The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

i'm just going to wait till the higher clocked AMD quads are out. only three things i can think of that an 8 core processor is any good for is a Server or a Security System or the typical E-peen Nerd that opens 30 different programs just because they can.

I want a processor that focuses on the task at hand, and to accomplish that task as fast as it can, adding more cores is not the answer to that solution. Now if they took the cores and paired them in 2's then end result could be impressive. like crossfire only with CPU cores.

 

I was under the impression, that GPU's do so well, because they have multiple(Hundreds) of stream processors/cores. There's nothing wrong with a consumer buying an octo-core cpu. It is however wrong, if said consumer does not have the software to utilize such technology. Unfortunately, there aren't enough programs that support 2 cores, let alone 4/6/8 cores

 

Something is indeed about to happen, the 2700K is coming out. 100mhz increase for the same price. Just Intel securing their territory after Bulldozer appeared.

Exactly why we have separate graphics cards in the first place - CPUs need to carry out linear processing - B relies on the outcome of A. You can't use multiple cores in a lot of things because what one core does relies on what the other core is doing to finish first. Parallel processing is more suited to graphics, hence the graphics card.

As it happens DXR, cores paired in twos is exactly how Bulldozer is designed underneath - 4 modules with 2 cores each. Clearly it hasn't worked.

 

This discussion of multiple cpu cores is very interesting.

But nothing is as interesting right now as RAGE, which, at least for this week, I am totally addicted to, with two all-nighters. Thanks Jeff. (This was one of your best picks, like the OF titles.)

In all sincerity, the game is totally awesome, and even blows away Mafia 2 which is quite nice in its own right.

I have heard it said before that John Carmack is a genius - if there were any doubt, no longer. Keep in mind, this is the same Carmack of ID in Texas, who originated the fps genre, the same Carmack who created Quake, yes and the same John Carmack who licensed his Quake engine to the unknown Gabe Newell, who used it to power the revolutionary 1998 bombshell Half Life.

And in this game, I feel like Carmack is actually paying homage to Valve, in so many ways. I love the quick save F5 key, just like the Valve games. I love the instant change of difficulty setting, just like Valve games. I play at nightmare highest difficulty now - taking my time - not rushing through the experience.

(Yes Sam you're right - the CODs have the difficulty adjustment, but you have to leave your campaign, and come back into chapter mode at the beginning of the current chapter. I wish I had known that in Black Ops before I got sick and tired of the uncountable number of soldiers continuing to spawn in endless numbers, the COD way, coming toward me in the underground corridor next to the computer room. I restarted the entire game to drop down to Hard, lol.)

Carmack pays homage to Valve, by freely using all the brilliant things Valve has done - which they never could have done if they hadn't started the Valve magic with his engine.

Wait til you see how much the Authority barricades and giant city compound look like the combine city in Half Life 2. Wait til you experience the mutant rushes, and, Kevin, you tell me if there isn't a very familiar and terrifying zombie feel to it all. Wait til you guys go through some of the maps, and start telling yourself, isn't this Episode 2? Or isn't this the tunnel from Blood Harvest?

Don't get me wrong, there is so much originality in this game - everybody will learn something new from Carmack this time around.

One review said the closeup textures were drab. Apparently, in order to make such a visually stunning game run as well as it does on my 8800gtx - near 60 fps (30 in vehicles) - Carmack uses some kind of overall texture map. You guys, Sam, Jeff, Shaff, DXR, you'll know the details of how that works, I couldn't quite understand it.

But I don't care if the computer monitors of the decaying hospital are bland, I'm not looking at those monitors. I'm not looking at much of anything because the gigantic 12 story rotting mutant carcass splayed across the entire side opposite me of the strikingly huge, once-thriving hospital atrium holds me utterly spellbound, in rich chocolate shades of brown, his blood still oozing down the walls in the offices below. Add the full orchestral accompaniment of foreboding mood music pounding through my 5.1 surround sound Medusa headphones, and there is a lump in my throat as my eyes try to take in all the gory immensity of the shocking presentation. Nothing can prepare you - that is why we game.

(That incredible map comes right after you murder one of the still-very-much alive members of the King Kong mutant crew - that is, if you ever figure out the little trick after hours of pain blasting rounds at the boulder chucking monkey. But all the frustration was worth it.)

I should have taken some screen shots, but a small picture could never capture the impact of that horrific spectacle. I can only imagine the art work and the high level of excitement around the office as the concept emerged. I was there at Turtlerock, across the parking lot, with my limited non-artistic sight, not really understanding what Miles and Mike were up to, when Mike's counter-strike-derived little brainstorm, Terror, was coming together to become the masterpiece Left 4 Dead.

These artists are magicians. We put down our money, engage our electronics, and let slip away our safe reality in order to embrace the exquisite lunacy of their twisted vision. Play this game guys. Rage may cast its spell on you too, like it has done to me.

I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot more about this one.

Rich

 

It's interesting, and thanks for the review Rich - most of the reviews out there currently are marred by the technical issues the game experienced on most modern hardware, which are gradually being resolved.

 

Well the main issue with Rage is the auto-adjusting detail. To keep a solid framerate it adjusts the graphics according to the speed of your PC. Well unfortunately this means every time you dip even one FPS below 60, every texture in the game readjusts accordingly. This causes horrible texture pop-in sorta like Halo 2 on the old Xbox and Mass Effect on the 360 but way worse. Every single time you turn to face an object or person, it has to re-load the textures. Sadly, this texture adjustment causes FPS drops on its own, and the system bugs itself out. So say your system would be capable of playing maxed at the highest detail levels, one single hitch or FPS drop causes a chain reaction that causes the game to kill its own performance.

The fix so far for this has been to create a custom cfg file called rageconfig.cfg and use that to force the textures to stay at one level. This fixes the performance and the graphical issues all in one.

This is what my cfg file looks like:

These first five settings force the textures to max
---------------------------------------
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 8192
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly 8192
vt_pageimagesizeunique 8192
vt_pageimagesizevmtr 8192
vt_restart
---------------------------------------
These next two force the AF to stay at the same level
---------------------------------------
vt_maxaniso 4
image_anisotropy 4
---------------------------------------
These last four set the FOV to 90(base 80 plus whatever number you put) and they force the textures to preload and uncompress during level loads. It also disables mouse smoothing which is largely useless in games if you have a good mouse, and re-enables the player shadow, which is a bit buggy but mostly works.
---------------------------------------
g_fov 10
image_usecompression 0
g_showplayershadow 1
m_smooth 0

So the final cfg looks like this:

vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 8192
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly 8192
vt_pageimagesizeunique 8192
vt_pageimagesizevmtr 8192
vt_restart
vt_maxaniso 4
image_anisotropy 4
g_fov 10
image_usecompression 0
g_showplayershadow 1
m_smooth 0

Just by adding this cfg to the game, both the performance and graphical issues were fixed instantly.

 

You're very welcome, Sam, on the Rage review. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

When the game runs smoothly, it has so much personality to appreciate, (unless you're a reviewer rushing through it to write your luke-warm writeup) that it often speaks to what we all love about gaming.

But frustration is sure a kill joy. Recall that you didn't get much of a review out of me when I was stuck on the boss mutant kill, logging an hour or so lobbing rockets at him with no apparent effect. My review at the time was,

LOL

Jeff, those config files are awesome. You are a genius for knowing how to fix a game!

I am going to copy that post of yours into my Rage PaperPort folder, for permanent future reference just in case I ever need them, for example with a later gpu upgrade.

But right now, the 8800GTX with whatever steam patches have been applied, seems problem-free. I did notice, when I had a weapon and had time to admire the scenery, that as I glanced around, the textures did seem to sharpen when I laid my eyes on them. And I did notice a little bit of aliasing. I said to myself "Sam would not like that!" Haha. I have rivatuner running, and my fps on foot is always high 50s, so I tried to add 2xAA but the game crashed. I opened it and AA was off. I tried again, it crashed again. But I'm pretty happy with the graphics, and the aliasing seems minimal, so I don't really care.

It has me on no AA, textures low, but full 2560x1600. Maybe I'll try the textures high and see if the game crashes again. But the textures are gorgeous. Wait til you get to crazy Jim's swamp, and see that beautiful pond, surrounded by stunning sandstone boulders. I went walking along in the water looking for the special curative plant I was to bring back - very easy on the eyes - among the best-looking graphics I have ever seen. I am continuing to use digital vibrance through riva, at the medium low setting. I know how to replicate that on ati cards, through saturation and color temp. To me the amped up colors just amps up my enjoyment of the eye candy.

I have not had a problem with a wholesale adjustment of textures causing an fps drop as you described, Jeff. Again, probably with steam patches. However, as I write this, I recall that Steam tells me I don't have the latest nvidia drivers.

(Now that I think about it, if I download those newer drivers, I better make sure I keep my old drivers and take note on which driver I have currently installed - it would be a terrible shame to add new drivers and kill the entire Rage experience.)

I have rivatuner running all the time in small white letters up in the upper right of the big 30, so occasionally I glance up to see my fps, gpu temp, and a couple of times cpu core activity and core temps. Also I can see what time it is in military 24 hour clock - some riva genius added that little plugin, lol. But I couldn't help myself and pulled two all-nighters anyway.

(By the way, I'm so glad you guys talked about the Saitek lighted keyboard - I think Shaff and Jeff both have that model according to my kb folder. Being able to actually see the numbers has helped me grab the right weapon, for example the rocket launcher on 8, which I did whenever the music changed with a lot of tuba and trombone added in, and I could tell that one of the Gearhead heavily armored gattling gun soldiers was coming. But I ran out of rockets by the time I was leaving the bank vault - I had two of the guys to contend with at one time in a room next to two small offices that I could run around in. I hit F5 to save and played that sequence about 5 times. The weapon of choice, other than rockets, seemed to be magnum (settler pistol with fat boy) and head shots - 6 well-aimed shots gradually strips away armor and blows his head off.)

Anyway, it's a shame that the hardware problems have been stopping more people from enjoying the game. I haven't even begun to talk about how interesting are all the various townspeople, including the many types of ladies spread around, from Loosey Hagar (lol) who introduces you to the boomerang head-slicer, to many more beguiling and seductive vamps. And the car racing - fun! And Mutant Bash TV. Oh my god, what a trip! Carmack must be dropping a lot of acid these days! lol

Rich

 

I had an eclipse II as well, for three years. They were OK, but a bit on the flimsy side, especially the newer ones. Currently enjoying my (also backlit) MS Sidewinder keyboard, which has been excellent so far, for the 18 months I've had it.

 

Well, the whole back-lighting idea is very helpful, I have to agree with that, Sam.

I found that I still have to tape the keyboard in place, even though it is substantially heavier than the one I had, and I also have to have the steel-series mouse pad taped in place. Especially for multiplayer, I can't have things start moving around on me. The other thing I am going to do, which worked well on the flimsy keyboard, is rough up the 4 key, with about 30 very small pieces of scotch tape, so I can get used to using it again. Roughing it up helps me find it and I like it for grenades, if middle mouse is tied up.

Oh - for crying out loud! MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON! I just finished Rage and I could have used middle mouse for the special quick-use key - I completely forgot about that! On the games that let you use one key to throw a grenade, like COD, I always use middle mouse.

Like I say, I finished RAGE, but I have already restarted it, to the point of going to the Hagar family hangout. This time I'll take my time, even more than before, in regard to exploring, running all the advanced car races, etc. For example, I passed that guy "guarding" the sewers. I never went down there. This next time I will.

I talked before about Carmack paying homage to Valve - wait until you see the Enforcers. Mostly they say "Back off!" But one of them said to me "Pick up that can!"

Remember Half Life 2 in the train station? (.. when Miles' name rolls up on the credits, lol.) As you make your way out of the station, one of the Combine soldiers says "Throw that can away." If you don't he comes after you with his cattle prod.

So when the Enforcer in Rage said "Pick up that can" I looked down and saw a little glowing can. The game teaches you to scrounge everything you find, which you can sell for cash to buy ammo. So I picked it up. He said "Good boy."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Bless your heart, John Carmack.

Comparisons to Half Life 2 abound, but you have to admit, in the final analysis, that Half Life 2 was absolutely brilliant and cutting edge. As much as I LOVE Rage, only Valve it seems, is capable of creating that supreme high level of finely crafted masterpiece.

I would include the two Left 4 Deads also as masterpieces of their genre. It is worth going though the Developer Mode on those games to get an understanding of the work and decision-making that is involved in putting a game together.

The sexy girls are sexier in Rage. Don't get me wrong - not every girl, by any means, is a vamp. I give Rage props for the varied character types - there must be at least 50 distinctive personalities. Some of the ladies are very handsome, strong-looking decisive types, and there is at least one grandmother in the game, smoking some kind of water pipe.

Shaff, is that your brand of hookah? LOL

The sexy girls aren't dressed as provocatively as the sidekick in Sin Episodes, a Source engine game of about 5 years ago, a remake of the popular 1998 Sin. Alyx was sexy, but her clothing was subdued, and she was more of a tom boy.

The first Rage sexy girl is Loosum Hagar, who teaches you how to throw those sticks. Then you meet the girl with the big green eyes outside the outfitter store in Wellspring. She's my favorite. Here's her picture from the E3 Eurogamer review.



Then a similar one appears in the Subway City, but with a partial gas mask - her name is Friday. The lip syncing is not as spot on as Half Life 2. But it is close enough.

By the way, here's a quote from the review:

Hahaha!

Kevin, you should play this game, since it will remind you of Left 4 Dead all over again, and it will remind you of all the car action in Grand Theft Auto. After Rage, then you should get Mafia 2.

I enjoyed this game so much, that as I entered some notes about it in a text file where I remind myself of keystrokes (like how to bring up the map in Far Cry 2) alphabetically Rage came just in front of Stalker. The only reason I have Stalker on my computer, is because Jeff liked it. Then I read my notes about going to PaperPort for the info on the mod that Jeff said fixes the entire game.

Jeff, it looks like you and I have similar tastes. Anything else I should know about applying the mod you found, before I give Stalker another look?

Rich

 

Rage? I do wanna give it a shot. Timing is bad right now. Lots of projects going on. Perhaps this coming weekend I'll find time though.

 

Yeah, give Rage a try Kevin.

In the Eurogamer review that I linked to above (with the picture of the cute girl) the id guy who was manning the Rage E3 presentation booth this past June, told the reviewer that they wanted to deliver 60 fps for everybody, console or PC.

I didn't know that before this afternoon when I read the review. So I was shocked when the default settings showed 2560x1600, since it seems that every game wants to start me out at 800x600. I started playing, and I was even more shocked at how beautiful all the textures were, and that I was getting about 58 fps (30 in vehicles.) I don't get those kinds of framerate numbers on anything!

I can't remember, but I think I recall that an 8800gtx is faster than a 260. However your new 24" is displaying fewer pixels, 2.3 vs 4 million. And Rage may be optimized for nvidia. If you have problems, Jeff or Sam, or Shaff or DXR, will likely have a fix. But I am guessing it will run fine.

And if you haven't tried it yet, check out digital vibrance. You'll find it in the nvidia control panel. That is one of the great things that happened to me when I inherited this 8800gtx card and ran the monitor optimize wizard. COD World at War looked incredible! The flames in the burning forest! The cottages and the corn fields! The South Pacific jungles! Gaming had never looked so rich and exciting!

Just like some of the other forum posters mentioned, as I noticed when I was researching how to do the same thing on ati cards, I have to agree with them: Having tasted digital vibrance, I cannot live without it. Luckily my research paid off. I found the answer. So next year, when I get the 7000 graphic upgrade I'll reproduce the nvidia digital vibrance through Catalyst enhanced saturation and color temp, which is hidden under the monitor color settings (display panel - avivo color.)

(AMD buries it - Nvidia flaunts it!)

I have already tested the Catalyst equivalent to digital vibrance on my old P4 in the sunroom with the 3850 card powering a beautiful 1600x1200 20" Dell. I have a group of horses screenshot on my desktop on that computer, which is from a collection of 2560x1600 wallpaper pictures that Sam clued me in about, downloaded from interfacelift.com. When I reset ati color saturation and temp back to "regular" the colors lose their brilliance and pizzazz, and while the picture is nice, by comparison it is totally bland. I hate that! I'm a junky. I have to have my richer-color-tones fix. LOL

So best wishes on a clean install of Rage whenever you get around to it - maybe this coming weekend as you said. Let me know how it ends up looking - and running!

Rich

 

The 8800 faster than the 260? Surely not! It seems like I read somewhere it was 10 - 25% faster in most games :S You might be thinking of the lesser version. I have the best GTX 260. The one with more stream processors.

 

The 8800GTX was never faster than the GTX260, nowhere near it. The original 192-core GTX260 is 30% faster than the 8800GTX, and the 216-core version 45% faster, that's before you overclock as well, many of the GTX260s overclocked quite considerably.

I've seen what games are like with the gamma messed with, and vibrant though it is, I don't like it - it's not even slightly realistic. It's not something anyone else I know uses, and the reason isn't that they don't know about it - presumably the reason AMD don't make it abundantly obvious is because nobody uses it. Not saying you shouldn't, you obviously prefer it, but I think that's quite a minority viewpoint I'm afraid Rich.

 

I'll have to agree with Sam. Digital vibrance is an interesting concept and a lot of monitors/video cards respond quite well to its use. I aim largely for subtle changes and color accuracy though, which digital vibrance throws off a bit. Obviously you've found some situations where it makes a difference and I don't blame you for using it. There's more science to it than small changes in gamma and brightness like some seem to think. It adjusts everything from color levels to temperature to contrast. So while it can have good results, it throws off some of the base settings of the monitor. I don't necessarily need my monitor for intense graphics work but there's no reason it shouldn't have perfect color accuracy XD

 

Anyone else getting this a lot?

AD forums are really going to hell lately...

 

AD just celebrated a decade not too long ago. The size and complexity of the data you compound after that long a time is astounding. Think AD is either doing some updates, or needs some.

 

Other than the AMD thread recently, smooth sailing.

 

Well, ddp, some of that stuff is weird. Like right now, the entire left side of your comment is covered over by "The fabric of the cosmos" and there is no way to uncover it - I decided to roll with the thing, and it became transparent enough to let me read the beginning of what you said. I hope the stuff gets fixed. I actually couldn't even open the forum, recently, until I switched over to google chrome - because all the ad scripts completely overloaded my IE (on my old p4 2.8ghz business desktop.) But I'm okay with google chrome or firefox, except for the ads actually blocking some posts, as I just mentioned.

LOL - excuse me guys - wow, my memory didn't serve me on that one. I guess the 260 is faster than an 8800!! Well, okay then, that cinches it - Kevin, you won't have any trouble at all!

Hahaha - Sam! You're afraid that not everybody loves digital vibrance as much as color blind Rich? Hahaha. Sounds like a giant understatement. Okay, I see that you're not a super fanboy on that, Sam. Still, I feel I must add, having never known about digital vibrance, that I felt like I had discovered something truly amazing when I encountered it, and I still do feel that way.

So it is my duty to tell Kevin about it, lol. Of course, he's a Photoshop whiz, so he probably won't want anything but true-blue authentic coloration, but still he might find it fun from time to time to add a little pizzazz. I remember the red tractor on Operation Flashpoint, Dragon Rising. That was one lovely red tractor with a bit of digital vibrance thrown in, lol.

Yeah, I know it's totally a personal thing, like the choice of fashion. I like how you put it, Jeff. I have to agree, there is absolutely no question that the colors do get tweaked - and also that the color accuracy takes a beating.

I can see it on my p4 and 3850 in the sunroom - some of the logon user pictures are actually too vivid even for me! Occasionally I back it off - but overall I really like it for gaming. And for those horses in that dramatic wallpaper shot. Take it away - those horses just die!

Notice that I mentioned that I dropped it down to low-medium - it got a little too vivid even for me on some of the titles. Maybe it's just a phase I'm going through, like wearing bell-bottoms. Maybe it's not just Carmack who is dropping acid. Psychedelic! Not for everybody. Tune in, turn on, drop out. And turn up your digital vibrance. Says Rich, sitting in his corner, stoned again.

Haha

Speaking of titles - I'm on my second trip back through Rage now, using mostly fists to kill every mutant in sight, and also trying out fists on some of the human bandits - fists are a one punch kill most of the time.

Running nightmare difficulty, I dove right into the first sewers I came to after the ghost raid, with no shotgun yet. The first two mutants were a one-two blow of my fists. Then I went down the ramp, and tried to hold out in a little room, and got swarmed when some of them came in behind me. But not to worry! I hit F9 and there I was top-side, starting my descent one more time - the watchman dutifully horrified as he said, if you go down there you better take some heavy weaponry. He doesn't know about my one-two punch.

I went down and killed the first two again. I swear the first one said Doh, like the Simpsons. Then it became clear to me that I was already at the best place to defend. I ran down to trigger the attack, then came back to the entry ramp, just before a few steps leading downward. And I crouched for the kill.

The little buggers came running toward me. They had to leap up the three little steps to hammer me with their homemade clubs or knives. There I was crouched, BOOM! The Rich iron fist shoots out! Wham! a little mutant goes flying!

I mean it - they flew up in the air! I never saw anything like it! Five, ten, twelve little mutant bodies spread all over the place, lol. All victims of my "fists of fury" I stole their little treasure buried under the little pile of bones, without firing a shot. When I got back to the Hagar settlement, I didn't have any more money on me than if I had never gone into the sewer to begin with! What did that sewer-guarding watchman idiot say about mutants hoarding good stuff - what? - a bunch of worthless bones!!

By the way, on that ghost adventure, killing the ghost gang, I came across some grenades, and on the screen it said "Press F3, then F" to use grenades. I pressed F3, and to my amazement, the quick-use icon on my lower left changed from wingblades to grenades.

The F key and middle mouse are both mapped to the quick use item. (They were there all the time on the middle mouse key and I played the entire game all the way through and didn't know it.)

But what I am saying is - you don't have to hit Tab, open inventory, and then try to figure out, by assigning, and unassigning, how to get something on your quick-use key, you just hit the various Function keys, and that is how you change it. I wish I had known that the first time I went through the game!

This time around I plan to have more fun. I already built two sentry gun bots, after reading on Eurogamer that the guy relied heavily on the little spider bots to help him do all the shooting at the end of the game. I would like to see how those sentries handle the hordes of mutants who attack at various points in the game. Also this time around, I'll be using electro bolts a lot more for the crossbow. I want to see if I can take down the gattling gun soldiers, like in the Gearhead vault, with those things, instead of only relying on the rockets.

Those guys are massively armored - but it seems that armor doesn't stop a soldier from getting shocked. But maybe it will take all 3 bolts before reload. Also I'll be using dynamite crossbow bolts a lot more. Man are they effective on the shield soldiers! If they are standing up, you can hit their foot with one of those things, and the guys cuss "Damn it!" when they see the timed charge on their foot - BLOOM!!! - where they stood there is nothing but a giant bloodstain, lol.

And when those shield guys crouch, no feet are exposed, but there still is one tiny exposed area on the upper left of their shield as you look at them - a well-placed electro bolt or dynamite bolt works well there too. One more thing about the cross bow. I started using the steel tipped crossbow bolts, to use them up. I realized I could see them fly from my bow to virtually take off the head of the soldiers crouched behind cover 30 yards away. Watching those bolts silently slice through the air like that was very cool. (But I won't buy any of them, unless it's to make the ones with dynamite - I think you actually have to buy the schematic, and build the dynamite bolts, you can't buy them. You can buy the electro bolts though.)

The girl who hangs out at the Wellspring outfitter is Ginny. Here she is again. I think I'm in love.


Jeff, I took one more look at Dr Strangelove, meaning that bizarre game called Stalker. I applied the complete mod, and the graphics became an entirely different story. But I couldn't get into the game anyway. I know they tried to do a better job of translating from the Russian, but the conversation with Wolf was strangey strangey. I did appreciate the little mannerisms of the trader though. And I took Russian in college, and I appreciate the language and culture. But it's an old title - 2007 actually. And the controls totally suck. And they don't care how confused you are. When did the first COD come out, 2003? I see how Chernobyl happened - they brought in some new guys to run the plant, and didn't teach them how to do anything, just like the guys who made this video game, lol. My hat is off to you, Jeff, for your patience.

The comparison from Rage, that I had just finished, was too much of a contrast. I did get Metro 2033 - maybe I'll try that if I can get it to run at reduced graphic settings. I would expect a similarly depressing atmosphere (lol) but at least hopefully a modern set of controls and a little better guidance to help me up the learning curve ramp.

That makes you appreciate even more a game like Rage. I didn't even know about the function keys changing your quick use weapon or tool, because I wasn't paying enough attention the first time around. And I totally forgot about cap lock, opening up the weapon and bullet type selection. But by just knowing about the tab key, I still was able to do everything.

Where is a similar set of commands all in one place (the Rage tab key) for Stalker? No, you get a bunch of diverse keyboard keys you have to memorize. I don't think that is user-friendly. There is a key for the pda, another key for inventory, some other keys, like [ and ] for god knows what else - keys all over the place like Arma. haha.

I guess I would have continued with arma, after an all-nighter on the training, if, when I got my weapon, the barrel stock didn't take up half my screen. WTF! No way was I going to walk around the hillsides with that giant gun stock taking up half the screen. At that point I deleted the game. I did the same for Stalker, but I kept the complete mod. Maybe one day I'll give it another try, but probably not.

Sorry to end on such a low note.

I swear I don't know how these posts get so long. I came on to write a quick 5 minutes and play some more, but I got carried away again writing about Rage. Kevin, you just don't know what you're in for. I guess we all have it figured out that your 260 will totally DOMINATE, if, by comparison, my miserable puny 8800 can handle it. Hahaha.

Kevin, if you don't just totally love this game, I will give you your money back. Ask Shaff, I mean it! You have a rare treat waiting for you. And don't forget to turn up your digital vibrance.

Hahahahahahaha!

Rich

 

Rich, I get two paychecks this week. I'm TOTALLY getting the game Can't wait to play it!

I'm Probably updating my CPU to 1090t as well. I can use the extra cores. And from what I can tell, the 1090t's single threads are equal to my current 965. But I do use apps that can utilize the extra two cores. I may just call that my upgrade for a while. I'm rather disappointed with AMD's offerings at the moment. And I can't see spending 400 - 600 on an intel system. Not at present anyway. Not even in february(Tax time). I think I want a VERY VERY good camera instead