|
|
|
The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread
|
|
|
harvardguy
Member
|
17. April 2014 @ 23:24 |
Link to this message
|
Originally posted by Sam:
It seems to work - why not just do this when writing your posts?
FULL SIZE SCREENSHOT LINKS FROM NOW ON
I will. #1 First, I'll upload them at 900 wide, which as you showed above, when you expand it, is the largest size that will expand out - larger than that just burdens afterdawn with shrinking it. For the old AfterDawn I used 700 wide.
And #2 Second, I will also upload the full size image - and I won't print "full-size" on it - well maybe I will, or maybe I'll start giving those a title. Anyway, now that my memory is refreshed on how to do it, I will do that with all posts.
ARMA III SCREENSHOTS GETTING EVEN MORE AWESOME AS OF LAST NIGHT
Speaking of screenshots, I was blown away yesterday by the showcase "Arma." I was stunned by the beauty of the map.
I took the most beautiful screenshots yesterday - a Battlefield 4 kind of expansive map, a valley with distant hills, houses, broken down buildings, colorful factory, including areas with sections of rock walls that reminded my of World War II battles in the fields of Normandy.
Okay, here is a sample one so I can give you guys a taste - not the best necessarily, just a quick one to add to this post. A real post on this showcase will be coming.
Full-size (magnify twice): http://s518.photobucket.com/user/harvar...0a268d.jpg.html
As beautiful as the game looks on ultra, I have found, however, that at default gamma of 1.0, it's not quite bright enough for me - not only is it very hard to spot the enemies, but it just has an overall darkness to it that is just a tad too much - too contrasty if I might be permitted to use that "word." But a gamma increase of 1.1 - the smallest jump up - is all that is needed to fix the entire thing.
Besides the extensive campaign, they have a total of 16 showcases, and some of them are absolutely incredible - and incredibly hard I should add.
The ONLY way I have been able to handle the really hard ones is through my trick of adding saves, by keeping their save folder open, and my own save folder open. They allow you to save once per showcase, and they have auto-saves, but not frequently enough. So I save when I get tired of repeating the same thing I have done for the last 5 times, so I can advance a bit, like last night.
Then when after a while, that save turns out to be not enough, I will get quite a bit further ahead, pause the game, ALT tab to desktop, delete the save in their folder, continue the game, and immediately pause it. Now the Save button is Active, so I'll create my new save, pause the game, ALT tab to desktop, put that new save into a folder if I want to keep it for future replay (which I did not do last night on the Arma showcase) - you see how it works.
COMBINED ARMS SHOWCASE IS A BALL-BUSTER!!!
On one showcase called "combined arms" I have 6 custom saves each in a numbered folder - I know exactly where each save puts me, as I spent over 30 hours on that showcase conquering it. It was incredibly hard - but now it's my bi*ch! I now know how to play that mission, in order to complete the showcase, without the RETREAT command, and without all of my team getting killed leaving me to murder the last dozen enemies with no help at all. (Which needed all 6 saves.)
Here is the one and only time in the 30 hours and 6 successful finishes - all toward the end of learning the correct tactics - where I actually had 2 teammates survive. Notice how bloody the guy on the left is, before I heal him.
Full size: http://s518.photobucket.com/user/harvar...c58897.jpg.html
In fact the new method is so good, that I can now reliably start only from save #2, and succeed 50% of the time, with a lot of patience, and with about 30 minutes of tense combat. However, now that I think about it, yes, all my team is usually dead on my final best strategy. LOL By the way, notice all the dead bodies everywhere - enemies and teammates.
But that is a complete post coming soon within the next 30 days. Like I say, I have at least 30 hours combat time on that one showcase, and yesterday I took a few dozen screenshots. It is awesome, and unbelievably challenging, but also fun.
I didn't get a chance to finish this post and comment on some more things - I'll do that tomorrow - we're all going to see a movie!
Rich
|
|
Advertisement
|
 |
|
|
|
harvardguy
Member
|
20. April 2014 @ 01:11 |
Link to this message
|
Hmmmm. Sorry about the double. A few days have passed, and Jeff, I completely missed your post about Metal Gear Rising Revengeance for PC a couple days ago - I have the feeling you were posting at the same time as I was.
Yes, I wish you WOULD post some screenshots, because I can't tell if it is something I would be interested in or not. "Plus, you're a cyborg ninja... " meaning, we're a robot, is that right? Well, fine, some of my friends are robots - nobody on this forum I hasten to add.
Sam, I got to your long post - and similarly, the fact that it came in before my post, tells me that you, Jeff, and I were all posting at the same time a few days ago. I thought you were definitely going for the double gpu 290, but when you talked about the temps, etc., I see your point - and if 20nm is coming in 9 months, might be better to just wait.
Regarding your post after that, post #8874, with the repost of my driving picture which has the caption in lower left, "FULL SIZE SCREEN" I totally don't understand.
You said
"Here's a test for embedding the full size image"
Then you showed the picture. Then you said:
"It seems to work - why not just do this when writing your posts?"
I am drawing a total blank. I could not get it to expand any larger than any other picture on this forum. If you are able to get it to expand to full size, how do you do it? WAIT A SECOND!!
OMG I just did it!!!
Now, how did I do that, can I do it again, and how do I instruct people to get to full size?
Wow, I did it again. Here it is again.
On the image above, which is the full-size image, if you just touch the magnifier to enlarge it, it enlarges only to about 900 pixels wide. But if you right-click the image, and say "Open in new tab" (which is what I choose on google chrome) it opens in a separate window, not quite full size, but with the cursor showing a magnifier allowing you to get it to full size.
So you're saying, Sam, that I can just use my images that way, and tell people that if they don't want to bother seeing them full size, expand them and they will slightly expand, but instead of that, right-click the image and open in a new tab, then they can expand to full 2560x1600 size.
So in that case, I can merely load into photobucket the full size image, along with those instructions?
That sounds great - let me try it.
Let me try it on one of the new ones. The red bold print below represents how I would plan to handle it in future posts. I am choosing the normal "direct" method of capturing the image from photobucket, the way I always do it, this time using the full-size 2560x1600 image. I will keep my fingers crossed.
This below is a full-size image:
To see the image full-size, right-click the image above, choose option "open in new tab," and then you will see that you can magnify it to full 2560x1600 size.
Okay, I'm now going to hit preview, and see if that worked, lol.
NO IT ABSOLUTELY DIDN'T WORK. SAM WHAT IS YOUR SECRET?
In fact, Sam, I notice now that your version of my picture, has the word ~original tucked onto the end.
Here is the link that I copied from your post:
http://i518.photobucket.com/albums/u343...b8.jpg~original
And if I imbed that link in a picture format like this:
I bet I get a picture that somebody can right-click "open in new tab" and immediately be presented with a magnifier allowing full 2560x1600 image size.
YES, IT WORKS AGAIN.
And again, Sam, what is your secret? What choice are you using on photobucket, that is allowing me to put the image in, with the addition to it saying ~original.
Or is that coming from some other photo web site?
Photobucket presents me with 4 options for displaying the picture, and not a single one has the text ~original at the end of the image name, like the link I copied from your post?
So yes, it works, and now please, tell me EXACTLY what you did to get that. LOL
There is probably a very simple explanation, but I totally am not understanding what you did. I am happy to do it that way - BUT HOW?????????????
Rich
On seccond thought, before signing off, let me give it one more try:
To see this FULL-SIZE, right-click the image and open in a new tab or window.
OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
THAT WORKS!
I took the picture, with the normal photobucket option Direct, just like I always do, and placed it inside the "[img][/img]" brackets, just like I always do, and then
.... the following is something I have NEVER done before .....
I went inside those brackets and added "~original" without the quotes of course, to the end of the picture name right after .jpg like this: [ Armashowcase1-full_zps020a268d.jpg~original ]
So that new picture, if you open in another tab, presents you with a magnifier - you hit it once with left mouse click, and you have a full-size picture.
No matter what, you're a genius Sam, and if all else fails, I guess I can MANUALLY add the text ~original to my full-size photos, but is there a photobucket way of doing the same thing? (And if not, how the heck did you come up with that?).... :D
Rich
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 20. April 2014 @ 01:16
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
21. April 2014 @ 09:34 |
Link to this message
|
|
Literally all I did was view the original, right click ->copy image URL and paste that in the IMG square bracket tags. Nothing more to it then that...
|
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
21. April 2014 @ 13:56 |
Link to this message
|
|
Yep I always just find the source URL for the image and post it in the brackets. AD has its own image resizer to fit them to pages.
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 |
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
21. April 2014 @ 15:54 |
Link to this message
|
|
You've done it correctly in your last two attachments, Rich. I believe the ~original tag adds itself when you look at the URL of the image after you've expanded it. Linking to anything but that picture, however (including the page that contains the full-size version) will not display the correct image.
|
|
harvardguy
Member
|
23. April 2014 @ 00:50 |
Link to this message
|
Ok!!
Well that's outstanding, Sam. You discovered a secret Photobucket name that is kept under wraps - but now that the secret is out, I'll take advantage of your discovery.
You were able to view the original image because I had used the top Photobucket choice, "Email & IM" rather than the second choice, called "Direct." Using that top choice gave me a link that would, upon using the magnifier twice, open to full-size.
But using that first "Email & IM" choice, I am unable to put that into the Afterdawn IMG brackets, like this:
because as you see, it doesn't produce an image.
I can only paste it in directly, as a non-image Email & IM link, like this: http://s518.photobucket.com/user/harvar...a268d.jpg.html. But that was certainly useful, as it allowed you to discover the secret Photobucket name for the resulting full-size image.
Prior to this time I had always used the Direct Photobucket link, option 2, which gives me this:
http://i518.photobucket.com/albums/u343...zps020a268d.jpg
and I can put that into the afterdawn IMG brackets, like this:
but it won't expand to full size, even in its own new tab or window.
So when you copied the url for the full-size image that was produced by opening the non-image Email & IM link , photobucket had labelled that one http://i518.photobucket.com/albums/u343...d.jpg~original, which is the Direct link name, plus ~original, to tell it what to display.
It IS INDEED a photobucket special name, but not one they offer as an option, and therefore it's been their little secret until now - BUT NOW THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG!
(DDP, I don't imagine you have cats in Canada as the frigid weather won't allow it, but they are small furry animals that are distant relatives of tigers, and they like to catch mice - doubtless you have no mice either.)
This little discovery makes it very easy from now on - as I said last time, I will just add the text ~original inside the afterdawn IMG brackets, to the end of the link that I get from their second Direct option, making sure to upload full-size 2560 images.
Like this:
That is very cool that you discovered this Sam, a hidden way to work better with Photobucket, and I only have to upload one set of images, not two.
Originally posted by Jeff:
Yep I always just find the source URL for the image and post it in the brackets. AD has its own image resizer to fit them to pages.
Yes, exactly - so we see that I can capture Photobucket's "secret" name for the source url to the full-size images, which turns out to be their "Direct" image name, plus ~original.
Now that we have discovered Photobucket's secret, the AfterDawn reader of my future posts has 4 choices. The reader can choose to
#1. not expand the picture at all, and allow afterdawn to display a 700 pixel wide image,
#2. or use the magnifier to enlarge slightly to a 900 pixel wide version, or
#3. open in a new tab or window which yields an image as wide as the browser window
#4. or click the mouse to expand to the full original size.
What I mean by #3, is that I'm currently on my regular desktop, which is a 1600x1200 20" Dell 4:3 monitor (running on a pentium 3 Ghz HT Dell XPS400 - the machine that animated Left 4 Dead, lol - with a Raid 1 mirror 250 gig C drive that recently survived a crash of one of the mirror member drives and kept on chugging - on the other end of the trailer is the gaming rig) and at this moment I have the browser window at about 1400 pixels wide, so that's what the image expands to in a new tab. But the cursor is a magnifier, and if I hit the mouse, the picture then expands to option #4, the full-size 2560 width with bottom and side scroll bars.
For you, Sam, I presume that you have two browser windows open, and to see the full-size image, you probably have the larger browser covering about 70% of your screen diagonal (as 70%x70X would be about half your total screen surface area.)
In fact, Sam, could you capture a 4k screen shot with one browser showing one of my full-size images at 2560x1600, like the image directly above, and your other browser with the Afterdawn post showing the regular image, or maybe the Afterdawn magnified image? That would be interesting. You don't have to capture it full-size, but if that's easiest, that's fine - or you could go for 1920 wide so Jeff could see it full-screen, and I could see it with scroll bars. Actually on second thought, the full-size might be interesting - I could open it on my 30" 2560 monitor and the scroll bars would show me what I'm missing versus having the 4k monitor.
I am guessing your 4k screenshot will look something like this:
For full-size at 1600 pixels wide, open in new tab or window:
which I'm faking on my 1600 wide monitor.
(I added the ~original at the end, so the above should allow full-size, but it isn't a 2560 wide image, only 1600 wide.)
Rich
|
|
ddp
Moderator
|
23. April 2014 @ 11:25 |
Link to this message
|
|
wrong as we have both plus others like chipmunks like the 1 that is taunting my black & white cat named shadow. i have 2 other cats that are lynx point burmans not burmese. we even have bats plus our secret weapon the canada goose that caused that airliner to belly land into the hudson river a few years ago.
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
23. April 2014 @ 11:52 |
Link to this message
|
|
Rich - the image expands as wide as your browser will allow - in order to see a 2560x1600 image attachment as 2560x1600 you need a monitor with at least that resolution (In practice, more unless you're in fullscreen mode) as the aD image expansion tool only does 'fit page' - e.g. on the 1920x1080 display I have at work I'm typing to you from now, it will only expand your 2560x1600 image to around 1850 pixels wide.
When I get home I'll screencap the desktop at 3840x2160 to show you what they look like. I'd intended on doing that yesterday until I ended up working until 10:30pm :S
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
23. April 2014 @ 15:09 |
Link to this message
|
Rich -
Image not expanded:
Your earlier screenshots expanded:
Image expanded in full 3840x2160 window:
Image expanded in window smaller than image size:
As you see - if the window is smaller than the image, it will scale to fit, rather than expanding off the page.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23. April 2014 @ 15:11
|
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
28. April 2014 @ 02:43 |
Link to this message
|
|
Arma 3 is impressive but honestly I am getting a little tired of modern style shooters and all the stereotypes that follow them. The genre is mind-numbingly over-saturated and getting very stale. The learning curve in Arma 3 is thankfully much better than Arma 2's so I might still be giving it a try sometime soon, but maybe not. Very few of that style of game really strike my fancy anymore. Battlefield Bad Company 2 remains a steady favorite, only due to its genius game balance and map design. Most other shooters quickly devolve into a twitch-fest with a HUGE skill gap. Even Arma is becoming twitchy due to the Day Z mod's popularity.
WW2 games are making a small comeback in the form of War Thunder, World of Tanks, Men of War and a few others. Not ashamed to admit that I never EVER got tired of WW2 games. The genre also wasn't as overpopulated as the Modern Military shooter genre. It got close, but mercifully died out before it reached the heights we're seeing today. Call of Duty and its hundreds of clones.
I will note that Arma has a very old legacy in PC gaming, and is worthy of recognition. It's too bad that some of the older games have lost the large majority of their online community. Even some not so old games like BFBC2 are starting to depopulate. Too bad that the newer alternatives hardly ever compare. Thankfully my beloved and all-time hallowed Battlefield 2 is still alive and strong due to its massive modding community and dedicated clans. Though even that, too, is starting to lose its playerbase. There are tons of populated servers, but hardly ever any full ones anymore.
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 28. April 2014 @ 02:50
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
28. April 2014 @ 02:52 |
Link to this message
|
|
Personally I think they're both very over-saturated. We could really do with some new genres.
|
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
28. April 2014 @ 03:40 |
Link to this message
|
|
Agreed, but at least the newer WW2 games are something other than shooters. RTS, simulators, MMOs, etc. The problem lately isn't necessarily as much with the genres as it is with the decreasing quality and stale design.
I continue to hold Crysis in high regard because in 2007 it was a massive leap for game technology, design, art direction, etc. Sadly, instead of ushering in an era of bleeding edge games, it was smack dab in middle of the Call of Duty craze. I had massively high hopes that Crysis would start an upward trend, but I was sorely disappointed.
Gameplay innovation has essentially stagnated since Half Life 2 set the bar back in 2004, and very few games have matched 2007's Crysis in graphics even now. Right now we are gearing up for either a gaming industry crash, or a second renaissance in quality and design. There have been a few bright spots, but the large majority of today's games are copy/paste shovelware.
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 28. April 2014 @ 03:41
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
28. April 2014 @ 11:18 |
Link to this message
|
|
You guys gonna jump on board with GTA V in June? I can't wait myself :D
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
29. April 2014 @ 01:06 |
Link to this message
|
|
I will be all over it. I wonder how good the port will be. Hopefully it's better than GTA4.
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 29. April 2014 @ 01:06
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. April 2014 @ 02:33 |
Link to this message
|
Originally posted by Estuansis:
I will be all over it. I wonder how good the port will be. Hopefully it's better than GTA4.
I do recall some bugs at first, but after the second install, I don't recall any problems. Though that was with a much more powerful system, than the first install.
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
29. April 2014 @ 03:07 |
Link to this message
|
|
GTA4 is probably one of the most poorly done ports I've ever played. It has no earthly reason to run as poorly as it does. Even with my current hardware it's not great.
Resident Evil 4 HD and Metal Gear Rising Revengeance are both examples of lazily done ports that are far superior to GTA4. Both are arguably better looking than GTA4 with vastly better performance and AA is actually practical to use.
Also, just got Resident Evil 4 HD on Steam. Basically the Gamecube version was the original and it was meant to be Gamecube only. Well the PS2 version came out and added a bunch of extra features but had extremely muddy graphics in comparison with piss poor resolution and N64 quality textures. The PS2 version was the basis for the first PC port, and the port was also extremely bad, worse than GTA4. No mouse or KB support whatsoever. Required a joypad, and this was before 360 controllers became so universal.
The Wii version came out and mixed the great Gamecube graphics with the PS2 features, but requires owning a Wii, lol. Then the PS3 version came out on PSN as an HD texture pack over the Wii version. The PS3 version is the one that got ported to PC the second time, so it was finally a good base for porting. It works great on both KB+mouse and 360 pad.
Textures are generally poor as they originate from a 2004 Gamecube game, but the HD pack re-filters most of them for better sharpness, and fully re-textures most of the characters. Many textures are quite terrible though, which is funny considering the game was said to have great graphics way back when. AA and AF help to further enhance the image quality, and reduce that impact. Truly the definitive iteration of Resident Evil 4.
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 29. April 2014 @ 03:39
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. April 2014 @ 11:30 |
Link to this message
|
|
Well, given the money they've earned already, selling GTA V for the other devices... there really is no excuse to skimp on the PC Port ;) But I guess we'll see what happens. The initial release will no doubt be imperfect. But I hope it's at least enjoyable. I know AMD Graphics owners had troubles with GTA IV, but I see you have a GTX 760. And a 6 core processor. A great deal more powerful, than the GTX 260, and Phenom 965 I use to run :p But I suppose on a per core basis, the 965 had slightly more potential?
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
29. April 2014 @ 17:16 |
Link to this message
|
|
On a per-core basis, Thubans are faster than Denebs because they have a better Integrated Memory Controller. So ideally, this 1100T would have the edge over a 965 at the same speeds, not counting the two extra cores.
The video card should be more than enough if it's a halfway decent port.
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
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
29. April 2014 @ 17:48 |
Link to this message
|
|
The GTA4 port was frankly appalling. I agree with Jeff that it's one of the worst there's been, except for perhaps the early Ubisoft ports of 360 titles like Rainbow Six Vegas and, worse still, Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
The game took 2GB of video memory to run at beyond medium settings, even on a 1680x1050 screen. Back when GTA4's PC version came out, 2GB video cards were very rare indeed. It ate texture memory, it ate system memory, the CPU requirements were quite high, the disk space usage was enormous, and it looked really quite shameful given all that. Very flat and bland looking environment, better than the console version, but not hugely so. The rockstar social club and games for windows live shernanigans just made things worse.
The game is undeniably quite good, but the PC port really did nothing positive for the franchise's image. I sincerely hope the PC version of 5 is better, particularly since GFWL is dead and buried, and console porting has matured. I'm not going to assume it will be flawless though.
|
|
harvardguy
Member
|
30. April 2014 @ 03:06 |
Link to this message
|
Hi Guys.
I spent a few hours tonight trying to organize some of my screenshots for a helicopter post about Arma 3.
Arma 3 has a campaign, which is terrific, and it has 14 showcases. I have about 100 hours in a showcase called combined arms, which is mainly infantry, in addition to the 100 hours or more that I have in the earlier infantry showcase, about which I have posted for the last couple of years.
I'm going to do a long post about the combined arms, which is a very interesting infantry showcase - and damned hard to complete. I am playing regular, not expert by any means, but that showcase still eluded success before I added extra save points, and also figured out how to keep more of my platoon alive to help me with the counter-attack.
You don't have to play this multiplayer at all. I'm not.
AWESOME HELICOPTER ACTION
I just pulled about 3 all-nighters in the gunship showcase about helicopters, and I am not normally a fly-boy. I couldn't beat the arma 2 helicopter school even after staying up all night - it was just a little too hard for me - and add to that I didn't have my new steel-series mouse and saitek keyboard.
But I guess they have improved the helicopter controls, and added something called hover, so that when you lose control, you hit hover, and it will maintain your altitude but bring your velocity to zero. You can nudge up to 35 km/hr in hover mode, for example if you're doing like I am, and staying within 2-4 meters of the ground, trying to remain below radar. (You can see the radar sites light up when your altitude gets too high. If all else fails you can fire flares, but you have only a limited amount of those.)
I beat the gunship showcase, then I went back and did some more stuff, and came in the front this time, and discovered a tank that I never had to encounter before, because he didn't become aware of my presence until I had eliminated the last artillery launcher, since I sneaked in the back way the first time. But sneaking in the back way was a process that took a couple of painstaking hours, and several save points just in case, until I started encountering the active launchers, and realized nobody was around protecting them. Then in repeat play, after killing the third and last launcher, something very dangerous was firing at me, but I had an auto-save point to fall back on every time I was killed - the only thing that worked was a full-on high-speed retreat to the new goal, rescuing a squad on top of a mountain.
Now I don't want to do the long slow back approach, and so I came in the front, and now I know what was hunting me before. I call it a tank, but it's really an armored car, with a type of grenade launcher ammo - explosive rounds that can bring me down in the air going 70 km/hour. So I have a save point - a user save - stored in a numbered folder, and this is what I would call a boss battle - me versus the tank. The game play has infinite repeatability - slightly different each time - as I get in position - a different position each time depending on how hot I come in - switch to hover - drop near the ground, and try to get ready for his most likely entrance. If I come in too hot, it takes too long to slow me to a stop, I climb too high in the process, and he will likely be able to kill me without having to drive close to find me. If I come in too slow, he is in position before I am, and he will kill me.
If everything works out, as it does maybe one out of five times, this happens:
This is a full-size image - open in a new tab for up to 2560x1600.
And here is the same blessed event with the normal gun scope magnifier:
This is a full-size image - open in a new tab for up to 2560x1600.
I know those photos are dark - this is just a teaser post. I have lightened a bunch of them up for a more thorough post in a day or two.
Look at my hud, upper right. I am using skyfire missiles - a group of missiles each time that saturate a small area. I only have 2 left as you can see. But I have about 6-8 individual missiles left for eliminating the artillery launchers, and they can also be destroyed with 30mm cannon fire, except that I still don't quite know how to aim the cannon.
There is a gunner with me, but he might be dead by now - there seems to no longer be any automatic fire like before.
By the way, Sam, thanks for showing me how the full 2560x1600 looks on your 4k monitor. That was quite interesting. There sure was a lot of space left around the image on your screen.
Jeff, after all your space flying stuff, I keep telling myself, "What am I doing in this helicopter - this is tailor-made for Jeff." Of course, you Kevin - you figured out how to get into a helicopter in GTA4, so it's a natural for you too.
There is 500 hours of content in this game, without any multiplayer at all. It's that awesome, and that challenging. I completed the drone showcase - another award winner. I'm going back to that again, to try to play it a different way - very fun!
Rich
|
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
10. June 2014 @ 11:29 |
Link to this message
|
|
The E3 footage for Far Cry 4 has me pretty excited. If it brings as many improvements as Far Cry 3 did from Far Cry 2, we could have a game of the year on our hands. The new environment is refreshing and the new villain/antagonist is interesting as well :)
The only question is performance. I still can't perfectly max Far Cry 3 on this rig. Nearly but not quite. Always a minor setting or two has to be tweaked. So FarCry 4 will either be less demanding due to the different environment or optimizations in the engine, or simply more demanding because that's what graphics improvements require by default... We'll see. Maybe it'll be time for a second card as GTX760s have dropped a bit in price now. (Certainly not opposed at all to a second card). My CPU manages to escape being a bottleneck for this single card, but two cards might be pushing it. I suppose it can't hurt.
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 10. June 2014 @ 11:30
|
|
Advertisement
|
|
|
|
harvardguy
Member
|
11. June 2014 @ 00:40 |
Link to this message
|
Wow, Jeff, glad to hear that there is something good coming.
I would love to see you with another one of those fabulous 4 gig cards! I know that I still am crazy about my pair of 3 gig HIS 7950s, so I know a pair of those bad boys that you have would take you anywhere you would want to go. Yes, your cpu might become a bit of a bottleneck, but that's only because you insist on 60 fps. LOL
Thanks for the heads-up on Far Cry 4. I was wondering what was coming out soon - it seems like other than Arma 3 which I am addicted to, like Kevin with Angry Birds (and nudity) there hasn't been much happening. Unlike you, I am not a space fan, so Future Warfare doesn't have me too excited regarding COD, although I will for sure get it.
I was just looking back on Medal of Honor Warfighter, and the bad rating and terrible sales results Danger Close got on that game, causing EA to basically drop the franchise. Maybe it was all the rain and dismal weather that the campaign was developed in - I watched some youtube videos yesterday, trying to remember the campaign, and it seemed depressing and repetitive.
I have the game, and I did play it, and yes - it was ho hum.
On multiplayer, I was never too fond of it, but recently, sort of accidentally (I have never been a sniper guy) I ramped up to the greatest gun I have ever had - the repeating sniper - giving me a full-session 5 to 1 KTD ratio for the first time in my entire life, lol.
Not only do you have the repeating sniper, but you get a machine pistol to run around with, and funny enough, it eats up guys who venture nearby when you don't have time to get into sniper mode. Anyway, I had only one 5-hour session with that loadout, and it was super fun, and like I say, my all-time highest KTD ratio ever (normally if I even get close to 1 to 1 I am quite happy) but I haven't been back on multiplayer for the last 6 months - just been messing with Arma 3 single player.
I for sure will get Far Cry 4. On the 9450 bottleneck, I probably won't be able to max it. Regarding Far Cry 3, I had pretty good results maxing it - but with AA at 4x instead of 8x. However I proved to myself that while 4x was drastically better than 2x, 8x was only a very tiny improvement over 4x. So I was quite happy at 4x. I achieved about 40 fps - but out in the crocodile river on the wave runner, sometimes it dropped to 32. There was one core that was pushing 96% that was holding me back.
But the waverunner action was silky smooth, and sometimes my gaming session consisted simply of riding the waverunner for several hours - absolutely no shooting at all! The graphics were so sublime, and the wave runner action so cool! I might even, one day, get a real wave runner, just because of that game.
By the way, getting a waverunner to spawn on that river was tricky, as normally there isn't one. There is a wave runner race at one end of the river, but if you leave the race, you only have about 3 minutes before they end it, and that's the end of the your riding session. But I finally figured out how to fool the game into giving me a waverunner, and once I got it I parked it near a safe-house, and I created a save that I could always go back to. I even re-activated all the enemies, so now I can jump on that wave runner and do some shooting and boat evading - getting some wild riding action in while dodging bullets! Hahahahaha.
Here's the crocodile river - for scary full-size (2560x1600) right-click and open in its own tab
Hardware-wise, I still have the Lian Li midtower case with the EVGA x58 i7 930 chip, 12 gigs of ram, and I put one of my fast 1 TB WD drives in it, but I never got back to trying to achieve a decent overclock, and I have put that mid-tower away in the garage attic for now. I would have been glad to have hit an overclock that caused over-heating - because then I know I could have put the TRUE on it, and even thrown the whole thing into the vastly-air-cooled spedo case which is loaded with 140mm fans. But in my former overclocking attempts, per several forums and web sites, all I was able to achieve were unstable clocks that caused blue screens. But my methodology was probably flawed - I was trying to work with a low memory multiple to keep from overclocking the memory, which is rated around 1100, since with the standard multiple, to get a really good overclock I need to get 1400-1600 out of it.
So if I ever went back and tried it, I would run with the standard memory multiple, and just see how far I could push that memory. A cpu upgrade of 30% more power than what I have now would be great - I'm getting about 32 fps in Arma 3 at ultra graphics settings, and it hardly ever lags, but 40 would be better of course. My 7950 cards are only stressed about 60% on that game - but the cpus are pushing 90% load and are the bottleneck.
I think if you're going to really get a good overclock on a 930, you have to have high-speed memory. So maybe this memory just won't let me overclock the thing that far, and maybe I ended up unlucky in the binning of this particular chip.
Anyway, as I say, for now the Lian Li is in the attic, and I'm heading in the direction of saving up some money for the latest generation of i7 or i5, with fast memory, maybe 8 gigs would be enough ram, and a good solid motherboard. And at that point in time I might do as blazothorn suggested, and actually take off the integrated heat spreader, removing the poor paste that Intel deliberately puts on to make overclocking a little harder, and see if I can achieve over 4 ghz on air with the TRUE - which should give me 70-100% more cpu power than my 3.343 ghz 9450.
Sam got me kind of excited with his 4k 8 megapixel monitor, and he says it doesn't stress the cpu any more than my present 4.3 megapixel, that it's the graphics cards that have to carry the load. I guess ultimately I will follow Sam's lead, but that might be 3 years from now. That's how long it took me to get the 30" monitor after Sam kept posting about it. Maybe by then we'll see more support of eye-finity and of course Sam will have worked out most of the kinks for the rest of us by then. Haha.
GUNSHIP SHOWCASE POST IS STILL COMING
Oh - by the way - before I noticed Jeff's post, I jumped on tonight to make a start on my helicopter gunship showcase post that I promised to do 6 weeks ago in post 8895 above. I figure, from experience, that it will take me about 6 hours to put a really well-illustrated post together, so I'm going to do it in pieces, picking out the best screenshots, and saving to a word doc. I should have it ready by next week!
In the gunship showcase, this is the enemy. I climbed in one at the Nato exhibition. Right-click open new tab.
I found the AMV-7 Marshall amphibious vehicle "tank" that I have been dueling with, when I went to the in-game Nato exhibition, and I have a lot of good shots of it from the outside, and from the inside in the gunner position, targeting a wrecked helicopter (in the live-fire part of the exhibition) just like the one I'm flying in the gunship showcase. You can't get into one of these tanks shooting at the wrecked vehicles, but there are a bunch of them parked over in their part of the exhibit area, and you can climb in and target the wrecked vehicles, and shoot to your heart's content!
Rich
|
|
