The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Ehh...I dont know. Windows 7, Adobe photoshop, Voice recognition, things like that impress me quite a bit. People are capable of leaps and bounds when it suits them I dont think it will take that long. In fact, I have an idea, if I can ever get started programming, that would blow some peoples minds!!! In fact, it surprises me that its not implemented yet. Though who knows. Whats original anymore? Everything has been thought of anymore.

I'll put it to you this way. If a super computer, can be employed to perform beyond complex calculations, such as medical research, why couldn't it design software, games, etc all at the whim of a man/woman? Its difficult for me to explain, especially since ive barely began reading up on programming, but I KNOW that it can be done

 

Designing software to perform something other then a set of predefined operations, even if they are very complex, isn't something we are very likely to see. To me it sounds like something along the lines of an AI, which from everything I've read so far is still a very long ways off. Creating an AI would be almost like recreating the human brain, and since we don't fully understand the human brain yet it would be an incredibly hard to impossible task to recreate one. Granted it isn't necessary to understand something before it can be used so maybe it is possible and maybe you will do it, either way it will be an incredible moment in history.

About Dolphin, a while back I tried to use it to play some game and it seemed to work alright. The only problem I remember was with the sound and that was most likely fixable. Also on the note of emulators my estimate for the PS3 was speculation off of how long it's taking a PS2 emulator to be developed, and how well the current version ran on my laptop (very poorly).

 

LOL, I knew I would receive skepticism. I suppose it would be similar to AI. But not quite. As I said, its difficult to explain. Heck, I barely understand it myself, more so at the subconscious level LOL! Even if I can't do it, perhaps I can inspire the ones who can Im an avid writer, and love scifi/fiction! All I require, is a foundation for the programming, and others would/could take over Though I must admit, earning a place in the history books is quite the dream!

 

Didn't mean for it to come across as skepticism, sorry about that. I know what you're talking about though, AI isn't the best way to describe it but like you said it's hard to put the concept into words, especially since we hardly understand it lol.
If you continue to pursue this I'd be very interested in any progress you may make.

 

I like this site a lot! Im not going anywhere. The people are both knowledgeable, and friendly. Computers are the way of the future, and I plan to be part of that

Just started playing with Left 4 Dead last night. Its proving to be quite the challenge, for a new gamer such as myself I guess I half expected my controller to be 90% ready to go when I first started up. WRONG! Its gonna require a little more intervention on my part LOL! Graphics look pretty good! I think im gonna enjoy it.

 

Just got done with my first few hours of Stalker Clear Sky. They've fixed a lot of the issues from the first game and made it easier to manage your stuff, less confusing to travel and whatnot. Less bugs, better optimised, etc. Not to mention it's easier this time around. I can finally play without insta-death every 10 minutes.

It looks better than the original too. Even without the tacked-on Enhanced features, it looks sharper than the original and the models have much higher detail. The shadows are better done, the grass looks less fake, the textures are sharper, lighting is more detailed, better water, more colorful than the bland original, etc.

The Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting is a bit of a letdown though. It adds some cool graphical features, but it performs worse than Crysis. Regular Full Dynamic Lighting works great though and looks good. I won't consider Enhanced as it absolutely kills performance in DX9 and DX10. Like unplayable in any populated area.

Also, AFAIK antialiasing only works in DX10.

So far:

Gameplay: 8/10

Stalker is an interesting premise. But the original was ruined for me with its punishing difficulty, confusing map system, and terrible shooting. They've vastly improved on it this time and they really hit the mark. I'm actually having a lot of fun playing this one.

Graphics: 8/10(with Enhanced Lighting, 9/10)

The original Stalker had a bland color pallet with blocky geometry and blurry textures. Clear Sky has been sharpened right up and now the engine shines. It's no Crysis, but the game manages to look pretty nice. The Enhanced Lighting effects are very nice to look at, but sadly it kills any playability unless you sacrifice other options.

Sound: 9/10

Weapons sound effects are appropriately meaty. Excellent ambience and atmosphere. Extremely spine tingling to hear things stalking through the grass when you're alone in the wilderness. You can hear fights going on in the distance. Decent quality voice-overs. Very nice sound design all around.

Performance: 7.5/10(with Enhanced Lighting, 3/10)

Clear Sky manages mostly average performance for a newer game. It plays smooth but it is far from much more optimised games like Left 4 Dead or CoD4. Enhanced Lighting feels and looks tacked-on to the engine. Like it looks genuinely fake. Plus performance takes a nose-dive with it on.

Final Verdict: 8/10

Clear Sky is a solid game. The graphics are fairly nice and the performance is decent. The poorly implemented Enhanced Lighting feature could have been done better though. It murders performance. This game fixed a lot of the issues I had with the original and was made much more accessible. I'm finding myself having a lot more fun with this than the original.


As far as Enhanced Lighting is concerned... I really couldn't care less. I am far more interested in the core engine and not some tacked-on, fake looking lighting effects. Without Enhanced Lighting the game is solid though.

 

hey sam, how would one go about constructing a gaming/ data server, and what would be minimum specs?

im looking to do it for the house next year.

 

Data (i.e. file server) I understand, but what do you mean by gaming server? A PC to host dedicated servers of LAN games?

 

yh

 

The point of a dedicated server is that it doesn't have to render client-side graphics, so a graphics card of any significance isn't required. If you want to host multiple games at once though, a good CPU is strongly recommended.

 

Hello HOLDOUTS !

Damn! An incredibly super long post for omega to incredibly super complain about! Lol.

The harvardguy L4D addict returns!! That's my steam name (notice, no missing "a".) Look me up on Wednesdays - I'll be playing L4D all day Wed. every week. Hey shaaf, if you're off your cod4 addiction, I've got a new one for you, lol. Oh, you did say you do l4d. Well find me on Wednesdays, because playing advanced we need somebody with your skills for the f**king finales!!

I visited the L4D animator, Miles, and found some SECRETS - more below.

Ok, this is from a week ago, but I'm catching up today!! Haha!

On the side, I have to mod the fans - so I can put them wherever I want - I don't have the advanced spedo with the 230mm on the door. So I will make sure the lower fans are distinctly separated from the upper fans, as best as I can.

Guys, if anybody needs a laptop or knows somebody who needs one, listen in: I picked up another laptop for Miles' sister, Vanessa, the one I got the little HTS for last Christmas. The $279 14.1" refurbished dell 610 1.6ghz pentium m from microcenter outperforms my 3.2 pentium 4 on at least one bench playing a windows media player HD video. They have come off corporate lease and they are fully loaded - original price $2100. I'm gonna try to play Left4Dead on it just for the fun of it - to see if it can. Kevin, have you loaded the game yet? Oh you did! Great! More below.

Holy sh**t sam, are you running a computer store? E5200 - for your server - I thought you already had something really fast! Sharkoon - yeah that even sounds fast - I've made a note of that - and I'm gonna pick up a steel series mouse pad myself - are you running laser or optical?

LOL I had to quote that again. Since the time you first told me that, I saw that steam has the expansion pack but I'm not gonna get it - same thing as the other - you start out as a nazi tank commander. To hell with that! Lol. Wow! Today on Steam: Fifty percent off COD5 - less than what I paid on ebay. It pays to keep steam activated!

Jeez Looeez, Rubix - a f**king cable problem!! God damn! Since when would anybody suspect a cable! I can't believe you figured it out, maybe we should rename you Sherlock from Down Under. And to top it off, now everybody has estuansis worried about sparks from his cheap molex cables, hahaha. (Jeff says he's not worried, but he hasn't has a good night's sleep in a week, lol.)

WHAT??!! "Just another business" Is the Pope Catholic? Like Jeff said - "Anybody who claims to be a PC gamer yet hasn't played any Valve games should be ashamed." And here's Sam: "Omegaman: Valve is like Rockstar as a solid gold throne is to a chair from an expensive department store." I second that motion!

LOL. But actually, Kevin, in a way, from what Miles just told me, you're right, haha. Miles told me last Friday that, like other companies, Valve has decided to start trying to come out with one game a year - which is part of the BIG SECRET - more below. I told Miles "No no no!" But then I said, "Yes yes yes."

Ohhhhh! That explains it. Good thing you pretty much stay informed on just about everything Sam! (Lol, it's true.)

Yes, Sam, an inquisitive guy like you - you really must do the Developer's Commentary - and it's not just listening - at times they take over the game play and show you stuff. It's wayyyy interesting! I suspect that very few people have gone through it - because normally one just wouldn't think of doing it - especially when the game is so enthralling. I went through the commentary on that little freebie Lost Coast, when they were first testing dynamic lighting. That was interesting and worthwhile, but not so much as this one. Of course - I went through it for obvious reasons - but all you guys should do it. You too estuansis - with all your photography skills, and your appreciation for the subtleties of all the graphic effects - take the hour and do it - you will be FASCINATED!!

Yes, Sam, you'll hear my mate Miles, but I have to tell you, at first it didn't even sound like him. I played it three times in a row before it started sounding like him, haha.

I told him that last Friday. I said "It didn't even sound like you at first. You were reading your little speech and you normally don't talk so articulately, lol." He laughed. He said he rewrote what they had given him to say. He still had his broken leg at the time and he told them "Oh, just have one of the other guys do it" but they really wanted him to do it and they arranged for him to drop by an LA sound studio more convenient than driving all the way to Orange County. So, yes, if you have to, Sam, blaze through until you get to the first machine gun, lol, so you can check out what Miles has to say. The zombies don't see you in the developer's commentary although you can shoot them and help your AI team-mates out if you feel like it, and it's on EASY I think. So no problem. Then he shows up once more a little later as you go up some stairs and demonstrates with two zombies that go through a bunch of dying motions - that's a little more related to his specialty, the animations.

While I was visiting, I made some great marketing suggestions to Miles that he thought sucked, haha.

(I suggested to Miles that they increase PC numbers - console numbers on xbox only are 3 to 1 versus PC - by giving out a free demo with just the developer's commentary version, but he hated the idea, lol.) He said, "Naw that would ruin the game." With all due disrespect, I disagree!!

But the free Play for a Day idea sounds good, I must admit. (I was just goddamn lucky that I happened to be trying to trash sin that day and opened steam.) Here's an idea: What about giving all L4D owners a guest pass to email to their friends, and then a $10 Steam coupon for every friend who ends up buying the game after trying it? You guys wouldn't have all been such holdouts if Steam had that kind of thing going, right?

(Maybe I'll be the 10,001st email to Gabe with my brilliant marketing suggestions, lol. If you guys want to write him, he gives away his email address on the very first developer's commentary on the roof before starting No Mercy, and he says he reads them all!)

That was a good one - how can you even tell when it's dry - not as shiny? lol

Another nice review by estuansis - I think I've heard about stalker. I'll have to look it up. I know we have similar tastes from your top 5 game list. I can't believe I haven't even played any of Sam's top five, lol. Same is true of most of the other top fives. That shows that the world of video games appeals to all kinds of tastes for sure!! Even to you girly men who like Final Fantasy.

Just kidding!!!! I swear!!!! The chicks are really cute I have to admit!!!

Back to Estuansis. In addition to your Half Life Series, and COD 2 and 4, I would add Medal of Honor - Pacific Assault (just that one title from the series). Then I would add Counter Strike, and now Left 4 Dead.

Wow, Kevin bought the game - way to go guy!

Ok, end of F-You tutorial, finally, the Big Secret!

It's a secret, so I can't post it! Haha.

Ok, just kidding. You guys will hate me, so I won't be such a little bi*ch. But seriously, Miles knows that I talk to you guys, so he swore me to secrecy, but I think it's just for a few weeks until EE3. So, without giving away the store, let me just say that for you Left 4 Dead lovers, there's some good stuff comin down the pike. Real good stuff!

And while I was there I saw him modelling an interesting dude named Nick. I'll say no more!

But I learned from Miles that in addition to animating the whole game, he completely modeled the chick with the brooklyn accent, Zoey, and Francis the biker. The best part about Francis is in the opening video where he says to Bill "Don't let that stop you from rubbing it all over yourself." Hahahahaha. Then Bill rubs it on Francis' jacket, which Francis takes all kinds of exception to, which makes Louis giggle. I love that opening video! I just wish you got to hear Zoey say "Hey Molotovs over he-uh" in that great Brooklyn accent. "Hey, getcha molotovs ova he-uh." Like at the ball game "Hey getcha hotdogs he-uh!" Hahahaha. Miles said skeptically "Brooklyn?" I said "Hell yes."

He said the girl was the daughter of that Russian actress - nastaska Kinlova or ..... ????? - can't remember, lol. In the drug store before the lift, the lady who gives the developer's commentary about Zoey was the one who originated her character, then they found the actress, and then Miles did the complete modeling. Miles said they used a lot of his animations in that opening video - but the making of a video like that is a complete production in and of itself!

I told Miles that the Developer's Commentary has gotten me interested in TF2. He told me he modelled the Heavy, the Russian gattling gun guy, I forgot his name, or is that it, Heavy, and one more guy I forgot about.

I got to watch Miles for a little while on his modelling - the guy Nick, for the EE3 deadline. He had real pictures of the actor laid out full front face, then 45 degrees each side, then 90 degrees each side. Then they take that and squish it flat like if somebody peeled off a person's face in front of you from behind each set of ears, and laid it flat in front of you. It's a strange looking composite picture - very strange.

Then on the model he was working on, from time to time he would switch from a 3d of the face with lines and polygons, to a grid laid out flat, and I saw him lay that over the strange flattened photograph. I said "Oh, you were laying your model over the photo?" He said, "Yes, I have to do that from time to time to make sure I'm keeping every part in correct proportion." Interesting as hell these geniuses!!

For somebody who cares? I care, big time!! For sure for sure. I gave my steam id up on top - maybe I shouldn't have. But I'm going to PM you, Jeff, right now. I want your steam ids - all you guys. I have started trying Advanced, and it's a bitch at the end! Destroyed, every time! The farthest we got on No Mercy was killing two tanks, then some kind of crap happened on the way to the helicopter - wiped out again.

Thinking about it a lot, I believe that we need a buddy system on Advanced, (and even more on expert which I haven't tried yet) meaning you don't go wandering anywhere without your buddy, and you decide up front which one of you crouches and which one stands behind in a horde attack. And you constantly check back to see if the other buddy team is in trouble, like one dude is down and the other can't revive him because they're still under attack. Advanced is ... "advanced" Duh! The AI is a real bi*ch! Those goddamn zombies don't go down as easy - and their blood doesn't spurt as pretty!! Haha.

For the finale in No Mercy, it looked like the closet, just like for the room opposite the elevator, works very well with two guys crouched in front and two guys shooting over their heads. We had no trouble in the first horde. But coming back from killing the tank, we didn't get back in formation and we got wasted. I'd like to develop some tactics to beat those Advanced finales, not to mention ever playing Expert. LOL

Rich

 

It's an essay!

Advanced? Pff, be a man and go expert, I'l join you, I only have the achievement for it on Death Toll so far.

I run a standard visible spectrum optical mouse from Razer, the red Diamondback (the other colours use Infra Red, seemingly only so they don't interfere with the aesthetics!)


If you don't spot it by the time I finish my post, I added you to my friends list (I'm Ratmanscoop) Purple hair eh?

 

how much is L4D to get? i might aswell give it a go. i loved it on the 360 and cod4 is thinning out nowadays, its too easy

i dont have to play the single player do i?

£26 on steam....... LOLLL no way! too much

http://www.shopto.net/PC/GAMES/PCLE09-Left 4 Dead.html


mmm half that £26

but no stock.... ill wait on the stock then

 

Damn shaff, if you don't like the game, I'll personally refund your money! Lol. I'm serious. I think the game is about $35 or something like that. (I told Russ from the builder thread the same thing today, lol. I got an email from him before I started my "essay" today with some organ music links. He's not a gamer. I told him he had to go through the developer commentary, and then I'd refund his money if he didn't think it was worth it. I also told him that if he got his clients into gaming he'd get more upgrade business, hahaha.)

No you don't have to play the single player - unless you want to go through the developer commentary. But you won't find me except for Wednesdays. Then you'll find me all day. I think you guys are about 8 hours ahead - it's almost 8:00 pm here - that would make it 4:00 in the morning over there - can't be. Maybe you're 6 hours ahead. What's your user id, shaffaaf? Shaffaaf36 or something like that, right?

 

It was a lot cheaper recently. Steam often have special offers.

 

Yeah, they just had 20% off or something. What's 26 pounds. And what time is it over there?

Purple hair, you mean me? I thought you said you adjusted your RGB color settings, lol.

I finally found the friends list. And I see you're offline, sam, so maybe it IS 4:00 in the morning. I guess google would tell me pretty fast, lol - let me see: Holy crap, I was right - it's 4 in the morning. You and Shaff are night owls!! Haha.

Okay, I start playing at least by 10:00, maybe I'll start earlier for you guys, lol. That puts me at 6:00 your time Wednesday evenings. Christ, maybe I'll get up early and start playing by 8:00 in the morning, haha - that would put me at 4:00 in the afternoon, tea time, in England. For Jeff, that will be like 9:00 in the morning, for Rubix down under, he's 17 hours ahead, which means he's 7 hours behind, so I don't fancy him and me and you guys, on the same team. Let's see, if you stayed up til midnight wednesday night, it would be 4:00 pm my time, and 9:00 am rubix' time.

Anyway, I think I'll try to get up early that day - wednesday. Look for me to be online, on steam, and the little announcement is supposed to come up even in-game like instant messenger, right? We'll hook up and go for the Sam suicide EXPERT level of difficulty. Just for you, Sam!

Probably a walk in the park for you, Shaff, if you man up and actually buy the game, haha. Do you need an advance from me? Actually I'm broke until the 25th - borrow from sam in the meantime, lol.

I see that 26 pounds is $39 US. Look, I can scrape together $30.

That leaves about 6 pounds for you, surely you can manage that. Get my email address from sam, and send me an email so I can get you a paypal advance. You could PM me, but then remind me to check my messages which I'm not in the habit of doing.

If you feel later it was worth it you can eventually pay me back, haha. Or you can beef up our team and save Sam and my ass from the tank on expert and you won't have to pay me back. LOL

Maybe Jeff will join us with his skills. Then with everybody's skills, and my tactics, we'll be unstoppable.

Hahahaha! But seriously, we'll rule!

Rich

 

Just about to turn 4am. 26GBP = 36USD.

 

(This got posted out of order sitting in its own window without having pressed the post button, duhhh. Please go back a couple posts and read the edit.)

Expert?? You ever hear about "baby steps?" I guess not!!

"Be a man!" Right! Be a man like a suicide bomber, you mean?

You want me to go EXPERT!! Damn. I pretty much got my ass kicked on the little bit of Advanced that I've done - well mostly during the finales.

Okay, I'll try if you say so! Hahaha!

Yeah, I knew it was rat...something. I'm on my non-gaming rig right now, but this one DOES have a steam account. So I'll open steam, sign under my harvardguy, and figure the friend thing out. Good idea.

 

much <3 rich, but ill buy it, jsut have to buy it later, as i need to pay for some shisha/hookah stuff first.

ill take a look on ebay.

do you have xfire rich?

 

Haha awesome. I added both you guys. I just finished up my first year of college and am now on a 6 weeks break so I'm open pretty much any time someone wants to play.

Rich, you really should get used to advanced. It's all I ever play as normal is way too easy. I don't play expert much though because of the massive friendly fire damage XD

If we work in a semi-coherent way, we can get you through the finales even

@Sam. Finally we get your SteamID. I was about to try Ratmanscoop and see if it worked XD

AFAIK, Advanced is the accepted standard for mixed-skill teams. Only because of the reduced friendly damage and slightly fewer specials ;P



Whenever you guys want a match or something, see if I'm on Steam or MSN me at Estuansis(at)hotmail(dot)com. I'm usually up for some social interaction, LOL!