The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Because unfortunately, LCD technology doesn't really work like that.

 

Right. For such a large screen the image quality is awesome. But something like my 2407WFP has a MUCH higher pixel density and will produce sharper graphics regardless.

Also, the reason they can't produce pixel density like a monitor on a screen like that is really the cost. It's just not practical to do yet. But AFAIK, it's perfectly within the limits of the technology to make one.

 

good good good. I learned something today! Thanks guys. I find the monitor terminology somewhat intimidating. It seams when I ask the questions appropriately though...SWEET. Now i'll understand a great deal more, when shopping around in the future

 

Let's be honest though, to be close enough to see the pixel size difference clearly, you'd be too close to see a 56" screen.

 

LOL when I played games on my sister's 50" TV I sat roughly 5-7 feet away and I could still see the difference clearly. 1920 x 1080 on a 50" HDTV vs 1920 x 1200 on a 24" monitor is no contest. I know it would be a much better comparison with say a 42" HDTV though. Some of the smaller ones have spectacular clarity.

AA works gloriously on HDTVs too. CoD4 is a good example of relatively jaggie-free gameplay even on those huge screens. 8xAA does the trick perfectly. Though it still doesn't reach the sharpness and clarity of a good quality PC monitor. I AM considering a good quality HDTV though as my home PC monitor.

 

Yeah. Next year if I haven't spent too much on hardware, a 40 or 46" LED TV is on the agenda

 

Panasonic make some gorgeous 1080P TV's... Amazing colour reproduction.

Not seen the new lines of Sony, LG or Samsung TV's yet though :O

Anywho, Gran Turismo 5 <3 I'll continue to day dream

 

What?! You just got a 15% discount and you're still too cheap to buy it!

Then I'm deaf. With a tip from google, I found the file, "messages.wav" in the Friends folder. It's a simple two-tone, like outlook express when a message comes in. Perhaps Valve cranks up the volume, but all those invites that Shaff was trying to get to me didn't grab my attention, lol. (I wonder how Jeff did it?) I checked the settings, sound is on, and also the screen or some part of it is supposed to flash.

I'll have to have somebody try it while I'm in a game. Maybe next Wednesday if you guys are around, we can coordinate with aim, or msn instant messenger, or just my email on my other computer, and then try the steam message. In the meantime, I changed it to a file I like called STONEIN.WAV, from aim: "Hey check it out, here comes one of your friends!" It's supposed to sound like somebody who is stoned, but it sounds exactly like Frank, a close family member from New York, lol.

This past week I learned some new L4D tactics. I have a different attitude about pain pills now. You can take a pain pill in about one second, and get an instant new lease on life with the speed to get to the dock, or recover from a chunk of concrete the tank just threw at you so you can get away. A health pack takes 6 seconds - time which can kill you. That makes a set of pain pills very critical to always have on you! When somebody asks me for pain pills, I have to remember what campaign I'm in and if I have a health pack sometimes I would rather heal that guy than give away my pills. As Sam has helped me realize, you can still function with very low life down to black and white if you have to - to stretch out the health packs.

In boat finale there are seven pain pills - more than enough for all team members, and there are also at least four molotovs for the tanks.

But in hospital finale, barn finale, and airport finale, you're lucky to find one pain pill, and same with molotovs - sometimes in hospital there are dozens, other times not a single one! You can use the gasoline cans - but molotovs are better! (Speaking of gasoline cans - take the one behind the sentry shack to the dock so you can light it up for your escape.) So to summarize:

And here's a tactic I had to learn the hard way, after wondering why one guy said a week or so ago: "It's always best to shut the safe house door when you get inside, whether or not there are other team members coming."

Interesting game! I'm glad you holdouts had at least talked about it so much that I decided to give it a try during the "try it for free week." hahaha

Rich

 

LOL you can't plan on anything being anywhere dude. Every time you go through the game the AI Director randomizes the number and location of supplies. I've been through maps loaded with ammo and molotovs and pipe bombs only to have them nearly bare the next time through.

Same with hordes, specials, and tanks. There are certain places where they are more likely to show up. But you can't strategize when hordes and tanks will show up. I've been through some levels fairly unmolested, and I've been through again and fought 2 tanks, multiple hunters, smokers and a witch.

LOL that was always the way to do it AFAIK. Med kits for when you have a break and pain pills for the heat of battle.


Anyway I'm excited about Modern Warfare 2. It's gonna kick epic amounts of ass. Looks like it uses the same engine as CoD4 but massively updated.

Come to think of it, CoD4:MW and MW2 are technically based on Quake 3 engine. The original CoD was purely Quake 3. CoD2 was based on a modified version of CoD1. And CoD4 was based on a modified version of CoD2. So, in some small way, the roots of FPS gaming are living on in the newest technology

EDIT:

Also, sat down a re-played through Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway today. Better impressions the second time around. Plus I actually finished it So here's my impressions after going back to the game:

Really nice graphics but no AA is kind of a bummer(not entirely sure if it's working when I turn it on). But not too bad considering the game is almost absolutely jaggie-free without. Lots of nice effects. Amazingly realistic smoke and fire effects. Excellent textures with high-res bumpmapping on almost everything. Beautiful lighting and vibrant colors. Lots of realistically destructible stuff.

Very stable and nearly completely bug-free. Acceptable performance, solid shooting and cover mechanics, fantastic Unreal Engine 3 textures and models. Fairly useful and intelligent AI squad. Fast paced, heart pumping combat that forces you to make tactical decisions under fire. Rewarding suppression-fire and flanking mechanics.

The story between the 3 games is awesome and really hits deep. The narrative and voice work are superb. The sound is very nice with good meaty sound effects for the guns.

Just my impressions of course.

Graphics: 8/10

Great models, great textures, great shader effects, but no AA. WTF. I really have a love/hate relationship with Unreal Engine games. Oh well at least this isn't the muddy, shoddy, crappy-looking, poorly coded mess GRAW on the PC was. And at least RS: Vegas and Gears of War were fun.(all Unreal games). If they want to use Unreal they should drop that mistake Unreal 2.5 and make the full switch to Unreal 3. BiA is a great example of Unreal 3.

Gameplay: 8/10

Solid mechanics make this a good shooter. Good cover, aiming, and command controls make it easy to get into and fun to play. My only qualms are the sometimes sketchy hit detection and the somewhat linear levels. They could go so much further with the movement and squad mechanics. What about just one huge battlefield, eh?

Performance: 7/10

Eh, not much to write home about. It performs adequately on my 9800GTX and my 8800GTS maxed at 1920 res. Never drops below 30FPS. No AA means Crossfire is useless in this game. At least it's not packed with bugs and you move faster than a snail eh?

Sound: 8/10

Good sound effects and ambient noise help absorb you into the game. Nice voice acting and overall sound design put this a notch above your average shooter.

Overall: 8/10

This game is a good example of how Unreal Engine 3 can be used for a great gaming experience. Even new games are still being released on Unreal 2.5 which is basically Unreal 2 with Unreal 3 character models.(RS: Vegas 1 & 2, GRAW 1 & 2 for PC[360 versions were actually good]). Very buggy, bad performance, terrible graphics, slow buggy movement. But BiA:HH is full Unreal 3 and it really shows. Very nice engine for a shooter and very nice graphics. Good game overall.

 

I must admit I was very impressed with the Panasonic 37" 1080p second gen Plasma TV that one of my grandparents got. Colour vibrance and more importantly, upscale quality is leagues ahead of that on our Sharp Aquos 26" LCD. That said, the Aquos predates the use of the 'HD Ready' status and only has VGA and component, no HDMI.
The shutting the door on your team-mates is a valuable lesson to learn, especially for Vs mode. It even applies to finales, if someone is spending too long trapped somewhere (for instance, falling off the platform where you board the helicopter at the end of No Mercy, rather than wait until they arrive and risk being tanked, shoot them to incap them. The door shuts, and you make your escape. Harsh, but it's saved many lives.
I'm really looking forward to Left 4 Dead 2's moving action sections such as the alarm control tower level as seen in the Gametrailers gameplay videos (about 8 mins or so I think). Some good insights into the game. I like the new HUD, I quite like the new survivor models, and I'm excited about stuff like the 'uncommon common infected' e.g. haz-mat suit-wearing zombies that are fire resistant. That's going to make the gameplay mechanic much more interesting.
I Agree with Jeff though, there isn't x number of any supplies, both the quantity and the location are randomised.


As for Modern Warfare 2, I'm definitely looking forward to that as well. I loved COD4 (though the SP far moreso than the MP) and COD5 was disappointing I thought. As far as I know, COD1 and COD2 were Quake based, but not COD4 or COD5. I'll have to check on that but I didn't think they were related.

 

cod4 is quake 3 engine.

 

Sure?

I know wikipedia is hardly guaranteed truth, but I thought what it says was right.

 

No it's a highly modified build of the Quake 3 Engine. In effect, it IS proprietary. They've been modifying/reworking the same code since CoD1 so it's much different now. But it's still Quake 3 at heart. Each version of CoD has been built off of the last. You can basically add as many high-res textures and high-poly models and shaders and physics engines as you want. Quake 3 Engine is extremely versatile. You'd be surprised how many modern proprietary engines are related directly to Quake 3.

 

Well then I suppose by that logic you can call Windows Server 2003 the same as Windows NT 1.0...

 

Read my edit.

No it's not quite the same. CoD4 is on a proprietary engine but is directly based on Quake 3.

 

Quake, quake, quake! It's all John Carmack's genius, right? After all, Half Life was built on his Quake 2 engine - that's how Gabe Newell started Valve. You have to give ID Software huge credit. Right?

Wow, Jeff, nice review of Hells Highway. That is one that has to wait for the new build. No I'm not just complaining - I actually played it 60% of the way through until I got to the rain - down to 4fps. I'll wait. You didn't much talk about it this time - but I remember last time you loved that part with the wind mill - the part that looks like you've just stepped into a gorgeous painting!

I can't believe Sam, that, even as completely great as it was - I agree - that you liked SP on cod4 better than MP, when Shaff and I both got completely addicted to MP on cod4. The only thing that saved me was getting the big dell, 'cause then mp wouldn't run very well, and also discovering L4D. Only one addiction at a time. What saved Shaff was finances, lol.

I agree with you both, Jeff and Sam about the L4D Director except for boat finale. On advanced, you can count on 7 pain pills and at least 4 molotovs. There will NEVER be less than that on boat finale. I'm serious, damn it!

On the pain pills, you're brighter than most, estuansis, because I see lots of guys, and I was one of them, popping pain pills at random stress-free moments when they were doing okay without. Not me any more! LOL

Back to Quake. I knew somehow years ago that Quake 2 was the root of Half Life. So when I came across Quake 2 - the Marines invade some other planet - I picked it up - but never finished it, lol. I liked it! And you could play it coop! That's when I saw my brother unable to control the mouse, staring at the ceiling, or down at the floor, almost nauseous. Just like when I first started - all thumbs. (Wait - that's how I STILL am, lol.)

Well Heil Hitler!!!!

I didn't plan to take it THAT far!

You don't say!

Wow, Sam, you're finding out A LOT about the new L4D - the friggin zombies wear heat resistant clothing???? WTF!! What about the tank - he drives a hummer?

Rich

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-left-4-dead/50625
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-left-4-dead/50622

I'm about to grab the directfeed E3 videos from there too.

 

As much as you guys might hate me for saying this, I wish they weren't doing a sequel... What other game Could they be working on instead? Exactly!

Who thinks Episode 3's gunna be out this year? No chance, surely.

 

You're right Shokz - I mean, yeah, you're right, now we hate you.



Look, Shokz, I gave up trying to get you back into L4D because a guy who appreciates as many different types of games and game genres as you do, obviously has no time left in the day.

But just 'cause you didn't much like Left 4 Dead doesn't mean the 2.5 million other people who bought it (xbox outselling PC three to one I hear) also didn't like it, lol. I read somewhere that Valve hopes the L4D franchise does for them what counter strike did - sell over 10 million Valve games!

But who knows, Shokz, maybe you'll get into it this time - maybe you'll become the all-time axe murderer of zombies that there ever was!! Hahahaha (EP3 will get here when it gets here - patience, dude, go with the flo - the hot new ticket is L4D!!!)

Speaking of hot, Angelina Jolie is HOT!!!

Sam, awesome links, thanks!! I see that beautiful Angelina zombie everywhere - she's so pretty it's gonna give me a slight pain of regret each time I blow her bloody little head off - (BTW who the hell has she been chewin on? - not me I hope - reminds me of when that crusty old codger Bill says "most of this blood is not mine" hahahaha) - but I know I'll see her again .... and again .... and again - some girls just keep comin back for more abuse!!!

(Maybe Juice, the funny and bi*chy Zoey who kept calling me "Harvard Shmuck", will reincarnate as one of those Angelina Jolie zombies, lol. Take that, sweetheart!)

Woah! Speaking of new zombies, what's up with the gorilla suit? That's a charger?? One of the new specials. Special, right. The guy got infected on the way to a comedy casting call. Hahahaha.

But on a more serious note, what is that awesome new assault rifle? Anybody know what the actual weapon is?

The narrator in Sam's links was, in my opinion, pretty much getting his butt handed to him - and I'm reading now that they've generally stepped up the pressure. Oh lovely! Time for everybody to join Sam in striving for Expert Achievements!

Rich

 

Never said I hate it, but honestly, Half Life 2 is possibly the best game I've ever played, I'm dying waiting