The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Well, the R9 Fury X is released and it's.... a failure. Pitched at the same price as the slightly noisy, slightly hot but air-cooled GTX980Ti, the Fury X is cool and quiet but only with a water-cooling system that you have to use simply due to the enormous power consumption. What that high price tag and water-cooling setup buy you is a card that's ultimately still slower than the GTX980Ti that's been available to buy for some time now.

Why would you buy the slower card for the same price when you have to deal with the incumberance of a water cooler as well? Given that this is the full-fat Fury X it means the regular Fury is going to be slower still, barely any better than the GTX980.
As for how things might improve in the future, unless there's some driver issue I'm unaware of (which I doubt, as the card is slower across the board rather than in certain titles) the 980Ti has the legs for longevity with 6GB of memory - the 4GB HBM on the Fury X has done well so far, not falling flat in areas the 4GB of regular GDDR5 on the 290X has, but it's still ultimately only 4GB of video memory. That's only going to stretch so far.

Simply put there is no reason to buy a Fury X or a 390X, not if you can find a 290X. The regular Fury is likely to come up similarly pointless. Frankly if you want a high-performance graphics card in the second half of 2015, you buy a Geforce, end of story. The decline of the PC graphics industry into a monopoly has accelerated a step...

 

You didn't provide ram numbers for a couple of the cards in Monday's post - but nice wrapup of what just came out.

I'm curious. Which of those cards represents the new HBM architecture - the nano? Is that where they have dropped to 4 gigs from 8 gigs?

The 175 watts sounds good!

Whoops - I somehow overlooked Wednesday's post (because it jumped to a new page - I always do that lol) - you mention that the Fury has the HBM architecture.

Well, I WAS glad to hear you say that the 4GB seems to be "doing okay" for itself - that the smaller memory has not so far been a factor - which is what that AMD engineer was trying to say "you would be amazed at how much is wasted - eg - we don't think it will be a problem."

So let me ask - let's assume for the sake of argument, that the 4 GB of HBM is every bit as good as the 6 gigs of GDDR5 - would that change your analysis at all?

Oh wait - I forgot - there's the bit about the enormous power consumption, and required water cooling! I give up. You're right - it's a green world. I'm glad AMD picked up all those console contracts

 

That's... disappointing. They would be reasonable cards if not for the insane power consumption. I've never seen the like in a single GPU solution before.

I am now heavily considering a GTX980Ti... but a well OCd 970 is proving to be honestly enough right now, and seemingly a decent match for anything AMD have to offer. A pair of these would be the sweet spot if they had more memory. Damn this stupendous resolution!

Funny enough, running a pair of high end Nvidia cards would be a dawdle on this PSU while a pair of high end AMD cards currently means upgrade or kill the PSU. A 750W PSU not being adequate for 2 GPUs? That's sad. Isn't newer tech supposed consume less power?

 

I totally agree - new tech should use less power. WTF!!

In the meantime, I am making do, enjoying a couple of new sniper titles:


A week ago, I came across a gamer at the Home Depot in Burbank, who advised me to try the steam game, Sniper Elite 3. I actually got all 3 of them for a ridiculously low mid-week deal. (Use enlarge - the below screens are all 2560x1600 except for 2-4 which are of the first game, and only 1920x1080.)


Sniper is looking for a good position to wait until Hitler arrives this evening - I kid you not!




I had almost bought the game about a year ago, so I decided to start out with the original, circa about 2005, which had max resolution of only 1920 x 1080. It came out after Half Life 2 (which came out end of 2004) so for a 2005 title, it was wayyy behind the times in terms of clunky graphics, as you can see by this screenshot below.


Whoa, who cranked back the time machine to 1890, I mean 1990. There's the enemy to the left!




Amazingly, despite 1999 graphics, the Sniper Elite game still had some basic charm, mostly due to the sniper scope action - the scopes work pretty well,


That son of a bi*ch is going down!!



and add to that a slow-motion, bullet-trajectory kill-dynamic of a successful sniper shot ...


Watch the bullet fly - wait until you see what happens when it hits the target - it's so much fun!



... (sort of like Max Payne bullet time - but follow the bullet to the kill and watch the enemy corpse disintegrate) and the Rebellion franchise survived to turn into two more games, both of them with acceptable modern graphics. The second game is also located inside Germany near the end of the war, but the 3rd game is set earlier in the war, in the northern African campaign, seeking to control Middle Eastern oil vital to the war effort.


After 4 hours on the clunker, absorbing some of the charming flavor but tiring of the clunky retro-look, I decided "enough is enough" and I then jumped right to their latest, Sniper Elite 3 (2014) which as I mentioned, takes place in Northern Africa against the Nazis.


Sniper Elite 3 looks like a modern title - indeed it IS a very pretty game. Graphically it's not a crysis or a far cry 4, but it's still quite good-looking. I played through that one, including their challenge, surviving harder and harder enemy assaults all the way through round 13 or 14 until I essentially ran out of bandages (not to mention needed some sleep, yawn!)


On this beautiful post-campaign Sniper Elite 3 challenge map, they throw infantry, snipers, and tanks at me




Then I started on Sniper Elite 2 (called V2) which I was afraid was going to turn out to be a clunker again, but which pleasantly surprised me with some nice graphics. This one, as I said, is near the end of the war, where the cold war is about to start, and you face Russian enemies just as often as German enemies. It's a nice change of pace to hear the softer more melodic Russian language being spoken, after sweating through being hunted by the harsh-sounding Germans "VER IST DIE ARMY SNIPER!!" You are deep inside enemy lines, trying to rescue Nazi scientist informants, before the Russians get their hands on all that Nazi technology.


The Sniper 2 graphics are even better than COD2 - which says a lot - very modern looking good quality




I have decided that Sniper 2 (called V2 I realize now because it centers around the V2 rocket) is every bit as nice as Sniper Elite 3 - reminding me of Call of Duty 2 in terms of graphics - but actually more advanced than Call of Duty 2 - the 2560x1600 textures are very crisp and well-done. It should be more advanced as it came out about 3 years after COD2.

I am only 30% through V2 so far, but I have decided that both games are deserving of being listed in Group D of my top 60 favorite games of all times. For the rest of this post, I will continue to sprinkle in more screenshots of these two games.

RICH'S LISTS OF HIS TOP 60 FAVORITES: GROUPS A-D ​

So here at the top of the list, are my all-time best five games:


Group A - top all-time 5 favorites
Half Life 2 and the Episodes - single player
Call of Duty 4 (modern warfare - the first modern warfare) - single player and multi-player
Metro 2033 - sp
Metro Last Light - sp (I wasn't even going to play the Metros until Jeff talked me into it)
Far Cry 3 - sp


Sniper Elite V2 also faces major enemy sniper challenges - watch for the glint of light on his scope!




And here, as very close runners-up, are my next favorite group of twenty:


Group B - very highly ranked next 20 favorites
Dishonored - sp (DLC content is super)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Vietnam maps - multi-player (classic - superb - "THE BEST")
Call of Duty 5 - World at War (Treyarch title) - sp
Call of Duty 6 mw2
Call of Duty 8 mw2 (the last Infinity Ward Call of Duty) - sp
Call of Duty Black Ops 1 - sp
Call of Duty Black Ops 2 - sp
Crysis 1 - sp
Crysis Warhead - Psycho - sp
Crysis 2 - sp
Crysis 3 - sp
Far Cry 4 - sp
Left 4 Dead - mp - coop
Left 4 Dead 2 - mp - coop
Arma 3 (including campaign, showcases, and incredible community scenarios) - sp (I have not tried mp)
Bioshock - sp
Bioshock 2 - sp (DLC content is super)
Bioshock Infinite - sp (DLC content is super)
Assassins Creed 3, American Revolution - sp (DLC content is super)
Assassins Creed 4, Pirates - sp (DLC content is super)



All three Sniper Elite games feature bullet ballistics - the bullets drop with distance. The modern games 2 and 3 also feature windage adjustments on the higher difficulty level - they give you an indication at the top of your scope view, of the wind direction and speed, and you must adjust left or right. I changed the game setting on Sniper Elite 3 to give me targeting help with a little red box, when I went into "bullet time mode" which is when time slows down - your zoom slightly increases - you are holding your breath" and that helped a lot. On Sniper 2 there is no little red box help in bullet time mode, and at first I thought they didn't have windage until the 3rd mission when I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Then I looked up while scoped in, and there was the wind indicator! I got used to it after that and my accuracy came back. I read the dev commentary on weapons in Arma3, and they decided not to introduce windage - in their determination there was no acceptable way of indicating wind speed and direction (I guess meaning that they didn't want to distort the scope view the way that Sniper Elite does it) - so with Arma3 you only have to deal with bullet drop, which is not too significant until you get past 200 meters.


The binoculars have impressive adjustable zoom - raise rifle scope up 2 notches for this distance




Continuing with my game rankings, just a short notch down, the next favorite ten:


Group C - thoroughly enjoyable games, the next 10 favorites
Call of Duty 2 - classic - the first "great" call of duty - sp
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 campaign - sp
Brothers in Arms Hells Highway
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising - sp
Operation Flashpoint Red River - sp
Far Cry 2 - sp (if you take the river as often as you can, and avoid the road - it's beautiful)
Far Cry original - sp
Medal of Honor (the first one with the Normandy landing) - sp
Medal of Honor Pacific Assault (Pearl Harbor) - sp
Rage - sp (DLC content is super)


This Sniper Elite 2 mission involves taking out the V2 rocket production facility (oh that's why it's called V2!)




And another notch down, the last favorite 25 games of the top 60 list:


Group D - very addictive, enjoyable games just a tad below group C, last 25 favorites
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Russian maps - mp
Counter Strike - mp
Counter Strike Condition Zero - sp
Counter Strike GO - mp
Day of Defeat - mp
Spec Ops - the Wall - sp
Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30
Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood
Portal 1 - sp
Portal 2 - sp
Mafia 2 - sp - (has some great special missions that I never completed - super game)
Max Payne 1 - sp
Max Payne 2 - sp
Max Payne 3 - sp
Tomb Raider - the new 2014 reboot - sp
Wolfenstein The New Order - sp
Company of Heroes 1 - RTS - sp
Company of Heroes 2 - RTS - sp
World in Conflict - RTS - sp
Sniper Elite 3 - sp
Sniper Elite 2 (v2) - sp
Battlefield 2 demo (yes the demo) Gulf of Oman - mp or - sp
Medal of Honor Warfighter - mp (semi-auto sniper rifle with fast fire rate)
Medal of Honor Warfighter - sp
Battlefield 4 - sp


These V2 rockets are destined to terrorize London - not when I blow this factory up!


So those four groups include 60 games, each of which is thoroughly enjoyable. That Battlefield demo might strike you as an unusual choice, but there is one local Gulf of Oman map that usually has about 30-60 players on it - you can jump right in to some heavy multi-player infantry action (no flying vehicles) as sniper, spec ops, assault with grenade launcher, or anti-tank. The tanks are disabled - they explode after spawning - but the light troop carriers with machine guns are active. The players sometimes type "wow this demo is great - if they ever make the full game I'm going to get it!"


There were a ton more, that didn't quite make any of the four top groups:


SPECIAL CONSIDERATION - HONORABLE MENTIONS NOT ON THE LIST:
I have a bias away from multi-player as I have tried to limit my gaming by sticking with single player for over a year now. Battlefield 3 probably had a nice single player campaign - I can't remember - but I do remember that some of the multi-player maps were graphically lush - especially the jungle settings - but in my game notes I didn't like some of the depressing city maps, so it's not on group D.

Medal of Honor Warfighter multi-player advanced me to a semi-auto sniper rifle with low recoil and fast repeat shots - that was fun - I had a 4 to 1 KTD ratio which never happens for me. They even gave me a ridiculous machine pistol for running around the map - great close-in killing power - a little overpowered probably like the machine pistol in Day of Defeat. So even though the maps are meh, for that reason I put the - mp in Group D. The Warfighter single player was okay, and just barely made Group D. Similarly the Battlefield 4 single player was okay - I liked driving those tanks - and it too just barely made Group D. The multi-player maps also deserve mention here - some of them didn't turn me on - it was too much "see if you can find the black-suited enemy in the very black shadows." But I do remember one map outside a hotel, and running around the beautiful grounds killing enemies outside the building was fun, so the - mp gets special mention here.


After blowing the V2 factory, my lead took me here to Berlin to stop the Russian tanks so I can rescue an informant



Similarly, the game Medal of Honor Airborne, single player, was okay - not great but okay - and deserves mention here. The other Medal of Honors not in my list, also deserve mention here. The Call of Duty games, Advanced Warfare, deserve mention here, for their single player campaigns, which I played and enjoyed, but not quite enough to give them a spot in Group D. The Treyarch Call of Duty 5 World at War, was a title that I liked for the single player campaign, and it is high up in Group B. For multi-player, I wasn't too impressed, but it had some beautiful maps, such as the oriental Japanese encampment maps, which deserve mention here.

If you noticed that Titanfall is not on my list - that's because I never played it. It is multi-player only, and I have read some rave reviews. Again that is due to my having moved away from multi-player.



I had to take out this pesky Russian tank with a well-placed bullet to the cap of rear auxiliary gas tank




SOME MORE HONORABLE MENTIONS NOT ON THE LIST
Also, Avatar is one that I played recently, and which I enjoyed - it came up by the way on a recent article about Games that gamers liked more than the critics liked. One gamer said "I liked the game and I liked exploring the planet - now I'll go see the movie." Also deserving special mention is the game Sleeping Dogs, the Hong Kong game, which by the way did include some great car racing, and some fun boat driving. The karate was not so good - the PC mechanics lag a bit compared to console videos that I watched - so you had a good chance of getting killed. To compensate, when I could I ran everybody over.


I'm following the lead from the V2 factory, inside what is left of Berlin, to uncover a secret plot




Also deserving honorable mention is Kevin's favorite, GTA4, what little of it that I played - about 30 hours worth. Although my hardware at the time wasn't really up to the task, I did steal the police cars and I wiped out all the "most wanted criminals." Once you get into the mood, you can spend a lot of time walking around New York City doing all kinds of things. A similar game that is in my list is Mafia 2 - sp - which had a story that was very interesting - but it wasn't a free-form game like GTA4 - you couldn't go play pool for example. And now, thinking about Mafia 2, I recall that it had some great missions apart from the campaign. Like you could take the role of Vito's friend, Joe Barbaro, and one of those missions involves driving a car on the ice, chasing and killing a federal informant - it was a crazy mission!


Back to Sniper Elite 3 in Africa, here is the beach map for the assault challenge - naw, I like the other map better



I also liked the Walking Dead games from Tell Tale Games. They were sort of like going through a comic book - they were very interesting, and they deserve special mention here. And there was a Source Engine game - Sin 2 - a remake of the old Sin Game, which was not too bad - especially fighting the giant mutant which you had to do a couple of times.



The rear vent plates can be destroyed with sniper rounds - notice the windage indicator on top of the scope view



OLD GAMES THAT WERE GREAT IN THEIR TIME
Back in the early Half Life original times, the time of windows 98, I had played the original Sin - the game took its name from Sinclair Industries, where the glamorous but villainous daughter had taken over from the father who had been experimenting with a mutant-causing agent to produce military super-soldiers.


Good think I stuck with the map I knew best - taking out this tank - (zoom in) - got me past round 12!





There were other early games that were not bad at all - the tank game Recoil, for example - we played the heck out of the demo, single player and multiplayer on our local lan, but I could not find the full game anywhere. Then I read some of the bios of the Valve employees, and one them had a dad who had worked for Zipper, the game dev, so I asked my "valve insider" to see if he could ask his coworker to check with his dad - and guess what - I eventually got the game disk - I see it now in my CD box - but I never played it. Maybe one day, lol.


Mein Fuhrer, right on time for wine and cheese in the beautiful North African moonlight




There were also some other early games, like Shogo, where you play a mech - you're in a giant mechanized suit. And there was an early horror game, called Nightmare Creatures. That game was scaaaary!.


Then there was the early Outwars, by Microsoft, space marines with jet packs - with the game demo on the Windows 98 install disk. It was before WSAD - you used the arrow keys. We played it single player, and multi-player on our local lan. I jet-packed over one family member hiding behind a boulder, and I dropped a grenade on him - he talked about it later for a long time. Another time my assistant was one one pc, an old 200 mhz p3, his sister on another, and me on a 3rd computer, fighting each other while flying around Outwars on hang gliders. We talked about that gaming session for a long time afterward.



Maybe I can run down there and get his autograph




And of course, there was Monster Truck Madness – another Microsoft game with a demo on that w98 install disk. I got the full game, and on ebay I found 3 of the steering wheel and brake controls. At the 10th birthday party of the son of the guy who cleaned the building, I had 3 of us racing each other on a local lan. (I still have one set of steering wheel and brake controls in my garage!)


The early Tomb Raiders were neat - also neat were the early Prince of Persia games, which I understand are the predecessor of the fabulously successful Ubi franchise, the Assassins Creed series. There was also Carmack's early game, Quake.


Valve got its start licensing his Quake gaming engine to develop Half Life. There was also a cute 1998 game with nice smooth graphics, hardware-accelerated, called Gex: Enter the Gecko. You had to run it on a 3dfx card - it used proprietary graphics controls. I still have a couple of those 3dfx cards in some non-gaming machines. That company got put out of business by nvidia.



Something about that cheese didn't agree with Mein Fuhrer



Where are the Racing Games, or the Flying Games??
If you also noticed that racing games or flying games are not listed - they are not my favorite genre. Back in the day I did play a few titles. In fact I go all the way back to Monster Truck Madness of 1998. But after that I did try some of the Need for Speed titles, and they were somewhat fun - but again, car racing is not my thing.

I had to do some flying in Medal of Honor, Pacific Assault, and somehow I gunned down those enemy planes, but I am not so great at it - although I love the helicopters in Arma 3. Overall, however, vehicles aren't really my thing.


I think we need to look closer at this flamboyant Nazi leader and see what he's really made of.



It seems that I can best vent my aggressive tendencies by putting a bullet through somebody's skull, preferably a Nazi somebody, which is why Group D suddenly has two Sniper Elite games on it!


Rich

 

Rich, Sniper Elite 1 was for the original Xbox then ported to PC. Remember consoles have never been as powerful as PCs. It's a really good title for the Xbox because at the time, nothing else like it had been attempted. I still have my copy. The graphics were also quite decent for consoles of the time, as it was the transition period at the end of the 6th generation but before the 360 came out to start the 7th generation. This was the Golden Era of PC gaming when titles like Half Life 2, Doom 3, and Far Cry were absolutely impossible to match with consoles. Only the Xbox got ports of them. Even then they were heavily nerfed, and in Far Cry's case, an entirely different game.

Doom 3 Xbox - Heavily Nerfed but otherwise a perfect port. The whole game and its expansion are there. All settings lower than the lowest possible PC settings. Lighting/Shadowing in particular have to use a much simpler and less detailed set of shaders. The shaders are changed enough that the entire game looks different, despite everything being the same. Textures likewise are very blotchy and pixelated, worse than many other Xbox games(granted Doom 3 never had very good textures to begin with). However, all the bump mapping, dynamic lighting and shadows effects, actual texture detail, and other fancy eye candy effects are all intact, just at far lesser fidelity than the PC version. Extremely pretty game for the Xbox, but a joke in comparison to PC. I have the limited Collector's tin for the Xbox. A few dents, but clean. Also have a black label copy of the expansion Resurrection of Evil.

Far Cry Xbox - More a remake than a port but uses CryEngine so can be considered a port of sorts. Renamed Far Cry Instincts. Extremely simplified, but nonetheless impressive for the Xbox. The pixel shader water, foliage, draw distances, wide open environments, and vehicular gameplay are all represented here. Makes a solid attempt to create the Far Cry pretty effect without watering the game down too much. Incidentally the actual campaign is better designed than Far Cry PC's and it's a bit easier and arguably a better campaign. Was modular so the Xbox 360 version that came out later looked superior. The game is a joke technology-wise compared to Far Cry on the PC, but is every bit as good a game and still managed to impress me with its graphics way back when. Still have my black label copies of both the game and its expansion Far Cry Instincts Predator.

Half-Life 2 Xbox - Basically the PC version at lowest settings but otherwise a perfect port of the full game without the episodes. Simply uses the DX8.1 PC shaders so looks-wise it is identical to the PC version unlike Doom 3. Every single graphical effect from the PC version is present in comparable fidelity. The textures are even very clean, if a bit blurry. Compares very nicely to the PC version and can be considered the best graphics on the Xbox hands down. Framerates are an issue, as it never holds 30FPS. More like 20-30 depending on what's happening. However, Source Engine is pretty tolerant, so compared to anything else we were used to seeing in this console generation, the framerate was still very playable. I never remember the framerate being a big issue for me compared to any other Xbox game. I played its entirety on the Xbox 3 times. Still have my copy. Rips cleanly and professionally resurfaced. Plays great when ripped to the Xbox HDD but a bit stuttery from the disk(though playable from start to finish) due to the intense wear it's had. It wouldn't even boot until I had it resurfaced. The price you sometimes pay with used games... One of a few Xbox games I wouldn't mind replacing.

So you see, at the time PC had all the advantages. Sniper Elite, being Xbox native, was actually not half bad from a graphics standpoint. It's just that PC graphics at that point in time were at a zenith.

 

Wow, that totally explains it. I didn't even have one thought that it might have initially been a console game. It just didn't make sense to me that it was so clunky, so late in the PC gaming cycle, at 2005. But for consoles - I see what you mean now.

How do you professionally resurface a disk - never heard of that.

Wow, if that was truly virtually identical to the PC game, Half Life 2 on the xbox must have been the best console game out there - must have helped sell a lot of xbox units!

But wait a second - if Half Life 2 was on the xbox - then, coming about 6 months later - my question still stands - why was the original Sniper Elite so clunky?

I guess a possible answer is: Rebellion isn't Valve. But thankfully, they survived - the bullet time kill caught on with a large enough fan base - so then V2 came out with very nice graphics indeed!

I'm a fan now (hopefully I'll get a chance to do some more shooting tonight.) I'll buy the Sniper Elite 4 when it comes out - I read somewhere that they are working on it.

- Rich

 

The New HBM cards are as follows:
R9 Nano
R9 Fury
R9 Fury X

Correct, these are the cards featuring only 4GB of memory due to HBM yield issues. AMD have explained it away that use of HBM allows for less memory to be required and that has proven somewhat true in practice, but in the long-run will probably be limiting compared to 8GB of GDDR5, even if it competes fine with 6.
The memory itself is not yet an issue, though it will stunt the lifetime of the cards somewhat, it's the raw performance that's the failure. The cards are not faster than nvidia's offerings that have been on the table for considerable time for the same price, yet they come with all these downsides the Geforces just don't have. Fastest AMD cards ever they may be, but they're inferior products in every way until the price comes down.
AMD gambled that they could charge similar prices to nvidia for once rather than having to undercut due to having cards that underperform. The cards still underperformed but the prices haven't been lowered accordingly. Until that happens there is no reason to buy them at all.

Yes Jeff, newer tech is supposed to consume less power, but these new cards aren't really newer tech. They're a tweak of an existing architecture on the same silicon process size. It's neither a full new architecture, nor is it a reduction in silicon process size, which is what the driver for power consumption drops usually is.

 

Sam, that explanation makes sense. But don't AMD and Nvidia buy from the same foundry? Isn't Nvidia working on the same silicone process size - which is what - 28 nm still?

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


I finished Sniper Elite V2, minus all of my fingernails, which weren't pulled out by SS troops, but which were chewed off by myself for having to go through several SNIPERS ALL OVER THE PLACE maps which were quite nerve-wracking. In one especially gruesome map, he does his thing way high up on a building, then decides to escape via the rooftops.

HE ESCAPES VIA THE ROOFTOPS, MAKING HIMSELF A SITTING DUCK FOR EVERY SNIPER IN TOWN!

I said the game was good, I didn't say the protagonist had any brains at all.

Then right at the end there was a really cool mission involving destroying a rocket and holding out in an almost indefensible area while the rocket fuels, so it will make the most powerful blast when you destroy it. This is a command position overlooking the launch site - has two ground floor entrances to the large room, just off the railroad tracks, plus a basement entrance for troops that rush upstairs to kill you.

By the way, down in that basement - FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN THE SERIES - there is actually an ammo bin that says "Thompson SMG ammo." I couldn't believe it.

They give you 60 extra rounds of two more drums, to go with the measly 30 rounds you normally get.

So right away, just by that, you know that some serious close-quarters sh*t is about to go down. Despite 3 trip-grenades on the way up those basement stairs - holding out at the top of the stairs to try to manage enemies rushing in from the tracks - it was pretty hairy, but the tremendous explosion made it all worthwhile.

The idea was to

save London which was about to be wiped out by nerve gas.

See what I was doing for your grandparents, Sam, while you were busy selling your thin client systems!

Rich

 

Yes nvidia are working on the same silicon process (28nm) as well. Their architecture remains substantially more efficient than AMD's, even if AMD caught up a little bit.
The GTX980, which is marginally faster than AMD's 290X, runs at just 160-180W in most games, versus the 290X's 260-290W.
The GTX980Ti is a much bigger GPU and runs around 225-250W in most games, but is still a faster card than the Fury X by a noticeable margin, and the latter uses 270-300W in practice.

 

Just took the plunge into buying a new handheld. The Nintendo New 3DS released recently at an amazingly decent price of $200 for either the regular OR the XL model. Pricing beats the pants off of previous models in comparison. I got a New 3DS XL for even cheaper at $140 used in perfect condition with all factory materials. Not bad for a very recently released piece of hardware. Craigslist has its uses

I've been avoiding buying a Nintendo DS because they keep upgrading them so much, and screwing game compatibility on older models. The latest version has all the right features to signal that it is a very mature hardware release, and won't get so badly screwed as the original DS. Got a red one to match my old GBA SP.

I must say, it really is a premium quality little piece of kit. Very nice feel in the hand, and well thought out. Nice looking carbon fiber-esque finish on the casing as well. Also fairly hefty which usually signifies quality. Only real complaint is that the battery life is still somewhat weak, but better than every other previous model. It lasts fine playing old DS games. Maybe 7-12 hours which blows an old DS Original away. 3DS games drain it pretty quickly though, especially with the 3D activated. Maybe 5.5-ish hours. 6 or so with the 3D off.

The graphical capabilities are a mixed bag. Super Mario 64 DS, an original DS title that stressed the hardware massively, has far superior texturing to the N64 original, but slightly simpler geometry/effects and less visual depth. A much newer title for the 3DS, StarFox 64 3D has superior graphics to the N64 overall, only lacking in sheer resolution. The 3DS displays in 400 x 240p while the N64 displays in 640 x 480i, so the N64 wins in resolution and visible detail easily, but lacks in other areas.

The specs made it a no-brainer.

Original DS/Lite: 67MHz ARM9+33MHz ARM7
4MB RAM
256 x 192 resolution

DSi: 133MHz ARM9+33MHz ARM7
16MB RAM
256 x 192 resolution
No notable exclusive games but great speedup for many DS games.

3DS: 2 x 268MHz ARM11 + DS processor
128MB RAM
6MB VRAM
400 x 240 resolution

New 3DS: 4 x 268MHz ARM11 + DS processor
256MB RAM
10MB VRAM
400 x 240 resolution
Second analog and 2 extra shoulder buttons

In spirit the 3DS and New 3DS can be considered the "DS 2". They are vastly more powerful. The DSi is to the original DS/Lite what the New 3DS is to the 3DS.

Absolutely in love with it. Not to mention DS Flashcarts are readily available in good quality and extremely easy to use. Already have one on the way that enables GBA emulation, SNES emulation, and a few other features. Makes up for the removal of the GBA slot on the DSi and higher.

 

Nintendo, xbox, pc - I have got to hand it to you, Jeff, you are the most "multiple platform" guy I have ever heard of. I know that Sam has an xbox - I think Kevin has one too - and I played a sony playstation once - wait I think Sam has one of those also - but I bet that you have the most complete arsenal of consoles of anybody here on this thread!

Do you have playstation - I bet you do
Do you have xbox - we know you do
Do you have nintendo - you just posted about the new one
Do you have wii - well, I don't know about that
Do you have gameboy? (or is that the same as one of the above?)

What have I forgotten?

 

I've used on a regular basis / owned (where indicated) the following consoles:

Game Boy
Game Boy Color (owned)
DS original

NES
SNES
N64 (owned)
Gamecube (owned)
Wii (owned)
Wii U (owned)

MegaDrive Mk I (known as Genesis in the US)

Playstation
PS2 (owned)
PS3 (owned)

Xbox 360 (owned, x2)

so I don't think I'm too detached from the console world, I don't own an Xbox One or a PS4 yet, but once Rock band 4 is released for the Xbox One I will probably be picking that up

 

I think between me and my kids we have just about owned the lot at some time with me kicking off with the atari right up to present consoles. The ones that made gaming break throughs over the years for me were the snes pro evo was a joy on snes along with mario ps1 crash bandicoot all day and simply ps1 was in a world of its own in them days. Dreamcast killed sega and the 64 put nintendo back. Xbox 360 killed ps3 not coz it was better more because it was easy hacked and now ps4 is back on on top of xbox one. But for me the real change came in gaming consoles when ps1 arrived as just about every game that came out was available on the ps1. These days you have far to many exclusives which is taking the fun out of gaming. These days you have to own more than one console to play all the different games. I personally stick to my beloved PC these days and borrow the kids consoles if there is a game i really want to play like the last of us or uncharted. Last console i actually purchased for myself was a ps3 and have not bothered since.

 

I disagree to be honest, I think exclusivity is actually less common now than it was in the first disc-generation era and certainly less common than in the cartridge era.

 

Current console fleet is:

-Microsoft Xbox 1.6b Halo Special Edition modded* via Component and Optical S/PDIF w/ Joytech Digital AV Cable. Surround via Dolby Digital 5.1

* UnleashX softmod, 500GB Western Digital Ultra ATA133 HDD, LEDs, EMF shields removed, 80mm fan mod, Thermal Paste, 80-wire PATA cable

-Sony PlayStation 3 "MGS4 Edition" 80GB via HDMI

-Super Nintendo Entertainment System via Euro SCART -> HDMI w/ Custom composite sync SCART cable w/ SD2SNES (Rev. F) Flashcart

-Nintendo 64 Charcoal Gray modded* via Euro SCART -> HDMI w/ Custom luma sync SCART cable. Surround via Dolby Pro Logic 5.1 upmix

*RGB mod and signal amp w/ Everdrive 64 v3.0 Flashcart

-Nintendo Gamecube Platinum modded* via Component and RCA w/ Official Nintendo Gamecube component cable. Surround via Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 upmix

*Xeno GC 2.0 modchip, LEDs, laser potentiometer tweak

- Sega Genesis Model 1 "High Definition" w/ Sega CD + Sega 32x + custom stereo patch cables via Euro SCART -> HDMI w/ Mega Everdrive v2 Flashcart

-Sega Dreamcast HKT3020 Aug '99 via S-Video/VGA and RCA Stereo w/ RetroBit VGA Adapter

HandHelds:
-Nintendo Gameboy Original Black w/ Everdrive GB Flashcart

-Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP Model 1 Red w/ EZ Flash IV Flashcart

-Nintendo New 3DS XL Red w/ SuperCard DSTwo Flashcart + Sky3DS Flashcart.

Retired and in Storage:

-Sony PlayStation 2 Slim Silver via Component and Optical S/PDIF w/ PS3 component cable. Surround via Dolby Prologic II 5.1 upmix or Dolby Digital 5.1

My PS3 is a backwards compatible one so the PS2 is totally unneeded. Also, I have owned my Super Nintendo for 20+ years and the Gameboy for almost 20. I have had the N64 for 15+ years, and the GBA for 12-ish years. All four work perfectly. Nintendo makes superb quality cartridge-based hardware.

 

I'm trying to think - what was the atari? I could google but memory tells me it was a very early computer that had some nice graphics. Or was that the Amiga?

Kevin didn't chime in yet, but I am floored by all of those consoles that you guys own - and that John's kids own.

But nobody mentioned coleco-vision. Am I the only guy in the world who actually had a chance to play on that old gaming console (I just googled it - it came out in 1982!) We found the box and pulled the thing out of the closet or the garage and hooked it up - it had about 20 cartridges - donkey kong, other classics, and a couple of cool rocket ship games - AND - you had two controllers so that you could play against the other person. For example there was a boxing game, and this one guy, Ivan (at the time kid about 13) who was regularly killing me on every other game, finally got beaten by me on the boxing game. I still kid him some 15 years later - he always used to say in a latino accent "I'm weeeeening!" It used to irritate me so much! And he WAS always weeeening! Good thing I taught him a lesson with that boxing game! ​

Between Sam and Jeff, I count more line entries by Sam at 14 to 11, but more games owned by Jeff at 11 versus 8, and everything Jeff owns, less one, is still part of his "Current console fleet." I would have to call Jeff the "thread console master" but astonishingly Sam is a very close runner up.

I am flabbergasted at the quantity of consoles you guys have right now, especially Jeff, and that you have owned and used, Sam.

As for me, I agree with John on his conclusion:

The last of us
Uncharted

Hmmmm. I'll have to look those games up and see if they are my cup of tea! Anybody besides John ever heard of those games?

Edit - Oh, wait, I guess it doesn't matter - from what John said, they must be exclusive to console, so it wouldn't do me any good to get excited about them. I'm still waiting for the PC port for Red Dead Redemption.

Rich

 

no no, by owned I mean which consoles were actually mine, not how many games we had for them - typically each console might have had on average around a dozen games.

Yes I've heard of both The Last of Us and Uncharted, and both get very good reviews. I do want to play them at some point, but chance would be a fine thing!

I'm not sure if I ever played on a Colecovision or not, there was almost certainly one at a video game museum expo I went to once, but I'm not sure if I had the chance to play on it or not, I remember using the Odyssey and a few other 80s consoles like the 2600, but Colecovision I'm not sure.

 

Sorry guys, been really busy. Fact is, I've been jumping through hoops at my job (UPS), to take on a driving position
Ordinarily, i'd be very nervous(anxiety) at the prospect... but fact is, a relative gave me some clonazepam(anti-anxiety medication), and it made it 100 times easier to take the drive test. Now it's off to school a week from monday. Good timing too... I was about to give in to my fear yet again! I'm gonna schedule myself to see a doctor next week about this. The pill has taught me, that I have a very serious problem. My anxiety levels are very serious...

So, what kind of consoles have I owned?(sorry, can't be bothered to read through all of the above lol)
Atari 2600(was very young, but I recall loving Qbert, space invaders, star wars, COULD GO ON!)
Commodore 64 (recall liking Buck Rogers, Marble Madness, and a few others)
NES (Good times! Many fond memories)
SNES(never owned one, but a family member did. If I ever itch to play it, I emulate it LOL!)
N64 (I recall 007 Golden-eye, Mario 64, and mari kart, And of course OCARINA OF TIME! occupying MANY hours of my time )
Dreamcast (Brother owned one. Seem to recall liking San francisco rush 2049)
Gamecube(very short owning period)
Nintendo Wii(owned one for a couple years just to learn modifying it. I did enjoy multiple games)

PC gaming is now king for me. There are zero consoles calling to me. $ony bothers me something fierce, and I have no interest currently, in the other modern consoles.
I buy every game I play too, by the way lol

 

I have a hard copy collection of at least 300-400 games. Most of my playing backups is playing what I already have through a better interface. Some consoles though, are simply ludicrously expensive to collect for. Nintendo DS games are oftentimes more valuable than what they originally retailed for, even at Gamestop. A simple Pokemon game which should be $20 at the most right now is currently $40-50 at Gamestop, and similarly so on Amazon. I buy what I can, when I can. It's easier to justify $5-15 for a full version PC game on Steam or a SNES/N64 cartridge than it is to justify $50 for a 3 year old handheld game that's available everywhere and retailed for $34.95. Flashcarts and modded consoles are also very neat little pieces of hardware and finding the best ones can be challenging at times. Collecting all the best quality ones has become somewhat of a hobby for me. You gotta admit they're a conversation piece

That being said, I've bought all of my new PC games for the past year. I want better games and I want them now!

 

Some comparative numbers for you - using a reference point of 100 for a Radeon R9 290X, these are the scores at 2560x1440 (left hand side) and 3840x2160 (right hand side) across HardwareCanucks' 12-game test suite (Double weighted minimum total sum):

R9 290X: 100 / 100
R9 390X: 112 / 119
GTX 980: 111 / 115
R9 Fury: 127 / 136
R9 Fury X: 140 / 149
GTX 980 Ti: 148 / 152
Titan X: 151 / 158

Although 4K skews the weightings ever so slightly, by and large the trend is the same here - the R9 390X is generally speaking enough of a step up to render the card equivalent to the GTX980 in most cases at high resolutions due to the extra video memory. The Fury standard is generally around a 15% step up from the 390X. The Fury X is in turn a 10% step up on that, or a 25% step up from the 390X (and therefore a 40% or 50% gain on the 290X). The GTX980Ti is a good 8-10% faster than the Fury X at 2560x1440 but loses the majority of that lead at 4K, remaining superior, but barely at around 2%. The Titan X remains top dog, but for gamers the handful of percent gains have largely been rendered reundant by the 980Ti as was broadly accepted when the 980Ti was first released.

Right now, the GTX980Ti is the same price (£15 less for some brands) at my preferred store as the Fury X, and the Ti is in stock, the Fury X is not. Add the very noisy watercooling system that you have to deal with and all that extra heat, the 980Ti is clearly head and shoulders above the competition.

From what I can gather, the regular Fury will be coming in around 10% more expensive than the standard GTX98 over here. That's going to be a tough one. Technically speaking it'll be worth it at that price, but bearing in mind the GTX980 is much more efficient than the Ti (and therefore the Fury as well), it could be a tough call. Either way, the Fury is, as I predicted, likely to be a better product. 90% of the Fury X but cheaper and without the extra BS attached, or at least most of it.

The 390X is currently a fair bit cheaper than the GTX980 (£340 vs £390 here) which makes it a good buy if you can live with the heat and power requirement but not all benches have painted the two as equals like this one did.
Right now the 390X seems the better buy despite the big price hike over the 290X. At 1920x1080 though, I think perhaps a GTX970 might be a better idea due to the vastly lower power consumption and low price.


In other news, surprise surprise, the new Intel Skylake architecture (i7 6000 series) is posting the same c. 7% per clock gains over Haswell as Haswell did from Ivy Bridge before it. Clock speed of the premier chip will remain 4.0Ghz as before. Yawn.