Any PC Gamers Around?

[Captain Snooze]

System Shock Remake.
21 hours and I've almost cleared the 2nd floor of the space station. There are 10(!) floors displayed but I do not know if one gets to explore them all. It's going to be a good value game if one does.

Things I like: There is no hand holding; one has to learn how the game play works with lots of deaths (at least for me). There is much to explore. Something I've just recently learnt is that vending machines have a finite amount of items. This makes sense but increases difficulty. There is only one healing station (one has med packs but they get consumed ) so playing conservatively I have to travel back to the beginning of the first map to top-up health.
I am reminded of Bioshock.
The only small negative for me is the scenery is a little monotonous/repetitive; no high res textures here.

[Wally86]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

System Shock Remake.
21 hours and I've almost cleared the 2nd floor of the space station. There are 10(!) floors displayed but I do not know if one gets to explore them all. It's going to be a good value game if one does.

Things I like: There is no hand holding; one has to learn how the game play works with lots of deaths (at least for me). There is much to explore. Something I've just recently learnt is that vending machines have a finite amount of items. This makes sense but increases difficulty. There is only one healing station (one has med packs but they get consumed ) so playing conservatively I have to travel back to the beginning of the first map to top-up health.
I am reminded of Bioshock.
The only small negative for me is the scenery is a little monotonous/repetitive; no high res textures here.

I was wondering why I hadn't heard of this game but a quick look at game releases in 1994 and it makes sense.

Donkey Kong Country, Doom II, Killer Instinct, Earthworm Jim, Cruis's USA, Kings Quest VII, plust all of the games I was already obsessed with.

[weederr33]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

System Shock Remake.
21 hours and I've almost cleared the 2nd floor of the space station. There are 10(!) floors displayed but I do not know if one gets to explore them all. It's going to be a good value game if one does.

Things I like: There is no hand holding; one has to learn how the game play works with lots of deaths (at least for me). There is much to explore. Something I've just recently learnt is that vending machines have a finite amount of items. This makes sense but increases difficulty. There is only one healing station (one has med packs but they get consumed ) so playing conservatively I have to travel back to the beginning of the first map to top-up health.
I am reminded of Bioshock.
The only small negative for me is the scenery is a little monotonous/repetitive; no high res textures here.

Ah, games of yesteryear. It was great when games gave you little to no help or tips. You had to learn and explore. While not a fan of system shock, it still reminds me of things like the original Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six series. You weren't babied and rushing into places was extremely hazard. Now days, those series are just as run and gun and looter shooter as the rest.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by weederr33

Ah, games of yesteryear. It was great when games gave you little to no help or tips.

Sierra On-Line games were the "best" at that. Per Al Lowe they sold more hint books for some of their games than they sold copies of the games.

[Captain Snooze]

I'm guessing the game will be over 12GB in size and if I don't get at least 14 hours of game play before finishing the main mission I will be disappointed.
"obviously the game is big" Todd Howard.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Sierra On-Line games were the "best" at that. Per Al Lowe they sold more hint books for some of their games than they sold copies of the games.

Some of that was in the era where cd-key sharing was common as well. Knew plenty of people that would pool money for a single legal copy, then all used the same cd key for access

[weederr33]

Ooof, yeah that's at least gonna use 16gb of VRAM

[weederr33]

Also, GN addressed the Gigabyte backdoor issue and he didn't go on his tirade over it. Which sucks cuz it's a pretty big deal.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by soundman98

Some of that was in the era where cd-key sharing was common as well. Knew plenty of people that would pool money for a single legal copy, then all used the same cd key for access

The Sierra games, when they came on floppies, used a less sophisticated method where you had to look up something in the manual. I remember looking at the images in the manual trying to figure out the subtle differences between some of the images.

[Captain Snooze]

System Shock Remake
51 hours and I don't mind admitting I have resorted to using a guide. Not a detailed walk through, just the goals on a level. Because there are no waymarks/arrows pointing the way one has to pay attention to audio logs to find out what you have to do. Given that I don't pay much attention to audio logs I have been bogged down a couple of times not knowing what it is I'm supposed to be doing.

I'm so impressed that the original came out in 1994. It must have revolutionary at the time.

[Captain Snooze]

System Shock Remake
80 hours. I'm getting close to finishing the game but it wouldn't surprise me if it took another 10 hours. I can't imagine trying to play the game without help. It would have been so tedious, repetitive. I'm glad I'm playing now and not way back when.

In other developments give the dearth of games I've been wanting to play it comes as a bit of a surprise that there are 2&1/2 games that are now on the agenda: Starfield, new STALKER and Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty. I give it a 1/2 because it's an expansion. Because of this I've decided to upgrade my computer with the exception of GPU and PSU. I was quite lazy and didn't do a lot of research; I gave the computer shop a list of parts, with some preferences, and they will get back to me soon.
The list is
Windows 10 (11 can wait)
DDR5 16GB x 2 (6000 or 6600MHz)
Motherboard? <- I have no idea, they suggested an Asrock. I said fine.
AMD CPU? <- After a bit of discussion it was decided upon AMD Ryzen7 7700 (not X)
1TB M.2 SSD They pulled a Crucial 3500Mhz SSD off the shelf and I said no no no, I want something fast. They suggested a different model of Crucial or a Samsung. Not being familiar with Crucial I've just had a look at their website and omg! They have an SSD rated at Read speeds up to 12,8000MB/s & Write speeds up to 11,800MB/s. I've never heard of such speeds before. I'll be right back.

[Captain Snooze]

Ok, just having spent 10 minutes researching ssd I am now an expert.
Those insane speeds are for sequential reads and writes. Linus says that random reads and writes happen in typical day to day use. Also, if the cache fills speeds drop significantly.
Ah well, back to more conventional speeds for me.

[cjd]

Originally Posted by Captain Snooze

Ok, just having spent 10 minutes researching ssd I am now an expert.
Those insane speeds are for sequential reads and writes. Linus says that random reads and writes happen in typical day to day use. Also, if the cache fills speeds drop significantly.
Ah well, back to more conventional speeds for me.

Attachment 221136

Texture loading and such are (typically) sequential I believe. Done right anyway. So sometimes maybe if you're lucky.
I'm tempted to upgrade the write cache in my nas... It is the current backup bottleneck maxing around 3.8gb/s but is SATA SSD...
Also, heat destroys those numbers.

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by cjd

Texture loading and such are (typically) sequential I believe.

This is a theoretical concern for me. That is, I'm going to get new parts and be happy with the result. There will be no "test driving" components to see which is better. A 6500MHz SSD is only slower when compared to something faster.

Computer philosophy 101.




Oh no, I'm now fantasizing about a 27" OLED.