The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

I didn't have hardware compatibility issues with DiRT because I didn't buy the game. I don't buy games infected with Starforce. Pretty much any modern racing game except the arcade-style ones have to be used with a gamepad, because without analog inputs, the handling engines react as you'd expect from only having full throttle, full brakes and full lock steering. Far from well.
I use my PC monitor to play xbox games since it accepts component, VGA and HDMI inputs. Looks every bit as good as a 30" HDTV, if not better. Playing Resident Evil 5 on it was great fun. I've not played Killzone 2 yet, but at 1024x600 I struggle to see how it can beat Crysis other than on consistency. I often find myself fooling myself with graphical quality of console games simply because I sit so much further from the screen and the lower graphical quality problems vanish. Move as close to the screen as I am when I play PC games and they look downright dreadful, all of them. I expect I'd find the same with Killzone 2. Try playing PC games at 1920x1080 on a big TV and sitting as far back, you'd be surprised.

 

And Im betting since they're the best, they cost a pretty penny LOL!

 

They are indeed the best. The Dell 2209WA offers an E-IPS panel with excellent colour accuracy in 22" for around $279.

 

Killzone 2 in HD is a nice looking game, one of the best I've seen. Alas my computer can't handle Crysis so I haven't been able to compare them.

 

It would appear that newegg, does not categorize them by their panel type. That sucks big time LOL! I tried running a search, "S-IPS", and only one LCD monitor came back.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824016084
Never heard of them. Pretty spendy for a name ive never heard of LOL!

 

I have, they're a reasonably good brand, but there's better stuff out there. I've never found newegg particularly great for monitors really.

 

Indeed! I would much rather carry it out of a store myself, rather than have Fedex or DHL handle it! UPS is good though Although I suppose that's bias coming from me

 

Oh it's nothing to do with that, just that their range seems to get a bit thin towards the high end, and they don't carry Dell monitors which in my mind are among the best, if not THE best.

 

Well...thats certainly a matter of opinion, but it wouldn't be the first time ive heard that I may have to give them a shot. Your 30" is dell?

 

Yes, as was my previous 30", and my 24".

 

Well, this being Thursday, following L4D Wednesdays, there's gonna be some L4D stuff in this post. But first:

Hahahahaha. Sorry, mate, but that sounded funny. Do you mean quite literally? In that case, forgive me for laughing, and damn those unruly chaps. If our buddy Wisconsin Jeff had been there, that wouldn't have happened.

Every time I see Francis, or play him, it reminds me of Estuansis, lol.

Glad your DFI is working good, Rubbix - too bad about your sound problem - lots more research on google I suppose. Way over MY head.

And Omega, you hit it on the head - Stairwell on No Mercy finale. The very best place. And rafters for tank part of barn finale - almost too easy, like Rock. I learned a new horde place at the forklift crescendo yesterday - 1. minigun works, 2. fence is even easier, but 3. upstairs men's bathroom is almost too easy. You can stay in the men's bathroom, and pick them off as they enter the door to the hallway leading to the bathrooms.

On van crescendo in airport, had some guys who insisted on closet. I am truly coming to HATE closet - ANY closet. We got raped and killed, lol. Finally I convinced them to try upstairs training room next to bathroom - Piece of Cake!!

And on another advanced boat finale, one guy insisted on going to the rock. We said, "come back" but he just stayed there. Then we reasoned, "well he's certainly safe by himself on Rock, and the three of us can handle the deck if we all stay in one corner." He stayed put and the credits rolled "Survivors have escaped!" Hahahaha.

Not exactly a case study in teamwork. Minigun is also working well on boat finale, provided everybody stays next to the minigun. One guy said "I'll cover inside stairway." I answered, "No you'll just get smokered and killed." So he said "Yeah, I guess you're right." Minigun is probably the most fun, because it can get a little hairy - and one guy gets to man that crazy gattling gun! But I don't know if it would work if somebody insisted on camping out on the Rock, lol.

Sam, not to "beat you up" since it's Thursday, not Tuesday, lol, but you are definitely busted on tank speed, and this is not a theory - we now have visual proof.

After playing all day again yesterday, with everybody always lighting the tank, I got chased down a hallway by a flaming tank - boom! - tossed thirty feet! So today I googled "burning tank runs faster" and I got all kinds of confirmation.

BURNING TANK RUNS FASTER, faster than a player to be precise, whereas non-burning tank cannot outrun a player in normal, advanced, or expert!

This simple video proves it:

Watch this video proving expert tank cannot outrun player, but burning tank CAN outrun player.

Rich

 

I do mean literally unfortunately. I don't like being superstitious, but that's how things played out.

As for the tank on fire, there are a few things wrong with that video
1. there's no proof the difficulty is the same
2. the person runs slower in the second video by wandering from a straight line
3. the person is moving backwards not forwards.
4. the comment underneath is retarded, which drops the credibility of the post. Of course fire does damage over time to the tank. It's just relatively slow because the tank has so much health.

 

Lol, you're a hard man to convince. If this were Tuesday, I'd fly over there and ......

Hahahaha.

Look, am I going to have to do one of my famous stop-watch tests to prove that running backward is just as fast as running forward?

You know, the same one I already did that proves that players run at exactly the same speed no matter which weapon they are carrying! How many more erroneous theories am I going to have to disprove for you guys? LOL

Let me just turn on the gaming rig. Let's see - the street outside the safe house in boat finale. As I recall the round-trip time to run back and forth was about 28 seconds.

Wow! I have to wait a bit. It's updating L4D and that will take 34 minutes!! WTF!! Well, I know what is going on. Yesterday evening, I turned off the computer for a bit when it seemed to lag - to let it cool down. When I came back and restarted Steam, I was reading about the L4D Game of the Year Edition, and I noticed that the game is available in about 20 languages - clever Valve. Just for the fun of it, I told it to play audio in Spanish, restarted the game, and nothing changed. But today, it looks like it is downloading about 600 mb worth of Spanish dialog. Very cool!

Next time Francis bitches "I hate small towns" it will probably come out "No me gustan pueblos pequenos!"

That reminds me. Yesterday, Francis was in the elevator, giving a list of the things he hates - the first time I heard that piece of dialog. After about 5 or 6, Bill said "Is there anything you don't hate." Francis said "I don't hate mess." I asked the team "Hahaha - what was it that Francis just said he DIDN'T hate?" Somebody typed "mess." That's what it sounded like. "Mess" - what did he mean by that? That could mean food - but that's more of an army term "the mess hall" but not a biker term. Or did he mean "being messy?" Anybody know?

MONEY-MAKING IDEAS
During the wait for the Spanish, let me make a suggestion, Sam. As I started my gaming rig just now, I thought of YOUR gaming rig with all the money you have tied up in it, making it state of the art - but leaving you broke.

Which brings me to my next point. Sam, there HAS to be money in writing.

I know you're a fast typist. You have excellent communication skills. And your technical knowledge is incredible. Are there any opportunities out there for you to be paid for some of the writing that you are already doing? Anand Shrimpi was 16 when he started his site. I'm not saying anything like that - but these sites all earn money from advertising, and the ad revenue depends on readership, and they have to supply interesting copy for their readers.

Just a thought. Or..... what about tutoring? Maybe high school level - go visit all the local schools and see if there is a demand.

LEFT 4 DEAD IN SPANISH
Wow, it downloaded about 1 gig. The whole opening video was in Spanish. Which somehow made it even more scary!

Not necessarily done word for word, either. When Bill says "This is going to get bad" after the dead hunter trips the car alarm, now Bill says "Esto tiene mal pinto" which literally means "This has bad paint." I never heard that expression before.

Louis yells out the Spanish, word for word, of "Run or shoot" when he says, "Corre o dispara" but Bill doesn't answer "Both" - he says "Depresa" which means "Hurry!"

On the roof at the end of the video when Bill says "We just crossed the street. Let's not throw a party until we're out of the city" this time he says "That was just a skirmish. Now comes the war." Scary!!

Now that the files are downloaded, I think I can switch back to English in a flash. But in the meantime, I hope it doesn't mess me up. The next time I yell "Get to the boat" I hope it doesn't come out "Vayan al barco" lol.

Ok, back to the speed test. Let me get into single player mode. Note, it looks like Valve missed a little trick that wouldn't have been hard to implement. When you hit the command keys, like the "z" key, the typed language is in English - like "Cover Me" which I use all the time to try to get the bots into the staircase on No Mercy, like Kevin was doing. (By the way, Kevin, very nice screen shots.)

It still says "Cover Me" in English, although the character voices "Protege-me" (protect me) or a variant of that. When I want them to stay there while I trigger the radio, I always use "Wait" which still is the English, although it comes out "Espere" (wait) or "Pare aqui un momento" (stop here a moment) I don't know how Valve left off that little detail - I guess it just got lost in the rush to market.

FORWARD VERSUS BACKWARD SPEED TEST
Street outside safe house in boat finale. I recall last time from my sweep second hand watch, it took about 28 seconds. Round trip per my cell phone stop watch shows 27.19 seconds. That's the same - so, Sam, don't question whether the Spanish version is the same speed, lol.

Now, for backward: Well after three attempts, I gave up trying ROUND TRIP because on the return I always backed into a car or a light post. So, I decided to hit the Stop after going down the street in only one direction.

Going backward from near the safe house, one way to the end = 13.67 seconds. Let's see, 13.67 x 2 = 27.34 seconds, which is 0.15 seconds difference from the round trip time, well within the margin of error.

Once again, Rich provides experimental proof to end the conjecture: Running backward is just as fast as running forward! Hahahaha.

Rich

 

See I heard "vests" in that, not mess.
Ultimately, running a benchmark site like Anandtech would be one of my dream jobs. I wouldn't really know the best way of getting such a site off the ground, and let's face it, there's a lot of competition out there.

 

"Vests" - that makes a lot more sense - he's wearing a vest, and that's a trademark biker garb - that must have been it. Good call Sam.

Well, running a benchmark site might be something to eventually strive for. In the meantime, any demand for writing talent? You have your one forum buddy who sold you your first X2 card - maybe send him an email and see what he has to say about the idea - maybe he can point you in the right direction to make some other inquiries.

 

It wasn't a forum buddy, it was the co-owner and editor of an existing review site, www.driverheaven.net. I'd be in direct competition.

As far as I'm concerned, writing talent is of course beneficial, it would take at least two writers to make the site fully effective. The main thing I'd be looking for is some assistance in the backbone of the site - someone with experience of hosting websites, how and where to host, writing the web pages and editing the reports to the ideal format for a website, and someone with some input capital to help get the idea off the ground and acquire some hardware and software to run the first few tests. Until the site is popular, adverts alone will not fund it, and sponsorhip from manufacturers would only come with serious popularity. I do have some savings I can invest into starting the site, but I can't surrender that much initially. I'll put it out in the open, if anyone from aD wants to help out, I'm all ears. It's not looking like I will have a job this summer, and I will have three months with very little to do. Of course, only those serious in the idea need apply to help out. I don't need anybody bailing out during the crucial initial stages

 

Well..... in the meantime.....

Hugh Hefner, of Playboy, worked as an editor at Esquire, before he started his own magazine. Why not think in terms of getting some experience first?

I would still say - go to your acquaintance at driver heaven and ask him what kind of demand he has for writing talent. If he doesn't have the need - maybe he'll give you some ideas for other sites that could use a hand. Maybe he'll let you work on some reviews with some of his other staff, or maybe you can do some editing for him. I think some of those guys don't write all that well, and could probably use a hand, especially if english is not their native language.

(Yeah, you don't need to mention that your ultimate goal, in the back of your mind, would be to take all of his customers, lol!!)

 

Thank my two best friends. Photoshop, and Fraps LOL! I've found Photoshops compression algorithms to be unparalleled. Though I dont know, I suppose there could be better. I am aware of another program that darn near allows specific file size! And there probably are ones that do.

 

I have all sorts of racing games on the computer but then play them with my PS3 controller. I buy them on PC because they're so much sodding cheaper (games that is not PC's).

The main game that p***ed me off was GTR evolution that reckoned it was pirate and refused to play until I cracked a game I actually owned. Also while I'm moaning GTR evo also has an offline version (that you can't play online) and online version (that you can) which you select during the installer the online version does nothing more then install steam and start downloading a game you have on disk!!! So no online WTCC for me...

 

That's because GTR is starforce infected. The game not playing is the least of your worries. Wait for your DVD burner to stop working and your PC to start randomly BSODing.