September 2023 Random Game Thoughts Thread

[ZedClampet]

Yea CUDA is used a ton in the professional space as well as the tensor cores., I dont think theres much contest in most stuff outside of gaming. At least not last time I actually looked.

What Nvidia has been doing for the last 10 years at least is release prorietary technologies that only work on their GPUs and charge a massive premium to access them. There was PhysX, (which they bought) stuff like TXAA, GameWorks(Hair works!) games, then we had Gsync, now Ray Tracing and DLSS. AMD then tends to come along and provide an alternative to Nvidias tech that doesnt quite work as well, but well enough, and is platform agnostic plus cheaper to access which after a couple years becomes the market norm.

I'd bet stuff like DLSS/FSR/XESS goes exactly the same way. At teh end of the day game devs dont really want to work with one company or the other, I'm sure theyd much rather just make games that work on all hardware.

You know what your problem is...just kidding. I always say that to my wife, but never finish the thought because I don't want to be beat to death. There's nothing my wife would enjoy more than for me to tell her what her problem is hahaha.

*****

I'm loving Megaquarium. I've done the first four campaigns, and it just keeps getting better and better. There is quite a bit of content and a lot of nice, little touches. For instance, if you zoom in all the way (mouse wheel) you can enter first person mode and tour your aquarium. There are 10 total campaigns in the main game and then 5 more in each of the two DLC, which also come with a lot of other stuff.

I'm not sure how much more content there is to the game because you are unlocking more with every campaign. All I can say is that it's a lot because I went into sandbox mode with everything unlocked and was a little shocked by all of it. Every campaign seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

Speaking of the sandbox mode, it's really a custom campaign creator because there are a ton of options. You can pretty much set it up any way you want. Want to have to unlock animals and tech? Great. What level do you want to start at? This is awesome because too many times sandbox modes feel useless to me when they don't make you worry about money or anything. Megaquarium gives you the option to have to earn money or to have unlimited funds. Great.

For some reason I bounced off this game the first time I tried to play it. Glad I gave it a second chance.

 

[Pifanjr]

I tried introducing my daughter to Spore, but it has no controller support and the M+K controls are too hard for her to play comfortably. I got her through the cell stage and she's run around a bit in the creature stage herself, but I think it's too limited for her. She wants to be able to make up her own stories in the games she plays and Spore has very limited choices in how you interact with your environment.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm not as enthusiastic about The Crew: Motorsport as I initially was. I had gone around and done the first race in each section and really enjoyed it, but now I went back to do more, and I've discovered that most of the events aren't races. They are just random things Ubisoft thought up for you to do in your cars, things I couldn't care less about. I'm so disappointed.

Oh well, it's only two weeks (appx) until Forza Motorsport 8. Now that will involve plenty of racing

I didn't actually pay for The Crew. Not entirely anyway. I joined that Ubisoft club because I wanted to play it and the new Assassin's Creed.

 

[Colif]

Pile up is strange. Everytime I play it my nvme gets to about 61c...

I figured it was because game was on it... so I went to move it today onto my hdd ... no, its on my hdd...

So why is nvme running warm when I am playing a steam game off my hdd? Only thing I can think of is the steam client is on C... but I haven't noticed it before.

normally nvme sits on about 48c

 

[Zloth]

Hey, I don't have it downloaded, so I can't check. Can you have more than one game going at a time? I wouldn't mind starting fresh, but I'm hesitant to delete all my old progress. I put a lot of hours into that. Plus if I ever play with Guido again, that would be the save I would need.

Yep. I'm not sure how many you can have going at once, but I've got four right now: original save, a creative save I use when I come back to the game just to remember how the controls work, my new play-through I've been doing, and an Expedition save.

Expeditions are a semi-new thing meant for somewhat experienced players. When you start one of those, you don't get the opening tutorials. Instead, you get a series of goals that acts like a main quest with no story attached. Some of the rewards for those goals are unique items you can only get in that expedition - once the expedition is done, your save automatically converts to a normal save so you can continue on from there. People can play it just as a way to have unique challenges or as a much more challenging way to start a new game.

I tried one, managed to get myself killed pretty fast, and never came back. I probably know/remember enough now to do much better, but I'm already having a great time with my current save. I just started re-making my home base in a better location. This location has an EM hotspot that isn't too far off, so I won't need a forest of solar power stations feeding the base.

Random thought. If I'm playing a game and press the <escape> key, I expect to see the options to save and to exit the game. Developers usually get the "save" part right, but I have a bunch of games that I have no idea how to quit.

Some console conversions are really bad about that (Yakuza games, for instance). Even if they put an exit in, they put it in some unexpected menu location. No Man's Sky has it under Options for reasons I can't fathom.

 

[Brian Boru]

She wants to be able to make up her own stories in the games she plays

Attagirl! Send he Uh, never mind, we tried that…

why is nvme running warm when I am playing a steam game off my hdd?

Total guess: the game stores current session info on the NVMe which it reads and writes frequently.

Check NVMe folders for a relevant folder, maybe in AppData or ProgramData.

 

[ZedClampet]

I think Steam has an AI reading all the forum comments now. I got a warning to be nice for responding to a comment with, "You're a dumba$$."

I know it wasn't the devs because they disappeared from Steam years ago, and I know Valve doesn't have enough people to actually moderate the forums. Great, now that's two places I have to be nice.

In my defense, the guy posted that he wasn't going to buy Super Mega Baseball 4 because the developers had bowed to the SJWs and put female players in the game. (They were in the other SMB games, as well)

On the bright side, the whole thread seems to have been deleted.

 

[Brian Boru]

that's two places I have to be nice

I know a great sports forum where you can be yourself!

 

[Colif]

Total guess: the game stores current session info on the NVMe which it reads and writes frequently.

I don't see anything in roaming relating to that program or even steam...
nothing obvious in Programdata... finds 2 Nvidia log files, wonders how they survived ddu

It might be because game in early access and they monitor performance...

 

[ZedClampet]

I know a great sports forum where you can be yourself!

I didn't say I wanted to be a misogynistic psychopath, but calling someone a dumba$$ when they are clearly a dumba$$ should be allowable anywhere. It's not about being rude. It's about the truth. I was simply stating a fact.

 

[Brian Boru]

Couple of pieces about actors in games. From today:

Idris Elba: Actors in video games like Phantom Liberty is 'sign of the times'

Idris Elba, who stars in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, sees a future where films and games converge.

www.bbc.com

From 2014:

How are virtual characters created?

Click's Spencer Kelly looks at the technology that is transforming the cinema and giving new creativity to filmmakers.

www.bbc.com

 

[ZedClampet]

Couple of pieces about actors in games. From today:

Idris Elba: Actors in video games like Phantom Liberty is 'sign of the times'

Idris Elba, who stars in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, sees a future where films and games converge.

www.bbc.com

From 2014:

How are virtual characters created?

Click's Spencer Kelly looks at the technology that is transforming the cinema and giving new creativity to filmmakers.

www.bbc.com

Fun article.

Didn't watch the video on mocap. As you can tell from my post about "real Geralt", mocap is about to change dramatically. For one thing, AI can recreate lip movement so well that lip readers can easily tell what was said and can do it with basically very little human effort. If I had you recite the Gettysburg Address in front of a green screen, I could have a video of a true to life Abraham Lincoln in less than a minute, using a colorized version of one of his photos. Give me another minute, and I'll change your voice to sound like we imagine Lincoln to sound like. And if I don't like your acting, I can change how you say things. You could read it like you were half asleep, and I could make it sound impassioned. It's a whole new world.

 

[Zloth]

"Every game now that has a big engine also has these big film-like cut scenes that are equally as entertaining. You can skip them, but most times you sit and watch, because your fingers are hurting from the last round."
--Idris, not talking about @Brian Boru

In other news, voice actors have OK'ed a strike, with AI being one of the more interesting concerns. It seems some retired guy that plays a lot of games has put an awful scare into them.

 

[ZedClampet]

"Every game now that has a big engine also has these big film-like cut scenes that are equally as entertaining. You can skip them, but most times you sit and watch, because your fingers are hurting from the last round."
--Idris, not talking about @Brian Boru

In other news, voice actors have OK'ed a strike, with AI being one of the more interesting concerns. It seems some retired guy that plays a lot of games has put an awful scare into them.

They should be scared. Everyone should be because I'm going to take their jobs, all of them. For instance, what if I played old, fat Geralt?

How did I get an extra ear in my hairline! Damn, I shaved my beard for that. But holy crap it feels good.

PS If you ever want to know what I look like as an overweight woman in her 80s wearing a bikini, let me know. It's my new background picture.

 

[ZedClampet]

I love Valve's system of counting down when a game launches. I was watching a livestream of Hometopia and when it turned 8 am, the site said the game would unlock in one hour. Most people would assume that meant 9 am, but at 9 it's going to change to saying the game launches in zero hours, and it will actually launch at 10. Of course, it makes more sense now, as it's almost 9 and it still says it's going to launch in 1 hour. Too bad the technology doesn't exist to use minutes in the countdown.

 

[neogunhero]

Does anyone think Counter Strike 2 will release today? Would be a nice distraction from Starfield.

 

[ZedClampet]

Does anyone think Counter Strike 2 will release today? Would be a nice distraction from Starfield.

No one actually knows, but most are guessing today. Since they are on the west coast, they usually do things at around 1 pm eastern time, so maybe check then.

You'll be able to tell because Steam will go down for a few hours.

 

[neogunhero]

No one actually knows, but most are guessing today. Since they are on the west coast, they usually do things at around 1 pm eastern time, so maybe check then.

You'll be able to tell because Steam will go down for a few hours.

I’m hoping so, with all the teases and such it seems very plausible. Especially since they opened up the beta invitations a lot more in late August. Looking forward to those advanced smoke nade physics.

 

[Pifanjr]

Yep, for sure.

I suppose? I didn't get any of the DLC, but I did everything I could in the main game. Heck, I needed it in order to survive!

You'll find out about the stinky Ranger issue soon enough. You may not have an issue with it at all. For me, it was a mighty dilemma!

I played a bit more today, but since it had been a bit since I last played I ended up not increasing the difficulty. Which was probably a good idea, as I took quite some damage from enemies I hadn't seen before.

My ranger did turn stinky, but only for a couple of minutes. I might have missed something that would have made it a dilemma.

 

[Zloth]

PS If you ever want to know what I look like as an overweight woman in her 80s wearing a bikini, let me know. It's my new background picture.

Time for a new avatar!

 

[Colif]

Furthest I got so far into 2nd area. I have a feeling this is going to fail soon

considering I am at the top of the mountain now.
10k would be the end of map. I won't make it with the amount of people who are sad now. The dead are just confusing as I don't know how i got that many. No explosions this time around.

 

[ZedClampet]

Trying out the Copilot update on Windows 11. It's a mixed bag. I got it to make a picture for me, which is nice, and then I told it to set a timer for one hour. It's a little talkative and everything requires me to respond that I do, in fact, want it to do what I just told it to do, so it isn't a speedy process.

Microsoft can't stop the advertising machine. Just for fun, I asked it what name it wanted to be called, and it told me it liked the name Bing. It made me laugh, but for the love of all that is holy, just give it up, Microsoft.

I then asked it to open up the "Advanced Power Settings" but it couldn't do it. All it could do was open up Settings and then give me step by step instruction on how to navigate to Advanced Power Settings. That's a step up from Cortana who had no idea what I was talking about and just opened up a web page.

There may be some sort of change to the snippit tool that allows you to remove the background of a screenshot. At least, I think I remember them saying that, but it doesn't seem to show up on my system. I'm struggling to think of a good use for that anyway.

 

[ZedClampet]

I asked Copilot to make a picture of a magazine cover for PC Gamer that says "Starfield is the best game ever made!" It did make a magazine with a Starfield picture on it, but all the words were nonsense.

 

[Colif]

its the new "multi desktop" feature. Like multi desktop, by about Windows 20 it will work as expected. Until then we all beta testing it and hoping it becomes useful for something other than spying on us.

It can't really do much on the PC so why is it there? it needs more integration into programs... this guy (who created task manager) looked at its features

and what it can't do yet.

 

[neogunhero]

I downloaded Counter-Strike 2 yesterday but I couldn’t bring myself to boot it up. Just wasn’t in the mood to get wrecked by a bunch of twitch streamers. Instead I played some Starfield again. I don’t want to say I’m getting burnt out by it, but… maybe I should download CP2077 again.

Trying out the Copilot update on Windows 11. It's a mixed bag. I got it to make a picture for me, which is nice, and then I told it to set a timer for one hour. It's a little talkative and everything requires me to respond that I do, in fact, want it to do what I just told it to do, so it isn't a speedy process.

“Bing, print me a nude Master Chief“