Dead Space, my favorite game of all time. All HUD elements are holographic projections from your suit and weapons, integrated into the game world and moving with the camera. Your health meter is a series of light segments going up your spine, and the meter for one of your abilities is a pie-chart style light on the back of your right shoulder. Even the objective markers are a trail of light projected from your hand when you press down on the control stick.
What is up with new games? I have a Predator Triton 300; i7 9th Gen, 16GB/512GB. All games get installed on the SSD instead of the HDD.
I played the new Tomb Raider trilogy (still playing the last one, no spoilers) and it ran smoothly on Medium (some unnecessary stuff turned off) most of the times.
Tried playing new game called Deliver us Mars, disaster. It stutters every. Fucking. Time. ON LOW! What the Fuck?
A big issue with recent games is Vram usage (the gpu has vram). If you don’t have enough vram the game will stutter. At the moment where there isn’t enough vram, even a tiny bit not enough, the game will stutter.
Another issue is also ram and cpu utilisation which in some games is pretty extreme.
Othrt issue can be very heavy graphics and badly optimized lower settings.
Some games also have transition stutter, where you change zone. It will try to load the new zone and unload the precedent one. But it uses cpu power and requires a fast ssd depending on the size of what has to be loaded.
Unreal engine is pretty bad for open maps. It generates a lot of cpu usage when changing zones. And heavy textures and other heavy elements don’t enhance the experience.
The vram, I’m not sure what your questions is about.
The vram is special ram (much higher bandwidth, but slightly higher latency than cpu ram, also supports special extra things) included on the board of the graphics card.
It is necessary because it stores textures and others game elements the graphics card needs to operate the game (shadow info,…). The elements are loaded into vram, from the very slow (in comparison) drive (even nvme 5.0 ssds are extra slow compared to vram or ram) to allow the gpu to process whatever it has to do. Background tasks, windows, the desktop… Also use vram to be able to have the app windows and desktop displayed, so the total available for the game can vary.
If there isn’t enough vram, there can be multiple things happening (I’m talking about textures but vram includes others things too) :
Resizable bar ( or SAM on amd) is not enabled : the gpu will not be able to load all the textures, so it would either have missing textures, or lag a lot due to texture swapping. The textures can also take a lot of time to load instead of completely missing depending on the game optimisation, due to swapping with previous textures. The game can even crash.
Resizable bar is enabled : it is possible with this pci-e configuration for the gpu to access system memory. So in some cases, textures may spill into system memory (cpu ram), which isn’t great either, because system memory has a way higher latency to the gpu (it has to go through the cpu, pci-e slot…), and way lower bandwidth. And so generates lots of lag.
If a game is well optimized, the lower the settings are the lower vram usage there is. Some games however did not have such great optimisation. Vram usage mostly depends on the texture quality and resolution. (increasing the texture quality will use a very few/negligible amount of extra gpu power, but increase the vram usage).
There is also a baseline the devs may put for optimisation. The less vram there is, the less the textures can have data available to use. So the more compromises have to be done, with less and less quality. So fixing a baseline quality depending on the current most used vram capacity is not that bad. Tho it does have issues for people having less available.
Just rushed development usually with the bigger titles. The time isnt spent on performance, it's a case of spunking a game out and moving onto the next one.
Tomb Raider reboot is pretty well optimised. The games look beautiful with great performance. It used the in-house Foundation engine.
It's a shame the next game will be on UE5, UE games always a certain look and jank that just makes them feel 'cheap' to me. Along with, usually, a lot worse performance.
It’s kinda sad that all the in-house engines are being abandoned… Especially since Unreal is a one-size-fits-all engine. It’s not suitable for all games if optimised gameplay is an expectation…
Also, yes. I didn’t understand initially when I heard about the Unreal look, but goddamn I see it everywhere now…
When I was a kid I used to walk to the movie store to rent games. I would go back every time I had money and rent Chrono Trigger, but some one would always erase my save, so I would have to start over.
On my birthday I got a check from my grandma that was for 50 dollars. I walked right up to the game store and slammed my check on the counter for one copy of Chrono Trigger. I didn’t know how money, checks, or sales tax worked.
Luckily, my mom bailed me out. I played that game for years. I still have such fond memories of that game.
It’s amazing that CT never spawned an ongoing franchise. Aside from the controversial CC, there have been no other followups or even remakes, only a remaster. It’s like the platonic ideal of a JRPG, sitting alone and unsullied in the timestream.
I thought I was going to play this game day one. The performance issues are going to keep me away until they’re fixed at least somewhat. I’m happy to hear that’s the only complaint reviewers have.
That does seem to be a big hurdle for a lot of games these days. It comes out, the performance is bad so not as many people are able to enjoy it. I just hope that CO quickly fixes any performance issues the game might have.
I hope so, too. I am unbelievably hyped for this game. It really seems like they fixed everything that detracted from the first game. Mainly the awful traffic “AI”.
I just experienced this while playing Diablo 4. In the pre-season I routinely got ~120 FPS on my graphical settings and tried out the game again after season 2 release and my FPS shot up to 350.
even with RTX 4090s and lowering the graphics to 1440p medium settings. Based on utilization numbers, it sounds like the GPU is limiting factor here.
What are the CPU utilization numbers? C:S is a notoriously CPU-first game, particularly with mods. If your CPU can’t calculate more than 10fps, you won’t get more than 10fps.
Those same streamers are also reporting 16GB of RAM usage when loading up a new map, which means that the minimum recommended spec of 8GB was a blatant lie from the devs.
It starts (barebones, slow as hell) with 8GB. You want 32GB or more for it to run somewhate decently.
Seriously, people don’t understand what “cache” means, maybe they should just create a ramdisk and install the game there to understand the concept.
Seriously, people don’t understand what “cache” means, maybe they should just create a ramdisk and install the game there to understand the concept.
I believe people with lots of RAM simply enjoy the feeling of theoretically being able to run everything, but they don’t actually want processes to use that RAM, because it would deny them the theoretical possibility to run everything.
I jest, of course. The problem is that as a user you don’t have that much control over which process should use your RAM, and also freeing RAM is hard. Chrome gobbling up your whole memory is good when you’re using Chrome, but you don’t get it back when you alt+tab back to your game
freeing RAM is hard. Chrome gobbling up your whole memory is good when you’re using Chrome, but you don’t get it back when you alt+tab back to your game
Actually… you can do it with two .bat files and a “ram cleaner” tool:
Suspend all “chrome.exe” processes
Free all working sets (since Chrome is suspended, it marks all the RAM used by Chrome as swappable/discardable)
Now your game can use all the RAM, the OS will just swap out or discard whatever was in use by Chrome as needed.
Want to go back to Chrome?
Resume all “chrome.exe” processes
The OS will swap in whatever it swapped out, and let Chrome ask for as much RAM as it feels like.
Free all working sets what the fucking hell??? No, no, no, I don’t want to send my full browser to swapfile just because of a greedy game. Loading back all the memory pages will take a lot of time when I want to switch back to the browser, and it will lag for quite some more time until all the not too frequently used but important is loaded back too. This also applies to the reverse: swapping the game out and back in will take a ton of time, and then it will have lag spikes when it needs a dozen of memory page that is somewhat more rarely used and haven’t been loaded back with all the rest. This nonsense of literally using all your ram “as a cache” but as working set just makes everything slower in the end. This just cannot be justified. There’s a reason I’m using a multi tasking PC instead of a single-tasking gaming console, which you can only use for one purpose at a time.
And don’t tell me to put my swapfile on my SSD. This is the perfect way of killing yours, with writing 16 GB of data every time you switch between windows.
I don’t want to send my full browser to swapfile just because of a greedy game
You don’t, most of the times the game doesn’t use all that memory anyways (or crashes if it tries to… so still, doesn’t use it).
Loading back all the memory pages will take a lot of time
No it won’t. Browsers preemptively allocate a bunch of RAM just in case they need it… then never use it. “Loading back” empty memory, takes zero time.
This also applies to the reverse
No it doesn’t. Games rarely can be suspended and resumed successfully, and they rarely allocate RAM that they aren’t going to use. I was clear when I said you suspend “chrome.exe”, not “your game.exe”. If you resume the browser without exiting the game, the game stays in RAM and the browser manages with what’s left (surprisingly, they manage to run a tab or two without a problem, which further proves they didn’t “really” need all that much RAM in the first place).
swapfile on my SSD. This is the perfect way of killing yours
My swapfile SSD got retired after 10 years when I switched to a NVMe, it’s an external drive now.
writing 16 GB of data every time you switch between windows.
As explained above, no you don’t, most of the data simply gets discarded, maybe 1-2GB of it gets actually written. To further expand on that, the swapfile gets constantly pre-populated with less changing in-RAM data so the OS can “swap it out” instantly. That same data stays in the swapfile after it gets read into RAM again, so it doesn’t get written to the swapfile over and over, only read back.
There’s a reason I’m using a multi tasking PC instead of a single-tasking gaming console
If you do, then you put more RAM in it. Otherwise, you can use it as a gaming console. Your choice.
Loading back all the memory pages will take a lot of time
No it won’t. Browsers preemptively allocate a bunch of RAM just in case they need it… then never use it. “Loading back” empty memory, takes zero time.
Yes, it will, and I’m saying this from experience. I have 32 GB of RAM but since I have dozens of tabs in several windows open, the browser really consumes a lot of RAM. When windows starts swapping it out, even just a little because I’m over 70% utilization, I can feel that it got slower.
And on the occasion when in PH I accidently click “empty working sets” instead of “combine memory lists” and windows swaps out everything, it’s horrible for days until I just give up and reboot instead.
Games rarely can be suspended and resumed successfully
Probably I’m playing with the wrong games then, as those that I play don’t crash from it. One such example is Factorio where I have did that a lot in the past.
I was clear when I said you suspend “chrome.exe”, not “your game.exe”.
Now I understand, but then your workaround does not allow for switching back to the browser for looking up something.
surprisingly, they manage to run a tab or two without a problem, which further proves they didn’t “really” need all that much RAM in the first place
1-2 tabs maybe work fine. But the whole user interface will also be slower to respond, and if you have addons which need to do this or that when a page loads, then that 1-2 tabs won’t be usable either.
Also, I doubt that windows wouldn’t swap out parts of the game.
If you do, then you put more RAM in it. Otherwise, you can use it as a gaming console. Your choice.
I won’t spend on anywhere North of 32 GB. This is not a fucking server. I would rather just not play games that are so out of touch with reality. To back that up, I’ve just read someone else posted a steam statistics page that says only ~20% of steam users have 32 GB of RAM, while most of the rest has only 16.
Also, when I have built this PC I have heard multiple remarks that 64 GB RAM may not be a good idea, because the hardware memory manager would be slower with managing that amount of RAM than 32, which is important for games that move a lot of data in the RAM.
when in PH I accidently click “empty working sets” instead of “combine memory lists” and windows swaps out everything, it’s horrible for days until I just give up and reboot instead.
“Empty working sets” doesn’t swap out anything by itself, it marks it as “swappable” but stil in RAM. It does make a copy to swapfile in case it needs to swap it out so it can do it instantly.
To fully force a swap out, you have to clean the lists… level 1, I think? (sorry, in bed, don’t want to look it up RN).
If you did that with a HDD however… yeah, I can see how that would feel bad.
Pro tip: don’t leave PH open for too long, it’s kind of a devel tool and has some bugs that can mess up the hooks of the whole system. Best is to open, use, close, for ~15 day uptimes on Windows 8 to 10 without ECC.
I have 32 GB of RAM but since I have dozens of tabs in several windows open
I used to play games with 8 GB of RAM and 40 tabs in Chrome. It was either-or, it worked, didn’t kill the SSD, for years. 🤷
Is unity and c# really that bad by itself? I don’t have much experience in c# development, but I was in the impression that c# is a relatively fast language (not as much as c++ but much, much more than js, python and even java)
No, they’re pretty nice, that’s why they got popular. It’s when you pair them with game development, that shit hits the fan.
Basically, you have:
Rocket software - if it fails once, you fucked up
F-35, infrastructure software - if it fails, it better recovers fast
Business software - if it works for most of the workday, it’s fine
Consumer software - if it works most days, it’s fine
Game software - if it eventually works at least once, you’re fine; most people don’t care about replaying the same story anyway
Unity and C# are very easy to make utter crap with, and still have it “work at least once”… which leads game developers to use it, make it work, and have it packaged and sold. Add to that “modders”, who are mostly random people who want to see some [part] of some idea they had, work maybe once in the game… and you get a perfect recipe for disaster: rushed out games, with sloppy mods, often conflicting with each other.
That is one of the biggest disadvantages of the PC IMHO…
I remember what a pain in the ass is to achieve split screen in the Left 4 Dead game… Is that annoying that I actually got the Xbox 360 version to play with my gf lol.
A controller with two analog sticks and two analog triggers has six analog axes of input. A keyboard and mouse has two. There are definitely games that can benefit from more analog axes – think twin-stick shooters. You can use digital inputs for movement, but it’s also less-precise.
On the other hand, a mouse can provide both rapid and precise movement, more-so than an analog stick. And a keyboard has a lot more keys, which is important for some games. And a keyboard is going to be a lot better for text input.
Controllers have output to players, in the form of rumble motors (and with some controllers on some platforms, more-exotic options). There’s no widespread support for any kind of output from the mouse or keyboard. Use of rumble motors can add immersion.
While I’ve used a mouse as a flight input in Freespace 2, generally-speaking, I think that a controller’s analog sticks are better for flight sims (though if you’re playing an old-timey WW2 flight sim, probably getting a full-size stick with all the extra controls is worthwhile).
On the other hand, it’s very hard for a controller to compete with the keyboard and mouse for first-person shooters. I’ve used one for some games that were designed for consoles and aren’t very demanding in response and often have vehicles that are better-controlled with a controller – I’m playing Starfield with a controller. But one is simply going to do much better with a keyboard and a mouse, if one practices with both. Playing an FPS with a controller feels like driving a truck.
Some games, like a number of strategy games, are going to be much-better played with a mouse. I have a hard time seeing Paradox’s grand strategy games being played with a controller, even with a lot of work on the control scheme.
Ditto for RTSes. I’ve tried a few with controllers, like Supreme Commander, and it definitely benefits from a mouse.
Playing interactive fiction of the classic sort, where one types in commands, really, really needs a keyboard. There are ways you can mitigate a bit of the pain, and some point-and-click adventure games have tried to do this, provide a limited set of preset commands, but it’s just not great.
Playing pretty much any game designed for a D-pad, I’d rather play on a controller. Yeah, you can get okay with a keyboard, but it just doesn’t feel the same, not nearly as fluid.
And there are a few other input options that aren’t seen much any more:
Full-size flightstick, maybe with throttle and pedals. Some had force feedback. I haven’t seen many new releases; in the 1980s and 1990s, though, these were common for PCs.
And there are a few other input options that aren’t seen much any more:
I raise the bar. Using a DIY 5.- EUR head tracker in NMS mapped to a virtual gamepad and my X52 Pro joystick mapped to another virtual gamepad and some keyboard keys just because (Why waste a perfectly fine HOTAS system just because the game is too stupid to support this?) :D
If you’d not mentioned BG3 then more people would agree, but any game that is buggy should be refundable for sure and to say other wise is anti consumer
Generally, I like using achievements to figure out where people called it quits on a game. Like Saints Row the Third. 90% of people cleared the first mission, but the percentages drop with each successive story achievement until you've got the achievement for the last mission which only 27.9% of players bothered to finish. Or you have Hades where around 50% of players just never finished a run of the game and only 25.6% completed enough runs to see the main ending.
My roommate was one of those “completed a run but didn’t finish enough to see the ending” people.
He said that completing the run alone felt like the end of the game to him and he couldn’t bare the thought of struggling for what he barely managed to achieve once.
Personally I just don’t like going through the same basic thing fifty times.
Yeah, it was fun the first dozen times, Hades, but running around looking for a couple lines of dialogue to unlock the “real” ending isn’t actually what I consider fun gameplay.
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