Frank's 2013 upgrade.......

Cav, if you like photography, check out nikon's DC series of lenses. My father has one paired with his nikon d3s, and the bokeh effect is more than amazing with it. Makes a 50 @ 2.4 look bad.

Good looking photos fyi. I love spain.
 
Robertmarcus said:
Cav, if you like photography, check out nikon's DC series of lenses. My father has one paired with his nikon d3s, and the bokeh effect is more than amazing with it. Makes a 50 @ 2.4 look bad.

Good looking photos fyi. I love spain.
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Not being a total photography geek, I am unsure as to the compatibility between a Nikon D5 lens and my camera body, but I will certainly check them out - thanks for the pointer.

I wasn't at all impressed with Spain TBH. Between the chain smoking everyone does there to the old buildings, the musty "old world" everything, I wasn't impressed. I was there for business (largest annual worldwide mobile telecom convention is there) but took a day to walk the city and take pitcures. The castle they built in and around was cool to see the really old parts versus some of the newer construction. I had to laugh that McDonalds and KFC are there as well, just never expected to see them then I turned a corner and was like wow, hmm a bit of home in Barc. I actually flew into and out of Madrid (no flights were open to Barcelona due to the convention), took the high speed train to Barcelona, so I got to see a little of both cities and the countryside as I headed to and back from Barcelona. The countryside was neat from a distance at high speed - lol. I did enjoy all of a sudden there is a mountain/hill and there is a town built up the side of it in the middle of nowhere. Everyone of them had a huge cathedral as the center of the town it seemed. I like clean, new and shiny personally, and Barcelona was anything but, however it did have some positives I suppose.

On that note - I have more "new and shiny" on its way.

First I picked up the D5 Double Bitspower mod top for the D5/MCP655 pumps I have. This will take care of the GPU duty. I have two MCP655 pumps that were purchased for Vampi I never used. So I will use them here with this mod top. This will be dedicated to the GPU loop.

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I picked up some more "not so shiny" items too I will not bore you with, but got some pins and connectors in anticipation of the cables I will be making.

Then I was cruising MNPCTECH's website and saw the handles I originally had orderd at Mountain Mods. However MM did not have them in stock, he wasn't sure if he was getting those back in stock and he is considering locating other options. So in the shuffle of my order, he credited me back the handle costs and folded that into the modification costs. This meant I did not have any case handles. Considering I am anticipating this case to be anywhere between 75-120lhbs, I think I want some handles to pick it up off this rack. So when I saw the handles and the ones they had were black - yep, I went ahead and snagged them.

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The1stCAV said:
Not being a total photography geek, I am unsure as to the compatibility between a Nikon D5 lens and my camera body, but I will certainly check them out - thanks for the pointer.

I wasn't at all impressed with Spain TBH. Between the chain smoking everyone does there to the old buildings, the musty "old world" everything, I wasn't impressed. I was there for business (largest annual worldwide mobile telecom convention is there) but took a day to walk the city and take pitcures. The castle they built in and around was cool to see the really old parts versus some of the newer construction. I had to laugh that McDonalds and KFC are there as well, just never expected to see them then I turned a corner and was like wow, hmm a bit of home in Barc. I actually flew into and out of Madrid (no flights were open to Barcelona due to the convention), took the high speed train to Barcelona, so I got to see a little of both cities and the countryside as I headed to and back from Barcelona. The countryside was neat from a distance at high speed - lol. I did enjoy all of a sudden there is a mountain/hill and there is a town built up the side of it in the middle of nowhere. Everyone of them had a huge cathedral as the center of the town it seemed. I like clean, new and shiny personally, and Barcelona was anything but, however it did have some positives I suppose.
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The smoking and americanism of spain is a bit of a disappointment. But i am not a huge fan of madrid/barca. Segovia, and the country side of spain is much more beautiful than the cities. Although the beaches are nice too. But for the lense, you would want a converter from Nikon to Canon. They sell them on bh/amazon
 
The1stCAV said:
lol, caught my lights did ya? ;) Those are just 5200K halogens. Seemed all the "white" lights I would buy seemed yellow. I bought a light kit off eBay to do photography and found I really liked these lights, so I use them daily as lights in the room. The only other source is the cieling fan and the three lights in it can only be like 25w each or some stupid thing because of the new safety standards they set in the ceiling fans. So I needed good lighting in here - those umbrellas worked and I thought looked good too. Plus they help when taking pictures as well because I always have good lighting in here.

I do plan on getting some flashes to go in there though.

Using a Canon T2i Rebel 18MP DSLR with an assortment of lenses and lens filters. I am a semi-photography nut as well. One thing leads to another and as I wanted to take better pictures of Frank, the gear started being accumulated then I started liking the more I learned about photography. So I started doing landscapes and Frank pics. I have played with some really close up lenses I have that magnify things like CPU's so I can get really sharp close, crazy images all the way to a 10-20mm 1:4-5:6 Sigma EX wide angle and even my precious 200-350mm zoom. I have a few other lenses and flash kits, soft boxes, and things. I have reflector panels with gold, silver, white sides, etc and even a white/greenscreen/and black (OMG my mind went blank to the real name of these) backdrops. All to take pictures of Frank - lol, then I started getting into it as I travelled and now I go nowhere without my Canon.
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I would suggest, if you have the cash, to get an Alienbee lighting setup. I think even one with an umbrella would be good to cover most of the computer work you do. I really wish I had the cash flow for lighting, with the new job I should after I recover from purchasing a full frame (Nikon D600) camera.

You have a lot of the ambient lighting stuff I want as well. Reflectors and such. I am a little jealous.

The kind of photography I do.
ISO 250
F/11
1/90

Johnathon by M.Larsonphotography, on Flickr

With alienbees
ISO 160
F/3.3
1/180

Casey's 510s by M.Larsonphotography, on Flickr
 
Robertmarcus said:
The smoking and americanism of spain is a bit of a disappointment. But i am not a huge fan of madrid/barca. Segovia, and the country side of spain is much more beautiful than the cities. Although the beaches are nice too. But for the lense, you would want a converter from Nikon to Canon. They sell them on bh/amazon
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Well then, I must begin searching Amazon to see what those possibilities look like. Thanks for the tip.

PNWSGM said:
I would suggest, if you have the cash, to get an Alienbee lighting setup. I think even one with an umbrella would be good to cover most of the computer work you do. I really wish I had the cash flow for lighting, with the new job I should after I recover from purchasing a full frame (Nikon D600) camera.

You have a lot of the ambient lighting stuff I want as well. Reflectors and such. I am a little jealous.
Click to expand...

Dude, that first picture is freaking awesome - those are the kinds of shots I would like to do when I grow up (hmm, but I say I'll never grow up - dang decisions in life). Yeah, I have some toys to be proud of and I checked out those light kits, looks like I could pick up the remaining items I would ever want in a kit thats about <$300. So I may consider it somewhere down the road - like when Frank is almost done and I need to start taking those "Calendar" pics - lol. Also when I grow up I'll move from the Rebel DSLR to something more "professional" - jealous over here over that D600. I want a full frame one day, probably would be a Canon though, always had good luck with them.
 
The1stCAV said:
Dude, that first picture is freaking awesome - those are the kinds of shots I would like to do when I grow up (hmm, but I say I'll never grow up - dang decisions in life). Yeah, I have some toys to be proud of and I checked out those light kits, looks like I could pick up the remaining items I would ever want in a kit thats about <$300. So I may consider it somewhere down the road - like when Frank is almost done and I need to start taking those "Calendar" pics - lol. Also when I grow up I'll move from the Rebel DSLR to something more "professional" - jealous over here over that D600. I want a full frame one day, probably would be a Canon though, always had good luck with them.
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That first picture is the shot that landed me a gig with a fairly large automotive photography site. www.streetsweepernw.com When you grow up? Lol I can't wait til I pick up the D600, I currently shoot with an old ass D80 which is not anywhere near what I need for the kind of photography I am into.
 
Nikons DC series is just the crop frame lenses, they are nothing special in themselves. They are the equivalent to the EF-S Canon lenses. There are some good ones in the series but they aren't necessarily better than their Canon equivalent. Don't bother getting an adapter to use Nikon lenses on your Canon, just get lenses with a Canon mount. Something fun to get that isn't too expensive would be a 50mm F1.8 or the F1.4 if you can spend a bit more. Sigma and Tamaron occasionally have some lenses that are VERY good, arguably better than the Canon/Nikon equivalent sometimes even, and those can bo good options to look at as well. I actually have a T2i as well, it's a really good camera honestly. Personally I would love to move to the new 6D one day, but yeah the T2i is plenty good enough for now.
 
extide said:
Nikons DC series is just the crop frame lenses, they are nothing special in themselves. They are the equivalent to the EF-S Canon lenses. There are some good ones in the series but they aren't necessarily better than their Canon equivalent. Don't bother getting an adapter to use Nikon lenses on your Canon, just get lenses with a Canon mount. Something fun to get that isn't too expensive would be a 50mm F1.8 or the F1.4 if you can spend a bit more. Sigma and Tamaron occasionally have some lenses that are VERY good, arguably better than the Canon/Nikon equivalent sometimes even, and those can bo good options to look at as well. I actually have a T2i as well, it's a really good camera honestly. Personally I would love to move to the new 6D one day, but yeah the T2i is plenty good enough for now.
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I think you mean 'DX'.
Just for clarification, this and this are the lenses that I am talking about. They are FX and designed for full frame sensors, but can be used on DX lenses as well.

As far as adapters, if you buy a good enough one, it can be worth it, like this.
Although i do agree with you about Sigma and such, they make top notch lenses for the most part.
 
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If you are looking for a cheap lens and aren't big into photography I suggest a 50mm, or one of canon pancake lenses. I have a Tamron 70-200 2.8 and it rocks. It's softer up towards 200mm at 2.8 but not horribly bad, can deal with it. However if I get the cash flow I wouldn't mind a nikkor variant of that lens, those unfortunately are about 4x the price I paid for the Tamron.
 
PNWSGM said:
That first picture is the shot that landed me a gig with a fairly large automotive photography site. www.streetsweepernw.com
Click to expand...

Congrats on that, very good picture indeed and worthy of the notice and gig received afterwards.

extide said:
Something fun to get that isn't too expensive would be a 50mm F1.8 or the F1.4 if you can spend a bit more. ........................Personally I would love to move to the new 6D one day, but yeah the T2i is plenty good enough for now.
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I actually do own the Canon 50mm 1:1.8 II lens. I just picked it up about 4 months ago and have yet to find something to shoot with it. It upset me because all my lens filters are for 70mm and 55mm lenses and this one is bare bones. I purchased the square filter kit thing though that goes on the camera that I can stick in single or multiple square filters, only problem is I cannot seem to get around to buying the actual filters that goes in the thing. Konklin filters I think is what they are called?

Yeah, I also wanted the 6D - still do. If I go full body, it will probably be the 6D, but I have to agree, for what I do now and the hobby side of photography, the T2i certainly is a good enough camera to take professional enough shots to keep me happy at the moment.

See this is what happens when no parts are being installed, and we are stuck waiting for things to progress, we get diverted into other areas of discussion - lol, this happened in the last build too a few times. Oh well, as long as we are conversing and learning I guess its all good. So what we are talking photography in the PC Case modding section - oops - we most certainly will be getting back around to the correct subject matter as soon as MM ships me the case............
 
Robertmarcus said:
I think you mean 'DX'.
Just for clarification, this and this are the lenses that I am talking about. They are FX and designed for full frame sensors, but can be used on DX lenses as well.

As far as adapters, if you buy a good enough one, it can be worth it, like this.
Although i do agree with you about Sigma and such, they make top notch lenses for the most part.
Click to expand...

Oops, you are right, I did get them switched. Those lenses are nice. Huge aperture for that focus length too!
 
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Getting close to getting this build on again. I was notified by Watercool that the shipment will go out probably Monday from Germany (GTX 680 waterblocks & custom screen printed back plates), so expecting them to arrive within a week. This works out for the case as well, as it was estimated at 4-6 weeks and it has already been 4+ weeks since I ordered it. This means we are right around the corner to getting the build on - for the next few months lol. So much to do, so little time, waiting on critical parts to get it going, just nuts.

At least Crysis 3 releases Tuesday and I will have time to enjoy the campaign before the upgrade begins. I was concerned initially that I was going to have the pressure of doing both in parallel, now I can do the campaign, enjoy it, then the build begins..............................
 
hound said:
*buys popcorn and beer to prepare*
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May Frank and I suggest Negra Modello to pair with any pop corn you may wish to purchase as well. Negra Modello just goes with everything from building high end PC's to pawn'ing noobs online, its the liquid that just makes it all that much better - lol. It is also good water cooling fluid for the builder. :D

Negra+Modelo+blog.jpg
 
You know, it's been a while since I've had any NM, might have to pick up a case at Costco...but I do have a case of Lagunitas IPA to get through first...
 
hound said:
You know, it's been a while since I've had any NM, might have to pick up a case at Costco...but I do have a case of Lagunitas IPA to get through first...
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I feel Lagunitas IPA has superior builder cooling properties then the Modelo but you can't really go wrong with either one.
 
deadlift1 said:
I feel Lagunitas IPA has superior builder cooling properties then the Modelo but you can't really go wrong with either one.
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I'm prone to agree, but since I mostly buy my beer by the case from Costco (can't go wrong for ~$1/bottle) I like to mix it up each time I buy--I tend to go with one case of something "powerful" and one case of something "easier."
 
I finally got around to taking pictures of the cables and the office a bit cleaner and things put away. I figured I would post some pics to keep us focused on the thread topic - aka - Frank (Not my other love Negra Modello lol). So here are a few pics to show the current state of Frank, the desk, wires, and oh yeah and to show how excited I am about Crysis 3 coming out Feb 19th. I have had that on pre-order since last July, been waiting, watching all the YouTube videos on it, etc. It is going to be AWESOME!!!!! I cannot wait - if BB is having a midnight launch party I will be there, else I will be at the doors b4 they open waiting impatiently.

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Are you still using the 3930K? I forgot if you swapped it with something different after the WC leak.

Looks amazing though, man. Well done. Remember to post Cry 3 benchmarks ASAP! :D
 
B!nd. said:
Are you still using the 3930K? I forgot if you swapped it with something different after the WC leak.
Looks amazing though, man. Well done. Remember to post Cry 3 benchmarks ASAP! :D
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Yes, I am still using the 3930K in the build, it was replaced after the incident. Will be posting Crysis screenies and benchmarks.

Neil_M said:
Amazing build. Really like the red/carbon look.
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Thanks, that was the first mod to do the desk, the red was still the same from last years build. I hope it will look as good in the case too once I get the build going. Case should be here within the week - two at the most. The Watercool water blocks ship to me today, so close to getting this going - stay tuned.

Talking with a guy I game with the other night we started talking about mice. He mentioned that he was looking for a mouse that would allow for his pinky and thumb to wrest on something else other than the mouse pad. See we have the same issue, we have large hands and both of us have the same complaint and that is mice seem small and our hands cover them up and then some. Well apparently we are not the only ones that have this issue and I think I found the solution.

MAD CATS CYBORG RAT 7 6400 DPI Mouse

Granted it is not the Razer Lachesis I loved (claw style grip) or the Razer Naga Molten edition I have become accustomed to (palm grip). I have read many reviews where others that once used the Razer Naga felt that this was a far superior mouse. I have read many reviews that say that the learning curve for this wasn't as tough as imagined - so we shall see.

I went to BB to return an Asus VivoSmart Tablet I was hoping would work for me. Instead I guess I will hold out for the Asus Transformer Book, it&#8217;s supposed to be a tablet/laptop hybrid like the TF700T Android device I have and use frequently, however it will be running a full version of Windows 8 so that is really what I need for business.

Anyway, while in BB yesterday I decided to see if they had these mice sitting on a shelf - and they did. I was really going after the RAT 9, but the RAT 7 was there and about $70 cheaper than the 9 I found online, so I picked it up. I got it installed, got my hot keys set up for Ventrillo and went into Black Ops II for one game. 1/2 way through the game I was getting my ass handed to me, I could not hit anything with this mouse, it felt so strange compared to my little Naga. I have to remember though, the Naga also was a huge transition for me to go from Claw to Palm style grip too and it took a while for it to feel "normal". Now that I am used to the Naga, I can say I wasn't all thrilled with not being as accurate with this mouse - only because my reactions are not used to the way this thing moves/performs. It will take some time, but I think I am going to give it a try and see if I can break myself into this mouse. It appears to be everything I need and was built by someone who understood these needs.

This mouse has about every angle adjustment necessary to fill out the hand and set it up how you want. It comes with a thumb and pinky side installed and they give you two additional options for each you can swap out. I finally got tinkering with it and got the pinky rest installed and left the stock thumb part. If this thing stays, I can see some Carbon Fiber wrap hitting it in some way..........

SO for those who just like to browse the image - they begin now - lol


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natej315 said:
need morepics asap lol
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LMAO - well it was confirmed the case is in final production run by the end of the week, so expecting it to arrive within the next week to two. When the water block sarrive I can bet a photo shoot will follow immediately as will the case, then the build begins.............

Tuesday is here (Finally) - its the holiest days of 2013 as the gods of Crytek bestow upon us the glory of graphical visual bliss known as Crysis 3. Officially known as the "Holy day of Crytek" on my calendar. Now only if BB would open their freaking doors so I can get my copy of Crysis 3 that I have had on back order since last July. :D
 
Damn. now I wish I didn't have a cabinet or a 55" TV taking up my walls, a 4th monitor above my primary would really help improve my workflow.

Love the desk, looks like nice and solid.
 
NickJames said:
Damn. now I wish I didn't have a cabinet or a 55" TV taking up my walls, a 4th monitor above my primary would really help improve my workflow.

Love the desk, looks like nice and solid.
Click to expand...

Ty, its two $99 desks modified then modified again, and yet again - lol. I just finished putting the carbon fiber wrap on it to match the coming PC case in the build I will be doing.

I cannot stress how much more a 4th screen added to workflow ease. My goal is to get Frank done to the point of submitting to CPU, if he gets picked, the $1500 I get will go to 2 more 27" 3D monitors and a 3x 28" monitor arm. So in the end I will have 6 total screens and be able to do surround 3D gaming on the three 27". So that is the eventual plan.

Stay tuned, this thread is just starting..............:eek:
 
how are you liking the rat 7?

i returned mine and picked up a g9x.
i loved the rat 7, thee most comfortable mouse ive ever had. as you said, i have larger hands too and my hand just seem to sit perfectly on this mouse.
the terrible tracking is what killed it for me.
i really wanted to keep the mouse but i had a lot of issues with the mouse freezing and the mouse spinning out of control when lifted.

i stuck with the g9x simply for performance reasons.
 
xnikx said:
how are you liking the rat 7?

i returned mine and picked up a g9x.
i loved the rat 7, thee most comfortable mouse ive ever had. as you said, i have larger hands too and my hand just seem to sit perfectly on this mouse.
the terrible tracking is what killed it for me.
i really wanted to keep the mouse but i had a lot of issues with the mouse freezing and the mouse spinning out of control when lifted.

i stuck with the g9x simply for performance reasons.
Click to expand...

RAT 7 was returned this morning when I picked up Crysis 3 - seems I like my pinky dragging, it apparently is my brakes I found out when I was without them on the RAT 7. I need that pinky drag to stop the mouse precisely where I want it to. Could nto do that with the RAT 7 so it went back to BB, staying with my trusty Razer Naga Molten

Speaking of Crysis 3 - OMG ITS HERE!!!!!!

crysis3q.jpg


Now if Frank will only get it installed sometime today........................
 
Can't wait for screenies. I'm in Florida for the next two weeks with very spotty Internet access. So, my replies/comments will appear to be delayed. Lol. (Damn you, Century Link!!)
 
My Crysis 3 Review
First the game simply could not load fast enough for me to get in there to play it – obviously I posted a WTF Frank image above. So it finally did load and off to the races it was – time to play.

If you have friended "Frank N Stein" on Facebook, I created an album on there named "Crysis 3 Campaign" and it has several hundred screenshots taken during my campaign journey. Many gaps between game play and "oh yeah I need to take some screenshots and not just sit here with my jaw open drooling while trying to stay alive". I would post some here, but how do you chooose? Go friend Frank N Stein on FB and you can see them all.

PERFORMANCE
First off I had to go max out the settings as I built Frank to say “yeah, I’ll take that and that and that – just max me out, I can handle it”. As pretentious as Frank can be, he really could handle it. Though we did dip into the 20-30FPS ranges at times, the game never felt that it was running that low of FPS. I honestly think the game itself needs some optimization still as well as Nvidia kicking in some better and more optimized drivers for SLI configurations. I saw that cards 2&3 maxed out with RAM usage on those 4GB GPU’s, but GPU 1 was sitting >2GB. Where the GPU processor usage was maxed on card 1&2 basically, card 3 was running about ½ speed most of the times. This means that none of the cards were operating in a balanced state where all were taking on equal shares of the load, it was rather strange to see how the drivers ran this game compared to others.
Visually the game remained smooth for me through most of the campaign and I have yet to finish it either. I spent about 10+ hours playing it, but I am sure there are many places where I ran through the same scene multiple times which ate into that total game play time because I kept dying due to key mapping issues which I will get at later – but overall the games performance was smooth and fun.

3D the game was really nice. The warning comes up an says there is a halo around the weapon, if there was it certainly wasn’t enough for me to notice and go wow that sucks. It was amazing IMO to play it in 3D, the depth, clarity, and immersive game play was just enhanced by the fact I was able to do it in 3D. Frank ran it flawlessly in 3D.

VISUALS
Yeah – the one thing Crytek can do better than any game MFG out there atm IMO is Visuals. They may have tried to optimize for the consoles because that is a much more lucrative market, but thankfully they are one company that still loves its PC base and knows our GPU’s are years ahead in power over the consoles. So they certainly tried to cater to the PC gamers as well. They did yet another amazing job this go round. Though Crysis 2 was a bit more “bright” and cartoony in the sense of the aliens and the environment, it was like they were trying for the bright cartoony colors of Halo 3 and beyond and mix it with the detail that made them famous in Cryisis 1. I think they did MUCH better in the tones, colors, and environment feel this time around.

Yes, cloth is still shiny at times, but most of the time you are wet so you have to take that into account. When banners are blowing in the breeze and they are not wet, they are not shiny either. So many could tear at it one way or another, however set it up against anything else out there right now and this game will win hands down IMO on visuals and realism. If Crytek continues, they are probably going to be the first company that develops as close to cinematic quality graphics above all others out there if they stay the current course. The depth of detail is amazing in some places like when Psycho gets in your face or is in the dark and shines the light on himself, whiskers, defects in the skin, lighting, and everything was like OMG this is CGI? It’s almost realistic at times on the detail, then you see a purple & pink alien and realize you’re in a game. I have to say though, who is to say if Purple and pink aliens don’t exist in those exact tones? For all we know those do look real. Either way, those aliens are some mean MF once they wake up the Alpha Seth.
Crytek continues to kick ass on water and plants as well. MANY scenes with water in them and in various shades, clarity, movement, etc and every one of those scenes are beautifully done. Plants are amazingly detailed if your just cruising by enjoying the eye candy. I am sure if a botanist were to stop, zoom in on a leaf they could be nitpicky, however as a gamer, I have to say it’s awesome to hear the leaves and the grass brush past my suit, I can duck in the grass or foliage and hide and it works, etc. I love the greenery in this game its simply amazing.

Destructible environments are something else they do well. I found myself crouching behind a log hoping to recharge my suit levels to run the hell out of the situation I was in – the Seth was blowing the cover away from me, I turned and the log had chunks out of it and was being blown apart as I was. So as the weapons discharge the landscape and the environment changed. Trees fell, rocks got chipped away, holes would appear in walls and you could see through them, etc. Al I can say is the games are evolving and Crytek is pushing the limits on these things. Though it’s still on the same Crytek Engine as the last game, they are still pushing DX11 to see how far they can go with it and so far they are doing a great job.

DRAWBACKS
As with most games on release day there are bugs. This is one thing that caused me to take longer in the campaign than I probably would or should have. This was due to a glitch that would not allow you to custom map the “USE” button of “F” to something like Mele. I always map Mele to F, it’s on my Razer Nostromos, not the V key they wanted me to use. However the Nostromos does not have the V key on it native (unless I go custom map the devices keys). This means I had to use the Crysis default layout on key placements, totally changing how I play. There are places where you have to hack a sentry gun or a door entry or a mine field. Well to “hack” you have to have the visor open and then hit the F key, if you remap it, it still requires the F key no matter what is assigned to F. The action is still performed in the sense it says you hacked it, however it does not do what it should once hacked. The only way to get past it was to go back and set keys to default layout and play the game this way.

Nvidia really needs to optimize how this game is rendered in SLI and 3WAY SLI. With three GTX 689 4G cards I should be ripping through this without incident. The fact that a single GPU can run this game as well or about 95% as well as 3WAY SLI tells me that Nvidia needs to get their drivers optimized better to take advantage of the power being brought to the table. RAM usage is strange currently in SLI and GPU percentage usage also isn’t balanced. So there are times the game will “slow down” but remained smooth. The strange thing was at the times it was hitting <30FPS most of the time it was smooth still. There were times I was >50 FPS and it would like go into slo-mo for about ½ a second like the SSD was trying to catch up or something, it was weird, but otherwise a great game.

RATING
I cannot give anything but love to Crytek for releasing a well-balanced game, probably the least amount of errors in any game I have yet to experience day 1 of its release.
I held a steady 60.1 FPS in 3D, rarely did it ever bounce up or down from there. In regular I was all over the board in terms of FPS, so the drivers still have a way to go before they are settled down.

Rating: 1-10, 10 being the best
  • Visuals: 9.5
  • Performance: 7.5
  • Game Play: 9
  • Sound: 9.5

Well worth the money and the time to experience for both the newbie and the hard core long term Crysis fan, this game is a must have! I will be tearing up this campaign many times through.
 
I really wished Crytek used PhysX for some of the cloth/vegitation. Alot of times the draped and tattered clothes and tarps look and feel very rigid when they get pushed about from physical interaction or blown around. Other than that I am loving the game right now. I wonder if they will release an HD ultra detail pack like they did with Crysis 2.
 
NickJames said:
I really wished Crytek used PhysX for some of the cloth/vegitation. Alot of times the draped and tattered clothes and tarps look and feel very rigid when they get pushed about from physical interaction or blown around. Other than that I am loving the game right now. I wonder if they will release an HD ultra detail pack like they did with Crysis 2.
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Well considering it came out with the AA options and DX11 Native, I am not sure they will come out with the aforementioned pack. That was because Crysis 2 was built on DX10 with a DX11 upgrade that came to PC. They heard quite a loud WTF from the PC community when they released Crysis 2 and it was geared towards consoles. They learned very quickly that the PC world was still their biggest fans of their ability to push GPU's to their limits while serving up some delicious eye candy. They were forced by PC users to answer that with a DX 11 option and the enhanced pack of images that PC's could handle.

With that said, I would speculate that they shipped the PC version this time with PC version graphics, or I would at least hope so. If not and they can make this look even better than it does now, I say hell yeah bring it on, I am already in graphical extacy atm as it is,any more and I will need to clean up a mess.

How far are you into the campaign?
 
Not far, work has been keeping me too damn occupied >< I'm a little past the first encounter with the velociraptors. Can't wait for the weekend, I ordered myself a 2nd GTX 680 just for this game! At 2560x1440 even with SMAA off my game is on its knees.
 
NickJames said:
Not far, work has been keeping me too damn occupied >< I'm a little past the first encounter with the velociraptors. Can't wait for the weekend, I ordered myself a 2nd GTX 680 just for this game! At 2560x1440 even with SMAA off my game is on its knees.
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Ouch, yeah a second GTX 680 should do the trick. I think I am on the final run, but I thought that a couple chapters ago too, so IDK. All I know is I am loving every second of it. I basically took off work Tuesday and played till about 10 that night after picking it up from BB. I had to break for lunch/dinner, and dinner was taking my girls out, so that was a couple hours away from the game. Then last night I played from 6pm to 10 pm pretty solid, yeah I died a lot, yeah I went on some sight seeing moments when I remembered I needed to take screen shots, etc, but still not at the end of the campaign yet. Have fun, I think its the best Crysis yet.
 
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