6497 réponses à ce sujet

[InBleedingRapture]

Oh, and just for the hell of it, here's my GPU-Z dump. I'm running two of these cards as my primaries with a modified BIOS for unlocked voltage tuning. The OC's are the highest stable clocks I could get without burning up my cards. I can get the core up to 900 MHz, but I start to smell hot electronic components under max load

Modifié par InBleedingRapture, 01 mai 2012 - 10:32 .

[Fredy AG]

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Added: Emergency backup of all files (in case of Mediafire links stop working) to the Post.

Someone could confirm if they work correctly downloads the files?

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[Dead_Meat357]

neilthecellist wrote...

Dead_Meat357 wrote...

neilthecellist wrote...

You're assuming I said NVIDIA and AMD makes their own cards. I never said this. As I said, I used to work in a computer repair shop and I'm working towards an E degree. What makes you think I wouldn't notice the little Foxconn engraving on the boards while doing repairs?

Foxconn is exactly what I was referring to. Yes, I've seen bad NVIDIA boards, the GTX 480 overheats like hell (the card that I have) but with the right aftermarket cooler (which I end up upselling to customers all the time) heat is never really an issue. I've benchmarked the GTX 590 and know what you mean by heating issues, but the actual cooler, as you probably know is not a Foxconn design necessarily (sometimes it is) but more often made by the reseller (EVGA, Gigabyte, etc).

Nonetheless, the design of an AMD card lately has not been that good. You may disagree with me with some examples, but like you, I've been around since integrated graphics were just a part of the mobo. My first non-integrated video card was an ATI Rage 64 (or was it 128?). I don't even think they're made anymore.

Regardless of the technical explanation, the fact remains that NVIDIA cards have those features that you acknowledge AMD cards can also do, but through DirectCompute. DC is not efficient. You know this if you work in the computer hardware industry. Or if you even tried it, that's another way to know.

And honestly, no offense, but having a degree in computer information is really irrelevant. CIS people don't really know engineering as extensively as an EE major.

I don't have a degree in CIS. I have worked professionally in these industries for 18 years. There is a difference. I also don't claim to be an electrical engineer. I'm not going to say that I understand things as well as they do, but I do know computer hardware. Don't assume I wouldn't understand something just because I am posting on the BioWare forum. For the most part the features that AMD doesn't do that NVIDIA does are irrelevant to me at this point. As for direct compute vs. CUDA, that's coding stuff and I'm not an expert in that. PhysX is a capable API, but many games have done physics work that is just as impressive via the CPU or through other more general means. Aside from the implementation of PhysX with the Batman games, I've never really seen anything all that impressive outside of tech demos.

And again for quality, I've seen many NVIDIA boards with sloppy soldering, warping, thin ass PCBs, VRMs that burn up far faster than they should, etc. I've seen bad AMD boards too. I'm not saying NVIDIA is worse than AMD, far from it. This varies by manufacturer. It's all about who cut corners on the design as much as adhereance to the design. If NVIDIA specs crap, then Foxconn will build crap. The NVIDIA 680i SLI reference boards are the only example of that you need. If a company specs something good, then what you'll get from Foxconn is a good product. (ASUS, Intel etc. use Foxconn for board manufacturing) 

Anyway, we are derailing the thread big time. I'm more interested in the texture mods. I just wanted to illustrate to the poster above that the problems with being able to load all these textures is the lack of available system/video memory in his or her machine. I wanted to show that Mass Effect 3 can use a ton of video RAM. System RAM usage varies wildly, so I didn't want to get into that. But in case you wanted to know, Mass Effect 3 is currently using 2.27GB of RAM in my machine right now. Video RAM usage on the Grissom Academy level ahs increased to 2.66GB in the court yard where you fight the first Atlas. So yeah, these textures are brutal even on higher end machines. Being limited by the consoles and not wanting to do extra work on the PC port is just part of the reason why the textures are so bad. The other part has to do with the fact that significantly higher resolution textures, or moderate increases in texture quality globally really can kill system performance. Companies like BioWare and EA will always pander to lower end and mid-range systems rather than the high end as there is more money to be made there. 

If you want to really see what this game CAN look like, you need to upgrade.

Really... I need to upgrade... Here are my specs:

AMD x6 1100t six core processor with Zalman coolers
8 GB of RAM active (16 GB total, but disabled 8 GB to save power since I live in California)
300 GB SSD
3 TB SATA II (currently disabled)
blu ray drive
3x GTX 480 with Zalman coolers (only 1 currently active, disabled other 2 to save power)
2000 watt Corsair power supply
Case has 10 fans, variety of sizes.

Lol.... You really think I need to upgrade.... I have the game set anywhere from 2x MSAA+2x SGSAA (visual equivalent of 8 X super sampling), negative LOD bias computed to -1.5... To 8xMSAA+8xSGSAA +4x SuperSampling, -2.0 LOD bias, Ambient Occlusion forced on at High Quality, and NVIDIA 3D Vision running this game at 2560 x 1600 resolution... Really, now?

I wasn't telling you that YOU needed to upgrade. I was talking to the guy with the NVIDIA GeForce 240 and the Pentium 4 with 2GB of RAM. I was responding to THAT guy. I had no idea what your system specs were. I didn't ask.

And you can think I know nothing about hardware all you want. I don't care. I'm not an electrical engineer and a CIS degree doesn't mean you know jack **** about hardware. You don't even have a clue what I do in the industry. I was merely pointing out that your assumptions were baseless. And you clearly don't know as much as you think you do (or claim to) if you think disabling 8GB of RAM will actually amount to any real savings with regard to power consumption. It won't even impact your electric bill. Furthermore, disabling the device in device manager doesn't actually eliminate the consumption of power. It merely leaves the device using idle power. There is some savings to be had if your playing games on only one card as opposed to three, but you might as well pull the other two cards if you aren't going to use them. That will save you even more power, and eliminate heat.

And Corsair doesn't make a 2000 watt PSU. In fact, no one does. Getting past 1600 watts, you begin to exceed what a common house hold 15amp circuit can handle Mr. Electrical Engineer. So try again.

Anyway, I'm again more interested in texture modding than talking about hardware in this thread. I won't derail the thread any further. IF you want to argue, we can do it via PM.

Modifié par Dead_Meat357, 01 mai 2012 - 11:24 .

[Om3r7a]

and what is the need for 3 480's? Just wondering.


Anyways just wanted to say that these textures are amazing. Made my second go much much better. Thanks for your hard work!

[Dead_Meat357]

Om3r7a wrote...

and what is the need for 3 480's? Just wondering.


Anyways just wanted to say that these textures are amazing. Made my second go much much better. Thanks for your hard work!

For high resolution displays, and with certain games the extra power comes in handy. Gaming in 3D for example also hits performance pretty badly. Mass Effect 3 in it's default form isn't that demanding, but games like Battlefield 3 can be. My rig won't do it on a single graphics card at 7680x1600 (3x2560x1600 displays). I can game on all three displays with some games, but that one is just too much. But if I wanted to add more graphics cards (up to 4 GPUs total) then I probably could.

[Dead_Meat357]

So far I can't tell much improvement by increasing the size of the texture, sharpening it etc. I mean there is a difference, but it's fairly minor. I've marked some test files with blue or yellow dots so that I could be sure the custom texture is loading, and it is.

I tried the demo of Photozoom4 and it does work well though it watermarks unless you want to pay for it. I've got SmartSaverPro which can do the same thing but is a lot cheaper. It's not 100% as good, but it's really hard to tell the difference and I already have it.

Any tips on making the textures look better I'm listening.

Oh, and if anyone wants the default textures and log files for James Vega's default armor, the N7 Defender Armor, or the M-96 Mattock, I'm more than willing to send them to you. (Hopefully someone else can do better with them than I can.) I'd love to see Smartek work his magic on these.

[Fredy AG]

Om3r7a wrote...

and what is the need for 3 480's? Just wondering.


Anyways just wanted to say that these textures are amazing. Made my second go much much better. Thanks for your hard work!

Salu2.

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[Dead_Meat357]

OK, increasing the size to 4096x4096 for armor, actualy does make a difference. Especially in the cut scenes. Much cleaner looking even without a lot of editing.

[Towik]

I see it got really wet lately in this thread . lool

[Fredy AG]

Towik wrote...

I see it got really wet lately in this thread . lool

Hey,

Thanks for the info about the Krogan, already published and turned out very well.

Could you help me with something? Go to this address and tell me if you can access the files. Is a backup of textures in case Mediafire inoperable.

skydrive.live.com/

Thanks.

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Modifié par smarteck, 02 mai 2012 - 05:25 .

[InBleedingRapture]

The link isn't working for me. I just tested it.

[Fredy AG]

what is the problem? logon requests?

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[InBleedingRapture]

Modifié par InBleedingRapture, 02 mai 2012 - 07:59 .

[Dead_Meat357]

I discovered that the M-11 Wraith actually says M-44 on the side of it, and you can't really change the color too much. I tried to make it look like something other than a pimp's gun and it seems to always apply the gold reflections / surfacing to that gun no matter what you do. Even the "M-44" is part of that.

Modifié par Dead_Meat357, 02 mai 2012 - 08:12 .

[Fredy AG]

InBleedingRapture wrote...

And here? : skydrive.live.com/


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[InBleedingRapture]

Yes! That one works. I see all the files. I don't even have to sign into MSN to view them.

[Fredy AG]

Cool.. Thanks.

Salu2.

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[neilthecellist]

Om3r7a wrote...

and what is the need for 3 480's? Just wondering.


Anyways just wanted to say that these textures are amazing. Made my second go much much better. Thanks for your hard work!

It makes rendering a hell of a lot faster when I'm making scenes for some of my classes at school. We're past the days where most of the stress is dumped on the CPU. Also, with certain non-default SLI profiles, you can really max out the performance a of a game. For Mass Effect 3 I only need 1 GTX480 to achieve a framerate above 40 even while running all the texture mods. 

Smarteck, check your PayPal tonight, I'll be dropping a good sum again as a donation.

For high resolution displays, and with certain games the extra power comes in handy. Gaming in 3D for example also hits performance pretty badly. Mass Effect 3 in it's default form isn't that demanding, but games like Battlefield 3 can be. My rig won't do it on a single graphics card at 7680x1600 (3x2560x1600 displays). I can game on all three displays with some games, but that one is just too much. But if I wanted to add more graphics cards (up to 4 GPUs total) then I probably could.

Not my reason for having them. Also I don't see how you have an authority to talk about 3D gaming when you don't even have an NVIDIA 3D Vision display. I do. ME3 in 3D does not "hit" my performance, let alone "badly", even with all the texture mods running in 3D. In fact, some games like Crysis 2 don't even impact my performance because only the HUD, trees, and character models are 3D, everything else is a "bump in 3D" solution (also known in slang as "fake 3D")

Very few games ran in 3D actually shred my performance. Witcher 2, for instance, runs with a low framerate in 3D because almost everything in that game was designed with 3D in mind, including the sky, trees, characters, HUD, weapons, effects... and much more.

Also, Assassin's Creed: Revelations was designed with N3DV in mind, (there's even an in-game option for it) and when I run that game my framerate barely drops 10 FPS from standard 2D.

Modifié par neilthecellist, 02 mai 2012 - 09:20 .

[InBleedingRapture]

Mmm... good sums are good

And yes, I have to say that I really do prefer a multi-GPU setup. I can force AFR rendering in 3D Studio Max or Maya, and it makes a huge difference. My third, crappy card is just for running a second monitor for internet browsing, etc., and occasionally for PhysX. This way, I can have a bunch of crud up on my alternate monitor without affecting game performance.

[Dead_Meat357]

neilthecellist wrote...

Om3r7a wrote...

and what is the need for 3 480's? Just wondering.


Anyways just wanted to say that these textures are amazing. Made my second go much much better. Thanks for your hard work!

It makes rendering a hell of a lot faster when I'm making scenes for some of my classes at school. We're past the days where most of the stress is dumped on the CPU. Also, with certain non-default SLI profiles, you can really max out the performance a of a game. For Mass Effect 3 I only need 1 GTX480 to achieve a framerate above 40 even while running all the texture mods. 

Smarteck, check your PayPal tonight, I'll be dropping a good sum again as a donation.

For high resolution displays, and with certain games the extra power comes in handy. Gaming in 3D for example also hits performance pretty badly. Mass Effect 3 in it's default form isn't that demanding, but games like Battlefield 3 can be. My rig won't do it on a single graphics card at 7680x1600 (3x2560x1600 displays). I can game on all three displays with some games, but that one is just too much. But if I wanted to add more graphics cards (up to 4 GPUs total) then I probably could.

Not my reason for having them. Also I don't see how you have an authority to talk about 3D gaming when you don't even have an NVIDIA 3D Vision display. I do. ME3 in 3D does not "hit" my performance, let alone "badly", even with all the texture mods running in 3D. In fact, some games like Crysis 2 don't even impact my performance because only the HUD, trees, and character models are 3D, everything else is a "bump in 3D" solution (also known in slang as "fake 3D")

Very few games ran in 3D actually shred my performance. Witcher 2, for instance, runs with a low framerate in 3D because almost everything in that game was designed with 3D in mind, including the sky, trees, characters, HUD, weapons, effects... and much more.

Also, Assassin's Creed: Revelations was designed with N3DV in mind, (there's even an in-game option for it) and when I run that game my framerate barely drops 10 FPS from standard 2D.

Wow, more assumptions on your part. Just stop. Really.

Just because I don't own a 3D monitor doesn't mean I've never tried 3D gaming. I've seen the performance tank in some games and not so much in others. I've personally never felt it was worth investing in the monitors for it, so I haven't. But that doesn't mean that I've never seen it work. Don't mistake a lack of interest as a lack of knowledge on the subject.

Modifié par Dead_Meat357, 02 mai 2012 - 10:04 .

[Fredy AG]

Dead_Meat357 wrote...


Oh, and if anyone wants the default textures and log files for James Vega's default armor, the N7 Defender Armor, or the M-96 Mattock, I'm more than willing to send them to you. (Hopefully someone else can do better with them than I can.) I'd love to see Smartek work his magic on these.

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We'll see, sir. :happy:

Yesterday, while some debate, I began to edit the textures of skin and hair of my Shepard character, and gave very good results. It looks much more real now. I would love for this improvement to share with you, but as we all will understand, it is not possible as it would have to edit the textures of each of you separately.

Today I started the game from the beginning, with all the textures here are known and it was really gratifying to note all the visual changes we have made together.

Had advanced earlier in the game until the mission with the Krogan, (for that reason, my last texture was Wrex - Wrev). Once I get back there, I will continue editing the textures that need an improvement and will share in the Post.

Do not forget to regularly visit the section on "Projects", there are other people doing a good job too.


Salu2 from seismic Chile (pretty hectic these days).



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Modifié par smarteck, 03 mai 2012 - 06:55 .

[Dead_Meat357]

smarteck wrote...

Dead_Meat357 wrote...


Oh, and if anyone wants the default textures and log files for James Vega's default armor, the N7 Defender Armor, or the M-96 Mattock, I'm more than willing to send them to you. (Hopefully someone else can do better with them than I can.) I'd love to see Smartek work his magic on these.

///

We'll see, sir. :happy:

Yesterday, while some debate, I began to edit the textures of skin and hair of my Shepard character, and gave very good results. It looks much more real now. I would love for this improvement to share with you, but as we all will understand, it is not possible as it would have to edit the textures of each of you separately.

Today I started the game from the beginning, with all the textures here are known and it was really gratifying to note all the visual changes we have made together.

Had advanced earlier in the game until the mission with the Krogan, (for that reason, my last texture was Wrex - Wrev). Once I get back there, I will continue editing the textures that need an improvement and will share in the Post.

Do not forget to regularly visit the section on "Projects", there are other people doing a good job too.


Salu2 from seismic Chile (pretty hectic these days).



//////

I've started resizing and doing some work on the textures. Nothing as drastic as what your doing, but I'm seeing some fairly noticable improvements with some of them. The M-96 Mattock I finally got to a state where I could see some real improvements over the standard texture. I've got a higher quality N7 Defender armor that is resized and has a couple of minor tweaks. Mainly the unreadable bird crap looking stuff under the N7 logo has been removed. Looks a lot cleaner now.

I've been messing around with some other textures to see what kind of results I get and how different things look. It's a lot of fun once you get into it.

And I have to say, I really, really enjoy your Normandy retexture, Shepard's default armor, Liara and Garrus's default outfits. Those are probably my favorites overall. But I'm using pretty much all your textures except the Kaiden one. Main reason being I don't have him in any of my saves. I've got Ashley instead. Though with her attitude in ME3, I often regret not leaving her on Virmire instead.

[Fredy AG]

Dead_Meat357 wrote...

... It's a lot of fun once you get into it.

 
That is very true. 

Dead_Meat357 wrote... 

...Though with her attitude in ME3, I often regret not leaving her on Virmire instead.

JAJAJJAJAJAJA.... 

You could try to improve Ashley's armor, I know many people will appreciate it.

Salu2. 


PD: Salu2 (de saludos) means: Greetings.


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Modifié par smarteck, 03 mai 2012 - 07:15 .

[-S-]

I have a request if you don't mind - High-res Reapers. Because when you look at them up-close in the prologue, they're so low-res it hurts.

[Dead_Meat357]

smarteck wrote...

Dead_Meat357 wrote...

... It's a lot of fun once you get into it.

 
That is very true. 

Dead_Meat357 wrote... 

...Though with her attitude in ME3, I often regret not leaving her on Virmire instead.

JAJAJJAJAJAJA.... 

You could try to improve Ashley's armor, I know many people will appreciate it.

Salu2. 


PD: Salu2 (de saludos) means: Greetings.


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You read my mind. I actually started working on that last night.