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The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by abuzar1, Jun 25, 2008.

  1. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Agreed with Sams's post every word. You might not be able to run Crysis maxed at native res, Rich. But try it in an unscaled box which I believe is called 1:1 Pixel Mapping or Aspect Control on a friend's ASUS monitor. My 2407WFP can do it which is a godsend for older games which can't be modded to use widescreen, namely Star Wars Battlefront 1. Even without 2560 and with the steep hardware demands, Crysis is still an excellent example of what modern games should strive to look like. It literally uses every single shading and lighting effect ever put in a video game. From HDR to Ambient Occlusion, Water FFT(mathematical calculation for realistic waves), Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Transparencies, Refraction, etc. You name it, the game uses it a LOT.

    Will definitely agree on Half Life 2 Episode 2 as well. Something about the image quality, textures, and art direction all rolled into one makes it stupidly good looking. Image quality it important for good gaming and Source Engine takes the cake for sheer image quality ie overall art direction. Source produces a very clean image.

    Also I will totally vouch for Bad Company 2. Looks extremely similar to Crysis, even a bit better, and runs better to boot. One of my favorite games of all time both technically and gameplay-wise. The multiplayer is absolutely fantastically fun. Hands down beats the crap out of any other game I've ever played in every aspect. Nothing even comes close for fun except Left 4 Dead and it's less repetitive. L4D I got bored of fast. BC2 I just broke 100 hours on and I'm still playing it daily. PvP is miles better than PvE IMO.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2010
  2. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    In other news, it's going to be a difficult time ahead for PC hardware in the UK. The Pound is forecast to crash against the dollar from current 1.54 to 1.35, and a VAT rise from 17.5% to 20% takes effect on 4th January.
    Currently a 100USD product costs £76.02. If that forecast is right, it'll be £88.89. :S

    Official price for the new GTX460 seems to be £115-£130, though this will rise given the above scenario.
    Official release price for the GTS450 is £105-£110, so once again nvidia are competing with themselves.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2010
  3. harvrdguy

    harvrdguy Regular member

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    Wow Sam - maybe a big reason for you to hold out and really watch the gpu market - maybe even southern islands is not for you - maybe the new 32nm die 7000 family will be when you make your move.


    GRAPHICS EVEN MORE STUNNING THAT WAW

    Sam and Jeff - Wow, you guys are both saying that COD4 looked better - but not to me - so the only thing that can account for that is the 8800GTX allowing me to play at full native resolution, of 2560x1600, and smoothing everything out with 4xAA! (When I played COD4 - twice through the single player - yes I was on the dell 30", but not at native resolution, and I bet I had AA turned off.)

    That makes a lot of sense! So Infinity Ward deserves the credit then - Treyarch was just handed the COD4 development stuff by the publisher who owns the game, when they started on COD5.

    Then I'm going to add COD4 to my playlist on the next game play weekend in October. If what you guys are saying is true, and I bet it is, then that will only confirm how important it is to have a powerful machine that can fully display the beauty built into the game - like why I won't be playing Crysis anytime soon, and also why I guess I won't be playing BC2 anytime soon - at least not with the 8800GTX. (haha - that makes me think of the nvidia logo - "the way it's meant to be played." Putting aside whether one likes or dislikes the company, the LOGO is meaningful. What it means to me is: Why even play a game if you can't play it at high if not ultra high settings, and REALLY get full impact of the graphics?)


    8800GTX COOLING ISSUES

    It IS terrible - it has only one fan, the 120mm exhaust, at full speed (I'm guessing about 2500 rpm.) But I'm concerned, Sam, about a kama bay - THAT will send in air on top, helping the cpu more than the gpu, although with 1900 rpm or maybe more, I can possibly push the fresh air down to where the graphics card can get to it. Maybe that's the answer - a REALLY strong fan.

    In that case, Sam, and Jeff, and anybody, since the machine is on loan to me and I am not allowed to cut holes in the case, and the kama bay is my only opportunity to feed fresh air in, forgetting about how much noise a 120mm fan makes, or how long it will last, what fan should I get?

    Which 120mm kama bay fan would you recommend - a Kazi or whatever - that may not have the life of a scythe, and of course not the low DBs, but will push a lot of air - maybe at 2500-3000 rpm or greater. I don't care how much noise it makes.

    Jeez, look at this Delta jet-engine fan. It's a fair bet that it isn't the kind of fan (you can hear a pin drop) that Sam would normally choose, but maybe it's the one I need, since I can only install one intake fan, and that's it! For $25, it puts out 220 cfm, at 4500 rpm. (It only last one week before the eardrums of the gamer are blown, and he gets put to rest in a sanatorium, lol.)

    Seriously, what do you guys think? I found another at 3300 rpm - but why not go for crazy cfm? - what harm could it do? I won't hear it through the headphones.

    ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `[​IMG]
    Newegg carries these fans, but they are out of stock on an earlier, slightly less powerful 4000rpm model. Here's one guy's feedback:

    GAMES WITH BETTER GRAPHICS THAN WORLD AT WAR

    Wow, Jeff, that gets me even more excited! I am so jazzed by how great WAW looks with my new hardware. If you and Sam are both saying that I'm just beginning to appreciate great graphics, then that just blows me away! Fantastic!

    Believe it or not, I did actually try crysis. I played the demo. I was not much struck by the graphics. I liked the AI and fooled around fighting the Koreans. I even stopped using the fancy features of the suit, and confronted a patrol, and used stealth to see if I could beat the AI. The Koreans, even if they're behind you in a wooded area, always give out a little yell before they kill you, lol. When I heard that - my directional 5.1 headphones are pretty good, and the default suit setting is armor - I ran like hell, but not with the suit setting. Other times I laid in the road, waiting for the Koreans to come to me.

    Regarding the graphics, I was not playing at high res, nor at highest settings - this was even before the 4 ghz 670 p4 with twice the L2 cache, and it may even have been shader 2.0 on the x850xtpe - your old card, Jeff. And since it was the demo .... It was the same time that Waymon (Ray) got his water cooler for the x1900 Tec card, before he got his Christmas money and bought his new rig.

    I own the full game, but my feeling is, why ruin it by playing it at other than native res? But, I do have to admit that 1920x1200 runs pretty nice on the dell 30" - the in-monitor graphics scales it very nicely as proven by how nice Left 4 Dead looked when I first played it. But still - when I jumped on Left 4 Dead 2, for a few hours several days ago, on this new equipment, and cranked it up to 2560x1600, I was blown away by the graphics! The very same game (well to be accurate, I've only been playing L4D2 at 1440x900 - that's all the P4 would handle.)

    Do you see what I'm saying? I have kind of gotten myself stuck by the Dell 30" investment, and I would almost rather put off jumping into those gorgeous games you mentioned, until I can do it right, even if that is 6 months to 2 years away.

    Maybe my logic is perverse. It's like somebody saying "Hey, let's go to the Bahamas - we'll go on the cheap and stay in a youth hostel." Somebody else says "No, I realize the island itself is beautiful, and the water is gorgeous blue, and clear, the snorkeling is fantastic! But I want to save up so then when I go, I can stay in the Grand Nassau hotel, and be surrounded by luxury, as well as by the beauty of nature." Hahaha - that's more what a chick would say!
    Hahahaha!


    TEST THE BEST GAMES WITH 23" BOX IN MIDDLE OF SCREEN

    Sam and Jeff - first of all, great suggestion regarding putting the 23" 1920x1200 box in the middle of the screen. Crispness of image and tightness of pixels is of course a plus, and the 23" versus normal 24" will even make those pixels tighter. I will definitely try that one day and fool around fighting the Koreans. I remember that Jeff provided a patch - I did download it - that provides very-close-to-ultra-high graphics, at closer to high system load. Also I take note, Sam, that Warhead looks even better than Crysis - I DO own that game already, also - maybe again on the 23" box with a patch.

    That idea will of course also work for BC2, and I'm astounded that you say, Jeff, that the graphics are a bit better than Crysis! High praise indeed! I'll have to buy the game, no doubt, and maybe sooner than later with the 23" box idea. As for repetitiveness, that is interesting that you got kind of bored with L4D, and have logged 100 hours on BC2. I had 186 hours on L4D2, before I moved to the new machine per Steam a few days ago, and now 13 hours more, that's 200 hours. I am sure I have as much on L4D.

    I am going to have to see why you're raving about BC2, Jeff. But it may be a simple matter of play style. What I mean is that I jumped on Day of Defeat a few days ago, and it was nice - REALLY looked better than at any time before at full 2560x1600. But the L4D games fall into a special category of their own, with coop against monsters. The personalities of your teammates comes out - helping the weak - everybody making it through very difficult situations together - improving one's skill set as you go along.

    That, to me, puts the game above all others that I have ever played - similarly to how Medal of Honor-Pacific Assault is so far above everything else in its ability to create a bond with your platoon - above COD2, COD4, all 3 Brothers in Arms, above them all, in my opinion, regarding that one aspect of team identity. (I'm not saying it's a better game than those others.)

    (The funny thing about L4D, even though Sam talked about it in 2009 as being the game he played most regularly, I wasn't even going to try it - and I can get Valve games for free, because of Miles. They gave it away for a one-week test - it appeared in my games list suddenly, I couldn't figure out how it got there, and I was immediately captivated by it, as by no other game.

    I was even thinking, a couple days ago, to help Gabe Newell, (this is a hysterical thread on Gabe Newell, showing his sense of humor) by proposing another way to market the game, with more emphasis on the bonding teamplay. I would change the main graphic they use for the game - I would put that zombie hand up in the corner - and place the teammates in main center, with some quotes about teamplay "Intense coop teamplay that builds friendships like no other video game you have ever played." Something like that. Maybe Kevin could help me with that graphic. I think they could get a few more millions to play it if they altered the marketing angle slightly.)



    I RESTARTED WORLD AT WAR - BASICALLY SAM'S FAULT

    Wow, another horribly long 3500 word post. I really can't post these essays about games this much, because then I want to play some more. Since I didn't yet turn the main table around, the one that has the two monitors, business and gaming, I'm gonna jump on one of the games right now, haha, just because of this post. Then in a couple of hours, I'll turn the tables back around, and wait a month.

    I just want to add, Sam, and for sure, you're laughing by now, just like you warned me, the game started to bug me and I restarted it, dropping down from max skill setting to the one below it, hardcore, which is just above regular, and then I blazed through the first 3 chapters, and now I'm back with Demetri in Russia about to do the sniper BS again, but that won't be anywhere near as difficult this time. And there were a couple of fun things I got to do at hardcore that I couldn't do on super high skill, like jump on the upper AA gun, and blow a lot of the reinforcements up before they killed me. Finally I jumped off just before the part where I died, and the planes came and finished off the tanks - or I could have called for rockets.

    I like to play at max skill, because I like to be as close to reality as I can, within reason, meaning until the game turns BORRRRING. On the real battlefield, you have only one life. Unless your survival or that of your teammates depends on it, you don't go charging into situations that get you killed. Gaming of course - we're all invincible - with unlimited lives. So I like the realism of max skill level, except when it becomes stupid.

    The Russian sniper versus sniper was a huge test of my patience and perseverance, but I finally beat it when I changed the sound settings by turning off voice, so I couldn't hear the Russian guy screaming at me. Hahahaha. But it was realistic - more or less.

    But I restarted WAW, because they put me in an unrealistic position, just to create something REALLY CHALLENGING. The setup was at the beginning of a cave where the Japanese were dug in. The room started as a narrow corridor, opening to a bigger room, then from that branching off to the right, was a larger room where they were all defending, with automatic weapons.

    I had used all my smoke, and perhaps I should have restarted the level to save my smoke, and at the same time save all my BAR ammo. I tried the sniper rifle, then laying prone with the Garand, then the Japanese 99, the 100 model, the trench gun, all of them, because I was down to only 18 rounds with the BAR. But the unrealistic setup finally ticked me off after a couple hours and 50 tries.

    The only soldier with me who knew what he was doing was the sergeant, who from time to time, leaned out from the first corridor, and blasted away at the one Jap who had entered the large room, and was behind the big box, peeking out from time to time firing ferociously. We could kill him with a grenade, and then get a little rest before his replacement would jump to that box in about 10 seconds. During that lull, I tossed several grenades and moved in, and turned on fire, but the room was large and the room to the right was wide, and there were at least a half dozen auto weapons guys in there firing like mad.

    Several times I was able to get close enough to the main room to burn 3 of the auto weapons guys, before a couple of others would shoot from a flanking position through the flames and kill me. Nobody from my side was in there by then to help while this was going on - especially the grizzled sergeant who should have been covering me. Obviously that is not real life.

    The guys who DID run into the main room, while I was in the corridor planning my next move, were rookies who were quickly killed - their bodies littered the floor. That is bullsh*t and is not how the marines work. I know there were a bunch of fresh recruits in the Pacific, called "7 day wonders who don't last very long" from Medal of Honor-Pacific Assault, with the attack on Makin. But still, give me a break. The way the Marines really work, is more like in the Band of Brothers games, with fire teams and assault teams - it's more real life.

    There is something called "covering fire." Every friggin guy who was ever in a battle since the Civil War knows that. Even COD2 and COD4 give you more support from teammates - and their max skill situations aren't so unrealistically contrived.

    Several guys should have helped out at the mouth of the main room and provided covering fire, and even better, grenaded the hell out of the right angle corridor to give me support. There should have been several guys shooting like hell when I was burning the three guys who jumped out.


    WAW CROSSED THE LINE BETWEEN CHALLENGE AND BOREDOM

    Challenge finally turned to total boredom, and the ridiculous setup - watching those rookies rush in and get their heads blown off - finally me pissed off. That, plus I had been up all night again, and I was cranky, hahaha.

    And the other stupid thing, is that by then I had realized that friendly fire was turned off - the guys would rush right into my flames in earlier sections. At first I turned off the flame, which got me killed lots of times. Finally I said to myself, "If these idiots are so stupid as to rush into my flames, let them be burned up too." That's when I saw that the fire had no effect on them, only killing the Japanese.

    I do not like games with friendly fire turned off, because it builds very bad habits. That's why L4D and L4D2 on expert are so good - friendly fire is catastrophic, the way it should be - more realistic!

    So basically I had lost respect for the integrity of the realism of the game, and had become super bored with this new challenge, and the graphics in that cave did not inspire me to put up with any more pain. I restarted at less than super high skill level called hardcore. I know you're laughing Sam, because you said it would "grate," and you were right.

    My final thoughts were - "The game doesn't have quick save - so I can't save my best initial effort, and build on that. Even if I get through this, and probably I can figure it out in another 3 hours, or restart the level and save a couple of my smokes, how many more unrealistic situations are they going to try to put me in to maximize my boredom?"

    And on top of that, I thought - "Sam warned me about this game, having watched his housemate. Am I having fun any more? What am I trying to prove? I already beat the sniper at highest skill level, that was proof enough that I can get through just about any goddamn thing if I am so bullheaded that I refuse to give up."

    Hahahaha.

    Plus while the Russian main battle offensive was very difficult, grenades everywhere, the scenery was unbelievably gorgeous. But by contrast, the scenery in the cave was friggin horrendous. I don't mind you laughing, Sam, you saved me from hours and hours of sheer boredom - I can just imagine what more crap they had in store for me. The way you had described it kept coming back to me and I thought, "Oh no!"

    Now Sam, if you have read this whole post, and if you just read that part there - tell me now. Does your housemate know the spot I was talking about? - and did he beat that one spot I was just describing? - and did he get all the way through the game on highest skill level?

    If he actually did, if he actually suffered through all the hours of "grating" you warned me about, well then by God, you can tell him from me that he's a better man than I am, and I'll buy him a beer next time I swing by. LOL

    Rich
     
  4. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Hell Rich, if you ALWAYS play with headphones on, go for that beast of a fan. But make sure you can control it when you're not gaming ;) I've thought about those powerful fans before, but I wouldn't use them now. I've had 1900Rpm fans that sound like blow dryers! I can only imagine what a 220Cfm fan sounds like. "Jet engine" indeed ;) My secondary PC loves how I have it set up. A 140mm fan on top exhausting at a LOW rpm, a 120mm intake at 1200Rpms(Scythe), and the stock exhaust fan. It's more quiet than my primary and OC'd to 3.5Ghz, it never breaks 47-50C. This is a mid tower full to the keel mind you ;)

    Oh! That could be merely the Northbridge(Mobo) temp too! The cpu is generally lower on my PC's...
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2010
  5. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    I think the shaders were slightly better in COD5, but I think that owes more to location than the game itself. 'Wet Work' on COD4 was a good looking map, but it was the only part of COD4 that dropped out of crossfire (same problem that's prevalent with COD5 and COD6). Turning AA on dropped the frame rate from 140 to 25.

    I get what you're saying about 'The Way it's meant to be played' but as it happens, it's merely an indicator that nvidia have had some hand in the game's development. In many cases, though, games that aren't TWIMTBP run better on ATI hardware, and those that don't display the TWIMTBP logo are a Geforce owners' club.

    If that single exhaust fan you had was 2500rpm, you'd know about it. Very few systems are specified with 120mm fans that fast.
    The best thing you can do for a graphics card is install a side fan low down in the case.
    Lol, perhaps you forget I'm using six (well, now five) 1900rpm Slipstream fans? They put out a hell of a racket, but QuadCF demands it. Well, it does when you use a chipset, and when you have a GPU cooler that appears to be blocked by dust :S
    1. You need to run it via a molex, if you hook it up to anything that uses a 3-pin, you will melt it in a matter of hours.
    2. You will hear it through the headphones.
    3. The amount of air that can go in the case is limited by how much air can get out. If your rear fan isn't this powerful, its a waste.
    He has absolutely no idea what he's talking about :p

    Crysis is absolutely devastated by reducing the detail, it looks very mediocre if you play it how I did (low shadows, low shaders).

    According to Steam I've played 103 hours of Left 4 Dead 2, I think the monitor came into being shortly after L4D2 came out, so I suspect it's more like 120-130.
    Left 4 Dead 1 I'd hazard a guess at around 200 hours playtime, maybe 250-300.
    I've only played 15 hours of Bad Company 2 so far, along with 12 hours of Modern Warfare 2 (lol, got my money's worth there, didn't I? :S) and 12 hours of Half Life 2 Deathmatch (again, monitor system, I suspect this is more like 30-40)

    Apart from the fact that Left 4 Dead doesn't really need any additional marketing, I'd probably hazard against that, it's too complicated. A game that is obviously about killing zombies will earn more sales than one that has a lengthy sales pitch like that. Remember, not all gamers make their decisions like we do!


    Heh, I don't live with Nick any more, and though I do speak to him on occasions, I don't know if he finished the game, I'm pretty sure he did.
    All I know is the section that was causing him so much grief was in a sort of trench structure, with you in the trench and enemies in front and on both sides.
     
  6. harvrdguy

    harvrdguy Regular member

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    Kevin, that sounds very good. I thought you had a HAF like Sam and Red? Am I confused?

    Yeah, you don't live with him any more cause he died trying to get through that game. Jeeez - you scared me off - and it was the trench part, which comes BEFORE the terrible cave? Hahahaha. Yeah, that was hard, at first, then I threw extra smoke, and it made it easy.

    I went back to the cave that was giving me fits - of course this time on hardcore, not on the HARDEST setting, and it was still hard. But they give away two 99s - the Japanese automatic rifle with 2/1 scope - and it is a very damaging gun - the blood flies through the air when you hit - must be a big bullet. Anyway, they give that away at two little caves just before the BAD one - so sometimes that's a clue. Anyway, with that again, and again in prone, I finally managed to get through the difficult section, and of course I hit it with a full night's sleep - I think that made a lot of difference. So it really wasn't as terrible as I was telling myself.

    Surprisingly the sniper versus sniper was pretty hard the second time, at reduced skill setting. Not a walk in the park at all - but the next sniper nightmare did not have the two dogs - but I could have handled them on that back table - I was ready. So I could tell things had been slightly tweaked down - they basically give you more health, and reduce the amount and intensity of grenades. And I even did not kill the driver of the General's getaway car - for some reason he started out just as I finished reloading. But I took a couple shots as the car went down the road, and I killed the General, hahaha. The Russian says "GOOD SHOT, HEH HEH" It WAS a goddamn good shot - he was right! :p

    I saved up my smoke this time, and I saved the BAR, but like I say I didn't even go back for the BAR - I ended up using the 99 on the horrendous cave, and I got to like it (that zoom is nice) and I used it many places later in the game. It has a real solid feeling to each shot - probably an AK heavy shell, low rate of fire, very damaging kill, coupled with slight zoom - monster weapon. The blood flies!! Haha!

    So are you guys saying that COD5 might be somewhat optimized for nvidia, and that's why it's looking so good to me right now - I mean I have to tell you - it's friggin GORGEOUS!!!

    By the way, I wasn't saying "The way it's meant to be played" as if I had just converted to an Nvidia fanboy - don't get me wrong. I was just saying that the logo itself has meaning to me - like you just said, Sam, Crysis turned down goes to sh*t in terms of the quality of the image - so my point is Why even play it if it doesn't look good?

    I mean, if you have the future potential to be able to play it maxed, then play it at that time, that's what I'm sayin. I remember Sam when you told Jeff, "Crysis doesn't look that good." Well, you had a more powerful machine than he had, but you were pushing twice as many pixels, so he was running it at higher settings.

    I remember he told you that you had to crank it up to higher quality. Later you got your monster hardware, then you started to appreciate the game. So I guess I'm saying - it's not Nvidia - but it's a good logo. I like the meaning of the logo - and I guess I'm giving nvidia a little break, because the 8800 is working so well form me right now - and I recall that Jeff has a fondness for that card as well. But for sure, I am loving the graphics of WAW, and Far Cry 2 as well. And not just the graphics of Far Cry 2 - I like the zebras, I like the antelopes, I like to drive around in the middle of them running, although I really don't like to accidentally hit one, and have it lay there dead in the road, lol. I swear, it was an accident. Ok, one time only I did it on purpose. :p

    Actually yes, Sam, I knew that the old days of "Silent Sam" as they used to call you, were well behind you, hahaha. But the reputation lingers anyway. Hey, I don't fault you one bit with all the turmoil you went through making quad cf work - you deserve a break today! MacDonalds! Great slogan! Reminds me of another one: "Coop teamplay that builds friendships like no other game!" Haha.

    I know that you can no longer hear a pin drop.

    Okay, the 4500 rpm is probably overkill - although I disagree with what you said about if I don't have an equally strong rear exhaust it will be waste. Even if I have no fan at all - it will blow air out the back, then it will blow the sides off the case!!!

    And I guess the rear exhaust is probably more like 1200, or 1600 tops given the whoosh sound - I believe my 1900 is noisier. So what kama bay fan will I NOT be able to hear through the headphones while the Russian is screaming at me "He knows where you are, change locations!" hahaha. What about 3300 rpm?

    I just looked up best cfm/db ratio, and they said scythe kaze - I know you also like that fan Sam. The 1900 rpm puts out 37 db and 110 cfm. Are you thinking that's more like what I should do? But in regard to your suggestion about a side case fan for the graphics area - remember it's a loaner case.

    Won't a REALLY strong front fan, something on the order of 150 cfm, say, and 55 db, say (1/10 as loud as 65 db, right?) blow enough air that it will slip down past the gpu card (my case is 8" wide - a full inch wider than my old case) and help with the lower part of the case?

    Alright, HERE'S THE ULTRA KAZE. Now maybe this is the ticket. Drop another 10 db, down to ONLY 45, lol. It's not quite 150 cfm, but it is almost 134 cfm, and only 0.6 amp, or 7 watts, so no need for a molex - nothing's gonna melt. Sam, you have 5 fans at 1900 - you must have at least 45 db of sound by now, right?

    Come on, I know you like Kaze. I know you like this fan, confess!

    [​IMG]


    Hahaha - you don't think it's time for me to get into marketing? You are not all that impressed with my "builds friendships like no other" L4D2 or L4D3 campaign? Hahaha. Watch out - I sent the email to Gabe anyway, he'll probably hire me.

    The only problem is that I identified myself as trouble maker Sam Morris, who makes guys reduce their skill level and replay the whole first part of a game, as soon as the going gets tough. My marine training (which I never had) failed me - I should have said "No way am I going to quit, Sam, remember, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going!'" :p

    LOL

    Actually I think it's maybe a good rule to play the game first, and one level under max, then later when you want to come back to it - ok go for max. That way, if there are any ridiculous tests in it - like the silo sniping game in COD2 - you can be ready. For COD2 you could select your skill level for each chapter. So when I got to the silo, I went back and dropped the skill level down one click - I didn't feel like spending an hour trying to get past that one point.

    But for a game like Far Cry 2 with Quick Save - it's not such a bad idea to try for max skill level - I already tested out the lumber yard and no problem.

    For example, Half life 2, it wasn't so easy shooting down both of those combine fighters at the jail - but Quick save allowed me to get one finished off, then go for the other.

    Hey, speaking of Half Life 2, the other real hard spot was in the crazy turret test, where you have 3 turrets, and you need 4. You guys remember that spot, just before Alyx hooks up with you again, and says "It must have been brutal" Yeah, bit*h, were you getting your nails done? Haha. I kid. I would NEVER talk that way to Alyx. Anway, I digress - So I read a guide that said "carry the turret with you" all the way through two sections, just for that one part. Half Life 2 lets you set your skill level anyhere in the game, at any time. I actually had to drop to easy to beat it with 3 turrets - before I used my brain.

    There are boxes everywhere. I got the brilliant idea of stacking them all on the back wall to block the view of the combine. It worked! The idiots didn't even try to shoot the boxes down, somehow I knew that they wouldn't do that. So I beat that on full skill level with three turrets.

    I should send an email to the guy who wrote that guide - "Hello idiot!" Just kidding!

    So Sam, you only played 12 hours of COD6 - Miles told me the same - actually he only played 6 hours of it (probably on easy) and then took it off his computer (he gets all steam games for free) to make room for other stuff. But he sounded pretty impressed when he told me about it - he doesn't really play games normally. I'm sure you'll revisit it several times again. Play it at max hardness next time, like Shaff and I did with COD4, or maybe you already did.

    I'm gonna buy it - it will be cheaper by the time I get around to it - just because it's the latest from the group that used to be Infinity Ward, so it's pretty much a must-have game, if you're into shooters. I have heard that it's short - but great - so of course I'll get it.

    Hey, I was able to enable a monitor in the middle of the screen at 1920x1200. The other day I thought I would have to report failure, because my nvidia kept rejecting the "no scaling" choice. But today I loaded new graphics drivers. They came with some incredibly huge 130 mega byte Nvidia performance measuring program which was a prerequisite to a gpu-load riva tuner plugin. The plugin never worked, and gpu-z can't even read the gpu load from that card, so all the extra nvidia programming got removed. But now the driver "do not scale" button works, so the pain of the last 3 hours was worth it!

    So soon I will most likely take up the suggestion from you guys to try some of the harder programs, most especially BC2 that you guys are all in love with!! I guess that's the one I'll start with - does that sound like a good idea?!!

    Rich
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2010
  7. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Rich, here's a side shot of my secondary PC. This is my workhorse LOL! It does most of my BD/avi-dvd encoding. My primary is exactly that. Gaming, browsing, etc. It does everything that my secondary does, however faster ;)
    [​IMG]
    Here's a top shot of its light. When the panel is on, I have a 1200Rpm Scythe drawing the air into the case. Even running at 90% cpu usage right now. Its barely louder than my primary. Since It's doing such a good job cooling the CPU, the stock CPU fan doesn't need to do 4,000+ rpms. I've seen it do 5500. Which is why I modified the case. Best move I've done to it, was to install the 140mm fan on top :D Pulls heat out of the case quite nicely!
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2010
  8. harvrdguy

    harvrdguy Regular member

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    Hey Kevin, you did a pretty good job on that top hole - it looks better than most of the holes I have made. So your ceiling exhaust solved the cpu heat problem - I read some case reviews and ceiling exhaust cases had the coolest cpus. So that is your secondary - you DO have a HAF, right? The HAF is your gaming machine?

    I am just finishing up several hours of testing, and that's probably the end of my gaming until the next gaming weekend.

    By going to Mission select to get missions where the graphics had impressed me, I found out that COD5 has a chapter by chapter skill level. Instead of just selecting continue, choose mission select, and I think it even gives you the very mission you are on - and then set the skill level. So after Sam faked me out by getting me all worried, now I'm back to veteran, which makes it more challenging. If I ever get to a crazy part, I can go to mission select, and just shift down to hardcore.

    The reason I was choosing missions, is that I found, that with the new drivers, which fortunately made it possible for me to run the 23" monitor in the middle of my screen, somehow the game didn't look as good as it did yesterday. Then I remembered that when I first got the 880GTX board last week, I had opened the nvidia control panel, and ran the optimization routine.

    So tonight, remembering that, I went in, turned contrast to max, slightly reduced brightness, increased saturation just a little, and then went through their gamma adjustments on red, green and blue. Then I went back into the game, and the image was unbelievable again, just like I've been raving about in the last couple of posts. Without the color adjustment, and the gamma adjustment, I never would have been talking about the great unbelievable image quality.

    Maybe those same adjustments have been available all along through the ati control panel, but I just never knew about it. I always thought the L4D colors were great - but I never was all that much impressed with COD4 - it looked good of course - but I don't remember it looking this good.

    The gamma for colors is a way of lining up what you see so it approximates what is dithered - they say it's best if the image is slightly out of focus - you're trying to get the same hue as the dithered.

    Anyway, I was really impressed with what happened to the image when I messed with the the color adjustments, so I spent a little time playing around with it, then going back into the game, then back to the adjustments, back and forth. I intentionally overdid saturation a bit, saw how that looked, then toned it down, and I liked the toned-down version better - leaving it still somewhat more saturated than default.

    I found that the smaller 23" image, 1920x1200, also at first did not look good. That was disappointing. But it also didn't make sense, because I wasn't stretching the image, just using a subset of about 55% of all the pixels that the monitor has. But then I did the adjustments, and it looked great! Just like the full screen 2560x1600.

    I played WAW for a couple hours, stuff that I have already done, and I got totally used to playing in the 23" monitor space. I see it's going to work perfectly for BC2. I doubt the 8800GTX will handle BC2, at 1920x1200, from what you guys have said, but a 5850 or 5870 probably will.

    That is a certainly a great idea you guys came up with. I'll play the stuff my hardware runs now in 2560x1600, or in 1920x1200, and I won't expand the pixels - no question the sharpness suffers greatly, and the crispness of the image is a big factor in overall image quality. No wonder Left 4 Dead 2 looks so good now - I can play it 2560x1600, but I've been playing it 1440x900, on the same size screen stretched out! The screen does a great job of expanding it, the colors are great, but the crispness suffers.

    This way I won't have to wait forever to play the great games - BC2 being the main case in point - the next graphics card should get me there.

    Lastly I just learned a huge lesson: When I go back to an ati card, I'm going to have to make sure that I figure out how to enhance the image, the way that I just did, through contrast, saturation, brightness (less bright) and most of all, gamma on the three primary colors, red, green, and blue. Thank you 8800 card for teaching me that.

    By the way, even though I couldn't get the gpu load to show up in the On Screen Display (OSD) the way that you get it with ATT - I'm sure I don't need it, we pretty much know the 8800GTX is running at near 100% because I'm running less than about 35 fps most of the time. So what I'm saying is, I'm sure that the gpu load is 100%. But I can see all core utilization, and cpu load runs around 35% on pretty much each of the cores - I wasn't looking at it too closely, but it looked like all the cores were working.

    Anyway, it looks like for sure the Q9450 has lots of head room on the cpu - and I haven't even overclocked it yet. So after southern islands hits, you guys can help me figure out what kind of big step up in gpu power will make sense for first or second quarter of next year, keeping in mind that it's an x38 crossfire board and that I should plan, eventually, to run two gpus.

    Rich
     
  9. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    No, I didn't say anything about COD5 being optimised for nvidia. Indeed, the 8 series was renowned for cutting corners to reduce the image quality for the sake of performance.
    All I said about COD5 was Crossfire doesn't work properly.

    Is why I haven't played it since my original runthrough on the 3870, I'm waiting until I can max it. Same for Warhead, though that will no doubt take longer.

    I'll explain why I said "Crysis doesn't look that good" - and it's not because I couldn't run it maxed.
    I say it because it is largely inconsistent (Warhead is better for this) - certain textures are great, others are awful. The fact the game essentially doesn't support AA doesn't help matters either.
    The main argument though, is despite having a performance index of about 30-35, versus the 5-6 of COD4: Modern Warfare, it doesn't look anywhere near 5 times as good, it's too demanding for how good it looks.

    Remember I also played Crysis for a bit on my X1900XT, maxed out, at 800x600. The same comments hold true there.

    They aren't, I still focus silence for my gaming PC at idle, as do I with my fileserver. I just need to get some more fan controllers.
    I'd hold it up that, depending on what mood the Samsung drive is in, my gaming PC is quieter than anyone else's in this thread, when it's idling.

    Lol. Seriously Rich, unless your case has several air vents in it, it will literally just wear the fan out, and do nothing.

    No, I dislike the Scythe Ultra Kaze considerably. It's got the highest CFM output, but it is a high-pressure fan, which you don't need for a case fan, and it's CFM/dB ratio is awful compared to the SlipStream.
    Ultra high speed fans also do not scale. That fan will grind and buzz and annoy the hell out of you even at such a slow speed it doesn't push any air at all. You can't run really high speed fans at low speeds and them be quiet, it just doesn't happen. Is the same reason why SPCR never reviewed a Delta.

    Think about how airflow works Rich. Why is air going to go down towards the graphics card, when it has no way to get out? It'll bumble around in there, colliding with turbulence, which will cause everything to actually get warmer and just be a really terrible way of cooling your PC.

    You have three real options:
    1. Cut a hole and add a side fan
    2. Live with high temperatures
    3. Use something that's less hot and heat-sensitive than an 8800GTX (Say for example, an HD5850 :p)



    Also remember Rich, Ultra Kazes are 38mm thick fans. They interfere with big heatsinks etc.


    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I2NSKSE1

    Here's a link to me playing around with the noise levels of my PC, and two files demonstrating the noise of my server from different microphone positions (front: against the front intake fan. Side: against the CPU-side wall)
    Note: the cheap mic I use picks up a lot of background noise, so it may be difficult to determine how quiet the PC is.
    At the end of the 'noise testing' file I switch the A/C unit on. So that should highlight the differences :p


    Coming up next, my response to Rich's second post! :O
     
  10. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    That's interesting to see Kevin, as a friend of mine has a similar looking case and has performed a near-identical modification to it, though he used two 120mm fans and placed a mesh grille over the top of it, it looks really professional.

    They were. Colour control, Saturation and Hue have been in Catalyst for at least 5 years.

    The 3007WFP has no scaler remember, it's the graphics card doing the scaling, not the monitor.

    Considering I'm still using a Q9550 in my gaming machine until I get round to swapping the i5 back (will probably do it once I've moved back to York), you're fine with a 9450 for a while yet.
     
  11. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Sam, I don't think it came with a grill. I want to finish it to look more professional, but darn it. Why? I don't show it off very often, I'm not gonna drop anything in there. And it's highly unlikely that I'll sell it. It serves me too well. Pluss the side modification doesn't look very good. I guess I could probably buy a new side panel somewhere, and try again. The top could look a little better. But it's totally agreeable. The cut was rather rough to start out if you look closely. But I learned while using the tin snips how to do a cleaner cut. Difficult to explain though :S

    Rich, the HAF is my gaming machine. Though the 8600GT in my secondary served me well as well. It could handle some older games with little trouble. Yah, I figured since heat rises, a top exhaust fan would be a very efficient way of removing heat. Even at low Rpms. I think it runs about 800Rpms. Virtually silent. The case is rather small to support 2 fans on top. So I didn't do that. I don't believe 2 x 120 would work. The PSU and 5.25 bays are too close. Its a mid tower case. I love the HAF. I love ALL large cases LOL!
     
  12. shaffaaf

    shaffaaf Regular member

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    whats the general word on the gts450?
     
  13. DXR88

    DXR88 Regular member

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    Whahahhahahahahahaha...HOHOHOHOHOHO....HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!!!! okay i'm done.
     
  14. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    not done enough as still to rare, how about a lightning strike to make you well done?
     
  15. shaffaaf

    shaffaaf Regular member

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    haha, im sure he won't just blurt random unhelpful crap next time.

    seems to be priced well to close to a GTX460 768mb IMO
     
  16. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3909/nvidias-geforce-gts-450-pushing-fermi-in-to-the-mainstream
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2010
  17. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    GTS450 places nvidia firmly in the bad books once again.
    The TDP of it is way higher than the HD5770, yet it only performs the same as an HD5750. The GTX460 is so cheap now, nvidia are competing with themselves, and somehow managing to lose!
    I'd recommend the GTX460 over the GTS450 in a heartbeat. If you want something cheaper than the GTX460, buy an HD5750. Job done.

    In fact, the GTS450 is basically an HD4850, it uses about that much power, and is pretty much exactly that fast. Would you pay £100 for an HD4850 that could do DX11?
    Would you pay £100 for an HD4850 that could do DX11, when you could pay £90 for an HD5750?
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2010
  18. DXR88

    DXR88 Regular member

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    sure if you feel up to it. just check your ban button before you press it.
     
  19. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    The article seems to compare it to the 5770...
     
  20. DXR88

    DXR88 Regular member

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    it probably could be compared to it, in some games.
     

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