The Random Thread - Gaming Edition

This thread idea was brought to my attention so I am going to try it out.

The purpose of this thread is to provide the easiest possible method of asking a quick question about something. Keep all posts and responses gaming related and on topic, otherwise I will close and conclude it was a failure. If you want to chit-chat then we have the Off Topic forum for that.

Enjoy.

 

nice idea chaz, I'll take part in this experiment

What's V-Sync? I always have it turned on in games but it was brought up in one of the other threads that it slows down and caps your fps, which I'm guessing is because it has to slow down to wait to synchronize... veritcally? What exactly does it do?

 

Great idea, whoever this was?

Vertical sync locks the FPS at 30 or 60, usually 60, to prevent screen tearing. Since the refresh rates of monitors are usually 60Hz, going over 60FPS is pointless, and causes tearing, so Vsync fixes this problem.

 

AFAIK Vsync is to avoid stuttering when scrolling in MMORPGs (that is how I found it...) or other games, basically IIRC it makes the frames pass in a smoother way, and not have that horrible drastic change on some games...
It slows a big deal, since it makes the GPU render even what it is not shown on display, in case you move, and give a smooth transaction.

 

Forgot to say, great idea Chaz!

I have a question BTW, does running on native (WXGA) unloads an IGP or is it heavier than playing on a reduced resolution?

For example, if I play TS2 on native WXGA will it be faster or slower than if I play on a scaled down resolution?? I have no idea since I notice no change...

 

If you have some time to kill check out this article. It is more about triple buffering which is an alternative to v-sync but it has alot of great info.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3591

 

Yes, the higher the resolution, the more memory is used, and if you have a card with a 128bit bus or lower, it is usually advised to stay at 1280x800 or below, IMO.

In regards to the IGP, they usually have no memory of their own, so lowering the resolution will drastically improve performance, but dont expect a good gaming experience, because IGPs are just meant for running the screen, and not much past that.

 

I know...my laptop requires a change...I have a Radeon Xpress 1150...it is AGED now...lol

hey, why do you say "with a 128bit it is advised to stay at WXGA"???
I though 128bit were mainstrem, capable of decent/casual gaming...

 

They are decent indeed, but they just do not have the memory bandwidth to push resolutions above 1280x800(maybe 1440x900); at least in modern games, if you plan to play at high resolutions with higher settings, I would not recommend a card with a 128bit bus.

If Nvidia would stop modifying the 8600m GT, from 2 years ago, this may not be a problem, but they are insistent on milking everything they can out of that mainstream core, and thus we basically still have the same mid-range cards from two years ago.

ATI really has not done too much either, they are about the same as Nvidia ATM, but I do think a lot of new revolutionary cards will be released in the coming months, I do feel the 5000 series will push Nvidia to actually do something creative for the first time in 2 years.

But at this point 128 bit cards do not have memory bandwidth, as I said above, to push the higher resolutions.

 

OOOHHH that is what you meant...lol
I am not a gamer...I was getting scared since I plan to buy a W500 within a month, and the V5700 Prof GPU inside is 128bit but the res is WSXGA+!!

 

128-bit GPUs can do way more than 1280x800 smoothly. My ATi 4570 is 64-bit, and I play Crysis, CoD4 and TF2 at my native 720p (1366x768), and it's fantastic.

 

Triple buffering isn't an alternative to v-sync, it is an addition to v-sync (or even to when v-sync is off). A tripple buffered gfx system can still run with or without v-sync enabled. As could a qadruple or any other number of buffered system. The number of buffers has no relation to when refreshes can happen, only on how fresh the frame being pushed to the front buffer is.

 

Well this is my point, that is a low res, so that card is just fine, but it would start to strain more going up the resolution ladder.

Sorry, I didnt mean to bash the lower end cards, they are capable, I guess this is opinionated, I prefer to always play at the highest settings, so thats why I feel the 128bit cards and below need to keep the res low, because their biggest flaw is memory bandwidth.

I know at 1920x1200, my 4870 goes between 45-80 FPS on COD4, maxed with 4AA, I am not sure how the next powerful mobile card would do after that, but I doubt it would be as high as that.

I hope not to sound like im bragging, I just wouldn't recommend a 128 bit bus card to someone who wants to do high resolution.

 

Since it was my idea, I will take credit for it fellow gamers. Worship Me. And leave your sacrifices by the door.

And now for my question: How do you upload you own avatar to Microsoft-Games for Windows Live?

 

Don't worry, I have a 128 bit 256MB GDDR3 8600 GTS in my desktop, and I can play COD 4 at 1920 x 1200. So while it may be true that 128 bit cards are pretty bad, they aren't really that limited.

 

ok, so 128 is not bad? even for wsxga+?
I dont intend to play that much other than The Sims 2/3 and some older games, and that is it...most likely...and doing CATIA and some programming and the stuff....im ok?

 

My opinion is more catered towards very modern games, not so much older ones, that card will tear up the older games. Didn't mean to scare you lol.

And since your card is actually engineered for workstation applications it should excel at those.

 

phew...*sigh* good to hear that...
i cant find much info on this laptop in special...is not as popular lol
any help, would be largely appreciated!


On a side topic, The Sims 2 is too addicting...grrr I spent 3 hours of my day on that, and I did not even noticed!!

 

Man the upcoming months are going to be sooo good for games, I can hardly contain myself

 

Great GPUs coming out, new OSes, and who knows how many new games...and quad cores, and HT, and wow...this is too overwhelming!!

 

I have a question:
Does anybody know when the upcoming Crysis game will be released? Crysis 2 that is...

 

Crysis 2???
Where did you hear from that??

 

There is one for sure... i've heard about it on the forum too....

 

cool! now, will it be that demanding that only 5870HDx2 will be able to run it? lol

 

Crysis is so poorly coded (albiet a fun game, I'm playing through the first time right now) XD I bet a hundred bucks the next crysis game plays better on current hardware than the current one (granted they don't botch the job again)!

 

What do you mean by "poorly coded"?

 

Poorly optimized would be a better choice of words. It undoubtedly should have ran better had a little bit more been done. That's not to say it STILL wouldn't bring most systems to their knees like it does now

Edit: Look at warhead, most report that game runs a lot better (haven't put that one to the test though, I probably should before I start talking ).

 

Yeah, the original Crysis was poorly optimized. Crysis Warhead, basically a stand-alone expansion pack for the original game, had better optimized shaders and as a result, ran significantly better. If you have Crysis Warhead you can actually copy + paste the shaders into the original Crysis install and get the performance improvements.

 

1. 1280x800 and 1366x768 are pretty much a wash. There is no way more going on here.

2. You really need to include settings and frames per second to prove the 4570 worthy.

I know for a fact that Crysis will slaughter this GPU at that res. 15 frames max if decent settings are applied.

Nothing personal, I'm just trying to help facilitate the spread of accurate information.

 

HUH? Is that even possible???

 

Crysis 2 is rumored to be released sometime around 2010.

 

Thanks for letting me know. It will probably be released in one year or so but heck, it's worth the waiting! I loved the first game and the second one will probably be even better.

 

Is anyone else considering DragonAge-Origins and/or Diablo III?

I have them both on pre-order and will try them at full res and highest settings... All other games i've tried have been fine including Oblivion with Quarl's pack 3... 4096x4096 tiling....

OB

 

Meh, I'm not too much of a fan of RPG's, I've tried a few of them but I always seem to spend a lot of time on them at first and then become disinterested later on never to play the game again,

 

Hey guys, I have a question regarding Starcraft 2. No, it is not when it will be released...

It is actually that I have read in this forum that there will be like 3 versions of Starcraft 2 and that each will be like one chapter of the story. So my question is: how accurate (or official I should say) is this information?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

 

Yeah, I'm going to pick up Dragon Age. I'm pissed that I missed out on all of the preorder bonuses of the Collector's Edition.

 

It is very official.

Starcraft 2 is broken up into 3 chapters, one for each race.

Each chapter will have a single player campaign of appropriate length for a $60 game, and access to multiplayer with any of the 3 races.

However, similar to brood wars, there will (almost certainly) be special unit unlocks in multiplayer that you can only get if you have the other campaigns, so to get the full multiplayer experience (and more importantly, play with your friends who have all the campaigns or in competitions) you will have to buy all 3 versions of the game even if you don't give a rats arse about single player.

 

Even the price is official?? That sounds ludicrous, it is like each campaing will have like 40 or so missions. It may be worthy... but still $180??

 

Im totally getting Dragon Age- Origins when its released, it looks phenomenal, and its done by BIOWARE, so it must be good .

 

I challenge the validity of the price, I highly doubt blizzard has announced the price at all yet.

As for Crysis 2, it's also coming out on consoles so it won't be as intensive as the 1st Crysis.

 

3 Starcraft 2??? WOW that will ome out expensive...

 

That's crazy, haha I had no idea that could work, I guess it makes too much sense. Thanks for that tip chaz.

Edit: Why didn't the include the new shaders in a patch or something for the original? Or did they (I haven't updated yet)?

I'm not sure how I feel about something like that happening. On one hand I see blizzard who knows they need to quell generations of gamers who have been calling for this for years, and if they put out anything less than a perfect game there will be RIOTS, so I can see them having a huge amount of content like that and what can only be described as an "epic" storyline that would come from 3 seperate games. On the other, I see a company that sees how badly gamers want this, and plan to squeeze EVERY PENNY from the community.

Edit: It IS blizzard right? I haven't been keeping tabs on this very well.

 

Has it been confirmed, that Blizzard will charge full price for the additional campaigns?

Also, there will NOT be multiplayer units which are exclusive to the expansion packs.

Anyway I'm more excited that Relic is bringing CHAOS to Dawn Of War II!

 

OhhhOOOOHHHoohhh DoW2? What's the low down on that? Is it looking half decent?

 

What is DoW2?

 

Geek speak for Dawn of War II

 

hahahahaha i like your beginning of "geek speak"!!
Dawn of War 2?? Never heard of it, what is it about and what type of game is it?
FPS? RPG? MMORPG? RTS?

 

Well the first dawn of war (the first game) was a RTS based around the table top game Warhammer 40,000. Just think Dungeons and Dragons but replace the two with war torn planets, and crazy religious space marines that will literally cut you in half in the name of the emporer. DoW though was an awesome game, and they recently made a second one that's not quiet RTS, not sure how to describe it. You're in command of a squad of units but you aren't fighting FPS style, you command the squad RTS style.

 

I maybe have jumped the gun on the "buy 3 separate games to get one full multiplayer game" thing, I was basing it off an interview from blizzcon 08 but I've found a quote from blizzcon 09 that implies (but doesn't 100% confirm) they will not make any multiplayer changes with the different campaigns.

I asked for some clarification on a starcraft 2 forum and people are jumping to conclusions both ways still but I will update if I find some concrete proof either way.

Either way, what I can tell you is that each campaign will have a fully functional multiplayer component where you can play as any race, but the issue is that they may add something like a couple new units or something else to make it so if you only have 1 game you will be segregated from players that have all of them.

 

Yup me too... Hope they'll have the expansion out soon.