big head, ddp, it doesn't apply to Canadians.)

Rich

 

Wow, sorry about the double, but as I was polishing my post, Jeff was typing up his astonishing detail about Ardennes, his uncle's war-time experiences, and some fascinating information about the Allied aircraft capabilities. I read every word hanging on the new information. Wow!

Jeeez Loooeeeeez!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME - CHASE A BOMB AND FLIP IT WITH ITS WING!!!

That IS hilarious. Until I recall that the V2 was the one that wrought all the damage to London - am I right?

And right after the war, we brought Werner over to design rockets for us - why not - now we had competition with the russkies to concern ourselves with. And we're still pretty good space station partners with them I believe, despite the Ukraine tensions.

That is some fascinating stuff indeed Jeff. You must have had some amazing conversations with your uncle. Talk about bringing history to life. Thanks for all of that.

Rich