It's a high-res screenshot thread (1680x1050 and above, ctrl+v here)

[Murgos]

[Engels]

what game is that Murgos?

[Murgos]

X3 Terran Conflict

[schild]

Anno 1404. Now known as "Dawn of Discovery."

[ffc]

Those Anno pics need spoiler tags.

Is the game crazy hard?  I was looking forward to the Wii release but after seeing your screens the Wii version looks a bit underwhelming.  

Plus the Wii preview clip mentioned "accessible" and "easy" a thousand times, giving me the impression it is a very watered down experience from whatever the PC version is.

[schild]

The Wii version is going to be crap.

Crazy hard? No, not really. Involved, sure, it's a management sim.

[Sky]

The early Anno games were tough as balls imo. I never really hit the web for tutorials or anything, may have made them easier. I used to think of the game as the race to make tools before your economy imploded. Horridly documented games, but I loved 'em. Still need to pick up the new one, waiting for the gold package to hit $20.

[Murgos]

The Wii version is going to be crap.

Crazy hard? No, not really. Involved, sure, it's a management sim.

Are you going to BIIF it once it's officially released?

[Soln]

what are people's PC builds to produce this deliciousness?

[Sky]

I'm the step-child with my 720p shots, but my e6600/4GB/8800GTX crushes that res with most things not called EQ2.

[schild]

Q9450, 8800GT, 4GB DDR2 (whatever the high speed stuff shit is).

I run _EVERYTHING_ at 1920x1200 but I don't turn on AA or QSAA or FSAA because I don't like my edges looking like they're covered in Vaseline.

Leaving that stuff off lets me run everything else on Very High in pretty much everything, which is nice. And by pretty much everything, I mean anything that isn't Crysis. Crysis is uninspired crap anyway so I don't mind.

[Yegolev]

Intel Core2 6400, GF 9800GTX+

I need more RAM.  3GB is for babies.

[schild]

I'm the step-child with my 720p shots, but my e6600/4GB/8800GTX crushes that res with most things not called EQ2.

There is no reason you shouldn't be able to run EQ2 with max everything on that system at 720p. In fact, you should be able to run EVERYTHING at max everything at 720p. I think your computer has cancer.

[Murgos]

Nah, I have an 8800GTS, 4GB and e6600 and I couldn't max absolutely everything in EQ2 last time I played.  I think some of those sliders enable things that never got developed by the card makers because the tech was superseded by some new shiny.

[schild]

Nah, I have an 8800GTS, 4GB and e6600 and I couldn't max absolutely everything in EQ2 last time I played.  I think some of those sliders enable things that never got developed by the card makers because the tech was superseded by some new shiny.

At 1280x720 you sure as shit should have been able to.

[Murgos]

Nah, I have an 8800GTS, 4GB and e6600 and I couldn't max absolutely everything in EQ2 last time I played.  I think some of those sliders enable things that never got developed by the card makers because the tech was superseded by some new shiny.

At 1280x720 you sure as shit should have been able to.

Fair point, I was playing at 1680x1050.

[schild]

Nah, I have an 8800GTS, 4GB and e6600 and I couldn't max absolutely everything in EQ2 last time I played.  I think some of those sliders enable things that never got developed by the card makers because the tech was superseded by some new shiny.

At 1280x720 you sure as shit should have been able to.

Fair point, I was playing at 1680x1050.

Even at 1680x1050, nearly everything should be maxed. Seriously. Check your drivers, defrag, clean up your harddrive. Install games to a different partition / physical hardware. You're underperforming son, maybe the comp some digital v|@gr@.

[Sky]

Schild, have you actually set everything in EQ2 to max and attended a large raid or better yet, sat around a very busy city area? I do run it pretty much maxed out, except in a few situations, either very crowded, very active (lots of spell effects) or the odd unoptimized zone (Pillar of Flames was pretty crappy performance).

But yeah, thanks for the advice a 2yr old could give.

[schild]

Schild, have you actually set everything in EQ2 to max and attended a large raid or better yet, sat around a very busy city area? I do run it pretty much maxed out, except in a few situations, either very crowded, very active (lots of spell effects) or the odd unoptimized zone (Pillar of Flames was pretty crappy performance).

But yeah, thanks for the advice a 2yr old could give.

Still pretty comfortable saying it's on your end and not the game at 1280x720. I don't think you're quite grasping how ridiculously low that resolution is now.

Edit: The bottleneck may not be the processor or graphics card, it could be a fragged to hell HDD, could be a number of things, but on paper there's no reason that computer can't deal with a large raid in EQ2. What is that, like 20-30 people?

[Lantyssa]

No, there's actually some options which will kill any system.  I think it's one of the lighting sliders if I remember correctly.  I can crank anything else, but if that one goes above 25, my machine dies.  60 fps -> 1 fps.  It happens within the span of about five ticks with lots to go above it, so it's just poor optimization.

(Outside I could raise it a bit more, but not much.  I always tested in Neriak since if I could run there, I could run anywhere.)

[Venkman]

I never really thought EQ2 looked that great with max settings anyway. But that's more a style opinion than anything else.

Awesome shots here. Mine usually suck, but here's one I liked from AoC launch-ish.

[Stormwaltz]

Since Schild LOL'ed at LotRO looking like Oblivion, I feel it appropriate to post a few from each game. All images behind the links are 1600x1200.

Oblivion (modded to hell):


LotRO:

[Le0]

Anno looks really promising, on many aspects and I'm looking forward to trying it also I liked the older games from the franchise.
Always amazed me how LOTRO can look as good compared to some other MMO, they have done a really nice job on this engine, just a shame I could not get very far in the game before getting bored.

[Sky]

How do I defrag my hard drive?

[Mrbloodworth]

I keep forgetting to post images in here.

[Venkman]

@Stormwaltz: Are those with mods or standard?

How do I defrag my hard drive?

WinXP? Go to Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Defragmenter. Works ok,  but there are better programs, like Defraggler

WinVista? Get a program. The defrag tool in Vista is retarded.

[Sky]

[schild]

That guy falling into the chasm looks like he was running like the red spy. I say the red spy because I'm a dashing blue rogue.

[Venkman]

Eh bite me. Had a long week. Although I did think it strange that you wouldn't know how...

[Stormwaltz]

@Stormwaltz: Are those with mods or standard?

Modded to hell. The major visual ones I use are:

Qarl's Texture Pack 3
Better Tiling 2048x2048 landscape LODs for QTP3
Weather - All Natural
Really Almost Everything Visible When Distant.

I also use a combination of Enhanced Water and Alive Waters.

Do note that this combination can tax even my ubermachine (QTP + RAEVWD = OMG). Lesser gaming rigs should avoid.

[SnakeCharmer]

Since Schild LOL'ed at LotRO looking like Oblivion, I feel it appropriate to post a few from each game. All images behind the links are 1600x1200.

Oblivion (modded to hell):

Holy crap that's beautiful.

[Venkman]

@Stormwaltz: Are those with mods or standard?

Modded to hell. The major visual ones I use are:

Qarl's Texture Pack 3
Better Tiling 2048x2048 landscape LODs for QTP3
Weather - All Natural
Really Almost Everything Visible When Distant.

I also use a combination of Enhanced Water and Alive Waters.

Do note that this combination can tax even my ubermachine (QTP + RAEVWD = OMG). Lesser gaming rigs should avoid.

Ok thanks. I've gotten a bunch of mods. I never really played Oblivion except at E3 2007, so since it was so cheap on Steam now, I picked it up. It's nice enough looking by default but the Steam forums are talking about all these mods. Quite a few so I'm going to start with your list. I'm not interested in game changers, just look changers.

Partly because I want to push my finally-now-functioning/upgraded PC. Graphics card is still a bit old (8800 GTS 640mb), but that's what the "push" part is for

[Yegolev]

Get an interface mod.  Really.  Doesn't matter which one.

[Stormwaltz]

Get an interface mod.  Really.  Doesn't matter which one.

Agreed.

I use BTMod (you may prefer wz_Inventory) and Immersive Interface (a highly polished installer with many options).

[Venkman]

Ok, so this is me redownloading Oblivion. I don't know what I broke, but broke it was.

I need to tiptoe into this more slowly. I want Qarl's textures, but the install procedure looked a bit questionable. Is it as complicated as it looks? I've no problem trying to figure it out, I just want to do it the right way, particularly since even just the five mods you listed have completely different install methods.