The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

My point is, 4K aside, 16:9 with higher contrast makes a much better video & console gaming experience than traditional high-accuracy workspace monitors, even though I'd rather spreadsheet on an old Dell IPS screen than on a high contrast TV any day of the week.

 

I more or less understood that But the fact remains, that I'm jealous lol. Even if it is a bit too bleeding edge, for full support

 

Sam, 1920 x 1080 at 32" is pretty agreeable for me. At 40" it was a bit horrid I'll admit.

Just bought Dragon Age Inquisition. So far Frosbite 3 is an impressive engine. Beautiful effects. Excellent graphics throughout. The tessellation is truly incredible and a standout example of what the technology can do. Mind-numbingly vast improvement from previous Unreal 3 Dragon Age games which were decidedly quite average. Gameplay is also a refreshing change from DA1 and DA2 as well. It's taken on a very Witcher 2-esque flavor, which so far seems to be a good thing. Will be reviewing this game later.

If Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition are setting the standard for this generation's graphics and quality, I can't wait to see what comes in the next few years. Particularly interested to see what video games come out of the new Star Wars trilogy. The Xbone and PS4 are proving to be a boon to PC gaming thus far. Their truly decent specs vastly expanded the console graphics barrier that was holding everything back.

Also, finally starting to find a decent number of Dolby Digital games for 5.1 through optical. The limitations of optical mean that any game relying on multi-channel PCM for surround is stuck in 4 channel stereo. For real surround I need to use analog, which has lots of background noise, or play Dolby Digital enabled games. Battlefield 3's Premium Content Pack recently went on sale for $15 so I picked it up and gave BF3 another spin after a long time in storage. Lo and behold, the game outputs Dolby Digital natively. Wonderful. DD does have one real strength over PCM surround, and that is the fact that Dolby Digital tracks are usually better mixed. It does sound fantastic. Much better than the same game in 4 channel stereo.

All I need do is switch my receiver/audio control panel between two modes.

For surround, enable Dolby Digital Live in the control panel and enable DSP on the receiver. Receiver automatically detects and shows Dolby Digital/DTS on the display or whatever surround format is being output.

For non-5.1 content, I just set the audio control panel to 2 channel PCM and the receiver to stereo surround. That way, a stereo signal plays across all 4 big speakers, excluding the center.

Kind of a lacklustre implementation compared to the Creative sound cards. Simply leave 5.1 and stereo surround on at the same time, and it automatically detects and up mixes every signal accordingly. Can even play a surround source over the top of a stereo surround source. Good example being playing music across all 5 speakers while playing a game in 5.1 surround simultaneously. Very powerful, but lacking optical output which truly is fantastic for sheer quality. Of course, when using analog to the receiver from any source, 5.1 PCM plays just fine and none of this is necessary. But analog has a lot of background noise, and the sound is nowhere near as clean with lossless music. So if I want the quality, I need to work around the limitations.

 

Hey guys, I've been busy playing the latest COD blockbuster megaspecial that has everything except for 3d - well I don't know - maybe it has that too. More on that in a bit.

Sheesh, Jeff, in addition to being a console expert, you're an audiophile as well - I'm still stuck on my aging medusa 5.1 headphones. I like what you said about the new consoles:

Okay, the graphics question that comes to my mind is: on my ancient and now out-of-favor crossfire 7950s, not to mention my feeble 9450, will I be able to rock and roll with Far Cry 4?


I'M A MONTH AWAY FROM TRYING FAR CRY 4 - WILL I BE ABLE TO RUN IT?
Sam, I'm looking way back at your Far Cry 4 graph, p.459, post 9165, looking at 15-17 fps for a 7970 at ultra 2560x1600 - the non Nvidia set of graphs. If catalyst gives me nearly perfect crossfire scaling, then I might get 30 fps. What are my chances of that?




However, I DID do fine with crysis 3 maxed out. Here is another quote from Jeff.

So, Jeff, do you think I'll be able to run Far Cry 4 okay?


I would hope yes, having had no trouble running Crysis 3 maxed, and Far Cry 3 at 4xAA but not 8xAA. When I say "no trouble" I mean 28-32 fps.


GAMING CONSOLES

I continue to be impressed, Jeff, with your enthusiasm for, and your knowledge of, gaming consoles.

Sam, I know that you have at least one console - is it an xbox - or ps3? And I don't know whether you, too, Kevin, have a console. But Jeff's experience with everything from gamecube to nintendo to <you name it> blows my mind.

(I was just about to say that I don't have any experience with them, but then I recalled that I did at one time have some familiarity with an old Coleco Vision set that had 20-30 pretty fun game cartridges, along the lines of donkey kong, etc. - anybody ever heard of that old short-lived system?)


3D - JUST A GIMMICK? OR MORE IMMERSIVE?
Kevin, once you get to $32 an hour, you'll be rolling in so much dough you can buy anything you want, but why are you so fascinated with 3d? I know that many people ARE, but others just get kind of dizzy.

I think you mentioned that you already DO have a 3d monitor. But don't you mind wearing those special glasses?

I DID see Avatar in 3d, but I don't recall that the 3D effects added much to the film - they kept the 3d effects subdued.

I've seen a few other 3D things, like an Imax of some underwater stuff, and I think I saw one of the Jaws movies where the thing was coming right through the screen at the audience. That was kind of cool - everybody screamed - but I don't know - I still get a "gimmicky" vibe from 3D.

I'm probably all wrong. Let me ask all you guys - are there any video games in 3D?

I guess if I were convinced that it enhanced immersion, then I would be able to get myself interested. For example, Sam says 4k significantly enhances immersion, so he's got me kind of interested. One day I think I'm going to have to watch somebody game in 4k. (How much are tickets to London?)


Intel is Green
Sam, I found this statement of yours quite fascinating:

Only 45 watts at idle, with all that stuff. Remarkable.


NOBODY IS STILL ON AMD, EXCEPT FOR .....
Well I'm glad to see that besides myself there is at least one other AMD graphics card user:

Too bad you don't game, ddp, there was an entire mission in the COD that I just played that took place in Antarctica - I assume you would have felt right at home.

Correction: I presume you would have felt right at home, especially the part about falling into the crevasse and stumbling around trying to find a way out of the glacier - you probably do that every day.


Speaking of COD .........................

COD Advanced Warfare - NOT A REVIEW
I couldn't wait for your buddies to get you interested, Sam - I played the campaign of COD Advanced Warfare. I played it at max hardness so as to not blast through it too fast. Finished it in maybe 20 hours total.

I don't have too much to say about it.

(All of the screens below, per usual, are full 2560x1600, so Sam won't complain about microscopic pictures on his mighty 4k. Go ahead all you guys and expand them - they'll look good on 1080p too!)


The best part of the game was Kevin Spacey





I'll play it once more in a few months then probably delete it from my rig. It had a few interesting moments. Let me try to recall what those were.

Oh yeah - until you get to become the mech much later in the game, you have a few battles where you have to figure out how to kill an enemy who is wearing one of those "giant 10-foot tall" suits.


Near the end of the game, you and your buddy Gideon get suited up, then fly in to save the day



Of course everybody and his brother is shooting at you while you guys dangle from the helicopter rope


But you have missiles to take out the armored cars, infantry rockets for the soldiers, and a good old gatling gun




The girl who was going with me was waiting for me to join her at the boat (which was docked at the same canal as in the above pictures) but I kept getting killed by the mech within seconds of his appearance. So this time, after thinning out some of the other normal enemies, I decided that my new strategy, as soon as the mech showed up, would be to beat a hasty retreat away from the water, back down the street where we came in, and put myself behind a portable barrier that we had passed.

You can carry two weapons - the grenade launcher was sitting there along with other weapons, but I had not been impressed with it earlier in the game (not realizing that it had an auto-targeting ability) so I stuck with two rifles, one of them a light machine gun.

As the mech charged me I fired from behind the small barrier which did a pretty good job of protecting me from the homing rockets he was firing, and while he ran toward me my lady friend was shooting him in the back. Halfway to me, he got tired of getting drilled by her, so he turned around and ran toward her while I unloaded on him from 50 yards back. Again he turned and came toward me and again she unloaded on him. This went on for about 60 seconds until he collapsed.

I didn't know it at the time (I gave the weapon another try for the next mech) but if I had grabbed that grenade launcher I could have finished him in under 10 seconds, with a lot more finesse.

The launcher will kill him DEAD with about 6 of the 16 self-propelled grenades that it carries. You can fire 4 in rapid sequence - one per second - like a pump shotgun. You roughly target the enemy and the grenade locks on and flies to the target - it's really a self-propelled "smart" grenade like the 2-4 that you always carry with you - but it has more range (and it shoots straight out and reaches the target a lot faster than the grenade you throw, which goes up first, then dives toward the enemy.) Then you rapidly load the next 4 grenades, shotgun shell style, in under 2 seconds, and you're ready to blast away again.

That's gotta be your weapon of choice when you face the mech. Once I learned that, I carried it with me at all times, and I was very glad I did. Those fiercesome mechs are nicely sprinkled throughout the game.


Here's one of the main battle areas - downtown Baghdad - looking toward the river



And looking the other way, I need to climb up and take out any one of the 3 tanks that are on the right




So - killing the mech became exciting and fun. I purposely stalled joining my teammates who announced that the door was open, to practice killing him from the time that I looked down from the roof of my building, about 20 seconds after they called me to join them through the unlocked doorway, and saw him spawn down below outside the doorway of a building across the street. (You heard me right - he didn't come from inside out through that door - I saw him spawn out of thin air. That was a little "gay" - somewhat unpolished I would argue. But it reminded me of multiplayer and it didn't bother me too much. But I would consider that a glitch - they should have had the decency to have him come from inside the building. How hard would that have been? Nothing at all, right? I think we can all agree that in campaign mode you don't allow players to see items materialize out of nowhere - that's not good game editing is it. )

But I digress. As I was saying - I took extreme great pleasure in practicing killing the fearsome mech who had terrorized me until I discovered the launcher. It took 6 grenades. If I attacked right after he spawned, then often he was so jarred by the first four, that he didn't move much during my reload, and I finished him. If he did move, he got out of my line of fire and I had to change positions and try to target him as he attacked one of our guys who was breaking through a closed doorway.

Sometimes that worked, but often I was shot by regular enemies who were coming in through various second-story entrances across the street. Finally I got my fill of killing the mech, and I joined my teammates as soon as they got the door open, then stood guard inside - but the mech never came from outside to open the door behind us. The game didn't spawn him I guess, if we got inside in time.

I was disappointed by that. Darn! I was so ready with that launcher.

Okay, enough about the mechs as enemies. As you see by the screenshots, later on I got to wear the mech suit and do my own terrorizing. That was fairly cool.

[Some thoughts about performance and graphics: I believe I had the graphics maxed. I couldn't get steam screenshots working at the time, so these are fraps screenshots - you can see my framerate, lower right, down to 25, or up to 50. The game played fine - I have to say I never noticed any lag - but we all know I am not as sensitive to lag as some of you guys.

But what would absolutely NOT play at all smoothly, were the opening movies in the front of each mission - which played at maybe 5 fps. WTF? A movie. Why the hell would those run slow? I suppose that could have been my cpu bottle-necking on decompressing the video stream. But after finishing the game I went back and dropped resolution all the way down to 1024 x 768 or something like that, but it didn't matter, the movies wouldn't play. I think Sam would say that the lower resolution and reduced pixels would not matter if something is totally cpu bound, the same way that 4k doesn't increase cpu load, just gpu load. Am I right? So my 9450 could not decompress that video stream? Why would they do that to their game? ] ​

Rich

 

3D? Gimmick? Perhaps I'd like a second display anyhow, that's larger, and same/similar tech. So it's a reasonable addition for me.

I have a Modded Wii console. That is all

Jeff, fully agree!
I had a ~40" Full HD LCD on my desk for a time. The pixel pitch was... noticeable. I wouldn't say it was unbearable, but it was definitely beyond the limit for me. I don't believe a 27" will be a problem. I'm really hoping to cut the wattage usage in half What can I say? I TRY to be green lol.

 

Well, Kevin, let me ask you like this. What do you like about 3d? Do you use it for videos? I assume (errrr ddp - I presume) that you don't mind wearing the glasses - or do you have a system that doesn't use glasses?

Rich

 

Much like comparing 480P to 1080P, I have found that 3D looks much nicer to me And the idea, that some panels can convert 2D to 3D on the fly, I have to play with that feature! LOL! I realize that it won't be as good as genuine 3D, but depending on what it's converting, it could be cool

No, I don't mind the glasses. I expect I'll find a pair, or attempt to have a prescription pair made for me.

 

I hope this does not refer to my post as i'm above

 

No John179. The post I was talking about, was removed

 

Sorry i thought was not quite right me a spammer never thanks

 

Yeah, whenever a vague post, or simply a questionable post presents itself, the first thing I look at is how many posts have they made

 

Kevin, I find your statement to be quite interesting.

I for sure am all about things looking their best. I already wear glasses, as I guess you do - so you slip the things over your glasses?

Anyway, when you say it looks nicer .... Let me make sure I am following you. You're talking about a 3d video obviously - a movie. Ok, give us some examples.

I look at all the tvs everytime I go over to Costco - but I don't recall putting on any glasses for a while. So I may not have actually seen a 3d display for several years - but let me think back to before Circuit City shut down, or maybe over at Best Buy. You're watching the video - and yes, the 3d is kicking in - things have depth, and some things come forward. I seem to be recalling something at costco - I must have put on some glasses - it was an animated movie - like Toy Story.

I wonder if I'm one of those people that experience slight eye-strain with 3d. Again - however - while I seem to recall noticing the 3d in Avatar - and we're going back 10 years, right - I didn't get any eyestrain, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole film - but I can't recall the 3D aspect of it. And I didn't follow up with a viewing of non-3D so that I could have, at the time, compared with or without the effect.

I know this whole thing sounds a little retarded. "He said it looks nicer so just shut up California noob" I hear DDP whispering to himself.

"Listen Eskimo, I'm just trying to figure out what the hell he's talking about" I cleverly respond, only to find myself booted from the forum with my lousy few 300 posts - no loss - I'm obviously just a spammer anyway!

Okay, seriously - I'm trying to put some flesh and bones on "nicer." Nudity is nicer than no nudity. Now that I can understand - I just let my imagination run wild.

"3d is nicer than no 3d"

Wut? How? Can you be more specific?????????

What do you mean by "NICER"



I'm trying to picture Arma in 3D. That actually could be really cool - add some depth to the screen - first shoot the soldiers that are larger and obviously closer by their 3d image - which represent the highest threat. Yeah, I guess that might be really cool.

Are you saying Kevin, that once you have gotten used to 3D, when you watch non-3D you feel the flatness of it - you feel the loss of that dimensional perspective, and you don't mind going cross-eyed? {just kidding}

Rich

Hey moderators - I'm having major problems with the AfterDawn site in terms of the server. I press other options, and then finally I get to press Preview, and that works. Then I modify something, and I press Preview, and IT DOES NOTHING - the screen makes some interesting moving boxes, and the preview of before has not been updated. I am having the distinct impression that the server is not working. It took me about an hour to post a couple nights ago. Tonight I'm now stuck for 15 minutes trying to post. Are we having server problems? Software problems? Canada problems? Just wondering if it's only me.

 

I imagine you've seen 3 dimensional holograms, right? Do you remember the awe feeling you got from staring at it? 3D is like that for me. Or I imagine you've seen 240Hz tvs? How it looks crisper, cleaner. It's difficult to explain how 3D is for me. It just looks COOL to me lol
I haven't really gotten much of a chance to play with it, but... I swear, it's like going from black and white picture, to color! You never go back! LOL!

Yes, the few 3D opportunities I've had, I simply slipped the passive glasses over my prescription lenses. If I do end up fully enjoying it, I'll get clip on lenses, or something more comfortable down the road.

 

Just bought the LG DM2752D-PN on ebay, for $366 With a price like that, I couldn't pass it up

 

Razer DeathAdder just had a scroll wheel failure. There's a teeny tiny little plastic nub on the axle of the scroll wheel that inserts into the scroll sensor. This nub is extremely fragile and spindly, and is stressed heavily every time you click the scroll wheel. Any idiot who can look up "Engineering" in a dictionary can see it is nowhere near strong enough for how it's designed. It's basically pre-destined to break if you use your wheel click AT ALL. Absolutely appalling design choice by Razer. Not just bad engineering, but bad quality plastic contributes to this problem. What a shit mouse. Not sure if I should feel disappointed or just angry I paid so much for it. Now for the keyboard to die too... Not interested in getting a replacement because the same thing WILL happen by design. Screw Razer.

 

Yeah... my recent mouse replacement is pretty appalling. Started to fail in a week. The left clicker, the one used the most, is intermittent! Not cool when I'm playing timed games! LOL! I guess you get what you pay for. So, I'll revert back to the old mouse, until I can locate a new ergonomic mouse, that's getting great reviews.

 

That's a bit more like the Razer I've come to know - The Taipan hasn't had any faults per se as of yet, but it wasn't a fantastic product to start with - I suspect I'll end up replacing it with a Steel Series mouse at some point if ever I start to feel extravagant again.

 

Going Gigabyte optical for mice from now on. Not so sure about that choice though. 990FXA just had the top PCI-e slot die... Looking at a Gigabyte Raptor or an M6900