The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Rant: PC Gaming viability. Time for some changes.
vtnwesley
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Due to popular request.
HP m7560n
Athlon x2 4200+ 2.2ghz
2GB ram
Geforce 8600GT 256MB
Forceware 169.25
Video BIOS 60.84.58.00.70
Windows Vista Home Premium
Driver related issues include
Not scaling to keep aspect ratio
hardware accelerated codecs produce no video
No video card related features can be activated, inside the game or forced from the Nvidia control panel (as per Microsoft's design specs??)
Editted:
I edited down my article, because it's what people kept asking me to do. It just caused more confusion, because now you guys don't know what people are talking about and I am not asking for diagnosis. I originally posted an open letter to Gabe/Tycho, not knowing they didn't read their own forums (Hey, the Megatokyo guys do I think). Yes, my mistake, but that's what the phrase "open letter" means. It means we can all read it if we like. I was trying to make a point regarding the political choices Microsoft and Nvidia made regarding break major required features for gamers. The direct draw override, vsync forcing, the option for FSAA/AF forcing, and "Keep Aspect ratio" is all required to play basic games. This isn't a performance issue. All of my hardware is fully functional. You don't have to like my 8600GT to know it performs well enough to do VSYNCing in Cave Story, had they not locked the feature out. This was a conscience choice to break games, period.
Below is the original open letter. Click the spoiler tag to view it.
HP m7560n
Athlon x2 4200+ 2.2ghz
2GB ram
Geforce 8600GT 256MB
Forceware 169.25
Video BIOS 60.84.58.00.70
Windows Vista Home Premium
Driver related issues include
Not scaling to keep aspect ratio
hardware accelerated codecs produce no video
No video card related features can be activated, inside the game or forced from the Nvidia control panel (as per Microsoft's design specs??)
Editted:
I edited down my article, because it's what people kept asking me to do. It just caused more confusion, because now you guys don't know what people are talking about and I am not asking for diagnosis. I originally posted an open letter to Gabe/Tycho, not knowing they didn't read their own forums (Hey, the Megatokyo guys do I think). Yes, my mistake, but that's what the phrase "open letter" means. It means we can all read it if we like. I was trying to make a point regarding the political choices Microsoft and Nvidia made regarding break major required features for gamers. The direct draw override, vsync forcing, the option for FSAA/AF forcing, and "Keep Aspect ratio" is all required to play basic games. This isn't a performance issue. All of my hardware is fully functional. You don't have to like my 8600GT to know it performs well enough to do VSYNCing in Cave Story, had they not locked the feature out. This was a conscience choice to break games, period.
Below is the original open letter. Click the spoiler tag to view it.
A longwinded open letter to Gabe and Tycho and anyone else that cares,
My name is Wesley. I’ve been into gaming for a long time now. Up until just a few years ago, I was the “console-only†type. With the advent of games like World of Warcraft, Unreal 2004, Big Bang Beat, Psychonauts, Sam & Max, and so on, I couldn’t avoid it forever. I had already been into emulation of many console games and played many games on consoles too. When I made the jump to the PC as a true gaming platform, I knew it would come with certain problems and drawbacks. The allure of the handful of quality games was too much for me to resist. To me gaming on the PC meant a few things. I just as well assumed we wouldn’t be doing disc swapping anymore. I also knew that under certain circumstances I could upgrade a part, rather than buy a whole machine to play that next slew of games. After all, that is what the PC kiddies have been bitching to me about for years. Outside of playing those cool PC exclusives, it also meant console games with obscure OOP PC ports would be available for very cheap (see: they don’t sell well. I bought Psychonauts for $6 from Biglots mere days ago and Sonic Heroes a year or two ago for $2 from a Gamestop).
Some of this came to be. Some, not so much. I was quickly corrected regarding the need to put in a CD after installing ungodly oversized games onto the hard drive. You know, I have nothing to say about this. It’s a form of DRM I guess. I’ll deal with it. Forcing FSAA and Anisotropic filtering on console ports worked very well. Running Sonic Heroes at very high resolution with high filtering is perhaps the only way to play it (if that is your thing). Never before have I seen that (or similar titles) look so great. The supposed upgradability of the “Gaming PC†is a bit overstated. It seems you can only do one-part-upgrades to fix unbalanced retail configurations. Usually on a gaming specced system, once one part is abhorrently underperforming, they all are. Also of note would be the fact higher end video cards cost a lot of money. The price of entry can be absurd, depending on how one expects their “rig†to perform. That’s okay for me though. Middle-of-the-road is fine as long as it all looks and plays well enough. The games are definitely there, even if one must sometimes look for them. The PC being as open as it is is interesting to me. I get those NES/Genesis class games like Aveyond, Troy 2000, Demonstar, Gate88, and Cave Story. Then around the corner I see the PS1/PS2 era styled console/console-esque games. Things like the aforementioned Sonic Heroes, and Psychonauts, as well as things like Pac-man Adventures in Time, Big Bang Beat, and many others. Still yet are the actual “real†PC games. Things like Unreal 2004, World of Warcraft, Sam & Max, Crisis, and what of this “Orange Box†everyone insists I must try. Such a vast array of experiences on one platform intrigues me greatly.
“This bizarre gaming utopia is but a quick purchase away,†they all promise me. Well, that may arguably be true, but my problems begin of course about two seconds after first boot.
Problem 0: While perhaps it doesn’t have to do with “gaming problems,†but it’s no secret computers usually require driver and operating system updates as well as the removal of the pre-included spyware. This is a computer problem, and only by proxy, a gaming problem. Even many laypeople are aware at this point you must remove those articles before most games will run well. Some of the spyware hogs resources. Some of it simply keeps re-grabbing focus and minimizing or freezing your game. Not always a huge problem. HP doesn’t try to hide most of their dirt. Some companies do enjoy a good game of spy vs spy though. They will hide everything they can to prevent you from removing their junk. After the cleaning process I install my stuff. Norton AV, Openoffice.org, the browser plug-ins, Windows updates, all that jazz. This is time consuming, but easy enough. The software is settled.
Problem 1: I started on integrated video, which is how my computer came. Almost all computers at reasonable prices still do. You have to buy $200-500 worth of Media Center PVR hardware and maybe a good $100-400 markup for dedicated video to be included out of the box. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was enough for a while on such humble video hardware. Warcraft ran, even if it looked like a Playstation 2 game. This being the newest game I was playing at this time meant that everything I wanted to play ran, even if only at 30FPS or maybe 60FPS on older titles. I now have a choice. My monitor is old and dull. My video card is under performing.
Problem 2: My monitor was the first replacement, because I felt my dull very old 17" LCD was not good enough to bother pairing with a 8xxx series Geforce card. When moving to a rather large widescreen Viewsonic, the first true problem came up. 60-70% of PC games (or maybe just my PC games) do not know how to keep their proper aspect ratio. A 4:3 game being run on a 16:10 is funny looking and in many cases unplayable. Fair enough. I know “real video cards†should fix this. It isn’t the monitor’s fault my video card is weaker than a newborn kitten and can’t perform such things as keeping proper aspect ratio.
Problem 3: My friend’s Lenovo featuring the Quaddro equivalent of the Geforce 8600 (GS or GT, I forget which, but alas, I care not) never had such issues. Just click the little check box and it keeps aspect ratio, and adds black bars around anything that needs it. So knowing this, I think to myself “I shall just buy a $200 Geforce 8600GT. It’s overpriced, but I dun good. I know this one has solid-state capacitors and a Zalman cooler. This won’t be a 2 month card, like so many others.†The card is fine, but what is this? My issue isn’t fixed. As I waste hours upon hours over the course of the week diagnosing, trying different driver versions, and posting on help forums, I learn the dirty little secret. Apparently, No Geforce cards support this function. It’s been a big hoo-ha amongst the Nvidia users since a little while after XPs release. Nvidia in their infinite wisdom has chosen to forego fixing this over the yrs OR removing the option from their control panel software. So now my games must do one of two things. 1. support a wide resolution of 16:10 or 2. support a high res windowed mode. Nvidia needs to crap or get off the can at this point. For the love of all things good and decent, the Intel X3100 integrated video supports this function without a hitch. Surely the graphics king can get of his butt to fix what is likely a non-issue on their end, or at least remove it from the control panel and officially denounce the feature.
Problem 4: Well 70% of my games are now useless, and I am starting to lose my good humor about this. I think to myself at this point “How cute, the Quaddros, which cost upwards of multiple times the Geforce cards, support this function. They are Geforce cards with a different name. Are the just screwing with me?†I humor the idea. Quaddros might be expensive, but I put a lot of money into my setup so far. Aside from the pricing issues, the Quaddros apparently have their own set of issues. Remember how I did so well before by purchasing a quality piece of hardware? Well there are apparently no Quaddros desktop cards with Zalmans (or any coolers that will last longer than a few months). There is also no way I know of to get one with only solid-state capacitors. I am a bit finicky about such things. I’ve obviously been burnt by these problems before. I am not buying a $400-1000 Geforce 8600 with a different name and LESS reliable hardware.
Problem 5: With nothing left to lose, I hear Vista supposedly fixes video problems and sprinkles magical “doesn’t suck†dust on my computer (or at least that’s what the Microsoft Sales Rep told me). I have a recent HP. I’m entitled to Vista for free, so why not? Well, here is why the hell not! The official tagline is “Due to driver architecture charges, any game which cannot activate vsync and similar such filtering from within the game itself is exempt from such features. The nvidia control panel will no longer effect games by force from the control panel.†In reality, this is only the half of it. The reality (and mind you I have not done any OpenGL or Direct X 10 game tests yet) is even from within the game these features tend not to work. Now I can live without FSAA I guess. Maybe even anisotropic filtering if I really have to. All I need is my games to run and at a reasonable frame rate. Taking away vsync is basically throwing my $1400 setup against the wall (or at least degrading it to a $300 workhorse with an overzealous monitor). This is also just the gaming related issues Vista introduced. Outside of that I’ve never had worse file transfer speeds (local, hard drive to hard drive), network speeds, audio performance (a general midi file playing back actually choked), etc. My lesson being learned, I am defeated.
So things went rather poorly.
Time to think about recourse options:
1. Buy a lower end 4:3 monitor. They are getting hard to find, and most on the market are of poor quality. Either way, why give up a nice high quality 22†wide-screen Viewsonic because “Nvidia is lazy†and “Microsoft is stupid� It won't fix everything anyway. That would require me to move back to XP, and I hear some of the driver issues are bleeding back to XP as they update things. No good.
2. Contact the powers that be. To all these companies, there is no flaw. Making Nvidia admit to their aspect ratio scaling problem took years. They have no planned fix coming. On Microsoft’s end, breaking every game I own with Vista isn’t a problem. It’s a feature that revolutionizes my gaming experience. I should thank them. Apparently it’s their idea that I don’t need to force vsync, FSAA, or anisotropic filtering. I wonder if Halo 2 for the PC has this issue? Maybe it’s competition lock out? I'd be curious, but I do not know.
3. Go to the competition. Uh… what competition? ATI products are pretty cheesy these days. Nvidia is basically the only game in town. From what the people in most graphics forums tell me, ATI cards don’t have a working aspect ratio scaling feature either, though I suppose I need to check first hand. Microsoft has no competition. Linux doesn’t work. For the sake of the 5 million linux guys who use it and love it, I will say “Linux doesn’t work how I want it toâ€. OSX is nice but has far fewer games on it defeating the purpose. Not to mention, I am already stuck with the PC I have for now.
4. Throw it all out. Limit gaming to the DS and Wii, Nintendo being perhaps the only company to never have major hardware/software defects this side of the NES. Maybe. I moved recently and don’t see many of my friends. Warcraft is the only way I get to regularly communicate with them. For now I guess the PC stays.
5. Put up with it. Wonderful.
I suppose addressing you both directly is a little presumptuous. At this rate, however, I do not know of anyone else who might “give a damn†as gamers and actually be able to embarrass any entity enough to fix some serious issues. To be specific, you are not “in the tank†or some such crap. Microsoft flubbed Vista, and I am paying for it. Nvidia is lazy and irresponsible, and I am paying for it. HP is perhaps complacent, however it isn’t necessarily their fault. All the while no matter who’s support line/forum I ask in, I am always given the same crap. “It’s a feature,†“it’s someone else’s fault,†“we know about that, but we just won’t fix it.†Microsoft’s line of crap isn’t so easily believed this generation. Nvidia however has mostly received a pass. In all of the graphics forums, with each new driver beta I keep seeing thread after thread of “we know it has to be this time.†Each time they get their hopes up, losing a small piece of their soul from the resulting defeat. They have been going through the paces for so long. I pity them.
I know it may seem overly dramatic, but this experience has been unspeakably aggravating. Everything here I have scoured up and down as a technician to look for those unforeseen, unquantifiable issues. The HP has a decent power supply, a reliable motherboard. The video card purchase wasn’t based on price or performance, but rather on reliability and features. My setup is more than a few flimsy numbers atop a tower of playing cards. There is no good reason why this should be such a horrible experience. No, the politics of the situation will not let this be such a simple matter.
I don’t know if you guys care, or perhaps wish to blog about such issues. You have been recently talking about the PC as a viable gaming platform. I believe it is not viable at this point. Of course the occasional hiccup happens, that is understandable. My problems stem from the industry as a whole. I’ve always believed when it comes to product problems and customer service issues there are two types of problems. “The incident†and “the machineâ€. I can get a damaged piece of hardware replaced (an incident, if you will). I will never get Microsoft to stop lying to my face or get Nvidia to stop being lazy disinterested rat-bastards. This is “the machineâ€. It’s just how the industry works. I am helpless, despite owning $1400 of all of their quality hardware and horrible software. I hate these companies with all my being. Worst case scenario I wish for acknowledgment. Am I being heard? Are you or your readers aware of the problems? Best case scenario, I’d would love to see you both use what influence you seem to have to, if nothing else, shake up some of the powers that be. They think they are invincible. I know you can show them they are not if you truly wish to.
I shall conclude this unruly wall of text on this note. The world is still trying to tell us all how simple, easy, and effective computers are for everyone to do everything with. They should control our TVs, integrate with our businesses, play our games, keep our dates, and let us write our papers on them. I am a technician with 4 yrs of experience, who currently uses computers mostly as a hobby. My issue was complicated, cost me much time and money, and never got resolved. Remember though, computers are for everyone and never fail to work properly.
Sincerely and Distraughtly,
Wesley
Brackenridge, PA
My name is Wesley. I’ve been into gaming for a long time now. Up until just a few years ago, I was the “console-only†type. With the advent of games like World of Warcraft, Unreal 2004, Big Bang Beat, Psychonauts, Sam & Max, and so on, I couldn’t avoid it forever. I had already been into emulation of many console games and played many games on consoles too. When I made the jump to the PC as a true gaming platform, I knew it would come with certain problems and drawbacks. The allure of the handful of quality games was too much for me to resist. To me gaming on the PC meant a few things. I just as well assumed we wouldn’t be doing disc swapping anymore. I also knew that under certain circumstances I could upgrade a part, rather than buy a whole machine to play that next slew of games. After all, that is what the PC kiddies have been bitching to me about for years. Outside of playing those cool PC exclusives, it also meant console games with obscure OOP PC ports would be available for very cheap (see: they don’t sell well. I bought Psychonauts for $6 from Biglots mere days ago and Sonic Heroes a year or two ago for $2 from a Gamestop).
Some of this came to be. Some, not so much. I was quickly corrected regarding the need to put in a CD after installing ungodly oversized games onto the hard drive. You know, I have nothing to say about this. It’s a form of DRM I guess. I’ll deal with it. Forcing FSAA and Anisotropic filtering on console ports worked very well. Running Sonic Heroes at very high resolution with high filtering is perhaps the only way to play it (if that is your thing). Never before have I seen that (or similar titles) look so great. The supposed upgradability of the “Gaming PC†is a bit overstated. It seems you can only do one-part-upgrades to fix unbalanced retail configurations. Usually on a gaming specced system, once one part is abhorrently underperforming, they all are. Also of note would be the fact higher end video cards cost a lot of money. The price of entry can be absurd, depending on how one expects their “rig†to perform. That’s okay for me though. Middle-of-the-road is fine as long as it all looks and plays well enough. The games are definitely there, even if one must sometimes look for them. The PC being as open as it is is interesting to me. I get those NES/Genesis class games like Aveyond, Troy 2000, Demonstar, Gate88, and Cave Story. Then around the corner I see the PS1/PS2 era styled console/console-esque games. Things like the aforementioned Sonic Heroes, and Psychonauts, as well as things like Pac-man Adventures in Time, Big Bang Beat, and many others. Still yet are the actual “real†PC games. Things like Unreal 2004, World of Warcraft, Sam & Max, Crisis, and what of this “Orange Box†everyone insists I must try. Such a vast array of experiences on one platform intrigues me greatly.
“This bizarre gaming utopia is but a quick purchase away,†they all promise me. Well, that may arguably be true, but my problems begin of course about two seconds after first boot.
Problem 0: While perhaps it doesn’t have to do with “gaming problems,†but it’s no secret computers usually require driver and operating system updates as well as the removal of the pre-included spyware. This is a computer problem, and only by proxy, a gaming problem. Even many laypeople are aware at this point you must remove those articles before most games will run well. Some of the spyware hogs resources. Some of it simply keeps re-grabbing focus and minimizing or freezing your game. Not always a huge problem. HP doesn’t try to hide most of their dirt. Some companies do enjoy a good game of spy vs spy though. They will hide everything they can to prevent you from removing their junk. After the cleaning process I install my stuff. Norton AV, Openoffice.org, the browser plug-ins, Windows updates, all that jazz. This is time consuming, but easy enough. The software is settled.
Problem 1: I started on integrated video, which is how my computer came. Almost all computers at reasonable prices still do. You have to buy $200-500 worth of Media Center PVR hardware and maybe a good $100-400 markup for dedicated video to be included out of the box. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was enough for a while on such humble video hardware. Warcraft ran, even if it looked like a Playstation 2 game. This being the newest game I was playing at this time meant that everything I wanted to play ran, even if only at 30FPS or maybe 60FPS on older titles. I now have a choice. My monitor is old and dull. My video card is under performing.
Problem 2: My monitor was the first replacement, because I felt my dull very old 17" LCD was not good enough to bother pairing with a 8xxx series Geforce card. When moving to a rather large widescreen Viewsonic, the first true problem came up. 60-70% of PC games (or maybe just my PC games) do not know how to keep their proper aspect ratio. A 4:3 game being run on a 16:10 is funny looking and in many cases unplayable. Fair enough. I know “real video cards†should fix this. It isn’t the monitor’s fault my video card is weaker than a newborn kitten and can’t perform such things as keeping proper aspect ratio.
Problem 3: My friend’s Lenovo featuring the Quaddro equivalent of the Geforce 8600 (GS or GT, I forget which, but alas, I care not) never had such issues. Just click the little check box and it keeps aspect ratio, and adds black bars around anything that needs it. So knowing this, I think to myself “I shall just buy a $200 Geforce 8600GT. It’s overpriced, but I dun good. I know this one has solid-state capacitors and a Zalman cooler. This won’t be a 2 month card, like so many others.†The card is fine, but what is this? My issue isn’t fixed. As I waste hours upon hours over the course of the week diagnosing, trying different driver versions, and posting on help forums, I learn the dirty little secret. Apparently, No Geforce cards support this function. It’s been a big hoo-ha amongst the Nvidia users since a little while after XPs release. Nvidia in their infinite wisdom has chosen to forego fixing this over the yrs OR removing the option from their control panel software. So now my games must do one of two things. 1. support a wide resolution of 16:10 or 2. support a high res windowed mode. Nvidia needs to crap or get off the can at this point. For the love of all things good and decent, the Intel X3100 integrated video supports this function without a hitch. Surely the graphics king can get of his butt to fix what is likely a non-issue on their end, or at least remove it from the control panel and officially denounce the feature.
Problem 4: Well 70% of my games are now useless, and I am starting to lose my good humor about this. I think to myself at this point “How cute, the Quaddros, which cost upwards of multiple times the Geforce cards, support this function. They are Geforce cards with a different name. Are the just screwing with me?†I humor the idea. Quaddros might be expensive, but I put a lot of money into my setup so far. Aside from the pricing issues, the Quaddros apparently have their own set of issues. Remember how I did so well before by purchasing a quality piece of hardware? Well there are apparently no Quaddros desktop cards with Zalmans (or any coolers that will last longer than a few months). There is also no way I know of to get one with only solid-state capacitors. I am a bit finicky about such things. I’ve obviously been burnt by these problems before. I am not buying a $400-1000 Geforce 8600 with a different name and LESS reliable hardware.
Problem 5: With nothing left to lose, I hear Vista supposedly fixes video problems and sprinkles magical “doesn’t suck†dust on my computer (or at least that’s what the Microsoft Sales Rep told me). I have a recent HP. I’m entitled to Vista for free, so why not? Well, here is why the hell not! The official tagline is “Due to driver architecture charges, any game which cannot activate vsync and similar such filtering from within the game itself is exempt from such features. The nvidia control panel will no longer effect games by force from the control panel.†In reality, this is only the half of it. The reality (and mind you I have not done any OpenGL or Direct X 10 game tests yet) is even from within the game these features tend not to work. Now I can live without FSAA I guess. Maybe even anisotropic filtering if I really have to. All I need is my games to run and at a reasonable frame rate. Taking away vsync is basically throwing my $1400 setup against the wall (or at least degrading it to a $300 workhorse with an overzealous monitor). This is also just the gaming related issues Vista introduced. Outside of that I’ve never had worse file transfer speeds (local, hard drive to hard drive), network speeds, audio performance (a general midi file playing back actually choked), etc. My lesson being learned, I am defeated.
So things went rather poorly.
Time to think about recourse options:
1. Buy a lower end 4:3 monitor. They are getting hard to find, and most on the market are of poor quality. Either way, why give up a nice high quality 22†wide-screen Viewsonic because “Nvidia is lazy†and “Microsoft is stupid� It won't fix everything anyway. That would require me to move back to XP, and I hear some of the driver issues are bleeding back to XP as they update things. No good.
2. Contact the powers that be. To all these companies, there is no flaw. Making Nvidia admit to their aspect ratio scaling problem took years. They have no planned fix coming. On Microsoft’s end, breaking every game I own with Vista isn’t a problem. It’s a feature that revolutionizes my gaming experience. I should thank them. Apparently it’s their idea that I don’t need to force vsync, FSAA, or anisotropic filtering. I wonder if Halo 2 for the PC has this issue? Maybe it’s competition lock out? I'd be curious, but I do not know.
3. Go to the competition. Uh… what competition? ATI products are pretty cheesy these days. Nvidia is basically the only game in town. From what the people in most graphics forums tell me, ATI cards don’t have a working aspect ratio scaling feature either, though I suppose I need to check first hand. Microsoft has no competition. Linux doesn’t work. For the sake of the 5 million linux guys who use it and love it, I will say “Linux doesn’t work how I want it toâ€. OSX is nice but has far fewer games on it defeating the purpose. Not to mention, I am already stuck with the PC I have for now.
4. Throw it all out. Limit gaming to the DS and Wii, Nintendo being perhaps the only company to never have major hardware/software defects this side of the NES. Maybe. I moved recently and don’t see many of my friends. Warcraft is the only way I get to regularly communicate with them. For now I guess the PC stays.
5. Put up with it. Wonderful.
I suppose addressing you both directly is a little presumptuous. At this rate, however, I do not know of anyone else who might “give a damn†as gamers and actually be able to embarrass any entity enough to fix some serious issues. To be specific, you are not “in the tank†or some such crap. Microsoft flubbed Vista, and I am paying for it. Nvidia is lazy and irresponsible, and I am paying for it. HP is perhaps complacent, however it isn’t necessarily their fault. All the while no matter who’s support line/forum I ask in, I am always given the same crap. “It’s a feature,†“it’s someone else’s fault,†“we know about that, but we just won’t fix it.†Microsoft’s line of crap isn’t so easily believed this generation. Nvidia however has mostly received a pass. In all of the graphics forums, with each new driver beta I keep seeing thread after thread of “we know it has to be this time.†Each time they get their hopes up, losing a small piece of their soul from the resulting defeat. They have been going through the paces for so long. I pity them.
I know it may seem overly dramatic, but this experience has been unspeakably aggravating. Everything here I have scoured up and down as a technician to look for those unforeseen, unquantifiable issues. The HP has a decent power supply, a reliable motherboard. The video card purchase wasn’t based on price or performance, but rather on reliability and features. My setup is more than a few flimsy numbers atop a tower of playing cards. There is no good reason why this should be such a horrible experience. No, the politics of the situation will not let this be such a simple matter.
I don’t know if you guys care, or perhaps wish to blog about such issues. You have been recently talking about the PC as a viable gaming platform. I believe it is not viable at this point. Of course the occasional hiccup happens, that is understandable. My problems stem from the industry as a whole. I’ve always believed when it comes to product problems and customer service issues there are two types of problems. “The incident†and “the machineâ€. I can get a damaged piece of hardware replaced (an incident, if you will). I will never get Microsoft to stop lying to my face or get Nvidia to stop being lazy disinterested rat-bastards. This is “the machineâ€. It’s just how the industry works. I am helpless, despite owning $1400 of all of their quality hardware and horrible software. I hate these companies with all my being. Worst case scenario I wish for acknowledgment. Am I being heard? Are you or your readers aware of the problems? Best case scenario, I’d would love to see you both use what influence you seem to have to, if nothing else, shake up some of the powers that be. They think they are invincible. I know you can show them they are not if you truly wish to.
I shall conclude this unruly wall of text on this note. The world is still trying to tell us all how simple, easy, and effective computers are for everyone to do everything with. They should control our TVs, integrate with our businesses, play our games, keep our dates, and let us write our papers on them. I am a technician with 4 yrs of experience, who currently uses computers mostly as a hobby. My issue was complicated, cost me much time and money, and never got resolved. Remember though, computers are for everyone and never fail to work properly.
Sincerely and Distraughtly,
Wesley
Brackenridge, PA
vtnwesley on
0
Posts
Gabe and Tycho don't read email. Try a singing telegram.
Apparently they don't even read letters sent with autographed DS's.
Ultimately, I have found that there are a variety of community created options for most, if not all PC problems. That is perhaps the final equalizer of the pc market with the console market is if there is a software problem, someone in the community has created a solution or is working on one right now. They do it to prove to their friends how smart they are, or, what i believe to be true more often, they do it to sharpen their skills and cut their teeth on bigger and bigger logistical problems.
Ultimately, you will turn to the community for your omega drivers when Nvidia abandons you in your hour of need and if you surf many of the boards enough and dive deep enough into the abyss, you will find the balm to your bane.
It's that you don't know how to read. If you had you would have known that this isn't the right place for this letter, or for your complaints, or that Mike and Jerry don't read the forums.
You might also have read up on the parts that you purchased to see whether or not they were actually a good buy or not, but I suppose it's too late for that now.
Better luck next time.
oh, and next time you put in one of these posts, be more specific about your parts so we can help you.
That is, if you wanted help, because the more I think of this post, the more it resembles an blog and less proper post for this forum. If anything, it should have gone in Moe's.
I was going to say something like this but I couldn't make myself not look like a jackass.
Basically you didn't do your research. This isn't to say the problems you experienced aren't real and frustrating, because they are. It's just that you could have avoided a lot of pain if you had studied up. As I say this I realize just now that you can't actually know that you need to study before jumping in until it's too late, so it's like you're fucked either way. So I guess in the end you're right.
"I didn't do any research about anything and it doesn't work how I want it to, so I'm going to post somewhere without doing any research as to the nature of where I'm posting"
I wonder if you're going to feel let down by the quality of responses here.
Yes, if you actually want help, and not just to rant, trim that wall down to something manageable and specific and there are plenty of people here who might be able to help you.
Why do you say the Wii and the DS are the only consoles with no problems? The PSTriple has a very low failure rate. The PSP as well.
And why do you say that ATI makes horrible products? The 3850 is the de facto sub-$200 card to get. Sure, the 9800 GT's going to have some things to say about that when it's out, but ATI makes solid budget cards right now. Plus you're using the... 8600 GT? Really? What drove you to that? The 8800GT is far superior, or the 3850.
And why are you using an AMD processor? Sure, they're ok in a scrape on a budget, but if you're so against ATI for making bad products when they really make good budget problems what are you doing sporting an AMD processor over Intel? Intel processors are pretty much just better hands down.
Oh, and yes, "people in forums try to help people" when there isn't a whining post directed to people who don't read the forums. I mean did you want help or did you just feel like throwing a hissy-fit over stuff you didn't look up first as an introduction to a community?
Look at some of the other threads here. People ask nicely and get helped. And, believe it or not, there are plenty of discussion threads, including some about your original posting topic. Just none that started with a huge block of text.
Just trying to help you out here.
Edit: You made it a bit nicer.
Well, everyone seems to believe we don't talk about problems in order to "fix the machine". We diagnos them to fix the "incident". So while I prepare for another round of armchair technicians who can't fix these issues, I won't respond to anymore of these kinds of posts as apparently I am not supposed to talk. God I hate forums.
ATI video cards have gone on and off since the Rage 4 meg days with critically broken drivers. Not "feature missing but advertised" broken, but "Windows/game crashing" kind of broken. Although I enjoyed the Rage 128 back in the day greatly for that one or two random games, my friends and I have run through several Radeon 7000-x800s over the yrs. Aside from the whole 3 month fan issue, and the popping capacitors, the driver has been regularly critically broken. Nvidia is better than that at least.
I am using an AMD processor because for the specs my computer was very very cheap. A crazy manager marked it down because they didn't want open box stuff on the shelf (look around at big boxes sometime. They do it more often than you'd think). I basically got the PVR stuffs for free, or maybe more.
I'm not "throwing a hissy fit". People just don't listen, and when they do, they take nothing away from it. In all the places I did the "diagnosis" stuff, including Nvidia's forums, hardocp, rage3d, etc no one has any answers. "Doesn't exist" "cant be done" "you'r screwed". I don't expect anyone here to have much better. I am not saying they aren't knowledgable, but I've already delt with plenty of knowledgable people.
And your right, the PS3's failure rate has been a bit better than the 360. Not perfect. I fear Sony due to the liar factor. With the PS1 and 2, not everyone knew the systems died like no one's business. Sony never once fessed up to it, or took responcbility.
Again, too late for this, but this system would have been quite good for you. The 8600 GT was a dissapointment when it came out last year, and hasn't aged particularly well. Its successor, the 9600 GT, came out just a week ago and is a far better performer for around the same price.
As to your current problem: have you tried the windows Display Properites> Settings > Advanced > Troubleshoot tab? There's a slider there that will adjust just what Windows is using your GPU to render. Right now it sounds like it might be a little confused as to when hardware acceleration is supposed to be in use. I'm not as familiar with Vista as I am with XP, so that tab might be in some wacky new place now.
Your particular HP has an integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE integrated onto the motherboard, and there may be legacy drivers from that still causing your problems. Generally in this case I'd recommend just backing up your documents and formatting your computer with a clean install of XP, as HP probably threw a lot of shit on there along with the legacy drivers that you don't want or need.
Last one, I swear,
MOST of you were okay. I apologize. I am sure you can understand why I am short with the issue. From the beginning, it's always the same. Whether we're talking, diagnosing, complaining, or just to convince everyone to change the state of the market with their money... to make matters worse, this thread is a thread of semantics.
If I could remove this and follow the semantics of the board (see: help forum, no PA guys, no one cares about the issues only about the incident) I'll play the game one more time, just for ya all. You seem to have faith something will change.
I don't wanna be docked for "double posts" though, so til this gets removed, I guess my work here is done.
See, this is what I am talking about. These issues I mention effect ALL Nvidia video cards. Its the driver, and its Vista. Buying more junk isn't going to fix this.
That slider does temporarily fix the video playback issues, but nothing else. Half solution that 800 people already told me about 3 months ago.
I already did this. When I upgraded to Vista I had to anyway. I did this with XP as well previously.
I realize these are by-the-book things to tell me and you are right. The problem is those solutions don't do anything. The Nvidia card that is "perfect for me" is the one where they fix their driver.
Otherwise that system is very close to what I have now. After my open box discounts, It's basically the same.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some monitors (my Benq 241FPWZ, for example), *do* support 1:1 pixel mapping. If they're fed a signal at 800x600, they can either output it at 1:1 as a tiny, unscaled box in the centre of the screen, or simply scale it up while maintaining the aspect ratio.
The alternate solution might be the Widescreen Gaming Forum. These guys take the opposite tack and instead of trying to find ways to make games preserve their 4:3 aspect ratios, they instead modify the games to run natively in widescreen mode, which tends to be a bit nicer than dealing with black bars.
And yes, you're not supposed to be setting AA and Ansio settings through the control panel. That never really worked properly to begin with, nor was it a particularly good practise (a video card buffer under-run could not only correct video card memory, it could also corrupt system memory, potentially destroying your windows install). Modern games will have their own options for applying it, older games will look as jaggy as ... well, older games.
1:1 pixel mapping shouldn't need to be handled from the monitor end, though I've concidered it. I have the monitor I have, and this is the video cards' job. There isn't really an excuse, especially concidering Nvidia has used this for over 6 yrs now as an advertised feature, all the while it doesn't work. That is also not the easiest to find feature on a computer monitor. Probably the most realistic thing I've heard in months regarding these issues.
The WSGF is an interesting idea. Maybe they know some things I don't. There are major problems with that though. They are talking about fixes on a case by case basis. Not only is that an unrealistic ammount of work and time, but a lot of their information (all user generated) is incorrect. Some of the end results are less stretching vs none at all. A lot of them are strangely confirming stretching as "nonstretching functional". I guess not everyone has an eye for this. Again, this is painfully aggravating, because we all know the laptop GPUs all support this feature natively, as do the Quaddros.
We can all say we aren't supposed to be doing that, but I (and everyone I've ever met) have been doing that successfully since the days of the the Geforce 2 GTS. The only difference then is I only played 2 or 3 games on the PC total and unlike them I refused to pay for such a video card... I used their computers too though and of course, it all worked. forcing FSAA and AF from the video card has never caused any trouble for me, and I personally don't see why it would for anyone else. A "buffer under run" (overflow?) should in theory be possible either way, if it is a possibility at all. Do you know the technical difference between a game activating the features vs the video card control panel? Maybe you know something I don't? My goodness, Sonic R was so much better looking.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2947&p=1 Should answer your questions on why forcing AA from the control panel might not work.
That article is exactly what I am talking about. They crippled every game I own (see: no vsync) in the name of playing semantics. I realize a lot of games out there may see few or no benefits from forced FSAA or have more effective methods built into the game. I also understand the politics of trying to force game devs to put these features within the game. You don't play ruin my games in the name of politics. It did answer my questions. The answer is simple. They know better than me what settings should and shouldnt be accessible, if it isn't DX10 it doesn't count, and they aren't going to fix their broken driver. This is why I am so ticked and would like to see the industry get fixed and not "my problem". The video card driver needs to work regardless of what developers are or are not doing. This means the advertised "Keep Aspect Ratio" scaling needs to work. It means I need to be able to filter games that don't do it normally. And most of all it means VSYNC needs to be active 24/7 in any and all interfaces.
You know, vote with your dollar and all that. [sarc]The industry is so near to bankrupcy anyways you'll probably be the straw that broke the camel's back[/sarcasm]
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
But my video card profiles system and forcing vsync/fsaa/etc has always worked. They even stated themselves they removed the feature (while leaving it visually in place) from the driver artificially because they were too lazy to add a warning dialogue regarding non-optimal performance. Why should nothing work now, when it all worked before? It isn't like the games are incompatible or anything. I know everyone wants to keep playing pass the buck, but Nivida and Microsoft are the only ones to blame. Furthermore, if the feature "Doesn't exist" why has it taken them over a year to remove the Vista "problem features" and over 6 to remove the aspect ratio scaling?
I have no clue. I've read every post and I still don't know what the OP's complaint is about.
That's just a guess.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
Have you seen how many different companies make 8800GT cards? I can think of at least 5: EVGA, XFX, MSI, Foxconn, BFG Tech...I could go on. Each of these cards are structured differently, and these minor differences can mean the difference between a game working on your machine and a game not working on your machine. And where does the blame go? The developers. I don't think people often see it from the PC gaming side. Who do you develop it for? How do you maximize sales without a standard to work off of? If you buy an XBOX 360, it works out of the box. All of the XBOX 360 games will work for it. But if you buy a PC game, it's really hard to tell. Just because you meet the minimum requirements doesn't mean it's going to function correctly. Hardware conflicts, software conflicts, viruses, it all gets taken into account.
But competition drives down prices and drives innovation. I can't imagine an EVGA 8800GT is not going to work with a game tested on XFX 8800GTs.
I think that the Iron Lore thread is going off topic, so I will post this here instead -
Touching on this, I think it is stupid what Nvidia did with the 8800 series of cards. You got the 8800gts 320, the 8800gts 640, 8800gtx and the 8800ultra. Then what do they do? REFRESH! 8800gs, 8800gt (which now beats the 8800gts and is on par with the 8800gtx, even though it should be lower on the chain because of the part name), and then the 8800gts refresh, making this card on par or better than an ultra. I probably even missed a few.
Seriously? I mean, come on. And then not long after, here comes the 9xxx series to make it obsolete, just months afterwards. 9600gt for now, 9800gtx and the 9800x2 coming soon. No mention yet of any other cards, though i really wouldn't doubt it. I think this is part of the reason why people want standardization.
How hard is it to create just three cards and an integrated solution? Integrated for laptops (x2xx). A low end for basic computing (x4xx). A mid-range for entry gaming (x6xx) . And a high end for the enthusiast gaming (x8xx). Simple, and people would understand as long as its marketed properly.
Or maybe I'm an idiot. Who knows? :?
This we expect since last gen high end usually outperforms next gen mid-range. At least in my experience anyway.
Great blog, Lewie!
e: I mean, great blog entry. I already knew about how amazing your blog was before that :P
Right, but my point is why do we need "8800 GT/GTS(G92)/GTX" in the first place. have 8800 and then begin working on next gen tech. Let devs optimize around a single high end card and not 6 (8800 gs, gts320 and 640, gts92, gtx, and ultra.
Sorry 7 cards. Forgot the 8800gt