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Started by Spalls Hurgenson
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 08:10
What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 08:10
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 08:10
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It's been a weird summer here. The weather has varied from unbearably hot to cool and rainy, often alternating between the two on a daily basis. It's made it hell to actually enjoy the outdoors - whenever I have the time to go into the great outdoors, the weather has inevitably shifted to the worse, while all gorgeous days seem to happen when I'm stuck in the office. The end result is that I spent more days than was probably healthy sitting inside playing computer games. Not that's a bad thing, of course. So, another month passed and here we are in our usual thread. So let's just get to it and share our play-lists already; you all know the drill. Me first. -------------------- Short and Sweet -------------------- * SOMA (continued from last month) * Planetbase (new) * The Witcher 1 (replay) * Wolfenstein Old Blood (replay) * The Beginner's Guide (new) * Call of Duty Ghosts (new) TL; DR ---------- * SOMA (continued from last month) I had a hard time finishing SOMA, despite how much I enjoyed the first half of the game. The game still sweats atmosphere, and its story is - if not particularly novel - at least interesting enough to keep me playing (although the stupidity of a protagonist unable to grasp the situation despite having it explained to him three times did grate). But it was the stealth gameplay - which took far greater prominence in the latter half of the game - that ultimately soured the experience. The problem isn't the stealthing itself, although the lack of options and variety were somewhat troublesome. The actual mechanic worked well enough. Rather, it was the enforced powerlessness that quickly became tiresome. You can't fight the monster, so all you can do is run and hide... and after a few such encounters this very rapidly becomes tiresome. Even worse is the idea that you can't even look at the monster without going insane (sorry, electro-magnetically corrupted). It's a game about cowering in a corner and waiting endlessly for the monster to pass. There are better ways of making a player feel vulnerable; rather, I just felt bored. Still, the game was rather pretty (in a gory sort of way), and the mood of the game was wonderfully portrayed. The exploration was fun; I just dreaded the encounters with the monsters, and not in the way the developers had hoped. It might have been more bearable in shorter bursts, but at a cost to its wonderful atmosphere. * Planetbase (new) In 1994, Sierra released an little game called "Outpost", that promised to let us fulfill all our sci-fi fantasies of creating our own colonies on far-off worlds. With impressive SVGA graphics, attention to realism and gameplay liberally cribbed from the award-winning SimCity games, it was expected to be one of the great classic games of the era. However, Outpost is now better remembered for unfulfilled promises and technical ineptitude so bad that even its sequel distanced itself from the original title's gameplay by becoming an RTS. The city-builder-in-space genre has remained relatively barren ever since... But playing Planetbase, I'm reminded more of Outpost than might be assumed from the superficial similarities. Planetbase is - fortunately - nowhere near as buggy as that infamous game but it does suffer from another commonality: a lack of content. Don't get me wrong; the first hour of gameplay is quite fun as you struggle to create a self-sufficient base, tacking together habitation, utility and production modules. Early carelessness can cost you the game before you even get started. But once you get past the first hurdle, the difficulty curve effectively disappears and the only "challenge" is how big a base you want to build. Even that isn't particularly engaging given the limited size of the map and the tiny scale; after ten hours, my base covered half the map and topped out at a population of about 300. The lack of tiles is a significant problem; there are only around 20 structures to choose from, and they you'll have built at least one of each within the first hour. Each structure can be individually furnished, but once again, there just aren't enough furnishings to play with. The game is also hamstrung by how severely it limits where you can place each structure. Equally, it is exceedingly difficult to raze-n-rebuild if you want to streamline your design later. Also similar to Outpost, the game lacks comprehensive and detailed information about your colony; there isn't, for instance, an easy way to determine how many resources I have, or how many biologists versus workers versus engineers I have (what charts the game does offer is full of un-intuitive icons rather than easy-to-understand text). Its interacting systems are also disappointingly simple, which is another reason the game lacks any real challenge. The AI is also fairly stupid, and I had colonists die of starvation rather than walk two rooms over to eat from the fully-stocked canteen. Planetbase does throw a few "disasters" at you but - again - these are both so mild (and your inability to actually do anything about them) that you can pretty much ignore them. In the end, Planetbase feels like an early-access game in early alpha, one where they intend to add more content later once... except its being sold as a finalized product. It's a disappointing product all around... and thus well deserving of assuming Outpost's long-vacant throne. * The Witcher 1 (replay) I /really/ want to replay the third game of the series, but I've set myself the goal of playing through the first two games first that I might experience the totality of the entire saga (one of my issues with my first play-through of the Witcher 3 was that I'd forgotten much of the plot of Witcher 1 & 2. Unfortunately, neither of those games were particular favorites of mine. Nonetheless, like a child promised ice cream if he just finishes his Brussels sprouts, I earnestly attempted to work my way through the older titles. Not that I truly disliked the first Witcher; in many ways, it felt like a breath of fresh air when it was released in 2007. In an era when Bioware-style RPGs dominated, its grey-on-grey morality and meaningful choices were a refreshing change, and the scope of the game is still impressive today. While many RPGs have you determine the fate of a kingdom, few offered the same feeling of being able to determine its soul as you navigated the treacherous political and racially-charged waters of a nation on the brink of civil war and genocide. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself was not as well-polished. The actual mechanics - while somewhat clunky - were acceptable; I got to enjoy the combat - with its dependency on properly-timed mouse-clicks- after a while just because watching the protagonist leap and dance about as he slaughtered monsters was so much fun. The alchemy - source of the hero's powers - was less fun, just because the character's inventory was so small. An infinite stash was available to hold the excess, but it was always so tedious to get to - usually four or five loading screens and an annoying conversation away - that it was frustrating to use. The maps were gorgeously rendered and impressively sized - especially in comparison to many of the Witcher's competitors of the time - but the game overstayed its welcome far too long before opening up the next region. The swamp - where probably half of the quests take place - very quickly became tedious. Worse, the story just couldn't support its own plot, with characters and events being haphazardly introduced, then ignored for an act or two, only to suddenly have relevance 20 or 30 hours of gameplay later. This becomes much more noticeable in the late game, when I was thrust into the political intrigue and realized I had no idea who most of the people were, what their factions represented, or why I should care one way or the other. There is a lot of useful detail provided in in-game books and glossaries, but I found these dry and - thanks to the tiny font - painful reading. There's a clever and mature tale buried in the game but it does little to make it accessible to the player. Still, while playing The Witcher was often a tedious slog, it was generally a rewarding one. Despite its age, the game was still fairly good looking and it is still a more adult adventure than most CRPGs on the market today (and not just because of the sophomoric sex scenes). It just takes a lot more effort. * Wolfenstein Old Blood (replay) The Old Blood is a forgettable game, in that - just a week after finishing it - I'm having a hard time remembering any specifics about the title. I do remember that I generally enjoyed myself while playing it, but it doesn't stand out as one of the great classics. It's story was typical Michael Bay-ish bombast saddled with overly-serious narration that would make Max Payne blush in embarrassment and skewed with the over-the-top gunplay and gore. Similarly, for a game which lets you dual-wield chain-guns, it has an unusual reliance on stealth as a primary driver of its gameplay. That's probably because the actual gameplay was otherwise so short on diversity, lacking variety in guns and things to use said guns upon. Still, the graphics were colorful (in a Nazi-grey sort of way) and - while there weren't any outstanding set-pieces - engaging enough nonetheless. It's a solid B-list title that I played for a few hours as a palette cleanser between other, better games. * The Beginner's Guide (new) The Guide isn't a game. It's another one of those increasingly popular "walking simulator" narrative games. This one was created by the same developer of the amazingly funny "Stanley Parable", which was one of the few narrative games I actually feel is worth playing (but only once, since the magic is lost on replaying it). Unfortunately, The Beginner's Guide doesn't even offer that much. Purportedly an exploration of an avant garde game designer's own developmental history, it is arguably an autobiography or just a tale-tale. What it isn't, is particularly enjoyable as it consists entirely of walking through poorly rendered levels of never-released test-games while the narrator drones on at you. The biggest - and only - mystery is what it all means: was the developer, as the narrator insists, a misunderstood genius whose games were his only way of expressing his insecurities? Or was the "developer" just a representation of the narrator's own struggle with maintaining his creativity? Or is it something else? It's an interesting enough tangle that - fortunately - isn't wrapped up neatly by the end of the game but left to the player's own interpretation. Unfortunately, that is all the game has going for it. The "mini-games" aren't games at all, so there isn't anything to actually DO in this game except walk continually forward. There's no point to exploration since there's nothing to find, and the game (purposely) lacks in visual polish. It's all well and good to leave the meaning of the game up to the player, but that only works if the player cares enough about the product to spare it some thought. Unfortunately, the presentation was so tiresome that I just preferred to walk away from it and find something actually INTERESTING to think about. * Call of Duty Ghosts (new) There are currently 227 people playing COD: Ghosts on Steam; the servers are all empty and the few that have any players at all seem to be occupied entirely by griefers. Not that I care much about multiplayer, but you'll have to forgive me if I concentrate entirely on COD:Ghost's single-player mode. Which, of course, is going to consist entirely of bitching because - like all Call of Duty Games - the single-player in Ghosts is terrible. I know, moaning about the sub-par gameplay of the console-era Call of Duty games is like pointing out the brilliance of our nearest star or reminding everybody that water is surprisingly liquid, but I'm still surprised at how bad these games are. I mean, the developers pour tens of millions of dollars - the bulk of which go into the story mode - into these titles and I've never heard anyone - neither critic nor player - heap anything but scorn upon the single-player. The usual excuse is that people buy these games for their multiplayer, but I don't buy that; why spend so much on a game-mode nobody uses? There's obviously a significant segment that enjoys these stories. I will give the developers credit though; it's nice to play as the villain for once. The protagonists are brain-dead goons with severe daddy-issues working for a tyrannical empire with weapons of mass-destruction ready to be unleashed on the world. In a clever twist, you fight against the heroic rebels who turn those weapons against the evil empire, and - as protagonist - you are forced to use guerrilla and terrorist tactics to fight back against the underdog and.... wait, what? That's /not/ what the story is about? Because it sure felt like it. Despite all the rah-rah gung-ho America-is-awesome patriotic bullshit, it's hard not to feel as if I were the bad guy as I snuck into a city or unsuspecting enemy base and massacred and tortured the unsuspecting populace, especially after being shown that America had an orbital death-platform at the start of the game. And the hero got no points for smart, being - once again - completely unable to open doors without help and being punished if he strayed ever so slightly off the expected path. The game was so tightly scripted as to remove all agency from the player; it's almost as much a "walking simulator" as "The Beginner's Game" or "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter" (except at least those games allow you to wander about). I got so tired of it that I ultimately stopped even trying and I still finished the game. I ambled calmly through the hectic firefights when the game expected me to run; I didn't shoot the enemies except when I had to, and when I was forced to pull the trigger I did it haphazardly, never once using the iron sights. That I still got to the end of the game just goes to show how pointless my actual involvement was. Ghosts also felt oddly gimmicky, even for a Call of Duty game. In one mission, you are controlling a robot dog, in the next you have an remote sniper, then the usual death-from-above segments first popularized - and later overused - by the Modern Warfare games. I got the impression the developers were throwing anything at the wall, hoping one of these modes would "stick" by catching the interest of the player. None of them did. The game even featured a weird alien-shooting "horde mode" (not part of the main story line, fortunately) that felt so out-of-field that I was left more befuddled than engaged. Ghost's doesn't quite match the nadir of the franchise that was "Black Ops" but it does absolutely nothing to revitalize it either. I remain confused as to why this series has such prominence in the marketplace. -------------------- And that's how I wasted an August, rather than visiting the beach or hiking or kayaking like I really wanted to do instead. What about you? What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 13:17
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 13:17
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On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:10:49 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: Jeez, a few hours late and people start getting delusions of grandeur, thinking they can make their own "What are you playing" threads. I mean, this is a delicate and difficult art, starting a thread like this. Darn amateurs ;-) And it's not like I was /that/ late. I mean technically it still was the 1st of the month SOMEWHERE on earth when I posted ;-)
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 14:44
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 14:44
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Spalls Hurgenson wrote: > > * The Witcher 1 (replay) > I /really/ want to replay the third game of the series, but I've set > myself the goal of playing through the first two games first that I > might experience the totality of the entire saga (one of my issues > with my first play-through of the Witcher 3 was that I'd forgotten > much of the plot of Witcher 1 & 2. Unfortunately, neither of those > games were particular favorites of mine. Nonetheless, like a child > promised ice cream if he just finishes his Brussels sprouts, I > earnestly attempted to work my way through the older titles. > > Not that I truly disliked the first Witcher; in many ways, it felt > like a breath of fresh air when it was released in 2007. In an era > when Bioware-style RPGs dominated, its grey-on-grey morality and > meaningful choices were a refreshing change, and the scope of the game > is still impressive today. While many RPGs have you determine the fate > of a kingdom, few offered the same feeling of being able to determine > its soul as you navigated the treacherous political and > racially-charged waters of a nation on the brink of civil war and > genocide. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself was not as well-polished. > > The actual mechanics - while somewhat clunky - were acceptable; I got > to enjoy the combat - with its dependency on properly-timed > mouse-clicks- after a while just because watching the protagonist leap > and dance about as he slaughtered monsters was so much fun. The > alchemy - source of the hero's powers - was less fun, just because the > character's inventory was so small. An infinite stash was available to > hold the excess, but it was always so tedious to get to - usually four > or five loading screens and an annoying conversation away - that it > was frustrating to use. The maps were gorgeously rendered and > impressively sized - especially in comparison to many of the Witcher's > competitors of the time - but the game overstayed its welcome far too > long before opening up the next region. The swamp - where probably > half of the quests take place - very quickly became tedious. > > Worse, the story just couldn't support its own plot, with characters > and events being haphazardly introduced, then ignored for an act or > two, only to suddenly have relevance 20 or 30 hours of gameplay later. > This becomes much more noticeable in the late game, when I was thrust > into the political intrigue and realized I had no idea who most of the > people were, what their factions represented, or why I should care one > way or the other. There is a lot of useful detail provided in in-game > books and glossaries, but I found these dry and - thanks to the tiny > font - painful reading. There's a clever and mature tale buried in the > game but it does little to make it accessible to the player. > > Still, while playing The Witcher was often a tedious slog, it was > generally a rewarding one. Despite its age, the game was still fairly > good looking and it is still a more adult adventure than most CRPGs on > the market today (and not just because of the sophomoric sex scenes). > It just takes a lot more effort. Witcher is one of those game I should like but don't, much like PS:T. It's also one of the few (perhaps only?) games I gave up on returned to later and actually finished, unlike PS:T which I never could get through. The gameplay I just found unforgivably bad, extremely poor combat, MMO style crafting-grind, and walls of text of 'history' etc. as written by wannabe poor writers. So #3 is better? Is it worth checking out considering my gripes with #1, should I skip #2? I never played #2 as #1 just wasn't for me and I had no desire to repeat the process. > -------------------- > And that's how I wasted an August, rather than visiting the beach or > hiking or kayaking like I really wanted to do instead. What about you? Sounds like you didn't play anything really enjoyable. Better luck in September! > > What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016? Um. *looks sideways* *mumble mumble* look over there \/ - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 15:16
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 15:16
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On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 09:17:33 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:10:49 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: > >Jeez, a few hours late and people start getting delusions of grandeur, >thinking they can make their own "What are you playing" threads. I >mean, this is a delicate and difficult art, starting a thread like >this. Darn amateurs ;-) > >And it's not like I was /that/ late. I mean technically it still was >the 1st of the month SOMEWHERE on earth when I posted ;-) Consider it a societal correction and a lesson in tardiness? ;)
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 17:50
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 17:50
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On Fri, 2 Sep 2016 07:44:43 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote: >Spalls Hurgenson wrote: >Um. *looks sideways* *mumble mumble* look over there \/ Never! That's the imposter thread! ;-)
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Dimensional Traveler
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 19:56
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 19:56
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I played ... the same two games I played in July. WiTP Admiral's Edition and Wizardry 6. I don't have the money to buy a new PC that would handle the new games even if I had the money to be buying new games. And based on the number of games I see others playing here I obviously don't have enough free time. :) -- Now taking submissions for the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey for Summer 2016
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Tim O
Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2016 11:04
Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2016 11:04
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On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:10:49 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >Me first. > >-------------------- >Short and Sweet >-------------------- >* SOMA (continued from last month) >* Planetbase (new) >* The Witcher 1 (replay) >* Wolfenstein Old Blood (replay) >* The Beginner's Guide (new) >* Call of Duty Ghosts (new) >And that's how I wasted an August, rather than visiting the beach or >hiking or kayaking like I really wanted to do instead. What about you? > >What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016? Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. I'm still checking here to see whats up, so I can't say I've quit PC gaming but also don't feel like I've missed anything. Until some giant sandbox FPS comes out (I hope Ubi learned a lesson from the bombing of that dumb caveman shit), I'm content to live vicariously through this thead. Happy Labor Day!
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: rri... Ross Ridge
Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2016 16:43
Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2016 16:43
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Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >In 1994, Sierra released an little game called "Outpost", that >promised to let us fulfill all our sci-fi fantasies of creating our >own colonies on far-off worlds. With impressive SVGA graphics, >attention to realism and gameplay liberally cribbed from the >award-winning SimCity games, it was expected to be one of the great >classic games of the era. However, Outpost is now better remembered >for unfulfilled promises and technical ineptitude so bad that even its >sequel distanced itself from the original title's gameplay by becoming >an RTS. The city-builder-in-space genre has remained relatively barren >ever since... Oh, yah, Outpost, or Outhouse as it was often called here on the newsgroups back in the day, is another contender for the if-the-Internet-were-as-big over hyped game category. I bought into the hype and almost bought the game depsite the negative reviews it got here. Fortunately, as I was taking the copy I was going to buy to the cash register I realised that it was used copy and balked at paying nearly full price for it. I ended up going to a different store and getting Alien Legacy instead, the other 1994 Sierra title that lets you create colonies on far-off worlds. It has its own problems but it pretty much tops my "overlooked gems" list. Its city building mechanics are pretty simplistic, it doesn't matter where you put a building for instance, but I don't know of any other game that has you mananging mutliple colonies across an entire solar system. The biggest difference from Outpost is that there's actually a story giving purpose to the game. You're trying to build up your colonies and balance their needs while figuring out why the colony ship that arrived before you vanished with barely a trace. >Still, while playing The Witcher was often a tedious slog, it was >generally a rewarding one. Despite its age, the game was still fairly >good looking and it is still a more adult adventure than most CRPGs on >the market today (and not just because of the sophomoric sex scenes). >It just takes a lot more effort. One thing about The Witcher 1 that stood out for me was those sex scenes. Not the the scenes themselves, but the effort you had to go through to see some of them. Convincing a couple of the girls to sleep with you were effectively optional quests in the game. And unlike many side quests or even story quests sometimes, it's not hard to see why your character would actually motivated to do them. I was disappointed that they didn't expand on this in the sequel. Ross Ridge -- l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU [oo][oo] rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca -()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ db //
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: MetalGuru
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2016 20:06
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2016 20:06
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On 9/3/2016 7:04 AM, Tim O wrote: > > Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only > game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. This program has been on my radar since it came out but I haven't touched an electric guitar in more than 5 years, I only play acoustic ones with nylon strings nowadays. I wonder if that would also work with an aftermarket acoustic pickup? Also I'm no Jimmy Page but I get the impression this is geared mostly toward beginners? And I have no interest in rock/pop anymore, do you know if they have DLC's for things like jazz and classical stuff as well? > I'm still checking here to see whats up, so I can't say I've quit PC > gaming but also don't feel like I've missed anything. Until some giant > sandbox FPS comes out (I hope Ubi learned a lesson from the bombing of > that dumb caveman shit), I'm content to live vicariously through this > thead. I thought I'd never say this but Far Cry Primal in survival mode is a lot of fun, I had to get that game just for that after watching a let's play on YT. The single player mode is your typical Ubi formula with a different skin, but give survival mode a whirl if you haven't already. (Don't worry, there's very little of that crafting shit involved which is something I hate with passion - and so do you, IIRC).
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Anssi Saari
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 07:33
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 07:33
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Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes: > What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016? Huh, it's end of August already? And here I was thinking about getting around to writing this for July... Oh well. So, anyways, I had been thinking about a GPU update for while (from a GTX 670) and what do you know, some last 980Ti cards were going relatively cheaply so snapped one up. Kinda boring though, Fraps just shows a steady 60 fps mostly :) I guess I'll have get one of the GSync monitors. * Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Only started the first mission. Had fun sneaking around and trying to stun everyone but things got weird, all the little pickable objects started floating at waist level and then some more serious rendering stuff started to happen so I couldn't tell wall from door and progress got impossible. Had to restart since this situation was included in the save game. Otherwise it's what I wanted, which was more Deus Ex. Even if it's just Human Revolution with less warts like some reviewer put it. * The Talos Principle (July) Eventually got through all the basic puzzles. I was quite surprised, I was quite stuck on some for a long time but eventually managed all. I guess I'll have to think about the DLC or doing the extra star puzzles of which I have only 2/30. * GTA V Picked up my old save which was just after all the intro stuff and started playing again. It feels good. Did the first heist, went crazy as Trevor, reached Los Santos with him. We'll see but I think I'll finish it this time. I guess I've needed a longer break from GTA anything as it actually seems fun now.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Tim O
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 12:10
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 12:10
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On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 16:06:29 -0400, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> wrote: >On 9/3/2016 7:04 AM, Tim O wrote: >> >> Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only >> game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. > >This program has been on my radar since it came out but I haven't >touched an electric guitar in more than 5 years, I only play acoustic >ones with nylon strings nowadays. I wonder if that would also work with >an aftermarket acoustic pickup? >Also I'm no Jimmy Page but I get the impression this is geared mostly >toward beginners? And I have no interest in rock/pop anymore, do you >know if they have DLC's for things like jazz and classical stuff as well? I think it will accept anything with a 1/4" output. As long as Rocksmith can recognize your notes when you tune, it will work. I watched a video of someone playing it with a MIDI piano. There are plenty of easy songs (and lessons) along with the dynamic difficulty which replaces chords with single notes until it detects you hitting them consistently, but its definitely not all beginner music. Plenty of Barre chorded songs and Eric Johnsons Cliffs Of Dover is in there (yikes!). If you're on the fence about it, I suggest snagging 2014 soon. A version called Remastered is coming out in October which will be a free upgrade if you already own it. The standard version is going to be gone and its replacement will be full price for a while. The PC version has a huge underground of custom DLC. Ubisoft doesn't support it, but they also haven't done anything to prevent it since the people in this community remove any custom material that becomes official DLC. www.customsforge.com Look in the CDLC Ignition area for a list. Its pretty mind-blowing. >> I'm still checking here to see whats up, so I can't say I've quit PC >> gaming but also don't feel like I've missed anything. Until some giant >> sandbox FPS comes out (I hope Ubi learned a lesson from the bombing of >> that dumb caveman shit), I'm content to live vicariously through this >> thead. > >I thought I'd never say this but Far Cry Primal in survival mode is a >lot of fun, I had to get that game just for that after watching a let's >play on YT. The single player mode is your typical Ubi formula with a >different skin, but give survival mode a whirl if you haven't already. >(Don't worry, there's very little of that crafting shit involved which >is something I hate with passion - and so do you, IIRC). I guess I might give it a chance when the price drops to 15 bucks or something. Archery was never my favorite thing in 3 or 4, but I did use it for a couple hundred hours in Skyrim. :-/ I do hate crafting. The Far Cry version was so tacked on that it never really bothered me. Basically just killing critters to make bigger ammo bags. Hah.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 13:04
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 13:04
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On 2016-09-04, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On 9/3/2016 7:04 AM, Tim O wrote: >> >> Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only >> game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. > > This program has been on my radar since it came out but I haven't > touched an electric guitar in more than 5 years, I only play acoustic > ones with nylon strings nowadays. I wonder if that would also work with > an aftermarket acoustic pickup? I play it with a steel string acoustic which has a Fishman Isys+ pickup. Works well but you have to play at moderate level and trim the bass or it feeds back. > Also I'm no Jimmy Page but I get the impression this is geared mostly > toward beginners? And I have no interest in rock/pop anymore, do you > know if they have DLC's for things like jazz and classical stuff as > well? The clue is in the name: Rocksmith. It's all rock music. The PC version supports user-made DLC so some people may have put some classical in there, have a look. -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 14:52
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 14:52
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On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:33:49 +0300, Anssi Saari <a...@sci.fi> wrote: >* GTA V > >Picked up my old save which was just after all the intro stuff and >started playing again. It feels good. Did the first heist, went crazy as >Trevor, reached Los Santos with him. We'll see but I think I'll finish >it this time. I guess I've needed a longer break from GTA anything as it >actually seems fun now. Your new card might be contributing to the fun factor more than you realize (depending on what your framerates were like with your old card). Just wait till you get a Gsync monitor ;) Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need for a reference point for comparison. With the upper-performing GPUs of the last couple of years, combined with Gsync, its largely become a non-issue in gaming for me, as I rarely have to worry about it. Stuttering, tearing, etc. all gone, as issues. It kind of reminds me of the old days when things like IRQ and DMA conflicts were causing problems in a lot of games. So, rather than understand the problem and either fix it yourself or wait for the technology itself to catch up with a solution, a lot of people just gave up, concluded that PC gaming sucked 15-20 years ago, and went console. I actually know guys who still avoid PC gaming for this reason (bad memories of dicking around with card jumpers and spending more time fixing hardware than playing). The only thing now is that instead of spending a lot of time tweaking video and optimizing FPS, I am now left to simply evaluate the game based on whether or not it's worth playing :) And sometimes that doesn't work out well for the title and ends up in a Steam refund.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Werner Punz
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 09:16
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 09:16
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Not to much, hey it is August. One thing I did was to buy myself a really cheap used PS3 to catch up on PS3 titles. The first game I now have been playing on this system is an old love of mine which I never finished on the Wii and which simply never really will run properly on PC emulators Okami, the PS3 is the only system which has this game in HD and as I said no emulator really emulates this game perfectly yet. (Tried it on a Wii emulator and a PS2 emu, the PS2 emu runs somewhat better but some spells are a pain due to positioning problems caused by the emu). Also Capcom basically has written this game off and will never port it to another system again, I guess. Also although the developers want to do a big sequel (there is a small one for the NDS) it wont happen, I guess. A short description of a game. Okami originated on the PS2 in its last days and is one of the gems of this system. It is basically a Zelda clone from Clover Studios (which is now Platinum games) but the thing is it is better than Zelda in many aspects. You basically play a wolf godess and the entire game focues around beating the usual evil which has overtaken the land of Nippon. The art style is cell shaded japanese paintings and the games fights and puzzles solving is centered around spells, which you can cast by drawing symbols to a paper (similar to what Arx Fatalis did) The game itself is a uniuque mix of artstyle and 3d zeldaish gameplay. Unfortunately it is such a nieche game that almost no one played it. Capcom tried to recover the costs by porting it to several systems. The PS2 the PS3 and the Wii. With the PS3 version being the only HD version so far in existence. Unfortunately this game will never see a pc port, the spellcasting system would be perfect for the mouse and there are not to many Zeldaish games on the PC anyway, so it is playing it on the console for now. If you have the chance check out this game, it is worth it. Werner Am 02.09.16 um 10:10 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson: > It's been a weird summer here. The weather has varied from unbearably > hot to cool and rainy, often alternating between the two on a daily > basis. It's made it hell to actually enjoy the outdoors - whenever I > have the time to go into the great outdoors, the weather has > inevitably shifted to the worse, while all gorgeous days seem to > happen when I'm stuck in the office. The end result is that I spent > more days than was probably healthy sitting inside playing computer > games. Not that's a bad thing, of course. > > So, another month passed and here we are in our usual thread. So let's > just get to it and share our play-lists already; you all know the > drill. > > Me first. > > -------------------- > Short and Sweet > -------------------- > * SOMA (continued from last month) > * Planetbase (new) > * The Witcher 1 (replay) > * Wolfenstein Old Blood (replay) > * The Beginner's Guide (new) > * Call of Duty Ghosts (new) > > TL; DR > ---------- > > * SOMA (continued from last month) > I had a hard time finishing SOMA, despite how much I enjoyed the first > half of the game. The game still sweats atmosphere, and its story is - > if not particularly novel - at least interesting enough to keep me > playing (although the stupidity of a protagonist unable to grasp the > situation despite having it explained to him three times did grate). > But it was the stealth gameplay - which took far greater prominence in > the latter half of the game - that ultimately soured the experience. > > The problem isn't the stealthing itself, although the lack of options > and variety were somewhat troublesome. The actual mechanic worked well > enough. Rather, it was the enforced powerlessness that quickly became > tiresome. You can't fight the monster, so all you can do is run and > hide... and after a few such encounters this very rapidly becomes > tiresome. Even worse is the idea that you can't even look at the > monster without going insane (sorry, electro-magnetically corrupted). > It's a game about cowering in a corner and waiting endlessly for the > monster to pass. There are better ways of making a player feel > vulnerable; rather, I just felt bored. > > Still, the game was rather pretty (in a gory sort of way), and the > mood of the game was wonderfully portrayed. The exploration was fun; I > just dreaded the encounters with the monsters, and not in the way the > developers had hoped. It might have been more bearable in shorter > bursts, but at a cost to its wonderful atmosphere. > > > * Planetbase (new) > In 1994, Sierra released an little game called "Outpost", that > promised to let us fulfill all our sci-fi fantasies of creating our > own colonies on far-off worlds. With impressive SVGA graphics, > attention to realism and gameplay liberally cribbed from the > award-winning SimCity games, it was expected to be one of the great > classic games of the era. However, Outpost is now better remembered > for unfulfilled promises and technical ineptitude so bad that even its > sequel distanced itself from the original title's gameplay by becoming > an RTS. The city-builder-in-space genre has remained relatively barren > ever since... > > But playing Planetbase, I'm reminded more of Outpost than might be > assumed from the superficial similarities. Planetbase is - fortunately > - nowhere near as buggy as that infamous game but it does suffer from > another commonality: a lack of content. Don't get me wrong; the first > hour of gameplay is quite fun as you struggle to create a > self-sufficient base, tacking together habitation, utility and > production modules. Early carelessness can cost you the game before > you even get started. But once you get past the first hurdle, the > difficulty curve effectively disappears and the only "challenge" is > how big a base you want to build. Even that isn't particularly > engaging given the limited size of the map and the tiny scale; after > ten hours, my base covered half the map and topped out at a population > of about 300. The lack of tiles is a significant problem; there are > only around 20 structures to choose from, and they you'll have built > at least one of each within the first hour. Each structure can be > individually furnished, but once again, there just aren't enough > furnishings to play with. The game is also hamstrung by how severely > it limits where you can place each structure. Equally, it is > exceedingly difficult to raze-n-rebuild if you want to streamline your > design later. > > Also similar to Outpost, the game lacks comprehensive and detailed > information about your colony; there isn't, for instance, an easy way > to determine how many resources I have, or how many biologists versus > workers versus engineers I have (what charts the game does offer is > full of un-intuitive icons rather than easy-to-understand text). Its > interacting systems are also disappointingly simple, which is another > reason the game lacks any real challenge. The AI is also fairly > stupid, and I had colonists die of starvation rather than walk two > rooms over to eat from the fully-stocked canteen. Planetbase does > throw a few "disasters" at you but - again - these are both so mild > (and your inability to actually do anything about them) that you can > pretty much ignore them. > > In the end, Planetbase feels like an early-access game in early alpha, > one where they intend to add more content later once... except its > being sold as a finalized product. It's a disappointing product all > around... and thus well deserving of assuming Outpost's long-vacant > throne. > > > * The Witcher 1 (replay) > I /really/ want to replay the third game of the series, but I've set > myself the goal of playing through the first two games first that I > might experience the totality of the entire saga (one of my issues > with my first play-through of the Witcher 3 was that I'd forgotten > much of the plot of Witcher 1 & 2. Unfortunately, neither of those > games were particular favorites of mine. Nonetheless, like a child > promised ice cream if he just finishes his Brussels sprouts, I > earnestly attempted to work my way through the older titles. > > Not that I truly disliked the first Witcher; in many ways, it felt > like a breath of fresh air when it was released in 2007. In an era > when Bioware-style RPGs dominated, its grey-on-grey morality and > meaningful choices were a refreshing change, and the scope of the game > is still impressive today. While many RPGs have you determine the fate > of a kingdom, few offered the same feeling of being able to determine > its soul as you navigated the treacherous political and > racially-charged waters of a nation on the brink of civil war and > genocide. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself was not as well-polished. > > The actual mechanics - while somewhat clunky - were acceptable; I got > to enjoy the combat - with its dependency on properly-timed > mouse-clicks- after a while just because watching the protagonist leap > and dance about as he slaughtered monsters was so much fun. The > alchemy - source of the hero's powers - was less fun, just because the > character's inventory was so small. An infinite stash was available to > hold the excess, but it was always so tedious to get to - usually four > or five loading screens and an annoying conversation away - that it > was frustrating to use. The maps were gorgeously rendered and > impressively sized - especially in comparison to many of the Witcher's > competitors of the time - but the game overstayed its welcome far too > long before opening up the next region. The swamp - where probably > half of the quests take place - very quickly became tedious. > > Worse, the story just couldn't support its own plot, with characters > and events being haphazardly introduced, then ignored for an act or > two, only to suddenly have relevance 20 or 30 hours of gameplay later. > This becomes much more noticeable in the late game, when I was thrust > into the political intrigue and realized I had no idea who most of the > people were, what their factions represented, or why I should care one > way or the other. There is a lot of useful detail provided in in-game > books and glossaries, but I found these dry and - thanks to the tiny > font - painful reading. There's a clever and mature tale buried in the > game but it does little to make it accessible to the player. > > Still, while playing The Witcher was often a tedious slog, it was > generally a rewarding one. Despite its age, the game was still fairly > good looking and it is still a more adult adventure than most CRPGs on > the market today (and not just because of the sophomoric sex scenes). > It just takes a lot more effort. > > > * Wolfenstein Old Blood (replay) > The Old Blood is a forgettable game, in that - just a week after > finishing it - I'm having a hard time remembering any specifics about > the title. I do remember that I generally enjoyed myself while playing > it, but it doesn't stand out as one of the great classics. It's story > was typical Michael Bay-ish bombast saddled with overly-serious > narration that would make Max Payne blush in embarrassment and skewed > with the over-the-top gunplay and gore. Similarly, for a game which > lets you dual-wield chain-guns, it has an unusual reliance on stealth > as a primary driver of its gameplay. That's probably because the > actual gameplay was otherwise so short on diversity, lacking variety > in guns and things to use said guns upon. Still, the graphics were > colorful (in a Nazi-grey > sort of way) and - while there weren't any outstanding set-pieces - > engaging enough nonetheless. It's a solid B-list title that I played > for a few hours as a palette cleanser between other, better games. > > > * The Beginner's Guide (new) > The Guide isn't a game. It's another one of those increasingly popular > "walking simulator" narrative games. This one was created by the same > developer of the amazingly funny "Stanley Parable", which was one of > the few narrative games I actually feel is worth playing (but only > once, since the magic is lost on replaying it). Unfortunately, The > Beginner's Guide doesn't even offer that much. > > Purportedly an exploration of an avant garde game designer's own > developmental history, it is arguably an autobiography or just a > tale-tale. What it isn't, is particularly enjoyable as it consists > entirely of walking through poorly rendered levels of never-released > test-games while the narrator drones on at you. The biggest - and only > - mystery is what it all means: was the developer, as the narrator > insists, a misunderstood genius whose games were his only way of > expressing his insecurities? Or was the "developer" just a > representation of the narrator's own struggle with maintaining his > creativity? Or is it something else? It's an interesting enough tangle > that - fortunately - isn't wrapped up neatly by the end of the game > but left to the player's own interpretation. Unfortunately, that is > all the game has going for it. The "mini-games" aren't games at all, > so there isn't anything to actually DO in this game except walk > continually forward. There's no point to exploration since there's > nothing to find, and the game (purposely) lacks in visual polish. It's > all well and good to leave the meaning of the game up to the player, > but that only works if the player cares enough about the product to > spare it some thought. Unfortunately, the presentation was so tiresome > that I just preferred to walk away from it and find something actually > INTERESTING to think about. > > > * Call of Duty Ghosts (new) > There are currently 227 people playing COD: Ghosts on Steam; the > servers are all empty and the few that have any players at all seem to > be occupied entirely by griefers. Not that I care much about > multiplayer, but you'll have to forgive me if I concentrate entirely > on COD:Ghost's single-player mode. > > Which, of course, is going to consist entirely of bitching because - > like all Call of Duty Games - the single-player in Ghosts is terrible. > I know, moaning about the sub-par gameplay of the console-era Call of > Duty games is like pointing out the brilliance of our nearest star or > reminding everybody that water is surprisingly liquid, but I'm still > surprised at how bad these games are. I mean, the developers pour tens > of millions of dollars - the bulk of which go into the story mode - > into these titles and I've never heard anyone - neither critic nor > player - heap anything but scorn upon the single-player. The usual > excuse is that people buy these games for their multiplayer, but I > don't buy that; why spend so much on a game-mode nobody uses? There's > obviously a significant segment that enjoys these stories. > > I will give the developers credit though; it's nice to play as the > villain for once. The protagonists are brain-dead goons with severe > daddy-issues working for a tyrannical empire with weapons of > mass-destruction ready to be unleashed on the world. In a clever > twist, you fight against the heroic rebels who turn those weapons > against the evil empire, and - as protagonist - you are forced to use > guerrilla and terrorist tactics to fight back against the underdog > and.... wait, what? That's /not/ what the story is about? Because it > sure felt like it. Despite all the rah-rah gung-ho America-is-awesome > patriotic bullshit, it's hard not to feel as if I were the bad guy as > I snuck into a city or unsuspecting enemy base and massacred and > tortured the unsuspecting populace, especially after being shown that > America had an orbital death-platform at the start of the game. And > the hero got no points for smart, being - once again - completely > unable to open doors without help and being punished if he strayed > ever so slightly off the expected path. The game was so tightly > scripted as to remove all agency from the player; it's almost as much > a "walking simulator" as "The Beginner's Game" or "The Vanishing of > Ethan Carter" (except at least those games allow you to wander about). > I got so tired of it that I ultimately stopped even trying and I still > finished the game. I ambled calmly through the hectic firefights when > the game expected me to run; I didn't shoot the enemies except when I > had to, and when I was forced to pull the trigger I did it > haphazardly, never once using the iron sights. That I still got to the > end of the game just goes to show how pointless my actual involvement > was. > > Ghosts also felt oddly gimmicky, even for a Call of Duty game. In one > mission, you are controlling a robot dog, in the next you have an > remote sniper, then the usual death-from-above segments first > popularized - and later overused - by the Modern Warfare games. I got > the impression the developers were throwing anything at the wall, > hoping one of these modes would "stick" by catching the interest of > the player. None of them did. The game even featured a weird > alien-shooting "horde mode" (not part of the main story line, > fortunately) that felt so out-of-field that I was left more befuddled > than engaged. > > Ghost's doesn't quite match the nadir of the franchise that was "Black > Ops" but it does absolutely nothing to revitalize it either. I remain > confused as to why this series has such prominence in the marketplace. > > > -------------------- > And that's how I wasted an August, rather than visiting the beach or > hiking or kayaking like I really wanted to do instead. What about you? > > What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016? >
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 13:14
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 13:14
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On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >for a reference point for comparison. In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 should be enough for anyone ;-)
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 13:28
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 13:28
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On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh ><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: > >>Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>for a reference point for comparison. > > In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of > /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I > notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. 20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? > Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing > difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't > get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 > should be enough for anyone ;-) 60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late 30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Werner Punz
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 14:18
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 14:18
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Am 06.09.16 um 15:14 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson: > On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh > <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: > Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing > difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't > get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 > should be enough for anyone ;-) Heck I am 45 and I still can see a huge difference between HD and UHD. It really depends on the screen size and on your eyes / glasses and distance.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:19
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:19
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On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> wrote: >On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >> >>>Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>for a reference point for comparison. >> >> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. > >20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? > >> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >> should be enough for anyone ;-) > >60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the nature of the contest at hand.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:28
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:28
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On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 16:18:20 +0200, Werner Punz <we...@gmx.at> wrote: >Am 06.09.16 um 15:14 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson: >> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: > >> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >> should be enough for anyone ;-) > >Heck I am 45 and I still can see a huge difference between HD and UHD. >It really depends on the screen size and on your eyes / glasses and >distance. Yes. Undeniable difference between viewing something even in just HD vs Bluray on a decent sized screen, and it greatly impacts the viewing experience because assuming reasonable eyesight you sometimes notice differences in actors portrayal of emotions. At 55" for my living room TV I doubt if I would notice the difference between 1080p and UHD at 15 or so feet away, but I have no trouble believing the difference would be jaw dropping with a screen of much larger size, or with a closer viewing distance.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:36
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:36
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On Tue, 06 Sep 2016 09:14:28 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh ><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: > >>Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>for a reference point for comparison. > >In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >/stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. Stability of framerates are important. But, for example if you're getting an solid 30fps, most likely what is happening is adaptation to the frame rate. If you played that side by side with a game with an unwavering 90fps, then went back to the 30fps, assuming it is a game with a wide mouse movement heatmap (see my other post in thread about this), you would certainly see the difference if your eyesight is still good. About framerates jumping all over, yes this can be a problem without adaptive sync technology like Gsync, because for example if you're playing at a buttery 120fps but you keep dropping to 100fps on a monitor that's refreshing at 120hz, you've got tearing and stuttering issues to contend with because of the disparity between frame rendering and refresh rate (noticable in some games and not others). That's the problem that Gsync/Freesync fixes. So, once you go with an adaptive frame rate monitor, the game could fluctuate constantly between 75fps and the upper monitor limit of 144fps (capped there because of the monitor 144hz limit), and you will never know it because the Gsync board is keeping everything matched up. Back to buttery smoothness :) >Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. Perhaps but I'm no spring chicken and can confirm the difference is like night and day :)
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: MetalGuru
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 06:10
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 06:10
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On 9/5/2016 8:10 AM, Tim O wrote: > On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 16:06:29 -0400, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > >> On 9/3/2016 7:04 AM, Tim O wrote: >>> >>> Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only >>> game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. >> >> This program has been on my radar since it came out but I haven't >> touched an electric guitar in more than 5 years, I only play acoustic >> ones with nylon strings nowadays. I wonder if that would also work with >> an aftermarket acoustic pickup? >> Also I'm no Jimmy Page but I get the impression this is geared mostly >> toward beginners? And I have no interest in rock/pop anymore, do you >> know if they have DLC's for things like jazz and classical stuff as well? > > I think it will accept anything with a 1/4" output. As long as > Rocksmith can recognize your notes when you tune, it will work. I > watched a video of someone playing it with a MIDI piano. > > There are plenty of easy songs (and lessons) along with the dynamic > difficulty which replaces chords with single notes until it detects > you hitting them consistently, but its definitely not all beginner > music. Plenty of Barre chorded songs and Eric Johnsons Cliffs Of Dover > is in there (yikes!). > > If you're on the fence about it, I suggest snagging 2014 soon. A > version called Remastered is coming out in October which will be a > free upgrade if you already own it. The standard version is going to > be gone and its replacement will be full price for a while. > > The PC version has a huge underground of custom DLC. Ubisoft doesn't > support it, but they also haven't done anything to prevent it since > the people in this community remove any custom material that becomes > official DLC. www.customsforge.com > > Look in the CDLC Ignition area for a list. Its pretty mind-blowing. Ubi's uPlay had this game for $10 yesterday, whereas the price was $39.99 everywhere else (without the cable). Decided to wait until I got home to buy it and today the price has jumped back up to $39.99 for some reason :( It's all good since I didn't really like what I saw from a few let's plays on YT. That colorful highway like interface with the notes coming at you is not exactly what I thought this program would be like. It looked very game-y, and for some reason I was expecting something more along the lines of Band in a Box (ever tried that one? I don't even know if it's still around but I used to love it). If the cable wasn't so expensive I'd probably still get it on sale and mess around with it for an hour or two but that would be about it. Thanks much for the info though, I appreciate it.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: MetalGuru
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 06:19
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 06:19
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On 9/5/2016 9:04 AM, Toby Newman wrote: > On 2016-09-04, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> On 9/3/2016 7:04 AM, Tim O wrote: >>> >>> Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only >>> game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. >> >> This program has been on my radar since it came out but I haven't >> touched an electric guitar in more than 5 years, I only play acoustic >> ones with nylon strings nowadays. I wonder if that would also work with >> an aftermarket acoustic pickup? > > I play it with a steel string acoustic which has a Fishman Isys+ > pickup. Works well but you have to play at moderate level and trim the > bass or it feeds back. > >> Also I'm no Jimmy Page but I get the impression this is geared mostly >> toward beginners? And I have no interest in rock/pop anymore, do you >> know if they have DLC's for things like jazz and classical stuff as >> well? > > The clue is in the name: Rocksmith. It's all rock music. The PC > version supports user-made DLC so some people may have put some > classical in there, have a look. Yeah, I didn't like what I saw on YT and decided to give it a pass for now. Thanks for the info.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 08:06
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 08:06
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On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> > wrote: > >>On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>>Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>for a reference point for comparison. >>> >>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >> >>20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >> >>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >> >>60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. > > Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that > beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. > > It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or > Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of > it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like > slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first > person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. > > An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action > is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves > panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more > like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be > prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a > building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and > proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying > aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps > for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the > typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the > difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. > > It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they > aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the > nature of the contest at hand. I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", above a certain FPS threshold. Try VR and you'll find the framerate becomes even more crucial. -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Tim O
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 10:04
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 10:04
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On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 02:10:08 -0400, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> wrote: >On 9/5/2016 8:10 AM, Tim O wrote: >> On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 16:06:29 -0400, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> >> wrote: >> >>> On 9/3/2016 7:04 AM, Tim O wrote: >>>> >>>> Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only >>>> game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. >>> >>> This program has been on my radar since it came out but I haven't >>> touched an electric guitar in more than 5 years, I only play acoustic >>> ones with nylon strings nowadays. I wonder if that would also work with >>> an aftermarket acoustic pickup? >>> Also I'm no Jimmy Page but I get the impression this is geared mostly >>> toward beginners? And I have no interest in rock/pop anymore, do you >>> know if they have DLC's for things like jazz and classical stuff as well? >> >> I think it will accept anything with a 1/4" output. As long as >> Rocksmith can recognize your notes when you tune, it will work. I >> watched a video of someone playing it with a MIDI piano. >> >> There are plenty of easy songs (and lessons) along with the dynamic >> difficulty which replaces chords with single notes until it detects >> you hitting them consistently, but its definitely not all beginner >> music. Plenty of Barre chorded songs and Eric Johnsons Cliffs Of Dover >> is in there (yikes!). >> >> If you're on the fence about it, I suggest snagging 2014 soon. A >> version called Remastered is coming out in October which will be a >> free upgrade if you already own it. The standard version is going to >> be gone and its replacement will be full price for a while. >> >> The PC version has a huge underground of custom DLC. Ubisoft doesn't >> support it, but they also haven't done anything to prevent it since >> the people in this community remove any custom material that becomes >> official DLC. www.customsforge.com >> >> Look in the CDLC Ignition area for a list. Its pretty mind-blowing. > >Ubi's uPlay had this game for $10 yesterday, whereas the price was >$39.99 everywhere else (without the cable). Decided to wait until I got >home to buy it and today the price has jumped back up to $39.99 for some >reason :( > >It's all good since I didn't really like what I saw from a few let's >plays on YT. That colorful highway like interface with the notes coming >at you is not exactly what I thought this program would be like. It >looked very game-y, and for some reason I was expecting something more >along the lines of Band in a Box (ever tried that one? I don't even know >if it's still around but I used to love it). > >If the cable wasn't so expensive I'd probably still get it on sale and >mess around with it for an hour or two but that would be about it. > >Thanks much for the info though, I appreciate it. I wasn't familiar with Band In A Box, but you're correct in that it looks a lot more like a utility than a game. Rocksmiths Guitar Hero like presentation is sort of why I'm lumping it in with the game discussion here, even though it sort of skirts genres. Sort of an action game with the most unintitive controller ever. :-) There is a great utility built into Rocksmith that doesn't get much attention compared to the main game. Its called Riff Repeater and lets you slow down and repeat sections of songs to get used to playing them outside the game. I can see this eventually being the main part of it that I use. I'm sort of playing the "campaign" now because it unlocks songs if you do the missions. That sounds terrible, but its mostly stuff like trying a new song or increasing accuracy in a song you play a lot. There is another game on Steam that I saw and put in my wishlist so I wouldn't forget about it. Its called FourChords, I think its a little less game-y than Rocksmith and its only $15.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 10:32
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 10:32
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On 2016-09-07, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote: > On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 02:10:08 -0400, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > >>On 9/5/2016 8:10 AM, Tim O wrote: >>> On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 16:06:29 -0400, MetalGuru <notmy...@yahoo.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 9/3/2016 7:04 AM, Tim O wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Crusty old arcade games is pretty much it! Rocksmith is the only >>>>> game-ish thing I've done on the PC for the second month in a row. >>>> >>>> This program has been on my radar since it came out but I haven't >>>> touched an electric guitar in more than 5 years, I only play acoustic >>>> ones with nylon strings nowadays. I wonder if that would also work with >>>> an aftermarket acoustic pickup? >>>> Also I'm no Jimmy Page but I get the impression this is geared mostly >>>> toward beginners? And I have no interest in rock/pop anymore, do you >>>> know if they have DLC's for things like jazz and classical stuff as well? >>> >>> I think it will accept anything with a 1/4" output. As long as >>> Rocksmith can recognize your notes when you tune, it will work. I >>> watched a video of someone playing it with a MIDI piano. >>> >>> There are plenty of easy songs (and lessons) along with the dynamic >>> difficulty which replaces chords with single notes until it detects >>> you hitting them consistently, but its definitely not all beginner >>> music. Plenty of Barre chorded songs and Eric Johnsons Cliffs Of Dover >>> is in there (yikes!). >>> >>> If you're on the fence about it, I suggest snagging 2014 soon. A >>> version called Remastered is coming out in October which will be a >>> free upgrade if you already own it. The standard version is going to >>> be gone and its replacement will be full price for a while. >>> >>> The PC version has a huge underground of custom DLC. Ubisoft doesn't >>> support it, but they also haven't done anything to prevent it since >>> the people in this community remove any custom material that becomes >>> official DLC. www.customsforge.com >>> >>> Look in the CDLC Ignition area for a list. Its pretty mind-blowing. >> >>Ubi's uPlay had this game for $10 yesterday, whereas the price was >>$39.99 everywhere else (without the cable). Decided to wait until I got >>home to buy it and today the price has jumped back up to $39.99 for some >>reason :( >> >>It's all good since I didn't really like what I saw from a few let's >>plays on YT. That colorful highway like interface with the notes coming >>at you is not exactly what I thought this program would be like. It >>looked very game-y, and for some reason I was expecting something more >>along the lines of Band in a Box (ever tried that one? I don't even know >>if it's still around but I used to love it). >> >>If the cable wasn't so expensive I'd probably still get it on sale and >>mess around with it for an hour or two but that would be about it. >> >>Thanks much for the info though, I appreciate it. > > I wasn't familiar with Band In A Box, but you're correct in that it > looks a lot more like a utility than a game. Rocksmiths Guitar Hero > like presentation is sort of why I'm lumping it in with the game > discussion here, even though it sort of skirts genres. Sort of an > action game with the most unintitive controller ever. :-) > > There is a great utility built into Rocksmith that doesn't get much > attention compared to the main game. Its called Riff Repeater and lets > you slow down and repeat sections of songs to get used to playing them > outside the game. I can see this eventually being the main part of it > that I use. I'm sort of playing the "campaign" now because it unlocks > songs if you do the missions. That sounds terrible, but its mostly > stuff like trying a new song or increasing accuracy in a song you > play a lot. > > There is another game on Steam that I saw and put in my wishlist so I > wouldn't forget about it. Its called FourChords, I think its a little > less game-y than Rocksmith and its only $15. I hadn't heard of FourChords; I see there's an ad-supported free version on mobile. I'll give that a go tonight. I find Yousician to be good on Mobile. -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 14:10
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 14:10
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On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> wrote: >On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >> wrote: >> >>>On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>>Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>for a reference point for comparison. >>>> >>>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >>> >>>20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >>> >>>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >>> >>>60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>>30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. >> >> Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that >> beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. >> >> It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or >> Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of >> it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like >> slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first >> person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. >> >> An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action >> is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves >> panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more >> like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be >> prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a >> building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and >> proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying >> aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps >> for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the >> typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the >> difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. >> >> It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they >> aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the >> nature of the contest at hand. > >I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >above a certain FPS threshold. Yes, I think that's a big part of it. When my eyes pan or look quickly around whatever my environment is, there is no blurrying, jerkiness, or similar issues, so the closer that fluid real life movement is replicated on the screen, the more convincing everything on the screen will be to me. I never even understood the "motion blur" effect in many games, supposedly it is to mimick some visual characteristic of eye movement, but real life objects either don't blur with my vision (*) no matter how fast I pan my eyes, or the blurring effect occurs so quickly I can't see it. >Try VR and you'll find the framerate becomes even more crucial. I haven't tried VR, but I can fully believe closer distance maginifies any flaws.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:01
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:01
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Werner Punz wrote: > Not to much, hey it is August. > > One thing I did was to buy myself a really cheap used PS3 to catch up on > PS3 titles. > The first game I now have been playing on this system is an old love of > mine which I never finished on the Wii and which simply never really > will run properly on PC emulators > > Okami, the PS3 is the only system which has this game in HD and as I > said no emulator really emulates this game perfectly yet. > (Tried it on a Wii emulator and a PS2 emu, the PS2 emu runs somewhat > better but some spells are a pain due to positioning problems caused by > the emu). > > Also Capcom basically has written this game off and will never port it > to another system again, I guess. Also although the developers want to > do a big sequel (there is a small one for the NDS) it wont happen, I guess. > > A short description of a game. Okami originated on the PS2 in its last > days and is one of the gems of this system. It is basically a Zelda > clone from Clover Studios (which is now Platinum games) > but the thing is it is better than Zelda in many aspects. > > You basically play a wolf godess and the entire game focues around > beating the usual evil which has overtaken the land of Nippon. > The art style is cell shaded japanese paintings and the games fights and > puzzles solving is centered around spells, which you can cast by drawing > symbols to a paper (similar to what Arx Fatalis did) > > The game itself is a uniuque mix of artstyle and 3d zeldaish gameplay. > > Unfortunately it is such a nieche game that almost no one played it. > Capcom tried to recover the costs by porting it to several systems. > The PS2 the PS3 and the Wii. With the PS3 version being the only HD > version so far in existence. > > Unfortunately this game will never see a pc port, the spellcasting > system would be perfect for the mouse and there are not to many Zeldaish > games on the PC anyway, so it is playing it on the console for now. > > If you have the chance check out this game, it is worth it. > > > Werner I played this back in the day on the PS2, it was very good and had beautiful graphics, but it's typical console length and feel other than the drawing spells gimmick. I haven't really played any zelda since the original (other than one I only played for an hour or two I hated on the game cube) but it didn't remind me of that. I'd put a number of PS2 games above it, God of War (now THAT should be on the PC!) GTA III & VC, Ico, and probably a few others. - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:38
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:38
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Rin Stowleigh wrote: > On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> > wrote: > >> On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>>> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>> lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>> underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>> high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>> for a reference point for comparison. >>>>> >>>>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>>>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>>>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >>>> >>>> 20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >>>> >>>>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>>>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>>>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>>>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >>>> >>>> 60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>>> 30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. >>> >>> Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that >>> beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. >>> >>> It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or >>> Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of >>> it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like >>> slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first >>> person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. >>> >>> An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action >>> is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves >>> panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more >>> like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be >>> prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a >>> building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and >>> proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying >>> aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps >>> for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the >>> typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the >>> difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. >>> >>> It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they >>> aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the >>> nature of the contest at hand. >> >> I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >> snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >> above a certain FPS threshold. > > Yes, I think that's a big part of it. When my eyes pan or look > quickly around whatever my environment is, there is no blurrying, > jerkiness, or similar issues, so the closer that fluid real life > movement is replicated on the screen, the more convincing everything > on the screen will be to me. > > I never even understood the "motion blur" effect in many games, > supposedly it is to mimick some visual characteristic of eye movement, > but real life objects either don't blur with my vision (*) no matter > how fast I pan my eyes, or the blurring effect occurs so quickly I > can't see it. > Actually it mimics film movies. Our eyes don't see like that, but the blur within cels makes the 23 fps of movies look more like movement instead of single pictures. If your game isn't stuck at 23 fps (or 30 perhaps) then there's no reason to use it. It tends to be way overdone in games too, it should be blur between the two frames to either side time wise of the frame it's playing, but they make it blur over an entire second or so usually (i.e. 22 or more frames too much). - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:55
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:55
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On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:38:56 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote: >Rin Stowleigh wrote: >> On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >> wrote: >> >>> On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>>>> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>>> lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>>> underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>>> high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>>> for a reference point for comparison. >>>>>> >>>>>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>>>>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>>>>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >>>>> >>>>> 20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >>>>> >>>>>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>>>>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>>>>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>>>>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >>>>> >>>>> 60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>>>> 30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. >>>> >>>> Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that >>>> beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. >>>> >>>> It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or >>>> Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of >>>> it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like >>>> slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first >>>> person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. >>>> >>>> An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action >>>> is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves >>>> panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more >>>> like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be >>>> prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a >>>> building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and >>>> proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying >>>> aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps >>>> for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the >>>> typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the >>>> difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. >>>> >>>> It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they >>>> aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the >>>> nature of the contest at hand. >>> >>> I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >>> snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >>> above a certain FPS threshold. >> >> Yes, I think that's a big part of it. When my eyes pan or look >> quickly around whatever my environment is, there is no blurrying, >> jerkiness, or similar issues, so the closer that fluid real life >> movement is replicated on the screen, the more convincing everything >> on the screen will be to me. >> >> I never even understood the "motion blur" effect in many games, >> supposedly it is to mimick some visual characteristic of eye movement, >> but real life objects either don't blur with my vision (*) no matter >> how fast I pan my eyes, or the blurring effect occurs so quickly I >> can't see it. >> > >Actually it mimics film movies. Our eyes don't see like that, but the >blur within cels makes the 23 fps of movies look more like movement >instead of single pictures. If your game isn't stuck at 23 fps (or 30 >perhaps) then there's no reason to use it. It tends to be way overdone >in games too, it should be blur between the two frames to either side >time wise of the frame it's playing, but they make it blur over an >entire second or so usually (i.e. 22 or more frames too much). That sounds right, I didn't really research it (recently) but what you're saying sounds familar. I just turn it off in all games. What's odd though (and what might have thrown my thinking off) is that in most titles it seems to be defaulted to ON for the "Ultra" settings, and turned off on lower settings. To me that seems converse of the purpose you mentioned above for compensating for poor framerates, since anyone interested in maximized settings is usually playing with upper end hardware rather than trying to squeak by at lower framerates.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Tim O
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 18:55
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2016 18:55
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On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:32:48 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> wrote: >> There is another game on Steam that I saw and put in my wishlist so I >> wouldn't forget about it. Its called FourChords, I think its a little >> less game-y than Rocksmith and its only $15. > >I hadn't heard of FourChords; I see there's an ad-supported free >version on mobile. I'll give that a go tonight. >I find Yousician to be good on Mobile. I downloaded Yousician as well, but haven't tried it yet. Think I may have screwed up because I think the deal was that it was free for a limited time. That time has past and I haven't used it. Let me know what you think if you try it. I'm a little skeptical about the accuracy of apps that just use the microphone to detect notes.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 07:48
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 07:48
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On 2016-09-07, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote: > Rin Stowleigh wrote: >> On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >> wrote: >> >>> On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>>>> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>>> lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>>> underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>>> high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>>> for a reference point for comparison. >>>>>> >>>>>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>>>>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>>>>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >>>>> >>>>> 20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >>>>> >>>>>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>>>>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>>>>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>>>>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >>>>> >>>>> 60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>>>> 30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. >>>> >>>> Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that >>>> beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. >>>> >>>> It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or >>>> Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of >>>> it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like >>>> slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first >>>> person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. >>>> >>>> An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action >>>> is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves >>>> panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more >>>> like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be >>>> prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a >>>> building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and >>>> proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying >>>> aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps >>>> for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the >>>> typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the >>>> difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. >>>> >>>> It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they >>>> aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the >>>> nature of the contest at hand. >>> >>> I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >>> snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >>> above a certain FPS threshold. >> >> Yes, I think that's a big part of it. When my eyes pan or look >> quickly around whatever my environment is, there is no blurrying, >> jerkiness, or similar issues, so the closer that fluid real life >> movement is replicated on the screen, the more convincing everything >> on the screen will be to me. >> >> I never even understood the "motion blur" effect in many games, >> supposedly it is to mimick some visual characteristic of eye movement, >> but real life objects either don't blur with my vision (*) no matter >> how fast I pan my eyes, or the blurring effect occurs so quickly I >> can't see it. >> > > Actually it mimics film movies. Our eyes don't see like that, but the > blur within cels makes the 23 fps of movies look more like movement > instead of single pictures. If your game isn't stuck at 23 fps (or 30 > perhaps) then there's no reason to use it. It tends to be way overdone > in games too, it should be blur between the two frames to either side > time wise of the frame it's playing, but they make it blur over an > entire second or so usually (i.e. 22 or more frames too much). In new Doom you can adjust the blur length. I spent a little time playing with it and found I preferred having it on, on it's lowest setting, despite already being pinned at 120fps. On fast pans you can still see discrete frames at 120fps, and it mitigated that a little. -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 07:49
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 07:49
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On 2016-09-07, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote: > On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:32:48 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> > wrote: > >>> There is another game on Steam that I saw and put in my wishlist so I >>> wouldn't forget about it. Its called FourChords, I think its a little >>> less game-y than Rocksmith and its only $15. >> >>I hadn't heard of FourChords; I see there's an ad-supported free >>version on mobile. I'll give that a go tonight. >>I find Yousician to be good on Mobile. > > I downloaded Yousician as well, but haven't tried it yet. Think I may > have screwed up because I think the deal was that it was free for a > limited time. That time has past and I haven't used it. Yousician is free for about 20 minutes a day. > Let me know what you think if you try it. I'm a little skeptical about > the accuracy of apps that just use the microphone to detect notes. Yousician detects notes much more effectively if your guitar is in perfect tune and you wear headphones in a quiet room. It's very good at detecting solo notes, a bit hit-and-miss on chords. Or maybe I'm a bit hit-and-miss on chords? -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 13:08
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 13:08
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Rin Stowleigh wrote: > On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:38:56 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Rin Stowleigh wrote: >>> On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>>>>> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>>>> lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>>>> underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>>>> high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>>>> for a reference point for comparison. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>>>>>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>>>>>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >>>>>> >>>>>> 20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >>>>>> >>>>>>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>>>>>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>>>>>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>>>>>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >>>>>> >>>>>> 60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>>>>> 30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. >>>>> >>>>> Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that >>>>> beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. >>>>> >>>>> It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or >>>>> Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of >>>>> it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like >>>>> slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first >>>>> person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. >>>>> >>>>> An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action >>>>> is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves >>>>> panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more >>>>> like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be >>>>> prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a >>>>> building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and >>>>> proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying >>>>> aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps >>>>> for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the >>>>> typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the >>>>> difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. >>>>> >>>>> It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they >>>>> aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the >>>>> nature of the contest at hand. >>>> >>>> I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >>>> snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >>>> above a certain FPS threshold. >>> >>> Yes, I think that's a big part of it. When my eyes pan or look >>> quickly around whatever my environment is, there is no blurrying, >>> jerkiness, or similar issues, so the closer that fluid real life >>> movement is replicated on the screen, the more convincing everything >>> on the screen will be to me. >>> >>> I never even understood the "motion blur" effect in many games, >>> supposedly it is to mimick some visual characteristic of eye movement, >>> but real life objects either don't blur with my vision (*) no matter >>> how fast I pan my eyes, or the blurring effect occurs so quickly I >>> can't see it. >>> >> >> Actually it mimics film movies. Our eyes don't see like that, but the >> blur within cels makes the 23 fps of movies look more like movement >> instead of single pictures. If your game isn't stuck at 23 fps (or 30 >> perhaps) then there's no reason to use it. It tends to be way overdone >> in games too, it should be blur between the two frames to either side >> time wise of the frame it's playing, but they make it blur over an >> entire second or so usually (i.e. 22 or more frames too much). > > That sounds right, I didn't really research it (recently) but what > you're saying sounds familar. I just turn it off in all games. > > What's odd though (and what might have thrown my thinking off) is that > in most titles it seems to be defaulted to ON for the "Ultra" > settings, and turned off on lower settings. To me that seems converse > of the purpose you mentioned above for compensating for poor > framerates, since anyone interested in maximized settings is usually > playing with upper end hardware rather than trying to squeak by at > lower framerates. > Yeah, it takes up more GPU power, so it actually slows down the framerate further, which is even stupider than having it on so long. - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 13:10
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 13:10
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Toby Newman wrote: > On 2016-09-07, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Rin Stowleigh wrote: >>> On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>>>>> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>>>> lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>>>> underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>>>> high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>>>> for a reference point for comparison. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>>>>>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>>>>>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >>>>>> >>>>>> 20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >>>>>> >>>>>>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>>>>>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>>>>>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>>>>>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >>>>>> >>>>>> 60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>>>>> 30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. >>>>> >>>>> Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that >>>>> beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. >>>>> >>>>> It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or >>>>> Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of >>>>> it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like >>>>> slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first >>>>> person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. >>>>> >>>>> An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action >>>>> is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves >>>>> panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more >>>>> like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be >>>>> prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a >>>>> building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and >>>>> proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying >>>>> aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps >>>>> for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the >>>>> typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the >>>>> difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. >>>>> >>>>> It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they >>>>> aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the >>>>> nature of the contest at hand. >>>> >>>> I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >>>> snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >>>> above a certain FPS threshold. >>> >>> Yes, I think that's a big part of it. When my eyes pan or look >>> quickly around whatever my environment is, there is no blurrying, >>> jerkiness, or similar issues, so the closer that fluid real life >>> movement is replicated on the screen, the more convincing everything >>> on the screen will be to me. >>> >>> I never even understood the "motion blur" effect in many games, >>> supposedly it is to mimick some visual characteristic of eye movement, >>> but real life objects either don't blur with my vision (*) no matter >>> how fast I pan my eyes, or the blurring effect occurs so quickly I >>> can't see it. >>> >> >> Actually it mimics film movies. Our eyes don't see like that, but the >> blur within cels makes the 23 fps of movies look more like movement >> instead of single pictures. If your game isn't stuck at 23 fps (or 30 >> perhaps) then there's no reason to use it. It tends to be way overdone >> in games too, it should be blur between the two frames to either side >> time wise of the frame it's playing, but they make it blur over an >> entire second or so usually (i.e. 22 or more frames too much). > > In new Doom you can adjust the blur length. I spent a little time > playing with it and found I preferred having it on, on it's lowest > setting, despite already being pinned at 120fps. On fast pans you can > still see discrete frames at 120fps, and it mitigated that a little. > If your gpu can handle it without slowing down, it might be nice to smooth panning, as you said on a really low setting, I haven't played any games it's adjustable though. - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 14:31
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 14:31
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On Thu, 8 Sep 2016 08:48:10 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> wrote: >On 2016-09-07, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Rin Stowleigh wrote: >>> On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>>>>> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>>>> lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>>>> underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>>>> high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>>>> for a reference point for comparison. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> In my experience it's less /high/ framerates and more an issue of >>>>>>> /stable/ framerates. If the game is jumping from 15 to 30 to 60fps, I >>>>>>> notice it far more than if it's a rock-steady 30 (or even 20) fps. >>>>>> >>>>>> 20fps? What is this, Powerpoint? >>>>>> >>>>>>> Age probably helps too; them youngsters swear there's an amazing >>>>>>> difference between 30 and 60fps, but I can't see it at all. And don't >>>>>>> get me started on the whole waste-of-money ultra-HD thing; 1024x768 >>>>>>> should be enough for anyone ;-) >>>>>> >>>>>> 60 is OK, it gets much better the faster you go. And I'm in my late >>>>>> 30s. Anything less than 60 bothers me greatly. >>>>> >>>>> Same here, a consistent 60 is minimum acceptable. I do find that >>>>> beyond about 90-100fps there are somewhat diminishing returns. >>>>> >>>>> It really depends on the game though. Something like Battlefield or >>>>> Doom really benefits from the smoothest mouselook you can get out of >>>>> it. I find this to be much less the case with certain games, like >>>>> slower-paced stealth games, third person shooters, or just first >>>>> person games which typically don't involve as much twitch movement. >>>>> >>>>> An example of the latter is the Rainbow Six games. Usually the action >>>>> is so focused and intense that the player doesn't find themselves >>>>> panning all around the room at rapid speed with the mouse. Its more >>>>> like you set up position to guard a hostage or control point, and be >>>>> prepared to cover one or more choke points. Or, you're infiltrating a >>>>> building by rappeling up the side, then swinging in via a window, and >>>>> proceeding slowly/carefully down a hallway with your sights staying >>>>> aimed at a relatively narrow angle. I typically don't enable heatmaps >>>>> for my Razer mouse, but if you examined the difference between the >>>>> typical mouse movement heatmap for Doom vs. Rainbow Six games, the >>>>> difference in the type of game becomes much more measurable. >>>>> >>>>> It is kind of nice that the game supports high framerates, but they >>>>> aren't a dealbreaker in that particular game simply because of the >>>>> nature of the contest at hand. >>>> >>>> I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >>>> snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >>>> above a certain FPS threshold. >>> >>> Yes, I think that's a big part of it. When my eyes pan or look >>> quickly around whatever my environment is, there is no blurrying, >>> jerkiness, or similar issues, so the closer that fluid real life >>> movement is replicated on the screen, the more convincing everything >>> on the screen will be to me. >>> >>> I never even understood the "motion blur" effect in many games, >>> supposedly it is to mimick some visual characteristic of eye movement, >>> but real life objects either don't blur with my vision (*) no matter >>> how fast I pan my eyes, or the blurring effect occurs so quickly I >>> can't see it. >>> >> >> Actually it mimics film movies. Our eyes don't see like that, but the >> blur within cels makes the 23 fps of movies look more like movement >> instead of single pictures. If your game isn't stuck at 23 fps (or 30 >> perhaps) then there's no reason to use it. It tends to be way overdone >> in games too, it should be blur between the two frames to either side >> time wise of the frame it's playing, but they make it blur over an >> entire second or so usually (i.e. 22 or more frames too much). > >In new Doom you can adjust the blur length. I spent a little time >playing with it and found I preferred having it on, on it's lowest >setting, despite already being pinned at 120fps. On fast pans you can >still see discrete frames at 120fps, and it mitigated that a little. Have you thought about a GSync monitor? Life is pretty much perfect with adaptive sync, at all framerates. I don't think you'll see discrete frames or other issues on one paired with a good vid card. There is definitely something about the ID Tech engine's relationship with vid drivers that is (or was) a little behind the curve upon release, because prior to Dooms release I had my desktop driver set to 60hz[*]. Pretty much every title, new or old worked fast and flawlessly after the monitor purchase except Doom, which was not switching out of the desktop resolution, and was locking everything to 60hz until I figured out the issue and addressed it by upping the desktop rate. [*] I don't even remember why I originally did this, but I think it was when I was running dual monitors on my gaming rig, primary was the 144hz Gsync monitor and secondary was a 10 year old Viewsonic that was limited to 60hz, and I had set them both to 60hz to eliminate some other issue. The early versions of Gsync drivers did not play well with 10 year old fixed-sync monitors, something I'm sure they've worked out by now, I'd guess.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Tim O
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 22:53
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 22:53
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On Thu, 8 Sep 2016 08:49:24 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> wrote: >On 2016-09-07, Tim O <n...@thanks.com> wrote: >> On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:32:48 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >> wrote: >> >>>> There is another game on Steam that I saw and put in my wishlist so I >>>> wouldn't forget about it. Its called FourChords, I think its a little >>>> less game-y than Rocksmith and its only $15. >>> >>>I hadn't heard of FourChords; I see there's an ad-supported free >>>version on mobile. I'll give that a go tonight. >>>I find Yousician to be good on Mobile. >> >> I downloaded Yousician as well, but haven't tried it yet. Think I may >> have screwed up because I think the deal was that it was free for a >> limited time. That time has past and I haven't used it. > >Yousician is free for about 20 minutes a day. > >> Let me know what you think if you try it. I'm a little skeptical about >> the accuracy of apps that just use the microphone to detect notes. > >Yousician detects notes much more effectively if your guitar is in >perfect tune and you wear headphones in a quiet room. It's very good >at detecting solo notes, a bit hit-and-miss on chords. Or maybe I'm a >bit hit-and-miss on chords? Maybe I'll try it out tonight. My 100 watt Peavey shit the bed at less than 60 days old. Guy that does their warranty work near me is over 2 weeks behind on warranty work.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Werner Punz
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 18:40
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 18:40
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Am 07.09.16 um 17:01 schrieb Justisaur: > Werner Punz wrote: > >> Not to much, hey it is August. >> >> One thing I did was to buy myself a really cheap used PS3 to catch up on >> PS3 titles. >> The first game I now have been playing on this system is an old love of >> mine which I never finished on the Wii and which simply never really >> will run properly on PC emulators >> >> Okami, the PS3 is the only system which has this game in HD and as I >> said no emulator really emulates this game perfectly yet. >> (Tried it on a Wii emulator and a PS2 emu, the PS2 emu runs somewhat >> better but some spells are a pain due to positioning problems caused by >> the emu). >> >> Also Capcom basically has written this game off and will never port it >> to another system again, I guess. Also although the developers want to >> do a big sequel (there is a small one for the NDS) it wont happen, I > guess. >> >> A short description of a game. Okami originated on the PS2 in its last >> days and is one of the gems of this system. It is basically a Zelda >> clone from Clover Studios (which is now Platinum games) >> but the thing is it is better than Zelda in many aspects. >> >> You basically play a wolf godess and the entire game focues around >> beating the usual evil which has overtaken the land of Nippon. >> The art style is cell shaded japanese paintings and the games fights and >> puzzles solving is centered around spells, which you can cast by drawing >> symbols to a paper (similar to what Arx Fatalis did) >> >> The game itself is a uniuque mix of artstyle and 3d zeldaish gameplay. >> >> Unfortunately it is such a nieche game that almost no one played it. >> Capcom tried to recover the costs by porting it to several systems. >> The PS2 the PS3 and the Wii. With the PS3 version being the only HD >> version so far in existence. >> >> Unfortunately this game will never see a pc port, the spellcasting >> system would be perfect for the mouse and there are not to many Zeldaish >> games on the PC anyway, so it is playing it on the console for now. >> >> If you have the chance check out this game, it is worth it. >> >> >> Werner > > > I played this back in the day on the PS2, it was very good and had > beautiful graphics, but it's typical console length and feel other than > the drawing spells gimmick. Actually it is very close to a 3d Zelda in its game mechanics over time you learn you spells which open new areas and give you new puzzles. The 3d Zeldas and Okami are action adventures which high emphasis on puzzling and exploration and less on combat. Probbly not the the game to mention in this group, it probably would be better off in an adventure game newsgroup. Unfortunately there are not to many games on the PC side which are similar to this. Oceanhorn comes to my mind and from what I have heard also the Darksiders series. > I haven't really played any zelda since > the original (other than one I only played for an hour or two I hated on > the game cube) but it didn't remind me of that. I'd put a number of PS2 > games above it, God of War (now THAT should be on the PC!) GTA III & VC, > Ico, and probably a few others. > > - Justisaur Actuallly there are a lot of games which would deserve a pc port. Okami just comes to my mind because of the drawing thing, which would work very well with a mouse. But you mentioned God of War, the Bayonetta Series vom Platinum games also would be excellent on the PC. ICO Shadow of Collossus, God of War pretty much every title published by Sony from the PS3 PS4 era... Thats one of the reasons why I recently bought (by now dirt cheap) second hand PS3 and I am filling my PS3 collection ATM. You will never see those games natively on the PC. With the PS3 having been end of its life for three years now you can get the games dirt cheap. I paid about average 5-10 euros for each of the PS3 games I wanted to have. The trick simply is to avoid Gamestop, they are a ripoff and buy this stuff second hand directly.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 10:16
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 10:16
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On 2016-09-08, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, 8 Sep 2016 08:48:10 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> > wrote: > >>On 2016-09-07, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Rin Stowleigh wrote: >>>> On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:06:02 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 2016-09-06, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:28:31 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 2016-09-06, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>>> On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:52:01 -0400, Rin Stowleigh >>>>>>>> <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Buttery framerates are one of the most overlooked aspect of gaming, a >>>>>>>>> lot of folks don't realize how much the subpar framerates of >>>>>>>>> underpowered GPUs detract from immersion, until they get accustomed to >>>>>>>>> high framerates and then try to go back. There seems to be the need >>>>>>>>> for a reference point for comparison. >>>>>> nature of the contest at hand. >>>>> >>>>> I find that polygons feel more solid at higher framerates. Something >>>>> snaps in my head and my perception goes from "animation" to "object", >>>>> above a certain FPS threshold. > > Have you thought about a GSync monitor? Life is pretty much perfect > with adaptive sync, at all framerates. I don't think you'll see > discrete frames or other issues on one paired with a good vid card. I'd like a GSync monitor, or at least I'd like to lay eyes on one. However I only relatively recently bought a 120Hz 3D Vision monitor, annoyingly just before GSync became widely available. There's a way to add the GSync module but I think it's only for certain display hardware. Higher priority for me at the moment is to buy a second gaming PC dedicated to VR so I don't have to lug the main box between the computer room and the lounge. -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2016?
Author: unibalm
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:14
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:14
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On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 09:17:33 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:10:49 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: > >Jeez, a few hours late and people start getting delusions of grandeur, >thinking they can make their own "What are you playing" threads. I >mean, this is a delicate and difficult art, starting a thread like >this. Darn amateurs ;-) > >And it's not like I was /that/ late. I mean technically it still was >the 1st of the month SOMEWHERE on earth when I posted ;-) You're certainly the whiz. I've been playing old Fallout games with different mods, and it's been amusing. The modders never cease to amuse!
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