The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

It's not the price that puts me off buying a 290X

 

Bitcoin has become a rather screwed situation for the industry. I don't like the way it has gone one bit. It is not as secure as it was said to be, and the acquiring of any sort of electronic currency has largely fallen to the wealthy.

I understand there are still distributed computing groups who make it possible for the individual to gain some, but not much.

 

Well, I just heard that the IRS decided to get involved, so now bitcoin gains will be taxable as capital gains.

Okay, so not only does the device have to make a right-turn departure from physics and the first law of thermodynamics, but it has to fit into a suitcase. Like a portable nuke. Well, okay, Kevin, why settle? It's decided then. The perpetual motion machine has to be portable. I knew that from the start - it just makes sense. What good is it if you can't take it with you on a trip and have perpetual motion right there in the hotel room while you vacation in Waikiki?

"early-adopteritis" - I like it. Is that another way of saying "bleeding edge."

======================

Speaking of bleeding, this campaign mode of Arma 3 has me bleeding out of every orifice. As this is mixed company, for ddp's sake I won't be any more descriptive than that.

All kidding aside, the game is brutal! And that's why we love it so. I sure am referring to that field manual a lot, particularly now that they have thrown me into squad management. Holy Mackeral!

Mostly it isn't all terribly bad. But I almost wanted to cry 3 times in a row when I couldn't get the anti-tank guy to blow away the first vehicle in the convoy that was - well - ripping us all to shreds. He would mount his rpg on his shoulder, then put it down again, as the vehicle got closer and then proceeded to kill him.

Then I finally realized that you not only are able to tell him, via F2 for that particular squad member, to TARGET that vehicle, but since I had "do not fire" turned on way ahead of that time, setting up the ambush, I then had to either tell the whole team to open fire, or tell F2 that specifically. Okay, I'll accept a great big "duhhh" for that one.

But let me tell you this about the squad, because since Arma apparently reads my emails, I plan to give them some feedback.

The AI squad mechanics can be absolutely wack at times. Operation Flashpoint was much superior in several respects. When you're in a tight urban landscape - going from building to building, maybe it makes sense to have tight cover in effect. "Go, I'll cover." "Moving." "You go, I'll cover."

Okay, I get it, not bad.

Now how about open country "Machine gunner 2 hundred meters straight ahead."

I love it - out in open country, you and 4 squad-mates, nothing but bushes and trees and a few scattered enemies, or a tank 600 meters to the East. To that wonderful mix, let's add urban cover. "Go, I'll cover." "Moving." "You go, I'll cover."

WTF!! YOU'RE JOKING, RIGHT?!!

I repeat. You're out in the open - nobody around within hundreds of meters. And you just got the word to evacuate since you murdered the distant mortar team, and head back to the FOB you just took control of, because enemy tanks are coming. I am 500 yards ahead, running for the sake of my ASS, and my mates are way back there. "Go, I'll cover." "Moving." "You go, I'll cover."

Moronic. For a game that is supposed to be realistic - are you going to tell me the marines taught them to do that? Not the same marines who gave advice on OF.

So how could they fix that? Oh, a couple of ways. They already have a formation menu - stealth mode, aware mode, etc. How about "urban cover mode."

They have formations - V, line, wedge, column, and some more I am not familiar with. How about Tight formation. Loose formation. Like OF. I can't get these jokers to keep up. It's pathetic.

By contrast, I loved being out there with my Operation Flashpoint guys - running in tight wedge - you could specify tight or loose. Or if I didn't want to be in front - because the AI could spot the enemy faster than I could, I could assign a point man, other than myself. He would stay in front and at an angle to wherever I was. I think the first Dragon Rising did this even better than the sequel Red River.

Back to Arma III. What about when a helicopter is overhead? Call it "helicopter cover mode" meaning go from tree to tree. I dash for a tree, and they are back there in the open "Go, I'll cover." "I'm moving." "You go, I'll cover." I have made it into the little valley filled with small trees where I can evade the helicopter fire, and they are all back there 200 yards, dead.

When it is impossible to get these guys to keep up, what happens to your brain. You stop caring, right? I know I'm going to lose all my squad mates, and it no longer bothers me. Shame on Arma, supposedly the realistic game, for adding that nonsense. I'll give them more feedback than they wanted, lol.

But for all its warts, I pretty much like this game.

And I figured out one great big help that saved my butt last night. I was out in the dark night in a rural part of the island, trying to come in at a hillside angle which the support advice guerrilla officer had advised me to do. We made decent progress despite the ridiculous urban cover mode my guys insisted on doing.

But before I know it all of a sudden my squad, back 100 yards, disappears as they become targeted by a goddamn armored vehicle with a mounted grenade launcher and guys with night vision goggles which we didn't have. They didn't tell me it was a night operation, and I wasn't sure to bring night goggles - you have to resupply before every operation. And although I did have a rocket launcher with me, there was no rocket launcher ammo in the ammo crate, so it's empty.

So this goddamn thing is driving around in the pitch black countryside tossing explosives at us.

I make a run for it and I'm dead. Fortunately there was an auto-save right then, that I keep loading back to. Back 5 times, back 10 times. Then I start throwing grenades at him - if I dare turn around I can see two red operating lights, and I can hear the guy yelling out in English "he's 75 yards to our right." I am tearing at break-neck speed diagonally up the hill rushing through a bush here and there, for the tree line on top.

Then I switch to smoke grenades and start chucking those at him. After spawning I later started chucking those in front of me. I can't see the smoke - everything is black - but I hear the canister pop, and it seems to be helping - I'm hoping of course that the smoke will keep them from seeing me.

That begins to help, and I make the tree line more often. Up there is a garage with some light, and a chance to kill two soldiers who come looking for me - one of whom has a set of night vision goggles that I can take when he's dead. And he might have 30 rounds in his rifle, and I'm down to 10 after killing him and his buddy.

They decided to make that mission more interesting, and even thought I distinctly remember getting 10 ammo clips, I start out the mission, with my character saying out loud "out of ammo." There is no way to go back for ammo - I'm already out there starting the mission. I have only 30 rounds.

Every few minutes my character says "I need ammo." I know why they want me saying that - because they want to remind me that this is a critical ammo mission. And a "can't see" mission. And a "your squad gets killed" mission. And a "you have to kill about 20 enemies with no help" mission.

AND WE'LL HAVE FUN FUN FUN TIL OUR DADDY TAKES THE T-BIRD AWAYYYYYYYY.

So - getting up the hill, getting the night vision goggles, getting the extra rounds - I am able to achieve that about 3 times out of every 10 attempts, but then there are no more auto-saves, and I have to kill about a dozen soldiers just to be able to steal the gas truck before another auto-save. It would sure be good to be able to save once I get the night vision goggles.

But Arma has a problem with that, since I already saved once in this campaign.

But I'm smarter than Arma. Last night I paused the game, went to desktop, pulled out my last user save, put it into a folder called "squad still alive heading up hill" and went back into the game, and with that save gone, the game un-grayed the save button, and the next time I got those goggles, I created a save point.

Killed within 5 minutes - fine - so what. At least I am not still running up that hill in the pitch black from a fire-breathing ANGRY BIRD who can see my every move, while I see NOTHING.

Save points are EVERYTHING.

Guess what - I rummaged around, killed some guys, got wounded, then found an offroad pickup with a mounted 50 caliber and 85 rounds. I killed about 6 guards with that, and that pesky armored car showed up, and I killed him with another 40 rounds. Then I found an anti-tank guy, and now I even had rocket launcher ammo. And some of the trucks had health kits, so now I had my full quota of 2 of those, and a gun with a full clip and another 12 rounds besides.

Sh*t! All I need now is Kevin's suitcase perpetual motion machine and a one-way ticket to Hawaii.

So now that I have my little save cheat figured out - screw this OVERLY HARD game. I'm up for almost whatever they want to throw at me, lol.

But yeah, it's a pretty cool game. I'm playing on regular. I have no idea how a harder difficulty setting would be. I don't plan to find out - probably a total nightmare.

Rich

 

Facts, are only facts, until they are disproved

 

Well okay Kevin, your perpetual motion device just got validated by DDP. That means for sure it will work. (We successfully penetrated into Canada at least 3 times for the fun of it, the last time by a bunch of drunk Irishmen on a lark, and DDP persists in saying "We drove back your full-scale invasion.")


In the meantime, while I'm waiting to cash in on Kevin's invention, I have been enjoying Arma's complete refusal to acknowledge the proven fact, as verified by both DDP and COD, that you have to tell gamers what to do every minute of the gameplay, or they won't buy your game by the millions.

What I mean by that is - Arma doesn't tell you anything.

But if you go about 2 miles out of your way - your character MIGHT suddenly say "Where am I - I better check the map." And if you don't take the hint, one minute later you will be struck dead as if by lightning. ??????????? "I seem to be dead. What happened."



This was a fun mission.

Where the hell am I - washed up on the beach with only a pistol?


I got to run all over this place, which was crawling with people who wanted to kill me!

It was also crawling with a bunch of other things - but I LOVE snakes. They are everywhere.


I have no doubt that the island is full of the little creatures - but not in the quantity that the game presents. I used to hunt snakes and lizards and never have I seen so many - very pretty ones too. But remember, the devs went to jail for 4 months as spies while the Greek judges were out on strike, just to get every intimate fact of these two islands to make this game totally realistic, so if they say there are snakes everywhere, I believe them. But not in this quantity - no I don't believe that, lol.


So anyway, I had gone up a little canyon and at the top, in this little miniature bird-house size chapel, I picked up a set of binoculars. Great. Then the game gave me a hint - and I got on the radio, and I said "Help me out buddy, I've got nothing." He says, "Well, scrounge around the ruins, you might find something." I looked across the bay, and there were all these ancient ruins. I thought "Sh*t, all the way over there?"

I evaded some patrols and made my way by land about a mile toward the ruins....

If I keep going, I might eventually get to those damn ruins.


.... and that was when I was struck by lightning. This time I decided to swim across in defiance of the patrol boat.

So I'm halfway across - it's getting closer - my character says "What am I doing out here, I should go back." And ignoring that hint again, in another 30 yards I'm dead - eaten by a great white I guess - or lightning again."

So then I start thinking - "Wait a second - the bird-house chapel was surrounded by those little broken down rock walls that are everywhere. Was I already in the goddamn ruins. Did I already find what he meant - this fu**ing pair of binoculars? How about an assault rifle, a**hole!"

I was kind of steamed up by that point.


"Have I just wasted the last hour on a stupid hint that sent me off in the totally wrong direction? Goddamn those devs - I wish those lazy Greek judges had just executed them!"


So, sure enough, I just quickly climbed the low hill across from the antenna hill, and there were my buddies, including the idiot with the "scrounge around in the ruins" hint.

That's the difference between COD and Arma - right there - you better start figuring things out for yourself because this game won't lead you by the hand, and don't be surprised if their hints don't accidentally get you all screwed up. That's realism!


You might think I don't like this game - I LOVE THIS GAME!!!


The campaign has amazing replay value. For example, I went back and replayed that segment where I finally got a set of night vision goggles. AND I FOUND A PICKUP WITH A MOUNTED 50 CALIBER MACHINE GUN.

There it is - a beautiful little off-road pickup and a mounted 50 with 86 rounds.




Talk about piece of cake! That 50 was so powerful - a one-round kill!

It's payback baby! I'm looking through the 50 caliber gun sights with night goggles


I mentioned that I shot up the place, until the pesky armored car that killed all my buddies showed up, then I shot him up until he exploded. But one time I just shot a few times at the window, and happened to kill the driver, then the other 3 guys got out and I killed them. The armored car, complete with grenade launcher, was all mine!

Here comes the little squad-killing bit*h. He's in a for size 50 surprise!



Capturing the armored car was something I did only once. On later replays I killed an anti-tank soldier and used his rocket launcher to destroy the armored car. Yes I could have kept killing it with the 50 caliber, but that used up about 30-40 rounds, and I wanted to take all those bullets with me to the next enemy camp.


That's where this picture came from - inside the armored car. Take this? Or take the pickup?



When you play the vehicle showcase, you learn how powerful this car is with those grenades - but I heard the guy say "low on ammo" so I know I don't have an unlimited supply. I got to the enemy camp, and I have to steal the truck on the left. Nobody is shooting at me - they think I'm their buddy.

These guys have a very nasty surprise coming, but I better be careful, that truck is full of gasoline!



I wasn't sure how to play this - if I jumped out they'd start shooting and I would be immediately killed.

Here's what those guys looked like on infra-red gun sights.



So I very carefully started chucking grenades to the right of them, slowly killing them off before jumping in and hijacking the truck.


By the way, here is what it looks like to be a passenger in one of these awesome armored cars.




Once I hijacked the truck, the rest was easy, so I usually hit yesterday's special save point, to get back into the action. I started using rocket launcher to kill the armored car, and I took the pickup every time after that. But I started getting killed by a tank that was over-looking the valley I had to get through. Finally I had enough!


Forget that valley, we're taking the fight right to that tank this time.



I had used my one rocket to kill the armored car, but there were more anti-tank guys rummaging around near that depot where I grabbed the pickup truck. Kill one more, and my personal PCML is loaded up again.


This is close enough - the rest by foot and work around behind him.



I don't think I can miss at this distance.



You might be laughing, but one of the other type of personal rocket launchers is a terrible weapon, which they give you on the scuba showcase to shoot down a helicopter. If you use the missile sights you are guaranteed not to hit it, since it shoots way low. I discovered that by creating a save point so I was in position and the helicopter was coming my way, and I stopped using the sights. About 10 tries later I led it enough, and fired high enough, that I clipped the tail.

So when I happened to pick up that weapon, I was quite close to the tank, but still missed. Then I tried my explosive pack, but that did nothing. So I hit my reload, and was back to my goggles and heading downhill to kill some anti-tank guys before manning the 50 again.

So yes, this time I got really close to the tank - I wasn't taking any chances.


Let's get the marshmallows boys, there's a nice campfire going!



The game is very fun, and when you figure a few things out - like - if it's pure pitch black and you can't see, and nobody you shoot has night goggles or they wouldn't be using a flashlight which makes it easy to spot and kill them - then just go to display settings and crank up the gamma and the brightness.



Then instead of trying to see with this kind of pitch black visibility even with the lighthouse beam



..... you can create a moonlit night that is acceptable like this:



It still looks dark, I know, but the image above is way darker than in the game.


Here is another night picture - I don't even know where I was - in a pickup somewhere. Isn't this a pretty picture below? The game has awesome graphics on ultra setting.


Entering an enemy town - keep a lookout. We're not in armor, so be careful.



Just a few more screenshots.


One mission that forced me to learn how to control a squad, was an ambush in order to capture a supply truck.


Here's the truck and a couple of my men on the right.



That was the ambush I posted about, where I was frustrated for quite a while until I figured out how to get the anti-tank guy to shoot the leading machine gun armored car that was killing all of us. Life became easier after that.

But there are 5 of us, and only 3 can ride in the truck, even after we throw out the dead guy. Yes - the truck several times escaped our ambush just by driving off, so I started shooting in the front window to kill the driver. But shooting the body of the truck to damage it also will work. No worries if I mess it up. One of my guys is an engineer who can fix anything, including a totally missing tire.



But getting the truck back to camp, is another problem. There may be enemy soldiers along the way home.

What worked best was for me to lead the truck loaded with all but one of my guys. We took fire several times, but when I left them all out except for one driver, these guys had a bad habit of getting themselves killed. So I figured - load them all in except for the 4th guy who walks with me, and maybe I can get them home in one piece.

That was when I still cared, lol.

Three of the guys are in the truck per the HUD on bottom left. Regroup command has them following me.



Another fun mission was to take a camp after arranging an artillery strike on the watchtowers. Then as there was one artillery round left, I had to target where I thought the enemy counter-attack would park their vehicles. I began missing on purpose so I could have more targets to shoot.


In full prone, single-shot mode, you can pick off targets at 200 meters especially coming right toward you.



Oh, and remember all that bitching I did last time about my squad mates who want to use urban cover, out in the complete open range away from any buildings? "Cover me." "Move" "Okay, now I'll cover, you move."

Well, they aren't all like that! Thank goodness!!

Here are some guys who can keep up, and here is my new favorite formation, a V, which is an inverted wedge. I'm the furthest back at the bottom of the V and these guys are keeping up with my run. This is more Operation Flashpoint style! Great!!


These guys are no slouches - I have them on "copy my stance" - so they're also in my same slow combat run.



ARMA III. GREAT GAME!

Rich

 

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. And believe me! We are WAYYY over due, to wean ourselves from the gasoline teat!

Nice screen shots man! Really need to dust off that ol' gtx 570

 

Haha - yes way overdue, but to the point that the laws of physics can be bent? Well, if you and ddp say so.

I'm glad you liked the screenshots. The graphics are very outstanding!

Do you think this is a game you could ever want to play, Kevin? You liked Left 4 Dead, so definitely you like shooters. But maybe you just like shooting zombies, who can't shoot back. They can only claw at you, rip your guts out, or pound you to a pulp. LOL

 

Not big on Co-op games. But yes. I like first person shooter games Rise of the Triad, and Doom are what got me into it. As well as Wolfenstein.

 

I wouldn't know, you're still using low-res screenshots!

Slowly working my way through Dead Space, have just now finished chapter 7 of 12 after about 6 hours of gameplay, and it's infuriating me increasingly - as games should I suppose. There's plenty of games I want to play, but still want to wait until I can achieve better graphics. Having doubled my pixel count with the 2160p display and not increased my graphics power, I'll be waiting a while!

On the graphics front, the R9 295X2 was released recently, to relatively minimal fanfare. From an engineering standpoint it's quite a thing. The first AMD card to use reference watercooling in the form of a block-sink-block, it's actually capable of taming two 290X GPUs at their full frequency (about 2% beyond, in fact). A full-board waterblock would arguably have been better as the VRMs still being air cooled deal with the heat generated from delivering 600W to the pair of GPUs, but they do have their own central fan the size of those normally used for a whole graphics card. The radiator is a fairly standard single block affair, but capable of dealing with the load of these two GPUs to the tune of load temps around the 70ºC mark at maximum load. This therefore provides the full 2x R9 290X performance (bear in mind, this is almost impossible with the ordinary cards due to the poor design of the stock cooler unless you use PCIe extension ribbons to run each card in a separate case) experience, at low noise levels & temperatures, assuming you have somewhere to mount the radiator of course.

The price tag is $1500. Given the higher than standard price for the 290X due to coin mining, I think that's probably justified - the price hike for two GPUs being on the same board, plus the water cooling solution, makes it worth a pretty penny, unfortunately.
I can't say it's something I'm all that keen on, wanting to steer clear of water at all costs, but it was certainly a necessity here, and they seem to have engineered it in a reasonably successful manner.

Incidentally, the power requirements are quite amusing - rather than the usual 'you need a 500W power supply minimum to run this card' - rather than specify wattage, they state the following:
1. Each of the two 8-pin PCIe connectors (connection mandatory for both) must be connected to a rail on the PSU that does not also serve the CPU, motherboard or other system components.
2. Each PCIe connector must be served by a feed capable of providing a continuous 28A.
3. The output of the PSU serving the PCIe connectors must be capable of producing a continuous 50A.

The PSU requirement document (2 pages) then goes on to illustrate which connectors on a typical PSU will meet this requirement, and explain how to correlate the requirements to their specific PSU. The guide states that a compatible PSU list is on the AMD website at a certain URL, but in true recent AMD style, nobody seems to have thought to put that document on the website yet.

 

Hahaha. I actually thought of you when I was doing those last few posts - but Sam - that's maybe 20-30 screenshots. That's virtually an additional 9x loading time to add the full size image - so all total - 10x more loading time. (Well, to be honest, what's an extra 5 minutes - that is nothing compared to picking out the shots and composing a decent post. Ok, I'll try not to be so lazy!)

I know you're looking at in in miniature on your incredible monitor - but I forget how we did that !!

Well............... I sort of remember that I hit the top choice, instead of my normal. Let me try it.


For starters, here's the shot we're talking about - and I already have the full-size loaded. This one below is the small 900 pixel wide version for After Dawn.


I remember this now seeing it full size - Slingshot was taking me to meet Captain Miller, of British black ops.



Okay, now how did we do the full-size?

http://s518.photobucket.com/user/harvardguy/media/arma3-45_zps404da6b8.jpg.html

Yes, I selected the top photobucket choice, and just copied it above - THAT should link. It's working!

Yeah, it works - you have to hit the magnifier one more time to get the original size!


So now, Sam included, isn't that a pretty picture?


Regarding the other news - absolutely great news! Are you actually telling me that they provide the entire water-cooling solution, including pump, and radiator? On this spedo case I have a couple of rubber spacers on the back to pass through the water hoses, and of course it does have the 200 mm ceiling exhaust - I suppose I could just lay the radiator on top - how big is it?

That psu definitely has to provide 600 watts on that one rail - so - what do you think, any 1000 watt psu should be able to handle it I would imagine, with room for overclocking the cpu? Well, maybe 1200 would be better for safety sake.

Rich

 

The card coolers are Asetek units not unlike my H110, and are using the newer generation components and materials. Have always been a little wary of these AIO loops, but the performance is hard to argue with. My H110 frequently makes a little gurgling noise, but so far has remained quiet and smooth with consistent temps. Also, they don't seem to have a higher failure rate than any other PC hardware.

 

As of the "new" version of afterdawn, the page remains fixed width, so there's no need to worry about embedding images larger than the page - the images you upload are already slightly too large anyway - see below:


Yes Rich, but I wouldn't recommend using the external hose outlet/inlet as it's a sealed unit, and you would have to drain/refill it to take the hoses off. I think the intention is to attach the radiator to the rear case fan mount, and use other mounts in your case for other ventilation.

Not any old 1000W PSU would meet the requirements for this card. The 1000W version of my old Zalman would be able to take it as it has an 80A 12V master, and two 28A rails assigned to graphics. My 850, however, would not suffice as the two GPU rails are only 18A like the other four. I think from a total power point of view it would take the card, just, but I wouldn't max out a 5 year old PSU anyway, not as if I was intending on buying the 295X2 anyway

I am having a hard time deciding what I want to do with graphics. Having paid off my debts from previous purchases and now finally making my way along in the black, although I would like to keep it that way, I don't have as much of a financial restriction as before. That, however, really isn't the issue.

I almost full stop refuse to purchase hardware that leads to a system that adds 15ºC or more to my room temperature during a long gaming session (or requires using the A/C in winter when it's less than 5ºC outside) - one that makes in excess of 60dB of noise when playing games, and one where fans have to be manually controlled and periodically monitored to avoid any potentially hazardous thermal situations. These were all true of the dual HD4870X2 system I used before. Don't get me wrong, I still loved that system for the (back then) astonishing performance it offered when Quad-CF worked well in a game (which wasn't hugely often), but when the HD6970s appeared, although my total performance didn't go up much, consistency of that performance certainly did, and more importantly, the noise levels came down by more than 20dB to very acceptable levels, as did the heat - and I now leave my side fans switched off pretty much all the time. I have no intention of going back to the former with a graphics upgrade, even if it does net me extra performance.

The thing is, despite the HD4870X2 being a dual-GPU card, it ran substantially better than the R9 290X does as a single card. The automatic fan speed had full use of the fan up to 100% if needed, the target temperature was 82-85ºC which gave plenty of room before a critical temperature, and the cooler did a reasonable job of exhausting 290W. If you burn tested an HD4870X2 you could get it up to about 375W, and with the fans screaming away at 100%, the cards would survive this, continuously, without overheating.

The 290X has a target temperature of 95ºC, you have to manually take over the fan control before you can get past 55% fan speed, and the cooler is configured such that 55% is borderline enough to keep the card at 95 under normal load. The things are a nightmare. They certainly don't work in crossfire setups, as we traditionally know them.

The GTX780Ti is a far better engineered card, but it offers rather minimal extra performance for considerable extra cost, and only having 3GB of video memory, is already running short at 3840x2160, as there are now several major titles that require around 3.5-3.8GB at that resolution - that would leave the Titan 2, which costs as much as a pair of 290X cards - depreciation on that one is going to hurt.

Looking at the last few games to come out, SLI and crossfire support for them has been rather patchy, to say the least. Running a single current top-end card does provide the video memory requirement (at least from AMD), but only gets me halfway to where I really want to be with graphics performance. That said, I still can't play Battlefield 4 with crossfire enabled, and that's the most demanding game I play at the moment - not really convinced the 290 series will fix that. Then of course, there's the fact that my friend who also bought a UP3214Q has had far more bugs with his than I ever had with mine and my 'unsupported' graphics cards.

I should probably also mention that if you disable/enable crossfire on an eyefinity group, it fails the group, and you need to unplug/replug the displayport cable at the PC end for the displays to regroup. Fortunately for me that's a single cable, and it's within fairly easy reach. Still, it's a real pain, and only a result of the fact that crossfire and eyefinity have never really been compatible with each other.

There's no sign of non-tiled 2160p displays on the horizon any time soon, so the high res bugs I will have to live with, not that there's too many for me (at the moment). On the GPU-side though, I'm not so sure.

The roadmap for the R9 300 series has been recently announced. The original proposed date was Q4 this year. However, that depends on the 20nm silicon process being operational in time for that, and I've not seen any evidence of that happening yet. I'm rather hoping that if the silicon process isn't ready that they delay the architecture to fit rather than release another 28nm generation since, as you can see, the current version isn't enough.

Right now my best approach seems to be to buy a single 290X in non-reference variety (which I'm always sceptical of for reliability reasons). The best I can do for that is £440 inc. tax ($620 without). Then of course there's the risk of a genuine 20nm 300 series coming out to make it look rather silly, in say 9 months time. Decisions, decisions...

 

Here's a test for embedding the full size image


It seems to work - why not just do this when writing your posts?

 

Just got Metal Gear Rising Revengeance for PC. As far as I'm concerned it's very faithful to the source material. A refreshing action game comparing to say Ninja Gaiden with some unique mechanics and that Konami/Metal Gear touch. MGR Revengeance is very smooth, sharp, and a blast to play. The graphics, while not spectacular, are very crisp, well modeled, and visually interesting. Performance is just fine at maxed settings with 1920 x 1200 8xAA. Locked at 60 with occasional small dips into the high 50s. Review incoming maybe... Only complaint is uncompromising linearity but it's more than made up for by the amazing setpieces and boss battles. Plus, you're a cyborg ninja...

 

FULL SIZE SCREENSHOT LINKS FROM NOW ON
I will. #1 First, I'll upload them at 900 wide, which as you showed above, when you expand it, is the largest size that will expand out - larger than that just burdens afterdawn with shrinking it. For the old AfterDawn I used 700 wide.

And #2 Second, I will also upload the full size image - and I won't print "full-size" on it - well maybe I will, or maybe I'll start giving those a title. Anyway, now that my memory is refreshed on how to do it, I will do that with all posts.


ARMA III SCREENSHOTS GETTING EVEN MORE AWESOME AS OF LAST NIGHT
Speaking of screenshots, I was blown away yesterday by the showcase "Arma." I was stunned by the beauty of the map.

I took the most beautiful screenshots yesterday - a Battlefield 4 kind of expansive map, a valley with distant hills, houses, broken down buildings, colorful factory, including areas with sections of rock walls that reminded my of World War II battles in the fields of Normandy.

Okay, here is a sample one so I can give you guys a taste - not the best necessarily, just a quick one to add to this post. A real post on this showcase will be coming.



Full-size (magnify twice): http://s518.photobucket.com/user/harvardguy/media/Armashowcase1-full_zps020a268d.jpg.html


As beautiful as the game looks on ultra, I have found, however, that at default gamma of 1.0, it's not quite bright enough for me - not only is it very hard to spot the enemies, but it just has an overall darkness to it that is just a tad too much - too contrasty if I might be permitted to use that "word." But a gamma increase of 1.1 - the smallest jump up - is all that is needed to fix the entire thing.


Besides the extensive campaign, they have a total of 16 showcases, and some of them are absolutely incredible - and incredibly hard I should add.

The ONLY way I have been able to handle the really hard ones is through my trick of adding saves, by keeping their save folder open, and my own save folder open. They allow you to save once per showcase, and they have auto-saves, but not frequently enough. So I save when I get tired of repeating the same thing I have done for the last 5 times, so I can advance a bit, like last night.

Then when after a while, that save turns out to be not enough, I will get quite a bit further ahead, pause the game, ALT tab to desktop, delete the save in their folder, continue the game, and immediately pause it. Now the Save button is Active, so I'll create my new save, pause the game, ALT tab to desktop, put that new save into a folder if I want to keep it for future replay (which I did not do last night on the Arma showcase) - you see how it works.


COMBINED ARMS SHOWCASE IS A BALL-BUSTER!!!
On one showcase called "combined arms" I have 6 custom saves each in a numbered folder - I know exactly where each save puts me, as I spent over 30 hours on that showcase conquering it. It was incredibly hard - but now it's my bi*ch! I now know how to play that mission, in order to complete the showcase, without the RETREAT command, and without all of my team getting killed leaving me to murder the last dozen enemies with no help at all. (Which needed all 6 saves.)

Here is the one and only time in the 30 hours and 6 successful finishes - all toward the end of learning the correct tactics - where I actually had 2 teammates survive. Notice how bloody the guy on the left is, before I heal him.



Full size: http://s518.photobucket.com/user/harvardguy/media/combinedarmsshowcase1-full_zps57c58897.jpg.html

In fact the new method is so good, that I can now reliably start only from save #2, and succeed 50% of the time, with a lot of patience, and with about 30 minutes of tense combat. However, now that I think about it, yes, all my team is usually dead on my final best strategy. LOL By the way, notice all the dead bodies everywhere - enemies and teammates.


But that is a complete post coming soon within the next 30 days. Like I say, I have at least 30 hours combat time on that one showcase, and yesterday I took a few dozen screenshots. It is awesome, and unbelievably challenging, but also fun.

I didn't get a chance to finish this post and comment on some more things - I'll do that tomorrow - we're all going to see a movie!

Rich

 

Hmmmm. Sorry about the double. A few days have passed, and Jeff, I completely missed your post about Metal Gear Rising Revengeance for PC a couple days ago - I have the feeling you were posting at the same time as I was.

Yes, I wish you WOULD post some screenshots, because I can't tell if it is something I would be interested in or not. "Plus, you're a cyborg ninja... " meaning, we're a robot, is that right? Well, fine, some of my friends are robots - nobody on this forum I hasten to add.

Sam, I got to your long post - and similarly, the fact that it came in before my post, tells me that you, Jeff, and I were all posting at the same time a few days ago. I thought you were definitely going for the double gpu 290, but when you talked about the temps, etc., I see your point - and if 20nm is coming in 9 months, might be better to just wait.

Regarding your post after that, post #8874, with the repost of my driving picture which has the caption in lower left, "FULL SIZE SCREEN" I totally don't understand.

You said

"Here's a test for embedding the full size image"

Then you showed the picture. Then you said:

"It seems to work - why not just do this when writing your posts?"

I am drawing a total blank. I could not get it to expand any larger than any other picture on this forum. If you are able to get it to expand to full size, how do you do it? WAIT A SECOND!!

OMG I just did it!!!

Now, how did I do that, can I do it again, and how do I instruct people to get to full size?

Wow, I did it again. Here it is again.




On the image above, which is the full-size image, if you just touch the magnifier to enlarge it, it enlarges only to about 900 pixels wide. But if you right-click the image, and say "Open in new tab" (which is what I choose on google chrome) it opens in a separate window, not quite full size, but with the cursor showing a magnifier allowing you to get it to full size.


So you're saying, Sam, that I can just use my images that way, and tell people that if they don't want to bother seeing them full size, expand them and they will slightly expand, but instead of that, right-click the image and open in a new tab, then they can expand to full 2560x1600 size.

So in that case, I can merely load into photobucket the full size image, along with those instructions?

That sounds great - let me try it.

Let me try it on one of the new ones. The red bold print below represents how I would plan to handle it in future posts. I am choosing the normal "direct" method of capturing the image from photobucket, the way I always do it, this time using the full-size 2560x1600 image. I will keep my fingers crossed.


This below is a full-size image:


To see the image full-size, right-click the image above, choose option "open in new tab," and then you will see that you can magnify it to full 2560x1600 size.


Okay, I'm now going to hit preview, and see if that worked, lol.

NO IT ABSOLUTELY DIDN'T WORK. SAM WHAT IS YOUR SECRET?

In fact, Sam, I notice now that your version of my picture, has the word ~original tucked onto the end.

Here is the link that I copied from your post:

http://i518.photobucket.com/albums/u343/harvardguy/arma3-45_zps404da6b8.jpg~original

And if I imbed that link in a picture format like this:



I bet I get a picture that somebody can right-click "open in new tab" and immediately be presented with a magnifier allowing full 2560x1600 image size.

YES, IT WORKS AGAIN.

And again, Sam, what is your secret? What choice are you using on photobucket, that is allowing me to put the image in, with the addition to it saying ~original.

Or is that coming from some other photo web site?

Photobucket presents me with 4 options for displaying the picture, and not a single one has the text ~original at the end of the image name, like the link I copied from your post?

So yes, it works, and now please, tell me EXACTLY what you did to get that. LOL

There is probably a very simple explanation, but I totally am not understanding what you did. I am happy to do it that way - BUT HOW?????????????

Rich

On seccond thought, before signing off, let me give it one more try:

To see this FULL-SIZE, right-click the image and open in a new tab or window.


OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

THAT WORKS!

I took the picture, with the normal photobucket option Direct, just like I always do, and placed it inside the "" brackets, just like I always do, and then


.... the following is something I have NEVER done before .....
I went inside those brackets and added "~original" without the quotes of course, to the end of the picture name right after .jpg like this: [ Armashowcase1-full_zps020a268d.jpg~original ]

So that new picture, if you open in another tab, presents you with a magnifier - you hit it once with left mouse click, and you have a full-size picture.

No matter what, you're a genius Sam, and if all else fails, I guess I can MANUALLY add the text ~original to my full-size photos, but is there a photobucket way of doing the same thing? (And if not, how the heck did you come up with that?)....

Rich

 

Literally all I did was view the original, right click ->copy image URL and paste that in the IMG square bracket tags. Nothing more to it then that...

 

Yep I always just find the source URL for the image and post it in the brackets. AD has its own image resizer to fit them to pages.

 

You've done it correctly in your last two attachments, Rich. I believe the ~original tag adds itself when you look at the URL of the image after you've expanded it. Linking to anything but that picture, however (including the page that contains the full-size version) will not display the correct image.