What games are you playing now?

Passed Act 1 in M&M and I must admit the game after initial letdown grows better.
They could make the starting balance better, dunno why they didn't.

I still can't kill cyclops and quasidragon, but completed the hall of elementals in just one run including the fight against earth elemental boss who's tricky with his stuns and selfregeneration. But micromanaging every turn and I heavy use of manapots… Again... Provided me a permablessing in the end. Jay!

Oh and I did manage to kill 2 light elementals in there! Storm elementals however are too hard. Currently. Double chain storm and my party is dead in 2 rounds. Will visit them in the future. Late game probably, not before.

More positives - the puzzle in the mysterious tomb was great and not lame as the one in Lighthouse.

Dunno where exactly I got 'em, but found gold boots that improve stats with your XP! Nice touch.

The story is still… Meh. But okay, maybe it turns into something better - a mysterious elf looks promising.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
The game is beautiful for sure. It's also very well optimized for how detailed it is, but I'm guessing it's probably heavily GPU bound. It runs completely smooth on my aging rig + GTX 770 with everything maxed and PhysX off. Turning on PhysX brings some stutter, but I honestly couldn't notice a visual difference with it on or off anyways.

AFAIK, the one significant difference with PhysX is the nature of smoke - especially from firing guns and cannons. I must admit it IS pretty cool, but also somewhat excessive and you don't really need it. If you set PhysX to "low" - the stutter is quite mild and you can see smoke from your gun and stuff. If you set it to "high" - you'll see smoke from all kinds of things on the ground and whatever, but it's extremely taxing on my system (670 SLI).

I was surprised how little has changed gameplay-wise since the original Assassin's Creed though. After the sea battle intro, it instantly felt very familiar with me going to an elevated landmark and "scanning" the area to identify various loot locations. The character animations and controls also seem to have changed very little from the original game.

That was exactly my initial reaction. I put it away and decided I'd try it down the line. It does take a few hours until it opens up more and becomes interesting, but I obviously can't know how it differs from Brotherhood and AC3 - and it could be it's not really that different.

But it's definitely more interesting to me than AC2 - but I'm also a big fan of the sea stuff.
 
BTW, I meant you can see the "special" smoke with PhysX. It's just normal non-interactive smoke without it.
 
Does the smoke move when you go through it or something? I haven't noticed it, but then I haven't used a gun or cannon yet.

I set PhysX back to low and everything else on max - except for motion blur which I always turn off because I hate the effect.

I read somewhere that god rays is supposed to have a big impact on performance in this game, but I couldn't see a difference between low and high.

I have to say that I'm extremely impressed with the new TXAA anti-aliasing. It completely eliminates any jaggies for me with no discernable impact on performance, and that's very impressive considering how detailed AC4 is.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,129
Location
Florida, US
I'm crazying around in Saints Row 4 again for mindless fun and having a second playthough of Steamworld Dig as a quick gaming fix. I've been thinking about starting a game of Might and Magic 7, but I'll be moving in a few weeks and probably won't be able to devote much time to it until we're settled in again. It'll probably be a good one to play until our internet's installed, though.
 
Joined
Jul 3, 2011
Messages
1,147
Location
Madness
Does the smoke move when you go through it or something? I haven't noticed it, but then I haven't used a gun or cannon yet.

Yes, and it's MUCH thicker.

I read somewhere that god rays is supposed to have a big impact on performance in this game, but I couldn't see a difference between low and high.

I've read this as well, but I can't detect any noticable difference - so I play on high.

I have to say that I'm extremely impressed with the new TXAA anti-aliasing. It completely eliminates any jaggies for me with no discernable impact on performance, and that's very impressive considering how detailed AC4 is.

I use SMAA only, because I hate how the other modes make the textures somewhat blurry. I'm a big fan of sharpness :)
 
I use SMAA only, because I hate how the other modes make the textures somewhat blurry. I'm a big fan of sharpness :)

Yeah, I did notice that and was going to mention it actually.

I really hate temporal aliasing though (the shimmer effect you see on certain surfaces when the scene is in motion), and TXAA is the only setting that completely eliminates that for me.

I normally just turn AA off in the options and use Nvidia Inspector to force SGSSAA in most games. Doesn't work (yet) for AC4 though.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,129
Location
Florida, US
Yeah, I did notice that and was going to mention it actually.

I really hate temporal aliasing though (the shimmer effect you see on certain surfaces when the scene is in motion), and TXAA is the only setting that completely eliminates that for me.

I normally just turn AA off in the options and use Nvidia Inspector to force SGSSAA in most games. Doesn't work (yet) for AC4 though.

By the way - there seems to be a SMALL performance increase by disabling VSYNC in-game and then forcing it in D3DOverrider along with triple buffering. It doesn't work through the control panel for whatever reason.

It could be just an illusion - but I've seen it mentioned more than once on forums - and I do seem to detect a bit less stutter and such.
 
By the way - there seems to be a SMALL performance increase by disabling VSYNC in-game and then forcing it in D3DOverrider along with triple buffering. It doesn't work through the control panel for whatever reason.

I've seen that mentioned as well. Oddly enough though, Vsync through the control panel seems to work for me.

The more I mess around with this game the more impressed I am.

The only thing I find disappointing is the save system. I wish they had included a manual system that actually saved your location and not just what items you've picked up.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,129
Location
Florida, US
I've seen that mentioned as well. Oddly enough though, Vsync through the control panel seems to work for me.

Hmm, maybe I'm remembering wrong then. But I do think I read triple buffering being key to performance increase. But these things are often based on illusions.

The more I mess around with this game the more impressed I am.

Glad to hear it. I especially like the stealth system once you get access to darts :)

If you like that sort of thing, of course.

The only thing I find disappointing is the save system. I wish they had included a manual system that actually saved your location and not just what items you've picked up.

Yeah, it's the usual console checkpoint bullshit. But at least they're pretty lenient with the frequency of them.

The one thing I really don't like is the frequency of "tailing" missions.
 
@JDR

If you haven't found out yourself, I can highly recommend focusing on the Mortar for the ship as some of the first upgrades. It's INSANELY powerful :)
 
If you haven't found out yourself, I can highly recommend focusing on the Mortar for the ship as some of the first upgrades. It's INSANELY powerful :)

Heh heh… I'm completely bogged down with how many games I'm trying to play right now. I need to choose one and stick with it. I haven't played AC4 since yesterday because I got sucked into Blackguards and also started playing Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen.

I can't remember the last time I had this many games I wanted to play. :)
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,129
Location
Florida, US
I know the feeling. I'm actually quite eager to play MMX, but I figure I really need to get through AC4 - and it's still quite fun. If only I wasn't so tired on weekdays….
 
M&M X is another game I want to play, but I've intentionally avoided purchasing it so far. I don't need more temptation than I already have.

I also installed Sleeping Dogs recently, but I have yet to start it.

I'm finding Blackguards to be better than I expected though, and it's scratching a certain itch I've had lately for strategic combat. I'm also quite enjoying the TDE setting and characters. I might have to finally get around to doing a full playthrough of Drakensang 1&2 in the near future...
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,129
Location
Florida, US
Back
Top Bottom