Hangout The Games Hangout Thread

[kkck]

Anyone has any tips on what I could do improve my laptops performance with steam games? Admittedly laptops are hardly a good choice for games however I find the steam situation kinda absurd when it comes to required specs. I have played two games in steam but the one I care about right now is portal. Even with the absolute lowest settings the game slows down considerably every few minutes... Which is surprising considering there are other games which seem like they should require more spec that I can play without issue. When it comes to my PS2 emulator I have only had minor lag issues at worst and in most cases it works perfectly even for games like final fantasy... I got dynasty warriors 6 for PC which was released a year after the first portal game and I can play it perfectly... Its not like portal has insane graphics or anything of the sort... So what is the deal here? It seems like all steam games require insane specs even when the game itself has nothing even resembling great graphics (which is not to say the graphics are bad either, just that it seems like it should require way less).

 

[xi0]

Portal? Valve games are notorious for being pretty well-optimized for lower-spec systems. I remember Portal and Portal 2 playing just fine on my toaster.

---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 PM ----------

And there's really nothing special about a game being on steam that would make it require more specs. Steam is just a content provider.

 

[Jammin]

Anyone has any tips on what I could do improve my laptops performance with steam games? Admittedly laptops are hardly a good choice for games however I find the steam situation kinda absurd when it comes to required specs. I have played two games in steam but the one I care about right now is portal. Even with the absolute lowest settings the game slows down considerably every few minutes... Which is surprising considering there are other games which seem like they should require more spec that I can play without issue. When it comes to my PS2 emulator I have only had minor lag issues at worst and in most cases it works perfectly even for games like final fantasy... I got dynasty warriors 6 for PC which was released a year after the first portal game and I can play it perfectly... Its not like portal has insane graphics or anything of the sort... So what is the deal here? It seems like all steam games require insane specs even when the game itself has nothing even resembling great graphics (which is not to say the graphics are bad either, just that it seems like it should require way less).

Steam doesn't really have much impact on performance it's pretty much just a platform to launch the game. The main thing is the games themselves. If your below the minimum system requirements(shown on the store page) there isn't really a whole lot you can do.

If your above those then the simplest way is to set all the graphical settings to the lowest and experiment with turning various things on and off to suit your computer's ability. There are a lot of graphical tweaking guides out there that can probably help too. And occasionally you can also find guides to help improve performance by manually editing some stuff in the games config file.

For laptops you can also sometimes improve performance by adjusting your power settings. Sometimes they are set to operate at less than 100% of what they can do to preserve battery life.

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Game optimization is different for each game naturally and some games just don't work they way they should.

Like Planetside 2 for a while was almost completely processor dependent. So you could have an have a low end processor and high end graphics card and get lower frame rates with the graphics on low than on ultra because only on ultra would the game actually try to have your GPU share the load. Other games don't utilize mutli-core processors and end up using a fraction of the power you pc actually has.

 

[kkck]

Steam doesn't really have much impact on performance it's pretty much just a platform to launch the game. The main thing is the games themselves. If your below the minimum system requirements(shown on the store page) there isn't really a whole lot you can do.

If your above those then the simplest way is to set all the graphical settings to the lowest and experiment with turning various things on and off to suit your computer's ability. There are a lot of graphical tweaking guides out there that can probably help too. And occasionally you can also find guides to help improve performance by manually editing some stuff in the games config file.

For laptops you can also sometimes improve performance by adjusting your power settings. Sometimes they are set to operate at less than 100% of what they can do to preserve battery life.

-------------------------------

Game optimization is different for each game naturally and some games just don't work they way they should.

Like Planetside 2 for a while was almost completely processor dependent. So you could have an have a low end processor and high end graphics card and get lower frame rates with the graphics on low than on ultra because only on ultra would the game actually try to have your GPU share the load. Other games don't utilize mutli-core processors and end up using a fraction of the power you pc actually has.

I know its about the games, I just found it a tad weird that steam games happen to be so power hungry so to speak... My power setting is also at high performance.. I read around a bit and I found I could change the setting of the graphic card from quality to performance, gotta see if that works well. Before I downloaded the game I checked and it said my computer met the minimum requirements. I know minimum requirements does not necessarily imply perfect gameplay but it did seem like an 8 year old game should work better, specially if newer games work relatively well. Now I am looking into allocating more ram to an integrated graphic card...

 

[Jammin]

There are so many games about to come out that I can't wait to play

- Bladestorm: Nightmare (March 17th)

A remake of a favorite ps3 game of mine (Though I might be the only one who loved it). Which was basically dynasty warriors in Europe with squads of solders instead of single heroes with the new addition of a fantasy nightmare mode with monsters and dragons and such. It's a bit like Kingdom Under Fire. I played the demo on psn this weekend and loved it. As a fan of arcade-y strategy games it appeals to me in a big way.

- Bloodborne (March 24th)

Essentially Demon Souls II. Videogame masochism of the highest order. Looking forward to exploring a large death trap of a city and rage quit boss fights like 3 times a day.

- Toukiden: Kiwami (March 31st)

"Monster Hunter Yokai" basically. With more of an anime look and more of a story element to it. But the important thing is that it's a PS4 Monster Hunter type game. Which is something I'm definitely on board for. I'm pretty excited to play the demo of it that comes out next week.

 

[Demonspeed]

Nintendo Develops 'Entirely New' Game Hardware Platform, Codenamed NX

 

[kkck]

A home console already? I guess they must be pretty desperate due to the lackluster sales of the wii U... I find their comments too ambiguous to mean anything, as far as I understood it is a new console but it will work alongside the wii u or something.

And they are still doing new and trying to innovate? Haven't they realized people want the exact same thing as before? I mean, people are freaking fighting over PS4 and Xbox1 they are virtually the same thing...

 

[kakashi919]

A home console already? I guess they must be pretty desperate due to the lackluster sales of the wii U... I find their comments too ambiguous to mean anything, as far as I understood it is a new console but it will work alongside the wii u or something.

And they are still doing new and trying to innovate? Haven't they realized people want the exact same thing as before? I mean, people are freaking fighting over PS4 and Xbox1 they are virtually the same thing...

And I'm pretty okay with them trying to innovate. Most of their WiiU games reviews have been pretty much awesome. And looking at Splatoon, it looks pretty refreshing and awesome. They may not be selling a lot of WiiUs, but they don't really need to if the 3DS family continues as they're going.

 

[Jammin]

I'm not too surprised by that announcement. It seems like something they had to say to reassure their fans who might be made a little nervous by their announced expansion into smartphone games.

What Nintendo said was pretty vague too. The NX is a hardware platform but it's not necessarily a home console. It could really be anything. They could be returning to a more traditional Nintendo console or they could be doing something crazy. Nintendo does a lot of crazy things and sometimes they pan out, like the Wii, and sometimes they don't, like the Virtual Boy; but the do keep trying.

Who knows how far out it is too. I mean, I'm sure both Microsoft and Sony are developing their next hardware already probably have been since the day the Xbox One and PS4 launched.

 

[kkck]

And I'm pretty okay with them trying to innovate. Most of their WiiU games reviews have been pretty much awesome. And looking at Splatoon, it looks pretty refreshing and awesome. They may not be selling a lot of WiiUs, but they don't really need to if the 3DS family continues as they're going.

I was being a tad sarcastic with my post (ok, a lot more than a tad). Developers didn't support the console even though it was supposed to be easy to program for and could give player a unique play style and gamers at large were not in the slightest bit interested in the thing. Granted it was a somewhat awkward idea but no one ever really gave it a shot. 10 bucks that 15 years from now when graphics become as good as they can plausibly become every console will have one of those controllers and whatnot lol.

 

[kakashi919]

I was being a tad sarcastic with my post (ok, a lot more than a tad). Developers didn't support the console even though it was supposed to be easy to program for and could give player a unique play style and gamers at large were not in the slightest bit interested in the thing. Granted it was a somewhat awkward idea but no one ever really gave it a shot. 10 bucks that 15 years from now when graphics become as good as they can plausibly become every console will have one of those controllers and whatnot lol.

Yeah noted the sarcasm

To be fair to other developers, Nintendo didn't really do a good job advertising the WiiU...in fact I can't recall ever seeing an ad for it on tv. Who is gonna support something that barely anyone knows exists? lol

 

[Jammin]

Not to mention Nintendo has a terrible relationship with most third party developers which stems all the way back to the NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube days when Nintendo charged absurd fees to develop anything for their hardware.

That was one of the big reasons when the original Playstation came along everybody jumped ship. Sony charged minimal fees for development, and when Microsoft came along it did the same, it just didn't make practical sense to develop for Nintendo the N64 or the GameCube so third party support got worse and worse. Nintendo is only now trying to turn that around but 20+ years of behaving like that leaves a lot of grudges.

 

[gnut]

this looks fukan cool
[video]https://youtu.be/2yKv45X_OIo[/video]

 

[xi0]

It's EA, so it's going to look a lot cooler than it is

 

[Ecchi Boy]

It Begins


---------- Post added at 10:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:02 PM ----------

This is a cross media game project called Snack World its for 3DS

 

[riki]

Can't wait to get this game.

 

[Ecchi Boy]

Can't wait to get this game.

Me Too Hoe they improved it so it won't get boring after awhile

 

[kakashi919]

Steam messed up Mortal Kombat X's launch big time. They decided to test out a different kind of pre-load,where you play while you download, however even when you download a few of the packs there's nothing you can do in game. After 2-3 packs, you can reach the character select screen, however can't do anything because there are no levels/maps to play on. Some people have got up to 14 packs and still no maps. So yeah...PC gamers got screwed over big time.

 

[benelori]

Anybody a PC builder here?

Need some tips for choosing a case \o/

 

[z.5]

Go huge! Big is both beautiful and practical for all those large and overpriced components which you will be gently forcing into it!


Also, as many fans as you can cram onto the thing (unless you are going to go with an alternative cooling system).