X-Mas 2011: What did you get/are you playing?

[WILL]

Hey everyone! Knowing the community that's here and of course that Christmas has just come and gone; What games/systems did you get and what are you currently playing?

I didn't get any new systems this year, though I was considering the cool exceptionally cool Nintendo 3DS which I got to try at my wife's store last weekend before Christmas. They were demoing Mario Kart 7 on one of the systems that head office got them to hand to people in the store to try.

The thing that impressed me the most was how nice the 3D actually looked without glasses. Tilt the screen too far to the left or right from centre of the field of view and you'd get a double image though. Overall it was still impressive and I think that Nintendo really has something going here. Not sure if it would translate well enough to 3D TVs, but it's worth it for a handheld.

I also got to play with the 3D camera and took a few pictures of the inside of the store with it. The built in tool lets to virtually move your head around a bit and see what it would be like to get that 3D motion effect.

Another cool feature was the depth of 3D and the fact that if it hurts your head, you can just turn it off with a slider switch, mid-game action even.

If only there were more titles for it other than Nintendo brand games I'd be more interested.

However I didn't get one of those so here is what I am actually playing...

Spider-Man Edge of Time (long-time Spidey fan)
Sonic Generations (Love the old-school game-play)
and the 1st Ratchet & Clank (fun game, everything is so life-like!)


Between Christmas (thank you wifey!) and Boxing Day, I got at least 25+ new games to play for my PS3.

Something I got for her that we are both enjoying is the new Skylanders game. lol I know I know big-time marketing scheme. But it is a fun game even if a lot of the game-play focuses on collecting abilities of all these cute little figures to play in the game. As a hard core geek however, the cost of the statues is well worth the detail and attractiveness of the figures themselves so it's not such a bad thing really.

BTW does anyone know where I can find any of those Dragon Quest figures at a decent price? (other than ebay)

Other games that I got, and can remember include:

LA Noir
X-Men Destiny
Ratchet & Clank 2 & 3
Batman Arkham City
Rayman Origins
Resistance 1-3
LEGO Star Wars 3
LEGO Indiana Jones 2
Prince of Persia Classic Collection
God of War: Origins Collection


That's my Christmas, how is yours? :)

[User137]

Didn't get anything worth mentioning at christmas... umm, chocolate? :D But there are 2 games that have stood out for me during December: Skyrim and Portal 2. (I only play PC games...)

And now back to coding :) I'm at a turning point with my game engine where i have fixed all bugs that i got with model class overhaul, and started adding new features.

Friendly TIP: Be very careful with "with...do" statement! Especially if you resize arrays (that you use in the statement itself) inside it.

[dazappa]

I got Epic Mickey, an anime series, a DVD, bluetooth adapter, wireless Wii sensor bar, and a Logitech G500 gaming mouse. I don't really play a lot of mouse-intensive games, but I'm extremely hard on keyboards and mice, so with my recent upgrades of both, I'm hoping I can get 2-3 years out of them. Also, the mouse is super comfy and supports lots of goodies I will never utilize fully (e.g. macros and about 4000dpi more than I need :P). It also came with some weights so I was able to make the mouse feel perfect.

[LP]

Well, I'm probably old fashioned, but I'm against gaming consoles just as I'm against social networks, so no, I don't have any. Am trying to stay away from them like a plague. :)

During the entire Christmas I've spent most of my time writing research project and work plan, but in the free time been playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadows of Chernobyl (http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Chernobyl). I own other two sequels in the series (Clear Sky and Call for Pripyat), but this original game is what I like the most. It's scary environment (just being inside of Lab X-18 (http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/Lab_X-18) can scare the hell out of you the first time you play it), excellent atmosphere, realistic ballistics and high replayability makes it one of my favorite first person shooters.

Also am planning to purchase X-Plane (http://x-plane.com/) to practice as one of my plans for the next year is to take flight courses. (Just hope to pass the damn medical test as my 90% vision is not getting any better and have mild hypertension.)

[wagenheimer]

Well! I have so little time to play, but on the free time I'm playing Zelda Skyward Sword on Nintendo Wii and after finish this I have Star Wars - Force Unleashed 1 to play on my XBox 360 (I have already finished this on the Playstation 2 years ago, but the Xbox version seems to be very different).

[JSoftware]

I got a Neo FreeRunner that I plan to write an OS for(in pascal of course) :)

[Cybermonkey]

Okay, if that counts, I will start playing the Ukulele tomorrow ...;)

[Stoney]

I mostly played Orc must Die this christmas and besides that, I played other Steam games to get some prizes from the Great Gift Pile. :)

[SilverWarior]

Also am planning to purchase X-Plane (http://x-plane.com/) to practice as one of my plans for the next year is to take flight courses. (Just hope to pass the damn medical test as my 90% vision is not getting any better and have mild hypertension.)

I tried X-Plane by one of my firends about a year ago and I must say that I was disapointed about the game realism.
For instance when you stall a plane by reducing the airspeed the plane's nose just suddenly drops down, while with real plane the plane will always roll to the lef or to the right before the nose will drop down. Also in certain conditions the real plane's nose wont drop down but the plane will stil begin faling down (asending with a verry steep angle). If you try this in X-PLane the plane's nose will just drop down.
While cockpit instruments do look realistic, they doesn't represent the real layout.
Also if my memory serves me corect X-Plane doesn't support radio comunication simulation.
For long time Flight Unlimited 3 has been considered to have the most realistic radio comunication simulation. The game supported "Ground controll" comunication, "Tower comunication" and even "Area approach" comunication. Area approach has been done well enough to guide you from one airport to another without any problem even warning you when another plane was in your close vicinity. In one instance it even guided me safetly around the storm that was between my starting position and my destination.
I belive that latest Microsoft Flight Simulator simulates radio comunication even better than Flight Unlimited 3 but I haven't try it jet.

[czar]

sinking many hours into Skyrim - awesome game

[paul_nicholls]

Hey all,
I have been rather enjoying my new xmas present - the Doctor Who: The Complete Davros Collection (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Complete_Davros_Collection)!!
679

Woo hoo! I have wanted that box set for a couple of years now, and my wife managed to get it off Ebay :)

I have already watched 3 of the 5 Dr Who stories in it and watched some of the extras...very cool stuff :)

cheers,
Paul

[Ingemar]

No computer games for me, but my son got an Xbox 360 with Kinect and Halo 3. The Kinect was for me, I will use it from my Mac, for development experiments. I was reluctant to buy an Xbox, since I am not a Microsoft guy and we already have a Wii, but the Kinect is interesting and my son really longed for the later Halo games.

But the biggest theme this year was board games:

- Euphrates & Tigris, popular game.
- TransEuropa, simple and fast track-laying game, surprisingly enjoyable.
- China, interesting build-for-points game.

[Ingemar]

I got a Neo FreeRunner that I plan to write an OS for(in pascal of course) :)

Are you serious? Isn't that a rather daunting task even for a phone? But it would most likely beat Android pretty seriously, performance-wise.

[de_jean_7777]

I did not get anything, as there is no tradition of gift-giving for holidays in my family (and generally where I'm from). I did buy the Humble Indie Bundle 4, and I'm gonna play the games as soon as I find some time (it's hectic these days).

[Super Vegeta]

I kinda went the other way, I got my father Crysis 2. Pondered Shogun 2 for a while, as he is a big fan of the whole Total War series, but that one was a bit too expensive for me. :(

[JSoftware]

Are you serious? Isn't that a rather daunting task even for a phone? But it would most likely beat Android pretty seriously, performance-wise.

It is, but I think it is possible. And I know it'll be fun trying at least :)

[code_glitch]

Oh, me, nothing much - just that new rig I wanted for a while. Turns out the old rana chips have a nice tendency to unlock to propus phenom iis so I'm ecstatic...

[LP]

By the way, since we are talking about gifts, I was thinking of getting a new rig too, but can't decide between AMD FX 8-Core Black Edition (http://shop.amd.com/es/All/Detail/Processor/FD8150FRGUBOX) vs Intel Core i7 2600K (http://ark.intel.com/products/52214/Intel-Core-i7-2600K-Processor-%288M-Cache-3_40-GHz%29). The last one is a bit too expensive for my taste, but is it worth the extra $$? Or should I wait for other options to come out?

P.S. Up until now I've been using my old Intel Q6600 (http://ark.intel.com/products/29765/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q6600-%288M-Cache-2_40-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB%29) passively cooled by Coolmaster Hyper Z600R (http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2694), Mb Asus P5QL/EPU (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5QLEPU/) and RAM Patriot DDR2 800 (http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/detailp.jsp?prodline=5&catid=33&prodgroupid=205&id=317&type=1) with 4-4-4-12 timing (2.2V) and it's been a highly reliable machine to work with (have dual 1280x1024 monitor setup powered by XFX Nvidia Geforce 250 GTS (http://xfxforce.com/es/products/graphiccards/gtsseries/250gts.aspx), Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/natural-ergonomic-keyboard-4000) and Sound Blaster Fatality (http://www.techspot.com/review/115-creative-xfi-titanium-fatal1ty/)). I'll also be looking for a new video card, but I find it difficult to adjust for a double (2x) PCI-EX power connector (http://www.xpcgear.com/6pinpciexpress.html) and using PSUs with higher than 500W ratings. Any suggestions would be helpful there too.

[code_glitch]

@Lifepower:

Heres what I wanted: for around £410
ATI 5770 1gb GDDR5 version from XFX
AMD Phenom II 960t
ASRock 870 Extreme 3.0
2x2GB XMS3 DDR3 1600Mhz
64 GB SSD

Heres what I got by shopping around the stock crisis around christmas for a cut under £350:
XFX 5750 1GB GDDR5 which I've OCed to 5770 levels, but I don't need that much more juice
AMD Athlon ii X3 460 which unlocks to phenom ii b50e
2x2Gb XMS3 DDR 1600
32Gb Kingston SSDNow

For the money, considering the floods in thailand, I find this pretty good value coming from the C2D and intel world... The best bit is this: when piledriver is released for socket AM3+, I'll just sell off my athlon for, say, £30, and buy that instead! Problem solved. And for the GPU? Crossfire in a 5770 since they're compatible.

One thing I can't help but notice with your i7 rig is this: balancing. Your i7 can play things at 700fps (or some stupid number) BUT your GPU cannot... Unless you got 2 GTX 460s which would blow your budget. From what I hear the FX chips are not bad, but where not what we were expecting so be warned there. Its i5/i7 level performance, heres what I'm saying in a few points:

AMD:
+ Cheap
+ Clear upgrade path: AM3+. Piledriver etc... Overclocking and unlocking, free GhZ for no $£$£
- Sometimes more heat
- Not always the highest performance
Intel:
+ Next Gen performance
- Expensive
- Upgrade path is... 'Murky'? LGA1366, P67 etc etc etc. Intel likes change. a lot.
+/- Can run hot...

On the whole I'm thrilled by how my athlon is putting up a fight with skyrim ;) I'm getting some nice FPS at high settings (ok, I oc'ed my card for this one, buts here its the GPU that counts). Its your call, intel for the next lots of years due to cost, or a cheap swap in replacement every 2 to 3 years for AMD? But do you need things running at 100frames/sec more than vsync?

PS: DDR2 - DDR3 Is a MASSIVE boost. As is an SSD, words can't express what a 10 second boot is like (from cold to desktop).

[mobilus]

I played Rage and Disciples III.

[LP]

code_glitch, thanks a lot for suggestions!



Intel:
+ Next Gen performance
- Expensive
- Upgrade path is... 'Murky'? LGA1366, P67 etc etc etc. Intel likes change. a lot.
+/- Can run hot...


I actually have doubts about Core i7 for desktop because Core i7 840qm on my Dell laptop with DDR3 at 1333 Mhz is unimpressive. I'm getting mostly the same performance in WinRAR as my desktop machine (Q6600 with DDR2 at 800 Mhz), although in 1-threaded applications it is faster because of Turbo boost.

So AMD FX series are not that great after all? Maybe I should just wait for something better to come out or for prices to drop...

[code_glitch]

AMD FX series are not that great after all?


This is a touchy one and it has to do with the way bulldozer works. the FX 8 series is commonly thought to have 8 CORES. This is NOT the case.It has 8 MODULES, each is capable of handling one thread, but 2 modules share a few common components. If applications are not optimized you can have threads fighting for some resources that are shared while there are stacks of other available. Hence leading to sub-optimal performance in some scenarios.

HOWEVER - the FX8150 for example is not bad. Its just not as good as what was hyped, fact is that when you get that chip with all 8 threads running it can knock the living daylights out of just about anything else and the reason why is this:

Traditional 4 core (eg c2q, phenom ii x4...) have 4 cores, each with 1 set of resources each handling 1 thread.
Hyperthreaded 4 cores (eg i5s and i7s) have 4 cores, each with 1 set of resources each handling 2 threads
the FX and bulldozer chips have 4 cores - split into 8 modules. Each module has mostly separate resources, and some shared. In this sense it half way between true 8 coreness and 4 core hyperthreadedness.

Now, there is a controversy involved: Windows. A patch was released after MS found that I/O scheduling on the NT kernel did not scale well to this architecture and caused lots of performance losses. They then released a patch to attempt to fix this. HOWEVER this patch had to be withdrawn as it caused the kernel to become unstable. In other words, FX8150 - above a phenom ii x4 and x6 and somewhere between a really high end OCed i5 and mid-high end i7 however I hear intel is releasing another generation of i7s so I can't say for sure yet.

There is one thing you should consider though: a phenom ii x4 955 can trump a Q6600 at stock speeds. A phenom ii x6 will swamp a phenom ii x4 and a FX8150 will be up to 5% below a phenom ii x4 (from early reviews) in some tests and around 50% ahead of a phenom ii x4 in others. The problem with bulldozer is that its such a modern architecture virtually no code is optimized for it :|

I'll let you decide - but for the money the high end p ii X4s and X6s are amazing. Hell, even my ahtlon ii x3 is knocking on the door of i5s :) so you can;t go wrong I guess. Although for the bulldozer and FX scene, I think a LOT of people are going to be waiting for piledriver with phenom iis and athlon iis in their rigs for now.

A useful page you could use when looking at things would be this: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q6600+@+2.40GH z

Your c2q is the nice red box, look above and that SHOULD be better, your choice. I'm sorry for the long replies its just that I spent around 2 weeks non stop looking for info for my decision and things aren't as simple as they once where since bulldozer hit the scene...

PS. If you get an X6 or X4 with a t in the name eg (X6 1066t or x4 960t) it means it has turbo. And what are you going to be using it for?
PPS: Also worth noting - for AMD chips, hypertransport and ram speeds mean a LOT more than for intel. 1600MhZ ram FTW! Windows Experience Index is 7.2 of a max 7.9 for my RAM so I'm happy, you can't get much higher (says windows)

[LP]

to code_glitch: again, thank you for such detailed explanation!

So it seems that AMD FX CPUs vs Intel are in a way similar to AMD GPUs vs Nvidia, where AMD usually have much more processor units but with more limited capabilities. I also can't help but notice that there are many more models of CPUs both for AMD and Intel these days, which makes selection much more complicated.

Btw, do you keep the opinion that a high-end Core i7 has the highest performance? For usage patterns, sometimes I use main desktop for gaming, but most of the time it's used with Delphi IDE, and for executing multi-threaded research apps.

From what I've seen, WEI (windows experience index) usually takes into account the amount of RAM instead of its speed. Also, for some reason on most machines I've tried in Win7 the RAM score corresponds exactly to CPU score. Do AMD chips have hypertransport bus higher or equal to 1600 Mhz? Because for Intel it still seems to be limited to 1333 Mhz even in Core i7 chips. Also, how's the latency in 1600 Mhz RAM for random memory access?

[LP]

I know that this is an old topic, but wanted to comment that I've finally decided to go for Intel and acquired Core i7 2600K. The budget got very restrictive, so I've got Asus P8H61 mobo and cheap RAM (will get better parts later on). The original Intel cooler was too crappy so I've used CoolerMaster Vortex Plus (even though I don't like it due to large gaps between heatsink and heatpipes on the side touching the CPU). Anyway, the performance is roughly 3 times of my Q6600 and 2 times of my mobile i7 840QM.

However, even though Core i7 2600K has lower thermal profile of 95W when compared to Q6600 having 105W, it runs significantly hotter in stress tests.