ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Does anybody want to go in for a 4-pack of Shattered Horizon?
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STEAM - announcements, updates and WIN
- Thread starter Tony Rocky Horror
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Yeah, one day I will be able to go a month without buying a game from there. Just not this month, especially with the Uber Christmas sales coming.YuriLowell said:
Anyway, TLR bought, Steam having my card details for easy buying makes the process all too painless for my liking!
crimsonheadGCN
Banned
I don't think I've ever liked a JRPG, but I want to get The Last Remnant at that price. Damn Valve and their sales lol
Servbot #42
Unconfirmed Member
faceless007
Member
Does anyone know if there are reported compatibility problems with the Broken Sword games? They're also on GOG where I assume they've made the games compatible with modern systems, but I don't think the same is true for Steam.
Minsc
Gold Member
faceless007 said:
GOG's version of Broken Sword 2 runs through SCUMMVM, I've played it through to the end, with no problems. Unfortunately, I can't offer much insight about the Steam version, but you also get a neat full color walk through from GOG too, in lieu of a hint system.
Broken Sword 3 is a 3D game, probably uses Direct X, never played it.
Peronthious
Member
OH GOD OH GOD THE VOID IS ON STEAAAAM WOOO
Quick few words.
This is not a game for everyone. This is not an action game. This is not a shooty shooty game. This is not Dudebro, My Shit is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You III: Rumble in the Dawg Time.
It's only barely the 'action-adventure' title that Steam calls it.
It is, however, one of the most interesting things I've played that can call itself a game.
The premise is that beyond this world there is a dimension called 'The Void'. In this 'Void' live many sorts of creatures, chief among whom are the "Sisters" and the "Brothers" who sort of watch over them. All life in this world depends upon the existence and proliferation of color; ostensibly, the Sisters, if left to their own devices, would devour and waste all of the color, and the Brothers are there to prevent this.
You appear in this world as a lost soul who is rescued by a Sister, and given a heart to fill with color so that you may live. She immediately tasks you with harvesting the color that is present in her area of The Void before the Brothers, who are away at the moment, return and find you there. After a time you learn that The Void is currently in a state of chaos. The Shaper, who brought color into The Void, is gone, and with his disappearance came the appearance of the Sister who took you in, as well as the decay and disappearance of color in The Void. The other Sisters and Brothers shun her for this, blaming her for the current state of decay.
When the Brothers do return, they believe you to be the new Brother who is to tame the new Sister, and they set about training you in the ways of life in The Void. They assign you tasks, which occasionally conflict with tasks other Sisters may ask of you as you journey through The Void.
I wouldn't call the game fun, but if you're familiar with how terrible Pathologic turned out to be (See the Squadron of Shame episode on Pathologic for more), know at least that The Void is playable as well as compelling. If you're looking for a thought provoking experience, something that has a well imagined world, deep characters, and a fascinating story, The Void is a fantastic choice for $20.
Just don't go into it expecting something "fun".
Quintin Smith on The Void in his Battle Klaxon column on GameSetWatch.
Quick few words.
This is not a game for everyone. This is not an action game. This is not a shooty shooty game. This is not Dudebro, My Shit is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You III: Rumble in the Dawg Time.
It's only barely the 'action-adventure' title that Steam calls it.
It is, however, one of the most interesting things I've played that can call itself a game.
The premise is that beyond this world there is a dimension called 'The Void'. In this 'Void' live many sorts of creatures, chief among whom are the "Sisters" and the "Brothers" who sort of watch over them. All life in this world depends upon the existence and proliferation of color; ostensibly, the Sisters, if left to their own devices, would devour and waste all of the color, and the Brothers are there to prevent this.
You appear in this world as a lost soul who is rescued by a Sister, and given a heart to fill with color so that you may live. She immediately tasks you with harvesting the color that is present in her area of The Void before the Brothers, who are away at the moment, return and find you there. After a time you learn that The Void is currently in a state of chaos. The Shaper, who brought color into The Void, is gone, and with his disappearance came the appearance of the Sister who took you in, as well as the decay and disappearance of color in The Void. The other Sisters and Brothers shun her for this, blaming her for the current state of decay.
When the Brothers do return, they believe you to be the new Brother who is to tame the new Sister, and they set about training you in the ways of life in The Void. They assign you tasks, which occasionally conflict with tasks other Sisters may ask of you as you journey through The Void.
I wouldn't call the game fun, but if you're familiar with how terrible Pathologic turned out to be (See the Squadron of Shame episode on Pathologic for more), know at least that The Void is playable as well as compelling. If you're looking for a thought provoking experience, something that has a well imagined world, deep characters, and a fascinating story, The Void is a fantastic choice for $20.
Just don't go into it expecting something "fun".
Quintin Smith on The Void in his Battle Klaxon column on GameSetWatch.
Sweet, The Force Unleashed is finally on Steam.
Minsc
Gold Member
Picked up the Last Remnant for $10, ran @ 30-60fps (1920x1200 with every last thing on highest/max) in the first battle with like 20 units, all the story sequences afterwards were at a solid 60fps. Not sure if normal battles would drop to 30 or if the intro battle was abnormally large, but it does seem to be a lower framerate than I'd expect on a 5870, maybe ATI's 9.12 drivers due out this week will help.
Looks really nice though.
Looks really nice though.
morningbus
Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
Is the loading in the full version of the Last Remnant as bad as it is in the demo?
Eaten By A Grue
Member
Only a 30GB download, I accept that challenge! FiOS-achu I choose you. Ludicrous download speed, go!MoFuzz said:
MoFuzz
Member
Eaten By A Grue said:
Well, it's not to say that those with phat pipes aren't up to the task, but ludicrous as your download speeds may be, it's still 30 gigs of hard drive space that only took up 8 gigs on a 360 DVD.
I just can't support lazniess like that. Wait, don't tell me, they're using 22 gigs worth of uber-high rez textures.
Servbot #42
Unconfirmed Member
Peronthious said:
Thanks for the impressions! i will definitely get The Void* since i hear it's unlike anything out there, oh yeah i hear the game is hard as hell, is it true?
*
once i have a new PC and some money
Peronthious
Member
Gexecuter said:
I wouldn't call it hard in the traditional sense, but it's difficult. I would recommend looking around on the official forums if you do get it; there are a few things in the beginning that if you don't do you can screw up your progress through the rest of the game.
graywolf323
Member
datamage said:
if you must buy it wait until the holiday sale next week at least
I had heard that there was a patch since launch that fixed a lot of the sloppy tech glitches?
graywolf323 said:
I am gonna wait. Got a huge backlog thanks to Steam, so I'm in no rush.
I personally don't care how much space it takes up, so long as I can run it @ 1080p and a good framerate. Now if he PC version does suffer from very poor optimization or serious bugs, then I might have to pass.
brain_stew
Member
rhfb said:
As with all DirectX games just download Rivatuner and use the included D3DOverrider to force tripple buffering and Vsync. You'll get rid of the tearing but not suffer the nasty performance penalty associated with standard double buffer vsync. Tearing can be remedied in every PC game.
datamage said:
You really should just go with D3DOverrider then, it'll give you a free performance boost as much as 50% in all your Direct3D games and actually reduce input lag over the standard Vsync that you force on in your GPU drivers. In your case it'll practically be the same as getting a free GPU upgrade (similar to the leap from a 4850 to a 4870 on average) and reduce stutter, and that's not hyperbole either. See my old thread on the topic here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366413
datamage said:
Its capped at 30fps fwiw.
Minsc
Gold Member
brain_stew said:
The Last Remnant was running at 60 fps according to FRAPS for me, it's just the FMV that was running at 30 fps.
That aside, listen to this advice. I'm a sworn D3DOverrider user now. The thing is the holy grail of PC gaming.
I was playing Dead Space, which vsync's to 30fps, with absolutely horrible mouse lag (game's notorious for this issue), and with D3DOverrider running in the background I simply disabled the vsync in Dead Space, D3DOverrider took over, I got a 2x framerate boost (30 > 60), and no mouse lag!
Risen, D3DOverrider got rid of tearing. Same with the Witcher.
I just use it for all my games, and it's amazing. Can't imagine running anything without it, given how few games properly implement v sync and triple buffering.
D3DOverrider is a must for any gamer.
kinggroin said:
Thanks for the tip. Like I said the battle dipped to around 30, which is perfectly fine, and the rest of the game sync'd to a perfect 60. If there's more issues later, I'll have to drop the shadow detail, but hopefully ATI will patch it fixed or it will continue to be a non-issue like it is now.
MoFuzz
Member
I've actually noticed that if you can enable Vsync directly in the game itself, it almost always produces very little if any perceptible input lag. Forcing it through Nvida control panel always makes it worse, as you said. I've mostly been forcing triple buffering through there as well. I understand that still works if you're running XP, which I am.brain_stew said:
Would D3DOverrider enabled triple buffer & vsync produce the same amount of input lag as enabling in-game you think?
That, I did not know. I'm not even gonna bother with this one at all in that case, not even if they do a Steam sale at $5 later on. Wait, we are still talking about Force Unleashed right?brain_stew said:
brain_stew
Member
Minsc said:
Seriously, I felt kinda dumbfounded after using it, I wondered why the hell it was such a "secret" and not better publicised. For anyone that would traditionally enable vsync by default as they hate tearing, it really is a free and noticeable upgrade. Framerate drops won't be nearly as severe and your overall framerate will improve by a good margin (often 20%+, and that's conservative) in a lot of circumstances. If it doesn't work too well with certain games you can very easily just disable it per application and have it forced globally for everything else.
There's occasions where no v-sync at all might make sense (for competive play perhaps, but I'd personally never bother) but standard double buffer vsync (which is almost always the option given in games) is nearly always a poorer option. The only real drawback is a slight increase in memory, but considering its a hit of less than 10MB for 1080p w/0xaa (around ~30MB with 4xaa) its not something you'd notice on a modern 512MB+ card.
Minsc
Gold Member
zbarron said:
That's what D3DOverrider is for, triple buffering + V-sync in all your games. Like turn off the game's v-sync and use D3DOverrider's for a better experience.
I do remember seeing the framerate limiting option now that you mention it, I just left mine to off, and D3DOverrider capped it to 60 by v-sync'ing the game.
Just imagine if D3DOverrider also implements a framerate cap in addition to the v-sync and triple buffering, so you can simply cap all your games to any framerate which your monitor syncs with, 60, 30, 24, whatever.
MoFuzz said:
If you're talking about The Last Remnant, the game's options allow you to cap it at 30fps, 60fps or no limit, but maybe I'm just confused, since that seemed pretty obvious to discover.
I get significantly less lag in Dead Space with D3DOverrider than using the game's v-sync.
brain_stew
Member
MoFuzz said:
Actually no, the Nvidia (and ATI) driver option for tripple buffering only applies to OpenGL games, in both XP and Vista/7. Yes its stupid, and yes its totally unclear but that's the way it is.
D3DOverrider's trpile buffering should actually produce less input lag than the game's standard vsync implementation. The only way to reduce input lag would be to remove v-sync altogether and play with tearing.
brain_stew
Member
Minsc said:
He's talking about the Force Unleashed, which is indeed capped at 30fps unless some patch removed it. See here:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1358406&postcount=112
zbarron said:
Oh absolutely, its something that I'd like to see in all games if possible, heck I'd love a "D3DOverrider" alike global hack. Sometimes a rock solid 30fps with crazy good settings (beyond maximum if possible
) is nicer than a slightly less than perfect 60fps with lesser graphics and image quality. It would have been pretty trivial for Square to add the functionality as every UE3 title has a FPS capping setting built in, you just need to change a line in a config file to enable it. The more options are always better.Edit: Pretty impressive that the Last Remnant has went to the top of the charts considering they're ranked by revenue and we're at the highest sales period of the year. It really shows how these sales work so well, all of that is revenue that Square would have been passing over otherwise.
rohlfinator
Member
The Void, huh... I've been meaning to check it out after seeing a few RPS articles, so I'm glad to see it made it to Steam.
Another happy D3DOverrider user here. My only fault with it is that it caused sound problems with Prince of Persia and I had to disable it, but other than that it's worked like a charm.
Another happy D3DOverrider user here. My only fault with it is that it caused sound problems with Prince of Persia and I had to disable it, but other than that it's worked like a charm.
The Last Wizard
Member
how was the last remnant? $10 doesnt seem that bad, i always waited for the ps3 version but we all know what happened to that>_>
MoFuzz
Member
brain_stew said:
Ah, I think you're right, I just got home and took a look at the Nvidia panel. Apparently, it's the forcing vsync option that only works in XP for Direct X games. The triple buffer option does not specify one way or another.
I guess I'll have to give the D3DOverrider method a wack then.
So I guess Vista and W7 users that don't have the option in game and have not discovered the overrider have been playing with screen tearing the whole time?
brain_stew
Member
rohlfinator said:
It seems to be getting a lot of showing on the Steam frontpage. Pretty cool for a niche indie title like this, I can't think of any other outlet where it'd be able to get such exposure. Its things like that why I love Steam so much, the PC has been really well served by indies in 2009 and long may it continue.
brain_stew
Member
MoFuzz said:
There's still a vsync option in the Nvidia and ATI Vista/W7 drivers, and just like XP tripple buffering is there but it only works for OpenGL games. As mentioned though D3DOverrider is generally a better option than the driver setting.
rohlfinator
Member
Yeah, Valve has been really great lately about promoting lesser-known games to the Steam community. Hopefully it's paying off well for all involved.brain_stew said:
brain_stew
Member
MNC said:
It'll usually be more useful for lower end machines as if you're getting a rock solid 60fps it tripple buffering won't have any effect on performance though it may still reduce input lag. If you're below that (which on a low end machine you will be more often than not) it'll always give you better performance than standard double buffer v-sync. Remember, this is not a performance boost per se, it just gets rid of the degraded performance you get by using the normal vsync setting. Though if like some previous posters you've previously had vsync "forced on" through your drivers, for all intents and purposes it is just that, a free performance boost.
The only restriction is if you've got a card with very little memory and are trying to use high levels of AA at high resolutions, as you might not be able to handle the extra buden on your GPU's RAM.
brain_stew
Member
rohlfinator said:
Well it certainly did for Tripwire, they went from a mod group to a small-medium sized fully independant developer with multiple projects after just a year or two. I'm sure Steam pushing there games like no tomorrow had more than a little something to do with that.
Slightly off topic, but RPS, have just alerted me to the release of Virtual City, I know we have a lot of Sim City fans around here but there's so little genre representation that at $15 this might be worth looking into. There's a demo on their site and the graphics look really charming.
Edit: Reading/watching more, it seems to be a mix of Transport Tycoon and Sim City, hmmm that's potentially a very nice combination.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Yup. And they deserve it too. They're making some of the best multiplayer games out there.brain_stew said:
brain_stew
Member
markot said:
Its UE3, what else did you expect!! :lol
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
brain_stew said:
Dude.
The Last Wizard
Member
well i took the plunge and bought last remnant, couldnt beat the price:lol
Fragamemnon
Member
I'm trying the Virtual City demo now and will give a brief spreadsheet gamer thumbs up/down here in an hour or so.
update : story mode intro is one frame away from being the start of a porno. Unsure if intentional.
update 2: just build a bus station in the middle of what appears to be a white bread colorado exurb. Not very realistic, the not in my backyard folks would be up in arms!
update 3: woot now I get to run a local health care monopoly while at the same time having my corporation get exclusive rights to residential real estate development. Can't wait to refuse mortgages due to preexisting conditions.
update : story mode intro is one frame away from being the start of a porno. Unsure if intentional.
update 2: just build a bus station in the middle of what appears to be a white bread colorado exurb. Not very realistic, the not in my backyard folks would be up in arms!
update 3: woot now I get to run a local health care monopoly while at the same time having my corporation get exclusive rights to residential real estate development. Can't wait to refuse mortgages due to preexisting conditions.
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