Community MetaSteam | April 2020 - A Disaster Report From Raccoon City

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sprinkles

Junior Member
Dec 8, 2018
625
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Anyone else having trouble making Steam purchases right now? Took me a few tries to get my PayPal connected to up my Wallet funds, and now I can't buy games, getting different errors...
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
2,170
4,558
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The site seems to be having issues in general. Been getting error codes now and then when browsing.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,867
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Trying to understand how to downgrade Gamepass Ultimate to Gamepass vanilla, you're cute MS but I won't pay 12 euros / month.
 

Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
2,356
7,475
113
Man, RE3's pacing is relentless, it's really hard to put down, loving every second of it.
I had to put it down for a while after the first new bit after the demo area because I wanted to not have nightmares.

Been a while since a horror game made me feel like I was 5 and needed to run. So much nope.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,867
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Cancel and then just add what it is you want?
Yup, it was that. Would make too much sense to simply have a sub again option where all my subs are listed.
 

kio

MetaMember
Apr 19, 2019
1,600
5,132
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Just finished Black Mesa and at the risk of sounding blasphemous their rendition of Xen is far superior to the original, even though it's 3x as long.
It helps that the level design and architecture of the place make sense now and the platforming sections are greatly reduced. I also quite liked what they did with the Gonarch level/fight and wish they managed to do the same with the Nihilanth (which still sucks).
 
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lashman

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
31,981
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Just finished Black Mesa and at the risk of sounding blasphemous their rendition of Xen is far superior to the original, even though it's 3x as long.
It helps that the level design and architecture of the place make sense now and the platforming sections are greatly reduced. I also quite liked what they did with the Gonarch level/fight and wish they managed to do the same with the Nihilanth (which still sucks).


i don't really care :p just wanted to post the gif, lol
 

Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
1,013
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It's -28% off for me with hamble discount.

EDIT: Oh, it was -25% without the hamble discount?
Yeah, don't remember the exact percentages but it was just under $11 and $8 respectively first couple times I looked.

Was waiting for Monthly to drop to see if I wanted to re-up and get the sub-$8 discount for In Other Waters but by the time Monthly went live the price had readjusted to -10%.

No worries either way. Got some time into Waters last night and am MIGHTY impressed so far. So a few dollars difference really isn't a big deal at this point.

I'm currently playing Good Company and well it's decent. It's not great but also not bad.

I like the idea that you yourself are a worker and that you have a avatar and stuff like that but it also kind of feels out of place.
That's...disappointing. Had an eye on it and watched some launch footage.

Seemed okay-ish, but wasn't compelled to pull the trigger.

Thanks for the heads-up. Perhaps they can tighten it up in EA.
 
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PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
3,797
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California
Yeah, don't remember the exact percentages but it was just under $11 and $8 respectively first couple times I looked.

Was waiting for Monthly to drop to see if I wanted to re-up and get the sub-$8 discount for In Other Waters but by the time Monthly went live the price had readjusted to -10%.

No worries either way. Got some time into Waters last night and am MIGHTY impressed so far. So a few dollars difference really isn't a big deal at this point.



That's...disappointing. Had an eye on it and watched some launch footage.

Seemed okay-ish, but wasn't compelled to pull the trigger.

Thanks for the heads-up. Perhaps they can tighten it up in EA.
One of the things that is also different from other tycoon management games is how you can't just pause the game and do everything. If you want to order supplies you have to walk yourself to the area where you order parts, did you yourself make an item and now want to sell it? Well you now have to walk to shipping and leave it so that the truck will pick it up.

Some of the stuff in the game does make sense since I work at a place that manufacturers dental equipment and stuff like that and more or less the idea is there.

But ya there are certain limitations. I think I might play some more since it still has not been 2 hours to see if I want to keep the game (I don't normally do Early Access games)
 

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
4,041
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Just finished Black Mesa and at the risk of sounding blasphemous their rendition of Xen is far superior to the original, even though it's 3x as long.
It helps that the level design and architecture of the place make sense now and the platforming sections are greatly reduced. I also quite liked what they did with the Gonarch level/fight and wish they managed to do the same with the Nihilanth (which still sucks).
I haven't palyed Black Mesa yet, but I don't think that's particularly blasphemous or controversial ;)

Basically in every second interview with Gabe when they ask about mistakes/the past/anything at all he laments Xen.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
7,394
12,478
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I can see what they were going for with Xen and good on 'em for trying because people do like the levels but it does nothing for me. Quite a few of my Half Life playthroughs ended at Xen and i'd just reload a save at the start of the game again. lol.
 
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freshVeggie

almost there
Sep 7, 2018
1,039
2,908
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It was and is still great.

Even the last alien third. Bite me!

Woah, DLSS 2.0 looks like the real deal. Major improvements across the board.
AMD probably got an answer to that with their upcoming GPUs, I guess.

CPU wise, I feel very comfortable switching between Intel and AMD.
But GPU? AMD has a lot to prove for me to even consider leaving team green.
 
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fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
9,842
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I really like the gameplay of Blands 3, but damn it's not good optimized at all. Only game that has given my PC somethign to work on is Blands 3 and Control (Control is still better than Blands 3).
 

low-G

old school cool
Nov 1, 2018
909
1,740
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I really really hate when you can only find information that would take a second to glean from text or an image in a 10 minute youtube video. And it's getting ever more common.
They're effectively selling the information (with your time / ad views / popularity of videos to drive up ad revenue) - and the worst bit is it's stolen information (they didn't discover it themselves, they took it from somewhere else and made it into a video).

That's the part that really irritates me. It's effectively the worst kind of piracy, even if it's tiny little bits of piracy.
 

Le Pertti

0.01% Game dev
Oct 10, 2018
8,578
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Paris, France
lepertti.com
I really really hate when you can only find information that would take a second to glean from text or an image in a 10 minute youtube video. And it's getting ever more common.
Yeah. Sure I can see why they do it, they want that youtube money but wish they wouldn't put that for example in Steam guides and such.
 
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yuraya

MetaMember
May 4, 2019
2,721
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Anyone able to explain to me like Im 5 what DLSS (2.0) is?
Basically taking a blurry image and making it look higher res using AI.

So you think you are gaming in 1440p but you are really gaming in 900p.

So performance for you is much higher and you barely notice the difference.
 

Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
3,534
7,621
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I think the quality/performance of DLSS is really too good to pass up on mid/low-range configs. But if you have the horsepower to render the game natively, I'm not sure that the image is that indistinguishable from the upsampled one, assuming the godawful sharpening is removed.
 

Parsnip

Riskbreaker
Sep 11, 2018
3,238
7,214
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Finland
DLSS 2.0 seems very good. And actually makes higher framerates attainable even with raytracing. Nvidia's 3000 line can't come soon enough so I can NOT buy it because I don't have any money and will just be envious of everyone who does.
💸
 

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
4,041
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Anyone able to explain to me like Im 5 what DLSS (2.0) is?
I'll take the "like I'm 5" metaphorically, but I'll try to keep it relatively simple while also not making it wrong and still transporting some crucial bits.

There are several components that come together:
  • TAA, and other temporal effects. These have existed for a while now, and are really good at removing aliasing at low performance cost. In the most basic terms, they work by slightly offsetting the rendered image every frame in a known pattern (like e.g. MSAA samples would be in the same frame), and then reusing those samples from earlier frames, together with the current ones, to produce each new frame. The trickiest part is deciding what is OK to reuse and what isn't, which you do based on the surroundings, information about motion in the image, etc. If you do that wrong you get ghosting and other artifacts, or wrong in the other direction and you get excessive blur.
  • "AI" upsampling, as you've probably seen in the media or game modding projects for textures. This works by training an artificial neural network (the specifics of which would go too far) to be good at "looking at" part of a lower-res image and "filling in the blanks" with suitable detail when upscaling it. The problems in using this for games are that it's performance intensive, and that it might make totally different decisions about a group of pixels from one frame to the next -- resulting in flickering and similar artifacts.
  • Now what DLSS does is use techniques from the latter to enhance the former. Basically, they train a neural network which takes in the TAA samples, as well as some extra information, and spits out a high-res image. It turns out that the network is really good at deciding which samples to use and which to discard in order to attain a visually pleasing image, better than any existing heuristics (used in TAA). What's crucial is that this process is fast (sufficiently fast for realtime 4k on Turing) and produces temporally stable results (no flicker).
That's a basic overview.

I think the quality/performance of DLSS is really too good to pass up on mid/low-range configs. But if you have the horsepower to render the game natively, I'm not sure that the image is that indistinguishable from the upsampled one, assuming the godawful sharpening is removed.
It's surely not indistinguishable, but even with a 2080ti I'm pretty sure I'd take it in many high-end games if it means I can run the nearly indistinguishable image at 50% higher FPS, or with 50% higher other settings at the same FPS. (and 50% higher is the low end / with "Quality" DLSS, if you're GPU limited)

But as you say, first, the sharpening needs to be configurable (I'd give up on them removing it completely, people are clearly enamored with it).
 

Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
3,534
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It's surely not indistinguishable, but even with a 2080ti I'm pretty sure I'd take it in many high-end games if it means I can run the nearly indistinguishable image at 50% higher FPS, or with 50% higher other settings at the same FPS. (and 50% higher is the low end / with "Quality" DLSS, if you're GPU limited)

But as you say, first, the sharpening needs to be configurable (I'd give up on them removing it completely, people are clearly enamored with it).
That makes sense. In terms of pure IQ gain against performance, this is amazing. I'd take ray-traced diffuse and specular against a slightly less precise image any day of the week if the trade-off is not playing at sub-30 fps. There's also the fact that if your screen is especially tiny, (cough like a 14" laptop) then the trade-off is particularly well-suited.

It's pretty funny because this discussion about IQ versus resolution is strongly reminiscent of the X1 vs PS4 debates and upsampled games on consoles. Never thought we'd be here again :).
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
1,681
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Oh man, new Jill kicks so much ass. Nemesis really found his match with her. I really have to commend Capcom for these new renditions of Jill and Claire.

Bitch can't even swim.

LMAO
 
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BlueOdin

Dec 3, 2018
995
2,665
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The Division 2 is... a game. Maybe it is because we skip all the sequences because we ain't up for the American prepper shit and whatever else there is but other than going from place to place, shooting people, occasional getting some loot and it being very pretty there isn't really much to it. I mean, the shooting is fine and is a good game to play to talk with or listen to podcasts but I am kinda glad I only payed 3€ for it.
 
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