OT: Video Games V

[AlexBrovechkin8]

It won’t be back in time for the 2021 season but maybe 2022. Can’t wait.

Take my money! Now!

 

[hb12xchamps]

Only next gen consoles from what I’ve seen so far. Not a fan of that

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Some decent PS Store sales going on right now, including FIFA21 for 75% off.

Anyone play Assassin's Creed Valhalla yet? Played about 90 hours of Odyssey but haven't heard great things about Valhalla so not sure I want to pull the trigger, even at 35% off. I have Origins and Black Flag in my Library if I ever need an AC fix.

 

[HTFN]

Some decent PS Store sales going on right now, including FIFA21 for 75% off.

Anyone play Assassin's Creed Valhalla yet? Played about 90 hours of Odyssey but haven't heard great things about Valhalla so not sure I want to pull the trigger, even at 35% off. I have Origins and Black Flag in my Library if I ever need an AC fix.

I'm something like 70 hours in (probably counting lots of idle time because it feels like there's a good bit of story left) and I don't really regret getting it, has good story beats and trims down some of the garbage from other games but it's not the sexiest time period to roam through either. The added river raids seem to give an interesting detour to play with or endgame to pursue.

 

[Devil Dancer]

Damnit, this was the one 2021 release I was really looking forward to.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

It won’t be back in time for the 2021 season but maybe 2022. Can’t wait.

Sadly this game will be just as broken as Madden, just with College teams and playbooks. They need to fix the core of the game. I’m pretty much at the point where I’m boycotting all EA Sports games.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Hmm...interesting because PGA tour 2k21 is the same way.....


I feel like I’m playing a beta version most of the time......rife with errors.

 

[tenken00]

Sadly this game will be just as broken as Madden, just with College teams and playbooks. They need to fix the core of the game. I’m pretty much at the point where I’m boycotting all EA Sports games.

EA is the devil of the gaming world. And honestly why should they care. With their licenses, they know they will make pretty much the same amount of money by selling their roster updates year after year.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Haven't bought Madden or played Madden since the 25th anniversary version and that's because it came with a code for Sunday Ticket. I enjoy FIFA and I like World of Chel in the NHL series but they leave a lot to be desired.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

EA is the devil of the gaming world. And honestly why should they care. With their licenses, they know they will make pretty much the same amount of money by selling their roster updates year after year.

They’re the epitome of selling their “soul” For profit margins. They don’t care if they’re putting out garbage every year.

Not sure if anyone is aware of Youtuber RyanMoody21, but he’s been exposing madden and getting a lot of traction, even from former NFLers. EA literally mocks his feedback, and have taken to limited comments on Twitter. It’s disgraceful.

 

[hb12xchamps]

EA has been hot garbage for years. They completely destroyed the NHL gameplay mechanics when they transitioned from the PS4 and Xbox 360 to the PS5 and Xbox One. I used to play HUT and GM mode all the time on 360 and loved the NHL games until they moved to Xbox One.

The Last NHL and EA game I got was NHL 19 after riding the high of the Caps cup win and I don’t think I’m going to get another NHL game until they make some major changes.

 

[g00n]

EA does the same thing as a lot of golf equipment manufacturers. Once the tech is pushed as far as it can go you have to find a way to sell people new clubs/balls every year in order to maintain the revenue stream, so you put on a new coat of paint, come up with a new model/branding campaign, and invent a few little bullshit tech "improvements" that you'll amplify as gamechanging. But in reality almost nobody will notice the difference.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

I honestly love World of Chel on NHL. It's all I play since I think the rest of the game is ass but I really enjoy Chel.

 

[HTFN]

EA does the same thing as a lot of golf equipment manufacturers. Once the tech is pushed as far as it can go you have to find a way to sell people new clubs/balls every year in order to maintain the revenue stream, so you put on a new coat of paint, come up with a new model/branding campaign, and invent a few little bullshit tech "improvements" that you'll amplify as gamechanging. But in reality almost nobody will notice the difference.

Are you implying that they have actually pushed the tech as far as it can go?

The NHL series hasn't let you manually stickhandle and move your feet at the same time since 2007.

 

[g00n]

Are you implying that they have actually pushed the tech as far as it can go?

The NHL series hasn't let you manually stickhandle and move your feet at the same time since 2007.

I was talking about how the golf tech works. It's right up against the USGA/RA rulebook so there's little else they can do.

With EA they're just adding small changes to keep marketing the product annually. I don't know what tech advancements they could achieve but don't. They're simply repackaging things slightly using similar marketing tricks, which was my point.

 

[Drake1588]

Getting set to upgrade my AMD PC in the next few days. I built it as a project early in the lockdown in April 2020, intending for it to be affordable but later upgradable to Ryzen Zen 3 and a 30-series GPU from nVidia. Right now, it's a modest system but with solid guts and lots of room to grow:

• Gigabyte x570 AORUS Elite mobo
• 32GB 3600MHz Corsair Vengeance RAM
• Ryzen 5 3600X CPU
• BeQuiet Dark Rock 4 CPU air cooler
• A cannibalized Zotac nVidia GTX 1080 card from my parts bin
• 500GB WD Black SN750 M.2 NVMe Gen3 drive
• 650W Corsair 80 Plus Bronze PSU
• Phanteks Enthoo Pro M case and an optical drive
  
• Blacked out, no lighting whatsoever

I flashed my mobo's BIOS and cloned my system drive this weekend. I have the parts to upgrade the following:

• Ryzen 5800X CPU
• Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240mm AIO liquid cooler
• Samsung EVO Plus 2TB M.2 NVMe Gen3 system drive (cloned)
• 850W Corsair RM850X 80 Plus Gold PSU
• Rear bracket for USB Type C (using the mobo's front header connector)

I've been holding out, as I had planned to make the CPU and GPU swap at the same time, but I'm just going to rebuild it now for the processing upgrades to meet some of my work and RAW file batch processing needs for photography. I just found a 5800X for a decent price last week.

Rebuilding it from scratch now, I will only need to swap in a new nVidia RTX 3080 later (a 3080 Super or Ti version might be out by the time stock is available again). I considered a PCI-Express Gen4 M.2 drive, but I really don't need that extra speed for my needs. The EVO Plus is an excellent Gen3 drive.

Once the nVidia 30-series GPUs are back in stock and I pick one up, this will take over as my gaming rig. I'm currently gaming on a real solid Intel 9700K machine with a Corsair AIO liquid cooler, 32 GB of 3200 MHz RAM, and a Gigabyte nVidia 2080 Super. I game on an excellent 165Hz 1440p panel, not 4K. Good for now, but ray tracing is starting to tax it.

It's a good thing that vaccinations are starting to proliferate, as I'm running out of PCs to build. I rebuilt an old 2600K machine as a Windows XP retro gaming PC in the summer, and that's on top of a new 486 retro Dos machine I built from scratch out of parts (DX4 100, Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold, Roland MT-32, Roland SC-88). I also upgraded my Windows 98 PC with an Aureal Vortex 2 and a 3Dfx Voodoo 4500 this summer. Keeping me sane.

 

[usiel]

Should be getting a new system late this week or early next week. Decided not to build this one myself so went with trusty cyberpowerpc.com which I have used for several systems the past 15 years or so.

Usually I do not upgrade the GPU but this time I 'really' wanted a 3080. And getting them with a new system build about the only way it seems. Mainly went with the amd because of the Dual PCIe 4.0 M.2 and rocket lake was not out yet so were still gen 3.

• ASUS TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (Wi-Fi) ATX w/ RGB, Realtek LAN, 2 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 8 SATA3, 2 M.2 SATA/PCIe
  
• 16GB (8GBx2) DDR4/3600MHz Dual Channel Memory, GSKILL Trident Z RGB
  
• AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900X 3.7GHz [4.8GHz Turbo] 12 Cores/ 24 Threads 70MB Total Cache 105W Processor
  
• CyberpowerPC MasterLiquid Lite 360mm ARGB CPU Liquid Cooler with Dual Chamber Pump & Copper Cold Plate
  
• Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 750W 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Power Supply
  
• 500GB WD BLACK SN850 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 7000/4100 MB/s, Rnd R/W up to 810/680k
  
• LIAN LI PC-O11 Dynamic ATX Mid-Tower Dual chamber Gaming Case [Razer Edition] w/ USB 3.1 Type-C, Tempered glass on the front & side
  
• 6X 120mm Phanteks SK120 Digital RGB PWM FAN - high airflow nine-blade 500-1500 RPM Radiator Fans
  
• Free 4TB (4TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 5400RPM HDD
  
• GeForce RTX™ 3080 10GB GDDR6X (Ampere)
  
• Professional Wiring + [Red] Phanteks Premium Extension Cables sleeved set [24Pin MB + 8Pin CPU + 6+2 Pin VGA]

Will be very tempted to pick up an LG Oled for a gaming monitor. The little 15" alienware 4k Oled screen laptop I have looks ridiculously good. Makes even non-eye candy games now eye candy, heh. Picked up a big new desk in the fall but still have not hauled it over from my parents house to setup as it will be extreme pain in the ass based on the entry way to my bed room neither the new or old desk can make it in or out with them being taken apart and tight space in the bedroom. Rather have the new desk in to see what the practical area I'm working with before deciding on something big like an LG Oled monitor. Primary gaming monitor is still an Asus PG348Q. Am slightly tempted by that Samsung G9 Odyssey.

Will be interesting to have to two operational Desktops usually the old one is retired. Been triple boxing with Eve Online with three Omega characters (desktop, 2 laptops). Also have an Acer K272HUL monitor for the work laptop.

 

[Drake1588]

Very nice! Yes, the only way to grab a RTX card these days is to get an upper-end prebuilt, and even those sometimes come with a wait. Agreed that the RTX 3080 is undoubtedly the one you want right now. AMD made great strides with their horsepower in the 6000-series cards, but the lack of second-gen ray tracing and DLSS 2.0 is a real difference maker this generation. It's still nVidia, if only by a nose. I have no doubt that AMD will make up ground fast, though. Within a couple of years, here's to hoping there's genuine GPU competition.

I've used CyberPowerPC in the past, and while you lose the ability to choose certain things (e.g. the model and brand of your GPU, for instance), I found that 7700K system to be rock solid. it gave me no problems.

 

[usiel]

Very nice! Yes, the only way to grab a RTX card these days is to get an upper-end prebuilt, and even those sometimes come with a wait. Agreed that the RTC 3080 is undoubtedly the one you want right now. AMD made great strides with their horsepower in the 6000-series cards, but the lack of second-gen ray tracing and DLSS 2.0 is a real difference maker this generation. It's still nVidia, if only by a nose. I have no doubt that AMD will make up ground fast, though. Within a couple of years, here's to hoping there's genuine GPU competition.

I've used CyberPowerPC in the past, and while you lose the ability to choose certain things (e.g. the model and brand of your GPU, for instance), I found that 7700K system to be rock solid. it gave me no problems.

Bolded why I generally split my PC rig update from video card update but backed into a corner this time.

Nvidia's RTX 3000 Prices Have Gone From Bad to Brutal - ExtremeTech

 

[Drake1588]

It's pretty horrific for a huge panoply of industries right now, not just the boutique gaming market. It looks like this silicon shortage is finally prompting the USG to spend the necessary dollars to build up superconductor manufacturing in the Southwest. All of Intel, AMD and nVidia look to be preparing to build manufacturing facilities in Arizona or thereabouts in the next five years. It should help a lot. So many industries being beholden to TSMC in Taipei right now, plus Samsung to a lesser degree, is crazy and untenable.

Let me know what brand of 3080 they put into your PC. I'm interested. The Zotac 1080 I'm using right now as a temporary card in my Ryzen was actually from a CyberPowerPC system that I bought from them, the brand not of my choosing. I ordinarily would go with one of the more prominent manufacturers that I trust more. It's been a good card, though.

The Gigabyte RTX 2080 Super OC is one that I picked out myself, color matches in an all-white build, and has been all I'd wanted.

It sounds from reviews that the 3080s do not vary much, from one to another, in terms of performance. The differences are in power consumption. Not really a lot of overclocking headroom there either. Just buy whichever one you can find is what they were saying already in September/October, much less today.

 

[usiel]

It's pretty horrific for a huge panoply of industries right now, not just the boutique gaming market. It looks like this silicon shortage is finally prompting the USG to fund spend the necessary dollars to build up superconductor manufacturing in the Southwest. All of Intel, AMD and nVidia look to be preparing to build manufacturing facilities in Arizona or thereabouts in the next five years. It should help a lot. So many industries being beholden to TSMC in Taipei right now, plus Samsung to a lesser degree, is crazy and untenable.

Let me know what brand of 3080 they put into your PC. I'm interested. The Zotac 1080 I'm using right now as a temporary card in my Ryzen was actually from a CyberPowerPC system that I bought from them, the brand not of my choosing. I ordinarily would go with one of the more prominent manufacturers that I trust more. It's been a good card, though.

The Gigabyte RTX 2080 Super OC is one that I picked out myself, color matches in an all-white build, and has been all I'd wanted.

It sounds from reviews that the 3080s do not vary much, from one to another, in terms of performance. The differences are in power consumption. Not really a lot of overclocking headroom there either. Just buy whichever one you can find is what they were saying already in September/October, much less today.

The dominance of TSMC is a weak link in the global supply change. Imagine if something goes down with China invading/blockading Taiwan or any other natural disaster that hits that manufacturing hub and how it would effect global supply.

Looks like my system is about to ship. I generally stick with EVGA for video cards so thankfully it looks like the brand it shipped with: EVGA GEFORCE RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 10GB GDDR6X ICX3 VIDEO CARD.

 

[Drake1588]

I actually saw today that TSMC is also among the firms that will build fabrication facilities in Arizona, which is great news. They definitely know what they're doing; they just have no extra capacity right now to meet the demand. This flurry of facility construction should ease that bottleneck, and be excellent to ease the USG's production concerns/autarky desire from a national security standpoint.

It also seems like no firm will get caught not playing ball. You can't let another fierce competitor slap a Made in America label on its chips and try to compete over here. If one big firm makes chips here, then they all will move to do it too. The USG's willingness to offer incentives is going to lead to a landslide, I think.

 

[Hivemind]

Let me know how much random bloatware comes installed on your pre-built machine. I can't stand how much is on my HP laptop, and it's partially why I've preferred to stay away from pre-built systems as much as possible.

The RAM shortage is certainly a contributing factor to the high GPU prices, but so are bots and scalpers on the demand side. Cryptominers and other scalpers scooping up any supply as soon as it appears, before gamers or other consumers can get their hands on it. The supply chain is being hammered from both sides on this one.

 

[tenken00]

Let me know how much random bloatware comes installed on your pre-built machine. I can't stand how much is on my HP laptop, and it's partially why I've preferred to stay away from pre-built systems as much as possible.

The RAM shortage is certainly a contributing factor to the high GPU prices, but so are bots and scalpers on the demand side. Cryptominers and other scalpers scooping up any supply as soon as it appears, before gamers or other consumers can get their hands on it. The supply chain is being hammered from both sides on this one.

It's not just RAM, but all chips. Tesla had to halt production of their cars for a bit because they couldn't get the chips that went into each car. Imagine holding up a $40,000 car because of a $5 chip.

 

[Jacoby4HOF66]

I want to start recording my kids playing sports. Any recommendations for hand held video recorders?