Official PC Gamers Topic V3

[mkey82]

How is a novice supposed to orient in all that?

 

Oh, and it doesnt help that some of my local stores have a few cheaper-than-dirt ancient cards still in stock (like they had a bloody 7950GX2 a couple of months ago or like they still have an X1950GT).

This is confusing, but what is ATI or Nvidia supposed to do about it? They produce chips and cards while other companies produce more cards of their own in different variations.

 

Also, you didn't mention solutions with varying amount of VRAM. Like 4870 with 512 or 1024 MB of RAM. As I understand it, 4870 has gotten well below 200$ right now and in my mind this makes it a very affordable solution. ATI has made a lot of fuss with their 4000 series and respective prices while Nvidia should bring it down a notch and start producing cards with better quality/price ratio.

 

I hope Intel will come through with Larabee and if they do, me thinks ATI and Nvidia will be in loads of trouble.

[ayushisrocking]

I hope Intel will come through with Larabee and if they do, me thinks ATI and Nvidia will be in loads of trouble.

yeah, and they are

 

check out Wikipedia...they have positive views over there..

btw larabee has a high chance on being on the next-gen consoles..

IF everything goes well..

[Girish]

I hope Intel will come through with Larabee and if they do, me thinks ATI  and Nvidia will be in loads of trouble.

yeah, and they are

 

check out Wikipedia...they have positive views over there..

btw larabee has a high chance on being on the next-gen consoles..

IF everything goes well..

I highly doubt this. The problem with Intel is that it always has been too slow with its graphical advancements and all this time, Nvidia and ATi have taken complete control (it's somewhere around 98%, iirc) of the PC market.

 

Intel will seriously have to come up with something ground-breaking if they're looking to throw a serious challenge to the market fore-runners. Then too, Nvidia and ATi are such fleet-footed companies that they can come up with something better and faster by the time Larrabee launches and subsequently, killing whatever market Larrabee might have had. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[Democrab]

I hope Intel will come through with Larabee and if they do, me thinks ATI  and Nvidia will be in loads of trouble.

yeah, and they are

 

check out Wikipedia...they have positive views over there..

btw larabee has a high chance on being on the next-gen consoles..

IF everything goes well..

I highly doubt this. The problem with Intel is that it always has been too slow with its graphical advancements and all this time, Nvidia and ATi have taken complete control (it's somewhere around 98%, iirc) of the PC market.

 

Intel will seriously have to come up with something ground-breaking if they're looking to throw a serious challenge to the market fore-runners. Then too, Nvidia and ATi are such fleet-footed companies that they can come up with something better and faster by the time Larrabee launches and subsequently, killing whatever market Larrabee might have had. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Yeah, Larrabee will be slow compared to the Graphics Cards from then, but the Ray Tracing is why it might be good.

[james_root]

well i used to be a pc gamer but the last couple of years and gta4 releasing on consoles made me by an xbox last year and i kinda play everything except fps's at xbox

it is kinda better to play racing,3rd person shooters,action games with a gamepad

[jelly]

What, are you here to start a debate or something? That's not what this thread is for.

[Sunrise Driver]

 

it is kinda better to play racing,3rd person shooters,action games with a gamepad

Buy a gamepad for PC and sell your console.

[kingvercetti]

 

What games would the 4870 struggle with?

Technically not many, but I'm the weird sort of person that notices when something isn't running at bang on 60 fps, and it starts bothering me for about half an hour into playing until I stop noticing. Problem is I sometimes end up spending more time configuring the game than playing it, which is why with Fallout 3 I just left it on what it reccommended to me - ultra high with 4xAA, I'd guess I'm only hovering around 30 fps or lower, but it stops making a difference after a while. The odd thing is though, I only notice it on PC games, when I used to use the 360 on the same display I really couldn't tell even though very few games on consoles run over 30fps. Maybe something to do with the frame buffer?

The GTX 295 is looking very tasty, but I bet it's a power guzzler and it obviously costs a fortune. But heh, a new graphics card can wait, the 4870 is adequate, thinking about it.

 

And I guess there's no better place to ask without starting a new thread, but are there any Quake Live players floating about GTAF? Wasn't really a huge fan of Quake 3 but this is just as simple as it gets, and it's pretty addictive.

 

It's also quite amazing how PC games are RRP'd at £26 in most UK stores, sure tehre are sh*tty ports, but for the good ones, like Fallout, it's amazing value.

[Abel.]

 

well i used to be a pc gamer but the last couple of years and gta4 releasing on consoles made me by an xbox last year and i kinda play everything except fps's at xbox

it is kinda better to play racing,3rd person shooters,action games with a gamepad

Bah, Assasin's Creed, Gears of War and GTA have far better controls with mouse and keys, in my opinion.

 

kingvercetti: Probably the console's frame limiter.

[mkey82]

 

Intel will seriously have to come up with something ground-breaking if they're looking to throw a serious challenge to the market fore-runners. Then too, Nvidia and ATi are such fleet-footed companies that they can come up with something better and faster by the time Larrabee launches and subsequently, killing whatever market Larrabee might have had. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Heh, I have to disagree. If this was true, then why did Nvidia have this almost placebo line of GPU's , being the 9000 series. There was practically no reason to get anything from that series if you had one of the better 8800 cards. Also, isn't the 200 series a bit overpriced?

 

And look at good old poor ATI. Series X, X1, 2000 sucked donkey balls. Only with this 4000 series they managed to cause some commotion with excellent quality/price ratios.

 

You can pump only so much in one GPU, so they offer us multi-gpu "solutions". Those things are getting so power hungry that in a while you'll probably need a direct connection to the national power grid IMO they have hit a bottleneck and major advances are hard to find. Which in fact is good, as there is less need to get new hardware becasue it develops more slowly

 

I believe Intel is ready to take them on. If not, I'll eat my hat.

 

Also, kingvercetty, IMO the reasons why you don't notice framerate issues on x360 would be

1. 30 FPS is not that bad to begin with. Only if it goes below 25 things get clunky

2. the graphics are overall crappy so what the hell

3. I don't have any more arguments

 

I just remembered, I have a few excerpts from the local "gaming" magazine called "Gameplay". I almost wet my pants. They were presenting the Kill Zone 2 for PS3. It was a beta or something they got to play. Here is what they said

 

1. First next-gen game EVER, on any platform (the way they worded it, it would seem that this includes PC also)

2. KZ2 has slow and jittery movement with lousy overview of the stuff that's going on the screen and this has been done INTENTIONALLY (I swear, their words)

3. Unstable FPS gives the game a movie-like feeling. This must be the first game we don't resent having low FPS. (after reading this one I was ready to die and I would go as a happy man)

 

You just have to laugh at this guys.

Edited January 16, 2009 by mkey82

[3niX]

Well...

 

 

3. I don't have any more arguments

Console games are generally slower paced. Gamepads slow down the movement so you wont notice the low fps.

 

I have seen it work that way on PC games. I played Bioshock with a gamepad @30fps and it was smooth, but with a mouse it felt very jerky. Same goes to any first-person-shooter on the PC. 60fps is mandatory for smoothness.

[mkey82]

Well...

 

 

3. I don't have any more arguments

Console games are generally slower paced. Gamepads slow down the movement so you wont notice the low fps.

 

I have seen it work that way on PC games. I played Bioshock with a gamepad @30fps and it was smooth, but with a mouse it felt very jerky. Same goes to any first-person-shooter on the PC. 60fps is mandatory for smoothness.

Also, people on consoles game from a larger distance, but kingvercetty said he uses his monitor so I'm guessing this point would not be valid in his case.

 

It's funny how gamepads make you lazy - for instance, when I play a match of football, I always lean back, well below optimum viewing height for my monitor

[Abel.]

Intel will seriously have to come up with something ground-breaking if they're looking to throw a serious challenge to the market fore-runners. Then too, Nvidia and ATi are such fleet-footed companies that they can come up with something better and faster by the time Larrabee launches and subsequently, killing whatever market Larrabee might have had. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Heh, I have to disagree. If this was true, then why did Nvidia have this almost placebo line of GPU's , being the 9000 series. There was practically no reason to get anything from that series if you had one of the better 8800 cards. Also, isn't the 200 series a bit overpriced?

 

And look at good old poor ATI. Series X, X1, 2000 sucked donkey balls. Only with this 4000 series they managed to cause some commotion with excellent quality/price ratios.

 

You can pump only so much in one GPU, so they offer us multi-gpu "solutions". Those things are getting so power hungry that in a while you'll probably need a direct connection to the national power grid IMO they have hit a bottleneck and major advances are hard to find. Which in fact is good, as there is less need to get new hardware becasue it develops more slowly

 

I believe Intel is ready to take them on. If not, I'll eat my hat.

 

Also, kingvercetty, IMO the reasons why you don't notice framerate issues on x360 would be

1. 30 FPS is not that bad to begin with. Only if it goes below 25 things get clunky

2. the graphics are overall crappy so what the hell

3. I don't have any more arguments

 

I just remembered, I have a few excerpts from the local "gaming" magazine called "Gameplay". I almost wet my pants. They were presenting the Kill Zone 2 for PS3. It was a beta or something they got to play. Here is what they said

 

1. First next-gen game EVER, on any platform (the way they worded it, it would seem that this includes PC also)

2. KZ2 has slow and jittery movement with lousy overview of the stuff that's going on the screen and this has been done INTENTIONALLY (I swear, their words)

3. Unstable FPS gives the game a movie-like feeling. This must be the first game we don't resent having low FPS. (after reading this one I was ready to die and I would go as a happy man)

 

You just have to laugh at this guys.

I did, it made my day .

 

Anyway, the GTX 260 Core 216 has really come down in price now, otherwise I would've got the 4870 1 GB. In my opinion,

the 4870's 256 Bit bus is not enough for it's speedy DDR5 memory.

 

Console games are generally slower paced. Gamepads slow down the movement so you wont notice the low fps: Indeed, twitch aiming

is impossible on a gamepad.

 

[mkey82]

OK guys, far away from all that GTA IV lovers/hater talk (BTW I find it incredible how this games polarizes the gaming community on these boards) let me ask you something.

 

We are all here because we're GTA lovers, right? I mean, there is loads of general talk also, but the main purpose of being here is GTA series itself. I really doubt that anyone who doesn't really love GTA would hang around these places for long (there are occasional trolls, but they are quick to leave).

 

So in this spirit, what did/do you think about GTA IV? Honestly...

 

The graphics and all that's nice in general, but those shadows stab me in the eyes like thousand sharp little needles soaked in lemon juice. Add a pinch of crappy performance and you get a so-so experience. What really amazed me was the feeling I never see the same ped again - they vary a lot and it shows. Even though I don't know how many actual ped models are in there and its not like I'm setting a personal record in gameplay hours in a GTA title. The driving I like very much and the town layout is OK, but a bit too dense for my taste (myself coming from a small town so it's to be expected).

 

The town is vertical and all that, but I don't have a big incentive to reach those skyscraper rooftops. Had there been a goddamn parachute or a jet-pack this wouldn't be so. While lunging from a building to certain death is funny, I don't find it amusing. With addition of slow motion deaths I find it as a bad combo. I mean, you could have died in silly fashions before, right? I didn't enjoy it that much back then either.

 

The characters were a rather big letdown. There are no such people as Avery James, Ricardo Diaz or Kent Paul. I will not even mention Tommy or Big Smoke. Niko is an OK chap, but when I play GTA, I want to do so with an over the top guy who knows what he wants and does whatever to get it. The goal justifies the means big time. l want it all and I want it now. I want to spend and buy a lot. You get the picture... The main character shouldn't allow anyone to push him around, or if he does make certain to pay them a little visit later on. And why do people die so often? Like Vlad. You meet him as a bully, he insults you most of the time, yokel this and that, then you do some missions for him, kill some people. Then Roman calls you, "OMG Vlad is doing Mallory!" and that's it. WTF do I care if this guy is doing some silly bitch!? I want to kill him because he stole from me, or because he put me down. And what happens after you kill him? You push him into the sea and nobody found his body floating around? Come on! What about Mallory, if she was doing him, why aren't there any repercussions? My attention span is not great, but I'm really not impressed.

 

The story for me is the worse one up to date in GTA games. I just find it hard to get involved with any of the characters as they are not that well interpreted and most of them get's wasted after a few missions. Those phone call interrupts are far too often and really annoy me whenever I try to go on some exploring/rampage/whatever expedition. You can turn the silent mode on, but t just keeps popping back up. It's badly implemented and I hope in the future they will leave it as an option. For instance, if YOU call THEM, that's OK, go on dates and what not, I don't care. I just don't want them calling me all the time.

 

The mission variation was not grand. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, they "excluded" bunch of stuff from SA, so there is less possibility to do the same thing in different ways. Secondly, most of the missions are of the type go to point A, receive instruction there and the then go to B and kill/steal some stuff. There is no C in the middle or at the end, there are no "let's just enjoy the ride" missions. Missions are heavily scripted and don't let you get off the set path. This is not what GTA was always about.

 

With this, we come to game difficulty. Well, is there any? You get in a room with bunch of people and instead of shooting at you, they yell "There he is!". WTF? What about chases? Come on guys, you need more skill for a standard Super Mario Bros level, I kid you not. I'm going after this guy and for some reason he decides to wait for me on the first intersection. No only wait, but he remains there until I catch up and blast his ass. WTF?! For what age group was this game actually made, come on. I find it very disappointing, GTA is turning into a typical game-move.

 

I found the auto-save feature to be altering the stile of the game a LOT. When I turned it off and chose to drive to the safe house every time I wanted to save, there were two little monsters lurking in the bushes. Firstly, the game crashed on me a few times so I had to go through same missions over and over again. Funny enough, it never crashed while auto-save was on . Secondly, the safe houses are not that well distributed, so that you have a nice drive to reach them in most situations. I guess R* made this with auto-save in mind.

 

I thought the music would suck loads more but it's OK in general. I find it a bit disturbing that most of the time I listen to that electro stuff but hey, it's not like I feel the need to drive around the town aimlessly and just listen to some tunes.

 

All in all, there isn't that buzz anymore. Maybe I'm getting older, maybe GTA is getting old, IDK.

 

P.S. - all of the above has one big IMO stamped all over it. It's highly subjective so pretty please don't take it literally.

[Democrab]

My feelings about IV is that I use it as proof for "Heaps of realism is not good for 75% of games" arguments, it doesn't feel like GTA, it feels more like a rip off like The Getaway or something, even the radio stations didn't impress me, its a fun game.. but not GTA.

[Potato Boggle]

Hey guys I'm a console gamer wanting to switch to PC gaming and I have a few questions.

1.About how much would a pretty nice computer cost in 1.5-2 years??

2.Is it easy to assemble your computer after buying the parts?

And 3. Is it easy to get use to using a keyboard as a controller?

Thanks in advanced for the answer

[mkey82]

Hey guys I'm a console gamer wanting to switch to PC gaming and I have a few questions.

1.About how much would a pretty nice computer cost in 1.5-2 years??

2.Is it easy to assemble your computer after buying the parts?

And 3. Is it easy to get use to using a keyboard as a controller?

Thanks in advanced for the answer

1. This is a difficult and generalized question. I think it's safe to say that you can get an up to date machine (including a quality monitor) for something like 1500$ US. This of course depends on your country, what the stores offer and such. Picking the right place is the hardest thing to do, but a rule of the thumb is to steer clear of various prebuilt machines.

2. Building a machine is somewhat difficult, but only for the first time (as you may be uncertain of what you are doing). Pretty much everything is modular and it rather hard to insert anything in the wrong place (besides by using brute force). Of course, there are loads of guides and such readily available form the web in addition to various forums and such. You can always ask a friend for help, also. The main point being - definitively doable.

3. It will take some time, but k&m offer a lot better and faster control. Once you get accustomed, you'll be asking yourself how did you manage without them

[3niX]

Well...

 

Also, if you dont know anybody who can help, you can buy the parts and take them to a shop for assembly. Round here its extremely cheap... and they do a great job (like... nice, clean wiring and such). Most prebuilt PCs are a no-no though. Ive seen how some companies just throw everything together without even checking if the PC works.

 

Nowadays $1000 can get you a great gaming machine. That is if you know what youre looking for.

 

Getting used to a keyboard isnt very difficult. It might take some time to get the right coordination with a mouse though. Anyway, you can get a gamepad if you really need it.

 

 

 

As for GTA IV. Like Ive said before, Im a bit disappointed as well. Its not that its a bad game. Theres plenty to like about it. I just feel like its a step backwards rather than forward. The story is probably better than all of the previous games, so are the graphics... and even though Im one of the people that didnt have problems with the tech side, Im still pissed that they needed to release a patch from day one.

Whats more, every time I feel the need for a few hours of entertainment I double-click the San Andreas icon instead of IV. Maybe its because of the mods (although I barely have any installed).

 

Oh, and I agree about the linearity. There were quite a few moments where the game didnt let me finish the mission then and there (and to add to the insult, the missions didnt have much of a climax anyway).

[poopskin]

it is kinda better to play racing,3rd person shooters,action games with a gamepad

Buy a gamepad for PC and sell your console.

i collect antique consoles AND Antique PCs. However, my PC is terrible for gaming (and it's dead anyway).

[Drunk Russian 9]

 

Hey guys I'm a console gamer wanting to switch to PC gaming and I have a few questions.

1.About how much would a pretty nice computer cost in 1.5-2 years??

2.Is it easy to assemble your computer after buying the parts?

And 3. Is it easy to get use to using a keyboard as a controller?

Thanks in advanced for the answer

I built this PC you see in the specs myself with no previous experience. It's not that hard. It cost me around $1000 altogether and performs like a champ. And K&M is an awesome way to play FPS and TPS, but for racing you can use a gamepad if you'd like.

 

The thing I hate most about GTA IV is the fact that its a crap port. I can deal with all the in-game nonsense, but the fact that I can hardly even play the game annoys me the most.

[mkey82]

"Hello everybody!!!"

 

"Hi!!!"

 

"I'm mkey and I'm a blithering moron."

 

OK, so what I DID DO to get GTA IV running PROPERLY (with this I mean somewhat stable FPS with not too many drops and without any stuttering)

* I bitched a lot

* tried a lot of drivers under both XP and vista

* tried a lot of settings with a plethora of tweaks - nothing gave good, stable nor repetitive results

* installed XP SP3 on separate partition, about three times as I tweaked and installed various versions of catalyst drivers trying to obtain clear and independent results (like, if I uninstall the previous version of drivers and install the new will I suffer any performance issues comparing to a clean install?). 'Twas no biggie as unattended installation takes some 25 minutes plus 15 minutes to get everything else you need working

* got and installed windows 7 (the 64 bit version - figured that extra gig of ram can only help). Fiddled with it

* fiddled with it a bit too much to the point I shut down too many services so I couldn't get catalyst to install anymore (needed it primarily so I could raise the default fan speed on my GPU)

* reinstalled win se7en a number of times as to try different stuff. It got to the point where now I have audio issues in GTA IV (wait a moment, did I idntall that audio update? )

 

What I DID NOT do

* reinstalled Vista afresh as it was clean and stable for everything else, I figured

 

I believe you can catch my drift. GTA IV works well now (under Vista SP1 32 bit). It still doesn't want to scale i.e. I get more or less the same performance on any settings (+-3-5 FPS). The only thing that visibly changes is pop-up.

 

From several benchmarks I ran yesterday I get 25 minimum FPS, 55 max and about 38 average while running about the city. Settings I settled for are medium texture pack, very high render, 50 traffic density, zero shadows, 50 detail distance and 25 draw distance. I'm still not impressed there's 30 FPS variation outdoors (even more if you count the indoors) and it would seem my C2Q9300 is a bottleneck as my 4870 is running on some 70% load (according to GPU-z). CPU is doing about 80ish% for the first two cores, 70 on the third and about 50 on the last one. So go figure, maybe I'll try to clock that bitch at 3.5 GHz and see how does it fare then.

Edited January 20, 2009 by mkey82

[Abel.]

 

3. It will take some time, but k&m offer a lot better and faster control. Once you get accustomed, you'll be asking yourself how did you manage without them

I'd order the parts and get it built by Pros.

 

Anyway, I loved the mouse and keys from the day I started playing HL2 and Crysis .

 

I nearly cried when I used the Playstation controller again .

[mkey82]

OK, a shot update on GTA IV.

 

Even though now the game works a lot better then before, after some 45 minutes of gameplay it start to lag and stutter like crazy. So (I read this on some texture issues thread) ALT+TAB out of the game and what do you know, the game is back to normal. I even get better FPS then I was getting before the whole thing occurred.

 

WTF's with that?

 

Also, I had my first awe moment in GTA IV yesterday. I was driving towards the Times Square (or whatever it's called) and suddenly, for no apparent reason, my FPS got above 60 for good 4-5 seconds. It was an end to end graphics whore moment. Everything was crystal clear, smooth as it can get.

 

Soon after the game threw a lag fit so I had to AL+TAB. Again.

[matthew1g]

your last few posts will serve me well during my 3 hours of pure maths lectures tomorrow

 

Viva La document reader on my nokia..

[mkey82]

your last few posts will serve me well during my 3 hours of pure maths lectures tomorrow

 

Viva La document reader on my nokia..

Thanks, but I would recommend paying closer attention to lectures. This isn't something that can be tought but it has to be learned - studying is good for ya

 

Had I believed people years back when they gave me the same advice, it could have been a lot smoother ride.

[matthew1g]

I made a mistake and chose Pure maths at advanced level instead of physics. Pure maths is not my subject. Cant change subjects now.. Studying physics alone ( I find physics really easy to understand) and changing subjects next year.

 

anyway back to gaming talk.

 

has anyone played mirror's edge? Worth getting?

[mkey82]

 

I made a mistake and chose Pure maths at advanced level instead of physics. Pure maths is not my subject. Cant change subjects now.. Studying physics alone ( I find physics really easy to understand) and changing subjects next year.

 

anyway back to gaming talk.

 

has anyone played mirror's edge? Worth getting?

My buddy played it on his PS3 and he wasn't that happy. He even sold it before I could get a glimpse. The PC version is meant to be Nvidia heavy also (supposedly the physix engine shall be employed) so I'm not sure how would that reflect on ATI cards.

 

It's sort of run-and-die-a-lot-title. A bit short too, apparently. I'll wait for some of you guys to get it first

 

Bach to maths, out of curiosity, what does pure math include?

Edited January 23, 2009 by mkey82

[SaintJimmy]

I quite enjoyed Mirrors Edge. Contrary to popular belief it isnt as hard as it may seem once you get the jist of it.

 

Say, guys, I'm getting a 9800GTX 512Mb. That's good, right? As in, enough to last me a while, and will it support most modern games?

I'm also thinking of upgrading my 2.4Ghz dual-core processor to something else.

What should I upgrade to? I was thinking a quad core.

[mkey82]

Thanks for the info on Mirror's edge. I guess what I'm wondering about the most is it's replay value.

 

Quads are nice, but for gaming duals are better. Like the E8500. It's not that expensive and it supposedly overclocks well.

 

And to me the 9800GTX seems a bit expensive in comparison with the 4870. But then again, you'll probably get by better with an Nvidia card.

[SaintJimmy]

And thank you for the information on the processor.

I'm getting the 9800GTX because it's my birthday on the 7th, and my friend agreed to pay for 2/3's of the card if I pay the other third.

He's building his computer at this site.

I reckon it's bloody beautiful - there's a 9800GT 1GB for $215 - and the site is legit.

The card I'm getting, http://www.beecom.com.au/product.php?produ...&cat=407&page=2 , is 360 bucks.

There is also the 'Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz' - I should get that too? For $315?

I'm new to upgrading computers. My brother will help me, but can I just install my processor to the motherboard, and start up the comp? Or is there a long process I need to go through?