AMD 7990 to launch in Q1 2012

[alienware]

How long have you been working in the games industry then?

I've been playing them for 37 years.

 

[murphy7801]

A great performer in about three games.

And then you have the list of problems with the rest. Namely -

1. Game comes out and won't even launch. Have to disable Crossfire and wait for AMD to release a profile. Then you have to hope the profile actually works (as they never used to for me) before crawling the internet all night looking for the bodge. In my case it was usually to rename an exe file. That means you need to hack your game and hope there is a no dvd patch for it as otherwise you kill the registry entry.

2. A good 90% of games are not coded to understand more than one GPU. So, even though you may get it to like, work, it will be of no benefit at all (please see article above, 1% is about right).

3. Even when it does work you will still be subjected to micro stutter, post process flicker and delays with synchronisation of the GPUs themselves. All of which are visible and highly annoying. None of which happen with one GPU of course.

4. Your room turns into a Turkish bath and sweat begins to pour down your sides. The most I have managed on my Quad SLI rig was three hours of Fallout 3 and then I needed a bath.

5. The noise. Double the cards, double the power.

And so on.

No matter what AMD and Nvidia do you are still always going to be better off with one card. It won't change either, as I don't see people all rushing out to buy four cards. And it is a catch 22. Few people set up more than one GPU. A few of them decide to put their hands up and tell the truth and be honest - it's crap, and then put people off from wanting it (those with any sense). Thus, the market for multiple GPU setups will not grow, it will just remain within the "idiots circle".

When you are the minority it sucks. I know this, because I own a pair of cards that are less than two years from their manufacture date (mine are pretty much brand new) and they are already considered dead technology. I am talking of course about a pair of single PCB dual GPU GTX 295s. Cards that Nvidia made purely to wave willy and nothing more.

The drivers are consistently leaving them behind, and the shadow problems in Battlefield 3 have still not been addressed . Now at first I was hoping they would actually, you know? give a toss, and finally sort it out. But no. All I get are adverts for the 5 series.

Just think. Some poor sod (aka idiot) would have done £900 on those cards less than two years ago and be sitting here feeling really let down round about now.

The article I posted is absolutely spot on, and all of the time articles like those exist multi GPU set ups will not progress.

So get one if you want to wave your willy, but remember that you need to learn how to lie. If you care about actually gaming then you will be doing a lot less of it, so face that now before lashing out loads of money.

I found on BF3 on the Nv500 series are resovled for me on my sli gtx 580's if you use the beta drivers.

 

[alienware]

BF3 is actually one of the few games that will eat as many cores and CPU cores as you throw at it. Which is nice. (ed shame it doesn't even work properly on 2 series cards)

BF2 was the same actually, which was why quadfire decimated it. Sadly it managed to decimate nothing else and was total crap.

 

[murphy7801]

Well EA maybe a bit of scumbag company but they do invest in new engines and have made more DX11 games than any other company so far. So at the end of the day think companies do invest in new tech and pushing the industry im more forgiving if theres issues. Were as if say MW3 has issue with CF thats lazy.

Oh quick list why not

DX11 EA games

BattleForge

Battlefield 3

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Crysis 2

Dragon Age II[

Medal of honor

Need for Speed: The Run

 

[alienware]

EA? They didn't write BF3. That was DICE and they used their own Frostbite engine. EA simply had the DVDs made and produced and put them on the shelves.

EA are publishers. They publish other people's games. Have done for years.

MW3? uses a years old graphics engine. No point, as consoles can't run much more now.

PC games won't get better until the consoles do. However, so sick of cross compiled mush am I that as soon as a console comes out that can provide 4XFSAA to smooth the image and stop me from feeling sick when I play I will just get a console and call it a day.

I've totally had it with PC games. They're all second rate slop console afterthoughts. Best one of course was NFS : The runs. Capped at a lovely 30FPS just to insult everyone that spent £300 or more on a GPU this year.

 

[murphy7801]

EA? They didn't write BF3. That was DICE and they used their own Frostbite engine. EA simply had the DVDs made and produced and put them on the shelves.

EA are publishers. They publish other people's games. Have done for years.

MW3? uses a years old graphics engine. No point, as consoles can't run much more now.

PC games won't get better until the consoles do. However, so sick of cross compiled mush am I that as soon as a console comes out that can provide 4XFSAA to smooth the image and stop me from feeling sick when I play I will just get a console and call it a day.

I've totally had it with PC games. They're all second rate slop console afterthoughts. Best one of course was NFS : The runs. Capped at a lovely 30FPS just to insult everyone that spent £300 or more on a GPU this year.

EA front the money for alot of these projects they could easily say dont bother doing it.

 

[alienware]

It's not so much that. It's just that they have the power to advertise ETC ETC. They're a big fat greedy corporation.

This is nice if you're only in it for the money, but then who I am kidding?

Long gone are the days where some one coded a game with pride and tried to make a difference. For a decade all we are getting is Doom with better graphics and more shadows. Nothing is moving on and it hasn't since Mario 64.

Because now it isn't about pride or moving gaming on, it's about pulling tits on a cash cow and ringing the till bells.

 

[murphy7801]

It's not so much that. It's just that they have the power to advertise ETC ETC. They're a big fat greedy corporation.

This is nice if you're only in it for the money, but then who I am kidding?

Long gone are the days where some one coded a game with pride and tried to make a difference. For a decade all we are getting is Doom with better graphics and more shadows. Nothing is moving on and it hasn't since Mario 64.

Because now it isn't about pride or moving gaming on, it's about pulling tits on a cash cow and ringing the till bells.

TBH EA actually owns DICE if really want to get funny about it. Also as publisher who fronting the money for the game you get alot of power trust me.

 

[alienware]

Then all that does is make them whip crackers, if you wanted to be funny about it. They don't write the games.

And I'm perfectly aware of their tactics, they are a corporation - nuff said.

That's the problem with gaming now. It is now seen as a multi billion dollar business, so it has slowed to a crawl in a progressive sense.

The biggest problem of course is us . We're the ones stupid enough to keep queueing outside a bloody store at 3am for another rehash. And all the while we put up with that they're not going to bother putting in any more than they have to for their next pay day.

When I grew up technology raced on so fast that it made your head spin. Within ten years we had gone from chasing a block around a screen to beautifully detailed sprite based games. Another five years and we were in full 3d. But as I say, what has changed since 1997 and the dawn of Quake online and Mario 64?

Graphics have improved, but nowhere near what I would have predicted. We get like, one extra shadow every few years. BF3 is nothing that couldn't have been done three years ago, as all it is is another 3D FPS crammed full of vram hogging textures.

Nothing is moving on.

 

[murphy7801]

Then all that does is make them whip crackers, if you wanted to be funny about it. They don't write the games.

And I'm perfectly aware of their tactics, they are a corporation - nuff said.

That's the problem with gaming now. It is now seen as a multi billion dollar business, so it has slowed to a crawl in a progressive sense.

The biggest problem of course is us . We're the ones stupid enough to keep queueing outside a bloody store at 3am for another rehash. And all the while we put up with that they're not going to bother putting in any more than they have to for their next pay day.

When I grew up technology raced on so fast that it made your head spin. Within ten years we had gone from chasing a block around a screen to beautifully detailed sprite based games. Another five years and we were in full 3d. But as I say, what has changed since 1997 and the dawn of Quake online and Mario 64?

Graphics have improved, but nowhere near what I would have predicted. We get like, one extra shadow every few years. BF3 is nothing that couldn't have been done three years ago, as all it is is another 3D FPS crammed full of vram hogging textures.

Nothing is moving on.

There are some really hard working people in games development and in around the industry actually who really love game so wouldnt say that fair critism. You are being cynical and yes there are people in the industry like what your descibing but making a game DX11 cost millions of dollars extra and since its PC only that DX11 effects its big investment for limited user base.

 

[michaelah500]

So get one if you want to wave your willy, but remember that you need to learn how to lie. If you care about actually gaming then you will be doing a lot less of it, so face that now before lashing out loads of money.

I never said I was intending to get one...

I agree with murphy7801, you ARE being a little overly cynical. Graphics have become quite a bit better over the past 5 years. Sorry, but if you compare Modern Warefare 2 (which let's face it, wasn't the best of graphical work) with let's say...Battlefield 3 or Skyrim, we have come a LONG way with the quality of graphics in PC games.

You can disagree, but I wholeheartedly believe that graphics are getting better and much more astounding. However, I then compare Black Ops with the latest games, and don't see a big improvement in graphics at all.

 

[alienware]

There are some really hard working people in games development and in around the industry actually who really love game so wouldnt say that fair critism. You are being cynical and yes there are people in the industry like what your descibing but making a game DX11 cost millions of dollars extra and since its PC only that DX11 effects its big investment for limited user base.

No, I'm not being cynical, that is just how it is.

PC gamers are the ginger step kids and have been treated as such for about five years. Oddly the dates tend to coincide with the launch of the Xbox 360, but then it's no secret that Microsoft fully intended to keep PC gaming at arm's length because there were no lovely licensing fees in it for them (and believe me they tried).

So it's hardly cynical to like you know? want something in return for all the money people spend on making their PCs able to run the games.

These days you don't even get a game to go with your £500 graphics card.

I seem to recall things called Killer Apps. Or even, exclusives. There are no longer any. The last true exclusive PC owners got was Crysis. Ever since then all of the PC games released on PC have been full of reminders of just what they are - console code bothched onto a PC so they can claim another few million in sales. That's all we are - sloppy seconds.

Because as I mentioned before it's no longer about innovation or pushing boundaries, it's all about money. And that is what the corporation does. They take the fun out of things and turn them into a business.

30 years ago there were games released that you could not buy. Why? because they would come, for free, on a magazine as code for you to take home and code in and get running. They even explained how to add your own personal touches. Good games back then didn't come from corporations they came from people's houses, their bedrooms.

And oddly enough all of the best games back then were not from companies like U.S Gold or Ocean, they were from people like Matthew Smith who created Software Projects.

So I'm not being cynical, I am basically seeing things for what they are. If I was born into this console generation where games come on a shiny dvd and you put them in and just play them whilst stuffing yourself full of junk food and guzzling cola? then fine, I would have nothing to be cynical about.

 

[nex-s]

I have to aggree with Z0mB13. In the past the progress was really quick and innovating. Now, for the past years, generally all that's done is added textures, shadows etc. Nothing NEW, just MORE of the same stuff to keep your GPU busy. I really hope that they start doing something differently and create something new. But I know I shouldn't, cause it'll never happen, cause all they care about is money.

 

[alienware]

Well in 15 years I watched games go from two white lines on a black screen hitting a white square (pong and variants) to Mario breathing sleeping and even snoring. Since then 14 years have passed (since Mario 64) and here we are still playing Doom, with more guns and pretty graphics, and you can jump and drive a car in it.

Whoop dee f*****g doo.

I've seen Tony Hawk cause excitement, then get bent over and reamed in sequel after sequel, and now COD and Battlefield are the cash cows.

And people honestly get excited enough to go and wait outside a game store all night dressed as a Marine? REALLY?

Even if we didn't get anything new then please, can we have like, more content? even that's too much to ask. Games like MW2 in single player last for about five hours. No wonder people play them in multi player, bugger all there if you fancied a quiet session alone !

But that's just it now isn't it? that stuff is actually seen by lazy assholes who can't be bothered to go out as socialising. Sitting on your fat ass with a controller talking to your friends.

What's scary is here we are being handed another generation of eye bending super duper dazzling graphics cards, yet NO GAMES that are going to set them apart from the ones we have.

Hilariously they can do absolutely nothing the ones we don't already have can, because games are not moving forward.

At least with the 5 series Radeon release there was Dirt 2 to coincide to celebrate the launch of DX11. A game that looked every bit as good in DX9 but heck, we didn't care, they had us sold !

But the 7 series? what the heck ! All the benchmarks are for like Crysis, Alien VS Predator ETC. Come on now, honestly, who is going to reinstall a game and play through it again with an extra 10 FPS?

Gaming has absolutely nothing going for it IMO. The Wii was nice, but went a bit dead, but other than that in the last decade nothing has changed.

It's hilarious when you load up Need for speed underground 2 and realise that it's actually better than the last three Need for speed games put together, with TEN TIMES the amount of content.

But that's just it isn't it? content. It takes time, and time is money. So even though we have these absolutely enormous amounts of storage now even that isn't being utilised as we were told it would, to store bigger games with more content.

 

[SPS]

Z0mB13 you're bringing a lot of rage and negativity to these forums lately, what's all that about?

 

[alienware]

Z0mB13 you're bringing a lot of rage and negativity to these forums lately, what's all that about?

I'm sorry mate but you will have to excuse me for being a realist. It's not rage, or negativity, it's just being real.

Give it time and everything will fall into place. In time others will begin to realise we are being had and maybe do something about it.

I'd love to be optimistic, but in PC gaming right now there is absolutely nothing to be optimistic about. No one even kept a game release for Christmas, which is usually a given.

So here I am with my mates, desperately trying to get some game on on Steam, only to find that we have to dig through a load of old games that really aren't worth buying.

I mean we've been playing Borderlands for Christ's sake. That's how exciting PC gaming is at the moment.

 

[alienware]

Oh and BTW, don't start playing psychiatrist on me please.

You're not skilled in the profession and you have never seen me, let alone met me.

So please don't start making assumptions based on a few lines of text.

 

[Lollipop]

Damn have i missed your rants dude, and you could also always try SW:TOR, it's an MMO so i don't know if you'll like it.

EDIT: There is also Tribes: Ascend(<--link) wich looks promising, no revolutionary graphics but as the game is PC only the gameplay mechanics shouldn't be bad. Should also mention it is in BETA and therefore you would either have to get lucky, or pre-order.

 

[sheroo]

Is it not in the interests of AMD and nVidia to promote PC gaming? After all whats the point in spending hideous amounts of dosh on the latest gen GPU if you'll just be playing another console port? As I think you pertained to earlier, there probably won't be a huge leap in PC gaming until the next gen of consoles appears. Unfortunately gaming has gone the way of a lot of big business - its all about their bottom line.

The bigger the consumer appetite for mediocrity - the more we'll get....

 

[alienware]

Damn have i missed your rants dude, and you could also always try SW:TOR, it's an MMO so i don't know if you'll like it.

EDIT: There is also Tribes: Ascend(<--link) wich looks promising, no revolutionary graphics but as the game is PC only the gameplay mechanics shouldn't be bad. Should also mention it is in BETA and therefore you would either have to get lucky, or pre-order.

Sadly I am not into games that cost £60 and then recurring £15 a month. I'd rather play Fallout 3 alone, it's cheaper

It's not really ranting though man, it's just me being truthful. When you have taken 30 years of over hyping and crap you become rather jaded.

Best game I played this month was Trine 2, breath of fresh air.

Sheroo -

Sadly there's nothing for them to promote. I mentioned it in another thread, but if this is what we are going to get (and note it even has the Xbox buttons left in to add insult to injury)

And then the truth came out.

But you know hey, I'm just being cynical.

Back on planet earth and in the real world that was nothing but a cold hard slap in the face for PC gamers. Know why?

Well, firstly the game itself was absolutely gorgeous. But, with a little bit more work it could have really stood out. Instead we have a game that will only control properly on the Xbox controller (you can google for reviews which will explain the problem, which basically are that it is totally built with only the 360 controller in mind as that's what it was intended to be ran on) and then it is locked to 30 FPS.

Seriously, how long would it have taken them to get it running smooth at 60? just to hold out their arms to embrace PC owners and treat us with some respect?

But no. Instead they don't give a crap, because EA crack the whip and Black Box are a bunch of idiots any way. It was them that took the NFSU series and added in impossible cop chases* that were never going to be realistic.

* To code in a proper cop chase AI would take years. Infact, it has even been said that the technology we have in our mitts right now is not good enough to be able to do it properly. This is why you can be doing 210 MPH down a highway and get rammed by a police SUV.

It's just even more insult to injury. Even Crysis 2 was released "half done". DX11 support wasn't in yet, and so we had to wait for it. And when we finally got it you need herculean card to throw it around with the 2gb of bloated textures they put in.

How long did that take? two months?

What they should have done was waited, released the PC version first running in its full DX11 splendour, then released it on console. But no, console came first so we had to once again put up with second best.

The bigger the consumer appetite for mediocrity - the more we'll get....

Absolutely and utterly bang on the money. The more they realise they can feed us crap, the more crap they will feed us. It all started with the last insulting command and conquer game. The problem of course is that games these days are not about the content within. They are about clever marketing and twisted reviews.

Most reviews these days just smile along and tell us how wonderful these games are, failing to mention that MW3 is just MW2 with a few new levels in for another £50.

Then there are the TV ads. "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one". Wooow, how cool ! a game that refers to women as bitches must be good !

Back in my day (grumbles and moans) games had to sell based on being good