Gaming Thread

[Enemy242]

My GPU fan is slowly turning into a jet engine. I'd oil it, but on those new-fangled GTX cards, the fan is almost completely internal, which means I'd have to take the graphics card completely apart. And I'm not so keen on doing that.

you just have one fan on the card itself? i don't know dick about cooling pc's but on my new computer my brother made it so the case has 2 sections that have fans that blow out and the computer is so cool it's fuckin awesome. if i didn't have a brother who was a pc nerd i'd be completely fucked; it's so hard to realize all the little nuances in the performance aspect of everything, things like cooling, what to do and not to do, troubleshooting and i can't even imagine building a pc from scratch. one thing i do know is when the pc's get hot they fuck up haha

do any of you guys have comments/opinions on overclocking? since i've got like 2-3 fans blowing out of my case and the pc is super cool i've considered doing some stuff since in catalyst control center it has a tab for overclocking and in theory it'd be cool to have even BETTER performance and no negative effects since i have all those fans to keep the heat off. positives/negatives/things i should know? i'm considering giving it a shot on oblivion tonight since i have it at max settings except for forcing anti aliasing on my catalyst 2xeq (game supposedly doesn't support AA with HDR which is bullshit) but if i go any higher like 4-8x it starts to slow down a little bit which i assume is the engine having trouble working with the forced AA so maybe that overclocking could help a bit.

 

[Liverslapper]

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

 

[Enemy242]

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

thanks for the link but I can already overclock in catalyst, i was more looking to find out what you guys think about overclocking and the benefits/negatives you've all experienced and the best way to go about it. it seems kinda sketchy as in areas i'm not familiar with i usually don't like to fuck around too much (honestly the way my games run now is beyond what i could want but oblivion with forced 8x aa would be amazing) so any input from you guys who clearly know a lottt more about computers than me would be rad. it's weird that a lot of the time the older games don't run as well as newer games that have higher spec demands because of hardware to software issues like how i'll probably be able to run skyrim on super high settings with no frame rate hiccups due to the improved engine/components/options yet oblivion has hiccups because it's so old and there is sometimes conflicts. good thing it still looks badass as hell and is addicting as fuck.

 

[Liverslapper]

When you overclock, it all depends on what you are able to push depending on what you have inside your tower. Different things you need to take into consideration for example wattage and cooling, as I assume you already know the more you push hardware the more power and heat you are going to generate. I never used the catalyst tweak, but I know the ATiTool is specifically meant to tweak every single aspect of the card and you are able to create profiles. I am not sure if you can create profiles with the Catalyst tweak so I will have to check when I get home.

For overclocking, its just a situation of trial and error. How far can I push my Max core and Max memory? You tweak in until you get it to a point where it won't crash on you, but I really recommend creating the profiles. You don't want that tweak constantly running or over time you will have hardware issues.

Actually, look into this

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overview.htm

Mess around with the afterburner software. Tinker with it, and when you can get the card to run stable create a profile, save it and try it out. Its called tweaking, so you will spend some time tweaking your card until it works for you. Just remember that when you are done using the profile to change it back to default.


Then fun stuff is when you get to tweak CPU's and RAM. nom nom nom

 

[El Stormo]

you just have one fan on the card itself?

No, no, I have two more case fans blowing on the card, and one internal fan. Problem isn't that it's running too hot (around 60-70°C, so that's no biggie), it's just that it's getting too damn loud

 

[Lord Foul]

 

[El Stormo]

Getting more fans installed won't quiet the other one, since it'll keep working regardless of how many fans help it.

 

[WhiteBeastofWotan]

you could probably turn the stock fan off though.

 

[Lord Foul]

Getting more fans installed won't quiet the other one, since it'll keep working regardless of how many fans help it.

That's a complete replacement for the stock cooler, sir.

 

[Chromatose]

and according to the newegg reviews I was reading after seeing that monstrosity, it is apparently near silent.

 

[Liverslapper]

That is what she said last night.

 

[Enemy242]

holy fuck i'm addicted to Oblivion all over again. When I first played it my pc wasn't very good so I beat it plus a couple side quests on the 360, now re-doing it on pc with legit hardware is fucking awesome. I've been playing it nonstop and there's so much to do I can't fucking believe it yet it keeps me hooked no matter what. I'm going to install some mods tonight (just small ones like color/detailed map, better water graphics, new textures etc, not any huge game changing ones) and play the fuck out of it; by the time I beat this, all the DLC, Fallout 3 and new vegas there will probably be hella other games out i can play like DNF or DXHR. can't even believe a game this old is still this fucking awesome ugh.

 

[ShadowsWithin]

Might I suggest these graphic mods

Natural Environments
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=376

Qarl's Texture Pack 3 - Redimized http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3813

Beaming Sunglare
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3525

Real Lava
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=1887

Illumination Within Revived
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=1251

also any of the real weapons mods are cool i like using the old school celtic weapons, plus Imir one of the vendors who is to the left of the blades castle in Bruma is a giant, so I use companion share/recruit on him and he makes a pretty epic companion. Sometimes I will put god mode on him just to see him pwn some nubs lol

also this is a really epic castle

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3823

 

[Dead Winter]

holy fuck i'm addicted to Oblivion all over again. When I first played it my pc wasn't very good so I beat it plus a couple side quests on the 360, now re-doing it on pc with legit hardware is fucking awesome. I've been playing it nonstop and there's so much to do I can't fucking believe it yet it keeps me hooked no matter what. I'm going to install some mods tonight (just small ones like color/detailed map, better water graphics, new textures etc, not any huge game changing ones) and play the fuck out of it; by the time I beat this, all the DLC, Fallout 3 and new vegas there will probably be hella other games out i can play like DNF or DXHR. can't even believe a game this old is still this fucking awesome ugh.

Morrowind. That is all.

 

[ShadowsWithin]

Morrowind. That is all.

zzz

 

[WhiteBeastofWotan]

I've put in more hours into DA2 than Oblivion (total, not per playthrough of course). I tried to finish Oblivion again a couple weeks ago, but I just can't get into it for some reason.

 

[El Stormo]

That's a complete replacement for the stock cooler, sir.

Hang on, by stock cooler, you mean the fan integrated into the graphics card, then? Because the one being noisy is the actual thing built into the card.

Morrowind. That is all.

Yay, Morrowind! Walk everywhere at a tediously slow pace! Fight annoying cliff racers with every two steps! Enjoy the drab brown scenery! Revel in the beautiful dialogue system that plays exactly like Wikipedia! Get into tense fight sequences that involve standing motionless in front of each other and clicking your mouse!

Sorry, man, Oblivion may have been dumbed down compared to Morrowind, but at least it wasn't a tedious scenery walk at 2 km/h.

 

[Lord Foul]

Hang on, by stock cooler, you mean the fan integrated into the graphics card, then? Because the one being noisy is the actual thing built into the card.

Yes, I mean the entire heatsink-fan-shroud combo thingy that comes built into your card. I don't know exactly which model you have, but by way of illustration:

Stock GTX 580

GTX 580 with all that noisy bullshit removed

GTX 580 with (rebranded) AC Accelero Extreme Plus

 

[El Stormo]

Riiiight. Well, Imma try just oiling it first, but thanks!

 

[Enemy242]

Hang on, by stock cooler, you mean the fan integrated into the graphics card, then? Because the one being noisy is the actual thing built into the card.


Yay, Morrowind! Walk everywhere at a tediously slow pace! Fight annoying cliff racers with every two steps! Enjoy the drab brown scenery! Revel in the beautiful dialogue system that plays exactly like Wikipedia! Get into tense fight sequences that involve standing motionless in front of each other and clicking your mouse!

Sorry, man, Oblivion may have been dumbed down compared to Morrowind, but at least it wasn't a tedious scenery walk at 2 km/h.

word. I loved Morrowind don't get me wrong (my first real rpg ever pretty much played on xbox as a dumb kid) but oblivion is sooo much better thus why i'm beyond pumped for skyrim. morrowind had a cool atmosphere i think even if it was pretty bland and drab (fuck yeah vivic and killing guards in halls) plus killing people and taking their houses was bomb. Oblivion definitely has more skill as yeah sitting in front of the opponent clicking attack like ARGH FUCK WHY WON'T YOU HIT was pretty ridiculous. somehow oblivion hooks me so much it's fucking ridiculous, most other games the side quests bug me but in oblivion they're as fun as the main story (most of the time, not the guard this npc to walk here or follow this npc who walks slow as shit) and i've spent the past 2 weekends trying to finish the main factions (about half way through theives, champion of fighters, gladiator of arena but that shit is easy).

i installed realistic water which i like but the graphics patch freaks me out a bit. having to install the oblivion mod manager to use it and backing up settings etc? i don't like fucking with my game tbh (it's an iso which i deleted, don't have the disc anymore) even though you can roll it back and i'm concerned the higher quality textures might not make it feel like oblivion as much (even if that means shitty bloom lighting fakely illuminating buildings). i;ll probably try it this weekend if you guys really think it's legit but thats the thing about mods, if they enhance the game like the water mod that's cool but if it realllyy changes the art direction or game i'm not really down with that. the little tweaks like colored/geography map are awesome though and there's one where you can set map markers for caves you've discovered vs finished. by the time i beat all these bethesda games it'll be fucking october.

edit: also i want glass armor, fuck the fighters guild and their display cases with armor that has no value or stats and is just demonstrative ughh

after all the praise dragon age 2 is getting i'm considering really checking it out. i have it dl'd but bioware games have a different feel to me and i'm not sure if i'd like one set in a fantasy realm because i think bethesda does that better. would dragon age 2 be similar? i hear the moral choices are a lot more important which is good because I love games where your actions impact the world (unlike oblivion where you may be king of like 20 factions but it doesn't do dick and there's only a few things that actually make a difference other than having altar's cuss you out) and it'd be badass doing something and seeing the ramifications. i'm really hoping more games pick up on that because it's so obvious that rpg elements/branching stories/actual impactive things really make the games more innovative yet still some developers choose to neglect it when it could help out their game so much.