The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Well aware Gigabyte make good cards, but on the off chance I ever moved back to a dual graphics system I wanted to stick with a blower-cooled card. IF I can get this one stable that might be a good idea down the line, as for the proper 'staying power' at 4K I think I do need a little bit more horsepower under there!

 

I think it was proven a LONG time ago that in a case with any sort of decent airflow, blower vs "Zalman" style coolers don't make much difference in a dual card configuration. Would certainly run a pair of them in here and not bat an eye. The 6850s particularly were pretty closely spaced and both ran just fine. Top card was like 5*C hotter than the bottom card. No other issues, and their coolers were definitely not blowers.

 

Almost everything I've ever read suggests that the top card of the two will run 10-15C hotter than usual if two internally-exhasuting cards are used. Secondly, all the heat from the GPUs also has to exit via the CPU cooler in such setups, whereas with blower coolers the GPUs can effectively be isolated from the CPU almost entirely if you have side case fan(s).

 

To each his own. Sorry you got saddled with a dud card. My GTX760 has been absolutely issue free since new.

 

Beat me to it about commenting on the 'A' in APC

I'm still hoping to exonerate the GTX970, even though I don't much relish having to fork out for more hardware, I'd rather the fault be with a 6-year old PSU than to have a 3-way RMA to deal with. My RMA on the 290X is valid until the 21st I believe so I just need to get the replacement to them in the post by about the 16th. I'll give this a bit more testing first having swapped the PSU connectors round.

Edit: Just played the intro scene of Crysis Warhead as I did on the 290X, I'd say the frame rate is probably about 20% lower, which knowing the slight AMD bias the title has in its latter years seems fair. Disabling AA but leaving all settings Enthusiast, I was getting a fairly solid 25-32fps throughout, which was pretty playable. Still not bad for 4K on a single card, given what title it is!

 

Just gave a Razer DeathAdder an impulse purchase while browsing Best Buy and trying it out as a replacement for my aging Logitech MX518. It's the latest revision. Gotta say Razer continues to impress me. Very good build quality and very nice feel in the hand. A lot of features I liked from the Razer/MS Habu in a product with a decidedly better reputation. Good tracking mouse designed for larger hands is right up my alley. Long term will prove its worth, but my last Razer mouse was purchased in 2007 and is still working... Is a very basic 5 button mouse so perfectly suited for my needs. Matches very nicely with the Black Widow keyboard. I can now see why many consider it the current Razer flagship. Very nice mouse. High performance, stylish, and oh-so-comfortable to use for my large hands like my beloved MX518 and Habu.

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Also grabbed a Razer BlackShark headset to have the full set of matching green peripherals, lol. Not nearly the cheapest in the Razer spectrum either. Everything I have was the most expensive option in the store because I wanted a quality boost. So far, Razer just replaced my entire main set of peripherals with flying colors! Not bad for Best Buy, the Wal-Mart of electronics. Amazing amazing amazing construction quality on the BlackSharks and extremely comfortable. Very clearly designed after aviation-style headsets, which means absolutely flawless build quality, a rarity for Razer. Even the Black Widow has its slightly chintzy points, fantastic though it is. Better sound quality than my cheap-but-decent Logitech G230s and even slightly better than the fantastic Creative Fatal1ty headsets that I bought three of. BlackSharks are known for requiring a little break-in due to their large drivers, which in my experience can make a noticeable difference, but not huge. Is certainly not a pair of audiophile headphones, but far above average for a gaming headset. A little heavy on the bass to the point of muddy, but some frequency re-direction cleaned them up significantly. Excellent but not amazing sound quality. Bit disappointed there, but overall they are so damn nice I'd be stupid to complain. Not bad headphones at all by any measure with a little tuning

I know there are arguments in many directions for breaking in headphones or speakers. I am a firm believer in breaking in any half-decent piece of audio equipment. About 20-40 hours of bass heavy music can loosen up a pair of headphones a LOT and very slightly clean up the sound. Speakers can require even longer. I always notice a a difference in sound after long ownership.

 

Sorry for the double but it's been a few days. Not spamming though, so never too worried about a few doubles here and there Just been using the few big threads as a sounding board for the last few years Should really start posting regularly again. By far my oldest website membership aside from Hotmail. 10 years in 2016!

Sam, I totally understand your reservations about Razer hardware, and whole-heartedly agree with you. I was extremely paranoid about the functioning and quality of these peripherals given my previous horrid keyboard experiences. Razer have a knack for making nice looking things with mediocre function or durability. I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong about some things with these last few purchases. Razer have stepped up their game once more and started producing truly decent quality equipment again. I am extremely pleased with the quality of the Black Widow Ultimate keyboard, DeathAdder mouse, and BlackShark headset. A bit of a cop-out since they were the best options available at Best Buy, but they have a good return policy so well worth the gamble. I am not hurting spending the extra $10-20 per item to try them the same day

 

I'm much the same, I far prefer collecting hardware in person when I need it rather than have to wait for it to be ordered in. I do at least somewhat mitigate the waiting period for online deliveries by using locker delivery whenever I can.

 

Well Sam, good luck with your psu fiddling. I actually hope that the psu was the issue - that would be a relatively easy fix.

Hahaha - Jeff, you caught me! I was thinking ddp would be the one, but he let the opportunity slip right through his fingers.

Good luck with your insulation project, ddp.

Right you are of course, Jeff. It came to me as soon as I went back into Crysis right after my last post. The APCs in Arma 3 are the Marshall, and they do have the little propeller in the back, but when I went back into Crysis - there were no propellers - I had simply remembered it wrong.

That is interesting, Jeff, as you mentioned, that the military started to outfit one particular APC with such heavy armor - depleted uranium - that, while they were first supposed to be amphibious, they just became too heavy to float. I could see how that might happen. It crossed my mind as I was standing there in the game looking at that propeller-less APC.

No propeller in the back of this Armored Personnel Carrier - it sinks like a rock.


The ones in the game similarly must be very heavy - they sink without any hesitation whatsoever.

In order to float you have to displace more water than the equivalent vehicle weight, and even some of the MRAPs (mine resistant ambush protected) which are the humvee-like vehicles - can hit up to 20-25 tons in weight. If we run some math:

Water weighs around 8 pounds per gallon, and there are roughly 8 gallons per cubic foot, so that's roughly 64 pounds per cubic foot. Therefore, 312 cubic feet of water weighs about 20,000 pounds, or 10 tons. So if your APC is 20 feet long, by 6 feet wide, by 5 feet tall, that's 600 cubic feet. If your weight just hits the 20 ton range, you are already almost too heavy to float. And I would imagine that most of those things are heavier than an MRAP. ​

But in Arma 3 the Marshall is not heavier than that, and it DOES float - I don't think it uses depleted uranium armor - if so I suppose I would not have been able to kill it so spectacularly, 60% of the time, in those exciting helicopter gunship encounters.

Regarding Crysis 3 gameplay - there ARE some wide-open levels that are quite interesting to play. There is one level where you have to take out 3 alien Anti-Air sites. It appears as though you can take them out in any order that you want.

I did my third play-through of that level, and this time I paid attention to doing the side missions first - that was helpful. After aiding the mortar team, they later had me sight in with my visor, and then they dropped a mortar on two of the giant sentry robot pingers that were causing me problems. Another downed VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) that I rescued opened up a weapon that I had not seen before.

And clearing out some mines around a trapped APC got me a ride as a gunner. The machine gun didn't have much effect on the alien warship that was targeting me - it stayed facing me with heavy armor that was invulnerable to the 50 caliber rounds I was throwing at it. But I jumped out of the APC just in time before we blew up, to take refuge in some large pipes, just under him. From that vantage point I was able to take some really good shots at him that brought him down.

Here are some screenshots showing the same kind of alien fighter that was targeting me.


The water reflections were beautiful, the sky was overcast, better to highlight the alien red jet engines.


In these shots however, this was a large watery area where I was in a dune buggy, supposedly in a big hurry to save Claire - I promised her I would be there in 5 minutes. But instead I just hung around and watched the overhead light show - which repeated in about 5 minutes. Not one of the alien VTOLs was targeting me. Then I drove back and picked up my sentry gun, and walked the 700 meters down to save Claire.

What you're seeing in the sky, is the destroyed canopy over Manhattan, the world-wide energy source.

This area was about 10 acres, consisting of an upper and a lower area. I charged around in the dune buggy for a while, but mostly just watched.


It wasn't just aliens - occasionally a group of helicopters would charge on by, shooting down the aliens.



The game had many picturesque sections, where you could linger a bit if you wanted to. For example, early after the industrial opening, you wandered out on the edge of the dome-covered city, looking for something that would help you deal with the control tower sentry guns.

Once you took out those pesky tower guns, you could enjoy some of the lush scenery all around you.


Here I laid down the bolt sniper and grabbed my grenel rifle before getting more ammo across the way.



But my leisurely fun didn't last for long, because of these idiots running around in the grass.

These were not the intelligent rifle-carrying soldier lizards, or squids, as Psycho called them. These were just some lower form of alien - but they were fast and they could bite - they killed a bunch of the enemy soldiers earlier on so I had my maximum armor protection on.

I tried to get up high to better deal with them, but they'd come behind and knock me off the train.




There were trains all over in various stages of disrepair.



And do you guys remember the Dam - do you want to see some more dam shots? Just kidding. After you blow the dam, there of course is water everywhere, and as you follow the river, you go through some cool areas right under the city.

As I go under the city, I'm carrying a 50 caliber sentry machine gun - my favorite close-in weapon.




The other area that I would consider somewhat WIDE OPEN, is the chinatown area - I think it's called Safeties Off. It is comprised of 4 sections.


The chinatown area, called Safeties Off, is a dark murky moody and foreboding place of great danger.



For each section, you are thrown into an area that is about 4-6 acres in size, with a fixed amount of enemies - they don't keep spawning on you. Once you kill them all you can relax. The bow made a huge difference in the gameplay. The first section is soldiers, then lizards, then fire-breathing scorchers - a kind of sentry drone, then lizards again.

I first meet a scorcher when this warehouse door bursts open with soldiers screaming and on fire.


In the shot above, I am holding an alien rifle. As I backed away about 20 yards - safe from the flames he was belching out - that happened to put me near an alien charging unit which kept replenishing my rifle, so I just let the scorcher drop back down into its almost impregnable defensive position, where it looks like a giant beetle and where normal rifle ammo can't hurt it at all, and I kept blasting it. Eventually it heated up and started smoking - then suddenly it blew apart.

As I progressed through the warehouse, I got a message that they spotted a crippled pinger in the area, and I told Claire that I might be able to use its power source. Again, I got near the power source, and took out about 5 more of these things with the endless ammo from the alien rifle.

That was more fun than my first time through where I snuck through invisible, trying to avoid being spotted during the suit recharging time, just trying to avoid these damn scorchers.

Then the final lizard section. I was Robin Hood by this time.

Here is the 4th section of Safeties Off, with patrolling squids. I had marked them all with the visor.


There are some extra arrows around, but not very many. So it's important to go get your arrows after the kills, and if you wait too long, they disappear in about 5 minutes. I had mentioned trying to find a charging cell, and using the lizards' own weapon against them, but there were no charging cells in either of the lizard sections. There were a total of about 15 lizards, and the bow was a one-shot kill, and of the 9 arrows, I only lost a couple.


By the way, I finally had some really good encounters with the heavy grunt. If you are lucky enough to be carrying the sentry 50 caliber machine gun, he goes down pretty easily. For that reason I usually preferred not to ride in an APC or a dune buggy - you can't get in a vehicle and retain the sentry gun.

So, no matter if they said the world was going to blow up in 15 minutes, or Claire would die in 5 minutes, I walked - carrying my sentry 50 caliber.

They always gave me extra time to save Claire or the world.

That 50 caliber will even take out the scorchers - even in maximum defensive position - the 50 caliber punches through their defensive armor the way that the alien weapon finally does - they start smoking and then blow up.

Or you can just wait until the scorcher stands up, then hit it in the leg with one electronic arrow, which kills it!

A map that came up a little later after blowing up the dam, had me killing about 7 lizards - meaning alien warriors - Psycho calls them squids - with one of their weapons, after I get super-charged by an alien charging cell that replenishes their weapon and seems to make it more potent, in addition to super-charging my armor.

Here is where I was - the alien tower is the hive mind - connecting me to the communal alien mind.


The gun I am carrying is my favorite non-sentry gun to walk around with. This is the 200 round M60 light machine gun, with a 100 round belt. The ammo is 7.6 mm. (But the 50 caliber sentry gun is 12.7 mm - that's a 167% larger round and that's why I will always grab a sentry gun if one is available.)


I enjoyed the incredible energy of it - until the real alpha ceph put out the word that I was an imposter.



Suddenly, those alien cephs that had formed around me - bowing down to me - decided instead to blow my brains out. But too bad - my armor was super-charged, the alien pinch rifle was supercharged, and they all just turned to blubber under my non-stop fire.


Claire had screamed "Get out of there" when the real alpha-ceph intervened. But after mowing them all down, I told Claire, "It's all over."

Now all was still - the hive mind was burned out by then and inactive - not generating energy anymore.



Just then a pod carrying the really heavily-armored grunt crash-landed in the little lagoon.



In the first play-through - when he showed up I snuck around cloaked, and got out of there. But this time I wanted to see what it would take to kill the big guy.


HOW TO KILL THE HEAVILY-ARMORED GRUNT
Well that's the guy I was trying to kill all along, trying to figure out the best weapon. I had an M60 light machine gun with 118 rounds (it carries peak 200) of 7.62 mm ammo. That is one of my favorite close-in weapons in the game. It is also a handy weapon to carry, because standard ammo which is available everywhere, fills it up to max 200 rounds. The typhoon, which carries over 1400 rounds of 4mm SMG ammo, but which spits them out at an amazingly rapid rate of fire with 10 separate barrels, will certainly cut anything up really fast, but goes through ammo very quickly, and is only re-loaded when you find a "special" ammo supply. So all in all, for my non-sniper fully automatic weapon, I would prefer to carry the M60 - takes maybe twice as long to kill a lizard as the typhoon - two seconds instead of one - but a full 100 rounds before reload, and uses readily available ammo.

However, it didn't make a dent in the heavily armored grunt. I sprayed all 118 rounds at him and he kept on coming. He killed me, and so began the first of about 10 replays of that round.

(The 12.7mm sentry gun will kill him with about 20 rounds, but I didn't have one of those with me. Later in the game, I blasted a different heavily-armored grunt from about 15 feet, with all 720 rounds of a typhoon before reload - about 5 seconds of typhoon - and that finished him - so I have to say that close-in, 720 rounds of typhoon will kill the big guy, when 120 rounds of M60 won't.) ​

I tried different weapons and killed him. Then I committed suicide by stepping on two of my own grenades. I stayed around for about 10 sessions, finding out just what it took, based on what I had with me.

I found out that all 9 of the regular arrows didn't have too much effect on him.

But the special arrows are a different story.

Here is the same grunt on his way toward me, chewing on a plastique arrow that I just stuck him with.


It took only 4 of any of the special arrows.

This is the weapon that Cevat Yerli was infatuated with. Me too. It's a lovely and deadly work of art.



You get 9 special arrows, and 9 reusable regular arrows.

For the heavily-armored grunt, it didn't matter which special arrows I used on him - the electric ones, the air-burst, or the delayed burst sticky grenade type - 4 of them was all it took. Alternatively, to conserve special arrows, I could actually do it with 3 specials, then finish him off with several regular arrows, then saunter over and collect them from his useless dead carcass.

Later, I found that 3 gamma rifle bullets will also kill him. I had upgraded to the super heavy-duty gamma sniper rifle that I didn't really want to carry - it had only 9 rounds. I totally ignored it on my first play-through. But on subsequent plays, I grew to love it. At great distance, each round was a one-shot lizard kill, whereas the other 24-round special sniper rifle, was at best a two-shot lizard kill.

But the highest use of that gamma rifle was in place of a guided missile - for example on the giant sentry pinger robot, or against an alien fighter jet with VTOL capability.

To take out those targets, you have to hit them in the rear - especially on a red lighted cylinder which is their power plant. The laser-guided missile flies much slower than the gamma rifle bullet, and I don't believe it has any more impact when it does hit the target. But the problem with the missile, is that often the warship will have turned around by the time the missile hits, and I am not able to keep the laser on the rear vulnerable section. But when I take aim with the gamma rifle, there is no laser to hold steady - the bullet hits as soon as I pull the trigger - no time for the ship to turn around - and in several cases the ship simply exploded.

I really started to like that gamma rifle - much better than those slow-moving missiles. I didn't try a missile on the heavily-armored grunt - I would have liked to have seen if one would take him down. My guess is it would take 3 of them which is the max number of missiles you can carry.

CRYSIS 3 HAS THE BOW!
Anyway, Crysis 3, while overall not in the same category as the original, does have some GREAT maps, and has quite a bit of replay value on those maps.

And I have to admit, that the bow is my totally all-time favorite weapon. Just like I really liked the bow in Far Cry 3, the bow adds a very special element to Crysis 3 that, weapon-wise, was not available in the prior games. I could see why they were excited about the bow. They probably picked it up from Far Cry 3, and Dishonored. I repeat, for the tenth time, they had a great game on their hands, but for some unfortunate slip-ups.

Graphics-wise, Crysis 3 seems to be more advanced - the waving grass and other effects, smoke, floating dust particles, etc. , ripples in the water that you cause by walking through, seem very, very realistic, and add a tremendous level of immersion. And the music is terrific. You really are running around in a very special environment. You miss it when you leave.

As far as my hardware goes, the graphics are more challenging, as my crossfire is often pushed to the max, usually yielding mid to high 30 fps, whereas I had sailed through 1 and 2 and Warhead, at mostly 40 fps with only one 7950 card.

(During that time I could not run crossfire yet, but I was testing different cards to create a crossfire rig, before ultimately returning 3 that didn't perform as well as my HIS IceQ 7950.

The final answer was to get a second HIS IceQ 7950 and move to the full tower Spedo case, which had been sitting in the garage for 4 years, when I realized that its bottom psu design would easily accommodate both HIS 7950s without requiring me to mod the mid-tower sonata case - for example by cutting a big round hole in the bottom and adding feet to the case.

The problem in the mid-tower sonata was that the massive cooling coil of the HIS IceQ extended past the second expansion slot and was pushing against the case bottom and wouldn't allow the second card to fully seat in the slot, which is why I had been searching for a two-slot card to pair up with the 2 1/2 slot HIS.) ​

I might possibly come back to Crysis 3 from time to time, for some more bow and arrow fun, before revisiting the first 3 games of the series, all of which were great fun. (The DVD arrived, and I also did install that Avatar $16 game, and it far exceeded my expectations - it is a really good game, with a story that pre-dates the film, but in many ways follows the film closely. And guess what, I took quite a few screenshots. For a change. Go figure.)

And yes, Kevin, you are right, as you see, fraps is continuing to work wonderfully.

I will close this post with a screen of my two favorite weapons, the bow, and the 50 caliber sentry machine gun. If you want to carry the sentry gun, which you cannot re-arm once you run through the 150 rounds (so use it sparingly and don't get into any vehicles - or at least drive back and get the gun when you are through fooling around with the vehicle) just walk up to it and detach it from its mount.

Two monster weapons, the fantastic bow with 9 special, and 9 re-usable arrows, and the 50 caliber.


Rich

 

I have a new appreciation for steam! I had no backups for Grid, or Left 4 dead 1, or 2. But since they were installed to a separate drive, which I never reformat, it's currently discovering "Existing files" I see a lot of shoddy software on a day to day basis. Steam is definitely not one of them!

 

You're right Kevin, they worked and worked to get Steam to be silky smooth.

I noticed just yesterday, that they eliminated one problem that bugged me - I was afraid to open steam on this computer - I had a note to myself - "Don't use this steam shortcut - it will start downloading all the games to this computer."

That note was about a year or so ago, and yesterday I just wanted to look at the pinball games, since a friend was interested - I figured steam must have some good pinball games and I was right. So despite the note, I went ahead with the steam shortcut - getting ready to jump on "manage downloads" and try to pause everything, once I responded to the email code indicating that I wanted my steam account to also be on another computer.

To my astonishment, none of the games came down. They were all there if I wanted to "install" to this computer, but the days of steam just automatically downloading all your games to a new computer has come to an end. That was a smart move - a person might want to browse the steam store from another computer - maybe over at a friend's house for example. That doesn't necessarily mean he wants all his 300 gigs of games on that friend's computer, lol.

So not only is steam slick like you were saying Kevin, but it's smarter all the time. And by the way - being a publisher has worked out so well for Valve, that they have somewhat de-focused on gaming, as I guess we all have noticed - like .... whatever happened to Episode 3, or where is Half Life 3?

However, they ARE pushing Dota 2 like crazy. The Dota 2 tournaments go way beyond anything that ever existed for counter strike.

Free to play is more and more popular - I read that the Yerli brothers, who just barely escaped insolvency a few months ago after the poor sales of Crysis 3, are putting more effort into free to play.

Sam, do you still play Dota 2?

Valve raised so much money for the last Dota 2 tournament - the third tournament I believe - that they were giving away substantial prizes even to teams that finished below the top 10 - not just to 1st 2nd and 3rd place like before.

Hey Jeff, I re-read your post - and you really picked up a set of nice peripherals over there at Best Buy. Keyboard, mouse, headphones. Would you like to post some pictures? As I recall you coordinated your peripherals - everything with a green look. Anyway, congratulations on the investment in more rewarding gaming.

I started thinking to myself - "He's getting a top cpu pretty soon, a 4770 as I recall, with 16 gigs memory, and putting it on a new mobo - I wonder if Jeff will eventually decide to implement high definition gaming on a 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 monitor."

Regarding that conversation about blower vs non-blower - if your testing, Jeff, has shown only a 5 degree difference, then I would conclude that you obviously know how to ventilate your case.

These 7950s however, are the blower type, and I have to admit that I really like the idea of blowing the hot air out the back of the machine. Nevertheless, I ran into an over-heating problem recently. I found that the air in back of the computer was getting really hot - it seemed to be trapped between the back of the trailer bench and a business mid-tower that is placed there coming out of the corner at about a 45 degree angle.

I was having temperature problems with the big gaming tower despite all my fans in the case, and two more fans blowing from various angles - yes I did have some outside fans directed toward the tower, which I thought would create air movement, but my setup didn't seem to be working all that well.

Finally I got the idea of taking a small 10" spare desktop fan, and sitting it next to the full tower, directing it toward the 2" gap between the two towers, to try to push that stagnant hot air up and out of the dead zone.

Worked like a charm! That seems to have done the trick - no more temperature problems. It works so well that I am not too concerned anymore in running some of these other outside fans, like a noisy 12 volt bus driver fan that was rotating back and forth blowing on the tower and also on the back of the monitor. So the lesson to me was - the blower does its job - but only if the hot air behind the tower does not sit there with nowhere to go.

Well, I think I'm going to jump on Avatar for an hour before calling it a night. On this second run-through, I changed my character - and it is interesting to see the change not only to the look of my character and to the sound of the voice, but also to the subtle changes in the wording of the dialog. He used to tell the horse, "stay calm" whereas she says things like "come on buddy."

The game has 12 character types that you can choose, 6 male and 6 female, including black, white, Asian, Scandinavian, and two really ugly ones who must be Canadian.

Rich

 

haha - that's undoubtedly true .... uh.... I mean false.

(Sorry to hear about the Ottawa terrorist attack - at the tomb of the unknown soldier of all places, and then Parliament.

My guess is we'll be sending in the marines again, and the Brits and Canadians will be welcome to join the pacification. We left Iraq in a mess with a vindictive leader who weakened the military and consequently the whole region is substantially worse off than before - and the nut cases are proliferating. I don't know if we can really afford it - but I don't think this is like Yugoslavia where an aerial campaign will turn the tide.)​

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


AVATAR

In the meantime, I've had boots on the ground in the interesting world of Pandora - best $14 I ever spent. (Last time I said $16, then I looked again at Paypal - $14.40. Price of a movie.)

I've been occupying myself with Avatar, the game, and guess what, it has a bow! And the arrows are 6 feet long - as tall as a person. Expand this picture below to full size - just click it - and get a good feel for how gigantic those arrows are - then click it to shrink back to small size.


Who the hell speared my dead buddy?- ------------------------------------------------- Is it a spear or an arrow?



If you saw the movie you know that the natives are 9 feet tall.

The graphics are not too bad - at first I didn't realize there was more on the graphics page than I thought - later I scrolled down and maxed out everything with max AA and I added HDR.

So my later screens are better - I am not sure if this is one of the highest quality.


These double swords are the deadliest weapon for close-in fighting.



I played through the game, the first time, siding with the natives as an Avatar, just like in the movie, and just like the movie, I chose for my character a man, among the several non-Canadian men that I could stand to look at.


One of the fun things is you get to climb really really high, then pick your favorite blue dragon.




They were kind of fun to fly with - a little challenging to steer them without crashing into the rocks.





But as big as the blue dragons were, just like in the movie there is something much bigger than that in the sky, much further up, flying as high as the highest mountains. We needed that giant dragon to get all the way up to the holy place we had to reach, the lost Well of Souls.


Do you remember that fabulous red and gold resplendent giant dragon in the movie - here he is later in the game.





But better than flying was horse-back riding - you could trot, or you could gallop quickly past machine gun fire!




The costumes get pretty wild - and check out that incredibly fancy bow.



Then I thought I would switch gears, and check out the experience of playing the game as a girl, like playing Tomb Raider.


She's just as good a fighter as a guy - but prettier to look at.




The game handled the change nicely. Just a couple times, I noticed a few very minor mistakes - like they still occasionally referred to me in the third person as "he" and one time they said "Sir" although I believe it is appropriate in the military to call a female senior officer "Sir" (except in Canada where they call all senior officers "Hey Bud" which I suppose is better than the Aussies "Hey mate.")

Anyway, it was kind of fun playing as a girl avatar.


I have to tune the willow tree song. They think it's important - I think "What's the big deal?"




Here's my buddy "B" ordering me around - he doesn't like me until the very end when he is sorry he was so mean.




With either avatar, the game adds some humor to the contrast. The real Na'avi people are very spiritual, and they talk you up as a very honorable hero. But your avatar, male or female, is just a regular guy - ala Brooklyn casual speaking style.

So the avatar says "Hold on there, I'm just a spec op, collecting a few songs. Where I come from they call that a DJ."

And of course, as the girl Avatar, you also must tame the giant resplendent dragon to fly to the very high Well of Souls.


As a girl, I approached the golden dragon very cautiously.




In the movie I had to surprise leap on him from my regular dragon - but in the game he is more gentle than that.



Then, after finishing the game again, I decided - what the heck - to play the game as a soldier - the enemy.

The decision point comes early in the game. And in fact they save that section, so when you go to the main menu and hit continue, you scroll through the possible start points, and there is your character at the beginning of the section where you have to make the critical choice.

At first I couldn't do it. I fired a few shots at the turn-coat Avatar whom I was ordered to shoot, then I waited for the other two soldiers to finish him off.

But the game wasn't having any of that. One soldier was killed. That left the Avatar standing toe to toe with a soldier, each firing full auto, and the health bar of each stayed full green. I wasn't sure what to do. I eventually sauntered over the crest of the little hill, where even though I was an Avatar, I got attacked by a bunch of tall blue natives - so I quickly returned before I could get killed out there, now in the mood to shoot enemies who were tall and blue. So I shot him - it turns out that he didn't die, but he did kill off my Avatar with a lucky arrow through my chest, fired up as he was falling backward off the little cliff.

Playing as a soldier is so much hairier - every plant and every animal wants to kill you.



That plant on the left is especially vicious, attacking me with a toxic yellow gas that slows my movements.



I had two games going at once - the human one and the avatar one - and the avatar game by comparison was relatively blissful, with harmonious music, until you were engaged in one of the main battlefields.

The enemies keep spawning, so if you get your blood lust up, you can fight all you want and earn extra XP points, for upgraded armor and weapons - as you move up your native outfit keeps changing - the war outfits keep getting more elaborate and do a better job of shielding you from the helicopter machine guns.

Oh, but as a soldier, you get to fly a helicopter.


That was kind of cool - I don't know what's better, flying a dragon, or flying the machinery!




But to nit pick again - the pilot-controlled Gatling gun is not mouse directed - it doesn't move around with your mouse, which is kind of weak - but you're not meant to spend much time flying. Other vehicles with machine guns similarly have the same problem - you have to adjust your target by the way the vehicle is facing. Not a big deal.


The human game doesn't have the bow - but it has some decent automatic weapons and a good shotgun, a flame thrower, and best of all a lovely grenade launcher. You can carry 7 or 8 weapons, with 3 of them on quick keys - F1 is always dual hand guns with unlimited ammo, like Max Payne. But the others are more powerful than the handguns. You can get access to any of the others, at any time in the game, if you happen to run out of ammo, by hitting Esc which freezes the action, and then by switching the new gun to one of the 3 non-handgun quick keys. I carry handguns, then F2 is shotgun, F3 grenade launcher, F4 is nail gun.


The flame thrower is cool - you can light some brush on fire - but most everything is too green to burn.



But the flame thrower is weak - ok on the deadly plants, but I would prefer to use a grenade on them. It's not that great against wolves, or against natives. I played with it for a bit, then I never touched it again, lol.

The game shows you damage, rate of fire, and range for every gun. The best range is from the basic issue rifle, which fires in bursts, but only carries a max of 96 rounds. Then there is a 300-round assault rifle, also burst mode, with somewhat less range, but damage is just as good. The nail gun was in-between.


My favorite gun is the nail gun - which maxes out at 450 rounds. It has good range, plus good damage.




The nail gun maxes out at 450 rounds, with the inverted banana clip shown in the above screenshot. It had good range. The range was just a little less range than the standard issue, but more range than the assault rifle, and just a little less damage per round. I thought it was the best compromise.

And if I needed, the nail gun fired full-auto, with no reload. I could start shooting short bursts at a native quite a distance away, and often kill him or her before they got anywhere near me. And I still had tons of ammo left if I had to start spraying and praying.

But when they really got close, it was better to switch to auto shotgun.

The grenade launcher was the most fun. It became my main ally against horde attacks. That thing is super powerful, and as you progress, you go from 5 grenades up to finally 20 of them. When you play as an Avatar, you especially have to watch out for those grenade wielding soldiers - those things can knock you for a loop. It is the most potent weapon the soldiers can use on you.


With practice, I got better and better at killing natives with the grenade launcher. Another one is coming.




Playing as a soldier I got better at using the grenade launcher.

Notice the thin green horizontal line where the grenade just exploded, showing the life of the native who just got blown away by my grenade burst. Look at the image full size. The screenshot caught his life just before he got blown away before the green line disappeared. That green line means he's close enough to target with whichever weapon I'm sighting in with, using the right mouse zoom. With a long range weapon, the green line will show up in your round targeting blue circle, much further away. If you can see the green line, you can damage the enemy.

Also look at the full-size picture above, just up the hill a bit from the explosion, and you will see another native in a defiant pose, ready to come down the hill to attack. He's not close enough for the green line to register yet. When he does get close enough, and his green health line appears, I'll fire another grenade and it will be time to say "Adios amigo."

For those of you who speak Canadian, that means "Goodbye friend."

The more I use the grenade launcher, the better I get at killing enemies, and the better I get at killing myself. The grenade launcher can be a very dangerous weapon - especially dangerous to the person using it.

The main reason why that is true, is that sometimes it seems like you don't always have full control of how it fires. But most of all, I think it's just my fault - often I am firing it in panic, and that's when I run into trouble.

The grenade launcher tries to help you out with your targeting, which often is good, but sometimes is bad.

For example, as in the image above, when you fire, it automatically launches a mortar-like gentle lob at an enemy who is near enough to show his life - a little green line above his head. If you can see their life, native man or native woman, and if they stay still for a second, just launch the grenade and it will lob over exactly to where they are standing, and send them to Na' avi heaven.

But the auto-targeting takes some of the control from your hands and many times you just wish the damn launcher would fire where you point it, and let you decide when to lob and when not to lob.

For example, when you're getting attacked by 4 or 5 of natives wielding their gigantic clubs, I found that I had to do some quick back-pedaling and start spamming out those grenades, often trying to point the launcher down to get it to bounce them along the ground - fortunately most of the time it cooperated.

Lobbing them definitely wasn't going to cut it when I was out there in the forest by myself, and suddenly it seemed that half the tribe was racing toward me to tear out my heart.

I found that the grenade is way more powerful in crowd control than the awesome auto-shotgun, and if I could get a little distance from my attackers, by maybe turning and remembering to hit the speed sprint button which I put on my roughed-up 4 key so I could find it in a panic, then having achieved a little distance, I could then turn back toward them and start firing.

When nothing else had worked, and I had respawned, I found that the grenade launcher was really my best defense against a horde attack - I just had to get better at running away and then turning and firing backwards, taking some of the enthusiasm out of them, and hopefully at the same time thinning out their ranks. It was absolutely the best at crowd control.

They almost always scatter and delay their press - they had to respect those giant explosions occurring all around them. As an Avatar, I certainly respected those explosions - nothing made my vision turn red - meaning I was close to death - faster than having grenades lobbed at me. As an Avatar, I kept moving out there on the battlefield, and when grenades started flying by, I looked first to kill the little green-clad soldier with that weapon - often a girl who cried out as I sliced her up with my swords - at the same time that I was mindful of sustained machine gun fire which also turned things red for me pretty fast.
​

But occasionally I would turn and find a native who had also used his speed sprint power, and who was right on my tail. Sometimes the native was closer than I thought, and I wasn't moving backward fast enough, and the sudden explosion killed both of us!


That was bad enough with natives closing in all over the place.

But killing myself was even more likely to happen if I tried to use grenades against the fierce viper wolves, which were all over in the game, as I did in the beginning.

At first I tried the grenade launcher on them too. When there was a group of soldiers around, somebody was always firing grenades at the wolves. But I found that for me, it was a recipe for suicide. They are super fast, and too many times my grenade ended up activating on a wolf that had gotten within 3-6 feet of me.

So gradually I learned to follow one rule that I set for myself - when I saw the wolves closing in - I switched off the F3 key to any other weapon key.


Back to dealing with the natives, the main difference in playing as a guy soldier to playing as a girl, is the unbelievable screaming I do as a girl - I scream bloody murder when those nine-foot natives are slicing at me with their gigantic clubs!

I'm surrounded by them, trying to hit my #2 heal button when my vision starts turning red, trying to hit my #3 force field button that might engage for 10 seconds if it has recharged, all the while trying to find a way out of the group that's penned me in, clobbering me. Too often the result was a re-spawn, and a chance to play that confrontation a little differently - usually with grenades. ​

So right now I'm on my last play-through. There is one part that near the end that I am curious about - I want to see what happens.

They give you one final chance to switch sides back to supporting the natives - very near the end. As a guy, the first time I played a soldier, I was having too much fun with the grenade launcher and I stayed loyal to the RDA.


This was a scary swampy area - you can man a variety of vehicles, including your own personal 2000-round mech.




But this time I want to see what happens if I take the fierce chief up on his offer of forgetting about all the natives I have killed, and letting me join the Na'avi and defeat the RDA. There already have been some signs that I'm one the wrong side of the conflict.

So I want to see how the game handles me switching sides. I noticed that the game called that one segment something like "the better choice" so I am sure they have it all figured out.

But the questions I have are based on the fact that my avatar 9 foot blue self was killed off a long time ago. So how are the natives going to use me as a human during the last hour of the game? I mean, think about it. If I'm out there on the battlefield with them, how do they know not to attack me? I'll look just like every other enemy, won't I?

Maybe they'll give me some ceremonial clothing to wear so I'm not on the receiving end of machine gun fire, grenades, PLUS six-foot arrows all at the same time. That sounds worse than a couple of tanks from Left 4 Dead. Even pro Kevin would have a tough time handling that!

Rich

 

Just got this on sale for $144.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313325

Great price, one of the better specced DDR3-2400 kits with good timings, decent name brand. As long as they work, I can't complain

Was actually the cheapest 2 x 8GB kit I could find above 1866MHz, plus being one of the better 2400MHz kits meant I couldn't say no. Was originally planning to buy a 2133 kit, but these have the same timings as many 2133 kits and were cheaper

Intel parts around the corner. Planning on a Devils Canyon(Haswell refresh) 4690K and whatever decent Gigabyte board happens to come my way. Probably a Z87X-UD4H used, or a Z97X-UD5H if I have to buy a new one.

Pretty excited for the RAM all on its own though, as it's a major upgrade from my current RAM, both in capacity and speed. Should prove to have a few benefits with the good ole 1100T(AMDs, especially Thubans, respond well to memory upgrades) but will probably be much more beneficial when I move to Intel.

Not entirely opposed to a non-K Intel if one were to come my way. Just have to OC the old fashioned way ;P

 

Hey Jeff, congrats on your new memory. I was going to say - "you have to try it out before the 30 days are up" but then I saw you're putting it on your amd rig. Good thinking. Maybe 24 hours with memtest, or any overnight stress test.

You're gonna have a real powerhouse. Any thoughts on immersing into some high def? Not 4k, note that I didn't say "ridiculously high def."


Hey Sam, where are you? I'm doing all these full-size pics for you but I don't know if you're letting them expand out on your super duper 4k!!


========================= Avatar wrap-up ===========================


I finally got to the part where as a soldier, I could change sides - they called the segment "The right choice." But .... there really wasn't that much incentive to change. Yes - without spoilers - your immediate boss was sketchy, and apparently perhaps not really doing what his superiors wanted - but still. That's why I was surprised the first time when the choice came up. I thought, "hell no, I love this grenade launcher." But as it turns out - you keep the grenade launcher, and it's still your best weapon.


You only get to fraternize with the enemy if you change sides - this lady Na'avi looks gentle - but she can fire a bow!



But now - you have to fight your former buddies. It is quite strange. Suddenly all the really tall blue people know you've joined their side. How do they know? Beats me. But they don't attack you on the field.


When she stands up, that's when you can see that the blue lady is REALLY tall! Did I say really tall?



All of a sudden all the soldiers know you're the enemy. How can they tell? Beats me. They know who you are and that you're the enemy. But the plants don't know - they keep attacking you like before. The former wolves who worked for the soldiers, with the little mind-control packs on their back - they know, and now they attack you. I jumped in a little car with machine guns and rockets - the machine gun fire had no effect on the soldiers. Of course - they had friendly fire turned off for that car - and it was friendly to soldiers.

I jumped in a mech - thank goodness, that one DID work - it killed soldiers pretty fast, but I couldn't enjoy it much because where I was they had several guys with grenade launchers immediately blasting me!


Before I changed sides, I fooled around with the mechs a lot when nobody was tossing grenades at me.




In combat mode, this is the mech about to blow away a native - the gattling gun is high-powered with 2000 rounds.



When I discovered that friendly fire was turned off for that car, I started wondering about my grenades.

Yes, now my grenades were friendly to natives, and bad for soldiers. The same grenades that had been blowing up the blue guys, now only blew up the green guys, even if they were all in a huddle attacking each other. Friendly fire was turned off. Was it off this whole time, but I never realized it?

That's funny, because at the very beginning of the game when the wolves are charging and you are still a soldier - you're not even out there as an Avatar - one guy yelled at me - "Hey watch your fire." But that apparently was just a trick, or sometime during the game development, they decided to turn off friendly fire.

So as it turns out - friendly fire is actually turned off for this game - I never realized that until I made "The Right Choice."

And at the very end, one of the natives I had killed, returned for the ending - the exact same ending as when I was an Avatar. Come on - I killed this guy about 5 hours ago - did you think I'd forget? That was ridiculous.

Hahaha.

I was thinking - they should have put some kind of special scarf on you or something - but then I thought about it later - no, they would have had to have changed your model - still - how hard would that have been? Not too hard I don't think. The cutscenes are exactly the same as when you were blue. "Ableryder (your name is Ryder) we are so fortunate to have you helping us." But the cutscene correctly shows you as a soldier. Since they had to insert you into those cutscenes - they could have easily inserted you with a red scarf.

When they saved a helicopter for me, so I could get to a place that you had to fly to - since I could no longer ride a dragon - it was very trippy to stand there with the Na'avi people, having successfully taken this base with them. Normally they'd be trying to destroy the equipment and as a blue guy I'd be with them, but this time it's all different.


If they want me to fly to meet that last Na'avi chief, they better not damage this helicopter.




And it was very hard fighting the soldiers. I wasn't really better than any of them. I died a lot. They had all the same abilities I did. I didn't have a long range weapon - the bow - which was a one-shot kill. I had a close-in weapon, the grenade launcher, which sometimes was a one-shot kill. But when their numbers were significant, I couldn't get way back and pick them out one by one like with the bow. And in close, I wasn't as lethal as a tall blue guy with his very deadly swirling swords.

So I had to do some clever tactics, sneaking around invisible a lot, using my speed sprint a lot, and respawning a lot.

I think the idea of changing sides at the end is not for me - I had to do it once. I say, pick a side and stay with it - either side it's a great ride.

All in all - it's a fascinating game. Lots of tricky dune buggy riding - if you're a soldier - being chased by wolves, or by giant blue guys, trying to navigate hair-pin turns barreling down a mountain side - trying to follow the map at the same time. The wolves bring down the life of the dune buggy, but it's better to drive kind of slow because the turns are tricky. That is unrealistic - what can a wolf do - chew on the tires? But if you don't pay attention to the dune buggy life, all of a sudden it will explode and take you with it!

But the Avatar gets to ride a horse, and THAT is fun.


The horse looks a little weird with two sets of front legs like all animals - but it rides just like any pony back home.





It feels very authentic, and it is just as good as with Assassins Creed 3. You can trot along, or you can gallop and jump over obstacles.


It is a very mellow way to travel - just like in Assassins Creed 3 where I didn't mind those long mountain journeys.



Very mellow in this game too, except when the soldiers are attacking, then you've got to get your horse quickly out of danger or you'll be on foot. While you are riding, the wolves seem to not be able to damage a horse, and they don't really harass you much anyway - way different from being on foot.


The atmosphere and music are well done. Every time I would go back to the game, I was surprised once again how immersive it is. The music in fact was excellent - sometimes the music would get really dramatic and I would brace myself - "Oh shit, what's about to happen now?"


"Oh, that blue guy way down there in front of my gun - yeah I see him - no big deal - stop scaring me."



Playing as a girl soldier was scarier than playing as a guy. I was afraid for the girl - I had to protect my character.

Playing as a guy was like playing Arma 3. Hey, I might get killed. That's life. I'm not trying to protect a girl.

That's funny because I didn't recall thinking that playing Tomb Raider - but that dynamic may still have been present in that game. You're a guy, playing as a girl, and you're frightened for the girl more than if you were playing as a guy.


Here she is, Lara Croft, early in Tomb Raider - muddy and bleeding, with no weapons - tough it out, girl.



I'll have to look that up in the psychology books unless you guys have any ideas.


I really could play this game through a few more times, on either side - the maps are so detailed and interesting, and LARGE OPEN MAPS of 10 or 20 acres, with high roads, and low roads, high mountain passes, or high tree limbs that create a whole upper level, and you can go in any direction you want.

In fact, it's so open, it can start to feel very lonely and scary at times, and especially as a soldier, so adverse to your existence, that it's always nice to see some friendly soldiers around who are shooting at the blues or at the wolves alongside of you.


(That's why changing sides near the end feels so very unnatural, as I mentioned up on top, even with the suggestive name The Right Choice. Hmmm. what are they trying to tell me? Is it Right choice, or Bite choice? But I had to do it at least once - I let the girl be the turncoat.)


But anyway, I think I've played enough for the time being. I'll let Avatar rest and give someone else a turn. Kevin? There's no nudity, but some really cute blue chicks if you don't mind them tall - REAL tall.

Rich

 

I don't know about Avatar. I'm being patient for GTA V! late January

 

Hey Rich,

I'm still about, sorry to be rude. Avatar's not really a game I know much about, especially not having seen the film.

I am lurking and reading posts, but since I think I'm going through what I can only assume is a bout of depression recently, I haven't had the enthusiasm or wherewithal to write an in-depth reply. Carry on, people are listening, myself included.

Sam

 

Sam, as a lifelong sufferer of depression and anxiety, I know where you are coming from. It sucks and can really get in the way of your life. You have friends who love ya tho, so no worries here at AD

Rich I really haven't played the game but I do have a certain soft spot for the movie. Interesting review and nice to see that you are open minded. Movie tie-ins are usually ludicrously cheap and poorly thought out. Seems that might not be the case here.

Sam, the movie is good. Not great, but pretty good. Get the best 1080p rip you can, suspend your disbelief, and give it a watch. Worth at least one sitting if just to enjoy the CGI.

 

NOT HAVING SEEN THE FILM!!!
Sam how did that happen - Jeff has seen it and I'll bet Kevin too. I recall that it grossed a billion dollars - the first film in history to have done that. Anyway - it was a really cool film. I ditto Jeff - a bluray version (look for decent size, like a 10 gig rip) on your 4k monitor would surely be a lovely experience. You need to do it at least once!

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

Well, this Avatar game, at $14, is quite a value in my opinion. But .... "not having seen the film." I'll be over my shock in - what year is this?

Right on - you are so right. At first when I heard about the game years ago, I thought - "Oh, god, with Cameron being the total perfectionist that he is, it will be awesome."

(Speaking of Cameron - don't say you likewise failed to see The Titanic - I was driving up from Mexico about 20 years ago - a short visit to Ensenada in Baja California - and I passed the Titanic. Really. Ain't lyin.

I stopped and tried to bribe a guard to let me get closer. It is floating in the tank they built for it - it is a model that is 90% full-size. My god why didn't they just go the extra 10%? I guess there were huge bucks saved by not going 100%, for no loss of impact for the several scenes where they used the model - like when it departs the UK.) ​

Anyway, I was so wrong, and Jeff is so right - movie games usually suck - and when I read the weak reviews of the game, I was disappointed and put it out of my mind. I have NO idea, why it popped back into my head recently. Every once in a while I see small pieces of the film, and it has stuck with me. Plus every time I see Zoe Saldana in a role, I think of her in Avatar.

Anyway, I am glad I checked it out. And I really don't know why the critics were so hard on it. It is a delightful game, and really two games in one - the soldier experience is legitimate, and VERY different from the Avatar experience, and both well-done.

I know you are Kev - if GTA ever had a true blue fan, it is YOU. But for $14 - what are ya waiting for. Shall I get it for you for Xmas? Just give me a shipping address.

By the way, let me just ask ... Kevin, you DID see the film, right?

Speaking of Christmas presents, I have sent out a half dozen books so far by my favorite author - he's Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, and that is the book I give out. He went to Cambridge right there close to Sam - and he was so depressed that he was borderline suicidal. One of his favorite Cambridge profs missed lectures one Monday, having killed himself over the weekend.

Then Tolle had some kind of epiphany - and on the verge of suicide, it may be that instead he became enlightened, as in Budha, Christ, many zen masters since the time of Budha, and many people walking around today (I have no idea how many, and I don't know anybody, but enlightenment is certainly the opposite of being depressed.) So if anybody want a Christmas gift from me in book form, I will send you the book. I also have it on tape - his very slight British accent is charming - he lives in Canada now (yes ddp.) I recently ordered the Spanish version of the cd.

I can't really do a book review - but to sum it up - it has to do with getting control over the chattering mind inside us, that tends to run our lives - human minds (translate egos) interacting with other human minds/egos. Well - how could it be otherwise? - one might ask.

It can be otherwise if the mind is used as the incredible tool it is, then put aside OFTEN when it is not needed. Like when one is walking down the street, passing rows of roses, without even seeing the flowers - because the chattering mind keeps chattering .... on, and on, and on, and on, ad nauseam.

Right?

I remember when I was in Boy Scouts, and they used to tell us about American Indians, who could walk through the forest and be completely present - without thoughts running through their heads - very in tune with nature - which we civilized folk simply could not do. I always thought about that. And now I study a book about that.

The Power of Now. Cure for depression?

Rich

 

I may check it out Rich. Not sure when. And YES! I have seen Avatar. One of my more favorite movies of all time! Cannot wait for the sequel!