What game are you currently playing

[Sunsibar]

I wondered if it's worth to buy it again...

Since you apparently completed it already, I'd say it probably is not worth to buy again. At least not in full price.

I never completed the original game (played quite a lot, but never even saw any of the bosses...), so I still had a lot to play there. And I got mine from sale, so it wasn't that bad to buy again. For me.

Graphics was nice improvement (as far as I remember the old version), but I had to tone it down quite a lot (on pc) for making it feel smoother. Pretty graphic settings made all turning feel like my character was drunk : D And the game wasn't that fun to play if you are just standing still and watching the landscapes.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Since you apparently completed it already, I'd say it probably is not worth to buy again. At least not in full price.

I never completed the original game (played quite a lot, but never even saw any of the bosses...), so I still had a lot to play there. And I got mine from sale, so it wasn't that bad to buy again. For me.

Oh, more than "completed it", beat all the bosses on all the maps several times. So it's a bit like Cyberpunk, I just reached 160 days of playing time

Graphics was nice improvement (as far as I remember the old version), but I had to tone it down quite a lot (on pc) for making it feel smoother. Pretty graphic settings made all turning feel like my character was drunk : D And the game wasn't that fun to play if you are just standing still and watching the landscapes.

Ok thanks!
So I'm afraid it won't be great on Xbox anyway... Even if in the player reviews on the store, it doesn't seem that bad, at least on Series X. Beside, apparently, the game support some mods, so... I have to admit, I'm a bit tempted now. Maybe if it's on sale at decent price or maybe on Game Pass (knowing the original is on Game Pass) or if I have nothing better to play, I'll give a shoot.

 

[Agent-94]

The new GOG release of Alpha Protocol.

 

[BabaBooey88]

I had been waiting desperately for dragons dogma 2 since I finished the first game back in 2013, and played for a few hours, but Helldivers 2 got it’s hooks in me good.

Fantastic game.

 

[Sunsibar]

apparently, the game support some mods, so... I have to admit, I'm a bit tempted now.

Oh yes, this I forgot to mention (I'm currently playing on a friend's non modded server). Game indeed has mods listed in the actual game menus. You still have to do a bit of downloading, but basically the mods are "included" in the base game and you can choose if you want to use them or not.

According to this article from November, currently consoles have less mods available than PC, but there are indeed mods available. And more should become available as the time goes by.

 

[GrimReaper801]

I had been waiting desperately for dragons dogma 2 since I finished the first game back in 2013, and played for a few hours, but Helldivers 2 got it’s hooks in me good.

Fantastic game.

Indeed!

I get very little gaming time and I've been splitting it between DD2 and HD2. I got Horizon Forbidden West just waiting to be played but I get at most 5-6 hours of gaming every week and it's all split between those first two. HD2 just changes constantly and I've rarely seen developers so clearly dedicated to the improvement of their game while simultaneously sticking to their vision. I can't see myself stopping playing anytime soon.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Because I value story and interesting characters, where would you place the narrative and characters in comparison to, for example, Cyberpunk, Horizon Forbidden West, Baldur's Gate 3, Fallout 3/4, Skyrim?

I just finished the game and well... I'll change a bit my comparison
In fact, I would place Dragon Dogma 2 at the same level as Bethesda games, but not for the same reasons. Let's say the story and characters are interesting enough, but the (main) story itself is pretty short. Even if I took me 100+ hours to finish it, the (main) story is what, 10hrs long, at max.
So no, if you want a good story and characters, definitely not the game you seek

 

[Shafir]

Thank you. That confirms my first impressions. Kicked it already from my watch list. Perhaps i´ll take another look if on sale.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Oh yes, this I forgot to mention (I'm currently playing on a friend's non modded server). Game indeed has mods listed in the actual game menus. You still have to do a bit of downloading, but basically the mods are "included" in the base game and you can choose if you want to use them or not.

According to this article from November, currently consoles have less mods available than PC, but there are indeed mods available. And more should become available as the time goes by.

I watched a playthrough to have an idea of what to expect and well... I bought the game. I started a new game on Survival Evolved just to see the difference and it's quite significant...
On Acsended, I simply wandered few minutes after spawning and "performances" doesn't seem that bad... yet. I'm not sure how my Series X will handle the game with a bunch of tames and big builds/structures... I'll have to discover it I guess
Survival Evolved - Survival Acsended

 

[SigilFey]

If only it was this simple for everyone.

There is literally no difference in performance between setting everything to low at 1080P and setting everything to max with RT at 4K in my case. Literally none. I get the exact same FPS in town. Which is to say somewhere between low 30s and low 40s. With much better hardware too. Shoots up to a stable 90+ out in the wilds luckily since, as you pointed out, it's where most of the action happens but still. It's annoying to get these massive slowdowns every time I step in town.

It's still very strange how it affects some people disproportionately. It's all entirely to do with the way the engine calculates NPC advanced pathing and physics and, from what Capcom indicated, I'm hopeful it'll be fixed in due time.

Ja. From what I'm reading, the game is pretty heavily CPU dependent in major cities. I get some stutter at times. Not really FPS drops so much as the game begins to chug or hitch. Other times, it's very smooth. So something definitely needs to be optimized there.

Does lowering shadows from "Max" to "High" have any effect on your end? Especially at night, with all the lanterns going, it's shocking how heavy shadows get.

_______________


On a separate note:

Started dabbling with Valheim, yet again. Sometimes, ya just gotta viking.

 

[Draconifors]

Started dabbling with Valheim, yet again. Sometimes, ya just gotta viking.

One does not simply stop playing Valheim.

(I would put that in a Boromir meme template, but am on mobile.)

 

[PresenceOfMind]

I'm playing Dragon Dogma 2 now and from time to time I log in CP2077 to walk around and have some fun killing punks. Sometimes some random quests popup, it's fun.

Post automatically merged: Mar 31, 2024

I have gone back to 5 years ago and decided to play Dragon Age Origins again.

Reason? Dragon Age 3 is coming out soon... so I decided to go back and play DAO... because... well... I actually never finished it, even though I pumped 152 hours into it. I stopped playing just befor going to the Landsmeet (only had a less then a handfull of sidequests to do).

So, as I said, I intend to playthrough DAO + all the DLC's, then DA2 + all DLC (which I did not play actually), in preperations for DA3.

So far, during the past 3 weeks, I have pumped 112 hours into the game. I am done with 3 of the main quests so far (the ones taking place in Circle Tower, Orzemmar, and Brecilian Forest), and I am halfway through the 4th one (Redcliff).

Like my original save I am again playing a Human Warrior, his main talent tree is the Shield one (I have taken all of them). I was considering just load up my old saves and continue from there, but felt that it was so long ago I played it (at the very least 3 years ago since I played it) that starting over felt better to refresh my memory of it.

As of right now I am sceptical that I will manage to play through both of the games, and all their DLC's, befor DA3 comes out though... just based on the fact of how I play games like this (games in general actually). I will spend a lot of time making sure I have done everything in it, run around and check in every possible place to find stuff, do every single quest I can do, steal absolutly EVERYTHING not nailed down, including pickpocketing every single regular npc I come across (not included enemies in combat though).

This is unfortunatly also the reason why I often do not finish a lot of RPG's, because I usually play my self tired of the game befor I reach the end, or play it long enough for some other game to come around where I think "Oh, must play!" and sort of forget to finish the previous one first. XD

DAO is the best there is. No doubt about it. I don't know how to feel about DA4. 2 and 3 are bad. They never got back the same experience as DAO unfortunately. Yes they are playable but they are not near in the same level as DAO.

 

[Mariuszek]

W3

 

[GrimReaper801]

Ja. From what I'm reading, the game is pretty heavily CPU dependent in major cities. I get some stutter at times. Not really FPS drops so much as the game begins to chug or hitch. Other times, it's very smooth. So something definitely needs to be optimized there.

Does lowering shadows from "Max" to "High" have any effect on your end? Especially at night, with all the lanterns going, it's shocking how heavy shadows get.

Nope. Like I said, there is no difference between everything at max and everything on low.

In fact, the graphical settings had zero effect on my FPS inside cities. Playing around with the settings, I could get my FPS to an unnecessarily high level outside of cities but cities used to just tank my FPS regardless of any minor or major setting tweaks I did.

After having a closer look, it feels a lot more like the game simply does not access the resources that are available when you get to town. Both my GPU and CPU would rarely go above 50-60% usage. Even my fans would throttle down as I entered cities and hardware usage, and thus temperatures, went down. Went looking for a reason/solution and saw some people had luck turning the game's CPU priority to high. That gave me a marginal boost of 5-7FPS. Enough so that cities at least felt smooth. Still ridiculously far from the constant 90+ in the wilds.

Then, I turned off the Steam overlay for something else entirely but didn't turn it back on when I next turned on the game. The drops were gone. In true CP2077 fashion, It was stable across the board now.

This is on a a 12900KS, 3080Ti with 64GB of RAM. Friend of mine with a 4090, 14900KS and 64GB RAM had to brute force his way through with frame generation to get decent FPS in cities. Did the same thing I did and doesn't require FG anymore. All highly anecdotal but it maybe it can help others if they're having issues.

 

[proyic1]

I'm not playing right now

 

[PresenceOfMind]

Nope. Like I said, there is no difference between everything at max and everything on low.

In fact, the graphical settings had zero effect on my FPS inside cities. Playing around with the settings, I could get my FPS to an unnecessarily high level outside of cities but cities used to just tank my FPS regardless of any minor or major setting tweaks I did.

After having a closer look, it feels a lot more like the game simply does not access the resources that are available when you get to town. Both my GPU and CPU would rarely go above 50-60% usage. Even my fans would throttle down as I entered cities and hardware usage, and thus temperatures, went down. Went looking for a reason/solution and saw some people had luck turning the game's CPU priority to high. That gave me a marginal boost of 5-7FPS. Enough so that cities at least felt smooth. Still ridiculously far from the constant 90+ in the wilds.

Then, I turned off the Steam overlay for something else entirely but didn't turn it back on when I next turned on the game. The drops were gone. In true CP2077 fashion, It was stable across the board now.

This is on a a 12900KS, 3080Ti with 64GB of RAM. Friend of mine with a 4090, 14900KS and 64GB RAM had to brute force his way through with frame generation to get decent FPS in cities. Did the same thing I did and doesn't require FG anymore. All highly anecdotal but it maybe it can help others if they're having issues.

Turn off Steam overlay will loose FPS counter. Do you have a lightweight replacement suggestion. cheers.

 

[GrimReaper801]

Turn off Steam overlay will loose FPS counter. Do you have a lightweight replacement suggestion. cheers.

Steam's FPS counter is too basic for my taste so I personally use MSI's Afterburner/Rivatuner. It can be as lightweight or as annoyingly in your face as you want it to be.

Also very easy on system resources. Steam's overlay seems far more brutal when it causes issues anyway.

 

[PresenceOfMind]

Steam's FPS counter is too basic for my taste so I personally use MSI's Afterburner/Rivatuner. It can be as lightweight or as annoyingly in your face as you want it to be.

Also very easy on system resources. Steam's overlay seems far more brutal when it causes issues anyway.

Thank you but I tried using MSI Afterburner and my experience, the app is heavy and causes -8 FPS in game. I'm sure Steam overlay also causes some performance loss but it less than MSI Afterburner. In my experience. I will keep looking for another FPS counter.

 

[lefouduroi.pr]

Thank you but I tried using MSI Afterburner and my experience, the app is heavy and causes -8 FPS in game. I'm sure Steam overlay also causes some performance loss but it less than MSI Afterburner. In my experience. I will keep looking for another FPS counter.

As the other poster said, MSI can be anything from light to heavy. It is generally accepted that it is less demanding than Steam overlay, when set properly.

Worst case scenario, while you are in MSI anyways for the overlay, add a small OC to the GPU to gain back what you thought you lost.

It really is immaterial on my setup and most others.

Post automatically merged: Apr 1, 2024

Also, FPS is generally a bad measure of quality and smoothness. That's when MSI also comes in handy with frametime tools. Even if those are also not perfect, looking at both + usage, clock, temps and wattage,, can be a very solid baseline of information.

Post automatically merged: Apr 1, 2024

Lastly, fps drops should be viewed and expressed in % gained or lost. If you loose 8fps with an overlay while gaming at +/-60fps, it's quite different to loosing 8fps gaming at 240fps.

 

[Avalon_railguns]

The Walking Zombies 2