Slaughtahouse

Friendly bump

Difficult situation. I can't say I have been there with this level of complexity. I've had a situation where my partner (now wife) and I were planning to move continents (Europe to North America). That's without kids and all of the other constraints this family face. 

Trying to plan flights, terminate a lease, end employment, line up other employment, secure temporary accommodation on the government's timeline (very little visibility) whilst my visa was slowly evaporating was crazy. I ended up contacting my local member of parliament back in Canada because we had no other option. They kicked some serious *** and moved things along nicely. I could only imagine how much more stressful it is when your local government increases the fees fairly significantly at the last moment. 

Made a small donation, hope others do so too if they can. Amy reached out and I thought it was very nice and kind of her.  Thanks for sharing and keep us posted Hope they're successful

52 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

Maybe it's just my phone, but these charts are not very visable for me. 

 

 

Might be the dark mode. As that seems to invert the text colour (globally) white or a super light grey, including the text in my sheet that I copy/paste. On the default colour scheme,it shows as intended. Snip below. Dark mode would either have to exclude that text in this situation or adjust my sheet. 

Thanks for flagging. Not sure if there is an easy solution on the backend  I can refrain from copy / pasting it from the sheet going forward as a temp solution . If I just copy / paste the text and put those updates in bullet point, it should work with the current config of dark mode.

14 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

I think you'd almost have to do both. If the 70 or 70 Ti Super gets put on AD103, then that should be a 256-bit card. And I think you almost have to drop prices as the 7800 XT sells like hot cakes at $499 and the 4080 at $1200 doesn't sell much at all.

For sure! I wrote "OR" because... Nvidia. They won't let us have our cake and eat it too.  Super comes in, bigger bus, more VRAM, at least the same price, ideally lower, and the rest of the stack adjusts but truth is price will likely be higher and current stack stays the same. 

They're rolling in all the AI money to care right now about enthusiasts / gamers. 

Unless they refresh the price (significantly) or offer a bigger bus (256-bit) on the 70 / 60ti series cards... just keep skipping. No

5000 series is predicted in 2025 so just keep that in mind with likely another DLSS feature soft locked by the card. Predict more laughing if you buy a 4080 Super late next year. 

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-gaming-e27ba10c-cf66-40ac-95ec-4f36fb320650.html

There data must refer to "hitting" exclusively and not sustaining but still, shows how impressive 2023 has been, especially in contrast to recent years. I'll see if I can quickly add a VLOOKUP to my workbook with "Best of 2023".

51 minutes ago, bonami2 said:

Won't regret the quest 2. Best purchase i did. It not the best lense my hmd beat it. But being wireless is a miracle.

I spent another hour or so with it tonight playing games from their account. I tried Walking Dead. Honestly, those first moments when holster your weapon, chamber the round, pull an axe off your back, use two hands to duel wield, pull a screwdriver out of a zombies head... I did not expect it to feel as good as it does. 

Grabbed a couple "toys" yesterday. Nerd alert, watch out...

1. Wireless mechanical keyboard from 8bitdo, reminiscent of a classic NES. https://www.8bitdo.com/retro-mechanical-keyboard/ Comes with an extra pad with two, giant reprogrammable buttons. I've had this in my cart for a while but it's always been sold out and was scalped. It's very niche and likely wont replace my default keyboard that I use for work (TBD) but great for when I use the TV. I would just use a wireless mouse with accessibility controls (onscreen keyboard) to navigate my PC on the TV....
2. A used Quest 2 from a co-worker. They let me try it before buying it and will set it to me for about 100 USD... since they were getting a Quest 3. Couldn't skip on that. My first trying a VR headset. I was shocked the first time I put it on. I only tried Beat Saber and Puzzling Places but honestly, it was super fun. I was impressed how "immersed" I was. Curious how RE4 VR plays and more importantly, trying Steam VR on it with my system.

Alan Wake 2 Performance Benchmark Review - 30 GPUs Tested

WWW.TECHPOWERUP.COM

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Alan Wake 2 is out soon, with incredible graphics, but demanding hardware requirements, too...

Important note* Native rendering is NOT available within the settings menu. It requires a .ini tweak. All performance results unless otherwise stated are at native rendering.

Spoiler: Rasterization modes still have a level of Ray Tracing, even when Ray Tracing is disabled.

2023-10-25 Updates

Small changes to the sheet (just Metacritic scores) but I would like to highlight the following recent releases:

Honestly, all of these games look great in their own right. I'm playing through Super Mario Bros. Wonder at the moment and having a blast. Honestly, top contender for GotY for me and super fun to play co-op. A lot of my co-workers are playing Spider-Man 2 and enjoying every moment of it. Cities: Skylines II is suffering some performance issues (mentioned before) but has potential to slowly grow into one of the best city management games out there. Seriously, I'm excited to play it, though... I will wait maybe a year or two while things get patched out.

Also, the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection (Vol. 1) is also out now. It's capped at 30 fps / 720p for MGS 1 and 2: Sons of Liberty. 3: Snake Eater goes up to 60 fps / 720p native. Not 1080p as previously mentioned by Konami (sus)... However, PC modders already (lol...) have unlocked the resolution cap so you play at 4K. Just be aware that the UI may break (doesn't scale correctly?).  https://www.eurogamer.net/metal-gear-solid-collection-fan-quickly-releases-4k-mod

Last but not least, I want to share a few trailers that dropped today. @ENTERPRISE

As well as...

Cheers and happy gaming  

On 23/10/2023 at 00:32, UltraMega said:

I figured it out. Somehow my ship was like 100 points over weight. 

 

What lvl are you guys? I'm at 41. 

I believe I am ~17 at 31hrs. That's largely due to going off the critical path and spending time just exploring. 

That said, I haven't played much in October but I will revisit the game soon. Got side tracked by AC (surprisingly) and now my attention will be horror games up until Halloween

Edit: Interesting... 

Ex-Bethesda Developer Reveals Internal Debate About Starfield's Scope - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Bethesda's former design director has revealed an internal debate around the number of planets in Starfield early on in the game's development.

Super Mario Bros.™ Wonder

Docked (does it really matter?)

If you own a Switch and you have someone to play co-op with, I highly recommend Wonder. Wonder plays like Super Mario World from SNES. Super colourful, seriously it POPS on an OLED, great level design, a lot of unique levels and modifiers (wonder seeds) that will change how your characters behaves, or controls, or simply the environment, or mixture of many more variables. This is a must play if you like 2D platformers. The soundtrack rips too, some of the Bowser levels will just break out into some serious heavy riffs for a Mario game, I was genuinely surprised. Get it and if you don't have a Switch, I am sure it will be on Yuzu soon. 

8 hours ago, UltraMega said:

 

You can give Sarah some different clothes FYI, so she doesn't have to look like a mom at a biker bar forever. 

Welp, I suck a making .gifs but in a nutshell...

16 hours ago, The Pook said:

Here's a .gif I made from screenshots when Sarah melted into the floor... 

Assassin's Creed Mirage

Max - 4K

I just rolled the credits. 35hrs, nearly 100% completion. I am very impressed with Mirage. I was super skeptical of AC, it still has quite a bit of jank (e.g., character not going where you want to go) and in certain locations and quests, it can look disproportionally worse when compared to the majority of the outdoor environments or large temples. As if some assets and textures were remixed between old and new. Most importantly, very fun to play when you're focused on stealth, especially on Hard. The game punishes you fairly fell if you try to just "kill everyone". Takes quite a few hits and it's slow. They decentivize the hack and slash fairly well. Fun tactic: Equipment a unique sword, that you can unlock which reduces your health by 50%, but also increases damage dealt by 50%. Mixed with Hard mode, you go down it one to two hits and really cranks up the risk/reward for going stealth. If you're looking for a... stealth / action / narrative... highly recommend. 
 

On 17/10/2023 at 18:49, UltraMega said:

Clip above was just testing to see how doing a timelapse would work. Added some more clips, made a longer version.

Cool vid! What are you using to record gameplay? I used to use Shadowplay from Nvidia back in the day but it's been a long time since I've recorded. 

2 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

 

Wow. Pretty soon my 3080 Ti is going to feel inadequate at 4k RT 

It must be an error.... I think I see some red flags. 

First, an RTX 3070 is approx. 50% faster than an RTX 3060.

Second... If we look at the chart, they're effectively saying that a 3060 = 3070.

It's the same throughput / render load (3% variance) yet they're recommending a card 50% faster? Math isn't mathing. Edit: Also, I am skeptical that when Ray Tracing or Path Tracing is on, a faster CPU isn't recommended. Too many red flags.

On second thought, I may for a tech deep dive review on PC before Alan Wake 2 arrives….

The resolution vs. upscaling recommendations are a little concerning. I knew it was going to be a GPU burner since it is Nvidia sponsored, supports Path Tracing, and well… because light itself is a key mechanic.

However, when a RTX 3070 is recommended for effectively 720p (1080p DLSS quality) @ Medium settings with Low Ray Tracing… for 30 FPS!?… something doesn’t add up. Either whomever drafted the chart doesn’t understand upscaling OR the game is very poorly optimized on PC.

Alan Wake 2's PC specs are here - and they're as scary as the game itself

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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Remedy has revealed the full system requirements to run its highly-anticipated sequel, Alan...

First Picklefest in Toronto today. I bought a bunch of pickles. I also tried a pickle beer and various pickle burgers.

I love pickles.

2 hours ago, iamjanco said:

 

While it's not spelled the same way, the Dutch have a word for a part of the male anatomy that sounds like that.

I wonder which part…

LOOL

October 18 2023 - Updates

I've been silently updating the sheet (mainly scores) where I can these past couple weeks since the release schedule for this year is just about locked in. 

Every update to the sheet since my last post is noted with a cell highlighted in yellow. Not much value for me to write it out, so here's a copy / paste from the "Data" tab . As a reminder, console scores are PS5 first (if applicable). 

Most of these games I won't play anytime soon but I've been watching a few videos on Cities: Skylines II and I think it has a strong potential on PC but be aware: 

Cities: Skylines 2 performance has "not achieved the benchmark we targeted", Paradox admits ahead of launch

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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Ahead of Cities: Skylines 2's release next week, publisher Paradox Interactive has admitted the city building sequel ha…

I was also looking forward to the Metal Gear Solid collection but this "performance" chart is really deflating any interest to spend $70 CAD on it. Why is it capped to 1080p / 60fps on PC... yikes. 

Alan Wake II remains my highlight. Fingers crossed it plays well on PC with minimal hiccup. I want to blast through it before Halloween (if possible). Here's a new recap trailer for those who havent played Alan Wake.

On 17/10/2023 at 00:01, UltraMega said:

 

Pretty great explanation. I think Dice was the first to use photogrammetry in games. IMO I'd say it's as big of a revelation for gaming as path tracing stands to be, if not more so. 

 

 

One thing I think these camera effects show is that lighting in games is tricky. It's sort of simple to crush the lighting effect to make everything look like it was captured on a crappy phone to make it seem more realistic, but making it looks real and clearly visible at the same time is hard. 

For sure it's not easy, otherwise I think we would see it more frequently already. Depending on the game, especially one based on realism and through a body cam, it makes a lot of sense. For a lot of games where the player camera is not meant to be a real camera, I can see why a lot of post-processing effects don't make sense from an artistic vision. 

Have to agree with Ultra. To push it to the next level of visual fidelity, there are a lot of camera features in Unreal that are giving the impression it’s near life like.

That said, the foundation of the work comes from the quality assets and the lighting. The level of quality from models like Quixel Mega Scans which when mixed with Nanite (“infinite” level of detail) allow creators to get this much more detail without blowing the render budget. Even iphones now have Lidar technology these days to start scanning on your own. Sure… it won’t match professional equipment but it just makes learning the tools that much easier.

I don’t pretend to understand the full pipeline from scan to game asset but sitting on the sidelines, they’re getting close to a level of fidelity that is unlike anything we could do before.

What I find really remarkable footage from Unreal like this is how well it can adjust exposure in a scene based on all of the lighting sources in real time. Going from interior to exterior scenes, seeing the highlights blow out or the contrast reduce is just like adjusting the aperture on a camera, or when your eyes dilate, is impressive. Mixed with HDR and post processing will really make games pop.

If you look at the trailer of Unrecord, compare it against the video of people just walking in the asset file (it’s accessible online) you can see how much of an impact post processing makes the footage look real 

The devs for that game in development have really well tuned the post processing to give the impression of body cam footage. Motion blur, chromatic aberration, fish eye lens, pixelated / compression effect etc.

I’ve only used Unreal personally to take models from Revit / 3DS Max for static renders (architectural visualization) but when I see footage like this, it feels like we’re on the verge of getting real time visualizations.

I found a video that better explains the process of how all the post processing can really spice up look and feel.