What are you Playing Now? It's not how you play the game, it's how you place the blame

[ComradeYellow]

'Dead Space' remake.  I never played the original and that's a good thing, because I just had a great run through the 'Ishimura'.  Whilst some of the gameplay elements feel dated (Buying and selling on a derelict ship overrun with monsters?  come on now.), the atmosphere is quite good and spooky.  Isaac Clarke is a great protagonist and shooting off limbs is a fun mechanic to master.  Not quite as good as 'Prey' (2017) by any stretch but sometimes good mindless horror romps through broken spaceships is just what the doctor ordered.  There's plenty of weird weapons in the game but honestly even on 'Hard' mode just focusing on dropping upgrade "nodes" into your suit and the starting weapon, the 'Plasma Cutter' is quite doable, and seems pointless to carry around 6 or 8 weapons of various ammo considering how limited ammo drops (ammo gets dropped based on the weapons you are carrying, so if you're carrying 5 weapons, you'll randomly get 5 different types of ammo) and upgrades "nodes" are in the game.  I'm simply happy putting all my eggs in one basket in a setup like this.

Simplistic mechanics sure, but hey, I had fun lurking in the dark corridors and fending off freaks that come at you from all sides.

[Theonlygarby]

Update because I'm sure everyone was wondering... I grinded for 2 hours and beat the boss... I'm onto new content in persona 4 woohoo

[LadyCrimson]

I would like to take a moment to gripe about Steam's 2-hour refund window when it comes to modern open world story rpg's, in that by the time you get past chr menu (even if you rush it/don't care), fancy game logos, long intro cutscenes, long tutorial bits (I can't even manually save yet), alter settings multiple times, restart game to make sure settings take, etc. it's going to 3+ hours or more and one sometimes gives up on the idea of a refund for that reason alone. The actual Hogwarts castle is likely going to be a performance drop for many and I think you don't reach that for a while.

That gripe over...at the very start of the game, here's what I see, using 2080ti, 9900k, 32GB, no overlays except an fps counter:

--during the pre-shader caching/setup whatever it is, which takes a few minutes, system ram went up to about 15GB for me, so not counting Windows maybe 12-13gb?  I forgot to glance at task manager for ram usage after that. >.>

---4k, Ultra, no DLSS/scaling, no RT---
first cutscenes and area you can walk around in (not full open world yet), 35-45fps
----4k, Ultra, DLSS at Quality, no RT---
goes up to 50-60fps, DLSS to me looks noticeably softer but still all right

---1440, Ultra, no DLSS/scaling, no RT---
first cutscenes and area you can walk in, 50-60ish fps
---1440, Ultra, DLSS/Quality, no RT---
90-110fps

...I tried reducing settings but I sort of felt like not everything was registering within game without a restart, would have spend an hour fiddling with that. But just changing one setting, like shadows, down a notch or two didn't seem to make much difference in 4k. I did try -all low- and graphically it's actually not the worst I've seen, although the fps increase didn't seem mega substantial for it.

Debating whether to waste more refund window on testing.

Edited February 7, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

Steam's 2 hour refund window: A few times, I've used a pretty wacky trick where I renamed the directory and .exe of a game I was playing to that of another game I had installed, then used Steam to boot up the renamed-to game and it thought I was playing it, so no playtime accumulated on the real game. But...that's not necessarily always possible depending on the folder structure of the game you're playing, and maybe Steam has tightened the process up since I last did it a few years ago. I don't think I've ever actually refunded a game on Steam before, though there have been a few close calls (and there is one game that I really regret not doing so...Nioh, that awful garbage).

[LadyCrimson]

^ I think I've refunded maybe 5 games, I'm not sure. I usually just eat it, but because my track record re: interest in all media lately has been especially bad, plus I'm not a Potter-world/lore fan I was dubious of my interest, especially for the slightly more expensive early-access version. But if I was going to buy/play it, I'm going to have those extra flying mount options, darnit.

So, minus my earlier testing, I would say it takes 40-60 minutes to first get to the castle, depending on your speed, get hat-sorted and dumped into a room, which is when you can start manually saving. The game seems to be a system ram hog, getting up to 18gb total and beyond so far. But I did see it "let go" of some during transitions so no memory leak. If you have it, it just likes to gobble it.

Found turning a few settings down (shadows, effect particles ... uh, I forget) to medium seemed to get me the 50-60ish fps I wanted in native 4k. I expect there to be lots of ups and downs at times.

Game itself:  One of the few times I rather liked all the tutorial bits, the small combat, the story bits. Nothing fancy, but I wasn't bored, at least. Note: I am playing on Easy because I'm a casual nub these days. Although from the early taste I might bump it back to Normal. You can increase FoV but indoors it often still feels quite restricted and a bit annoying at times. Anyway, so far I'm impressed/interested enough to keep going/forget about any refund possibility. Off I go to find my inner wizard.

Edited February 7, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, LadyCrimson said:

^ I think I've refunded maybe 5 games, I'm not sure. I usually just eat it, but because my track record re: interest in all media lately has been especially bad, plus I'm not a Potter-world/lore fan I was dubious of my interest, especially for the slightly more expensive early-access version. But if I was going to buy/play it, I'm going to have those extra flying mount options, darnit.

So, minus my earlier testing, I would say it takes 40-60 minutes to first get to the castle, depending on your speed, get hat-sorted and dumped into a room, which is when you can start manually saving. The game seems to be a system ram hog, getting up to 18gb total and beyond so far. But I did see it "let go" of some during transitions so no memory leak. If you have it, it just likes to gobble it.

Found turning a few settings down (shadows, effect particles ... uh, I forget) to medium seemed to get me the 50-60ish fps I wanted in native 4k. I expect there to be lots of ups and downs at times.

Game itself:  One of the few times I rather liked all the tutorial bits, the small combat, the story bits. Nothing fancy, but I wasn't bored, at least. Note: I am playing on Easy because I'm a casual nub these days. Although from the early taste I might bump it back to Normal. You can increase FoV but indoors it often still feels quite restricted and a bit annoying at times. Anyway, so far I'm impressed/interested enough to keep going/forget about any refund possibility. Off I go to find my inner wizard.

It should be noted that the game is afflicted with Denuvo, possibly a poor implementation of it...though such claims have obviously not yet been confirmed (and how could they be, given nobody has access to a non-Denuvo version?). There aren't many Denuvo crackers left, either - between the usually pretty serious investment of time and work it takes to get around it and the dwindling DRM cracking scene, most Denuvo games have stayed unbroken even years later.

[Keyrock]

I'm working on an island fortress in Valheim. I found a really suitable island that's 3/4 black forest and 1/4 plains with most other biomes a short sail away. I'm building it up as tall as I can make it with sheer cliffs all around, save for one area for the dock. This will make it nigh impenetrable to non-flying enemies. This is a massively time consuming project that requires ludicrous amounts of stone. Stone is easy enough to get, but it will take a ton of time, given how big I plan to make it.

No way I finish even getting the ground ready to start putting down stone floor tiles, never mind any building, before Hogwarts Legacy comes out on Friday, but I'll get done as much as I can.

[LadyCrimson]

I've never had any noticeable issues re: Denuvo, in terms of stutter fests or mega lags etc anyway. I mean maybe if it wasn't there I'd see 5-10fps more, who knows, I know nothing. Most of my FPS issues comes from wanting to run in native 4k but not wanting to buy a new gpu yet.   

The castle is rather large. Managed to find my way to outside sections here and there, see the view, witness all the little atmosphere touches. I can imagine for a lore fan, it must be awesome. RAM use remains around 16-19GB, varies.

It works with a controller, but there seems to be a ton of functions via KB/mouse that do not carry over to controller so that might be more flexible. Most of that doesn't worry/bother me, except...while skip-to-next-line of dialogue is r-click mouse, I can't see a way to do it via controller. So I end up using the mouse and then going back to controller.

[uuuhhii]

as if modern game didn't burn hardware enough without drm

[LadyCrimson]

Finally got to the early quest that leads me outside. Got there, had a dialogue, turned around, CTD. Heh.

If you're someone with a GPU with lower Vram, the Texture Quality setting should probably be set to Low or Medium. Difference between Ultra and High visually was barely noticeable, Medium it's a bit more evident but still not severe/looks good. I'm sticking with High which seems to put my GPU at around 8.5gb vram used (out of 11) instead of maxed out.

Should be noted the Day 1 patch on release day may smooth out some of this stuff anyway.

Edit: still finding it fun, castle was fun to poke around in, although I'm getting impatient to get to the more-freedom phase vs. every quest feels like an extended tutorial "do this to get your starter spells!" phase.

Edited February 8, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Hawke64]

Started Gamedec (it's been on my wishlist for some time, but I've got it during EGS giveaway). It is an RPG, but dialogue-focused and without a combat system. The graphics are nice, and the fixed camera angle and position are welcome. There are several character customisation options (also several premade PCs, including the MC from another game), though allocating the stats before the Professions (i.e. the thing you need the stats for) are known seemed rather odd. The dialogues have some easily noticeable typos, and the general quality of writing, while adequate, is lower than in Disco Elysium. On the other hand, it does not have RNG skill checks - you either have the information/Profession/previous action or you don't, which is brilliant. The dialogue options provide some space for roleplay, but they also required to earn stats (the stat-giving options are marked only after they have been chosen) to unlock more dialogue options. I think, there is an overarching story, though I am in the middle of the second case, and it does not seem anyhow connected to the previous one. The journal and the Deduction (decisions?) pages could give more context, but decent otherwise. I probably will pause the playthrough for now.

Started Blue Fire. It is a platformer, which I had thought to be a metroidvania. The controls are partially rebindable and comfortable. The graphical settings are lacking, but the game is heavily stylised (the MC looks like a balloon with a cape). The location design is fine for a platformer - does not quite make sense in terms of realism, with the Void (challenge rooms) having floating platforms with spikes.

[Bokishi]

Hogwarts Legacy running great on pc so far. Steam Deck is another story; ugly stuttery mess. And this is a “verified” game ugh

[LadyCrimson]

7 hours ago, Bokishi said:

Hogwarts Legacy running great on pc so far.

Are you playing it on one your NASA-league, brought back from the future PC's? I would hope it runs ok. 

Optimizations or not, this game has utterly convinced me, that my next rig is definitely going to have 64gb system ram. Or more. And maybe I should get that 48vram 40-titan. eg, the future is going to be "you can never have too much ram"  ... I hear you can just download more, maybe that'll work.

[Keyrock]

1 minute ago, LadyCrimson said:

I hear you can just download more, maybe that'll work.

I got you covered, LadyC.

[Bokishi]

7 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

my next rig is definitely going to have 64gb system ram. Or more. And maybe I should get that 48vram 40-titan. eg, the future is going to be "you can never have too much ram"  ... I hear you can just download more, maybe that'll work.

There's much to look forward to since DDR5 spec maxes out at 256gb per stick; it will probably get there before DDR6 launches, and the average desktop can have 1tb ram. Right now it still need to mature and stop wrecking memory controllers (Been trying to stabilize DDR5 7200+ for the last month, it's so hit and miss right now)

[LadyCrimson]

Hogwart's Legacy - this is going to be one of those games where I wander all over by myself, ignoring the main quest most of the time. I had to force myself to stop going farther and farther away from the castle and go back cause I don't even have the mounts or room yet (and I figure some quests will send me hither and yonder anyway), but then I explored the castle even more and ...

...btw if you like less hand-holding, you can turn a lot of HUD elements off individually, including the mini-map. I have as much of it off as possible and only turn on the mini-map if I'm running in circles too long or something.

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Bokishi]

Played a bunch of hogwarts on the Steam Deck, and it’s much more playable. Still stutters a bit but not as frequent. Everything is on low settings but that’s probably all that’s needed for a 720p screen

[LadyCrimson]

Oh, one more tech note re: Hogwart's - if you do get a CTD and then find the game won't load/crashes during the pre-shade screen when you try to play again, you can try going into the appdata/Local for the game. In the Saved folder (not saved games) there's a Config folder. I deleted that - the game just creates a new one - and it fired up perfectly again. You just have to redo all your video etc. settings again.

So far only had the one CTD, over 8-10 hours game on. To get consistent fps outdoors as well as indoors (again, 4k) I had to lower a few more settings but outside of lighting looking slightly more flat sometimes, I don't feel the "look" of the game changes that much. At High/Ultra view distance I haven't noticed any distant pop-in, either. Maybe that doesn't show up until low or medium view distance, not sure.

[Keyrock]

Started up Hogwarts Legacy. I've only done the intro so far but I'm having a blast. No issues whatsoever running the game on Linux , it might as well be native (Proton is really incredible).  I'm looking forward to getting into the open part of the game as the intro was, as is to be expected, basically on rails.

[Mamoulian War]

More Tales of Arise. I am having at the start of the game much more fun when I started FFXV. Hopefully it will stay that way for a long time

Anyway Shionne has found new dress, and Iron Mask has found a new sword

We are slowly moving to the first boss

[LadyCrimson]

Hogwart's: 

Open file: \Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Hogwarts Legacy\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\Engine.ini

At bottom, paste in:

Quote

 

[/script/engine.renderersettings]

r.DefaultFeature.LensFlare=0
r.VolumetricFog=0
r.BloomQuality=0
r.DisableDistortion=0

 

Make the file read-only if you want/if it seems to reset on game start.

Before: (this is night, btw)
https://crimsonkeep.com/wallpapers/data/media/131/Hogwarts-00006.jpg
https://crimsonkeep.com/wallpapers/data/media/131/Hogwarts-00009.jpg

After:
https://crimsonkeep.com/wallpapers/data/media/131/Hogwarts-00007.jpg
https://crimsonkeep.com/wallpapers/data/media/131/Hogwarts-00008.jpg

...the no-bloom I like a lot. Definitely keeping that.
...the no-fog I'm conflicted. I like the less white/green/brown haze, but on the OLED tv, it's almost too dark/contrast-y even if you turn game brightness up (note: less of an issue on non-OLED monitor). Plus very distant low quality stuff can be more eye-catching/distracting without the fog-haze. Outdoors mood feels more generic at times or something too, less "highland hills" or whatever.
...The no-fog applies to indoors as well, so the castle rooms looks more vibrant with colors that pop a bit more. I wish the fog had a half-strength option, that would probably be perfect. Why do dev's always seem to go overboard with "volumetric" anything.  Oh well.

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, I'd keep the fog, this looks like a game that needs it.

[Keyrock]

I had my first CTD in Hogwarts Legacy. Not a big deal since the game autosaves fairly often and 1 CTD in 4 1/2 hours of play isn't terrible for a game on day 1, or day 4, depending on how you look at it. This is definitely a game where I'll forget about the main quest for hours and hours at a time because exploring is so freakin' great, and I haven't even been outside the castle yet.

As an aside, the game plays awesome with a controller. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't play great with m&kb, but I can't attest to that.

[LadyCrimson]

^ I was going to say I still had had only that one CTD, but I just had another.
No day1 patch yet either. It did have me download a 300MB something that claims it was DLC, but nothing new. Like it re-downloaded the pre-order stuff I already had. Or updated it. I dunno.

Regardless, yeah the best thing so far for me is the exploration factor. Game makes you want to explore and figure out what "things" are for.
Resources seem to respawn (eventually). You can definitely wander-encounter enemies much higher level then you but on the other hand I think there's some level scaling in the sense that maybe you won't ever have enemies lower then you. not 100% on that.

[Mamoulian War]

Lord Balseph is down, Iron Mask has finally remembered his name again