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The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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15. March 2014 @ 07:31 |
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Have you considered using fewer, larger monitors? Running 6 displays is not impossible, but it is a bit of a faff, depending on what interfaces the monitors support.
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Member
2 product reviews
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15. March 2014 @ 10:02 |
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To be honest i thought about using three larger monitors but, the thing is because of the amount of remote desktop sessions i will have open, it would be come a pain swapping and changing also will have CCTV applications running as well the system has quite a large scope to handle.
Thought about may be running three GTX 260s or something but power and heat would be an issue i am looking for something not to power hungry, and something i could keep cool with having to go mad with fans ect.
All the monitors have DVI and VGA.
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harvardguy
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5. April 2014 @ 00:20 |
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Jeff, I finally got around to really looking closely at your post:
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The first mod any Oblivion player should do is to install all of the unofficial patches. They drastically improve the performance, stability, seamlessness, and function of the game. Whether you intend to run "modded"or not, they are essential to having a fun a smooth gaming experience. The next step I took was to make the game Large Address Aware, effectively increasing its memory limit from 2GB to 3GB, freeing up some breathing space and helping immensely with hitching and loading.
hahahaha - when you have the memory, why not flaunt it! Sure, Jeff, now that you have that big ol card, make that puppy Large Address Aware. You have the room now, so there's no reason a game has to squeeze you into a little box! :D
It's probably just me, but I found that hilarious, and at the same time, I have to congratulate you again for making sure you got a REALLY GOOD CARD this time!
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On top of all the graphics effects, I installed a mod compilation called Unique Landscapes which simply takes some of the more sparsely detailed areas of the game, and gives them that artist's touch. Small waterfalls, islands in the rivers with trees, scary forest areas with gnarled trees, extra detail in ruins, expanded farmland, etc. Nothing that would be out of place in the game. I adhere to that one rule very strictly. Preserve the original assets and art style. No goofy looking BS, no crazy spell effects, and absolutely no changes to the gameplay, just more detail. Oblivion is downright ugly without mods, and seriously and genuinely impressive with them. This is why I mod.
:-O
Wow! That is some crazy stuff. I thought the god rays and all were great - hearing through windows, stuff like that. But actually adding waterfalls, islands - well I guess, why not. That's fantastic!!
I liked that last bit - you were having trouble enjoying the game, because you were distracted by the incredibly beautiful modded landscape - good job!! It goes without saying that you have to have a seriously strong graphic card to support all the mods, right?
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I have gone through nearly every single mod on the Skyrim and Oblivion Nexus by hand(some thousands of different mods) and picked only the very best, most bug free, and most seamless to the existing world.
Did you say THOUSANDS of mods!! My god!
======================= HARD DRIVE TESTING ============================================
I have been seriously distracted lately by the fact that my Raid mirror failed on my everyday desktop - the one I'm typing on right now. The Raid of course did not completely fail - a member disk failed after 2 1/2 years - but the volume kept on going. However, that caused me to do a lot of checking and testing on the failed drive. I had just bought a new product called SpinRite for $89 that recovered a bad drive on a friend's laptop, but the Raid failed before I got around to running the software on those two disks. Anyway, the bad drive cleaned itself up perfectly - speedfan rates it at 97% serviceability up from 0% - and it is back in the Raid mirror. I'll keep a good eye on it nonetheless, since I already bought its replacement.
The idea of spinrite, from what I see, is to run it on every disk at least once a year. It takes hours to run, in some cases days, but it exercises a disk very thoroughly, flipping all the bits, flipping them back, recovering any area that it has trouble reading. I have replaced windows surface scan with this product. But while I was at it, another product caught my eye, HD Sentinel, and I have been in email touch with the author, Janos - I forgot his last name - and today as a result of a link he gave me, I picked up a 5 computer license on the pro version for half price at $31.25. It's going to take me a month to get fully familiar with everything it does, but it possibly might replace the dos utility, spinrite. I'll have to see.
Janos is Hungarian, and is pretty good with English, I'll give him that - but beyond that - there were a lot of things I read on the web site in regard to SMART, and how the product uses and goes beyond smart, which gave me a strong feeling that the author was very very sharp in the area of disk analysis and hard-to-read sectors. So one hex value for power on hours count seemed wrong to me, and I wrote him about that, and he responded - the particular disk was counting twice a minute - he said some count every second, lol.
======================= END HARD DRIVE TESTING ============================================
On another note, I did manage to fit in a little gameplay - the DLC of Bioshock Infinite - I finished episode 2.
That was a great one, as it tied together the original Bioshock Rapture world, with the world of Bioshock Infinite - Columbia in the clouds.
First - episode one was pretty flashy - going back to Rapture.
And some of the wonderful characters were there again, like this loony guy:
But guess what - episode 2 starts out in neither Rapture nor Columbia, but here:
Can anybody guess where we are?
And since that is our picture the guy just painted, who are we playing as - take a wild guess....
Yeah, that's us holding the blue bird up above - WHO ARE WE - last chance.
I should have said, "next to last chance." Now when you're holding a weapon, you get to look at some pretty nice painted fingernails. Go girl go!
The weapon is cool - it's a stealth crossbow with a non-lethal knockout syringe. But you have to use it very sparingly, because you only have 4 syringes - but sometimes you get the syringe back when you rob the sleeping body.
But the best thing to do is creep up behind somebody and hit them with the rail-clinging metal hook - that's non-lethal too. You don't really have to kill anybody in this last episode unless you want to.
And one more thing - if you add the upgrades to a special peeping tom vapor, you can turn invisible - and not use any eve while you're doing it. Like this:
That really makes it easy if they are coming toward you. Let them get right nearby then club them.
Okay, anything else I say will be a spoiler. I highly recommend the season pass with the two episodes and battle in the clouds - a lot of game play for $40. But if not, the episodes alone are only $15, and well worth it.
Rich
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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6. April 2014 @ 02:19 |
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Quote:
It's probably just me, but I found that hilarious, and at the same time, I have to congratulate you again for making sure you got a REALLY GOOD CARD this time!
Yes I did my research and took recommendations from everyone seriously. The GTX760 just happened to be in a sweet spot for all of my needs and hasn't disappointed in the least. I can run any new game with absolute confidence. Even Metro Last Light with its awesome Advanced PhysX is no match for this card. It's a real performance monster, and has the advantage of not being architecturally neutered like other mid-range cards are. Obviously there is better out there, but nothing requires it of me yet. ALL of my hardware is well above adequate for my uses, and continues to keep me very happy. War Thunder, by far my most frequently played game lately, runs flawlessly, and it's no lightweight when cranked. The 6850s would drop to single digits.
Video memory was the main culprit for many of my woes. 1Gb was really a waste of the 6850s' power. When Crossfire was working and video memory wasn't an issue, they were hands down faster than the HD6970 and even faster than the HD7870. If they were 2GB cards I might still be using them.
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Wow! That is some crazy stuff. I thought the god rays and all were great - hearing through windows, stuff like that. But actually adding waterfalls, islands - well I guess, why not. That's fantastic!!
I liked that last bit - you were having trouble enjoying the game, because you were distracted by the incredibly beautiful modded landscape - good job!! It goes without saying that you have to have a seriously strong graphic card to support all the mods, right?
The original game was no lightweight. When it came out, literally no PC could max it playably. Oblivion was the Crysis of its time. Even the mighty X1950XTX struggled with it. It wasn't until the GeForce 8800s and HD3870 that it was truly realistic to max it. Even now, it still stutters and dips on my PC with all the mods applied.
It doesn't help that the modding community for Oblivion is very old. Many didn't realize just how bad the custom textures would be for video memory at the time. There were many projects to reduce the memory usage of the major texture mods while retaining the awesome quality. Skyrim modders had a much better understanding, and most Skyrim texture mods recommend using the 2K textures vs the 4K textures. Even my 4GB card stutters with 4K textures. Not much overall visual difference, huge performance difference. Anyway the 2K textures are still far better than the stock game.
It's a painstaking process putting all the right stuff together, but it's well worth it in the end. The difference in quality from start to finish is drastic, jarring even. It's just such a spectacular transformation, it needs to be seen to be believed! Skyrim is already quite decent looking, but Oblivion really needed the help, and wow what a change!
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 6. April 2014 @ 02:34
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harvardguy
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8. April 2014 @ 01:36 |
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Originally posted by Estuansis:
It's a painstaking process putting all the right stuff together, but it's well worth it in the end. The difference in quality from start to finish is drastic, jarring even. It's just such a spectacular transformation, it needs to be seen to be believed! Skyrim is already quite decent looking, but Oblivion really needed the help, and wow what a change!
You, Jeff, are without doubt a graphics quality connoisseur!
And another thing I like about you is that you have turned me onto some really good games - to name a few: the Operation Flashpoint series, the two Metro games, the Assassins Creed Series of which I have played 3 and 4 - great games- in fact most of the really good games that I have played over the last few years that I wouldn't have known about if you hadn't reviewed them.
=============== ARMA III =============
So I wanted to bring you and everybody else up to date on Arma III if you haven't been following the developments over there.
Have you tried it lately? They were hacked a while back, and I informed them that their controls got messed up, and the scuba showcase was not usable. But they fixed it, and I finally did the scuba showcase.
Check out this turtle in the scuba showcase.
I spent a little time shooting some fish and admiring the beautiful coral on the bottom. It's pretty good - maybe not quite as polished as Far Cry 3, but still - for Arma - it's looking good.
Getting up close and personal with some sealife.
They wrote me back "thanks for the feedback." Then they tightened up security and fixed most everything, and the field manual that is always available at Pause, helps explain a bunch of stuff.
Besides infantry, and scuba, they have more showcases. I have a huge amount of hours into the infantry showcase, maybe 40-50 hours, about 10 of those hours over the last few days in order to get familiar with the game again, because I have been away from it for almost a year.
There was an autosave when they started scanning the hills for the mortar team observers, and as I was almost out of bullets, I discovered only about 20 yards away one dead enemy with a machine gun.
Look at the gun I've got now!
So I had a great time running around with the machine gun, and whenever I got killed I just reloaded the last autosave.
What do you think - is this mortar spotter going down?
What about this one - do you think I'll miss?
Okay, those mortar spotters were too easy - fixated on their spotting jobs, and I only had to get behind them and work forward. After the artillery started falling, I often stayed behind to see how many more enemies I could take down.
Here's one way way down there - see him?
You should have said goodbye when you had the chance, he's dead now.
Other times I just ran around with my near-empty gun, but my full load of 11 grenades in the launcher. I kept terrorizing this one enemy who had a red square around him - the spotters had seen him in the bushes on the other side of the village. Occasionally he killed me, but most of the time he was my bi*ch!
There's the flash - was I close? Close only counts in horseshoes AND GRENADES!!!
Damn, we'll have to let the smoke clear away - I better reload.
Oh lovely, that's a sight for sore eyes - enemy prone and not going to get up again!
HELICOPTER IS PRETTY COOL!!
I had also done the vehicle short showcase, then just last night, before launching about 6 hours into the campaign, I completed the helicopter showcase in about 3 or 4 hours.
It was tricky, but I took advantage of the X key toggle for hover mode, which essentially stops your forward velocity, and just sits you there at your same altitude. That is super great for landing. If you need to nudge 15 feet forward, just nose forward with W, and the hover will quickly rock you back to flat, but you will have gained a few feet so you can land without hitting a truck, etc. You press Z to lower your altitude, and you can spin around with the lean keys, setting yourself up for a perfect landing.
That automatic hover mode also helped me get in position for taking out a hill of mortars, and also for slowing down and getting in position to take out a couple of enemy trucks advancing on a friendly base. My problem was that as soon as I nudged forward with W, I was instantly going too fast - way faster than I wanted to go. So the hover mode sometimes was my quick fix to come to a stop, then start out again much slower this time.
Kevin, with all your Grand Theft Auto IV helicopter practice, you should give Arma III a try. Not to mention great shooting!!
But I admit, I was pretty clumsy at first. There were a few times when I asked myself "Why can't I get this stupid thing to turn?" but gradually I realized that I was going 150 km/hr and the wind would not let the tail come around - obviously you can't rotate around until you are going much slower. But you CAN press the A and D side pedals, and lean the copter to the side and turn like a plane - it was tricky but my BF2 helicopter practice started to kick in and it helped out a lot. I only crashed about a dozen times. LOL
ARMA 3 SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN
Another great thing about Arma III, now they have a single player campaign!!
It starts out with some of the local news flashes about Nato's problems with the islands
Then you start playing, and some of the scenery is gorgeous.
Now don't tick off the locals by running into any of their goats!
The campaign is pretty good - I'm about 1/3 the way through it. What I'm hoping that we'll see eventually, is people taking the sandbox of the two islands, and modding their own campaigns, just like Day-z that became a big game in its own right for Arma 2.
You meet some new buddies in the ram-shackle base the Nato survivors put together
Some of them are more adept than others - do you think this guy will ever fix that flat?
But Sam, you may not want to play Arma 3, notice the Brit-bashing conversation they're having.
Okay, that conversation might be hard to read. Just for Sam, the guys are sayin:
Mitchell: "If it's their goddamn problem, where the hell are they?"
Conway: "The Brits are broke man. Everyone knows it."
Conway: "They can't even afford to defend their pointless little islands anymore."
Hahahahahahahahaha :D
(That's okay, Sam, we know what they're really saying is that, after getting ourselves into two wars we couldn't afford, we Yanks ARE BROKE, and trying to go for peace these days - "fine, let Putin have Crimea, who really cares about it anyway?"
But of course, Brit bashing is more fun. The only thing that beats Brit-bashing is Canuck-bashing. "Go Finians! If you guys didn't get drunk all the time we'd have had State #51 by now!")
Rich
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 8. April 2014 @ 01:41
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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8. April 2014 @ 03:04 |
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Actually, I don't get to play GTA IV as much as I like. Not NEARLY as much as I'd like :'(
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
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harvardguy
Member
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8. April 2014 @ 22:43 |
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Originally posted by Kevin:
Actually, I don't get to play GTA IV as much as I like. Not NEARLY as much as I'd like :'(
What you really meant to say was "After I bought GTAV I never looked back - now I'm flying jet planes!"
Or maybe you meant to say, "Angry Birds!" "Angry Birds!" "Angry Birds!"
How's work going these days? Did you ever complete your perpetual motion machine? I'm just waiting for you to hit the big bucks with that, so I can figure out a way to get a piece of it. Except that physics taught me that it is impossible - damn, I knew it, college WAS a waste!
:D
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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9. April 2014 @ 00:35 |
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There's a flaw in the compact version, that I wanted to build. The overall technology is sound, but making it fit in a suitcase is proving problematic at the moment LOL! I'm sure I can figure it out. Just need a little more time. Work is ok. Not sure if or when I'm gonna advance. I was recently offered a full-time position driving. I chickened out LOL!
Yes.. angry birds has been one of my favored games lately. I'm about to step back a ways from facebook though. Consumes too much time.
Gta V for PC is estimated for June 13th I believe.
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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9. April 2014 @ 06:12 |
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I've recently decided to pick up Dead Space again, after Origin giving it away for free. Pretty sure I already own it on Steam, but it reminded me about the title, and I never did finish it. It runs flawlessly at 3840x2160 given its age, and looks pretty spectacular given the circumstances. Would that I were able to run more games like this - I've had to drop the detail level on Battlefield 4 again as a fairly recent patch removed support for crossfire (again!). Looking at the last six titles to be benchmarked by GameGPU, not one of them supports dual graphics. I'm beginning to think that I may be better off settling for a single card next gen - still though, not convinced on an R9 290X. The GTX780Ti's 3GB memory has been breached by some titles at 3840x2160 (I believe Titanfall manages an impressive 3.9GB at 3840x2160), so I'm not sure on that either. I refuse to pay three weeks' salary for a Titan Black, so I might be waiting a while :S
If AMD can come up with a die-shrink of the 290X in a timely fashion, with a corresponding moderate performance advantage, that sits around a 200W TDP with a sensible stock cooler, I'd be all over it. Trouble is, the hardware shortage created by coin mining is likely to have pushed back a new generation quite considerably. I'd almost be tempted to buy a single 290X to try it out despite the noise and questionable performance consistency, but my friend who also owns a UP3214Q has had so many bugs with his monitor that I just haven't had, I wonder if it's a sensible move. A 290X may only be 1/5 the price of the monitor itself, but for the moment, I don't really have many graphical reliability issues. Eyefinity is still in my mind a poorly developed technology, but I don't see any tileless 2160p displays on the horizon yet.
"4K" still has early-adopteritis all over, but the moments you get to experience content that does run smooth (such as, e.g. Dead Space, or the demo video of the new Sony camera that takes 4K videos), the experience is sufficiently breathtaking that, couple with working with 150 lines of a spreadsheet on-screen at once, or multitasking with 6 PDFs open with no need to task switch, it's still worth it. Just :)
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AfterDawn Addict
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9. April 2014 @ 17:10 |
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second hand they around £200 quid but most likely mined the crap out off
MGR (Micro Gaming Rig) .|. Intel Q6600 @ 3.45GHz .|. Asus P35 P5K-E/WiFi .|. 4GB 1066MHz Geil Black Dragon RAM .|. Samsung F60 SSD .|. Corsair H50-1 Cooler .|. Sapphire 4870 512MB .|. Lian Li PC-A70B .|. Be Queit P7 Dark Power Pro 850W PSU .|. 24" 1920x1200 DGM (MVA Panel) .|. 24" 1920x1080 Dell (TN Panel) .|. |
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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9. April 2014 @ 18:47 |
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It's not the price that puts me off buying a 290X :P
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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9. April 2014 @ 21:16 |
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Bitcoin has become a rather screwed situation for the industry. I don't like the way it has gone one bit. It is not as secure as it was said to be, and the acquiring of any sort of electronic currency has largely fallen to the wealthy.
I understand there are still distributed computing groups who make it possible for the individual to gain some, but not much.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 9. April 2014 @ 21:23
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harvardguy
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10. April 2014 @ 02:50 |
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Well, I just heard that the IRS decided to get involved, so now bitcoin gains will be taxable as capital gains.
Originally posted by Omega:
There's a flaw in the compact version, that I wanted to build. The overall technology is sound, but making it fit in a suitcase is proving problematic at the moment LOL
Okay, so not only does the device have to make a right-turn departure from physics and the first law of thermodynamics, but it has to fit into a suitcase. Like a portable nuke. Well, okay, Kevin, why settle? It's decided then. The perpetual motion machine has to be portable. I knew that from the start - it just makes sense. What good is it if you can't take it with you on a trip and have perpetual motion right there in the hotel room while you vacation in Waikiki?
Quote:
"4K" still has early-adopteritis all over, but the moments you get to experience content that does run smooth (such as, e.g. Dead Space, or the demo video of the new Sony camera that takes 4K videos), the experience is sufficiently breathtaking that, couple with working with 150 lines of a spreadsheet on-screen at once, or multitasking with 6 PDFs open with no need to task switch, it's still worth it. Just :)
"early-adopteritis" - I like it. Is that another way of saying "bleeding edge."
======================
Speaking of bleeding, this campaign mode of Arma 3 has me bleeding out of every orifice. As this is mixed company, for ddp's sake I won't be any more descriptive than that.
All kidding aside, the game is brutal! And that's why we love it so. I sure am referring to that field manual a lot, particularly now that they have thrown me into squad management. Holy Mackeral!
Mostly it isn't all terribly bad. But I almost wanted to cry 3 times in a row when I couldn't get the anti-tank guy to blow away the first vehicle in the convoy that was - well - ripping us all to shreds. He would mount his rpg on his shoulder, then put it down again, as the vehicle got closer and then proceeded to kill him.
Then I finally realized that you not only are able to tell him, via F2 for that particular squad member, to TARGET that vehicle, but since I had "do not fire" turned on way ahead of that time, setting up the ambush, I then had to either tell the whole team to open fire, or tell F2 that specifically. Okay, I'll accept a great big "duhhh" for that one.
But let me tell you this about the squad, because since Arma apparently reads my emails, I plan to give them some feedback.
The AI squad mechanics can be absolutely wack at times. Operation Flashpoint was much superior in several respects. When you're in a tight urban landscape - going from building to building, maybe it makes sense to have tight cover in effect. "Go, I'll cover." "Moving." "You go, I'll cover."
Okay, I get it, not bad.
Now how about open country "Machine gunner 2 hundred meters straight ahead."
I love it - out in open country, you and 4 squad-mates, nothing but bushes and trees and a few scattered enemies, or a tank 600 meters to the East. To that wonderful mix, let's add urban cover. "Go, I'll cover." "Moving." "You go, I'll cover."
WTF!! YOU'RE JOKING, RIGHT?!!
I repeat. You're out in the open - nobody around within hundreds of meters. And you just got the word to evacuate since you murdered the distant mortar team, and head back to the FOB you just took control of, because enemy tanks are coming. I am 500 yards ahead, running for the sake of my ASS, and my mates are way back there. "Go, I'll cover." "Moving." "You go, I'll cover."
Moronic. For a game that is supposed to be realistic - are you going to tell me the marines taught them to do that? Not the same marines who gave advice on OF.
So how could they fix that? Oh, a couple of ways. They already have a formation menu - stealth mode, aware mode, etc. How about "urban cover mode."
They have formations - V, line, wedge, column, and some more I am not familiar with. How about Tight formation. Loose formation. Like OF. I can't get these jokers to keep up. It's pathetic.
By contrast, I loved being out there with my Operation Flashpoint guys - running in tight wedge - you could specify tight or loose. Or if I didn't want to be in front - because the AI could spot the enemy faster than I could, I could assign a point man, other than myself. He would stay in front and at an angle to wherever I was. I think the first Dragon Rising did this even better than the sequel Red River.
Back to Arma III. What about when a helicopter is overhead? Call it "helicopter cover mode" meaning go from tree to tree. I dash for a tree, and they are back there in the open "Go, I'll cover." "I'm moving." "You go, I'll cover." I have made it into the little valley filled with small trees where I can evade the helicopter fire, and they are all back there 200 yards, dead.
When it is impossible to get these guys to keep up, what happens to your brain. You stop caring, right? I know I'm going to lose all my squad mates, and it no longer bothers me. Shame on Arma, supposedly the realistic game, for adding that nonsense. I'll give them more feedback than they wanted, lol.
But for all its warts, I pretty much like this game.
And I figured out one great big help that saved my butt last night. I was out in the dark night in a rural part of the island, trying to come in at a hillside angle which the support advice guerrilla officer had advised me to do. We made decent progress despite the ridiculous urban cover mode my guys insisted on doing.
But before I know it all of a sudden my squad, back 100 yards, disappears as they become targeted by a goddamn armored vehicle with a mounted grenade launcher and guys with night vision goggles which we didn't have. They didn't tell me it was a night operation, and I wasn't sure to bring night goggles - you have to resupply before every operation. And although I did have a rocket launcher with me, there was no rocket launcher ammo in the ammo crate, so it's empty.
So this goddamn thing is driving around in the pitch black countryside tossing explosives at us.
I make a run for it and I'm dead. Fortunately there was an auto-save right then, that I keep loading back to. Back 5 times, back 10 times. Then I start throwing grenades at him - if I dare turn around I can see two red operating lights, and I can hear the guy yelling out in English "he's 75 yards to our right." I am tearing at break-neck speed diagonally up the hill rushing through a bush here and there, for the tree line on top.
Then I switch to smoke grenades and start chucking those at him. After spawning I later started chucking those in front of me. I can't see the smoke - everything is black - but I hear the canister pop, and it seems to be helping - I'm hoping of course that the smoke will keep them from seeing me.
That begins to help, and I make the tree line more often. Up there is a garage with some light, and a chance to kill two soldiers who come looking for me - one of whom has a set of night vision goggles that I can take when he's dead. And he might have 30 rounds in his rifle, and I'm down to 10 after killing him and his buddy.
They decided to make that mission more interesting, and even thought I distinctly remember getting 10 ammo clips, I start out the mission, with my character saying out loud "out of ammo." There is no way to go back for ammo - I'm already out there starting the mission. I have only 30 rounds.
Every few minutes my character says "I need ammo." I know why they want me saying that - because they want to remind me that this is a critical ammo mission. And a "can't see" mission. And a "your squad gets killed" mission. And a "you have to kill about 20 enemies with no help" mission.
AND WE'LL HAVE FUN FUN FUN TIL OUR DADDY TAKES THE T-BIRD AWAYYYYYYYY.
So - getting up the hill, getting the night vision goggles, getting the extra rounds - I am able to achieve that about 3 times out of every 10 attempts, but then there are no more auto-saves, and I have to kill about a dozen soldiers just to be able to steal the gas truck before another auto-save. It would sure be good to be able to save once I get the night vision goggles.
But Arma has a problem with that, since I already saved once in this campaign.
But I'm smarter than Arma. Last night I paused the game, went to desktop, pulled out my last user save, put it into a folder called "squad still alive heading up hill" and went back into the game, and with that save gone, the game un-grayed the save button, and the next time I got those goggles, I created a save point.
Killed within 5 minutes - fine - so what. At least I am not still running up that hill in the pitch black from a fire-breathing ANGRY BIRD who can see my every move, while I see NOTHING.
Save points are EVERYTHING.
Guess what - I rummaged around, killed some guys, got wounded, then found an offroad pickup with a mounted 50 caliber and 85 rounds. I killed about 6 guards with that, and that pesky armored car showed up, and I killed him with another 40 rounds. Then I found an anti-tank guy, and now I even had rocket launcher ammo. And some of the trucks had health kits, so now I had my full quota of 2 of those, and a gun with a full clip and another 12 rounds besides.
Sh*t! All I need now is Kevin's suitcase perpetual motion machine and a one-way ticket to Hawaii.
So now that I have my little save cheat figured out - screw this OVERLY HARD game. I'm up for almost whatever they want to throw at me, lol.
But yeah, it's a pretty cool game. I'm playing on regular. I have no idea how a harder difficulty setting would be. I don't plan to find out - probably a total nightmare. :D
Rich
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10. April 2014 @ 12:09 |
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Facts, are only facts, until they are disproved :p
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ddp
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10. April 2014 @ 12:13 |
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correct.
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harvardguy
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12. April 2014 @ 02:22 |
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Well okay Kevin, your perpetual motion device just got validated by DDP. That means for sure it will work. (We successfully penetrated into Canada at least 3 times for the fun of it, the last time by a bunch of drunk Irishmen on a lark, and DDP persists in saying "We drove back your full-scale invasion.")
In the meantime, while I'm waiting to cash in on Kevin's invention, I have been enjoying Arma's complete refusal to acknowledge the proven fact, as verified by both DDP and COD, that you have to tell gamers what to do every minute of the gameplay, or they won't buy your game by the millions.
What I mean by that is - Arma doesn't tell you anything.
But if you go about 2 miles out of your way - your character MIGHT suddenly say "Where am I - I better check the map." And if you don't take the hint, one minute later you will be struck dead as if by lightning. ??????????? "I seem to be dead. What happened."
This was a fun mission.
Where the hell am I - washed up on the beach with only a pistol?
I got to run all over this place, which was crawling with people who wanted to kill me!
It was also crawling with a bunch of other things - but I LOVE snakes. They are everywhere.
I have no doubt that the island is full of the little creatures - but not in the quantity that the game presents. I used to hunt snakes and lizards and never have I seen so many - very pretty ones too. But remember, the devs went to jail for 4 months as spies while the Greek judges were out on strike, just to get every intimate fact of these two islands to make this game totally realistic, so if they say there are snakes everywhere, I believe them. But not in this quantity - no I don't believe that, lol.
So anyway, I had gone up a little canyon and at the top, in this little miniature bird-house size chapel, I picked up a set of binoculars. Great. Then the game gave me a hint - and I got on the radio, and I said "Help me out buddy, I've got nothing." He says, "Well, scrounge around the ruins, you might find something." I looked across the bay, and there were all these ancient ruins. I thought "Sh*t, all the way over there?"
I evaded some patrols and made my way by land about a mile toward the ruins....
If I keep going, I might eventually get to those damn ruins.
.... and that was when I was struck by lightning. This time I decided to swim across in defiance of the patrol boat.
So I'm halfway across - it's getting closer - my character says "What am I doing out here, I should go back." And ignoring that hint again, in another 30 yards I'm dead - eaten by a great white I guess - or lightning again."
So then I start thinking - "Wait a second - the bird-house chapel was surrounded by those little broken down rock walls that are everywhere. Was I already in the goddamn ruins. Did I already find what he meant - this fu**ing pair of binoculars? How about an assault rifle, a**hole!"
I was kind of steamed up by that point.
"Have I just wasted the last hour on a stupid hint that sent me off in the totally wrong direction? Goddamn those devs - I wish those lazy Greek judges had just executed them!"
So, sure enough, I just quickly climbed the low hill across from the antenna hill, and there were my buddies, including the idiot with the "scrounge around in the ruins" hint.
That's the difference between COD and Arma - right there - you better start figuring things out for yourself because this game won't lead you by the hand, and don't be surprised if their hints don't accidentally get you all screwed up. That's realism!
You might think I don't like this game - I LOVE THIS GAME!!!
The campaign has amazing replay value. For example, I went back and replayed that segment where I finally got a set of night vision goggles. AND I FOUND A PICKUP WITH A MOUNTED 50 CALIBER MACHINE GUN.
There it is - a beautiful little off-road pickup and a mounted 50 with 86 rounds.
Talk about piece of cake! That 50 was so powerful - a one-round kill!
It's payback baby! I'm looking through the 50 caliber gun sights with night goggles
I mentioned that I shot up the place, until the pesky armored car that killed all my buddies showed up, then I shot him up until he exploded. But one time I just shot a few times at the window, and happened to kill the driver, then the other 3 guys got out and I killed them. The armored car, complete with grenade launcher, was all mine!
Here comes the little squad-killing bit*h. He's in a for size 50 surprise!
Capturing the armored car was something I did only once. On later replays I killed an anti-tank soldier and used his rocket launcher to destroy the armored car. Yes I could have kept killing it with the 50 caliber, but that used up about 30-40 rounds, and I wanted to take all those bullets with me to the next enemy camp.
That's where this picture came from - inside the armored car. Take this? Or take the pickup?
When you play the vehicle showcase, you learn how powerful this car is with those grenades - but I heard the guy say "low on ammo" so I know I don't have an unlimited supply. I got to the enemy camp, and I have to steal the truck on the left. Nobody is shooting at me - they think I'm their buddy.
These guys have a very nasty surprise coming, but I better be careful, that truck is full of gasoline!
I wasn't sure how to play this - if I jumped out they'd start shooting and I would be immediately killed.
Here's what those guys looked like on infra-red gun sights.
So I very carefully started chucking grenades to the right of them, slowly killing them off before jumping in and hijacking the truck.
By the way, here is what it looks like to be a passenger in one of these awesome armored cars.
Once I hijacked the truck, the rest was easy, so I usually hit yesterday's special save point, to get back into the action. I started using rocket launcher to kill the armored car, and I took the pickup every time after that. But I started getting killed by a tank that was over-looking the valley I had to get through. Finally I had enough!
Forget that valley, we're taking the fight right to that tank this time.
I had used my one rocket to kill the armored car, but there were more anti-tank guys rummaging around near that depot where I grabbed the pickup truck. Kill one more, and my personal PCML is loaded up again.
This is close enough - the rest by foot and work around behind him.
I don't think I can miss at this distance.
You might be laughing, but one of the other type of personal rocket launchers is a terrible weapon, which they give you on the scuba showcase to shoot down a helicopter. If you use the missile sights you are guaranteed not to hit it, since it shoots way low. I discovered that by creating a save point so I was in position and the helicopter was coming my way, and I stopped using the sights. About 10 tries later I led it enough, and fired high enough, that I clipped the tail.
So when I happened to pick up that weapon, I was quite close to the tank, but still missed. Then I tried my explosive pack, but that did nothing. So I hit my reload, and was back to my goggles and heading downhill to kill some anti-tank guys before manning the 50 again.
So yes, this time I got really close to the tank - I wasn't taking any chances.
Let's get the marshmallows boys, there's a nice campfire going!
The game is very fun, and when you figure a few things out - like - if it's pure pitch black and you can't see, and nobody you shoot has night goggles or they wouldn't be using a flashlight which makes it easy to spot and kill them - then just go to display settings and crank up the gamma and the brightness.
Then instead of trying to see with this kind of pitch black visibility even with the lighthouse beam
..... you can create a moonlit night that is acceptable like this:
It still looks dark, I know, but the image above is way darker than in the game.
Here is another night picture - I don't even know where I was - in a pickup somewhere. Isn't this a pretty picture below? The game has awesome graphics on ultra setting.
Entering an enemy town - keep a lookout. We're not in armor, so be careful.
Just a few more screenshots.
One mission that forced me to learn how to control a squad, was an ambush in order to capture a supply truck.
Here's the truck and a couple of my men on the right.
That was the ambush I posted about, where I was frustrated for quite a while until I figured out how to get the anti-tank guy to shoot the leading machine gun armored car that was killing all of us. Life became easier after that.
But there are 5 of us, and only 3 can ride in the truck, even after we throw out the dead guy. Yes - the truck several times escaped our ambush just by driving off, so I started shooting in the front window to kill the driver. But shooting the body of the truck to damage it also will work. No worries if I mess it up. One of my guys is an engineer who can fix anything, including a totally missing tire. :)
But getting the truck back to camp, is another problem. There may be enemy soldiers along the way home.
What worked best was for me to lead the truck loaded with all but one of my guys. We took fire several times, but when I left them all out except for one driver, these guys had a bad habit of getting themselves killed. So I figured - load them all in except for the 4th guy who walks with me, and maybe I can get them home in one piece.
That was when I still cared, lol.
Three of the guys are in the truck per the HUD on bottom left. Regroup command has them following me.
Another fun mission was to take a camp after arranging an artillery strike on the watchtowers. Then as there was one artillery round left, I had to target where I thought the enemy counter-attack would park their vehicles. I began missing on purpose so I could have more targets to shoot.
In full prone, single-shot mode, you can pick off targets at 200 meters especially coming right toward you.
Oh, and remember all that bitching I did last time about my squad mates who want to use urban cover, out in the complete open range away from any buildings? "Cover me." "Move" "Okay, now I'll cover, you move."
Well, they aren't all like that! Thank goodness!!
Here are some guys who can keep up, and here is my new favorite formation, a V, which is an inverted wedge. I'm the furthest back at the bottom of the V and these guys are keeping up with my run. This is more Operation Flashpoint style! Great!!
These guys are no slouches - I have them on "copy my stance" - so they're also in my same slow combat run.
ARMA III. GREAT GAME!
Rich
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 12. April 2014 @ 02:47
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AfterDawn Addict
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12. April 2014 @ 02:30 |
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Necessity is the mother of all inventions. And believe me! We are WAYYY over due, to wean ourselves from the gasoline teat!
Nice screen shots man! Really need to dust off that ol' gtx 570 :)
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harvardguy
Member
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12. April 2014 @ 02:42 |
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Haha - yes way overdue, but to the point that the laws of physics can be bent? Well, if you and ddp say so. :D
I'm glad you liked the screenshots. The graphics are very outstanding!
Do you think this is a game you could ever want to play, Kevin? You liked Left 4 Dead, so definitely you like shooters. But maybe you just like shooting zombies, who can't shoot back. They can only claw at you, rip your guts out, or pound you to a pulp. LOL
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 12. April 2014 @ 02:59
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AfterDawn Addict
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12. April 2014 @ 02:47 |
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Not big on Co-op games. But yes. I like first person shooter games :) Rise of the Triad, and Doom are what got me into it. As well as Wolfenstein.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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12. April 2014 @ 16:58 |
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Originally posted by Rich:
Isn't this a pretty picture below? The game has awesome graphics on ultra setting.
I wouldn't know, you're still using low-res screenshots!
Slowly working my way through Dead Space, have just now finished chapter 7 of 12 after about 6 hours of gameplay, and it's infuriating me increasingly - as games should I suppose. There's plenty of games I want to play, but still want to wait until I can achieve better graphics. Having doubled my pixel count with the 2160p display and not increased my graphics power, I'll be waiting a while!
On the graphics front, the R9 295X2 was released recently, to relatively minimal fanfare. From an engineering standpoint it's quite a thing. The first AMD card to use reference watercooling in the form of a block-sink-block, it's actually capable of taming two 290X GPUs at their full frequency (about 2% beyond, in fact). A full-board waterblock would arguably have been better as the VRMs still being air cooled deal with the heat generated from delivering 600W to the pair of GPUs, but they do have their own central fan the size of those normally used for a whole graphics card. The radiator is a fairly standard single block affair, but capable of dealing with the load of these two GPUs to the tune of load temps around the 70ºC mark at maximum load. This therefore provides the full 2x R9 290X performance (bear in mind, this is almost impossible with the ordinary cards due to the poor design of the stock cooler unless you use PCIe extension ribbons to run each card in a separate case) experience, at low noise levels & temperatures, assuming you have somewhere to mount the radiator of course.
The price tag is $1500. Given the higher than standard price for the 290X due to coin mining, I think that's probably justified - the price hike for two GPUs being on the same board, plus the water cooling solution, makes it worth a pretty penny, unfortunately.
I can't say it's something I'm all that keen on, wanting to steer clear of water at all costs, but it was certainly a necessity here, and they seem to have engineered it in a reasonably successful manner.
Incidentally, the power requirements are quite amusing - rather than the usual 'you need a 500W power supply minimum to run this card' - rather than specify wattage, they state the following:
1. Each of the two 8-pin PCIe connectors (connection mandatory for both) must be connected to a rail on the PSU that does not also serve the CPU, motherboard or other system components.
2. Each PCIe connector must be served by a feed capable of providing a continuous 28A.
3. The output of the PSU serving the PCIe connectors must be capable of producing a continuous 50A.
The PSU requirement document (2 pages) then goes on to illustrate which connectors on a typical PSU will meet this requirement, and explain how to correlate the requirements to their specific PSU. The guide states that a compatible PSU list is on the AMD website at a certain URL, but in true recent AMD style, nobody seems to have thought to put that document on the website yet.
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harvardguy
Member
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13. April 2014 @ 00:04 |
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Originally posted by Sam:
I wouldn't know, you're still using low-res screenshots!
Hahaha. I actually thought of you when I was doing those last few posts - but Sam - that's maybe 20-30 screenshots. That's virtually an additional 9x loading time to add the full size image - so all total - 10x more loading time. (Well, to be honest, what's an extra 5 minutes - that is nothing compared to picking out the shots and composing a decent post. Ok, I'll try not to be so lazy!)
I know you're looking at in in miniature on your incredible monitor - but I forget how we did that !!
Well............... I sort of remember that I hit the top choice, instead of my normal. Let me try it.
For starters, here's the shot we're talking about - and I already have the full-size loaded. This one below is the small 900 pixel wide version for After Dawn.
I remember this now seeing it full size - Slingshot was taking me to meet Captain Miller, of British black ops.
Okay, now how did we do the full-size?
http://s518.photobucket.com/user/harvar...4da6b8.jpg.html
Yes, I selected the top photobucket choice, and just copied it above - THAT should link. It's working!
Yeah, it works - you have to hit the magnifier one more time to get the original size!
So now, Sam included, isn't that a pretty picture? :D
Regarding the other news - absolutely great news! Are you actually telling me that they provide the entire water-cooling solution, including pump, and radiator? On this spedo case I have a couple of rubber spacers on the back to pass through the water hoses, and of course it does have the 200 mm ceiling exhaust - I suppose I could just lay the radiator on top - how big is it?
That psu definitely has to provide 600 watts on that one rail - so - what do you think, any 1000 watt psu should be able to handle it I would imagine, with room for overclocking the cpu? Well, maybe 1200 would be better for safety sake.
Rich
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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13. April 2014 @ 02:31 |
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The card coolers are Asetek units not unlike my H110, and are using the newer generation components and materials. Have always been a little wary of these AIO loops, but the performance is hard to argue with. My H110 frequently makes a little gurgling noise, but so far has remained quiet and smooth with consistent temps. Also, they don't seem to have a higher failure rate than any other PC hardware.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 13. April 2014 @ 02:34
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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13. April 2014 @ 07:06 |
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As of the "new" version of afterdawn, the page remains fixed width, so there's no need to worry about embedding images larger than the page - the images you upload are already slightly too large anyway - see below:
Yes Rich, but I wouldn't recommend using the external hose outlet/inlet as it's a sealed unit, and you would have to drain/refill it to take the hoses off. I think the intention is to attach the radiator to the rear case fan mount, and use other mounts in your case for other ventilation.
Not any old 1000W PSU would meet the requirements for this card. The 1000W version of my old Zalman would be able to take it as it has an 80A 12V master, and two 28A rails assigned to graphics. My 850, however, would not suffice as the two GPU rails are only 18A like the other four. I think from a total power point of view it would take the card, just, but I wouldn't max out a 5 year old PSU anyway, not as if I was intending on buying the 295X2 anyway :)
I am having a hard time deciding what I want to do with graphics. Having paid off my debts from previous purchases and now finally making my way along in the black, although I would like to keep it that way, I don't have as much of a financial restriction as before. That, however, really isn't the issue.
I almost full stop refuse to purchase hardware that leads to a system that adds 15ºC or more to my room temperature during a long gaming session (or requires using the A/C in winter when it's less than 5ºC outside) - one that makes in excess of 60dB of noise when playing games, and one where fans have to be manually controlled and periodically monitored to avoid any potentially hazardous thermal situations. These were all true of the dual HD4870X2 system I used before. Don't get me wrong, I still loved that system for the (back then) astonishing performance it offered when Quad-CF worked well in a game (which wasn't hugely often), but when the HD6970s appeared, although my total performance didn't go up much, consistency of that performance certainly did, and more importantly, the noise levels came down by more than 20dB to very acceptable levels, as did the heat - and I now leave my side fans switched off pretty much all the time. I have no intention of going back to the former with a graphics upgrade, even if it does net me extra performance.
The thing is, despite the HD4870X2 being a dual-GPU card, it ran substantially better than the R9 290X does as a single card. The automatic fan speed had full use of the fan up to 100% if needed, the target temperature was 82-85ºC which gave plenty of room before a critical temperature, and the cooler did a reasonable job of exhausting 290W. If you burn tested an HD4870X2 you could get it up to about 375W, and with the fans screaming away at 100%, the cards would survive this, continuously, without overheating.
The 290X has a target temperature of 95ºC, you have to manually take over the fan control before you can get past 55% fan speed, and the cooler is configured such that 55% is borderline enough to keep the card at 95 under normal load. The things are a nightmare. They certainly don't work in crossfire setups, as we traditionally know them.
The GTX780Ti is a far better engineered card, but it offers rather minimal extra performance for considerable extra cost, and only having 3GB of video memory, is already running short at 3840x2160, as there are now several major titles that require around 3.5-3.8GB at that resolution - that would leave the Titan 2, which costs as much as a pair of 290X cards - depreciation on that one is going to hurt.
Looking at the last few games to come out, SLI and crossfire support for them has been rather patchy, to say the least. Running a single current top-end card does provide the video memory requirement (at least from AMD), but only gets me halfway to where I really want to be with graphics performance. That said, I still can't play Battlefield 4 with crossfire enabled, and that's the most demanding game I play at the moment - not really convinced the 290 series will fix that. Then of course, there's the fact that my friend who also bought a UP3214Q has had far more bugs with his than I ever had with mine and my 'unsupported' graphics cards.
I should probably also mention that if you disable/enable crossfire on an eyefinity group, it fails the group, and you need to unplug/replug the displayport cable at the PC end for the displays to regroup. Fortunately for me that's a single cable, and it's within fairly easy reach. Still, it's a real pain, and only a result of the fact that crossfire and eyefinity have never really been compatible with each other.
There's no sign of non-tiled 2160p displays on the horizon any time soon, so the high res bugs I will have to live with, not that there's too many for me (at the moment). On the GPU-side though, I'm not so sure.
The roadmap for the R9 300 series has been recently announced. The original proposed date was Q4 this year. However, that depends on the 20nm silicon process being operational in time for that, and I've not seen any evidence of that happening yet. I'm rather hoping that if the silicon process isn't ready that they delay the architecture to fit rather than release another 28nm generation since, as you can see, the current version isn't enough.
Right now my best approach seems to be to buy a single 290X in non-reference variety (which I'm always sceptical of for reliability reasons). The best I can do for that is £440 inc. tax ($620 without). Then of course there's the risk of a genuine 20nm 300 series coming out to make it look rather silly, in say 9 months time. Decisions, decisions...
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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13. April 2014 @ 07:06 |
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Here's a test for embedding the full size image
It seems to work - why not just do this when writing your posts?
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 13. April 2014 @ 07:07
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AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
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17. April 2014 @ 22:33 |
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Just got Metal Gear Rising Revengeance for PC. As far as I'm concerned it's very faithful to the source material. A refreshing action game comparing to say Ninja Gaiden with some unique mechanics and that Konami/Metal Gear touch. MGR Revengeance is very smooth, sharp, and a blast to play. The graphics, while not spectacular, are very crisp, well modeled, and visually interesting. Performance is just fine at maxed settings with 1920 x 1200 8xAA. Locked at 60 with occasional small dips into the high 50s. Review incoming maybe... Only complaint is uncompromising linearity but it's more than made up for by the amazing setpieces and boss battles. Plus, you're a cyborg ninja...
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 17. April 2014 @ 22:43
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