What Video Game are you Currently Playing?

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

Anyone familiar with overclocking video cards? I want to get better performance but I don't want to risk destroying my video card. Any safe way to do this? Is it even worth the risk?

I went into the AMD Overdrive menu, and set everything to full including the fan speed all at once and it started freezing and artifacting for like 30 seconds, but then it seemed to calm down, but I put it back to stock settings just to be safe.

[jschild]

Originally Posted by ParaGoomba Slayer

Anyone familiar with overclocking video cards? I want to get better performance but I don't want to risk destroying my video card. Any safe way to do this? Is it even worth the risk?

I went into the AMD Overdrive menu, and set everything to full including the fan speed all at once and it started freezing and artifacting for like 30 seconds, but then it seemed to calm down, but I put it back to stock settings just to be safe.

Go into your CCC and Overdrive menu.

Next select Test custom Clocks...

There is an option there called Auto-Tune.

That is the safest way to speed up your card but it won't be dramatic.

Turning off shadows in most games is a huge help, same with bloom.

Turning off AA or lowering it will help as well.

['Scaper94]

@jschild: I may try that too, thanks for posting that info. I was surprised last night when I found out that my laptop (which is getting pretty full of files) can handle Oblivion on the ultra-high graphics setting, with little-to-no lag.

Speaking of which, I'm loving Oblivion! I can tell it was made around the time of Fallout New Vegas, because of the graphics. Fun game, very pretty environment, unless you're on low graphics. I've not found any Minotaurs yet, luckily. Surprisingly, I'm level 4 and I haven't died yet.

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

Steam Summer sale (99% chance) starts tomorrow. Numerous factors indicate that tomorrow is the day. I don't feel like providing sources, but trust me, I hawk over the Steam Summer Sale 2012 thread on the official Steam forums a lot.

-It hasn't happened yet, but it has been confirmed to be coming sometime this summer by a Valve staff member. So this means it's coming for sure sometime in the future.

-A developer of the game Cubemen stated on the forums that the Steam Summer Sale is going from July 12th - July 23rd. Upon being asked for confirmation, he said that this is a guess (probably to cover his ass). Apparently the thread where he leaked the Summer Sale date has been deleted. [tinfoilhat]COVER UP[/tinfoilhat]

-The time sensitive TF2 Pyromania update items (scorched keys, scorched items, scorched crates) vanish on the 11th, which is today. A new Left 4 Dead 2 DLC campaign is planned for release on the 24th of July. Notice how these two dates correspond with the Summer Sale start and end dates leaked by the Cubemen dev.

Originally Posted by jschild

Go into your CCC and Overdrive menu.

Next select Test custom Clocks...

There is an option there called Auto-Tune.

That is the safest way to speed up your card but it won't be dramatic.

Turning off shadows in most games is a huge help, same with bloom.

Turning off AA or lowering it will help as well.

Thanks, I'll have to try that. I can get a steady 60 FPS in Team Fortress 2, but when I'm in intense combat sometimes it will dip to like 40 or even 30 FPS. If I could stay as close to 60 FPS as possible consistently, that would be great.

Usually I'm running the lowest possible settings anyways. You should see me run Red Orchestra 2, I followed an online guide on how to edit the game's config files to almost completely get rid of shadows and to make everything else look ****ty so it makes seeing people easier. Made the mistake of talking about it on my favorite server, got kicked because the admin considers it cheating.

[Eraguy816]

Robin hood!!

[Altron_ZERO]

Originally Posted by ParaGoomba Slayer

Steam Summer sale (99% chance) starts tomorrow. Numerous factors indicate that tomorrow is the day. I don't feel like providing sources, but trust me, I hawk over the Steam Summer Sale 2012 thread on the official Steam forums a lot.

-It hasn't happened yet, but it has been confirmed to be coming sometime this summer by a Valve staff member. So this means it's coming for sure sometime in the future.

-A developer of the game Cubemen stated on the forums that the Steam Summer Sale is going from July 12th - July 23rd. Upon being asked for confirmation, he said that this is a guess (probably to cover his ass). Apparently the thread where he leaked the Summer Sale date has been deleted. [tinfoilhat]COVER UP[/tinfoilhat]

-The time sensitive TF2 Pyromania update items (scorched keys, scorched items, scorched crates) vanish on the 11th, which is today. A new Left 4 Dead 2 DLC campaign is planned for release on the 24th of July. Notice how these two dates correspond with the Summer Sale start and end dates leaked by the Cubemen dev.

Thanks, I'll have to try that. I can get a steady 60 FPS in Team Fortress 2, but when I'm in intense combat sometimes it will dip to like 40 or even 30 FPS. If I could stay as close to 60 FPS as possible consistently, that would be great.

Usually I'm running the lowest possible settings anyways. You should see me run Red Orchestra 2, I followed an online guide on how to edit the game's config files to almost completely get rid of shadows and to make everything else look ****ty so it makes seeing people easier. Made the mistake of talking about it on my favorite server, got kicked because the admin considers it cheating.

If youre trying to get TF2 to run a little smoother overclocking your gpu may not be the best way although it still can help. TF2 is very processor heavy and you'd get better results from overclocking your cpu (which is way easier). Theres also a mod somewhere that I saw a while back that will change all the textures to a extremely low res state, lower than you can make it go in the options menu. I'm not sure what it was called though and I'm having trouble finding it atm.

[Altron_ZERO]

Actually I just found it, It makes the game look like its on the N64 lol.

http://gamebanana.com/skins/78349

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

Anyone get anything in the Steam Sales? Before the sale started I only wanted to get the ARMA 2 + expansion pack bundle so I could play Day Z with some friends and Mirror's Edge, with a possibility of Portal 2.

So far I've bought Portal 2, Worms: Reloaded, and I bought my sister the Missing Link DLC for Deus Ex: HR and she paid me back. I also bought my friend The Binding of Isaac and its expansion and he's going to pay me back. I'm waiting for Mirror's Edge and the ARMA 2 bundle to get further discounts to purchase. The Valve merchandise store is also having a summer sale, and I picked up a TF2 mousepad.

Previous to Steam's summer sale, I bought Sniper Elite V2, Binary Domain, and 2 copies of PAYDAY: The Heist (one for a friend, who is paying me back) off of Amazon.com's July digital summer sale and activated them all on Steam.

Let's see how much I've pillaged my wallet so far (the person who owes me money is trustworthy and will pay me back, so I won't count the money I spent on his games):

PAYDAY: The Heist - $5
Binary Domain - $10
Sniper Elite V2 - $15
Portal 2 - $5
Worms: Reloaded - $5
Team Fortress 2 mouse pad - ~$11 (including shipping)

$51 so far, with Mirror's Edge and the ARMA 2 bundle to go. *cringe*

PAYDAY is a fun co-op game. Like Left 4 Dead or Killing Floor, except you can rob a bank or blow up a bridge to rescue prisoners who are being transported across it or try to steal a gang's closet sized safe by blowing a whole in the roof and lifting it up with a helicopter. Plus it has an addicting level up system.

Binary Domain was too easy even on the hard difficulty, except for the annoying bosses. It's pretty much an inferior Gears of War with annoying bosses with nearly invincible weak points that flail around wildly so you cant hit them (albeit with a cooler setting). I don't mind a long grueling battle with a boss, but when there is no health bar to tell me how much health it has left its annoying.

Sniper Elite V2 is pretty fun, the slow mo internal shots of the bullet going through organs and whatnot are pretty cool.

Portal 2 is fun. Borrowed it from a (former) friend for the 360 after it came out and played through the co-op and half of the single player.

I figured I'd like to play a 2D online Worms game, so I got Worms: Reloaded. I have Worms World Party on PS1 which is fun and since 2D Worms games have been carbon copies of each other for the past 15 years, I'm pretty sure its a great game. Worms 3D and Worms 4: Mayhem are still the best Worms game though.

**** yeah Team Fortress 2 mousepad.

Originally Posted by Altron_ZERO

Actually I just found it, It makes the game look like its on the N64 lol.

http://gamebanana.com/skins/78349

Yeah, I'll have to try those out again. I used to use files like those when I played TF2 on my laptop (which would get like 15 FPS).

[DrAwsm]

I bought Terraria, and my brother gifted me Worms: Reloaded from the Steam Sale. I was planning on getting Wrath of the Lamb (the Binding of Isaac expansion pack), but my mom's PayPal was being weird and I missed out on the sale for that. The only other thing I'm hoping will go on sale is Sonic Adventure DX because there's a possibility of it going for $2.49, but we'll see.

Terraria's quite a bit of fun. Exploring the land on top is loads of fun, but I've yet to brave the depths of the world in search for better ores and treasure chests. Should be an interesting venture...

Worms: Reloaded is just plain fun. The explosions and fires are very satisfying, probably because of the destructible environment. I've yet to play against any real players online, but I probably will soon; I'm sick of the cheating AI in the campaign (Oh, you're all the way across the map? That's okay, my missile will have just enough of an arc to kill your last worm).

I'm also still waiting on my other brother to give me his Steam information so I can play Civilization V, seeing as he activated it on his account and the CD key is now tied to it. It seems like the kind of game I could devote my afternoon to and not regret it one bit.

[ABOMINATION]

I'm planning on putting about $40-$50 into the Steam Sale, but thus far I've been surprisingly frugal. I've spent about $18 thus far on Deus Ex + The Missing Link and the two Left 4 Dead games. I was looking at the Witcher 2, but I decided against it. Maybe I'll reconsider later in the sale. I want to get Arma II for DayZ, but the more I think about it, the more I know how little time I'll be able to spend to play DayZ properly. I think I'll get two more good games and call it good. I love Steam Summer Sale.

['Scaper94]

Anyone ever play Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity? I'm thinking about getting it on Steam, but not entirely convinced to do so yet. Does anyone have opinios of the game?

[Altron_ZERO]

Originally Posted by 'Scaper94

Anyone ever play Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity? I'm thinking about getting it on Steam, but not entirely convinced to do so yet. Does anyone have opinios of the game?

SoaSE is a great series. Although it draws out quite a bit if your not playing with friends. I would recommend looking at the new one that just came out though. Essentially the same game with updated graphics, units, etc.