General Gaming News and Discussion

joz123 · Oct 19, 2023

Hateyou said:
This fake? Or maybe it doesn’t count since it is limited time?

Diablo 4 is Free to Play on Xbox Game Pass This Weekend - Icy Veins

From October 19 to 22, Xbox players can play Diablo 4 for free! However, gameplay is limited to 10 hours.

www.icy-veins.com

It's real. They have been doing free play weekends for games lately.

Free Play Days Archives - Xbox Wire

news.xbox.com

Tholan · Oct 20, 2023

spronk said:
new $50 game to challenge Gollums claim as worst game of 2023

This is the video game equivalent of movies from ghana

Caliane · Oct 20, 2023

spronk said:
new $50 game to challenge Gollums claim as worst game of 2023

Mauler was playing this yesterday. Amusingly, I think this is just 100% an art design problem.

The game from what I could tell was an old school 3d platformer. like spyro, banjo-kazoioie, 3d donkey kongs. games that all used a very cartoony style..
this is totally a borderlands contour shader thing. you swap out the art here with cartoons, and the game would hit completely different, and I bet no one would question it for a second.

you know, I suppose I'm a bit surprised people don't do that more with mods, or whatever. too hard? its likes a classic exercise in the art world, for 20 artist to all draw the same picture in a different style.
in video games now, you used to be able to swap sprites out fairly easy. and now shaders can radically change the visuals. theres lots of blatantly 3d games using shaders to fake 2d.

Burren · Oct 20, 2023

Caliane said:
Mauler was playing this yesterday. Amusingly, I think this is just 100% an art design problem.

The game from what I could tell was an old school 3d platformer. like spyro, banjo-kazoioie, 3d donkey kongs. games that all used a very cartoony style..
this is totally a borderlands contour shader thing. you swap out the art here with cartoons, and the game would hit completely different, and I bet no one would question it for a second.

you know, I suppose I'm a bit surprised people don't do that more with mods, or whatever. too hard? its likes a classic exercise in the art world, for 20 artist to all draw the same picture in a different style.
in video games now, you used to be able to swap sprites out fairly easy. and now shaders can radically change the visuals. theres lots of blatantly 3d games using shaders to fake 2d.

$40-$55 game with 5 hours of game play that’s insanely boring and looks like crap. You think a little art change fixes that?

Hateyou · Oct 20, 2023

Appropriately name for their company at least.

Otto · Oct 20, 2023

I didn't know this was still happening. Loved the Tex Murphy series back in the day.

Seananigans · Oct 20, 2023

Otto said:
I didn't know this was still happening. Loved the Tex Murphy series back in the day.

Early preview my ass lol. 2 minutes of fluffer garbage followed by a 10sec jaunt across a cityscape and ending on a view of a house.

I hate people so much.

joz123 · Oct 20, 2023

Still waiting for a Gauntlet Legends remaster or to be backwards compatible on Xbox.

Otto · Oct 20, 2023

Seananigans said:
Early preview my ass lol. 2 minutes of fluffer garbage followed by a 10sec jaunt across a cityscape and ending on a view of a house.

I hate people so much.

Yeah, I got too excited finally seeing an update. It stopped right before the original FMV sequence would've started. Which would've been great to show how much they improved the video quality in the "preview". The intro credits sure look a lot better now though, heh.

Argarth · Oct 20, 2023

Just the first ~ 3 minutes of this video is a head-shaker. Ridiculous.

Intrinsic · Oct 20, 2023

Otto said:
I didn't know this was still happening. Loved the Tex Murphy series back in the day.

Tesla Effect was the last thing I saw and that was ~10yrs ago? I’m down for all the Tex Murphy I can get.

Daidraco · Oct 20, 2023

Argarth said:
Just the first ~ 3 minutes of this video is a head-shaker. Ridiculous.

As the years go, its just going to get worse and worse. Next thing you know, the previous gens x090 series will barely be able to handle the next generations games.

Argarth · Oct 21, 2023

Daidraco said:
As the years go, its just going to get worse and worse. Next thing you know, the previous gens x090 series will barely be able to handle the next generations games.

Same guy tested Lords of the Fallen. Passed on it for similar reasons, but in that case it wouldn't run higher than ~70fps @ 1080p all LOW settings on a 3070.
These engines just don't scale, or the developers are not trying, or both. It's a disaster.

However, I'm happily playing D4 on my 1080Ti @ 3840x1600 UW native, at a rock solid 75 fps (monitor refresh) with most settings on High/Med. If I use FSR2 in Quality mode, I can turn AA down and it runs even faster, but not really necessary. Either way the game plays like a dream and looks fantastic.

Have to give Blizzard credit, they did an amazing job with the engine.

Uriel · Oct 21, 2023

I remember hearing how good UE5 will be for performance, is that not the case anymore? Are the devs just not optimizing the game very well? I think probably the smoothest game I've played in the last decade was Doom Eternal, but they've always been known for that if I remember right.

Argarth · Oct 21, 2023

Uriel said:
I remember hearing how good UE5 will be for performance, is that not the case anymore? Are the devs just not optimizing the game very well? I think probably the smoothest game I've played in the last decade was Doom Eternal, but they've always been known for that if I remember right.

That's the "id Tech" engine, not sure which version. John Carmack's last baby before he left id Software I believe. He was, and probably still is, a genius. lol

Vorph · Oct 21, 2023

Argarth said:
Same guy tested Lords of the Fallen. Passed on it for similar reasons, but in that case it wouldn't run higher than ~70fps @ 1080p all LOW settings on a 3070.
These engines just don't scale, or the developers are not trying, or both. It's a disaster.

I can live with FSR as long as it's to hit a proper resolution (1440UW in my case) at 60+ fps and with decent settings (high, or at least a mix of high and medium). Still looks way better than a console version and considering the recent trend of going back to 30 fps on console, usually plays better too.

I didn't find Lords of the Fallen that bad though. I'm on a 5700XT and I was getting ~55 fps with a mix of high and medium settings and FSR2 on Quality, at 1440UW. Didn't really try to optimize it or anything, just set the preset to high and turned the obvious stuff like shadows to medium, along with shutting off chromatic abomination, film grain, and motion blur eye cancers. That was without either of the performance patches and also before AMD released drivers with LotF support, haven't had time to mess with it since but I assume it will easily hit 60 now. Fairly similar settings and performance compared to Phantom Liberty, though Cyberpunk is obviously a vastly better looking game overall.

Argarth · Oct 21, 2023

Vorph said:
I can live with FSR as long as it's to hit a proper resolution (1440UW in my case) at 60+ fps and with decent settings (high, or at least a mix of high and medium). Still looks way better than a console version and considering the recent trend of going back to 30 fps on console, usually plays better too.

I didn't find Lords of the Fallen that bad though. I'm on a 5700XT and I was getting ~55 fps with a mix of high and medium settings and FSR2 on Quality, at 1440UW. Didn't really try to optimize it or anything, just set the preset to high and turned the obvious stuff like shadows to medium, along with shutting off chromatic abomination, film grain, and motion blur eye cancers. That was without either of the performance patches and also before AMD released drivers with LotF support, haven't had time to mess with it since but I assume it will easily hit 60 now. Fairly similar settings and performance compared to Phantom Liberty, though Cyberpunk is obviously a vastly better looking game overall.

I still have quite a few more pixels to push than you, but I have no problem with FSR 2 either. It looks great in D4 at least, only title I have that uses it.

Should have mentioned I have fps capped to monitor refresh, so just testing, turned off VRR/Vsync and removed the cap. Now D4 runs at native resolution with AA on High @ 100 fps. With FSR2 in Quality Mode, and AA on low because it's no longer needed, it runs @ 120 fps. Those numbers obviously give me a very nice chunk of headroom as well.

Don't know if it's UE5 or the developers or something else. Don't care really, it's not good enough. Similar issues incoming with Alan Wake 2 I believe.