The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

I'm using 11.5b (upgraded from 10.11), and regret it to an extent because of the poxy cursor anti-corruption code, which they were supposed to optimise in it but are leaving for 11.6 (who knows, it may slip another year). RTS games are hard when you can't pan the screen with the mouse

 

ahh single card gaming, no problems. at the same time, no power

 

Again, have yet to experience anything like mouse corruption :S

 

It's a known issue that affects single and dual GPUs in roughly 50% of cases, has been an issue since the HD5 series was first released in 2009, when it manifested itself first as an enlarged cursor, then latterly (2010) as a corrupted cursor. As of 10.12, a corrupted cursor workaround was used, but this reduces the frame rate of all activity (2D or 3D) to 3fps if the pointer is within so many pixels of the screen edge at the offending corners (top-right, bottom-right). It can be fixed in windows if you disable mouse shadows, but not in game, you just have to suffer it.

 

Warning, long post!

Okay so I've been lazy lately and I have a few mini-reviews to get out the door. This time, something fairly new. The Witcher 2 and Operation Flashpoint: Red River. Both great games.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River

So this game is basically a direct sequel to OF: Dragon Rising on the same engine. I am going to be basing my review on the single player portion of the game.

Graphics: 7.5/10

Up close Red River is nothing special. Comparable to say CoD4:MW1, which definitely isn't bad, but it's a very wee bit behind the times. It makes up for this though with plenty of fireworks, outstanding draw distances, and beautiful, if a bit sparse, landscapes. Overall it's very nice to look at but I found the graphics to be the most disappointing aspect of the game. The textures are a bit "meh" and the whole thing reeks of consolitis. That said, the draw distances ARE very nice, and the game itself looks polished, if a bit bland. If the textures were a bit nicer it would be an awesome looking game.

The one great redeeming factor of Red River and the place where it truly excels over Dragon Rising is field of view. It's 75 vs the previous 60, which was like looking down a forested hallway and gave me motion sickness after a few hours. It would be nice to adjust it wider, say 90, but the engine apparently isn't capable of those kinds of tweaks.

Performance: 5/10

This game is effing demanding. Maxed out with 4xAA puts me between 30 and 65FPS. Averaging say 50 in combat which is quite playable but with frequent dips and intermittent choppiness. Considering my pixel pitch I can still get away quite beautifully with 2xAA which bumps me up to 60FPS average and ranging between 40 and 70. 2xAA is way more playable. Two 6850s in Crossfire should not be having problems maxing this game. I suspect Crossfire scaling is to blame according to google and another driver release or Crossfire Application Profile will be putting me in far better stead. This also happened with Dragon Rising and was fixed maybe a month later. I also hear of Nvidia users getting better results. I may try renaming the Exe to Grid or Dirt 2 as those games run on the same 3D engine.

Gameplay: 9/10

This is where Red River truly shines. It is a huge upgrade from Dragon Rising in every way. The missions have some actual scripting now, which vastly increases the action and excitement. I do miss the tactical freedom of the first game, and the range of movement and sense of scale it afforded you. The events in Red River are on a much grander scale than the first game though. The levels are also very large and very long. One mission is roughly a straight hour of holding off huge hordes of enemy troops and tanks, fighting tooth and nail to hold every inch of ground. Falling back to other positions is entirely scripted. And the final defense before and extraction chopper finally shows up is just epic. I felt truly accomplished when I completed this mission on normal difficulty. It was just that awesome. That's what Dragon Rising needed, was scripting, and Red River answered the call.

The ballistics are all true-to-life and the gunplay is tight. Be prepared to miss a lot though because realistic ballistics means hit delay, bullet drop and wind direction. And forget sniping with pistols like in Dragon rising, they're useless after about 25 yards. Though they pack a heavy and appropriate wallop in close quarters.

The command radial has been slightly improved, and your soldiers are now much more responsive. The orders are much more context sensitive in this game so you find that you have exactly what you need at right the moments. You can order your troops to clear or fortify buildings, use mounted weapons, mount vehicles, etc. There's also an overhead map with a very good range of control as well, even allowing to command your squad to heal an out-of-sight teammate which is useful when spread out during a firefight. There is a similar command radial for calling in support fire, which is usable in conjunction with a scope or binoculars. You rarely get to use it, but it's soooo worth it when you do

The AI squad mates can feel a bit like babysitting at times, but they hold their own fairly well and take cover, heal buddies, etc appropriately. Sometimes they can be a bit sluggish, or move to the wrong side of cover, but once you understand the tolerances of the command system they're pretty useful. They are pretty responsive to commands too so just keep a tight track of them and keep up with the level scripting and they have a pretty decent survivability. They even ended up saving me a couple of times in heavy duty combat which is gratifying.

Sometimes it can get a bit hectic with all these commands and options, and it can be hard to keep track of the current objective with events happening so quickly. Your squad mates are also a bit dumb until you get a hang of how the commands affect them. And the game itself is exceedingly hard. But these are the only real faults I can pick at.

Sound: 8/10

The sound is also nothing to write home about. I often find the weapon effects lacking that certain punch and weight but the distance effects, surround effects, explosions etc are all very well done and add to the immersion. The dialogue I found to be excellent which was unexpected for a gameplay model so "experimental" compared to previous efforts in the series, ie scripted and with an actual story.

Overall: 8/10

I found Red River to be a very satisfying and complete sequel to Dragon Rising. The gameplay, graphics, action, coding, etc are all a serious step or two up in quality. I wanted to try this game for kicks and it really surprised me. It has a few shortcomings but the game is more dated than lacking in quality. Anyone into serious tactical military shooters should give Red River a look.

The Witcher 2

The Witcher 2 is a very deep action RPG and a direct story sequel to The Witcher.

Graphics: 10/10

The Witcher 2 is basically one of the prettiest games I have ever played in my life. The textures, models, lighting, animation, everything is just absolutely superb. The environments are varied, colorful, and richly detailed. Not to mention vast. The shading is excellent and the in-engine cutscenes look like a pre-render. Just out of this world attention to detail. The Witcher 2 is basically the best looking game released since Crysis Warhead IMO.

Performance: 7.5/10

Despite the mindblowing graphics, The Witcher 2 manages to maintain a fairly steady framerate on my rig. There are a few performance sucking options I disabled right away. In-game depth of field(the cutscenes still have it) and motion blur, both of which tank the framerate and quite simply are unneeded in this sort of game. All maxed with no AA I manage 50-70FPS running around and maybe 40-60 in combat which is all quite fluid and playable even in intense action. AA isn't too sorely needed due to some clever visual tricks used by the developers and due to my own pixel density(hehe).

There was some initial struggle getting Crossfire working with the game and even some annoying visual bugs until Catalyst 11.6 came out, but the game has never run better since the update.

I would rate this game lower for performance but it just looks so damn pretty that it's actually amazingly well optimised in comparison.

Gameplay 8/10:

The Witcher 2 has improved in every area from combat to scripting to simply moving around. Gone are the awkward and jerky timed button presses for melee attacks to be replaced with a more "hack-n-slash" style approach. Enemies are varied and challenging so the combat never feels too arcadey or cheap. The main character moves around with graceful, fluid animations and uses some pretty brutal finishers. The combat is bloody and satisfying.

Dialog has been improved as well. The conversations are more dynamic, sometimes answers are even time-sensitive to the given moment. The developers really help immerse you by blurring the line between good and evil. There are no overtly good or bad choices. Only your personal sense of right and wrong to guide you. The story is amazing as well.

The only thing I can truly fault in the gameplay is the still terrible inventory and item system. There are about 15 different categories of items where there should be like 7 or 8 and the actual item list is about 3 or 4 objects viewable at a time. Kinda PC un-friendly for a PC exclusive eh? Also, it's sometimes confusing as to what actual item you have highlighted. Those two points were docked solely because of the menus. Also, WTF about not being able to use potions in combat, though it does drive you to create better potions.

I will add the the game controls much more smoothly with an Xbox controller. Keyboard and mouse are quite suited to the game but they put special effort into making it work well on an Xbox controller. This definitely being a PC exclusive game, that was an unexpected but pleasant addition.

Sound: 9/10

Where to begin... well the music is amazingly well written and very stirring at times. Like Lord of the Rings good. I find myself relaxing in safe areas and tensing up in dungeons all based on the music and how it reacts to the game. It is very atmospheric and appropriate to the situations. The Witcher 2 has one of the strongest soundtracks I have ever heard.

The dialog and voice acting are all top-notch. The game is very well written with a lot of attention to detail and the actors do it much justice. There are a few half-hearted performances but overall easily movie quality.

All the sound effects are very well done and the violence is satisfyingly crunchy and gruesome to hear.

Overall: 10/10

Not much more to say. The Witcher 2 is one of the most beautiful, detailed and professionally made games ever. It is an instant classic and easily one of the best RPGs of all time.

 

The Witcher 2 looks interesting. I'm usually not into RPG games, but that one does look very worthwhile.

 

Ok. A real easy one. I have a FS amilo S 3535A which has an onboard graphics card - GeForce 9200GS.
I see a slot on the motherboard for what I believe to be for graphics but I haven't managed to find which card I upgrade to or if an upgrade is even possible.
All tips appreciated.

Thanks
Steve

 

This appears to be a slimline desktop with a compact PSU. This limits you to basic slimline cards, which while an upgrade from the 9200GS, are quite expensive and far from top-of-the-range. The relatively low-speed CPU will also hold you back if you're looking to play top end games.

 

High end gaming isn't priority. But have noticed it has issues with smooth video playback, mainly HD files.
What options would I be looking at?
Thanks for the swift reply

 

A number of reasons can cause lack of smoothness. A busy hard drive, slow processor, dodgy powersupply. It's really tough to say.

You could even have a codec issue.

 

You should be able to get a slimline HD5570 or similar that would handle video playback fine.

 

Ok. Thanks.
I have 3gb of ram with the maximum assigned to the card. I have dsl with 24mb down and 8mb up (theoretically)

 

total available ram is 1535mb, dedicated ram: 512mb DDR2, system video ram: 512mb, shared system ram: 511mb.

these are the options for the card, does it matter which brand? (Aus, Gigabyte etc)
being a new user i can't post the link: verkkokauppa.com/fi/s?s=1&q=HD5570&submit=Hae

 

Heads up! Crytek just released the Dx11 enhancement patch, advanced graphics menu and High-resolution texture pack. Just about 2GB of pure additional content being added. This is not a maintenance update, this is the real thing. And Crysis 2 now looks absolutely astounding. Just an incredible improvement!

It's a given that it runs badly but not much worse say than the original

Thank you Crytek for pushing the envelope once again! You have restored some of my lost faith!

 

Good thing I haven't started the game yet! But where's room for Duke Nukem Forever, Bulletstorm and F3AR?

 

i need the graphic card which can play Hitman 5, GTA 6 and COD 4.. Please Suggest me any series of G-Force or any other..

 

What's your screen size? How well do you want to play those games, and what's your budget? What's the spec of the rest of your system - all of these are necessary to know before we can suggest a graphics card for those games.

 

Hey guys one quick question here

Where does the HD6870 ranks vs 2 HD5770 ?
http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_558&item_id=034755

 

The HD6870 is better than two HD5770s, as while the 5770s can equal the 6870 in some games, that will not be true of all of them, and with the single 6870 you don't suffer the other disadvantages of crossfire.