PC Owners Thread

Well 1 and 2 weren't exactly connected. It was another one of those "Same Universe, different story" deals so you didn't have to play 1 before 2. It was an okay game. Nice production values but the overall experience was somewhat blah. It almost felt like an unnecessary open world game since there weren't any side missions and the story was so linear. Again, it wasn't bad, but it felt like a solid 6 out of 10, and given the time and money and work that went into that game (It was in production for like 6 years) I don't think that's the sort of critical reaction the devs and publisher were going for.

Yahtzee's view of the game is pretty spot on IMO.

 
The developers of Shadow Warrior 2 have weighed in on why they don't plan to use heavy DRM like Denuvo to protect their game from piracy.

05f9gmfcxnqx.png
 
I got a chance to put in a little bit of time with Gears 4. To read more about what people here are saying about the actual game play check out this thread. I decided to make this separate post about what I was seeing specifically with the PC version of the game.

The game defaulted to all ultra settings for me and when I ran the in-game benchmark it said I was averaging 88 FPS at 1440p. When I actually play the game I will have VSYNC active so I will be limited to 60 FPS but it's good to know that I have lots of headroom.

It's actually a pretty helpful benchmark to run because it shows you what part of your system is limiting your FPS. In my case it was the GPU 95% of the time which is a good thing. I would hate to have my powerful 1070 being held back because I didn't have enough VRAM, RAM, or CPU speed to keep up with the game's demands.

I also really like that each visual setting tells you how much impact it is going to have on your GPU, CPU, and VRAM. My old 970s had stuttering problems with some games that used more than 3.5GB of VRAM. The game pointing out which settings used the most VRAM would have been really helpful for tweaking if I was still using those cards.

Speaking of VRAM, I ran HWInfo while I messed around with Horde mode and it says that my VRAM usage topped out at around 7.2GB of usage and averaged about 6GB of usage. Textures are the biggest VRAM hog and I am running ultra. I am also playing at 1440p which uses quite a bit more VRAM than 1080p. The reason I point this out is because other VRAM hog games I have tested at 1440p like Forza Horizon 3 and Arkham Knight top out at just over 5GB. I have never seen any of my other games pass the 6GB VRAM mark, let alone 7GB.

While the game does look like a VRAM hog on GPUs that have 8GB of available VRAM like my 1070 I have read benchmarks that show it running fine on cards with 4GB of VRAM. yourbeliefs has already said it runs well on his 4GB 960 too. I have read that some games will fill as much VRAM as they have available even if they don't actually need that much VRAM to run smoothly just because it is faster than pulling textures from the hard drive. That could be an explanation for why I saw 7.2GB of VRAM usage while the game still runs fine with 4GB.

I haven't played any of the campaign yet but from my time with Horde mode the game ran locked at a perfect 60 FPS with VSYNC enabled. Without VSYNC it looks like I would be averaging in the upper 80s but I would rather eliminate screen tearing.
 
My computer defaulted to the High presets, which was fine for me. At full FOV I enjoyed how the game looked. I don't see myself doing any tweaking unless during the campaign stuff starts slowing down.
 
I had a 120mm fan go bad and had to order a new one. This happened after I shut it down for vacation. I started it back up when I got home and it sounded like a prop plane it was so loud. New one should be here today.
 
I had a 120mm fan go bad and had to order a new one. This happened after I shut it down for vacation. I started it back up when I got home and it sounded like a prop plane it was so loud. New one should be here today.

I had to replace one a few months back too. It looked like it was still working but it sounded terrible.
 
Steam is banning misleading screenshots for games. No more concept art or pre-release footage.
http://steamed.kotaku.com/steam-bans-misleading-store-page-screenshots-1788461735

I don't see anything in Valve's statement that says this will apply to videos as well. It's all about screenshots, concept art, and pre-rendered cinematic stills. I hope it actually does apply to video even though they don't mention it though. The main video that still plays every time you visit the No Man's Sky store page on Steam is one of the most misleading examples of this I have ever seen. If this just applies to images as Valve's statement suggests it would do nothing to change the NMS page.

 
I don't see anything in Valve's statement that says this will apply to videos as well. It's all about screenshots, concept art, and pre-rendered cinematic stills. I hope it actually does apply to video even though they don't mention it though. The main video that still plays every time you visit the No Man's Sky store page on Steam is one of the most misleading examples of this I have ever seen. If this just applies to images as Valve's statement suggests it would do nothing to change the NMS page.


Well, video may be harder to regulate because more often than not those are trailers/regular ads for the game, and those are specifically designed to make the game look as good as possible. When you look at a screenshot, it's usually assumed that that is what the game looks like as opposed to concept art or doctored photos. I mean, look at the pictures for NMS that they use. I don't think you can get the game to look at good even if you used mods. Or look at the Aliens: Colonial Marines page. The game looks NOTHING like in those photos, at least not the version we played together.
 
(Warning: No political discussion about this. Let's not turn this into The Pit)

So apparently uPlay has a system where you can report offensive Avatars. Makes sense, as you wouldn't want someone with graphically explicit or racially offensive avatars on the system.

However, it appears that a number of people are getting their avatars banned over accusations of them being "offensive" because they are of the President Elect of the United States.



The bigger issue isn't that pictures of Donald Trump are being taken down , but more that uPlay's system doesn't have any peer review. If an image gets enough complaints, it will be taken down, regardless of what it is. So you could have a picture of a white background but if you make enough people mad for whatever reason, they can be jerks and just report spam your avatar and you can't use it anymore.
 
So I just took advantage of Cyber Monday and made a pretty big, and probably unnecessary purchase for my PC gaming setup. I bought this 24" 1440p Dell G-Sync monitor for $359.99.

Edit For some reason my Amazon link is showing up as a blank spot in my post unless I put the link over other text. Here it is.

If you are thinking that sounds pretty damn expensive for a monitor I agree with you. When you add in the fact that I already own a 24" 1440p monitor it seems even more excessive. This monitor has some pretty significant improvements over my current monitor and I have had my eye on it for quite a while though.

The first significant improvement is that it has a 165Hz refresh rate vs the 60Hz on my current monitor. That means I will be able to turn my 1070 loose and actually see the difference when it is putting out 100+ FPS while my current monitor is only able to display 60 FPS. I am pretty excited to see what Overwatch and Rocket League look like at 165 FPS.

The second significant improvement is G-Sync support. Monitors that support Nvidia's G-Sync or AMD's FreeSync are able to change their refresh rate on the fly to keep in perfect sync with the exact framerate your GPU is putting out at any given time. A standard monitor has a locked refresh rate like my old 60Hz monitor. This always refreshes 60 times per second no matter what your GPU is doing. When the monitor refreshes while the GPU isn't finished drawing a frame you get screen tearing

1280px-Tearing_%28simulated%29.jpg


Vsync can prevent this on a standard monitor by making your GPU wait to put out each frame until the monitor is ready to refresh but this adds input lag. G-Sync eliminates that lag by making the monitor keep it's refresh rate synced to the GPU whether you are getting 45 FPS or 165 FPS. It supposedly removes the stutter that occurs when you dip below 60 FPS on a standard monitor but I have never seen G-Sync in action before so I can't tell you how well this works yet.

While $359.99 is probably more than I should have spent on a new monitor with the same screen size and resolution as my current monitor I'm hoping the 2.75 times faster refresh rate and G-Sync support make me feel like it was well worth it after I see it in action.

If you have been researching G-Sync monitors for about 2 years like I have you know that this is actually a really good deal too. Currently the cheapest G-Sync monitor on Newegg with higher than 1080p resolution is the exact same monitor I just bought but it costs $549.99 there. Most of the other brands are $675 and up.
 


I had a moment of weakness and decided to go against my better judgement and picked up a built model with a GTX 1070, i7 6700, 240GB SSD \ 1TB HDD, 16GB RAM for $1049. It's cheaper than picking up all the parts separately (even though an i7 may be overkill) and this built model was 25% off normal price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-_-na&Item=N82E16883102253&ignorebbr=1&cm_sp=

Of course, a 1070 on a 60hz\1080p system is a waste, so I needed a new monitor. I picked up a 144hz monitor for $179. It is on backorder, but for ~$50 in savings I'll just deal temporarily.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...42&cm_re=144hz_monitor-_-24-009-642-_-Product

I'm hoping that the Newegg distribution center is close so I can intercept this before my wife gets back home. I just figure it's better for her to stumble upon it as opposed to her seeing a big box delivered to the house with my name on it.
 

Resident Evil (XBone)

Game Awards

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)