Looks perfectly reasonable to me, mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the publishers of Fallen Earth cried about it. Pretty hard to have any faith in the accuracy of anything they publish here in the future.
Not that anyone who makes this kind of tinfoil hat post will believe this, but I figure I should say it anyway:
Icarus and I never discussed this review prior to me pulling it. Not once.
It stayed up until Friday mostly due to my travel schedule, unfortunately.
I'm happy to rephrase: "mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the fans of Fallen Earth cried about it"
If the reviewer doesn't even know the difference between lag and frame rate, then he shouldn't have been a reviewer in the first place.
It's a pretty cool game overall, but in terms of performance it really is not release worthy. When Vanguard released everyone was bragging about the horrible performance, but for Fallen Earth today nobody is, and it's just a tad bit better.
No, it's a whole lot better than Vanguard which is why so few people are complaining about the performance.
I've played FE since just before the end of beta, initially on my then main machine being a P4 with 2gb RAM (XP 32) and the game was certainly a bit sluggish then on low settings compared to my playing since retail on my new quad core with 8gb RAM (VIsta 64) and incredibly smooth performance on totally max settings. Both times I was running with a 20mbs internet connection from the UK, the game being based in the US.
At no point with either machine have I ever suffered any real lag or had a single CTD.
Last night I was at the first 40 minutes or so of the Massively live event with (I'm guessing) around 100 other players huddled together in a single location (to catch all the local chat), and the server didn't falter once, nor did my character. Many of the players were dancing or riding around on mounts and no-one appeared to be struggling performance-wise. No-one was complaining. You couldn't have done that in VG or a good many other MMOs within a month of launch.
The game runs very well if you have a decent rig, but not surprisingly it doesn't run too well if you have less than the minimum required rig, as the reviewer found out. I don't see how anyone can blame Icarus for that!
Well ya it's performance is a ton better than VG i agree.However for very good reason,VG has about 10x the detail and depth in the world,FE is extremely barren and of lower quality.It is just math nothing amazing done by Icarus here,more polys =less performance,less=better performance.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The player/enemy warping, hitching, hits that don't register, 5 to 10 second lag when activating a skill that is ready for deployment, huge lag when entering towns/cities, and similar things are purely server related and have absolutely nothing to do with a system that can't run the game.
However, MMORPG.com is giving the game a second chance because of the fact that the system was not the best in the world, and to make perfectly clear that things are indeed related to lag and not a hogging system. Lots of people are beginning to think that the second opinion on the game will have a much higher score, but I can assure you that this will not happen. At highest this game will get a 7.5, which is more than enough for the state it is currently in. And maybe the review will not change at all, because they will come to the same conclusions in the end.
I too have a pretty good gaming system with some top of the line stuff in it. But even on my system it still runs like a snail at times. And the game has actually crashed many times for unknown reasons. Also the lag is unbearable at times, but this can be related to the fact that I'm connecting from The Netherlands. But that shouldn't be a valid excuse, because at highest the ping should be around 500 or so. But since the game hasn't even got a function to check the ping, I can only speculate about how high it is.
The player/enemy warping, hitching, hits that don't register, 5 to 10 second lag when activating a skill that is ready for deployment, huge lag when entering towns/cities, and similar things are purely server related and have absolutely nothing to do with a system that can't run the game.
However, MMORPG.com is giving the game a second chance because of the fact that the system was not the best in the world, and to make perfectly clear that things are indeed related to lag and not a hogging system. Lots of people are beginning to think that the second opinion on the game will have a much higher score, but I can assure you that this will not happen. At highest this game will get a 7.5, which is more than enough for the state it is currently in. And maybe the review will not change at all, because they will come to the same conclusions in the end.
I too have a pretty good gaming system with some top of the line stuff in it. But even on my system it still runs like a snail at times. And the game has actually crashed many times for unknown reasons. Also the lag is unbearable at times, but this can be related to the fact that I'm connecting from The Netherlands. But that shouldn't be a valid excuse, because at highest the ping should be around 500 or so. But since the game hasn't even got a function to check the ping, I can only speculate about how high it is.
I agree with you. It's a 7.5 kind of game at this point. Actually, 6.9 might even be a correct score. In a couple years when they re-review, who knows? Maybe it's a gem. But right now it is honestly, overall, no higher than 7.5 IMO.
Most people are getting good overall performance. I run WIN XP 32, 8800GT and 3 gigs and it runs absolutely great in or out of cities to be honest. Every once in a while I get the rubber banding and am forced to relog and it goes away. However, there are a pretty noticeable amount of people that are having big problems running a better system than I am.
I can't count the number of times I have had to relog or told someone else they had to relog to fix an in game obvious bug (estimated 10 logouts per 4 hour session). This game is really buggy right now. There are exploits. The combat is extremely stale and uninteresting (more focus on mutations might help IMO). This game looks like it was heading for an old school SWG feel when it comes to combat and crafting. The skill point system doesn't hold a candle to old school SWG. There is one set of best gear for every build. The crafting system doesn't hold a candle to the current SWG system.
I also hear the word sandbox coming from some people. I've played this game a lot and this is the complete opposite of a sandbox. It is moving from quest hub to quest hub. The only difference is you get a limited choice on which quest hub to go to.
Anyway, the game has a lot of potential. I just think that there is no way that it should get a good overall review at this point. I hope they do well with it, because I would love to get into a solid post-apocalyptic MMO.
Ow, and let's not forget that a game with around 6000 quests has absolutely nothing to do with sandbox. As someone stated before, you just hop from quest-hub to quest-hub, with almost no reason at all to coming back to the old places again. Yes, there are town events, but that system is currently not in the shape it should be. The quests and missions have some funny dialog overall, but in the end it's just another game with the same 10 or so variations in that regard (collect, bring, destroy, defend, make this or that, etc.). The game also has this thing to show you where to go and what to do, ALL of the time. A game like Final Fantasy XI for that matter, does this completely the other way around. The setting and dialog may be a little more mature, but that falls to pieces with this horrible hand-holding quest and mission system.
At this point the game is severely overrated by its followers. There are lots of people that always complain about other games (mostly high-fantasy) to take you by the hand and walk you through the game, but this game does in essence almost the very same. You can go through the game in a non-linear way, but that still doesn't make it a sandbox. The crafting system is pretty decent at this point though. And let's not forget the player customization in terms of armor and weapons.
I think that the old review was actually pretty honest and should not be changed all that much, and maybe even needs to stay exactly the same.
It's not a sandbox at all, it's just a gigantic roller coaster.
Originally posted by Wootson Ow, and let's not forget that a game with around 6000 quests has absolutely nothing to do with sandbox. As someone stated before, you just hop from quest-hub to quest-hub, with almost no reason at all to coming back to the old places again. Yes, there are town events, but that system is currently not in the shape it should be. The quests and missions have some funny dialog overall, but in the end it's just another game with the same 10 or so variations in that regard (collect, bring, destroy, defend, make this or that, etc.). The game also has this thing to show you where to go and what to do, ALL of the time. A game like Final Fantasy XI for that matter, does this completely the other way around. The setting and dialog may be a little more mature, but that falls to pieces with this horrible hand-holding quest and mission system.
At this point the game is severely overrated by its followers. There are lots of people that always complain about other games (mostly high-fantasy) to take you by the hand and walk you through the game, but this game does in essence almost the very same. You can go through the game in a non-linear way, but that still doesn't make it a sandbox. The crafting system is pretty decent at this point though. And let's not forget the player customization in terms of armor and weapons.
I think that the old review was actually pretty honest and should not be changed all that much, and maybe even needs to stay exactly the same.
It's not a sandbox at all, it's just a gigantic roller coaster.
And in Sandbox games you have reasons to come back to old places? do you even know what Sand box means? i played Ryzom for quite sometime and i never had any reason to go to old places or starting areas ever again. In FE you can level without doing any missions, hell you can only craft and progress ahead. You only need to do AP missions (all of them if you want a PVP character).
FE is a hybrid and not a pure sand box but your posts sounds as if you just like to pull stuff out of your butt.
Exactly, you didn't. You, and some others who've commented here, just didn't read the review or the commetns. Instead you've made generalizations about something you don't know and cried fanboy, when you're the one being ignorant and talking out of the wrong hole.
This.
Nothing can put me off really, but ignorant loudmouthing is probably the worst, and this guy just had a HUGE dose of it... geez..
DB
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. NOT true. Reviews are supposed to give a hint, an idea for everyone. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. NOT true. Check the users's ratings on this site. WHo's# 1?. Would that be possible if the game had issues for the majority? Yeah, nope. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
Facts, maybe in your own virtual world. Try again
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
RAM is so one of the most important things, at least no less that anything else. If you don't believe this, just take all your ram out, put a 256MB stick in and leave it. If ram doesn't really mean anyhting you should still be able to play all games.
Now, he was running vista, which uses around 400-500mb on it's own. Then trying to play FE, which I have had using over 2GB on it's own. See, with this set-up, there is just not enough RAM to go around. so there is a lot of page filing going on. Harddrives are incredibly slow compared to ram, so the game lags as it cannot swap data faast enough.
I have taken my ram out and exchanged various parts of my computer a multitude of times and of each part, RAM is by far the most forgiving.
And once more, as before, just because you -think- I did not read the review does not make it true.
This is something you will need to learn in life, everyone has an opinion and they will rarely match your own. That does not mark them as ignorant.
Also, learn what trolling is. Consult the great google.
We get it. There is absolutely no hope of having any kind of communication with you, since you are absolutely totally clueless about how PC's work
Bye!
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
Somehow I feel even less respect for you guys now. I guess you can never win on the internet.
My feelings as well.
FE does not deserve about a 6.9 rating no matter who is doing the review.
Read the thread. Review was taken back because the reviewer 1)had a poorer config than the minimum specification for the game, 2) lied about this, 3) final score was not related to the overall tone the review.
Ignorance might be bliss, but in this thread, honestly, it only came through stupid and arrogant... many times.
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
Well attaching the word "sandox" to a game doesn't automatically give a game +2 on it's rating. Saying a game isn't a sandbox doesn't automatically give it a -2 either. Games are rated by how well they execute their design and is that design fun for the majority. FE does get somewhat over rated by it's fans. All games do. Obviously people who enjoy a game will rate it higher. Personal dislike for a game doesn't make it any worse than it is either. Reviews aren't just "this game rules" of this game sucks". You need to have a factual basis and a description of the type of game that will play the game. For good reason I wouldn't have an exclusively RTS gamer review an FPS. Good reviewers usually play, and enjoy, a wide variety of games and rate them for what they are, and how they would be received by the gaming public. Not What they think their personal ideal game would be. There are limitations to making a post apocolyptic game that don't exist for a fantasy game. You may want a game with lots of flashy particle effects but that would be out of place for FE. Personally I think the few the game has are out of place. The same holds true for the setting. Its a post apocolyptic desert. Waterfalls and wading pools with butterfiles dancing on he wind would be out of place. It's a desert. Deserts all look pretty much the same. Sand rocks and scrub vegetation. Performance and a few game design issues exist. Worse for some people than others. However you can't rate a game using a system that doesn't even meet the minimum requiremants for running your OS much less the game itself. It's just silly and has nothing to do with the game. So they need another review.
Looks perfectly reasonable to me, mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the publishers of Fallen Earth cried about it. Pretty hard to have any faith in the accuracy of anything they publish here in the future.
Not that anyone who makes this kind of tinfoil hat post will believe this, but I figure I should say it anyway:
Icarus and I never discussed this review prior to me pulling it. Not once.
It stayed up until Friday mostly due to my travel schedule, unfortunately.
I'm happy to rephrase: "mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the fans of Fallen Earth cried about it"
We brought it back because the article didn't support the ratings it gave and based those ratings off of a mistaken assumption. That assumption being that everyone was having the framerate issues (which the reviewer called lag) they were having.
It took 12 hours to accomplish, and thus let everyone have time to get upset, because I was out of town and not able to see the article until then.
As I said before, there is absolutely no guarantee the new review will have a higher score, a lower score or even the same score. The score and the fans had nothing to do with our decision. The review itself was flawed and we made a mistake in putting it out in the first place. That's the mistake we tried to fix by retracting it, case closed.
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
My last post on this Thread as I feel I have posted way too much on this anyways.I am not a FE fan , actually dislike the game alil as it doesnt seem to be my style I Guess.But while everyone is raving and saying the review sucked , blah blah blah.While some are genuinely mad that the review sucked cuz it was done on a machine that didn't meet the system req.And that the Review didn't match the score.Also I have noticed tons of people that are actually complaining that the score is too low for this game.And also That Aion was too high and FE should have scored higher than Aion.Well I did some homework to see what other sites thought Compared to this one.Regardless if the score and review was Retracted.In which regardless of what everyone thinks about the specs of the mmorpg.com reviewer machine , His score was almost dead on with the average of scores i seen. Here are the ones i found actual reviews on except Gamespot here was done by critics.
Gameshark.com gave FE a 6.6 no review on Aion yet
Gamespot gave FE a 7.8 and Aion is at 8.2
Gameradar.com Gave FE a 6/10 and also gave aion a 6/10
IGN gave FE a 8.1 and Aion a 8.5.
These are all credible sites and the funny thing is both Aion and FE advertise heavily on all 4 of these sites. If you take the avaerage score of these 4 sites , not counting mmorpg.coms retracted review the average score is 7.1.Making the MMORPG score right on par.And if you actually read the reviews from these other sites .They get brutal. The gameradar one is especially interesting if you check there site and there other reviews on past MMO's and they seem to be right on with the rest of the industry .So Does this mean that all the FE fans are right and all these profesional review sites are all wrong? I doubt it.wanna hear something even funnier is that on everyone of these reviews, They talk about the Lag and fact that the game is hard to play quite often because of that .Even the ones who gave it higher scores.I guess they all must be running machines that don't meet the requirements of the game huh.And it obvious that almost everysingle site out there rates Aion higher than FE except one.and they both are a 6 so the fans definately won't wanna hear that. My point is that even if you are a fan of the game the industry is clearly stating that only fans of this genre will like this game at all.And that based on the average MMO player , the game is only a mediocre one at best.And if you go read some of these reviews they do match there scores .Some being downright nasty about the game failing hard and some being very nice saying if it gets past its problems quick it has a chance.So my point here is that everyone keeps beating a dead horse about this review, and now it just seems like a Fan festival where everyone is gonna wanna lynch mmorpg staff no matter what the next review says.Hell most have already switched off the topic about the actual problem with the reviewer here and started with the "FE deserves way higher than a 6.9 blahblahblah, no way it scored lower than aion.. blah blah blah.Well the entire rest of the industry seems to think Aion is better also.and while most agree that Aion is a good game worthy of a 8+ score the same industry seems to be on the fence on FE .IS the entire industry wrong.I think not.
Well the recent Aion review was just as bad and I don't see you retracting that one at the moment.
I am glad to see you are looking at a better methods of assigning a point score for a review. Granted it will always be subjective, but hopefully you will have a fairer system than the current one.
Why in the world you people keep talking about FE in the same thread as Aion is beyond me. They are completely different games the would appeal to different gamers.
/rolls eyes
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
I built my computer from the ground up. I have plenty of computer experience because I have worked extensively with them since I was 8 years old. I am turning 20 on the third of November. There is my setup and I have worked with it on many different ram configurations ranging from 512 to as you see now, 3070. Each setup was capable of running and sustaining Age of Conan.
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
You are going into the extremes... you are not seriously aiming to argue over that the power cord from the computer is the most important thing in your computer setup... please don't reply to that.
If I would change my memory from 4GB to 2GB and compare it to use a Athlon 2400+ and a Athonl X3 (2800)...
* Athlon 2400+, 4GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 4GB RAM
* Athlon 2400+, 4GB RAM
* Athlon 2400+, 2GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 4GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 2GB RAM
Yeah right...
But you are saying that you will have more performance, or atleast that the memory size is the most forgiving part, with going from a single core to dual core than raising the memory from 512MB to 3072MB (taken from your example. That's ignorance.
All in all, a setup with a single core and 512MB is really in the need for? Upgrade?
Memory is forgiving when it is starting from a memory size that already is fine. Geezus. The guy in this review memory size was not ok.
Now I have taken my time to reply to you. Please do me the courtesy and reply to my question.
I built my computer from the ground up. I have plenty of computer experience because I have worked extensively with them since I was 8 years old. I am turning 20 on the third of November. There is my setup and I have worked with it on many different ram configurations ranging from 512 to as you see now, 3070. Each setup was capable of running and sustaining Age of Conan.
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Some ignorance I can pass up on, but this kind of ignorance is just dangerous.
For one, try altering the voltage to the RAM and see how it performs. By all means, use your own words and try half-power and see if you don't run into serious problems. Dude, for being such a 'computer expert' that is by far the stupidest thing I've seen someone try to pass off as fact.
RAM is, by far, the best and cheapest thing to change to get the most gain in performance. Let's take your earlier example of AOC with 512MB. So with what you're saying, by doubling that, I'd only see 10 percent increase in performance? Dude, you're an idiot. A 10 percent difference would be if you were talking about 2 gig to 4 gig and such where you're getting up into the bottleneck of your CPU and GPU vs. RAM overhead. I guarantee using 1gig vs. 512mb would be just a smidge more than 10 percent increase in power.
Sorry, but your credibility just went down the toilet and every time I see your name, all I will remember is 'stupid'. It's like when Jon Wood was trying to pass off that Killer X NIC card as a better replacement than a CPU/GPU upgrade.
Uhm... Wow. Never once did I ever suggest that you underclock your RAM.
That is pure amusement. You took everything I said and apparently warped it around into... I don't even know what.
I spoke of reducing the bytes of RAM you are using, not reducing the volts.
As far as the 10 percent increase? You misunderstood that as well. I spoke of the difference between different RAMs.
"Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least."
The RAM used, also known as the brand and variety.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
As far as a power cord being important. Are you serious? I mean really. You are going to try to pull a question as lame as that out? I am talking about parts that increase your computers gaming speed. RAM, HD, CPU, GPU.
My order of preference is GPU, CPU, HD, and RAM. Although HD and RAM probably come close together I see speed from a good HD as a better choice than 250 dollar ram. Now, out of curiosity will you please tell me what you would order them in?
I should mention, however, that I agree and mentioned before in this post that RAM is great up until a point. But by your suggestion upgrading his PC with 2 gigs of RAM would take him from unplayable lag to a lag free wonderland?
I don't really agree with it and I say he could stick with 2 gigs and get a killer GPU and do much better. Plus ATI/Crossfire can suck on my chocolate salty balls.
I built my computer from the ground up. I have plenty of computer experience because I have worked extensively with them since I was 8 years old. I am turning 20 on the third of November. There is my setup and I have worked with it on many different ram configurations ranging from 512 to as you see now, 3070. Each setup was capable of running and sustaining Age of Conan.
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Some ignorance I can pass up on, but this kind of ignorance is just dangerous.
For one, try altering the voltage to the RAM and see how it performs. By all means, use your own words and try half-power and see if you don't run into serious problems. Dude, for being such a 'computer expert' that is by far the stupidest thing I've seen someone try to pass off as fact.
RAM is, by far, the best and cheapest thing to change to get the most gain in performance. Let's take your earlier example of AOC with 512MB. So with what you're saying, by doubling that, I'd only see 10 percent increase in performance? Dude, you're an idiot. A 10 percent difference would be if you were talking about 2 gig to 4 gig and such where you're getting up into the bottleneck of your CPU and GPU vs. RAM overhead. I guarantee using 1gig vs. 512mb would be just a smidge more than 10 percent increase in power.
Sorry, but your credibility just went down the toilet and every time I see your name, all I will remember is 'stupid'. It's like when Jon Wood was trying to pass off that Killer X NIC card as a better replacement than a CPU/GPU upgrade.
Uhm... Wow. Never once did I ever suggest that you underclock your RAM.
That is pure amusement. You took everything I said and apparently warped it around into... I don't even know what.
I spoke of reducing the bytes of RAM you are using, not reducing the volts.
As far as the 10 percent increase? You misunderstood that as well. I spoke of the difference between different RAMs.
"Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least."
The RAM used, also known as the brand and variety.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
As far as a power cord being important. Are you serious? I mean really. You are going to try to pull a question as lame as that out? I am talking about parts that increase your computers gaming speed. RAM, HD, CPU, GPU.
My order of preference is GPU, CPU, HD, and RAM. Although HD and RAM probably come close together I see speed from a good HD as a better choice than 250 dollar ram. Now, out of curiosity will you please tell me what you would order them in?
I should mention, however, that I agree and mentioned before in this post that RAM is great up until a point. But by your suggestion upgrading his PC with 2 gigs of RAM would take him from unplayable lag to a lag free wonderland?
I don't really agree with it and I say he could stick with 2 gigs and get a killer GPU and do much better. Plus ATI/Crossfire can suck on my chocolate salty balls.
I'm responding to your quote where you actually say that reducing the 'power' on your GPU would affect how it operates, with power being a ubiquitous term for 'voltage' used, not memory onboard.
Your order of preference is out of scale with reality. For one, GPU/CPU's are already maxed out for the most part on the majority of today's games. They are your bottleneck, meaning that once you hit a certain threshhold, you won't see any more performance gains out of them because your performance is being throttled somewhere else. Your claim of playing AoC with 512MB is pretty much BS. Sure, you could play it, but you wouldn't have gotten abysmally low framerates, like 10-20 range and pretty poor performance, considering that the game was riddled with memory leaks, you would have been crashing left and right with regular frequency. It's quite possible to play with below minimum specs of any game, but your experience is hampered because you're unable to enjoy the full effect of the game and are handicapped with all your settings lowered to bare minimum.
And yes, I am saying that upgrading to 2 gigs of RAM would have helped his lag issues considerably.
My order of upgrade would be RAM, GPU, CPU, Hard drive. Reason being is that RAM is cheaper than the other components, will generally last longer, in terms of upgrade life, and has the best price/performance ratio out of all of those components. I guarantee that by changing your RAM from 512 to 2 gigs would have given you a world of difference in your play experience. Of course, like the GPU/CPU, there is a finite ceiling to performance gains. Once you hit that threshold, then your gain is diminished. Right now, I would probably put that around 4 gig is optimal, since you have Vista. With XP and Windows 7, I'd say it's only 2 gig, though 4 gig would hardly hurt. Of course, if it's 64 bit, then you'd want to go with a higher amount of RAM. With GPUs, you won't see as much of an improvement unless you're running on larger monitors and higher resolutions, especially if you're running SLI, which is pretty much pointless if you're running at 1600X1200 or below. The reason I say this is because the target FPS is 60. While one can argue that you buy the GPU for the future, well, the future is always out there, while right now is here /now/. You're always gonna be 'behind' the curve and with LCD monitors limiting you at 60 visible frames per second anyway, overkill isn't going to help you any. CPU's are generally the most overlooked in the equation, but you're also limited by the form factor of the CPU, with a finite lifetime for what you can use, even moreso than the GPU. Unless you buy the bottom of the barrel when you first purchase it, your CPU should last you the lifetime of your motherboard easily. As far as the hard drive goes, while it does have an impact on performance, it's not as radical as the other components. You don't need that 10K RPM raptor to play a game. A generic 7200 would work just fine and the performance gain of the raptor over the 7200 would be minimal. To put it into perspective, when you use a 10k over a 7200 for your boot disk, you are shaving a few seconds off the boot time. The effect in games is going to be just as little.
So far, you're not showing a very good understanding of how computers work. You may know how to put one together with your eyes closed, but your knowledge of how it all operates together is somewhat lacking. You don't seem to have a concept of bottlenecks, where performance is hampered by it being throttled in one area, ie. your RAM issue in AoC. Your CPU/GPU might have been way overpowered to play, but if your RAM isn't up to spec, then it's not going to do you any good. Likewise, you could have tons of RAM and a great CPU, but if your GPU is dated, then it's going to throttle your performance.
Regardless of anything else, it's all about 'does the increase in performance justify how much I'm paying for it'. RAM is the cheapest component of a system that will give you the most performance increase. Doubling your RAM from 512 to 1gig will give you quite a measurable increase in performance. Likewise from 1 gig to 2 gig. And also 2 gig up to 4 gig. Above that and it can become questionable, depending on what you are doing. On the other hand, upgrading from a 9800GT to a GT260 isn't going to give you as much of a gain, unless you are running at higher resolutions, which most gamers are not. In a year or so, then you might see the performance difference between the two in games, but for right now, you're not, because no games are pushing it /that/ hard. Crysis is an exception, not the norm for games.
And your Nvidia fanboism is misplaced as they are pretty much going out. Intel is developing their own GPU system to work with their chipsets, just as ATI is. The niche gaming performance market has always been small and it's only going to get smaller over time. With the troubles Nvidia has been having in the notebook market and the future is pretty clear to see as Nvidia has no other business other than the GPU and the proprietary physics engines they were trying to push out.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
Unless you meant to say DAoC, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. Conan uses about 7-800 megs of memory(check your task manager next time). Your hard drive would explode every time you did an "about face". Not to mention the load screens.
I remember upgrading from 1.5 to 3 gig while playing AoC, and it made a HUGE difference. I think the threshold for AoC is about 2 gigs.
The thing about memory compared to other components, though, is that if you're not lacking memory, buying more won't improve your performance. For example, going from 4 to 8 gigs probably wouldn't make any difference at all. If you got a new processor, or faster GPU however, it will pretty much always improve performance, even if the ones you have are perfectly decent.
If you have a 32 bit OS, 3gigs should do for another year or so. 64 bit, may as well go with 4 gig.
Comments
You'd be surprised how many players actually confuse frame rate with lag.
One has to do with latency and the other with your video.
People with choppy frame rates complain about lag a lot in Fallen Earth, although neither of the two are related.
If a reviewer on this site actually confused the two and wrote that in a review, then the review indeeded needed to be retracted.
I did not see the review that was removed, although I do play Fallen Earth, and believe it's a good MMO.
Not that anyone who makes this kind of tinfoil hat post will believe this, but I figure I should say it anyway:
Icarus and I never discussed this review prior to me pulling it. Not once.
It stayed up until Friday mostly due to my travel schedule, unfortunately.
I'm happy to rephrase: "mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the fans of Fallen Earth cried about it"
If the reviewer doesn't even know the difference between lag and frame rate, then he shouldn't have been a reviewer in the first place.
No, it's a whole lot better than Vanguard which is why so few people are complaining about the performance.
I've played FE since just before the end of beta, initially on my then main machine being a P4 with 2gb RAM (XP 32) and the game was certainly a bit sluggish then on low settings compared to my playing since retail on my new quad core with 8gb RAM (VIsta 64) and incredibly smooth performance on totally max settings. Both times I was running with a 20mbs internet connection from the UK, the game being based in the US.
At no point with either machine have I ever suffered any real lag or had a single CTD.
Last night I was at the first 40 minutes or so of the Massively live event with (I'm guessing) around 100 other players huddled together in a single location (to catch all the local chat), and the server didn't falter once, nor did my character. Many of the players were dancing or riding around on mounts and no-one appeared to be struggling performance-wise. No-one was complaining. You couldn't have done that in VG or a good many other MMOs within a month of launch.
The game runs very well if you have a decent rig, but not surprisingly it doesn't run too well if you have less than the minimum required rig, as the reviewer found out. I don't see how anyone can blame Icarus for that!
Well ya it's performance is a ton better than VG i agree.However for very good reason,VG has about 10x the detail and depth in the world,FE is extremely barren and of lower quality.It is just math nothing amazing done by Icarus here,more polys =less performance,less=better performance.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The player/enemy warping, hitching, hits that don't register, 5 to 10 second lag when activating a skill that is ready for deployment, huge lag when entering towns/cities, and similar things are purely server related and have absolutely nothing to do with a system that can't run the game.
However, MMORPG.com is giving the game a second chance because of the fact that the system was not the best in the world, and to make perfectly clear that things are indeed related to lag and not a hogging system. Lots of people are beginning to think that the second opinion on the game will have a much higher score, but I can assure you that this will not happen. At highest this game will get a 7.5, which is more than enough for the state it is currently in. And maybe the review will not change at all, because they will come to the same conclusions in the end.
I too have a pretty good gaming system with some top of the line stuff in it. But even on my system it still runs like a snail at times. And the game has actually crashed many times for unknown reasons. Also the lag is unbearable at times, but this can be related to the fact that I'm connecting from The Netherlands. But that shouldn't be a valid excuse, because at highest the ping should be around 500 or so. But since the game hasn't even got a function to check the ping, I can only speculate about how high it is.
I agree with you. It's a 7.5 kind of game at this point. Actually, 6.9 might even be a correct score. In a couple years when they re-review, who knows? Maybe it's a gem. But right now it is honestly, overall, no higher than 7.5 IMO.
Most people are getting good overall performance. I run WIN XP 32, 8800GT and 3 gigs and it runs absolutely great in or out of cities to be honest. Every once in a while I get the rubber banding and am forced to relog and it goes away. However, there are a pretty noticeable amount of people that are having big problems running a better system than I am.
I can't count the number of times I have had to relog or told someone else they had to relog to fix an in game obvious bug (estimated 10 logouts per 4 hour session). This game is really buggy right now. There are exploits. The combat is extremely stale and uninteresting (more focus on mutations might help IMO). This game looks like it was heading for an old school SWG feel when it comes to combat and crafting. The skill point system doesn't hold a candle to old school SWG. There is one set of best gear for every build. The crafting system doesn't hold a candle to the current SWG system.
I also hear the word sandbox coming from some people. I've played this game a lot and this is the complete opposite of a sandbox. It is moving from quest hub to quest hub. The only difference is you get a limited choice on which quest hub to go to.
Anyway, the game has a lot of potential. I just think that there is no way that it should get a good overall review at this point. I hope they do well with it, because I would love to get into a solid post-apocalyptic MMO.
Many of us do not have these problems while playing Fallen Earth.
I know I don't, and I run 64-bit Win 7 with 8 gigs of RAM.
Very little hitching, and most times, none at all.
People with middle-of-the-road machines have problems, as do people with supposedly high-end machines with a bottleneck.
The game is fine, just higher requirements than a lot of people are used to.
If the reviewer didn't know the difference between frame rate and lag, the review needed scrapped.
If it's the same score with a reviewer that knows what they are talking about, then I see no problem with the same or even a lower score.
The only thing that I think reflects poorly on MMORPG.com's part, is possible lax in vetting when choosing suitable candidates to write reviews.
I think it took balls to pull the review and give it a fresh perspective, and I for one believe it lends credence to future reviews on the site.
I also agree that certain pre-determined criteria be in place in order to keep the personal thoughts and opinions to a minimum in future reviews.
Ow, and let's not forget that a game with around 6000 quests has absolutely nothing to do with sandbox. As someone stated before, you just hop from quest-hub to quest-hub, with almost no reason at all to coming back to the old places again. Yes, there are town events, but that system is currently not in the shape it should be. The quests and missions have some funny dialog overall, but in the end it's just another game with the same 10 or so variations in that regard (collect, bring, destroy, defend, make this or that, etc.). The game also has this thing to show you where to go and what to do, ALL of the time. A game like Final Fantasy XI for that matter, does this completely the other way around. The setting and dialog may be a little more mature, but that falls to pieces with this horrible hand-holding quest and mission system.
At this point the game is severely overrated by its followers. There are lots of people that always complain about other games (mostly high-fantasy) to take you by the hand and walk you through the game, but this game does in essence almost the very same. You can go through the game in a non-linear way, but that still doesn't make it a sandbox. The crafting system is pretty decent at this point though. And let's not forget the player customization in terms of armor and weapons.
I think that the old review was actually pretty honest and should not be changed all that much, and maybe even needs to stay exactly the same.
It's not a sandbox at all, it's just a gigantic roller coaster.
And in Sandbox games you have reasons to come back to old places? do you even know what Sand box means? i played Ryzom for quite sometime and i never had any reason to go to old places or starting areas ever again. In FE you can level without doing any missions, hell you can only craft and progress ahead. You only need to do AP missions (all of them if you want a PVP character).
FE is a hybrid and not a pure sand box but your posts sounds as if you just like to pull stuff out of your butt.
My feelings as well.
FE does not deserve about a 6.9 rating no matter who is doing the review.
Exactly, you didn't. You, and some others who've commented here, just didn't read the review or the commetns. Instead you've made generalizations about something you don't know and cried fanboy, when you're the one being ignorant and talking out of the wrong hole.
This.
Nothing can put me off really, but ignorant loudmouthing is probably the worst, and this guy just had a HUGE dose of it... geez..
DB
I don't have to have read this specific review to know two things... First, reviews are subjective in nature. NOT true. Reviews are supposed to give a hint, an idea for everyone. And second, this game runs like shit for a lot of people. NOT true. Check the users's ratings on this site. WHo's# 1?. Would that be possible if the game had issues for the majority? Yeah, nope. Why do I have read this guys review to comment on those two FACTS?
Facts, maybe in your own virtual world. Try again
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
I have taken my ram out and exchanged various parts of my computer a multitude of times and of each part, RAM is by far the most forgiving.
And once more, as before, just because you -think- I did not read the review does not make it true.
This is something you will need to learn in life, everyone has an opinion and they will rarely match your own. That does not mark them as ignorant.
Also, learn what trolling is. Consult the great google.
We get it. There is absolutely no hope of having any kind of communication with you, since you are absolutely totally clueless about how PC's work
Bye!
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
My feelings as well.
FE does not deserve about a 6.9 rating no matter who is doing the review.
Read the thread. Review was taken back because the reviewer 1)had a poorer config than the minimum specification for the game, 2) lied about this, 3) final score was not related to the overall tone the review.
Ignorance might be bliss, but in this thread, honestly, it only came through stupid and arrogant... many times.
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
The reviewer lied.
This shouldn't even be a discussion.
Well said.
Not that anyone who makes this kind of tinfoil hat post will believe this, but I figure I should say it anyway:
Icarus and I never discussed this review prior to me pulling it. Not once.
It stayed up until Friday mostly due to my travel schedule, unfortunately.
I'm happy to rephrase: "mmorpg.com have really damaged their credibility by retracting this review just because the fans of Fallen Earth cried about it"
Please refer to Post #20 in this thread.
We brought it back because the article didn't support the ratings it gave and based those ratings off of a mistaken assumption. That assumption being that everyone was having the framerate issues (which the reviewer called lag) they were having.
It took 12 hours to accomplish, and thus let everyone have time to get upset, because I was out of town and not able to see the article until then.
As I said before, there is absolutely no guarantee the new review will have a higher score, a lower score or even the same score. The score and the fans had nothing to do with our decision. The review itself was flawed and we made a mistake in putting it out in the first place. That's the mistake we tried to fix by retracting it, case closed.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
My last post on this Thread as I feel I have posted way too much on this anyways.I am not a FE fan , actually dislike the game alil as it doesnt seem to be my style I Guess.But while everyone is raving and saying the review sucked , blah blah blah.While some are genuinely mad that the review sucked cuz it was done on a machine that didn't meet the system req.And that the Review didn't match the score.Also I have noticed tons of people that are actually complaining that the score is too low for this game.And also That Aion was too high and FE should have scored higher than Aion.Well I did some homework to see what other sites thought Compared to this one.Regardless if the score and review was Retracted.In which regardless of what everyone thinks about the specs of the mmorpg.com reviewer machine , His score was almost dead on with the average of scores i seen. Here are the ones i found actual reviews on except Gamespot here was done by critics.
Gameshark.com gave FE a 6.6 no review on Aion yet
Gamespot gave FE a 7.8 and Aion is at 8.2
Gameradar.com Gave FE a 6/10 and also gave aion a 6/10
IGN gave FE a 8.1 and Aion a 8.5.
These are all credible sites and the funny thing is both Aion and FE advertise heavily on all 4 of these sites. If you take the avaerage score of these 4 sites , not counting mmorpg.coms retracted review the average score is 7.1.Making the MMORPG score right on par.And if you actually read the reviews from these other sites .They get brutal. The gameradar one is especially interesting if you check there site and there other reviews on past MMO's and they seem to be right on with the rest of the industry .So Does this mean that all the FE fans are right and all these profesional review sites are all wrong? I doubt it.wanna hear something even funnier is that on everyone of these reviews, They talk about the Lag and fact that the game is hard to play quite often because of that .Even the ones who gave it higher scores.I guess they all must be running machines that don't meet the requirements of the game huh.And it obvious that almost everysingle site out there rates Aion higher than FE except one.and they both are a 6 so the fans definately won't wanna hear that. My point is that even if you are a fan of the game the industry is clearly stating that only fans of this genre will like this game at all.And that based on the average MMO player , the game is only a mediocre one at best.And if you go read some of these reviews they do match there scores .Some being downright nasty about the game failing hard and some being very nice saying if it gets past its problems quick it has a chance.So my point here is that everyone keeps beating a dead horse about this review, and now it just seems like a Fan festival where everyone is gonna wanna lynch mmorpg staff no matter what the next review says.Hell most have already switched off the topic about the actual problem with the reviewer here and started with the "FE deserves way higher than a 6.9 blahblahblah, no way it scored lower than aion.. blah blah blah.Well the entire rest of the industry seems to think Aion is better also.and while most agree that Aion is a good game worthy of a 8+ score the same industry seems to be on the fence on FE .IS the entire industry wrong.I think not.
Well the recent Aion review was just as bad and I don't see you retracting that one at the moment.
I am glad to see you are looking at a better methods of assigning a point score for a review. Granted it will always be subjective, but hopefully you will have a fairer system than the current one.
Didn't see the review, but the game sucks. Why in the world would I play a game with guns that require a full clip to kill someone?
Why in the world you people keep talking about FE in the same thread as Aion is beyond me. They are completely different games the would appeal to different gamers.
/rolls eyes
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
You are going into the extremes... you are not seriously aiming to argue over that the power cord from the computer is the most important thing in your computer setup... please don't reply to that.
If I would change my memory from 4GB to 2GB and compare it to use a Athlon 2400+ and a Athonl X3 (2800)...
* Athlon 2400+, 4GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 4GB RAM
* Athlon 2400+, 4GB RAM
* Athlon 2400+, 2GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 4GB RAM
* Athlon X3, 2GB RAM
Yeah right...
But you are saying that you will have more performance, or atleast that the memory size is the most forgiving part, with going from a single core to dual core than raising the memory from 512MB to 3072MB (taken from your example. That's ignorance.
All in all, a setup with a single core and 512MB is really in the need for? Upgrade?
Memory is forgiving when it is starting from a memory size that already is fine. Geezus. The guy in this review memory size was not ok.
Now I have taken my time to reply to you. Please do me the courtesy and reply to my question.
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
learn2aim?
Yea because we all know a Gnome Wizard with one shot fireballs is much more realistic...right?
{mod edit}
Edit: My reply was harsh but damn ..... it the full clip any worse then having to hit someone with a sword 17 times ????
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Some ignorance I can pass up on, but this kind of ignorance is just dangerous.
For one, try altering the voltage to the RAM and see how it performs. By all means, use your own words and try half-power and see if you don't run into serious problems. Dude, for being such a 'computer expert' that is by far the stupidest thing I've seen someone try to pass off as fact.
RAM is, by far, the best and cheapest thing to change to get the most gain in performance. Let's take your earlier example of AOC with 512MB. So with what you're saying, by doubling that, I'd only see 10 percent increase in performance? Dude, you're an idiot. A 10 percent difference would be if you were talking about 2 gig to 4 gig and such where you're getting up into the bottleneck of your CPU and GPU vs. RAM overhead. I guarantee using 1gig vs. 512mb would be just a smidge more than 10 percent increase in power.
Sorry, but your credibility just went down the toilet and every time I see your name, all I will remember is 'stupid'. It's like when Jon Wood was trying to pass off that Killer X NIC card as a better replacement than a CPU/GPU upgrade.
Uhm... Wow. Never once did I ever suggest that you underclock your RAM.
That is pure amusement. You took everything I said and apparently warped it around into... I don't even know what.
I spoke of reducing the bytes of RAM you are using, not reducing the volts.
As far as the 10 percent increase? You misunderstood that as well. I spoke of the difference between different RAMs.
"Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least."
The RAM used, also known as the brand and variety.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
As far as a power cord being important. Are you serious? I mean really. You are going to try to pull a question as lame as that out? I am talking about parts that increase your computers gaming speed. RAM, HD, CPU, GPU.
My order of preference is GPU, CPU, HD, and RAM. Although HD and RAM probably come close together I see speed from a good HD as a better choice than 250 dollar ram. Now, out of curiosity will you please tell me what you would order them in?
I should mention, however, that I agree and mentioned before in this post that RAM is great up until a point. But by your suggestion upgrading his PC with 2 gigs of RAM would take him from unplayable lag to a lag free wonderland?
I don't really agree with it and I say he could stick with 2 gigs and get a killer GPU and do much better. Plus ATI/Crossfire can suck on my chocolate salty balls.
You are the first one that actually said the the amount of RAM in a computer is the most forgiving part when it comes to performance. And I've spent time with the PC platform, it's hardware and discussing things with people IRL, longer then you have lived... :S
You ran AoC with 512MB RAM?
It worked well?
By all means, tell me what you think to be the most forgiving part.
I think I would go with the 2 little screws holding my side panel on,I also have 2 plastic clasps that lock it,so I guess if I was to take these 2 screws away it would be pretty forgiving on my system.
I dont think this would gimp my system in any shape or form unlike if I was to start lowering my RAM,CPU,PSU etc etc etc.
/Sarcasm off.
Nice, but I was actually speaking of parts that actually made a computer run, not the case you keep it in.
I could quite easily strip my entire system from it's case and submerge it in a tub of oil. It would run quite admirably.
Now then, of the parts it actually takes to boot up a computer? Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least, hence most RAM benchmarks maintaining about a 10 percent difference in strength.
Now, try the same with anything else and you are likely to see drastic changes. Try a graphics card with half of the power, you won't be able to start the game. Use half the RAM? It will still play.
Some ignorance I can pass up on, but this kind of ignorance is just dangerous.
For one, try altering the voltage to the RAM and see how it performs. By all means, use your own words and try half-power and see if you don't run into serious problems. Dude, for being such a 'computer expert' that is by far the stupidest thing I've seen someone try to pass off as fact.
RAM is, by far, the best and cheapest thing to change to get the most gain in performance. Let's take your earlier example of AOC with 512MB. So with what you're saying, by doubling that, I'd only see 10 percent increase in performance? Dude, you're an idiot. A 10 percent difference would be if you were talking about 2 gig to 4 gig and such where you're getting up into the bottleneck of your CPU and GPU vs. RAM overhead. I guarantee using 1gig vs. 512mb would be just a smidge more than 10 percent increase in power.
Sorry, but your credibility just went down the toilet and every time I see your name, all I will remember is 'stupid'. It's like when Jon Wood was trying to pass off that Killer X NIC card as a better replacement than a CPU/GPU upgrade.
Uhm... Wow. Never once did I ever suggest that you underclock your RAM.
That is pure amusement. You took everything I said and apparently warped it around into... I don't even know what.
I spoke of reducing the bytes of RAM you are using, not reducing the volts.
As far as the 10 percent increase? You misunderstood that as well. I spoke of the difference between different RAMs.
"Altering the RAM used will probably change it the least."
The RAM used, also known as the brand and variety.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
As far as a power cord being important. Are you serious? I mean really. You are going to try to pull a question as lame as that out? I am talking about parts that increase your computers gaming speed. RAM, HD, CPU, GPU.
My order of preference is GPU, CPU, HD, and RAM. Although HD and RAM probably come close together I see speed from a good HD as a better choice than 250 dollar ram. Now, out of curiosity will you please tell me what you would order them in?
I should mention, however, that I agree and mentioned before in this post that RAM is great up until a point. But by your suggestion upgrading his PC with 2 gigs of RAM would take him from unplayable lag to a lag free wonderland?
I don't really agree with it and I say he could stick with 2 gigs and get a killer GPU and do much better. Plus ATI/Crossfire can suck on my chocolate salty balls.
I'm responding to your quote where you actually say that reducing the 'power' on your GPU would affect how it operates, with power being a ubiquitous term for 'voltage' used, not memory onboard.
Your order of preference is out of scale with reality. For one, GPU/CPU's are already maxed out for the most part on the majority of today's games. They are your bottleneck, meaning that once you hit a certain threshhold, you won't see any more performance gains out of them because your performance is being throttled somewhere else. Your claim of playing AoC with 512MB is pretty much BS. Sure, you could play it, but you wouldn't have gotten abysmally low framerates, like 10-20 range and pretty poor performance, considering that the game was riddled with memory leaks, you would have been crashing left and right with regular frequency. It's quite possible to play with below minimum specs of any game, but your experience is hampered because you're unable to enjoy the full effect of the game and are handicapped with all your settings lowered to bare minimum.
And yes, I am saying that upgrading to 2 gigs of RAM would have helped his lag issues considerably.
My order of upgrade would be RAM, GPU, CPU, Hard drive. Reason being is that RAM is cheaper than the other components, will generally last longer, in terms of upgrade life, and has the best price/performance ratio out of all of those components. I guarantee that by changing your RAM from 512 to 2 gigs would have given you a world of difference in your play experience. Of course, like the GPU/CPU, there is a finite ceiling to performance gains. Once you hit that threshold, then your gain is diminished. Right now, I would probably put that around 4 gig is optimal, since you have Vista. With XP and Windows 7, I'd say it's only 2 gig, though 4 gig would hardly hurt. Of course, if it's 64 bit, then you'd want to go with a higher amount of RAM. With GPUs, you won't see as much of an improvement unless you're running on larger monitors and higher resolutions, especially if you're running SLI, which is pretty much pointless if you're running at 1600X1200 or below. The reason I say this is because the target FPS is 60. While one can argue that you buy the GPU for the future, well, the future is always out there, while right now is here /now/. You're always gonna be 'behind' the curve and with LCD monitors limiting you at 60 visible frames per second anyway, overkill isn't going to help you any. CPU's are generally the most overlooked in the equation, but you're also limited by the form factor of the CPU, with a finite lifetime for what you can use, even moreso than the GPU. Unless you buy the bottom of the barrel when you first purchase it, your CPU should last you the lifetime of your motherboard easily. As far as the hard drive goes, while it does have an impact on performance, it's not as radical as the other components. You don't need that 10K RPM raptor to play a game. A generic 7200 would work just fine and the performance gain of the raptor over the 7200 would be minimal. To put it into perspective, when you use a 10k over a 7200 for your boot disk, you are shaving a few seconds off the boot time. The effect in games is going to be just as little.
So far, you're not showing a very good understanding of how computers work. You may know how to put one together with your eyes closed, but your knowledge of how it all operates together is somewhat lacking. You don't seem to have a concept of bottlenecks, where performance is hampered by it being throttled in one area, ie. your RAM issue in AoC. Your CPU/GPU might have been way overpowered to play, but if your RAM isn't up to spec, then it's not going to do you any good. Likewise, you could have tons of RAM and a great CPU, but if your GPU is dated, then it's going to throttle your performance.
Regardless of anything else, it's all about 'does the increase in performance justify how much I'm paying for it'. RAM is the cheapest component of a system that will give you the most performance increase. Doubling your RAM from 512 to 1gig will give you quite a measurable increase in performance. Likewise from 1 gig to 2 gig. And also 2 gig up to 4 gig. Above that and it can become questionable, depending on what you are doing. On the other hand, upgrading from a 9800GT to a GT260 isn't going to give you as much of a gain, unless you are running at higher resolutions, which most gamers are not. In a year or so, then you might see the performance difference between the two in games, but for right now, you're not, because no games are pushing it /that/ hard. Crysis is an exception, not the norm for games.
And your Nvidia fanboism is misplaced as they are pretty much going out. Intel is developing their own GPU system to work with their chipsets, just as ATI is. The niche gaming performance market has always been small and it's only going to get smaller over time. With the troubles Nvidia has been having in the notebook market and the future is pretty clear to see as Nvidia has no other business other than the GPU and the proprietary physics engines they were trying to push out.
Yes, I ran AoC on 512 and it worked well. I leveled up just fine before increasing it.
Unless you meant to say DAoC, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. Conan uses about 7-800 megs of memory(check your task manager next time). Your hard drive would explode every time you did an "about face". Not to mention the load screens.
I remember upgrading from 1.5 to 3 gig while playing AoC, and it made a HUGE difference. I think the threshold for AoC is about 2 gigs.
The thing about memory compared to other components, though, is that if you're not lacking memory, buying more won't improve your performance. For example, going from 4 to 8 gigs probably wouldn't make any difference at all. If you got a new processor, or faster GPU however, it will pretty much always improve performance, even if the ones you have are perfectly decent.
If you have a 32 bit OS, 3gigs should do for another year or so. 64 bit, may as well go with 4 gig.