UltraMega

What res/refresh rate are you targeting? Are you in the US?

I had a similar experience with the game. I was not extraordinarily hyped for it, but I was definitely looking forward to playing a solid AAA RPG since if felt like there hadn't been one in a while. I think I had a 1080Ti when I first played it at launch. Now that I think about it, I may have waited a week or two before I bought it and caught it on sale after all the reports about how buggy it was came out, because I remember I got the game for ~$30 on green man gaming or something like that, but it was close to launch either way. I may not have gotten the full force of the day 1 bugginess, but it definitely had bugs. Nothing too game breaking for me that I can recall but some very in-your-face visual bugs for sure. I wasn't disappointed with the game but not very impressed either. I just thought it was fine, and I still think it's just fine. Not bad, not great, just fine. It reminds me a lot of the game Rage 2 in the way it plays, but with a better world and a more interesting plot. I didn't find the plot all that interesting though. Having Keanu was definitely really cool, but the plot for my playthrough at least was just not that engaging. At the end of the game in my playthrough, V contemplated suicide to just remove themself from the equation, and when the game gave me the option to choose that, I was just like; sure, let's see where this goes. I didn't think V would actually do it and the credits would roll, but that's what happened. I was OK with that, haha. I felt like V is just some jack ass in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is nothing else that gives V any reason to be tied up in all the plot stuff. There was nothing all that interesting about V and the whole terminal illness thing felt like a drag on the game, (what is this, Far Cry 2?) so it was just like OK fine V finally died. I didn't play the game again for probably a year or so, after there had been enough patches to make booting it up again seem interesting. I think they must have patched out the suicide death as a final option because it started me on a new quest to basically finish the game instead of just dying. The parts that stood out for me the most were some of the cinematic presentation aspects. There are a few short scenes in the main story missions that are extremely well presented, but they are few and far between. The game has some high notes for sure, but they were spread out too thin to boost the game to the level of hype it had garnered. One thing that still really bothers me about the game to this day; I just don't think the overall visual presentation is very good. I know that may seem like ridiculous thing to say about cyberpunk, but hear me out... The RT/PT stuff is very cool, especially the path tracing. Having an AMD card, I can't really play the game at smooth frame rate with path tracing, but it's still very cool. There are other aspects that really bother me though, most of all the super low LOD range on so soooo many objects in the game. Signs pop in at insanely close range all the time and there are so many signs. It's not a bug or slow loading on my PC's part, that's just how the game is. There are mods that attempt to address it but they don't do a great job last I checked. I think if you have to design the game with such egregiously bad LODs then you don't get to slap PT on top of that. Make the game assets somewhat stable first, and if there is still performance headroom, then you can add expensive lighting effects. I don't walk around in the game and see all the signs swapping LODs at super close range all the time and think, wow all these pixelated signs that suddenly starting animating when I get close to them sure look great with all these lighting effects. It's just goofy and uneven. I don't think it was a mistake for CDPR to abandon the RED Engine. They wanted to make a game with some great cinematic moments and some high-level lighting effects, and they did that just before the time that UE5 would have been feasible. But now, UE5 is just a better choice for everything that aimed to accomplish and as good as it all turned out in the end, the RED Engine seems to be extremely flawed overall, or at least just not really capable of performing to a level that would make the whole package feel solid and cohesive. I think CDPR is probably in a good place now. They have the skills for the artistry, and the vision to make something that really stands out. Dropping the dead weight of designing a game engine just to release one game ever decade or so on it should really free up a lot of man-power to just focus on what they're good at rather than trying to develop tech to support their creative vision at the same time they're trying to carry out that vision. BTW, I didn't read the article. I have followed the ups and downs of the game's tumultuous story so I feel like I already know about it. Is there anything in the article that wasn't already common knowledge for those followed this?

At the end of the Unreal event, a new Unreal Tournament was announced. But rather than being a new installment of the very game Epics tech is named after, it's a TV show. They talk about the show at the very end of the video, or you can see the trailer at the IGN link here: https://www.ign.com/videos/new-anthology-series-secret-level-based-on-15-legendary-games-coming-to-amazon-prime-video

I don't really care if people still enjoy entertainment made by people who have done bad things. I enjoy a few Michael Jackson songs. For me personally there are times when it's just awkward. I was never a fan of P Diddy, but if I were I would imagine it would just feel kinda awkward to listen to his music at this point, and I probably wouldn't for that reason. Not because of any pressure to cancel anything, just it being awkward. It's a case by case thing for me.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I know it's a sim and not a typical game. Still, I think just about any other sims typically have more structured things to do, even earlier versions of flight Sim based on what I've seen. MSFS2020 is particularly lacking in that area, even for a sim. I wouldn't say I feel strongly about it, but I am convinced that I would enjoy 2 less than 1 based on a quick trial of 2. I wasn't crazy about the first one, but it did hold my attention. Ixion is better than 1 or 2.

I tried Frostpunk 2. I could not get into it. I liked the first one and I felt like it sucked me in right off the bat because the gameplay made sense right away. In 2, the tiles-based nature of it makes it feel a lot less logical and it just loses cohesion for me. I think the changes were a mistake. I respect the devs for trying something new, but it just doesn't work as well as the first game for me. The first game had a nice simplicity to it that gave it a good flow and I'm just not feeling that from 2. I played Ixion a while back, which I think is a lot closer to Frostpunk 1 than Frostpunk 2 is. If you like this sort of game, check out Ixion. I also tried The Crew 2. It's bad, real bad. I don't understand the logic behind a game solely focused on racing when zero attention whatsoever is given to the physics. The driving feels exactly like Watch Dogs 1, a game not at all focused on racing. Worth the $1 price and nothing more.

Friday night sound scape: I am destroying ppl in RL to this beat right now. They cannot win

Rumor: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D Introduce Dual 3D V-Cache on CCD Chiplets WWW.GURU3D.COM Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is set to expand its Ryzen 9000X3D processor lineup with the upcoming Ryzen 9...

Meh, as long as it ends up with someone who has a similar vision of wanting this site to be a user driven tech forum that doesn't rank posts based on an algorithm I think it will likely be fine. That said, a lot of these sites are struggling with Discord and the likes being so prevalent now. There is way more activity on the EHW Discord than there is on this site because it's just faster and easier to use Discord most of the time. Whatever happens with EHW, we'll still have the Discord group to chat about tech stuff on at the very least. If I had one criticism intended constructively, though perhaps too late to really matter, I think EHW grew too fast in terms of features. "If you build it they will come" doesn't work well when you need users to build content and justify more features in the first place. I think EHW is far too complex with way too many moving parts. I know basically nothing about running a site like this, but I would wonder if the site could just be stripped down to be more like OCN circa 2006 when it was just a list of user threads and news threads. That's by far the most important part of this site, and I wonder if it would be sustainable if that's all the site were trying to be. But like I said, I really know nothing about this. I'm just guessing that all of the extra features have a cost that makes them hard to justify before the user base to support them is there. @ENTERPRISE If this site does persist and just goes to a new owner, do you see yourself still being a user at all or is this like Goodbye-Goodbye?

Thanks for building/maintaining the site E. Hopefully the transition will go smoothly... as long as you don't sell to vertical scope

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2024/06/forza-horizon-4-to-be-delisted-on-xbox-and-pc-in-december-2024 Lame, but understandable. Licensing agreements in games are weird, but that is the reason. Licensed cars and brand names most likely. Rather than renegotiate with a bunch of car makes, easier to just stop selling the game.

I still think PC gamers in general should give MSFS2020/2024 a try even if they're not into flight sims. I'm not into flight sims and I had a lot of fun with it. I don't think it would be fair to say that if you didn't enjoy MSFS95 that you won't enjoy 2020. It being the earth and being able to fly in places you are familiar with is a huge draw. You can play with the Xbox controller as well so you don't need a flight stick just to try it out. That said, if you don't have game pass I would just say if you happen to see it on sale for a cheap price, consider giving it a try even if you aren't into flight sims. I also prefer to fly the helis in BF games. I've been flying them ever since they were first added in BD1942: Desert Combat. Before that, in 1942 vanilla you could actually do bombing runs on the ships and eventually sink them. On some maps you could even win the round by sinking ships and eliminating all the other teams spawn points.

Shoot only a buck, I grabbed it. The driving physics for these games look absolutely terrible though. IDK why Ubisoft just can't do driving physics but all of their games that have cars are just terrible to drive in.

I'm pretty excited for it. MSFS2020 is an absolutely fantastic flight sim, but it's majorly lacking in anything beyond that. There are a handful of landing challenges and some other pretty lame and forgettable 'fly from A to B' missions but that's it. Everything else is just you doing your own thing in a big open world, which is still definitely a lot of fun for a while, but starts to feel pretty one note eventually. Landing the small planes in unusual spaces is fun, like on top of a mesa. Taking off in the 747 from tiny airports is fun. Once I set the game up to make 3 out of 4 engines on the 747 fail during flight to see if I would be able to land, and I was. That was kinda neat. But the lack of anything structured to do does wear thin once the fun of figuring out the flight mechanics wears off. I am REALLY looking forward to the career mode in MSFS2024. I live in California where we have fires all the time in the summer, and I live close to an airfield where the DC-10 fire tankers take off. I am particularly looking forward to the firefighting stuff in 2024. The graphics update looks pretty great as well. More than anything else, I am looking forward to the increase in geometry for the terrain. As impressive as 2020 is, the hills are all too smooth which makes landing in awkward places a lot less of a challenge. The rest of the graphics updates also look pretty cool. The added close-up detail will make getting close to the ground feel a lot more meaningful. MSFS2020 is the only flight sim I've ever played, unless you count Sky Odyssey or Ace Combat. The tech of making a game using the whole world and satellite data is what drew me in at first; just as someone generally interested in cutting edge gaming/3D rendering. But learning how to fly a plane, and then a jet like the 747 was definitely a fun and worthwhile thing to do. I bought a cheap joystick when the game came out, and I of course play without the easy mode stuff turned on so when you mess up in the game you just die like you would in real life. It's definitely satisfying when you figure out how to fly the bigger planes well and can land reliably and all that. Not particularly hard either, just takes some figuring out. If you already have game pass and a powerful PC, try it. It's easier than you might think. The hardest part is just learning what buttons in the cockpit your supposed to press to do simple things like turn the plane on or off, but there are tons of youtube videos that cover that kind of stuff so it's real easy to figure out. Then take off from an airport you're familiar with and crash into your parent's house. Side note, how are you liking Frostpunk 2 @Slaughtahouse? I played the first one, didn't beat it but I enjoyed it. Do you like the gameplay changes in 2 or do you prefer 1?

Obligatory Friday Night Song Bonus Track Double bonus:

Definitely reminds me of the stuff Epic showed off where a map can self generate based on the assets and structure of a smaller area. Makes me wonder if in the not too distant future we will start seeing games made by devs who have essentially no traditional game dev experience and are able to put something out with AI tools and nothing more.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/intel-is-separating-its-ailing-foundry-business-from-the-main-company/ar-AA1qHFwB?ocid=BingNewsSerp&PC=EMMX01 Is two struggling businesses better than one?

Love it or hate it, this has some major implications for game development. EA's user generated game content demo with AI shows a world of cardboard | Windows Central

Just a note, the most recent bios update cuts CCD latency in half for the 9000 series. Seems to have fixed a glitch. Make sure you have that, tho I'm sure it's not related to your boosting issue.

Yea, Digital Foundry is pretty hard on FSR, but I think that's mostly because console games have been really over-using it and pushing it way beyond it's limits. DLSS is definitely a significant step up from FSR, but at the higher settings they are both fine. It's only at lower resolutions that the difference really stands out.

This already exists. Nvidia has a streaming service that can do 240FPS for $20 a month. It's called GeForce Now. Streaming is never going to be big in the gaming market because no matter how good all the hardware involved is. Latency will always be an issue, it's just physics. So many of the most popular games on PC rely on input latency being as low as possible, streaming is just not practical as anything more than a niche thing. It only really works for games where latency is just not important, and there's no getting around that. Faster internet speeds and better hardware won't change the latency issue. Hopefully AMD just keeps doing what they did with the 7000 series. As is, they really only lack a solid 4090 competitor. The 7900XTX is close enough to the 4080 to be a solid competitor. A lot of people on sites like this may have 4090s, but Steam shows the 4090 as having less than 1$ of the market. Right now AMD is just suffering from being so far behind on upscaling and RT. Their roadmap has always been to make RDNA4 their real focus for RT, and the 8000 series will do AI enhanced upscaling like DLSS and XeSS as well. Hopefully they can bring those things up be good enough to hold up against Nvidia, and if so they can be in a good position to regain some ground. There are still so few games that make demanding RT a big part of the presentation, but we all know that's where things are headed so people feel like Nvidia is more future proof right now. I don't avoid upscalers at all. It's the first thing I'll turn to if I need more performance in a game. On my 7900XT, it's fast enough that I never really need to use a setting lower than FSR quality mode unless I try to do path tracing or something like that, and quality mode is perfectly fine most of the time. I think the vast majority of PC gamers who understand what these upscalers are use them regularly, and those who don't know what they are probably have them enabled by default without knowing it in a lot of their games. I get a good comparison for upscaling since me and my gf sometimes play games together in the same room and I can see the differences between DLSS and FSR is real time. There is no denying that DLSS is pretty impressive. It can go really low and still look good. Here I am with a big expensive GPU and my gf's GeForce 2070 Super can run and look just as good in a lot of games Maybe in a few more years we will all be playing demanding games at 1080p or lower and upscaling heavily all the time. It's already gotten really good and it hasn't been around very long. If you don't count DLSS 1.0 and just look at upscaling from the time in which it became good enough to be practical, then it's still a pretty new thing. I don't think Nvidia planned on DLSS even existing until they had tensor cores on their GPUS and wanted a way to justify the extra cost to gamers. I think they got sort of lucky in that they kinda stumbled into a success with DLSS in that sense, and looking for a way to justify tensor cores just worked out really well. FSR is really impressive IMO for what it's able to do without any special tricks.

Great shots. Ubisoft games have always had great lighting in stills. Sorry to be 'that guy', but has the engine really evolved much since 2017? I wonder if mainstream/console hardware has just caught up.

Also this: I feel like there was a UT2003/4 map that had this song as it's map music. What a time it was.

I play this song while I make ppl cry in rocket league.

Just to add some context, The compensation that E is offering per articles is actually about 30% more than an entry level position for someone writing articles for a website like techspot or IGN. I think it's a smart move to build on SEO. I intended to do one or two of these myself, and no one should be dissuaded by topics being too simple. These are the basics to rebuild the foundation that we are all familiar with. The cost to benefit ratio is huge here. I encourage this and I think user driven content is a great path forward, paid or not. Those of us here who have expert knowledge; that is certainly worth a few bucks when well presented.