I initially got Biomutant at a minor discount. It was still relatively new and I thought the screenshots looked impressive. I was really in love with the creatures and the premise. The first time I fired it up I was disappointed in the graphics! It looked really grainy, the fur was just bad, which for a game with many fuzzy creatures just seemed like bad planning. I didn’t even play it that long and got my money back from Steam. Many months later, and with a sizable discount I decided it was worth picking up even if the graphics were…
Past Time
Oblivion, Elder Scrolls IV came out 11 years ago. I remember what I was doing, I remember my life at the time. My wife and I were not married yet, we were living in a second floor apartment 1 street over from our current house. It was a time without kids. She had a part time job and school, I had a good 5 years or so in with my current company. We had two cats, but really that was the extent of our responsibility. I had my dream car, and had yet to modify it too much. It seemed…
Video: GTA V Gets A Tweak!
Rockstar always rolls them out dialed waaaaaay back. Up until GTA V had already been out for a year the mods were still being applied to IV. They had 4K working in that quite a ways back. I still see a lot of blurring, and the people don’t appear to be optimized but it looks damn good. Here was IV Redux, assuming same author: http://www.moddb.com/mods/grand-theft-auto-iv-redux (warning: autoplay)
The Division #FirstLook in 4K
I checked back on the 4K videos I uploaded about a week ago and they’ve got 4K available as an option now. It’s really delayed, must seem kinda shitty to the people who come when it’s tweeted. Sorry, it’s not you, it’s You Tube. It’s a lot-a ca-chunking. #IsIt4KYet ?
The Division: Streaming to Twitch: Beta Review
Few screenshots, some 4k, some not. Two EVGA 980ti: 20 to 30fps @ 4k 70fps vsync @ 1080 NVidia doesn’t even have an optimized driver for this one yet. The city looks alive-ish, Multiplayer started out really cool — I had help from real people, we all ran into the fire together. Once I took the base, then I had to go looking for people for each mission. I didn’t discover this until later. They’ve got some reworking to do. You need people all over, fighting for both sides or it might get a little crowded. The cover system could…
Benchmarking Rumble! The 780ti 3G vs the 980ti 6G — both EVGA Classifies, who will win???
Ok, so we know who will win card on card, but what about in SLI? The extra memory is going to make scaling possible, rendering at much higher resolutions (4k? 5k?) and then scaling down for the display resolution of the monitor. Since my monitor was one of the earlier 120hz ones, I’m stuck with 1920 x 1080 but the 2 780ti in SLI have been MORE than enough, except… in VRAM. I am only now feeling the pinch with the draw distance of GTA V being the first indication. I regularly get upwards of 100fps with games cranked, and…
SyntheticX Gamleaon: Mad Max – With Commentary
MAD MAX – Cacophony This will be where I’ll have more to say.
Elder Scrolls Online in 2k
I recently pulled down some new settings in NVidia “Experience” it’s hokey but it’s easy and gives me an idea of what games should run at. It hasn’t not been MAX yet, but there will come a day, I’m sure. I am still running at 1920 x 1080 at least, though @ 120hz. I let go of my 2560 x 1600 for a smoother frame rate, that was limited to 60hz. So I came upon these settings today and had to try it out: Check out the comparison shots after the jump…
Upcoming Reviews – #pcgames
Thanks to the holiday sales I’ve got a bunch of new goodies to go over with you. Stay tuned for a write up on these little diddies, with some gamplay viewable at twitch.tv/serinitism and youtube.com/syntheticx Alien Isolation GRID Autosport Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Octodad Dadliest Catch Ryse Son of Rome Shadow Of Mordor There is so much to love about the latest set of games. The nextgen systems have hit and the high quality textures are flowing. The graphics are amazing, incredibly detailed. 4K is almost native and you can even use some NVidia magic to render at 2 or…
Emulation Nation
I spent much of today scouring the internet (it wasn’t that hard) for ROMs. I have NES and SNES on lockdown, I believe I have 99% of the NES and maybe 85% of the SNES. Choice Genesys, 32X and during my last ROM run a few months prior I even found Dreamcast and PSX. I have all these systems, but they’re in storage, all nicely tucked away not taking up any actual room. I’ve been wanting to play some older stuff but they’re so low bit being blown up to modern TV size doesn’t really make it any more visible.…
Article: Six Reasons the PC is winning E3 2013 – PCGamer.com
If you saw the two Battlefield 4 conference demos, you may have noticed the telling little backspace key prompt in the top right corner. They were running on PC. Of course they were. You don’t have to imagine what the next generation will look like. You can see it right now. You can playit right now. Find a gaming PC made in the last couple of years, get Crysis 2, then install the MaLDoHD Texture Pack. Actually, no. The next-gen consoles almost certainly won’t look that good. The next generation isn’t about forging ahead. It’s about catching up.…
Review: BioShock Infinite
The world forms around you. You enter a familiar place but it is still very new, dropped into a preloaded consciousness. You had a job, you knew why you were here, simply follow the instruction and the goal will be complete. You’re lifted into this futuristic utopia high in the clouds, where so many are so happy to go about their day but there is a dark brooding, uneasiness to it all. It can’t be that perfect, a distrust. There are sins too foul to wash away. You explore, hearing much about the status quo and the rebellion trying to gain traction. Rights,…
Video: BioShock Infinite – False Shepherd Trailer and PC Graphics
False Shepherd Trailer It’s cute they use the console graphics for the trailer, just makes me whet even more for it on PC. I relish a good story, good graphics, mechanics, and voice acting and await this game with baited breath. Chris Kline technical director at Irrational Games: “Playing the PC version on Medium settings is fairly close to the console version, though higher quality in a few areas. As you go up from there to the High, Very High, and Ultra settings the difference is enormous. The PC version ships on three discs, as opposed to one for consoles,…
Video: Tomb Raider – First Look
Now feast your eyes on the lovely, the transcendent intro quays of… the Tomb Raider Square Enix has blown away my expectations. Consoles ain’t got shit on this.
First Look: Crysis 3
I don’t know what this guy is thinking: Crysis 3: The Kotaku Review. Instead, Crysis 3 is a finely tuned luxury automobile that’s not, as it turns out, all that finely tuned. You sit, revving the engine, hoping that weird sound will go away, but it doesn’t. It gets louder. You lower the driver’s-side window; it gets stuck halfway. You pull down the sun-visor; it comes off in your hand. Perplexed, you turn the visor over and examine the underside, wondering if it’s supposed to come off. Maybe this is a feature? You look up, pause, sniff. Sniff again to…
Video: The Evolution Of Real Time PC Graphics
I remember all of these. The first thing I did when I got a new card was go to the website to get the demos for the latest hardware. The Evolution Of Real Time PC Graphics – YouTube.
Mech Games – The Next Generation
The closest mechs came to making a comeback was Steel Battalion. That didn’t seem to help. The controller was huge, and many thought it a titch unnecessary. however, if you’re driving a mech — you’ve got a cockpit ready to go. It was exactly what enthusiasts wanted. It’s been a long time since Mech Warrior was purchased by Microsoft, and even longer since it was popular. The laser designation and light-saber lines merging on your target from either side of the cockpit just never felt that visceral. MechWarrior Online – Death's Knell – YouTube. HAWKEN – Story Teaser – YouTube.…
ICEnhancer 2.1 1.0.4.0 Final
icenhancer 2.1 1040 has been released! [Download] ICELaGlacE Official Site More to come… [ screenshots ] Nothing too impressive yet – just updated smaa to fxaa, we’ll see if there’s an obvious difference. There was a major need for some sort of aliasing, made all the more apparent by the light. Night is pretty in its own right, but don’t lose your headlights. Make sure to catch the sunrise over the beach!
GTA – Are you ready for The updated ICE?
He’s been hard at work, and the installer is ready to go. The updated version of iCE. Enhancer for GTA4 will be out next week. One again we visit what you’ll need. I am prepared. I have GTA reinstalled fresh. Here’s what you need to do the same: Do a new install if you have an old one hanging around (this includes the RSSC), then get your system ready with the 1.04 patch. You may also want to add some fresh car models (see below) and I highly recommend this realistic handling by killatomate and reVO, you shouldn’t need to…
Review: Max Payne 3
Whew. That’s a rush. I just got done playing through my first hour of Max Payne 3 and I feel… stimulated, enthralled, and defeated. I had to stop playing though. There is only so many times you can replay the same section after repeatedly accidentally bullet-time-ing off the side of a building. I’ll revisit another night. I’m sad that I didn’t get any good screenshots or video, however. I must say it plays brilliantly – there wasn’t a skip a start, a stutter at max settings. The people are well modeled, move realistically (the trailers made them look a little…
SLi – Double V
Originally drafted August 2006: If you’re not a geek you have not heard about SLi. Even if you are a geek you may not have heard about QuadSLi. BFG fit 2 graphics cards on 1 PCIEx interface, allowing those who don’t have SLi to get SLi performance, and those that do have SLi to get QuadSLi performance. In order to take advantage of the image quality these cards allow, you need a big frikken monitor, but you will be gaming like never before if you have the money. Quad SLi – Where it Stands **2012 05 02** So a note…
Grand Theft Auto 4 mods – ICEnhancer+
So ICEnhancer 2.0 was recently released, and to celebrate here is everything you need to get started modding Grand Theft Auto to look better then god ever intended. Behold the power of Grayskull: Patches: You’ll need 1.0.4.0 or 1.0.7.0 to apply these properly. 1.0.4.0 is advised as it’s most compatible. Install the original version, then you only need this one to get to 1.0.4.0. Graphics, Textures, and Lighting: ICEnhancer 2.0 Brightness and contrast most gamers prefer ICEnhancer 2.0N Natural Lighting (coming soon) Add Ons: Traffic Load V3 (ASI) – Sick of seeing the same old cars all over the place?…
LA Noire PC – Review
Video: It’s a port, a straight port but with an extra tidbit or two of settings and smoothing for the graphics. You have ansiotropic settings, and FXAA (x1, 2, or 3). The textures do appear scaled, as in they look as good at 2560×1600 as I remember them being on PS3 but many of the facial textures appear a bit more blurry. The view distance is still very low – you see the fog and blur on anything further then a block away so you don’t quite get the full immersive city feel as GTA. I like the time period…