Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hanguker]

I just loaded up Half-life 2: episode 2 on my 3.0Ghz Core 2 duo and 9600GT. The thing was running at 112FPS with everything maxxed out. I know it's a bit dated, but it's a fantastic looking game with everything at max.

The newer games look marginally better to my eye, but we have to buy a 300K won graphics card to run them at 27 FPS (yes really...on Metro 2011) to 60 FPS. On top of this, we now need a 4 or 6 core processor to make them run properly. Further, I was playing Modern Warfare 2 just fine at 40 FPS and now Black ops gives me about 12 FPS...and it doesn't look any better. This seems like a murderous ripoff. I think developers can easily make great looking games that don't require such enormous upgrades.

Am I just an old lame duck?

[Bloopity Bloop]

Black Ops is a bit of an outlier because it runs poorly on any PC. It's well documented on the web.

http://kotaku.com/5686079/black-ops-on-pc-suffering-from-mysterious-lag

[Kimchifart]

Some people have been blaming steam for it. Apparently it was the steam process going out of control.

[Kimchifart]

More detail here and an excellent in depth review.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TceA6wvPwnw

[Bloopity Bloop]

[eamo]

I see your point......I'm playing COD: Black Ops now and the graphics aint so hot.....I was expecting a step up graphics-wise.

My machine plays BLOPS at around 40 FPS, so I'm not suffering from lag.....but the graphics are no better than COD or MOH games of the last two years.

[noky]

First, console ports are notorious for poor performance on the PC. Black Ops is one of those games. Unfortunately for me, Saint's Row 2 was one as well. It happens.

Second, in most situations any processor with more than two cores is wasted on games. The software is designed to efficiently (and sometimes can't) utilize all the cores. The increased processor specs are usually due to physics not being handled by the GPU or large amounts of individual A.I. routines. Games are often GPU heavy rather than CPU heavy.

Third, there is no conspiracy. PC games are more vulnerable to piracy and sell less copies (in most situations) making them less profitable in general. With the game being less profitable the incentive to release a quality product is decreased -- especially for ports.

That said, I am an avid PC gamer and I encourage you to play CoD on a console where everyone else is playing it. Avoid, bad ports of subpar console titles.

[comm]

Clearly the solution is to play Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
No conspiracy here... just great graphics, team-based play, and much less grenade spam.

[languistic]

Poor coding. PC ports are often so; history has shown us that. Black Ops runs fine for me however; one has to check the graphics settings manually. I loaded up the game and found it had decided I was to play at 1280�800, 4xAA...silly for my native 1920�1200, 24" monitor. I turned off AA (in the ATI control panel use "application settings") and set the res to 1920�1200....no problem. Sure, a chug or two when scene loading, but that is my relatively crappy 4850. Looking at a 6850 for Christmas.

Graphics markets are driven by both reality and BS. First, the reality is that monitor resolutions are climbing and need more power. 1920�1200 needs many more pixels than 1024x768...almost double. However, the BS comes with AA...at 1920�1200, the need for FSAA is debatable. AF sure...makes the textures sharper and pretty, but the performance hit isn't so bad with AF at say 4x. Apparently Black OPs is quite CPU dependent; a C2D will suffer, while a Quad core will be fine. Such is as I have found. That is odd from today's perspective where games are typically limited by GPU.

To say that PC are more often pirated is a stretch; do a torrent search for Black OPs and see. PC games are easier comparatively to pirate; you don't need to physically alter your machine. PC games are however, generally problematic for devs. Console games just work and all of the hardware is known...there are no surprises. Easier means better, less patches and complaints which means more money. The PC game will die when the console gets a decent mouse/keyboard setup; between that and the resolution, the PC has little more to offer than a console. Too bad as well, but I think I am holding out partially for nostalgia; I am still a tweaker and like the challenges of getting a game to run well on my system. Consoles are.....kinda boring. A PC game for me has always meant some extra fiddling to get it to run optimally and I think I savor that fact.

[nukeday]

for the mouse/keyboard setup, i kind of like the splitfish fragfx for the ps3.

http://www.splitfish.com/

i still get my ass handed to me in MW2 though (a k/d ratio of .9 is a GREAT match for me)....and i remember i used to be half decent back in the counterstrike days.

[Kimchifart]

[balzor]

[verve]