redford

The question is raised if 2gb of ram should be the standard for games today. The answer, unfortuately is yes, but here's my gripe:

The reason so much ram is needed is because games are programmed so bad the code eats up memory (unoptimzed). There really is no need to use more than 1gb of ram in games given the graphics we are getting, but publisher's frequently rush developers and then stiff us on performance patches. I'm sick of it frankly.

Publisher's need to survey gamer's computers and make games accordingly so that those of use that are 1-2 deviations above the mean can enjoy great gaming with max settings and high resolutions and still achieve decent fps.

EQ2, FEAR, CoD2, BF2, Oblivion and now GRAW - all great games that are badly optimized. The trend while continue I'm afraid and when Vista drops, the new standard will probably be 4gb (thx to dual channel).

Funny how Doom 3 based games run so smooth and look so much better with half the specs those games require. Dev's take note from iD (not for gameplay though ).

Nero

The Source Engine also seems to be pretty scalable.

Nimbus

Wait till Vista comes out

Augustes

I agree because I think we got ****ed with GRAW. The 360 version looks and feels better. I bought the 360 version for my bother just to play around until the definitive version came along which I thought the PC version would be. Negative! The PC version lools like brown mess compared to the 360 version, almost night and day. I am no graphics ***** but I am pissed the advanced features of the game are looked out to users using less that a 512mb card coupled with the fact even if you have one it doesnt look any better the 360 version. It really hurts.

Nimbus

The problem is that you want great graphics at top speeds, which just isnt going to happen.

DOOM3 ran so great because it was small enviroments with the same textures constantly and only 2-3 enemies on screen at the same time. Honestly it doesn't compare to what FEAR, COD2 and even EQ2 try to accomplish...

Hell, To even compare D3 to Oblivion is foolish... Oblivions graphics are leaps ahead of D3s which were nothing special even when they originally released.

Your just not realistic, its always been this way. Games improve on graphics that the PCs cant keep up. Look at when Tribes or EQ originally released, Voodoo2s were having a very tough time with them...

Nero

So you're saying it's acceptable to get 40fps in Oblivion indoors on a 7900GT. I feel sorry for the average user who only has a 6600gt.

redford

Yes because its a brand new game... You want 60+ FPS on a game that looks better then all other games on the market. What would be the point in nvidia and ati releasing new hardware if all games could run 60+ FPS on any hardware and look just as good...

The point of gaming on a PC is the always evolve, it has always been. Software is what pushes the hardware to get better. The next cards to release will run Oblivion like a dream so then the developers make another game that brings it down and so on...

Does it suck? Yeah but no one is forcing you to run at the max settings, thats why its customizable and even has a min and recommend system specs...

EDIT: My roommate has a 6600GT, he has played all the games released just happily. Does he max the games out? No but it doesn't bother him. People with low end cards aren't like you and me who try to achieve the best image quality by tweaking their system to its peak performance but rather they are casual players or people who are just happy with default settings.

Stop being a little baby...

Augustes

How do you optimize a game that has 6gb of content (compressed and not in use) so that it uses less ram?

I can understand the complaints about some games not feeling optimized correctly but high memory usage isnt the first thing Id consider an optimization problem.

Oblivion doesnt use that much memory at all (by default). In my opinion, the main problem with the game (or the gamebryo engine overall I guess, since Morrowind ran the same) is the poor way it deals with huge amounts of models and layers of things that arent visible (ie, 20 npcs and hundreds of objects on the other side of a wall, all being fully rendered and calculated even though you cant see them). Both games suffer from unnecesarily poor performance because of this. But neither game uses much memory compaired to other games.

Sorta lost my train of thought a bit (left and came back to finish this post an hour later ) but I think I got the point across.

Games are getting huge. RAM is cheap. IMO its a much better idea to just let a game use more memory than it is to make it use less memory and look like crap (because of excessive compression or sacrificing texture resolution or polygon counts).

Nero

I just personally am a bit ticked at the crappy port work from console to pc for the 360. Microsoft specifically made it a point to make sure it was a very easy port from 360 to pc and 1.) Not many developers are using it 2.) 75% of the ones that are, simply throw it onto PC with no tweaking, no optimizing, just raw .... ::cough cough king kong, tomb raider legends cough cough ::

Now sure Quake 4 and COD2 run well, but they were focused for PC, not ported over.

Every port i've tried except condmened has run like crap, and my theory behind condemned is it's running better because of the box screen. But you know what, i'd take box screen ports with speed over slow arse crap.

redford

This thread needs to be closed, its not going to lead to anything other then arguments and flames.