Rennn

Anyone know about how many tris/surfaces I should be at for a tree, assuming there's going to be a lot of trees around in a foresty setting? I'm between 3-4k right now.

Oh, I forgot about that section. o_o Thanks for mentioning it... Maybe someone could move this? Or I could post again in the correct area if someone with access doesn't move it.

Okay, so I've been making trees and stuff in Speedtree. So far my trees are coming in at about 3000 tris. Any less than that and I can't make them very dense. If I add a few extra details, like caps on the branches (which are mostly covered by leaves anyway) that goes up to 4000 tris. Is that way too high for trees in a forest? I've seen Youtube tutorials of people making trees for about 500 tris, so 3000 seems quite high, even assuming they meant theirs to be very low spec. Also, what's the going rate for faces/triangles in a main character body mesh these days? I've heard everything from 3k to 40k.

I cap at 30 fps in all my games. It saves me a lot of headaches, and it gives me double the power to throw at graphical effects. The main reason most people worry, I think (or hope), is because when you aim for 60 fps you usually have vsync enabled, and when you have vsync enabled and drop below 60 fps, it pops down to 30. So when people worry about dipping below 60 fps in Skyrim, often it feels terrible because really they're not feeling 55 fps or 45 fps, they're feeling the framerate jump straight from 30 to 60 fps randomly, which feels terrible and looks terrible. What's more, oftentimes framerate measuring programs don't account for vsync so they won't display that the framerate is jumping from 30 to 60 causing microstutter. The program will just display "47" or whatever. It leads to a lot of undeserved hate for framerates below 60, because when vsync is turned on anything below 60 comes with microstutter and instability, unless you use a framerate limiter to keep it consistently below 60 fps yet above 29 fps. Framerate limiters themselves come with problems, however. For example, Nvidia's official limiter breaks vsync for me. So I now use the RivaTuner Statistics Server to limit my framerate instead. It doesn't break vsync.

SMIM and the Distant Detail one will both murder your performance on weak-ish rigs. Especially the rock and mountain option for SMIM. My GTX 660 GC is way faster than a 6790, even faster than a 270x, and it's still a noticeable performance drop. Just an observation. I'd recommend you a GTX 760 as it's the same price as a 270x but with higher performance, but you said Nvidia prices are crap in your country, so never mind... Anyway, an HD 7870 Ghz will have performance close enough to a stock GTX 660.

A 270x would be at least a 30% increase in raw performance (IE, from 30 fps to 40 fps), but it performs even better in regards to antialiasing and texture filtering, and it's much better than the 6790 at high resolutions, so if you go to 1080p at some point you wouldn't lose much fps with the 270x. Also, the 2GB VRAM instead of 1GB would allow you to run pretty much any HD texture mods you want in Fallout or Skyrim (provided you stay within the limits of the engine). I'd say it's a worthy upgrade, but only if you get one for substantially less than $300. The closer you can get to $200, the better, because originally they were just supposed to cost $200 even.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I just looked at Newegg and they have 5 or 6 versions still in stock. I'm not familiar with current-gen AMD naming conventions, but isn't this basically what he's looking at? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202063 I'd say they still exist in large quantities on Newegg. Not sure where you came up with the idea that they don't exist.

he clearly says that a 270x is at the top of his budget. An r290x can safely be assumed to be out of the question.

He's running mods, and we have no idea how many. That said, mods can easily bog down any PC. Upgrading his graphics card might give him great performance, or it might do almost nothing. Really it depends on what kinds of mods he's running and how many.

I have a 1TB HDS721010CLA. I didn't run most of the benchmarks, I looked at a chart a while ago comparing HDD speeds when a site ran a bunch of benchmarks. There are much newer and likely superior models of Hitachi HDD than mine, of course, but specifically the HDS721010CLA was among the slowest of all the tested drives. That is because you're CPU-bound. The Phenom II X4 955 (Deneb core) is currently 5 years old, it was made to compete against Intel's Netburst (aka, Core 2 Quad), and was trailing behind. Only the 6-core Phenoms like 1100T (Thuban core) were able to take the fight to C2Q, but those 6-cores were actually made to compete with Nehalem, and they flopped. On the graphics side, GTX 660 goes head-to-head with the current-gen mid-range cards but the CPU is head-to-head with a 5 generations older unit (I may have messed up with counting generations, but whatever). Even though they are old as dirt, you can still find Core 2 Quad and Phenom II X4 processors in gaming computers, but none of them work on stock frequencies anymore. The Phenoms generally work at 3.8-4.4GHz where they are 20-35% faster and go head-to-head with stock Sandy/Ivy i5s, while your 3.2GHz unit is comparable to a stock Core 2 Quad, neither stock PII nor stock C2Q can handle new games anymore. Put simply, you can't expect a 5 years old unit to compete with current generation of processors without overclocking it. Yep, thank you for the confirmation. :smile: Even last generation I guessed my Phenom II was often the bottleneck, but there were always three or four people online ready to insist that the CPU didn't matter very much for gaming and that I should upgrade my video card again instead. Ofc that had underwhelming results in many games. That's why I'm definitely upgrading the CPU this time. And I tried OC'ing my Phenom II once, but I suspect my current motherboard was just too weak, or something. :blink: I'm not sure actually. All I know for sure is my attempt to overclock up to a paltry 3.5Ghz without a voltage increase lead to a series of looping audio and total system crashes about once a week ever since. I reverted the settings back to stock, ofc, and I didn't touch my RAM speeds at all. But the issues persist after several hardware re-seats and a reinstallation of Windows and drivers, as well as a reset and updated BIOS, so at this point I'm certain it's some sort of protracted hardware failure. It didn't help that I probably warped my mobo a bit, when I was more of a noob and I didn't know what motherboard stand-offs were.

It's a CPU. It's not the kind of part you feel, like speakers/display/etc, it's a piece of silicon and fiberglass. First-hand doesn't matter. Anyway, a good cooler is strongly desirable for i5-3570 and mandatory for FX-8320 if you overclock. If you don't, stock ones are passable (AMD stock is much better, but the CPU is hotter), nothing more. I have an i7-4930K clocked to 4.9 on water and I'm very often disappointed with the speed. I have a Hitachi HDD now, and I'm not certain I agree with you. The speed benchmarks pretty terribly, and the return rate on Hitachi drives is about 3.4%, as opposed to Western Digital's rate of 1.5%. All 3 Hitachi drives in those links have 3/5 stars, with a disproportionately high number of people complaining that they were either DOA or died soon after arrival. Combine that with the fact that my last Hitachi HDD died after less than 3 years... Western Digital looks like a good option, since the price is a mere $25 higher between the 1TB models. On the contrary, firsthand experience does matter. No offense, I didn't say anything about what people felt. I'm not specifically asking if anyone has had them blow up or anything isolated, which could be random chance. Random chance can be useful when it's repeated 200 times, like on Newegg reviews, but not in a random forum thread. However, if someone mentions that their 3570 bottlenecks them while emulating PS2 games or needed a new cooler because the default one is noisy, that's easily repeatable and testable. But it's only something that someone who owned one would know. Same for Hard Drives. You can bet "makes a lot of noise on write cycles" isn't on the list of specs or in the benchmarks. When I asked if people were disappointed, I perhaps wrongly assumed that people would weigh the benchmarks against performance in current games, not that they would rely on a gut (read: imagined) judgment. Anyway, I won't be overclocking right away. If there's even a 1% chance of damaging something I'd rather not risk it at this point, as an OC won't be a matter of necessity yet, but rather of preference. Either of those CPUs should already be bottlenecked by my GPU.

IDK. Right now, you're still better off with an Intel CPU. 2 years down the road, I'm quite sure FX-8320 will beat i5-4670K. It already does in a few 2012-2014 games. Okay, I'm going with the Western Digital HDD then. I'll have to go 1TB again to stop the cost from doubling over the Seagate, but it should still be worth it. The amount of Seagate HDDs that reviews say failed in 6 months to a year was startling. I'm getting rid of my current HDD mostly for reliability... I won't risk getting another HDD just as unreliable. Two modified plans. Intel Plan: $390 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W019M6559 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115233 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157297 AMD Plan: $320 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W019M6559 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113285 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128627 Does anyone have an i5-3570 or an FX-8320, and want to talk about your experience with it? Are you ever disappointed with the speed... Does it need a new cooler... etc? It might be worth noting that I'll be using this monitor. I don't expect to change this, as it seems perfect for me. Capping at 30 fps, I could scarcely care less about the refresh rate of 60hz or the 6ms response time (dealbreakers for other gamers at this price point, or so I'm told). I'm just interested in color accuracy, contrast ratio, viewing angle, etc. That means an IPS panel is a requirement this time. And also I'm glad that it has an adjustable base, because my desk is a bit low without that. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236287

I don't blame you for not playing BF4 - it's awful, from flying cars to spawning in the middle of the sky and CTDs, it's just awful. Though sometimes the bugs are just hilarious. :laugh: And regarding Borderlands, why do you use CPU PhysX when you can do GPU PhysX which induces a much lower framerate drop and lower overall system strain? Even an i7 would flop face-first into the ground with that thing, CPU PhysX makes no sense either unless you're running on a Radeon. But I digress with all that talk, I do that often. The bottom line is, you can't make a mistake whatever CPU you choose (as long as it's at least a current/last gen quad-core). I don't know if I said it before but going with either FX 83xx or i5 is good, there's no right or wrong choice either way you look at it. i5 will rock in some games, 83xx will rock in others, more cores does help with some stuff while higher IPC helps in other stuff, and they will both rock at 30FPS. They are both good processors and they both do a good job in tasks they are designed for, the choice depends solely on what you do, what you want, what you play and what you need. One that stands out from the bunch is i7, that thing is like like both FX and i5 combined with both IPC and multi-threading, but that's why it costs like both of them combined. And in case you wonder about multi-core utilization in future games, I can't really say anything for certain. 4 cores vs 8 cores is in a questionable state right now with 8-core consoles and newer titles coming out that utilize octa-cores alongside other titles that don't. Gaming industry may go either way so I can't suggest either as future-proof. I'm 100% sure they will switch to multi-threading eventually, but I'm unsure as to when, could be in 6 months or 6 years for all I know. No offense, but I've been told by a lot of people over the last two years that my graphics card is more of a bottleneck than my CPU, so I've upgraded my graphics card on their advice and in certain games (Oblivion, Dark Souls, Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age, etc) I had absolutely no increase in performance. Those are all notoriously CPU heavy games. And like clockwork, every time my CPU locks at 50% load, especially in games optimized for 2 cores, my framerate dives. This time I'm upgrading the CPU and keeping the GPU. Also, I'm waiting for the GTX 8xx series to release before I upgrade my card again. As further testing, I used a program called CAR (core affinity something) in Dragon Age. It lets you disable CPU cores in-game to test performance. DAO is optimized for 3 cores, according to the developers. I normally get 45 fps in the camp in Ostagar, which is the hardest place to run in the game. I disabled 1 of my 4 cores, and the framerate didn't change from 45. I mean, it may have wiggled between 43 and 46 or something, but that's negligible. I disabled another core, and my framerate dropped from 45 to 35. I disabled another, going on just one core now, and my framerate was 15-20. Clearly, I was CPU bound. I don't actually run PhysX through my CPU, I just tested it in Borderlands 2 for a few minutes. Still, I just checked and I didn't know the Xbone and PS4 were using 8-core CPUs. I haven't checked since the rumors said they'd be quad. That might make it worth going for another AMD CPU, if it reflects on the overall optimization of the industry. What about... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W019M6559 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128627 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113285 ...as a new plan? ($230) Compared against... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148910 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157370 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116898 ...the old plan. ($420)

Most of my games are limited by my graphics card, but those I can all keep above 30 fps anyway. The only games I really need the improvement for (the ones that drop below 30 sometimes) are CPU limited, or strongly hint that they're CPU limited. Like Oblivion, which uses one CPU core. Or Borderlands 2, as the framerate dives as soon as I switch PhysX to CPU processed.

Crysis 3, Battlefield 4, Far Cry 3, just off the top of my head. A lot of software is abandoning serial and going for parallel scaling as well. And to clarify something Thor there seems to miss, 8350 is kind of an "overclocker's choice" processor. The 8320 is a lower-binned 8350 with lower out-of-the-box clocks than 8350 which costs $160, may not reach the same level of overclock but costs $50-60 less and it's also unlocked. Enable one core per compute unit (improves per-core performance by ~10% by removing resource sharing) and raise the frequency to some 4.2-4.5GHz, you basically get an i5 with an unlocked multiplier and enabling all cores means you have 8 cores if you need them for games that do scale. Depending on binning, 8320 should reach 4-4.3GHz on stock voltage with 8 cores, 4.1-4.5 with 4 cores, no fear of frying the mobo either if you dsable the modules since power draw drops by ~40%. But to be honest, I keep mine at 4.2GHz with all cores enabled (stock voltage) and, I'm yet to see a game other than Starcraft II to be running under 60FPS because of the CPU, I'm GPU-bound in everything with a 7770. Thor runs a GTX 780 Ti so he may have more info on how the CPU alone performs. My 8320 only flops in strategy games with my setting, but even Intel's i7s tend to struggle with those since RTS are completely serial, they only use one core, so you'll get 45FPS instead of 60FPS which doesn't seem to be that much of a difference to me in those kinds of games. I went i5-3570K to FX 8320, can't say I see any difference other than in software compile and 3D render times which benefit from more cores. With a GTX 660, difference between an FX-8320 @4.2GHz (or 8350 on stock) and i5-4670 in games other than RTS falls within a margin of error, you'd be GPU-bound since 660 is on-par with Radeon 7870 which is a last-gen mid-range card (nearly 2 generations behind looking from Nvidia side, with Maxwell coming up soon and all that). If I recall correctly, you keep your games locked to 30FPS, or am I mistaken? If you're capping them, you may as well get the 8320 and keep it on stock, it'll definitely run anything at over 30FPS, now and in the future. If not, a small bump in clocks and you're at 60FPS in anything other than RTS (again, due to serial processing). For an AMD CPU for low cost, I'd go with this combo: Mobo: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P - $80 - It's a 4+1 and not an 8+2 but it has VRM cooling, it's got 6x SATA 3 ports, 2x USB 3.0 and 6x USB 2.0. CPU: AMD FX 8320 - $160 - It's a solid unit, overclocks decently, and cheaper than 8350 while being pretty much the same except for stock frequency. Total price - $240 But if you're determined to go with Intel, I'd suggest an H87 board, they are cheaper and you don't really need the overclocking features for a locked CPU. And I'd also get an aftermarket cooler if I were you, Ivy Bridge and Haswell are toasty even on stock, my old i5 would run at 86oC on a stock cooler and around 72oC with Arctic Freezer 13, Haswell runs even hotter than Ivy from what I hear. Also, here's a big, fat note - Haswell are touchy when it comes to power supply units, it may run on yours but the general consensus is to get a "Haswell certified" PSU. So yeah, you may need to get a new PSU, with an "unsupported" PSU you basically BSOD every now and then, and maybe even f*** up your PC since the 12V rail goes bonkers. Here's a list of compatible units, 750W Earthwatts Green falls under "has not been confirmed". New PSU is an additional expense but it's better than having problems or dead components down the road. My recommendation is XFX, those are re-branded SeaSonic units and are regarded as great quality units. As for the rest, 1TB and 2TB Seagate models I've seen all had some issues, ranging from firmware problems to being DOA. I generally recommend Hitachi or WD for large drives, more expensive but they seem to be more sturdy and stable. Personally, I don't really see the point of HDDs larger than 1TB other than for static storage, I'd rather take a 120GB SSD instead and a 1TB drive since it would make a bigger overall difference than the CPU, unless you actually need 2TB of storage. Haven't personally tried BF 4, but Crysis 3 recommends a quad core and Far Cry 3 recommends a dual core. I mean, do you have a source for FC3 using more than 4 cores? It's one of my favorite games, if it really does use 6 that might be worth going for an AMD octa-core. But my CPU hits 48-50% load and locks there every time my framerate drops in FC3, so that seems to indicate it does only use 2 cores, which would make an i5 more effective. :s I'd rather not overclock... I do cap at 30 fps, specifically so I don't have to overclock or upgrade as often. A stock 660 benchmarks 10% faster than a 7870 Ghz, and a 660 GC benchmarks more than 20% faster than a stock 7870. There is a significant difference. I know because I compared 7870s and 660s a lot before I decided on a 660. I'll look at Western Digital HDDs, there was one a bit more expensive I was considering instead of the Seagate one I linked to.

The i5 I linked to is the same cost as the FX you linked, but the i5 benchmarks faster in core per core performance and virtually no games use more than 4 cores. Many only use 2 still. The motherboard I chose is for Intel CPUs, and I also said in my post that I'm not getting another AMD CPU. The drive you linked is a 2.5" version for laptops, and it won't fit in my HDD rack. :/

I currently have: 2GB GTX 660 GC (factory overclocked) AMD Phenom II 955 X4 at 3.2Ghz 8GB Gskill Ripjaw RAM at 1600mhz 750w Antec Earthwatt modular PSU Asus M4N68T-M V2 micro ATX motherboard Asus Xonar DG sound card 1TB Hitachi HDD at 7.2Ghz I'm looking at upgrading, for many reasons. I suspect the motherboard is failing after a poorly advised overlock, I want to switch to an Intel CPU, and I need to upgrade my CPU since it's continuing to bottleneck me in some games. Also, my current HDD is notoriously unreliable and I don't want to still be using it if/when it fails. One of my requirements is a regular ATX motherboard, not micro ATX again. There's no space to move my fingers when I install stuff on my current board. I also need a mobo with USB 3.0 support, since my case has several built in USB 3.0 slots that I can't use right now. I've planned upgrades before, but the money always got sidetracked to some emergency or something. :blink: But within a few months I think I'll finally be able to upgrade, so I'm putting together a final plan. I'm looking at these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148910 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157370 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116898 I particularly want to know if that CPU is has a good cost/performance ratio. I considered going for an i7, but I suspect that would inflate the cost without much of a difference in game performance. True/false? Any suggestions to lower the price while maintaining as much performance as possible, or increase performance for a small price increase?

There's no way to buy Skyrim without Steam. :/ Apparently some people can solve this issue by uninstalling and reinstalling their video card drivers, if deleting everything except Steamapps and Steam.exe doesn't work for you.

There have been a lot of threads over the years talking about game changing mods, and essential mods, but what about mods that just add to the game in simple ways? Things that enhance immersion without adding whole new features or revamping the gameplay? There are mods like Moon Glow, that does exactly what it sounds like. Or Dark Brotherhood Babette Replacer, which gives Babette a refitted DB robe instead of generic children's clothes. Alternatively, Playable Ancient Falmer Crown, which adds the vanilla (unobtainable) Falmer Crown into the game in a lore friendly way. Mods like that are small but they help Skyrim seem more finished and detailed. What are your favorite simple mods?

O_o No offense, i don't know what's wrong, but your video card is way behind your CPU and RAM. You'd have a beast if you put a GTX 770 in that thing.

Heheh. Speak for yourself. I'd like total realism, the only problem is a controller or keyboard isn't sophisticated enough to make total realism fair. What good is a shooter that tracks every vein in your body that a bullet hits if you have to press a button to crouch and don't know if your shoulders are really sticking out?

I won't be buying it. If I wanted to steal a car, hit a prostitute with a baseball bat and open a weed shop I could do that next Wednesday. Plus, if the optimization is anything like GTA 4 it'll look like a PS3 game yet require a 4GB 780 to run.

Upscaling is never 'perfect'. It doesn't ever add detail, over the default resolution. The most it does is not lose detail. A 480p PS2 game upscaled to 720p is still only running at 480p, it didn't get any closer to 720p. The detail to make it 720p is simply not being processed. All good upscaling will do is prevent any more blur than already exists at native 480p.

I have to disagree with you there. Key moments in real life tend to be much more interesting than the things people imagine. Google the politics behind the Spanish Inquisition some time... It gets a hell of a lot more complex and multifaceted than most game stories I've seen. I'm not excited about Kingdom Come, however, because it won't be realistic. It'll be boring, sold as realistic, because every game dev I've ever seen has the impression that realism just means cutting out the fantasy stuff, rather than replacing it with real intrigue, locations, enemies, and events.

Very true. I play PS2 games on my PC all the time at real 1080p... (It's legal, admins, I use my own disks instead of isos and I legally removed my own PS2 fat BIOS when I switched to a PS2 slim) The only problem is not every game works properly. I can't seem to get Champions of Norrath running, which is perhaps the game I want the most besides King's Field IV. KFIV does work, thankfully. Some PS2 games (I'm looking at you Monster Hunter, Shadow of the Colossus, and Killzone) have textures and effects wasted at 480p. You don't get the full detail of those games unless you run at an HD resolution. Really, it continually amazes me how many effects the PS2 and PSP were able to pull off. Stencil shadows, verlet physics, image reflections, even HDR and sunrays in a couple cases. Running at 480p and 272p, respectively, really allowed the early consoles to use some impressive tricks on weak hardware.