The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

This video here says that the game is free on steam. Is that only the Demo version? Looks like hours of entertainment LOL!

 

No, it's the full version. The game is free, but there's only about 1h20 of campaign in it.

 

So it's kind of like a short story then If it were to retail, wouldn't be worth much. Certainly not the typical ~50 USD LOL!

Thanks for your rapid reply sam. I'm downloading it xD

 

Eh...it's not my style. I think my brother may enjoy it though. It has a metal gear solid feel to it. Not the story line of course, but the playing field. The dimensions
I wonder how his dual core 5200 athlon with Gt210 will handle it? If a pentium 4/ 6600 nvidia can run it, it should do fair then
I'll find out tomorrow. I'm house/dog sitting for him and his wife.

 

No chance, a 6600 steamrolls the G210.

 

Ugh again the sad truth of the GT210. So slow a lower mid range card from 5 generations ago is still faster. And probably way faster too. And we thought the X1600Pro was painfully slow when it came out 5 years ago... and the X1600Pro is comparable to a GeForce 6800. Hell, I think even the ancient and venerable 9800Pro is way faster...

Just discovered something that made me think differently about the plot of Star Wars and The Force Unleashed(spoilers).

The main character Galen(Starkiller) Marek is a Sith apprentice trained as an assassin by Darth Vader. As the Sith do, Starkiller got too strong and the Emperor ordered him killed. Darth Vader kills him then "resurrects" him later. He then plays upon Starkiller's hatred of the Emperor(for the order of execution) by telling him to gather prime VIPs in the newly forming rebellion and start The Alliance to Restore the Republic, eventually bringing the Empire down. Starkiller falls for the trick and all of the VIPs are captured, but not before signing the Corellian Treaty which effectively starts the rebellion. Starkiller then GIVES HIS LIFE in an epic duel with Darth Vader and the Sith Lord Emperor Palpatine to give allies time to free the captured rebel leaders. It is now widely believed that the Alliance would have been doomed to fail without these influential leaders. This is believed so much so that Galen Marek(he took back his real name when he defected) is credited with the founding of the rebellion and his sacrifice is a major inspiration for the early leaders and soldiers of the Alliance.

I know this isn't specifically about PC gaming but I did play The Force Unleashed on my PC. Frankly the game was mediocre but the story kicked ass.

Anyway this is the ultimate tale of one of the worst murderers in Star Wars canon not only turning to the light side and becoming a Jedi, but having a major impact on the outcome of the Galactic Civil War, which the Alliance won.

Being a die-hard Star Wars fan, this had a large impact on me. Only sad to know that after the Empire is defeated the Alliance splits into like three opposing groups plus the remaining threat of the Imperial Remnant. Sad because trillions were united under one ideal only long enough to throw off an oppressive regime and start warring amongst eachother. Star Wars is so tragic that way. They only reunite the Galactic Alliance after the Yuuzhan Vong invade the galaxy and wipe out 365 Trillion innocent in a sort of "Space Blitzkrieg."

There are other deep and involving tales within Star Wars that make Star Trek look sick. So much that I'd say the total content of the Star Wars fiction dwarfs Star trek by an order of magnitude.

But I'm a die-hard sci-fi junkie that way. I love extended universes.

 

The X1600 Pro was good, but it wasn't that good Jeff. My X1600 Pro at least was roughly comparable to a 6600 standard, I believe. Scored something like 1400 3dmarks in 06 when used with my X2 4200+ (that managed 5700 with the X1900XT). Mine was the 64-bit version I think though, only cost me £47 back in February 2007. You don't pay much less than that for a 1GB G210 now, which is just as slow!
The full-fat X1600 Pros (I only bought that one because I wanted the cheapest card possible that would actually run dual-link DVI [mandatory for the older 3007WFP]. I didn't care about its performance, anything slower/older didn't have the ability to do it) were around £60-£70 at the time I think, and were more in common with the 6600GT. The X1600XT was somewhere around the 6800 standard if I remember rightly, though obviously it depended on the title.

 

Tell me again why nvidia would build such a slow G210, that a 5 year old card could smoke it

 

for OEMs that want to show they have a discreet card in the system when they sell it, rather than onboard. media PCs.

it was never made for gaming, why try gaming on it really? and its about 4350 speeds isnt it? even if its a tad less, neither GPU has gaming in mind. some people would get these cards to run extra monitors off of aswell.

 

The same reason nvidia do anything - because people will buy it.....

 

I didn't have much choice. I needed HDMI/DVI, Ati was risky (as I've explained), and the price was right inside the ball park. I knew gaming was gonna be highly rare on the system, but I sure wish I had looked for a slightly better card at least. I guess if gaming is ever a possibility for him, I'll have to replace the board. It won't support any more than a 6000 dual core 89W, and quite frankly, its an outdated board

Good points shaff

 

yeah, we did the same thing here on earth. almost hard do believe we fought along side some of America's greatest enemy's in a war that was actually worth fighting. we then disbanded and 20 years later where killing people we shed blood with. ain't life grand.

 

so would a 8800GTX out perform a 3870?. not that i care, but im going to grab a Nvidia card just to use as a physX processor.

 

an 8800GTX is very much superior to the 3870

 

as far as physX goes, is there way to compare the performance of physX discreetly. or is there a physX performance chart made up already on the net.

 

depends on the game, google some benchmarks. It's not usually much benefit though, in terms of image quality

 

physX was never meant to improve image quality it was used to help create a more fluid environment and improve physical interaction.

maybe i worded it the wrong way, What Nvidia card will give the best performance increase for physX only. or has the PhysX element remained the same since the 8600.

i can get Asus physx add in card for $100 or i can use a old 8600 for 50 bucks for the same thing.

 

I always thought physx just improved the object physics in games and had no effect on image quality (apart from the increased demand on the hardware).

 

yeah it was never for imge quality, it was for the physics of a game.

 

Well, I certainly don't have anything to add to today's physX discussion. But going back to yesterday's discussion about the free game from Valve:

Well, the fact that guys like you say things like "a great game" apparently took Valve by surprise.

Not that Valve listens to me, but when Miles happened to mention that giving away the game now seems in hindsight like a mistake, since people seem to really like it, I wondered out loud how the community would react to a $10 or $20 expansion pack. I said to Miles "If they've got a million steam users who like the game - maybe they should invest some money into it." (I was chiming in based on what Sam had already mentioned about liking it, but noting with disappointment the lack of content.)

If that were to happen, I am certain that optimization across a broad range of platforms would be part of the Valve effort - the game would run more consistently - and maybe even on my p4.

Holy crap, Jeff! And I thought WWII was complicated. Your mind is wayyyy too big for me - I'll stay right here with both feet planted on terra firma.

Good points dxr - I guess like Jeff's star wars narrative, we DO turn enemies into friends and vice versa fairly often - such is world politics. (To get completely off-thread: What does anybody think about the Russian reactor in Iran?)

Rich