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jdi_knght

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Everything posted by jdi_knght

  1. When a sizeable number of lowbie PvP'ers unsubbed because this issue took so long to address.
  2. Everyone else has covered airflow to death. So I will present my own conflicting information by recommending you do this: http://www.performancepsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/oil_based_folding_rig.jpg If the oil gets too hot, just make some french fries. The frozen fries going in will cool down the oil. By the time it heats up again, you will probably be hungry for more french fries anyway. You will not have to worry about air flow at all anymore. You're welcome.
  3. Oh, but I do enjoy all the rigorous discussion! Well, most of it anyway. And to some extent, the multiple lengthy threads (even if drawn out across years) should aid BioWare in seeing where some of the larger issues (or largest perceived issues) affecting players are. Even if it's not something they're going to act upon anytime soon, there's always the chance it may come into play way off in the distant future.
  4. Ah, good luck on that! I've had overclocked systems that survived days of Prime95, hours of OCCT/Linpack/LinX, but would crash 10-24 hours into their work in a render farm until they were clocked down some. "True stable" is pretty hard to ascertain. If your machine crashes once in a year due to the OC, do you consider it stable? Or stable enough for you? And if "true stable" is the end goal, we should probably be using Xeons with some ECC and avoid the whole overclocking discussion to begin with! There's a reason Intel bins the way they do (well, a couple reasons, but we'll pretend they don't downclock higher-binned chips to meet market demand for the lower end CPU's).
  5. But now people can just say: "The developers recently confirmed that they currently have no plans to address the fundamental limitations of the game engine. Thus, your options appear to be (1) deal with the game as-is, or (2) send your sub money elsewhere." ...which means we'll miss out on the joys of: "its the engine" "its not the engine. u dun even no wut a engine is." "it works fine for me. problem must be on ur end." "you've obviously never tried 16-man ______" "its probably latency. that is from the distance between your computer and the server. you should fix that and the game will be fine for you then at 60fps." "engines have pistons. i'm a racecar!" "upgrade ur computer. its obviously too slow" "then why do i get 60fps in all the other MMOs that look 10x better than swtor" "like i said its the engine" "its NOT the engine" "i think its the new particle effects they added in the recent patch. things got worse for me then." "r u for real!? the game plays waay better for me this patch." "guys stop making threads about this it comes up all the time" "then maybe they should fix it?" "its too much work to fix" "other games do it" "go play the other games then" "clean ur computer" "did u defrag? that helped me. oh and update your drivers it helps!" etc... Oh well...
  6. Would you care to cite an example of where somebody used the wrong CPU or wrong type of RAM in their motherboard? Ideally, one which booted fine (we're also assuming they didn't bend pins and cut slots to make a CPU "fit") , and resulted specifically in performance issues with SWTOR? I'm very interested.
  7. A couple links that might help explain the discrepancy you're seeing: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/05/25/why-the-elder-scrolls-online-isn-39-t-using-heroengine.aspx http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,1034123/The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Improved-effects-with-DirectX-11-Exclusive-Tech-Interview/News/
  8. Oh, I know. I was referring to the "changing an engine after release" bit. Blizzard made constant improvements throughout expansions. Multi-threaded OpenGL rendering during BC, DirectX11 during Cata, adding 64-bit support, etc. Numerous improvements when it came to rendering, effects, hardware support (everything from multi-monitor to fixes that affected issues on specific GPU's), and... well, you get the idea. The point was, it's certainly possible, and some engines certainly are changed/improved after launch.
  9. Completely changing to a *different* game engine, certainly very rare after launch (I can't think of any examples off the top of my head). A switch mid-development, sure (Duke Nukem Forever being the most popular example!). Major changes/modifications to an engine though... Blizzard's made vast improvements and modifications to the engine behind WoW throughout the years. It started off as a modified version of the Warcraft 3 engine. Today it's a completely different beast.
  10. Take a look at the CPU comparison here: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1320?vs=1543 The 6700K has better single-thread performance, worse multi-threaded performance. In SWTOR, it'll probably be "better". But not "better" to the point where you'd actually notice a difference. If you're planning on overclocking, both should make it to around the ~4.5Ghz mark (unless you get lucky or unlucky), and it could very well be a wash. --- Look at secondary aspects that are important to you. Skylake is a little more "future proofed", but the 5820K will do better if you're encoding movies/etc. If SWTOR is the literally the only concern, and particularly if you're overclocking, it really doesn't matter a whole lot and I'd be inclined to just buy based on total system cost.
  11. Not very likely to happen. The HeroEngine never ended up with support for it (despite rumors it was being worked on, I don't believe Mac/Linux support ever came to fruition). So no changes they could even try porting over. And BioWare doesn't seem to have anyone working on the engine full time on their end. If EA were to add Mac support to Frostbite, they could possibly write a client with it. But I don't see that happening in the near future. They could license Unity or UE (both of which have Win/Mac/Linux support) and build a new client with it. How quick this would be would depend on how portable their code is (and assets are), and how much "middleware" is portable. I know FaceFX is easily integrated into those, but I don't know what other middleware they're using. It could be that something critical isn't. Either way, I can't really see them doing it. They could wrap it in Cider. BioWare's done this with other games. Performance would likely be awful though, and would close off the option for major improvements to the HeroEngine (DX10/11 stuff as an example) because Cider has a tendency to choke on certain DX9 stuff as it is. They could hire Aspyr to port it. They'd probably have to hire Aspyr to maintain it too and keep it in sync. Big undertaking though, and I can't see them shelling out the money. Really, your friends will probably just have to stick with WoW, ESO, STO, LOTRO, EVE, DDO, etc. If they're really after a Star Wars fix, Aspyr recently ported KOTOR2 to Mac/Linux which can be grabbed on Steam if they haven't played it and don't mind an older game: ( http://store.steampowered.com/app/208580/ ).
  12. Hmm... possible opportunity for the credit sellers too, if they ever feel like actually playing on a compromised account in their spare time. I wonder if you averaged the drops, how many credits/hour it works out to...?
  13. Would be fun to watch some other games while on the fleet waiting in queue for half an hour. Few issues I'd foresee off the hop: Development time. It's a fairly big ask for a feature that some people might sometimes use. People getting called out. If someone's underperforming, "toxic" players are often too busy to spend time ragging on them beyond a 1-liner or 2. A bystander has all the time in the world to whisper/harass them. Could potentially be addressed by having all players show as nameless, mind you (though that diminishes the ability to identify great players). Potential for a bystander to "help" a certain team ("/w myfriend I just saw a guy move into your zone and stealth - might wanna pop him". Would definitely need a playback delay if this applied to ranked, similar to LoL/etc (a huge amount of dev time to implement a system like this). Certainly not against the idea, but even if other issues were solved, I'd be surprised if they were willing to sink a high level of dev time into something like this.
  14. Back in the day, you could take down a server with a single computer by throwing the right stuff at it (Apache fork bombs, etc). Those were standard DOS attacks, usually against web servers. Think of it more as a vulnerability that was being exploited. DDOS attacks use a pile of computers to overwhelm a server's capacity with sheer volume. Botnets are common, as are reflection attacks. The only solution to these is to have a massive data pipe and hardware that can handle the massive number of connections and high throughput. DDOS attacks are much more common these days.
  15. 1) Run the following in command prompt: notepad.exe %localappdata%\SWTOR\swtor\settings\client_settings.ini 2) Find the WindowX and WindowY values. If they're either negative values or extremely high, that's probably the culprit. Change them both to something like 100. Example: WindowX = 100 WindowY = 100 Save the file, start the game. --- Alternately, you can probably just rename the client_settings.ini file. You'll lose whatever video settings you had set, but it should go back to the default. If something breaks, you can rename it back. Find it by pasting the following in command prompt: explorer.exe %localappdata%\SWTOR\swtor\settings --- Note that I only checked this on Win7 - hopefully they didn't go changing paths on Win8 (I'm not booted into OSX right now and don't have my Win8 VM handy to verify... sorry). Good luck.
  16. True. A lack of tanks (or healers) queueing results in long wait times for PvE content in many game, and throwing more people at it certainly doesn't do anything to resolve that situation. I have no idea whether SWTOR PvE queues suffer more from a population standpoint, or a role balance standpoint, but you do have a point. PvP is a bit of a different story. SWTOR has a good system for dealing with faction imbalances, so it's really a matter of the more people queueing, the less wait time there is. There's little reason F2P players can't have unlimited Warzones with some other form of restriction (reduced rewards, lower priority in a queue, 20 minute cooldown between games, etc). At least they could become dedicated PvPers that way and help ensure that subs have insta-queues. Currently, a F2P player who has no interest in PvE probably isn't going to bother keeping the game installed for 5 WZ per week. The current system just doesn't benefit anyone there.
  17. They originally designed deep consequences around companions. I don't know if they'd actually leave on their own, but I know the devs had said they could be killed. It didn't go over well (I guess you'd call it "killer's remorse") and was changed. BioWare's allowed you to kill off companions in some of their other games, but I don't think it's one of those things that really translates as well to an MMO where you can't load a previous save, and 2 years later you're still living with the consequences on your "main". People like choices with consequences, but at the same time, don't usually like feeling as though they have to start all over because they made a choice they now regret.
  18. Anything can be fixed. And if the engine is like most other engines (or done via code the common way), just increasing the draw distance is a simple change. A few of the things that could happen if they just upped the value: It could work fine. Draw calls could go up way too much and FPS would plummet. They could hit some sort of vertex limit. Depending on how this is handled, either stuff doesn't draw, or game crashes. The extra meshes could push them past the 2GB barrier on a process. Crash (or the necessity for yet a 3rd process, assuming 32-bit OS limits aren't coming into play). Distance might be intentionally set low due to odd things like render order issues (which can happen if they're combining meshes at runtime for example to reduce the above mentioned draw call issue). Graphical anomalies here, or a bunch of extra code needed to work around it. Many other things that could go wrong or become an issue. Even in a best-case scenario (#1), they've reduced a CPU/GPU/memory "budget" that could potentially go towards something else. And there have been a lot of requests for stuff, and they need to leave some room for future growth. Like MadDutchman said, the engine just can't handle it. And as Andryah noted, chat bubbles didn't make it into the game because of a massive performance issue. Chat bubbles of all things! They're generally not that hard to implement in a performance-friendly fashion (it's a bloody plane that just has to rotate to face the camera!), which just further showcases how deep-rooted some of the problems in the engine must be. If they were to do it all over again, I'm virtually certain they wouldn't have gone with the Hero Engine. Sure, it allows for fast iteration during development. But it's been a massive thorn in their side from the get go.
  19. If they go that route (or maybe I should say went that route since they're probably already knee-deep into it), I just hope they were careful in how they interpreted their "most played with" data, or hope that I'm an outlier. I often had a companion out that suited the necessary tank/heal/dps role even if I hated their guts. And after I'd bought someone's love with presents, they were often shelved while I worked on getting the others to like me through quests and slow presents.
  20. The big difference is in how they go about doing that. Some games are designed to give the "free" player a great experience, with some extras they might like offered for $. Others give a solid experience but try to heavily push extras: stuff that a number of players might even consider necessities. Still others are designed to give a notably poor experience until the player shelves out some cash. Where do you believe SWTOR fits in? Just curious.
  21. You're describing an extended free trial. So let's call SWTOR what it is. It's not a true F2P game. It's an unlimited restricted free trial. All the restrictions make sense under that context. BioWare just calls it a "free to play" game because that sounds more attractive. A player will check it out because it's "F2P", be reminded over and over about what they're missing out on as they play (locked out quest rewards, epics, head slot, etc), and by the time they run out of med probes deep in House Rist or the Transport Station, hopefully feel that a monthly sub is a great deal compared to $5 for another set of med probes. Think about it: In WoW you can buy a sub with a single purchase with in-game currency (similar to the EVE model). In LoL, you never feel like you're missing out if you don't spend cash. SWTOR has a pretty miserable "free" experience in comparison. But it's a great free trial that will allow you to check out every aspect of the game and even let you play through the entire 1-50 story if you're determined enough. I just wish they'd call it what it is.
  22. Very unlikely. Agreements are usually structured must closer to a retainer. That said, BioWare may have already let agreements with the companion VA's lapse. Or they could be nearing the end of term and have no interest in shelling out money to extend them. Those sorts of factors *could* come into play. But possibilities that are just as likely: 1) BioWare frequently ditches old companions between games even within a series. Even the expansion for DA:O only retained Oghren as a companion. Beyond that, you got a few cameo's across the series, but that was about it. Mass Effect gave new companions each go around. To be fair, if the rag-tag group you assembled in ME2 happened to be all the same characters from ME1, it probably would have felt a bit... odd. To some extent, they do need to write companions that support the story (rather than try to write a story that supports bringing your companions across). 2) They'd need to bring back all the original writers if they wanted to continue developing companions along their current paths without it feeling like they'd had abrupt personality changes (and hope that the writers are still in tune with the characters they'd written long ago). They'd undoubtedly need to bring Daniel Erikson back to co-ordinate it since he's the only guy who really knows how everything story-wise is glued together on the "macro" end of things. I get the feeling that ship has sailed. 3) 40 companions is expensive. 32 of them need VO. If dialogue is meaningful, you're basically looking at an extension of the work that the original class stories were which is a huge undertaking. This is one area they can't really "cash shop" either (even indirectly), so getting resources/funding for this would... be tough. I could see some of the most popular companions perhaps making a return, but I don't think getting all/most of them back would be a realistic (or fair) expectation. But hey, the great news is... I could always be wrong!
  23. I think they just plain don't have anyone working full time on improving the engine itself. They certainly did in the beginning, but those were probably some of the first people targeted in the layoffs shortly after launch. With the new Star Wars movie coming out this year, there will undoubtedly be an influx of people who will try out the game. So if they had any plans to resolve the outstanding performance (and launcher) issues that have prohibited a number of people from playing over the years, now would be the time, and they'd already be in the process. Since they haven't mentioned anything (and there's little reason to keep major game engine improvements secret), I suspect they're just sticking with the status quo and riding out the current state of the engine until the game reaches EOL.
  24. Just to knock out the obvious, I'm assuming the launcher log didn't indicate any errors? Just so you're prepared, people have run into instances where the launcher's patch mechanism managed to bork the install and they had to completely wipe/reinstall to get things working again. Hopefully that won't be required in your case, not only due to the inconvenience but also since people have even had issues that persisted through that. Sadly, the launcher (and the client too, for that matter) are both in desperate need of a major rewrite.
  25. jdi_knght

    Get Rid of Arena

    Please, no! Even if matchups & class balance were addressed, a lot of people don't like that format and never will. Then there's the issue of new players (in other Warzones they can kinda learn as as they go.... 4v4 on the other hand isn't forgiving). It's not the end of the world right now because the games are short. But if you add more rounds, it'll only serve to frustrate more players. If EXP is the issue... I'd rather see them bump up the rewards for participating in the match.
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