Graphics for all!

When I discovered the key to having beautiful and absolutely surreal experiences in worlds not my own was the power of my graphics card, my desire to understand them became insatiable. That path led me through story and article after story and article, and even to this day I don't  fully understand them. However, because of that lust for computer knowledge I have gained much more than just information on graphics in particular, but  in all associated avenues. I highly suggest you computer savants begin your journey into the world of knowledge too. It not only broadens your respect for modern graphics, but your respect for the details in life that inspired them. For now, though, I wish to offer aid to those who understand little, but wish to have a simplified (Perhaps very simplified) article from which they can take basic answers.

What makes a game fast? Pretty? That shimmery effect when you walk out of dark tunnel into the light? Blur as you move? Edges crisp and smooth? Why is my game so skippy? All of these questions I sought answers too, and then I changed that knowledge into terms I would understand. I will share what I can. Post questions afterwards if you have any particular questions and we can work through it together!

We'll divide our approach into two major groups and then cover the details:

Number 1: Pick your side: There are two companies that produce Graphics chips as of 2011: Nvidia and ATI (AMD). Your preference is completely opinion in most cases (some games will show differing performance, but most won't). After you pick a make, you must pick a model. Many companies make models. Whether you want EVGA, Sapphire, ASUS, MSI, HIS, Gigabyte, or any of the others (I often get lost in the names) is up to you, but I propose two quality companies: EVGA and Sapphire (Nvidia and ATI cards respectively) as excellent choices.

Number 2: Pick your price range/performance. This can be difficult. Depending on who you ask (the enthusiast or the budget minded gamer) you will get different suggestions.

     If price weighs more than performance you can pick up some very cheap cards (30-70$) that will perform basic functions and simple games. This type of card represents the minimal user. The user who doesn't want to game necessarily, but wants fairly sharp performance on their computer. However, if you want to play a game and revel in the beauty of the world, the crisp scenery, the thousands of motions and objects on the screen, you are going to move up to the next level: the budget gamer cards.
   
     Budget gamer cards range from $90-200 and produce some astounding bang for your buck. You can now access sharper images and smoother frame rates and experience city streets and magical forests in beauty and awe. Because graphic cards have jumped in power even the cheaper (GTS 450: 130$) cards can produce amazing effects in games that may have seemed daunting before. Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 can both play smoothly on the highest settings with the right system and just one of these cards, and for many that will be enough. However, for the highly discriminating (I fancy myself that way) there are other options.


     Enthusiast gamer cards: There are many ways to play games. Enthusiasts will not stop until they have pushed every setting to full power and can walk away  with a ballet dancer's grace. These cards ($200-800) Will usually require you to upgrade your existing power supply and perhaps motherboard (depending on your setup). In some cases this category involves buying multiple cards (even budget cards) and linking them together. This is called SLI for Nvidia, and Crossfire for ATI, and requires their selective motherboard chipset (as mentioned above).
In this category you will see nothing less than pixelated excellence. Some games (Dragon Age 2) will still stutter, and this will make you angry. This is the games fault. Please don't throw your thirty pound graphic card at me.
Why are these cards better? We will talk about it below.

Things to consider technically when buying a graphics card:


1. The first thing beginners will look at when they look at a brand new video card is the graphical RAM. Just like your computer motherboard, your graphical card will sport RAM. This RAM is specific to one thing: buffering and producing beautiful graphics. This takes quite a load off of your computers internal RAM. You can find differing amounts of RAM on your video card, and this is where your first important choice will lay. Cards range (nowadays) from 256 MB (Yuck) all the way up to the ridiculous 4GB (Gigabyte, or 4000 MB) cards. The general excellence you should search for is 1 GB. It is a great place to start and provides plenty of headroom for your games.

Now, don't skip this article yet: there is one more thing about the RAM you should know. It comes with a letter and number. The older cards, or the dangerously cheap, will give you DDR2 (Double data rate 2). It was once the fastest, and some computers still use it on motherboards (like mine), but the world of games pushed graphical RAM beyond that. It adopted a new name and soon became GDDR (G is for Graphical) RAM. Up came the twice as fast GDDR3 (Which motherboards are now adopting in its DDR form), and even that couldn't stay long. Now you should settle for nothing less then GDDR5. It is twice as fast (supposedly) as GDDR3 and blazes in games.
In summary: Gamers get at least 1 GB of GDDR5. But, this is not all you need to look for in a card.

Let's talk about speed. There are three speeds on most cards: Core Clock, Shader Clock, and Effective Memory Clock (A derivative of the Memory Clock speed). Integrated graphics (Like in laptops) can get really slow, around 400 Mhz for a Core Clock. A good Graphics Card can range anywhere from the high 600s to the 900s on the Core Clock, but the philosophy is always higher is better. The same follows suite with Shader Clocks:  1500s-high 1900s, and finally Effective Memory Clocks: 3000-4000 is good. 


If the previous paragraph was about speed, let's talk about how many lanes those speedy cards have to pack full of data. This is your Bit rating. Cheap cards will try to sell you the abominable 64 bit graphic cards. While 64 bit is all the rave for Operating Systems, don't fall for it with a powerhouse graphics card. You should settle for nothing less than a 128 bit interface, but the best cards will be 256 bit or higher (380+ is a mighty fine number from Nvidia). Remember. Never settle for 64 bit.


Next up is software support. Cards will usually tell you what special features they pack, whether it be 3d vision or enhanced video, but one of the most important features is which model of Direct X they support. Direct X is Window's (Microsoft's) way of allowing incredible visual detail through their operating system. Direct X 9 was one of the first big runners, and the older cards might still only support it today, but that doesn't mean you should go for it. In this day and age a basic card should at least support Direct X 10, and a budget or enthusiast card should full out support Direct X 11. Don't settle for less or your options will be lessened. You will open the graphical menu in a game and you will see more grayed-out boxes then a black and white checklist. And what are those wonderful features you ask? This is my favorite part!


Special effects vary, but some of the most notable in recent history have to be Anti Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, Reflections, HDR (High Dynamic Range), Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO), Virtual Sync (Vsync), Shaders, and Tessellation. Some go without saying, but I know my first time in a graphical menu was like a step in a candy shop. I had to try EVERYTHING, so I will see if I can ease your curiosity.


1. Anti Aliasing: Ever looked at a line or edge in a game and started moving only to see it start jiggling, jagging, and stair-stepping? This removes that effect. Crisp, clear lines on buildings, horizons, power lines, cables, fences. This should only attempt to be turned on by those with a budget level or up card (according to my scale). Basic cards will choke and die on this feature, but newer and more expensive cards eat this setting for breakfast. (Oh how I suggest the Nvidia GTS 450/GTX 550 Ti for the budget!)


2. Anisotropic Filtering. This setting effects the textures in your games (The pictures painted on shapes to make them look like something: like a mountain, a character, a tile floor, instead of just a blank white objects). Those textures have certain viewing angles designed for them, like an LCD TV. If you stare straight at them they might look amazing, but if you go to the side it probably won't be as sharp. If you go nearly level with them they might become unseeable or very, very blurry. This removes that effect. It adds angles of viewing to objects and makes them look clear and beautiful from anywhere. This is especially effective on floors, walls, and ceilings. Most cards, not just more expensive ones, can handle this smoothly. Not quite the machine killer (makes your game slow down) that Anti Aliasing is.



3. Reflections: Obvious, right? Look at water and want it to reflect the sky? The sky and mountains? The sky and people and mountains and trees and dogs and flecks of dust? Reflections can add an incredible amount of eye-candy to a game, but it effectively means you have to draw a picture twice, this can be harder on a machine.


4.High Dynamic Range (HDR). This effect shows in some games more than others. If you stand in a dark tunnel and then walk into the sunlight you may notice you can't see anything for a while. It is too flushed and bright. This effect simulates such light tricks. It makes sunlight blur and shine and glimmer as you see it reflected off of wet rocks, rivers, lakes, and other such things. It also effects it's brightness as you walk into the day and stare at it, unflinching, like the action hero you are. It blurs it, it smears it across the screen and fills the sky with it. This is one of my favorite, most beautiful, effects.

5.Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO). What a mouthful. This, like HDR, effects light. If you've ever had a white shirt on and stood near a window as the sun hits you you may notice the shadowed wall next to you gets covered in white, reflected, light. This effect affects the reflected and missing light from any light source hitting any object on the entire screen. If you imagine a cloudy day and how the indirect light lights everything it is a good example. The light hits you, but not like direct light would. It is being filtered by other objects (like a white shirt onto an object  that would otherwise have no light). This is a killer feature for some budget cards and can drop framerates (game smoothness of play) heavily.


6. Virtual Sync is many a players whipping boy. Have low framerates? Turn it off. It doesn't do anything, right? Well, you neglectors of V, you may notice when you swiftly pan the camera up and down to look at the world it, for a split second, seems like someone took scissors and cut your screen in half. That is what Vsync prevents. When it takes to long to draw the next picture vsync slows you down so it has time. A fast graphics card won't be able to see the slow down, just the benefits, while it will still see jags if you turn it off.


7. Shaders. The word made players tremble when Doom 3 came out. Much like HDR and Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, Shaders make your game react to light. But unlike them it isn't creating the light that concerns it, but what your game does without it. In the above mentioned title heavy shadows were cast by players and objects as direct light hit them. If a light hit the side of your face it would streak your nose's shadow across your cheek. Heavy shaders (shadows) portray that. Depending on the game this can make or break the atmosphere, and depending on the card this can turn you into a slow motion deaths scene.


8.Tessellation. I mentioned earlier that one of my favorites effects is HDR (I have a favorite effect!). I developed that favorite years ago. my most recent favorite, however, is Tessellation. So, try this. Take a large piece of paper and cut it into four squares. Now, try and make a circle out of those four squares. Angle them, turn them, it still won't look like much of a circle. Now, cut each of those four squares into one-hundred little squares and try again. Now it probably looks magnificently round. That is one of the big things what tessellation accomplishes. New levels of round! But, wait, there's more!
   Alright, take one piece of paper with a detailed picture of a mountain on it and try, without bending it, to make it have the hills and valleys and detailed little gulfs and pocks like the picture, but. Make it look three dimensional (WITHOUT BENDING IT). Can't? Now, cut it into four hundred little pieces and using glue (and imagining that it could instantly stick and stay in place) try it. It is MUCH more doable (though for the small details you might want to try five gajillion pieces). This is also tessellation. Take a flat texture of a brick wall and shade it up all you want, but when you get flush with it it will still be a flat wall with a detailed picture. Apply tessellation and the bricks suddenly become REAL. They jump out at odd angles and uneven proportions. Tessellation, from a picture, builds the wall by cutting and reshaping the pieces of the picture according to the art that was drawn on it. In this way incredible amounts of detail are shown. Not just individual bricks, but where the mason pulled them from the mold and the scratches and scuffs. All of them now three-dimensional, not just a picture, but drawn and covered objects that really take shape in the world around them. This is big, fellas. This is big. This feature is only for Direct X 11 cards, and this feature is a killer for most budget cards.


There are many other effects also, and lots of little things about these, I don't know about or am still studying, like diffusional depth of field and Anti-aliasing transparency, but that should be a good start and plenty of knowledge to begin with I hope! Thank you for reading, and happy shopping, gaming, and world hopping!

What can I do with a netbook?

     The possibilities are almost without limit. A Dell Mini 10v is a capable little machine, despite the specifications.  One quick (or not so quick) upgrade to 2Gb of RAM and you are on your way to many worlds diverse and beautiful.
     I have mentioned the wonderful website GOG.com before, but for those that haven't been so attentive: go, support, buy games you thought long gone, and enjoy DRM (Digital Rights Management) free bliss. Many of the titles will run natively on your netbook of joy, but some will require some modding. Recent acquisitions include Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, Disciples 2: Rise of the Elves, Earthworm Jim 1 & 2, and many many more.
     Disciples 2 is a masterpiece with a powerful mood. Sadly, the mood is doom and gloom, but they do pull it off amazingly. The fantasy races clash  in cloudy sunsets and decrepit lands. The sky is rarely clear. When it is it falls coldly on wet or dead lands. The game features four deities and their followers going to war (five with the inclusion of the elven expansion pack). The races are the stuff of fantasy with a heavy artistic sense. Human's and angels march in "righteousness" while dark and twisted undead rise up as skeletons and liches. The demons are disturbing, the dwarves gruff and grave (Lord of the Rings the book, not the movie).
    You can bring up to four friends on one netbook and wage war, or allliances, and the expansion packs allow you to create randomly generated maps that can be massive.
    Excellence.
    I advise research as you purchase and adventure in the lands of yor. Many classics will dissatisfy you (I remember playing Zork for the first time and am still scarred by its textual let down), but many will leave you wondering how you could miss this adventure, this world, the first time around.
    Enjoy!

Roleplaying in a galaxy far far away

Star Wars has been an ever popular setting for all types of games. From shooters to strategy games we get to blow up droids, eliminate Sith, and choose which side of the force will become our fate. That being said the branch of the franchise devoted to role-playing  has often been one of speculation for me. The entire idea of role-playing involves taking on a role and becoming involved in a world not your own, in a character not yourself, and making decisions for that role. In this particular franchise I have never found the world engaging, the character deep, or the decisions all too important ( *cough* Anakin's acting *cough*).
     When one of my friends suggested jumping into the already-established classic "Knights of the old republic" I looked it up. Produced by Bioware (Yes, of Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Jade Empire fame)  some years ago, it's reputation was epic and it's following large. The price tag, however, was small. I got in on sale from Steam for a meager $2.50.
      Apprehensively I loaded up what was rumored to be a game on the scale of Baldur's Gate 2. I candidly played the first thirty minutes and was able to look past the outdated graphics, silly tutorial-man voice acting, and all too familiar scene of a Star Wars ship under siege. But, what I saw beyond the basic elements didn't impress me. The storyline didn't catch me. I drifted off to more pressing matters, such as another play-through of Psychonauts.
      A series of month's passed and I found myself between worlds at having just finished King's Bounty. I glanced at the large icons on my desktop, all of them representing places and decisions and characters I had explored and there in front of me glared Malak's face--the icon for Knights of the Old Republic. I double clicked and prepared some patience to get me past the introduction once again.
      Since my fateful decision to start playing it, Knights of the Old Republic has often surprised me. The voice acting took a major leap in improvement from the time you leave the stereotypical introduction and now I am enjoying conversations with rich characters. The decisions you make are very Star Wars in their own right; light and underplayed, but the acting does a fine job of keeping your interest as the plot twists and thickens.
      You get to play in a world estranged from the movie as you know it. Four-thousand years in the past the Sith are still wily and the Jedi are still terrible judges of character. Two of their pupils rise as Sith Lords and start taking over the galaxy. Predictably you must rise up and become a Jedi to stop them. Now, don't get me wrong. This is cool. Jedi are cool. Blasters are cool. Spaceships are cool. But, can Bioware wrap it into a cool story driven package? They pull it off.
      As a character in the world of Star Wars you get to do things and meet people only the most die hard of fans would dream of. Planets for the first time can be traversed and scoured, citizens talked to, and those annoying droids blown up if you really don't like them. Ever wanted to hack a C3PO-ish droid to distract enemies? How about actually question of those Twi'lek dancers? Maybe you wanted to get from the nitty-gritty of a planets economy all the way to the ritzy heights. Whatever your intergalactic passion, Bioware expands and elaborates upon the Star Wars world wonderfully, and they manage to do it while retaining the overall feel of the series.
      With only minor swearing, almost no blood or gore, and very little questionable content (romance options are extremely mild, and cantina's feature alien dancers in semi-modest clothing), I can rightly suggest this title to the masses.
      May the force be with you!

Art with a twist

    And now for something completely different; time for a game I don't suggest to everybody.
    "A man builds a city at the bottom of the sea. That's a marvel. Another man happens to be on a plane that crash lands on the same city in the middle of the ocean. Why, that sounds more like ... a miracle."  -Andrew Ryan.
    And with those words of great portent you are once again reminded of the alien and awe-some (and altogether terrifying) atmosphere of Bioshock in the city called Rapture; the city that was built on the bottom of the ocean. Throughout this curious city vestiges of the forties remain. Old record players play swinging club music while deformed and twisted people yell out insane jargon and charge at you.
    Something in Rapture went terribly wrong. Where "...petty morals" don't bind scientists mad experiments, revised medical aid (unasked for surgery), and the discovery of a substance called ADAM were just the beginning. It was a city without limits. A kite without strings. When you arrive it has already fallen into chaos. Near everyone went insane, their DNA spliced to provide them with incredible benefits while robbing their minds of any humanity or will. Yes, fire can shoot from your fingertips, but that stops being neat when it is used to melt the people around you. 

   Taking up whatever weapons and personal splices you can find (without the effect of insanity for special reasons unmentionable to those who have not played it) you are launched into this twisted hew of sky-scrapers after crash landing (verrrry conveniently *wink*), into the Atlantic RIGHT beside it. There in the dark of a moonlit night rises the monolithic lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. With no where to go and no other survivors you step in and tremble as the doors slam behind you. 
    You are contacted by the few remaining survivors and you slowly start to understand the history of where you are. The poetic and callous recordings of people who retained their sanity lie scattered across the beautiful and artistic remnants of the once majestic city. You visit old hotels and taverns, theater houses and industrial sectors. You truly begin to understand the horrifying scope of the catastrophe that is Rapture. It truly has suffered from Bioshock. 
    This game is beautiful. The art and locale, the atmosphere all call out to be explored, understood. It mystifies. However, amidst the contrasting shadow and art is extreme (EXTREME) violence. This game is not a family game, it is more of a novel of classic literature on par with the horrors of Heart of Darkness or Crime and Punishment, only more violent and grotesque. It is a commentary on the times, the folly, the vice of man and their downfall. Furthermore the language, though often poetic and highly stylized, is scattered with swearing. I play with volume barely audible for the brilliant voice acting, though not just for the previously mentioned caveat, but because it is a delightfully frightening game. 
    For those of you looking for a story to sweep you off your feet, mystify you, horrify you, and ultimately leave you pondering moral dilemmas, I suggest to you Bioshock. However, with the shocking content I cannot suggest it to the general population who might be reading this. It is a game I am cautious to play, but one that is worth at least one ride through for the seeker of art, beauty, and truth who can stand to look at something with lots of dark shades; dark shades that bring out humanity and ultimately help us understand ourselves better. 
    Enjoy at your own caution and be ready to delve deep (no pun intended) into a fantastical science fiction setting. 

Images taken from IGN.com and http://bioshock.wikia.com 

Friends make great darwin awards

   HARK! The goblin troop approaches. Five strong and one with explosive balloons on his back, ready to lob. Lightning crackles at fingertips and fire exhausts from palms as a sign of our imminent retaliation, subtleties for the show that is about to begin.
   My companion is silent, waiting. Her spells are secrets and her plans shrouded. Does she plan, or merely wait for the razor's edge of a moment? I don't have time to think. Scorching flames and lightning stop several in their tracks (reducing them to red kool-aid), but another push is imminent.
   It was then she struck. With the flurry of a hundred tornadoes a gust shot from her outstretched hands forcing the approaching goblins back and those too close were launched into the air like so many naked chickens. Though, there was an anomaly among them. It looked to be some sort of fellow dressed in scarlet bath-robes. Yes! He, he was also launched through the air.

Oh.

Wait.

That was me.

Landing in the deep waters of the coastline I quickly and solemnly sunk to my demise because, as everyone knows, wizards cannot swim.

It was really no trouble at all, of course. A few seconds later and she revived me. But, I did have to wonder, was this payback for the 300 foot launch I accidentally sent her on two forests ago?

In Magicka friendly fire cannot be turned off and any number of wizards given near limitless power are prone to a few accidents. It's kind of the point...

Eat me

    Go ahead. Six heads or one, just try it. But, first I would like to point out some very substantial facts.
    One, I am made of pixels and vertexes. Two, I have the god sent ability to save my game. GET AROUND THAT slimeballs.
     Killed, eaten, used as biofuel, or treat me like a bunny? Goodbye. You have just been reduced to little more than a memory. I know where you are, how to beat you (eat you), and exactly how many psychic thwomps on the head it takes to stop your butchering ways. You can't stop me. You can't stop any of us. We will invade your world and treat you all like some sort of game.
     Do you ever get tired of defeat? Like us do you simply call it a day and turn off the code when you can't get past that super tricky a gajillion-to-one outnumbered part? That's why my  computer crashes...
     The ultimate gamers tool. Don't believe me? Try playing a game that doesn't let you make a time stamped reversal point. Don't want to? I don't blame you, but the alien/fantasy creatures equal-rights movement will be on you shortly. RUN.
     The next time you decide to call a game unfair just consider that you have traveled back in time more times than I can count with retained strategic knowledge that completely upsets the balance of the universe. How else do you think a hero such as yourself can be born?
      No wonder at that why game makers everywhere strive to challenge us. I once played King's Quest VI for over 20 hours before realizing that I had made a critical mistake and needed to restart the game. Was I frustrated? Yes. Did I ever try again? No. Newer games have learned from this.
      Schleets! PANTS THAT EAT YOUR EYES OUT! (Play Dragon Age Awakening).
      Further more, if more games would include Prince of Persia rewinding time features--the ultimate in convenience--I would be more apt to scream about them from the rooftops. It is unsurpassingly wonderful to actually see the creature regurgitate you before you side leap to foil his plans. Can you imagine how frustrated the geth would be? Point closed.

Ferelden and Greenwort

      Fantasy varies.
      Many designers take shadowed and brooding approaches. Dark fantasy. This is where the world is always leering on the edge of some horror and humans are children in a world of greater powers. Personally this viewpoint leaves me wondering what is even the point. How can anyone exist, and why would they want to? There are no children to raise and no smiles to encourage. Good deeds mean nothing in a dark fantasy world. You can save a village only to have it ravaged by some nightmare. One stops even caring after a while.
      In the alternative is the light and happy fantasy of childhood games. Dark things do exist in this world, but the foes are slain by noble knights to rescue lovely princesses. Dragons sleep on mounds of delightful treasure, and the village is always in need of saving. Perhaps everyone can just get along? This world is preferable only on virtue of positivity. Otherwise it is just as bland as the dark one. There is no point to their ridiculous happiness. They haven't accomplished anything because there is no way not to. Agonizing.
      The quest is to find a fantasy world, then, that contains both elements of dark and light fantasy. Happiness and children need to be on the line before we actually start caring about impending darkness. We actually need to care about death and life.
      Fine examples of gaming dichotomy: Dragon Age: Origins and King's Bounty: The Legend.
      Dragon Age leans towards dark fantasy. The world is a gritty one. Dishonesty, tricks, traps, and faith crisis plague the humans while the horrible creatures that are building their forces to invade are always an inch away from invading. But, there is good in the world that is worth fighting for. You meet children and families in small villages, beautiful forests, and large fantasy metropolis locations. The situations are horrifying because they take away from the beauty and innocence in many situations. The swearing is minimal but the violence extreme and some of the moral dilemmas downright frightening, but what would we expect from the makers of Mass Effect and Jade Empire? This game is serious, yet still makes time for humanity. A near flawless mix, though it can make you come away feeling a bit less than morally fulfilled.
       King's Bounty is a more recent conquest for me and seems like a sleeper. Here we have a bright fantasy world filled with intricate details. The caves are classic fantasy with bats and spiderwebs and creepy music, the world as bright as a fantasy picture book and just as filled with adventure. Here you take on the role of a king's servant and wander about the country side seeking out quests. You lead armies tactically in a turn-based map while expanding your influence, inventory, spells, and skills. A cheery and bright game with just the right amount of aura and a kingdom of troubles and fantasy adventure. Delightful (And only $9.99 on GOG. Shameless advertising).
       Maybe not all of you are fans of fantasy, high or dark or light or avante garde, but these games bear decisions and experiences that all will enjoy or at least find fascinating. Enjoy!