General Gaming Chat

[CorgiShinobi]

Since everyone else is doing it, might as well too!

 

https://goo.gl/4pSo0c

 

There's a high Social score, but really I'll probably never talk to the people I'm playing with. It's just great to random help out people and have those little moments.

[Hot Heart]

It'sa me!

 

Calm, Spontaneous, Ambitious, Gregarious, Deeply Immersed, and Practical

https://goo.gl/YsqiUc

 

I feel like most of that social stuff is because of Destiny though.

 

My board gaming one is simply Greg(g)arious

https://goo.gl/rECasy

[toxicitizen]

So, following the news from a couple weeks ago that the most recent Atelier game is coming to Steam in the future, Koei Tecmo have just announced that the previous game, Atelier Sophie, is coming to Steam on Feb 7 2017 (along with some other game I've never heard of).

 

From what I understand, this one is the starting point of the current sub-series. So, if you're like me and have never played an Atelier game, it seems like the game to jump in with. Now all that remains is to hope for a quality port. I'm not sure if Gust are doing it in-house or what but they are owned by Koei Tecmo. So, there's definitely cause to worry here. Of course, Durante happens to be a massive Atelier fan so, should the port turn out to be awful, he'll most likely have a fix out within seconds lol.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Oh, neat. KT does decent ports, but I'm not sure about Gust. This will be their first. Back when they first announced the Steam release, I was hoping they'd release the 1st in this series on Steam. Back when I didn't have a PS4. Dammit.

 

That said, I still need to finish Shallie. Fuck. After Watch_Dogs 2.

 

Much as I enjoy Gust's games, I haven't played Nights of Azure at all. Everything about it just seemed boring af.

[toxicitizen]

Their ports' quality range from passable to absolute dog shit but the main problem is that they never bother fixing them. Those I've played (Dragon Quest Heroes and Attack on Titan) were good enough for me, but some remain completely broken to this day. As far as I'm aware, the graphical options of One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 still don't work. I mean, that's about as broken as you can possibly get.

[TheMightyEthan]

Earlier I commented on Cowboy's status that Mario Sunshine holds up surprisingly well at high resolution, and today I was screwing around with the Windows Game DVR recording, and I decided I'd combine the two and make a video demonstrating it.

 

This was recorded with the Dolphin emulator at 4k with 8x MSAA and no AF (it screws with the paint).  Game DVR maxes out at 1080p so the video itself isn't in 4k, but it's downsampled from there.

 

 

The heatwave effect doesn't look great (I mean it was a screenspace effect from 2002, and Youtube's compression is making it look worse than it does in play) but otherwise I'm really impressed with how well it holds up.  Obviously it doesn't look like a modern game, but it looks a lot better than I would have expected.  I remember saying when the game was new that I thought they'd perfected the Mario style and the only thing holding them back was resolution, and it turns out I wasn't too far off.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, games with simple visuals/art style like the Mario series clean up really nicely at higher resolution. Wind Waker has also aged really well for the same reason.

I really should look into setting up Dolphin on my PC. I could never be bothered to mess around with any emulators that require more than just loading up a rom but, if the controls aren't too much of a hassle to set up, it could be fun to finally see why people think so highly of Mario Galaxy. I've been wanting to play more Mario ever since I played 3D Land earlier this year.

[TheMightyEthan]

I haven't tried any Wii games, for for Gamecube games if you've got a 360 controller you don't even have to configure anything, it's already all set up.

 

Also, the Windows Game DVR thing is great, it's super convenient to use with a controller, unlike other recording software.  Also since it's part of Windows it's running all the time anyway so you're not adding another bit of software.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, I meant because of the motion controls. No idea how much Galaxy relies on them.

[TheMightyEthan]

I just tried it with a mouse and keyboard and it works surprisingly well.  The motion controls are mostly optional, using the pointer to pick up bonus point things by pointing at them, so I think the best way to play would probably be with a controller and just have the pointer mapped to the right stick.  The only issue I see is that you have to shake the controller to use the spin attack/spin jump, but I think you can just map "shake controller" to a button, so you could just make it Y or something and you're set.  I'll try and remember to try it tomorrow and let you know for sure (I have a work Christmas party tonight).

 

Side note:  My new computer can run Mario Galaxy 2 at 4k at 60fps, which surprised me.

[toxicitizen]

Cool, thanks. And if I can find a way to use the Steam Controller with it (should be as simple as adding the emulator's executable as a non-Steam game, I think), then the right trackpad and the gyro would probably work even better than what you're suggesting.

 

Also, just had a look at my emulation folder and turns out I already have Dolphin installed. Guess I just need to find a copy of Galaxy now.

 

edit: Well, I'm happy to report that Operation Space Pirate™ is a resounding success! The game runs at a solid 60fps at 1080p (with an internal resolution of four times the native res) with 4x AA and AF.

 

 

Also, am I just sleep deprived or is this game supposed to be super disorienting at first? I was getting kinda dizzy chasing those rabbits around that small planet...

 

edit2: Well, shit. Not sure what happened but it's now running like complete shit and I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything. Either the settings I mentioned above weren't actually activated (doubtful) or... yeah, I have no idea.

Edited December 17, 2016 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

Well now I wish I'd checked this thread earlier this morning, cause I did remember and tested it and everything. 

 

 

The control configuration I was using was a 360 controller, thusly:

 

360 button - Wii button

Right stick - cursor

Click right stick - shake Wiimote

RB - A

R - B

A - 1

B - 2

Start - +

Select - -

D-pad - D-pad

Left stick - nunchuk stick

Click left stick - shake nunchuk

LB - C

L - Z

 

It was working pretty well.  The only thing I'm confused about is why it goes all low resolution after I go through the pipe and am inside the planet.  I think it has something to do with the shader for the sparklyness only running at native Wii resolution.

 

Also, the video looks a little jerky, but that's because GameDVR was only running at 30 fps while the game was running at 60.

[toxicitizen]

Hahaha, sorry. I was able to find the game pretty quickly, so I wanted to try it right away. I use a similar setup for the Steam controller and yeah, it works well enough. Having the trackpad for the pointer is great. It's one of those rare, specific use cases that really makes me appreciate the Steam controller.

Also, it's back to running normally now. What the shit? I think I know what happened but there's definitely some weird behavior going on. I have DSR enabled in my driver settings because it's easier to use than Gedosato for downsampling, so sometimes I can set games to resolutions up to 4K even though my monitor stops at 1080p. Pretty sure the slowdown started happening after I tried setting Dolphin's display resolution to 4K for shits and giggles. Of course, that's the first thing I turned down once I saw it ran like shit. I can only guess something got stuck somehow and rebooting my PC finally reset it. It's the only explanation I can think of. Either that or I was so sleep deprived last night that the slowdown was in my brain the entire time...

 

Oh and I'm pretty sure it didn't go all low res on me like in your video when I played that level. I definitely would've noticed that and it would've bugged the hell out of me. 

Edited December 17, 2016 by FLD

[Mal]

The visual benefits from 4k to 1080p is quite minimal when 1440p down sampling gets you most of the benefits. Give that a whirl.

[toxicitizen]

I'll keep that in mind. I updated to the most recent release of Dolphin and the internal resolutions are labelled more explicitly in it. 3x native res is for 1080p and 4x is for 1440p. You can change those on the fly while the game is running, so it's pretty easy to compare and see that beyond 3x it starts to not make much of a difference at 1080p. For now, Galaxy looks good enough for me with 3x internal res and some minimal AA without any need for downsampling.

 

My GPU is kinda weak (GTX 960), so downsampling is rarely a viable option. The only game I can't play without downsampling is Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus because it has no AA whatsoever, for some fucking reason. So even at 1080p it looks pretty rough. It was originally a Vita exclusive, though, so it runs fine even on a potato. I downsample it from 4K because why the hell not and I could probably go even higher.

[TheMightyEthan]

1440p -> 1080p downsampling doesn't look anywhere close to as good as 4k -> 1080p downsampling.  Like, not even remotely as good.  Hell, unless you have an algorithm that's up to it it frequently looks worse than just straight 1080p, because since it's not an even pixel ratio it introduces some artifacts due to the pixels not lining up nicely.  Good algorithms (like the one built into Hitman) will clean up those artifacts so you're still benefiting overall, but DSR doesn't handle it very well so you can paradoxically end up with more aliasing than you do in 1080p.  And for me at least DSR is the only thing that's simple enough to bother with other than games that have it built-in (like the aforementioned Hitman) so I tend to stick to either 4k or 1080p.

 

*Edit - All of that is assuming a native 1080p monitor.  If you've got a 1440p monitor then of course you should go with that res if you can, and it will definitely look better.

Edited December 18, 2016 by TheJollyEthan

[toxicitizen]

I got curious about this because Ethan made an interesting point about the pixel ratio. So, I fired up Senran Kagura SV and tried downsampling it from different resolutions. I'm assuming Gedosato uses a solid algorithm (it was made by Durante after all, that guy knows his stuff) because 1440p looked a little better than 1080p but still showed some noticeable aliasing. Downsampling from 4K looks unarguably better, even at 1080p. I took screenshots but imgur's being a butt again. I'll edit them in later if I can manage to host them.

 

I also tried downsampling from 8K for shits and giggles and it actually ran mostly fine. I think something weird happened because the overlay message that indicates successful downsampling showed an extra step. Like, instead of showing 8K -> 1080p it said 8K -> 4K -> 1080p. Not sure what that was about. I did start noticing some frame drops, though. It was still playable, so definitely above 30. But I can't know the exact number because at that resolution my FPS display was so ridiculously small it was unreadable by human eyes lol.

Edited December 18, 2016 by FLD

[Mal]

Now that I think about it, the last time I downsampled was with my old graphic card. If you can swing 4k then go for it. I tend to try to keep 60 fps whenever possible so 1440p was my default. And generally to me it's the preferable AA if options are lacking.

[TheMightyEthan]

I use a similar setup for the Steam controller and yeah, it works well enough. Having the trackpad for the pointer is great. It's one of those rare, specific use cases that really makes me appreciate the Steam controller.

I don't know what suddenly made me think of this again, but I bet it would be amazing with a DS4, since you'd have the track pad for the pointer and you'd also have the motion sense. I may have to try that when I get home...

[toxicitizen]

I don't know what suddenly made me think of this again, but I bet it would be amazing with a DS4, since you'd have the track pad for the pointer and you'd also have the motion sense. I may have to try that when I get home...

I thought about using the Steam Controller's gyro but that's the one feature I never really messed around with, so I usually just don't bother. I can't imagine using it for the spin attack would be better than the shoulder button I'm currently using, though. Could be fun for the surf mini game but I have no idea if it'll come up again.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I think shake should still be mapped to a button, but I thought there were some minigames where you used the Wiimote accelerometers for balancing or whatever.

[TheMightyEthan]

I take back what I said about Nvidia's DSR not handling non-even pixel ratios well.  Somehow my smoothness setting had gotten turned all the way down to 0%, which is what was causing it to fuck up anything other than 4x downsampling.  I've turned it back up to 20% and now it looks beautiful no matter the setting.  The higher the % though the softer the image (default is 33% and I think that's way too soft), so I'm gonna experiment and see if I can't get it lower.

 

*Edit - So I played around with it and determined that for me at least (this is partially down to personal preference) I can turn the smoothing down to 15% on 1440p->1080p downsampling, and 10% on 1620p->1080p downsampling before the artifacts start to bother me.  I want it as low as possible because at 4k you don't actually need any smoothing at all so it's just softening the image for no reason, but stupidly DSR doesn't let you set it on a per-resolution basis so I have to either find one setting I can live with at every downsampling resolution or adjust it in the control panel each time I change the game resolution.  That second option's too much of a PITA, so I decided to just go with the lowest setting that works for 1440p and call it good.

 

Plus side of all this is that between figuring this stuff out and realizing Nvidia's FXAA setting works with Wolfenstein I have now been able to put a good dent in that game's problem with jaggies (apparently that game does the antialiasing at a really early step in the render pipeline so a lot of stuff just flat doesn't get antialiased, and it looks awful).

Edited January 1, 2017 by TheJollyEthan

[Mal]

With the annual talk about games completed and backlogs, I decided to take a look at my Steam library. It's not good. At all. The backlog is easily 75 games deep. I can probably get rid of 25-30 games that I have little intention to play (say games I've played a bunch of but got bored or frustrated with) but still, it's a long list. If I discipline myself maybe I'll cut it in half by this time next year. There's a lot of long RPGs in there that will require at least 50 hours in the usual pace I play. Some of these games I do recall having trouble running as well since they're so old (Prince of Persia, Red Faction).

 

Let's see if I can do this.

[danielpholt]

With the annual talk about games completed and backlogs, I decided to take a look at my Steam library. It's not good. At all. The backlog is easily 75 games deep. I can probably get rid of 25-30 games that I have little intention to play (say games I've played a bunch of but got bored or frustrated with) but still, it's a long list. If I discipline myself maybe I'll cut it in half by this time next year. There's a lot of long RPGs in there that will require at least 50 hours in the usual pace I play. Some of these games I do recall having trouble running as well since they're so old (Prince of Persia, Red Faction).

 

Let's see if I can do this.

I've adopted the '30 minutes strategy'. I'll give a game that length of time to show me something, anything that might interest me and if it fails to do that, I dump it into the dark, dead, pit of despair that is my 'Not Gonna Happen' category.

 

I've also realised there's no way I can play all the video games, as soon as I became okay with that I stopped buying games I knew I wasn't going to bother with.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[TheMightyEthan]

@Mal: I definitely take games off my backlog once I realize I have no intention of ever playing them again.