If you play Farcry for long enough, does the game eventually, like, *end*?

I just can't believe how long I've been playing this thing, and it's 
still going. This game is *huge*!

I battle my way right to the end of River. I will Crowe. I upload the 
data packet. I get a nice long cutscene for my trouble, but no, that 
isn't the end.

I track down a nuclear warhead and blow up a factory. I get another big 
cutscene, with some dramatics. But no, that isn't the end either.

I land in the middle of a jungle infested with trigens, with only 10 
bullets. After several attempts, I manage to make it to the end of the 
level alive. But no, that isn't the end either. (There is however a nice 
big cache of ammo and weapons - some of which appear to be new.)

So tell me... if I play this for long enough, will the game eventually 
finish? Or have Crysoft actually mastered the Holy Grail of infinite 
data compression and put an infinitely large game onto a single CD-ROM?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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You're not far from the end, and the end is 'Volcano'.

   ~Steve~

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> I battle my way right to the end of River. I kill Crowe. I upload the 
> data packet. I get a nice long cutscene for my trouble, but no, that 
> isn't the end.
> 
> I track down a nuclear warhead and blow up a factory. I get another big 
> cutscene, with some dramatics. But no, that isn't the end either.
> 
> I land in the middle of a jungle infested with trigens, with only 10 
> bullets. After several attempts, I manage to make it to the end of the 
> level alive. But no, that isn't the end either. (There is however a nice 
> big cache of ammo and weapons - some of which appear to be new.)

Enough fatboys? I spent 2 hours battling my way across about half a mile 
of ground and finally reach a savepoint. After a few attempts I kill 
everybody and get inside the building. I fight my way through some 
corridors. I find and kill Krieger. But no, this isn't the end.

Doyal decides to double-cross me. So now I have to kill *him* too. Gees, 
does this *ever* end?!?

Several ammo caches later, I find myself in a gaint cavern that's highly 
overpopulated with trigens. A few attempts and I manage to kill them 
all. I'm pretty near dead myself though.

Oh goodie. There's a ledge with 17 soldiers on it, ALL ARMED WITH 
FRIGGIN ROCKET LAUNCHERS. So, um, 1 hit death then? Great. Did I mention 
I've run out of ammo?

After another hour of replaying the same few seconds of game, I got 
sufficiently lucky with my grenades to kill everybody. But I now have, 
like, 2% health left.

I sneak into a room and kill Doyal. Fricken' FINALLY the game ends!! >_<

I BEAT FARCRY, BITCHES!!!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48a5d673@news.povray.org...
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Oh goodie. There's a ledge with 17 soldiers on it, ALL ARMED WITH FRIGGIN 
> ROCKET LAUNCHERS. So, um, 1 hit death then? Great. Did I mention I've run 
> out of ammo?

 Heh, yes, and you can't go back into that room full of ammo. Well, actually 
you can, but you have to be quick. The trick is to shoot a chair under the 
sliding door to stop it from closing. Out of *many* attempts, I managed to 
do this only once, and I still died. :o/


>
> After another hour of replaying the same few seconds of game, I got 
> sufficiently lucky with my grenades to kill everybody. But I now have, 
> like, 2% health left.
>
> I sneak into a room and kill Doyal. Fricken' FINALLY the game ends!! >_<

   You know you can just run past them all and then kill Doyal? Haha... :)



> I BEAT FARCRY, BITCHES!!!

   LoL! Enjoyable game eh? :o) Now play FarCry 2. Coming your way soon. It's 
supposed to be superb and made with the new Dunia engine.

   ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"St." <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote in message news:48a5e49b$1@news.povray.org...
>
> "Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
> news:48a5d673@news.povray.org...

>   LoL! Enjoyable game eh? :o) Now play FarCry 2. Coming your way soon. 
> It's supposed to be superb and made with the new Dunia engine.

    New official FarCry 2 game trailer in HD:

    http://www.gametrailers.com/player/38386.html


     ~Steve~

Post a reply to this message

> After another hour of replaying the same few seconds of game, I got 
> sufficiently lucky with my grenades to kill everybody. But I now have, 
> like, 2% health left.
> 
> I sneak into a room and kill Doyal. Fricken' FINALLY the game ends!! >_<

Now try it on a harder difficulty level ;-)

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> Now try it on a harder difficulty level ;-)

Oh, sure. On super-hyper-mega-easy, it only took 4 *months* to complete. 
On slightly-easy, it'll probably take a year. :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> After another hour of replaying the same few seconds of game, I got 
>> sufficiently lucky with my grenades to kill everybody. But I now have, 
>> like, 2% health left.
>>
>> I sneak into a room and kill Doyal. Fricken' FINALLY the game ends!! >_<
> 
>    You know you can just run past them all and then kill Doyal? Haha... :)

Oh, SURE, because 15 guys with rocket launchers might somehow all 
simultaneously miss me. :-P

>> I BEAT FARCRY, BITCHES!!!
> 
>    LoL! Enjoyable game eh? :o)

It's certainly a lot different to, say HalfLife.

In HalfLife, you methodically worth through a room at a time, killing 
everything inside. (And almost everything killable makes enough racket 
that you can tell when you're alone or not.)

In FarCry, there generally aren't any "rooms". And even if there are, 
people tend to wander around and follow you. The number of times I've 
gone somewhere, killed everything, started looking around for ammo and 
stuff and some guy has crept up from somewhere and frightened the living 
daylights out of me!

Similarly, in many places in FarCry, killing *everything* would be 
absurdly difficult, and your best bet is actually to sneak past without 
firing a shot.

For example, the first time I played it, the second island with the 
radio antenna was really hard. There's snipers and guys with rocket 
launchers and all the rest of it. But then I reinstalled Windoze, and 
had to play again from the beginning. This time, I swam underwater to 
the *back* of the island, killed the three people guarding that end, and 
blew up the radio tower. The snipers and rocket boys never even took a 
shot at me. ;-)

There seems to be quite a few points in the game where you can take... 
obscure routes to improve your odds significantly.

How old is this game BTW? The foliage rendering is quite impressive, but 
many other things about the game look a little low-tech. (E.g., 
character movements, the cutscenes, etc.)

BTW... sticky ladders, much?!

> Now play FarCry 2. Coming your way soon. It's 
> supposed to be superb and made with the new Dunia engine.

Uh... If it's a new game, then I doubt that a puny little GeForce 7900GT 
is sufficiently powerful to run it.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> Oh, sure. On super-hyper-mega-easy, it only took 4 *months* to complete. 
> On slightly-easy, it'll probably take a year. :-P

I put it on the hardest difficulty level, just to see what it was like.  I 
didn't even get past the first hut down on the beach.  I shot some guy 
repeated in his head and he didn't die, then he took one shot at me and I 
died.  It wasn't very realistic.

Post a reply to this message

>> Oh, sure. On super-hyper-mega-easy, it only took 4 *months* to 
>> complete. On slightly-easy, it'll probably take a year. :-P
> 
> I put it on the hardest difficulty level, just to see what it was like.  
> I didn't even get past the first hut down on the beach.  I shot some guy 
> repeated in his head and he didn't die, then he took one shot at me and 
> I died.  It wasn't very realistic.

Now, see, I hate games like that.

The fact of the matter is, if you were on an island surrounded by highly 
trained mercinaries and you were armed only with a pistol, you wouldn't 
last five seconds. Even if you did kill a few enemies, you'd die within 
minutes. There's really no need for games to make the enemy unkillable 
to make the game hard; you just need to make the player character die 
from a realistic amount of damage. (IRL, 1 bullet can easily be fatal.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> The fact of the matter is, if you were on an island surrounded by highly 
> trained mercinaries and you were armed only with a pistol, you wouldn't 
> last five seconds.

I read where they found the german soldier who was the last soldier on 
Normandy Beach during the invasion. They figured out that between the 
machine guns and the cement bunkers, he managed to kill about 3000 
invaders all by himself after all the other germans were dead.

*That* is realistic. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48a940e5$1@news.povray.org...
>>> After another hour of replaying the same few seconds of game, I got 
>>> sufficiently lucky with my grenades to kill everybody. But I now have, 
>>> like, 2% health left.
>>>
>>> I sneak into a room and kill Doyal. Fricken' FINALLY the game ends!! >_<
>>
>>    You know you can just run past them all and then kill Doyal? Haha... 
>> :)
>
> Oh, SURE, because 15 guys with rocket launchers might somehow all 
> simultaneously miss me. :-P

    Oh, SURE, they can shoot your ass off with RL's, no problem. But you 
didn't arrive there with enough ammo to do what I said, so you would have no 
chance really. What you do do is: with your sniper rifle, take out the guy, 
(or there might be two of them, can't remember), to the right on the 
platform, and the guy to the left of you on that small platform, (near the 
mountainside). This will alert all the others because you've fired your 
sniper rifle. The rest all bundle together behind those tanks, and by then, 
you have reached the steps before turning the corner. You then take a deep 
breath and lob a grenade over the top of the tanks, they immediately start 
firing their RL's killing eachother, and to make things worse for them, you 
do a runner through them all. Seriously, I've done it, but that's the harder 
way, it's easier to do just by running through them.


>
>>> I BEAT FARCRY, BITCHES!!!
>>
>>    LoL! Enjoyable game eh? :o)
>
> It's certainly a lot different to, say HalfLife.
>
> In HalfLife, you methodically worth through a room at a time, killing 
> everything inside. (And almost everything killable makes enough racket 
> that you can tell when you're alone or not.)
>
> In FarCry, there generally aren't any "rooms". And even if there are, 
> people tend to wander around and follow you. The number of times I've gone 
> somewhere, killed everything, started looking around for ammo and stuff 
> and some guy has crept up from somewhere and frightened the living 
> daylights out of me!

   Yeah, it has its scary moments, that's true.


>
> Similarly, in many places in FarCry, killing *everything* would be 
> absurdly difficult, and your best bet is actually to sneak past without 
> firing a shot.

     Yep, that's what it's all about. I played stealthily nearly all of the 
time and I've had games where there are no enemies left whatsoever. I felt 
all alone, just like you Andrew.  ;)


>
> For example, the first time I played it, the second island with the radio 
> antenna was really hard. There's snipers and guys with rocket launchers 
> and all the rest of it. But then I reinstalled Windoze, and had to play 
> again from the beginning. This time, I swam underwater to the *back* of 
> the island, killed the three people guarding that end, and blew up the 
> radio tower. The snipers and rocket boys never even took a shot at me. ;-)

    Yes, I did that trick too, but with me, I went back and took 'em out! 
<eg>


>
> There seems to be quite a few points in the game where you can take... 
> obscure routes to improve your odds significantly.

     Yes, FC was good for this with very unlinear game-play, (apart from 
inside buildings, that is). Did you climb mountains? When I first played it, 
I didn't think you could, but if you find the right place, you can. ;)


>
> How old is this game BTW? The foliage rendering is quite impressive, but 
> many other things about the game look a little low-tech. (E.g., character 
> movements, the cutscenes, etc.)

    Four years old now, I think. 3d gaming has moved a notch up since 
though.


>
> BTW... sticky ladders, much?!

   Wuh... ?  O-O


>
>> Now play FarCry 2. Coming your way soon. It's supposed to be superb and 
>> made with the new Dunia engine.
>
> Uh... If it's a new game, then I doubt that a puny little GeForce 7900GT 
> is sufficiently powerful to run it.

     PLEASE SWAP ME YOUR 7900GT FOR MY 6600GT!! Heh... ;)

    I don't know why you keep moaning about this. I'm playing Crysis on mine 
with fairly good settings. Mostly medium, some low, and some high. I get 
around 10 to 18 fps which is 'playable'. Of, course, when I get some 'heavy' 
action, it will slow down even further, but it won't lock up, and I still 
continue.

    You know before playing a game that you can disable all of the services 
running in the background apart fom MS services? I don't normally do this, 
but when I have, I gain about 3-5 fps across the board.

     ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Oh, SURE, because 15 guys with rocket launchers might somehow all 
>> simultaneously miss me. :-P
> 
>     Oh, SURE, they can shoot your ass off with RL's, no problem. But you 
> didn't arrive there with enough ammo to do what I said, so you would have no 
> chance really. What you do do is: with your sniper rifle, take out the guy, 
> (or there might be two of them, can't remember), to the right on the 
> platform, and the guy to the left of you on that small platform, (near the 
> mountainside). This will alert all the others because you've fired your 
> sniper rifle. The rest all bundle together behind those tanks, and by then, 
> you have reached the steps before turning the corner. You then take a deep 
> breath and lob a grenade over the top of the tanks, they immediately start 
> firing their RL's killing eachother, and to make things worse for them, you 
> do a runner through them all. Seriously, I've done it, but that's the harder 
> way, it's easier to do just by running through them.

I couldn't *see* any of them until I rounded the corner. And then it's 
far too late. In the end, my winning strategy (I use the term "winning" 
very loosely) was to hurl grenades at random until most of them were dead...

>> For example, the first time I played it, the second island with the radio 
>> antenna was really hard. There's snipers and guys with rocket launchers 
>> and all the rest of it. But then I reinstalled Windoze, and had to play 
>> again from the beginning. This time, I swam underwater to the *back* of 
>> the island, killed the three people guarding that end, and blew up the 
>> radio tower. The snipers and rocket boys never even took a shot at me. ;-)
> 
>     Yes, I did that trick too, but with me, I went back and took 'em out! 
> <eg>

o_O

You scary man...

>> There seems to be quite a few points in the game where you can take... 
>> obscure routes to improve your odds significantly.
> 
>      Yes, FC was good for this with very unlinear game-play, (apart from 
> inside buildings, that is). Did you climb mountains? When I first played it, 
> I didn't think you could, but if you find the right place, you can. ;)

It's kind of interesting how the game tends to strongly hint to you that 
you should do one thing, when actually that's the "wrong" thing to do. 
Like on River, where there are spare boats everywhere. Just hop in one 
and watch yourself die repeatedly! :-P

HalfLife likes to use reverse psychology, but generally if there's a 
weapon or a vehicle, you need to use it or you'll fail horribly. FarCry 
isn't like that...

>> How old is this game BTW? The foliage rendering is quite impressive, but 
>> many other things about the game look a little low-tech. (E.g., character 
>> movements, the cutscenes, etc.)
> 
>     Four years old now, I think. 3d gaming has moved a notch up since 
> though.

Really? I thought it was older than that... Oh well!

>> BTW... sticky ladders, much?!
> 
>    Wuh... ?  O-O

That time-honoured tradition that once you're on a ladder, it's almost 
impossible to get off it. As if the ladder were physically "sticky". 
It's very irritating.

You know the end of Boat where you have to climb out the top? Can you 
****ing climb back in again? NO! Even getting out of the top is a 
struggle. The physics is so glitchy...

>> Uh... If it's a new game, then I doubt that a puny little GeForce 7900GT 
>> is sufficiently powerful to run it.
> 
>      PLEASE SWAP ME YOUR 7900GT FOR MY 6600GT!! Heh... ;)

Oh... my God... o_O

>     I don't know why you keep moaning about this. I'm playing Crysis on mine 
> with fairly good settings. Mostly medium, some low, and some high. I get 
> around 10 to 18 fps which is 'playable'. Of, course, when I get some 'heavy' 
> action, it will slow down even further, but it won't lock up, and I still 
> continue.

Wait - you're playing *Crysis*, the most insanely power-hungry computer 
game in history, on a GeForce 6 series? 0_0

My God... you poor, poor human. x_x

>     You know before playing a game that you can disable all of the services 
> running in the background apart fom MS services? I don't normally do this, 
> but when I have, I gain about 3-5 fps across the board.

Uh... that would kind of imply that the game is CPU-bound, which doesn't 
sound right.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Uh... that would kind of imply that the game is CPU-bound, which doesn't 
> sound right.

It really doesn't. Most services in Windows don't run most of the time, 
unless you're actually using them. Why would BITS or clipbook or the 
print spooler or the remote connection manager or anything like that be 
taking any noticable amount of time, unless skipping over blocked tasks 
in the scheduler was enough to cause problems? Even NTP only wakes up 
once a minute.

You might have some pretty aggressive services running - antivirus or 
something poorly written or some such?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:48a9e0ac$1@news.povray.org...
>>> Oh, SURE, because 15 guys with rocket launchers might somehow all 
>>> simultaneously miss me. :-P
>>
>>     Oh, SURE, they can shoot your ass off with RL's, no problem. But you 
>> didn't arrive there with enough ammo to do what I said, so you would have 
>> no chance really. What you do do is: with your sniper rifle, take out the 
>> guy, (or there might be two of them, can't remember), to the right on the 
>> platform, and the guy to the left of you on that small platform, (near 
>> the mountainside). This will alert all the others because you've fired 
>> your sniper rifle. The rest all bundle together behind those tanks, and 
>> by then, you have reached the steps before turning the corner. You then 
>> take a deep breath and lob a grenade over the top of the tanks, they 
>> immediately start firing their RL's killing eachother, and to make things 
>> worse for them, you do a runner through them all. Seriously, I've done 
>> it, but that's the harder way, it's easier to do just by running through 
>> them.
>
> I couldn't *see* any of them until I rounded the corner. And then it's far 
> too late. In the end, my winning strategy (I use the term "winning" very 
> loosely) was to hurl grenades at random until most of them were dead...

   LOL, well, I've done it that way too... :) You've got to have the ammo 
though...


>
>>> For example, the first time I played it, the second island with the 
>>> radio antenna was really hard. There's snipers and guys with rocket 
>>> launchers and all the rest of it. But then I reinstalled Windoze, and 
>>> had to play again from the beginning. This time, I swam underwater to 
>>> the *back* of the island, killed the three people guarding that end, and 
>>> blew up the radio tower. The snipers and rocket boys never even took a 
>>> shot at me. ;-)
>>
>>     Yes, I did that trick too, but with me, I went back and took 'em out! 
>> <eg>
>
> o_O
>
> You scary man...

  It was phun!! ;)


>
>>> There seems to be quite a few points in the game where you can take... 
>>> obscure routes to improve your odds significantly.
>>
>>      Yes, FC was good for this with very unlinear game-play, (apart from 
>> inside buildings, that is). Did you climb mountains? When I first played 
>> it, I didn't think you could, but if you find the right place, you can. 
>> ;)
>
> It's kind of interesting how the game tends to strongly hint to you that 
> you should do one thing, when actually that's the "wrong" thing to do. 
> Like on River, where there are spare boats everywhere. Just hop in one and 
> watch yourself die repeatedly! :-P

    I've NEVER completed River by using boats. I died every time I tried. 
I'm sure it is possible, if you're good enough to control them properly. 
Heck, I got to the last grunts in a boat, and then they killed me!! Hmm... 
If you do the stealth thing along the right-hand side of the river, you can 
take out most of the RL and sniper grunts leaving room to get to your 
destination. Hiding in the big waterfall helps too.



>
> HalfLife likes to use reverse psychology, but generally if there's a 
> weapon or a vehicle, you need to use it or you'll fail horribly. FarCry 
> isn't like that...
>
>>> How old is this game BTW? The foliage rendering is quite impressive, but 
>>> many other things about the game look a little low-tech. (E.g., 
>>> character movements, the cutscenes, etc.)
>>
>>     Four years old now, I think. 3d gaming has moved a notch up since 
>> though.
>
> Really? I thought it was older than that... Oh well!

     Just checked: released '04.


>
>>> BTW... sticky ladders, much?!
>>
>>    Wuh... ?  O-O
>
> That time-honoured tradition that once you're on a ladder, it's almost 
> impossible to get off it. As if the ladder were physically "sticky". It's 
> very irritating.

     You mean: "to jump off the ladder as and when you want"? Yes, I get it 
now. Unfortunately, that still happens in Crysis too. It's an animation when 
you climb ladders so there's nothing you can do to change that. (Unless you 
create a MOD that is!)  ;)




>
> You know the end of Boat where you have to climb out the top? Can you 
> ****ing climb back in again? NO! Even getting out of the top is a 
> struggle. The physics is so glitchy...

   I can't remember where this is. Are you sure it's at the end of 'Boat'? 
For what it's worth, I don't think I had any problems going back through the 
levels.


>
>>> Uh... If it's a new game, then I doubt that a puny little GeForce 7900GT 
>>> is sufficiently powerful to run it.
>>
>>      PLEASE SWAP ME YOUR 7900GT FOR MY 6600GT!! Heh... ;)
>
> Oh... my God... o_O
>
>>     I don't know why you keep moaning about this. I'm playing Crysis on 
>> mine with fairly good settings. Mostly medium, some low, and some high. I 
>> get around 10 to 18 fps which is 'playable'. Of, course, when I get some 
>> 'heavy' action, it will slow down even further, but it won't lock up, and 
>> I still continue.
>
> Wait - you're playing *Crysis*, the most insanely power-hungry computer 
> game in history, on a GeForce 6 series? 0_0

    Yes, seriously. I've played it *many* times now on this two year old 
6600GT. I can't stress enough that it 'PLAYS'. It plays well enough to enjoy 
it without ripping your GC out and stamping on it. Graphics Cards are weird. 
In the forums over at crymod.com, I've seen guys having trouble playing with 
their 8800GTX's. Why? I have no idea.  :o/

    Most don't, but some have. Go figure. <shrug>




>
> My God... you poor, poor human. x_x

   As I said: SWAP ME!  ;)



>
>>     You know before playing a game that you can disable all of the 
>> services running in the background apart fom MS services? I don't 
>> normally do this, but when I have, I gain about 3-5 fps across the board.
>
> Uh... that would kind of imply that the game is CPU-bound, which doesn't 
> sound right.

    No, it just clears some heavy memory for you as far as I understand it. 
(I might be wrong). Just make sure your internet isn't active though if you 
do it.

   ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

St. wrote:
>     No, it just clears some heavy memory for you as far as I understand it. 

Virtual memory, much? Maybe Windows' VM algorithm sucks, but I wouldn't 
think it sucks that bad. And you'd need to have a crapload of services 
running before the bookkeeping overhead started to take up noticable 
memory, methinks. On my machine, all the services put together are 100 
meg, which is about 4 times the size of explorer with no windows open. 
Assuming that "mem usage" actually means "in physical memory" and I 
don't have to subtract out the "vm size" to find the working set size. 
Not exactly "heavy memory" either way, methinks. :-)

You should try it and tell us how many FPS it saves you, for real.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:48aa1660@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>>     No, it just clears some heavy memory for you as far as I understand 
>> it.
>
> Virtual memory, much? Maybe Windows' VM algorithm sucks, but I wouldn't
> think it sucks that bad. And you'd need to have a crapload of services
> running before the bookkeeping overhead started to take up noticable
> memory, methinks. On my machine, all the services put together are 100
> meg, which is about 4 times the size of explorer with no windows open.
> Assuming that "mem usage" actually means "in physical memory" and I
> don't have to subtract out the "vm size" to find the working set size.
> Not exactly "heavy memory" either way, methinks. :-)

   Well, maybe not, but it does make a difference.

>
> You should try it and tell us how many FPS it saves you, for real.

   Sure. See the attached. This is quite a heavy scene from my map in the 
editor. Screen1_mem is with all services on. Screen2_mem is with only 9 
non-essential services turned off. I more or less managed to get the shots 
in the same position, but notice the difference. Now, when you're running 
along a clear road, I can see that being a good 3 to 5 fps gain, (probably 
more).

    ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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St. wrote:
>    Well, maybe not, but it does make a difference.

That's weird. I have no idea why it would make that much of a 
difference. I didn't think the Windows scheduler sucked that much. :-)

(It's not that I didn't believe you. It just wasn't clear to me from 
your earlier posts whether this was a first-hand experience or something 
you heard rumored somewhere.  Actually, reading it again, it is clear 
you said you personally experienced that. Sorry.)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:48aaeb70@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>>    Well, maybe not, but it does make a difference.
>
> That's weird. I have no idea why it would make that much of a difference. 
> I didn't think the Windows scheduler sucked that much. :-)

     Well, I didn't disable that. I left all windows services running and 
disabled ZA, AVG email scanner, AVG Watchdog, Google update service, 
Ad-Aware, Epson printer status, A-Squared free service, Office source engine 
and nVidia driver service(???).

     I guess you could also disable a lot of Windows services too, but you'd 
have to be careful (or at least I would), because some rely on others to 
work and I haven't got a clue as to what services rely on others.


>
> (It's not that I didn't believe you. It just wasn't clear to me from your 
> earlier posts whether this was a first-hand experience or something you 
> heard rumored somewhere.  Actually, reading it again, it is clear you said 
> you personally experienced that. Sorry.)

 Dang man! Now you've just killed my trolling! ;)  No need to apologise 
Darren, I'm not the brightest spark in an engine when it comes to computers 
that's for sure. But I continue to learn from you guys as best I can.  :)

   Here's something I learnt all by my very own self only an hour ago. 
Today, I bought a 500Gb external hard drive. I shoved all of my FarCry files 
(2 gigs)over to it, and all of my Crysis files (6 gigs) too. I then tested 
my map ingame after trying to sort out the first savepoint in my level. It 
*felt* even faster than it usually does! The savepoint didn't work, so I've 
done something wrong, but when I figure what it is and test it again, I'll 
get Fraps to show me the fps ingame. This is with all services on. Hmm, just 
getting rid of 8 gigs helps game performance? I'm not so sure about that, 
but it felt more 'fluid' if you like.

  See, that's the kind of thing that puzzles me about computers. <scratches 
rapidly balding head> Heh... ;)

     ~Steve~


>
> -- 
> Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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St. wrote:
>      Well, I didn't disable that.

I meant the process scheduler, not the service called "scheduler". :-)

> I left all windows services running and 
> disabled ZA, AVG email scanner, AVG Watchdog, Google update service, 
> Ad-Aware, Epson printer status, A-Squared free service, Office source engine 
> and nVidia driver service(???).

Oh, OK. Well, I guess the AV type stuff might be running more than you'd 
expect, and I wouldn't be surprised of the nVidia driver services were 
the problem. I almost always leave that sort of stuff turned off and 
never have a problem.  Lots of AV stuff is a performance suck.

>      I guess you could also disable a lot of Windows services too, but you'd 
> have to be careful (or at least I would), because some rely on others to 
> work and I haven't got a clue as to what services rely on others.

Well, it's all listed, and turning it off tells you what else it'll 
disable. Knowing what they're *for* is another question. And it won't 
let you turn off the stuff you need to run windows at all.

> but it felt more 'fluid' if you like.

"Feelings" is what I was trying to avoid, especially when the game will 
show you the actual measured results. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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St. wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
> news:48aaeb70@news.povray.org...
>> St. wrote:
>>>    Well, maybe not, but it does make a difference.
>> That's weird. I have no idea why it would make that much of a difference. 
>> I didn't think the Windows scheduler sucked that much. :-)
> 
>      Well, I didn't disable that. I left all windows services running and 
> disabled ZA, AVG email scanner, AVG Watchdog, Google update service, 
> Ad-Aware, Epson printer status, A-Squared free service, Office source engine 
> and nVidia driver service(???).
> 


AVG is an absolute bear for system resources. Back at the end of last 
year when I got Portal, I couldn't run it at all. I would get to some 
complex location in the map, and would land on the desktop with a system 
message about not being able to get a texture lock. Quick search of the 
net, most of the people complaining were using AVG. Turns out, AVG had a 
tendency to acquire lots of mutex objects in the OS part of ram, so many 
infact that a moderately well programmed game would have to fault 
because it couldn't get a lock.

Several patches from both sides have fixed the issue, but I wouldn't be 
surprised if it still slowed things down as the OS paged those mutex in 
and out of virtual ram.

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:48ab1740$1@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>>      Well, I didn't disable that.
>
> I meant the process scheduler, not the service called "scheduler". :-)

    Ah, I see.


>
>> I left all windows services running and disabled ZA, AVG email scanner, 
>> AVG Watchdog, Google update service, Ad-Aware, Epson printer status, 
>> A-Squared free service, Office source engine and nVidia driver 
>> service(???).
>
> Oh, OK. Well, I guess the AV type stuff might be running more than you'd 
> expect, and I wouldn't be surprised of the nVidia driver services were the 
> problem.


 You think? I'm surprised that I could play the game at all if the nVidia 
services were turned off. See? Confused.



 I almost always leave that sort of stuff turned off and
> never have a problem.  Lots of AV stuff is a performance suck.

    Yes, this is one thing I knew, but to be fair, AVG is good. If I've had 
a proper virus at all, (that actually infected my computer), then I know it 
was my fault. Everything else in nearly 10 years, AVG has dealt with.




>
>>      I guess you could also disable a lot of Windows services too, but 
>> you'd have to be careful (or at least I would), because some rely on 
>> others to work and I haven't got a clue as to what services rely on 
>> others.
>
> Well, it's all listed, and turning it off tells you what else it'll 
> disable. Knowing what they're *for* is another question. And it won't let 
> you turn off the stuff you need to run windows at all.

   Oh, thanks for that! I was frightened to actually try anything to do with 
Windows services in case I messed something up. I'll have a play... gulp.


>
>> but it felt more 'fluid' if you like.
>
> "Feelings" is what I was trying to avoid, especially when the game will 
> show you the actual measured results. :-)

       Yeah, I know what you're saying. Maybe the removal of 8 gigs hasn't 
actually helped speed up the game, and maybe my map is actually quite 
playable on low end machines. Anyway, I'll know soon because it's not far 
from being finished, and the young 'uns over at crymod will soon tell me. 
Heh...  ;)

     ~Steve~



>
> -- 
> Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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St. wrote:
>  You think? I'm surprised that I could play the game at all if the nVidia 
> services were turned off. See? Confused.

My experience is that most of the video "drivers" stuff is really 
basically compensation for driver flaws more than anything. I've *never* 
run that, and usually never had a game that had a problem. (And starting 
the service before the game never fixed the problem.)   Indeed, I've 
never figured out what it's for. Maybe high-end stuff like color matching.

>     Yes, this is one thing I knew, but to be fair, AVG is good.

Yeah. I use it, but only on an on-demand basis. I usually do a scan 
before a full backup, is all.

>    Oh, thanks for that! I was frightened to actually try anything to do with 
> Windows services in case I messed something up. I'll have a play... gulp.

Well, at worst, stop it, and if it screws soemthing up, reboot.  But 
generally, if you will crash the machine by stopping it, Windows won't 
let you.

> Heh...  ;)

Good luck on that!

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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St. wrote:
> I get around 10 to 18 fps which is 'playable'.

o_O

Anything less than 30 consistently gives me rather bad headaches.  I try 
to keep things running at 50+, though (obviously, 75+ is best, but not 
feasible for me on modern games).

To my eye (and my headaches!), games look better with low resolution and 
low graphics but high framerates.  After all, I'm not sitting and 
looking at individual frames.

...Chambers

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>> I get around 10 to 18 fps which is 'playable'.
> 
> o_O

You've never played Quake II on a Pentium 233 MHz with 16 MB RAM and no 
3D hardware, have you?

> Anything less than 30 consistently gives me rather bad headaches.  I try 
> to keep things running at 50+, though (obviously, 75+ is best, but not 
> feasible for me on modern games).

Uh-huh. And you understand that your monitor only physically draws 60 
frames each second anyway, right?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> Uh-huh. And you understand that your monitor only physically draws 60 
> frames each second anyway, right?

Not if you still have a CRT, my old CRT used to go up to 120 Hz and man that 
looked smoooooooth if you could get a game running at 120 Hz (and yes, you 
can tell the difference between 60 and 120 Hz refresh, IIRC above about 85 
Hz you don't notice any difference).

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> The fact of the matter is, if you were on an island surrounded by highly 
> trained mercinaries and you were armed only with a pistol, you wouldn't 
> last five seconds.

But you're a highly trained military type guy too, and you're taking them 
all by surprise.  Besides, it's not like they have an army anywhere, there's 
rarely more than a dozen of them in one area or more than a couple standing 
next to each other.  And once you've shot one of them, you have the same gun 
they do ;-)

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>> Uh-huh. And you understand that your monitor only physically draws 60 
>> frames each second anyway, right?
> 
> Not if you still have a CRT, my old CRT used to go up to 120 Hz and man 
> that looked smoooooooth if you could get a game running at 120 Hz (and 
> yes, you can tell the difference between 60 and 120 Hz refresh, IIRC 
> above about 85 Hz you don't notice any difference).

Well let me put it this way: *I* can't tell the difference between 50 
Hz, 60 Hz and 75 Hz. They all look the same to me.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> The fact of the matter is, if you were on an island surrounded by 
>> highly trained mercinaries and you were armed only with a pistol, you 
>> wouldn't last five seconds.
> 
> But you're a highly trained military type guy too, and you're taking 
> them all by surprise.  Besides, it's not like they have an army 
> anywhere, there's rarely more than a dozen of them in one area or more 
> than a couple standing next to each other.  And once you've shot one of 
> them, you have the same gun they do ;-)

I double you'd last long against sniper rifles and rocket launchers. ;-)

Actually, I'm waiting for the day when computer games will portray this 
realistically. It's like HL2:DM. 12 guys run around inside a crumbling 
dungeon hurling grenades and using rocket launchers. And after 20 
minutes, the map itself just has a few bullet holes. Obviously, if you 
did this in a *real* crumbling dungeon, there would be walls missing and 
so forth! But no game seems to have managed to do this yet... Presumably 
having a completely deformable map is just too much of a technical 
challenge right now.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
>>> Uh-huh. And you understand that your monitor only physically draws 60 
>>> frames each second anyway, right?
>>
>> Not if you still have a CRT, my old CRT used to go up to 120 Hz and 
>> man that looked smoooooooth if you could get a game running at 120 Hz 
>> (and yes, you can tell the difference between 60 and 120 Hz refresh, 
>> IIRC above about 85 Hz you don't notice any difference).
> 
> Well let me put it this way: *I* can't tell the difference between 50 
> Hz, 60 Hz and 75 Hz. They all look the same to me.
> 

I always kept my CRTs running at above 60Hz. For some reason, staring at 
60Hz or lower just makes me queezy.

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Invisible wrote:
>>> I get around 10 to 18 fps which is 'playable'.
>>
>> o_O
> 
> You've never played Quake II on a Pentium 233 MHz with 16 MB RAM and no 
> 3D hardware, have you?

No, but only because I never *had* a Pentium 233 :)  I went straight 
form a Pentium 166 to an AMD K6-2 300 (or 350, can't remember now).

>> Anything less than 30 consistently gives me rather bad headaches.  I 
>> try to keep things running at 50+, though (obviously, 75+ is best, but 
>> not feasible for me on modern games).
> 
> Uh-huh. And you understand that your monitor only physically draws 60 
> frames each second anyway, right?

Actually, it draws 75 per second :)

Besides, this is something I've found I'm more sensitive to as I age. 
Sure, I *used* to play all those old games that ran at, like, 20-30fps, 
but I can't *anymore*.

...Chambers

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Invisible wrote:
> Actually, I'm waiting for the day when computer games will portray this 
> realistically. It's like HL2:DM. 12 guys run around inside a crumbling 
> dungeon hurling grenades and using rocket launchers. And after 20 
> minutes, the map itself just has a few bullet holes. Obviously, if you 
> did this in a *real* crumbling dungeon, there would be walls missing and 
> so forth! But no game seems to have managed to do this yet... Presumably 
> having a completely deformable map is just too much of a technical 
> challenge right now.

Wasn't there one a few years ago, Red Storm or something like that?  It 
was, IIRC, made by a group of Russion grad students, and the story was 
about miners on Mars revolting.

Completely deformable maps.  The demo let you blow a house to pieces, 
and make a larger and larger crater as you threw rockets at it :)

...Chambers

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>> Actually, I'm waiting for the day when computer games will portray 
>> this realistically. It's like HL2:DM. 12 guys run around inside a 
>> crumbling dungeon hurling grenades and using rocket launchers. And 
>> after 20 minutes, the map itself just has a few bullet holes. 
>> Obviously, if you did this in a *real* crumbling dungeon, there would 
>> be walls missing and so forth! But no game seems to have managed to do 
>> this yet... Presumably having a completely deformable map is just too 
>> much of a technical challenge right now.
> 
> Wasn't there one a few years ago, Red Storm or something like that?  It 
> was, IIRC, made by a group of Russion grad students, and the story was 
> about miners on Mars revolting.
> 
> Completely deformable maps.  The demo let you blow a house to pieces, 
> and make a larger and larger crater as you threw rockets at it :)

Actually, thinking about it... LEMINGS!!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> 12 guys run around inside a crumbling
> dungeon hurling grenades and using rocket launchers. And after 20 
> minutes, the map itself just has a few bullet holes.

http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-07-17

But nobody would play a realistic video game. Most people don't have the 
training to play a realistic video game. And you'd need a whole bunch of 
people together to do it properly.  (Think Quake II, where the first 
thing that happens is you're cut off from all your teammates, and you go 
the whole rest of the game without meeting anyone else.)

A realistic video game is "Boom! Headshot!  Game over, and you don't get 
to play again."

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> 12 guys run around inside a crumbling
>> dungeon hurling grenades and using rocket launchers. And after 20 
>> minutes, the map itself just has a few bullet holes.
> 
> http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-07-17
> 
> But nobody would play a realistic video game. Most people don't have the 
> training to play a realistic video game. And you'd need a whole bunch of 
> people together to do it properly.  (Think Quake II, where the first 
> thing that happens is you're cut off from all your teammates, and you go 
> the whole rest of the game without meeting anyone else.)
> 
> A realistic video game is "Boom! Headshot!  Game over, and you don't get 
> to play again."

You just described Insurgency.

You get to play again, but other than that it's just like a real war - 
i.e., not fun. It takes hours to walk anywhere. You can only run for a 
few seconds before you get breathless. When you're breathless, your aim 
is even more horrible than usual. There is no crosshair on the screen. 
You *can* look down the barrel of the gun, but then you can't see 
anything around you. And the gun dances all over the place as soon as 
you pull the trigger.

Most importantly, you wander around for hours not seeing any other 
players. You can *hear* gunshots coming from somewhere, but there are no 
people. At some point, as you walk towards the sounds of gunfire, you 
will suddenly drop dead for no apparent reason. The problem is that 4.8 
miles away, there's a sniper hidden behind some bushes. (This is 
probably beyond the max draw distance of the game engine.)

In short, it's a game that must have taken a vast amount of time and 
effort to develop (it's a community mod, not a commercial game), but 
it's completely boring and pointless. You just walk around until you 
drop dead. You won't even *see* another player to actually shoot at. 
You'll just drop dead suddenly.

It *does* have one redeeming feature though: If you play as US Marines, 
when you reload this gaunt voice mumbles "changing mags". If you play as 
the Iraqui Insurgents, an Arabic voice yells "rrrrrreloading!"

Funniest. Thing. Ever!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Chambers wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Actually, I'm waiting for the day when computer games will portray 
>> this realistically. It's like HL2:DM. 12 guys run around inside a 
>> crumbling dungeon hurling grenades and using rocket launchers. And 
>> after 20 minutes, the map itself just has a few bullet holes. 
>> Obviously, if you did this in a *real* crumbling dungeon, there would 
>> be walls missing and so forth! But no game seems to have managed to do 
>> this yet... Presumably having a completely deformable map is just too 
>> much of a technical challenge right now.
> 
> Wasn't there one a few years ago, Red Storm or something like that?  It 
> was, IIRC, made by a group of Russion grad students, and the story was 
> about miners on Mars revolting.
> 
> Completely deformable maps.  The demo let you blow a house to pieces, 
> and make a larger and larger crater as you threw rockets at it :)
> 
> ...Chambers

I think the game you mean is Red Faction. It wasn't completely 
deformable, though. There were sections of walls that could be blown up, 
parts of a hallway wall could be knocked down with just grenades, others 
would seem to be impervious to everything short of a rocket launcher.

It was a pretty good change to gameplay when it was released. I remember 
a few LAN games when someone would find a new part of the wall that 
could be removed, and gain a sudden advantage.

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> Chambers wrote:
>> Wasn't there one a few years ago, Red Storm or something like that?  
>> It was, IIRC, made by a group of Russion grad students, and the story 
>> was about miners on Mars revolting.
>>
>> ...Chambers
> 
> I think the game you mean is Red Faction.

Ah yes, that's the one :)

I never played the retail game, though.  I might have to get around to that.

...Chambers

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