Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
The last AC game we evaluated was AC3 in 2012. It was pretty much a waste of time even then, and yes, is still with Black Flag.
Ghosts was also a turd, and not worth our time. Looking back in my emails I informed Kyle about NFS Rivals and COD Ghost on 11/19 both games were not worth it. We had more important things to do.
Believe me, I want a game we can add to our gaming suite, or replace an old game with, but none of those games listed are it, sorry.
Nixxes did the port, you can blame Square-Enix for the game itself.
Honestly, the game still looks like it has textures straight from the year 2006. The game does not have impressive graphics, although MP is semi mindless fun at times. Keep in mind COD: ghosts uses a modified Quake 3 engine. Yes, you heard correct. Modified quake 3 engine. And the textures are AWFUL up close despite the tessellation and all of that shit. Tessellation doesn't magically transform awful low resolution textures into something they aren't - the assets in COD: Ghosts just aren't up to par with modern AAA titles.
So I completely agree with Brent in this respect. It's just not a game worth benchmarking IMO. That said, i've had a bit of stupid fun in MP. But it certainly is not an amazing game, and the graphics are really not good - particularly the textures.
So does Thief. Which is odd that there is a performance preview for a game on such an old engine. Is it not obvious that this game isn't taxing at all?
We assessed each game and determined it wasn't worth our time. I am only glad I was able to get my money back on NFS Rivals.
After the long wait for Mantle to come to Battlefield 4 we would have thought they would have got it right with the next following game to showcase the technology, Thief. There is no question that TrueAudio and Mantle need all the showcasing these can get to prove the technology. At least CrossFire and Eyefinity work at game launch.
The last AC game we evaluated was AC3 in 2012. It was pretty much a waste of time even then, and yes, is still with Black Flag.
Brent, so when you say "pretty much a waste of time" do you mean as far as a game you just don't like, or one that has nothing special from a graphical point of view for modern games?
So AMD now is working on integrating Mantle into the Unreal Engine, commendable. I would say this is more newsworthy than the game itself.
The more game engines supported, the better, even older, well known ones.
UE3 is pretty extensible, so nixxes could potentially license out the UE3 mantle libraries to other developers bypassing Tim Sweeny completely..
Yeah well, aside from the rampant speculation here - it's pretty much not going to work that way since licensing Unreal Engine is not free and a 3rd party licensing out "their" version of Unreal Engine would obviously have intellectual property and litigation issues. From what Nixxes has stated in interviews their integration of Mantle didn't take an incredible amount of development time, a couple of months IIRC. So it's more than likely a non issue, but it won't be broad engine support and will be game by game support - which seems easy enough so long as AMD continues their work with developers.
Now what you're saying is not going to happen. UE3 is not free to give out or fuck with, it is Epic's intellectual property that they charge for on a per game basis. You also cannot re-sell or license someone elses intellectual property, of course. Anyway, I was mainly interested if Sweeney changed his mind. Which would be cool for the AMD guys I suppose. Which is what I gathered from Yakk's post, he seems to indicate that there was a change of heart at Epic, and like I said, that would be semi cool for you guys.
Not that many actually, Only 4, two of them have passed already. What remains is SniperElite 3 and StarCitizen, there were many possible FrostBite games planned at the Dice presentation , but that was scrapped (for example Plant Vs Zombies) we never heard from them again.Will be a good while though, until then we have a slew of upcoming Mantle games!
1)
3) The PS4 and Xbox One are already using TrueAudio features (as both consoles have the capability implemented in different ways) for Thief. I was hoping this would be a good jump as sound as just been so stagnant since Aureal 2 and EAX 4 or 5. If this is the game meant to showcase TrueAudio it is not impressive. It isn't any better than the original Thief games or A3D games. I am still hoping this is just this game as I find it sad sound hasn't advanced but the sound in Thief on the consoles isn't impressive at all really. Forza and Outcast have much better sound environments and are great sounding games. Hopefully games follow them more and not Thief.
Not that many actually, Only 4, two of them have passed already. What remains is SniperElite 3 and StarCitizen, there were many possible FrostBite games planned at the Dice presentation , but that was scrapped (for example Plant Vs Zombies) we never heard from them again.
http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/mantle/Pages/mantle.aspx#2
Dolby surround happened? 3d sound stage/3d sound/positional audio still exists on practically every high end audio chip/chipset. Most PC gamers simply use the cheapest onboard motherboard sound they can buy and don't use it, though. Anyway, true audio could be compelling but I don't think it's a great feature to add to a GPU. Don't get upset or anything, just my opinion. 3d sound still exists but most PC gamers simply ignore it.
That said, I bought a Diamond Monster sound 3d with the A3D chip way back in the day and was also completely blown away - I still have both that card and a Sound Blaster AWE 64 gold in my garage somewhere. Speaking of Diamond. MAN. Diamond MM was the shit back in the late 90s, the current modern day Diamond is NOT the same company. Diamond was more or less the "EVGA" of the late 90s, by far the best brand of anything to buy. Then they went out of business and some other firm bought them - they haven't been the same since. ANYWAY....To this day I refuse to use motherboard sound because I do notice a big difference in sound quality between the high end discrete soundcard and motherboard audio. Realtek audio doesn't cut it for me.
Erm. MIDI? You are aware that Aureal had nothing to do with MIDI sound correct? I'm just really confused by your mention of that, as far as I can tell Aureal came to fruition based on their 3d audio chips which were unprecedented at the time. MIDI died because CD audio soundtracks, MP3s, and digital audio became the norm, whereas the early 90s did not have audio CDs as being commonplace so they used soundbanked files with MIDI instead. And on that note, the best MIDI audio was always the Roland SCD-15 (among other Roland products) daughterboard for the sound blaster audio cards.
I'm really confused with your alignment of MIDI and Aureal. Aureal brought us 3d audio. MIDI has absolutely nothing at all to do with 3d audio, MIDI was displaced when larger HDDs, digital audio, MP3s, and Audio CDs became commonplace.
I'm referring to MPU-401 MIDI in gaming (but even then, mostly DOS gaming) - not niche daughterboards like the Roland SCD-15 (which was a niche entirely because it was a daughterboard - daughterboards are a low-volume item, even today). CD audio soundtracks, MP3 audio, etc., rose simultaneously with Windows-native gaming - all of which diminished the importance of MIDI. I am saying that Aureal-based cards excelled in both 3D audio AND MIDI - nothing else (in their price range) excelled in both areas at once - heck, the closest in MIDI was the Gravis UltraSound.
However, of what use was 3D audio to the average gamer? With the advent of all those features we have both pointed out, what use was MIDI? Where Aureal excelled became not merely less important, but largely a non-issue.
You said that Aureal had the best MIDI, and I was only addressing this statement by you. Aureal did not "do" MIDI. I know very well why MIDI died, and I know which MIDI products were good back in the day. This is all ancient history though so I have no interest in arguing which MIDI products were the best and why MIDI died. The bottom line is this: Aureal did not do "MIDI". They created 3d audio for the mass market, and their A3D product was revolutionary at the time. Their stride in positional audio went on to inspire stuff like Dolby 3D and other such technology, so I have to give props to Aureal even though they're long gone. They chip itself had nothing whatsoever to do with MIDI. I was confused by your statement "Aureal had the best MIDI" which is, in fact, not true. They created the world's premiere 3d audio chip. Nothing at all to do with MIDI. In fact, when the A3D was released to the world everyone was well into the transition towards CD audio and MP3s. The A3D did not need MIDI, because the world did not care about MIDI anymore. In fact, from what I remember, the vast majority of Aureal A3D based cards used software based MIDI for emulation, much like the earlier Sound Blaster 16 cards.
I'm only addressing the fact that Aureal did not have the "best MIDI" (your statement), the A3D had nothing to do with MIDI. A3D cards used software emulated MIDI which was completely shitty just as the SB16 cards did. Any A3D cards *with* good MIDI used a daughterboard for the soundbanks - from what I remember, some vendors did just that and others (most) didn't. The soundbanks of course were not created by Aureal, they were implemented by vendors and was a completely optional feature. Just as daughterboards on the SB16 were completely optional. That is all. I was just confused by your statement.
On another note - I did smile at your mention of Ensoniq - I remember them very well. They had some pretty sick stuff back in the day. I think I had the Ensoniq Soundscape? I was a little tyke back then, heh. I got my DIY fix early on. But I did love that soundcard, it was very very good. Turtle Beach had some great stuff too but they were more oriented (mostly) towards the professional market - I seem to recall their stuff being very, very costly.