Changing voltages and fan curves is super situational. And depends on how much you value noise over performance.
That said, I undervolted and underclocked the i7 cpu on my G501 gaming laptop back in the day.
This helped a ton, because the heatsink between the discrete GTX 660M and the CPU, shared a heatpipe. The CPU would only throttle at 90, while the GPU would throttle at something like 75. This meant that because it was basically always hotter, heat from the CPU would conduct via the heatpipe INTO THE GPU, causing it to always thermal throttle, and be unable to be cooled. Because even though it was maxing out and trying to cool down by throttling, the CPU would just keep going because for it the temps were fine. So it would keep pumping heat into the heatsinks and heatpipes, which would then keep the GPU hot, too.
Undervolting the CPU allowed it and the GPU to run at closer to same temps, raising FPS by way of allowing the GPU to actually run a full tilt, even though the CPU was then significantly slower.
To be fair, Intergrade and Rebirth remix some things that mean they don’t really replace the original game.
They’re doing something different with the story that we still haven’t had fully explained, which means I’m playing completely riveted to the story, with no idea what’ll happen, even though the original game has existed longer than I have.
And the gameplay is obviously completely different.
It means they’re more than “remakes”, imo. They’re more like adaptations, making changes that alter the source material to fit a new medium. Almost like going from book to TV.
And in the same way, both the “book” and the “TV Series” both remain worthy of being experienced. Different people might prefer one or the other, while others will insist the “full experience” is to engage with both. Either way, both add to the whole by existing.
The combat is fanatastic. But they don’t lean into it enough, and so you don’t get to fully engage with it beyond a superficial level. Except for some fleeting moments most people wont even notice.
I love it, but I hate how they’re too afraid to commit, even to the point of not allowing you to play Rebirth on hard until ng+.
That said I really like the combat system in modern FF games. It’s a mix of hack n slash + strategy you don’t really get anywhere else.
They’ve made something unique, and I approve. My only complaint is that they don’t lean into it, and all but the highest difficulty lets the player get away with button mashing.
I don’t know how much you know about the intricacies of the newer FF combat systems, but “turns” are still in there, but among a bunch of new stuff that may or may not jell with you.
If you want, in the remakes you can set the combat to “classic” which makes it so that the AI controls all three charachters, rather than just the two you aren’t playing as.
This leaves you to deal with only the “turns”, and which abilities, spells, or items, to use them for. And you don’t need to be quick, the passage of time nearly pauses while you engage with the action menu to decide what to do with a turn.
Characters and enemies can only engage in basic attacks outside of their “turn”. To use abilities, spells or items, it must be your “turn”.
All the decisions that make turn based combat interesting are overlayed on top of the real-time action. At times they even overlap. When not using classic mode, it matters how you control a characters real time actions. The exact timing of when you use a turn can have consequences, you need to make sure you are standing in a good spot for a given ability, you need to make sure you’re not about to take an attack that might interrupt an action, etc.
You have to decide stuff like whether you need to use your turns to spam cure just to keep the party alive. Should Aerith spend one turn and the MP to use Cura on one party member, or wait two turns to use Pray on everyone. Should Cloud go for damage on this turn, or build stagger in case it leads to a stun and bonus damage next turn? Can Tifa keep herself alive with Chakra or do I need to have another charachter heal her? Do I remember the pressure conditions for this enemy or do I need to spend a turn on Assess to find out?
If all you want is turn based classic gameplay, then yeah, it isn’t here. But they have made something very interesting. It’s got hack slash style flashy action, but with an amount of strategy involved I don’t think any other games have achieved. It’s unique.
The synergy skill that allows you to have another party member throw you into the air at an enemy, when controlling a melee fighter, (Tifa, Cloud, Red) is so satisfying and welcome in Rebirth when fighting flying enemies.
Rebirth does something with the open world mechanics I haven’t seen in other games. It interconnects everything.
The life springs give you a shitton of materials for the crafting system, they reveal the locations of crafting recipes, and eventually the area boss.
All of which interconnects with side-quests, not just at the start as a tutorial, but throughout each region.
It hence manages to make you want to do everything, almost on accident. If you do all the sidequests, you progress the collectathon a bunch. If you do the collectathon, you end up progressing quests a bunch just by “coincidence”.
Add to that the fast travel that lets you jump anywhere instantly, and nothing ends up feeling like a chore.
If you’re just watching, you won’t get the main appeal of the modern FF combat systems. That being the underlying turns and the strategy around what to do with them.
And unfortunately, at lower difficulties, you can get by with button mashing. It’s really disappointing that the difficulty that actually requires thinking is locked behind ng+, but at that level, the system really shines.
It’s all strategy, dressed up as a hack and slash, but if you just button mash, don’t min-max your builds, utilize the entire party, their abilities, spells and synergies, you are dead.
And it’s all made more intense by the combat happening in real-time (though you can slow time to a crawl at any time). I really love the panic of the way you are forced to control any last surviving party member, waiting for your turn to be available so you can use a phoenix down.
I absolutely adore the remake games. They both follow a type of game-design that makes me feel like I’m playing something from the PS2 era again. Both the good and the bad. Makes me feel like a kid in the best kind of way.
The games do have some trouble with time-wasters. It’s both improved and made worse in Rebirth. Luckily, in open world fashion, a lot of it can actually be ignored in Rebirth. And if you don’t ignore it, you get rewarded with actually good side-content. And Rebirths fast travel is good to the point you basically never have to travel anywhere “the long way” twice.
I have the same problem with the combat being too easy. It wasn’t too bad with Intergrade as I was new to the combat system, but with Rebirth I am absolutely crushing enemies. I’m deliberately sabotaging my character builds to make it more challenging, but I really wish they didn’t lock “hard” behind ng+. Coming from the first game, you should be able to jump into the second at that higher skill level from the start. But no.
Don’t worry too much about your stuff not carrying over. The characters do not get reset to level zero, and no abilities. They start with a little less than what you have at the end of Intergrade, but a lot of the stuff you’ll have gotten by the end of Intergrade, is what you have at the start of Rebirth. And then over the course of the second game, you get a lot of NEW stuff, rather than just re-aquiring the stuff you had in the first.
They created an entire new character, who is just as new to the situation as a player who might not have played the first game, allowing a new player to step into the story quite smoothly, sight unseen.
Not necessary, is not the same as “not worth doing”. All “not necessary” means is that AW2 stands entirely on its own even for players who might not’ve player the first one, or Control.
Edit: I feel like my comment got colored by a lot of the consequent replies. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, nor that if you want every detail, there isn’t more to see by playing it first. I’m saying AW2 isn’t among the interconnected games that you might as well not even play unless you’re up to date on every detail. Yes, it has a lot of interconnects with other Remedy games, but it’s fan-bloody-tastic entirely on its own.
You can. It’s not necessary.
It ties into stuff from Control a lot more, but even there you could play them in either order.
It has the complexity of a MOBA (but genius level UX that completely addresses how that would normally be daunting, through a fantastic community item build system), movement approaching the intensity of Titanfall and a match format that finally fills the hole in my heart that was left by Battleborn, and is maybe even better.
It has a a unique 80s magic/fantasy aesthetic, and what we know of the lore so far is fantastic. (I laughed out loud when walking by a radio in-game and a newscaster voice went “Have love potions ruined dating?! These 20-somethings tell all!”)
My advice, hit up !deadlock, get an invite, and just give it a try. The way it’s looking, it might turn out my favorite game of all time.