Valve, you just created another problem

[PostalDude]

I have a xbox huge resolution but trading through the Browser only works 2% of the time for me, both inside and outside of the game.

[C2Talon]

Originally Posted by wetnap

Doesn't ring true, I first ran it on a p4d and it wasn't great even then. How a 9 year old computer ran at 1600x at its release I don't know. 1600x1200 was pretty high end resolution at the time. Force lowering of dxlevel?

Not sure why it does not ring true. It was a top-of-the-line rig when I built it in 2003:

Processor: Athlon XP 2800+
Video: ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 9800
Motherboard: A7N8X-Deluxe
RAM: 1 gig of DDR333 ?

When TF2 was released, it easily ran over 60fps at max settings and 1600x1200 resolution, but that was without shadows. With shadows it would stutter quite a bit for me. But then shadows have always caused me problems on any computer. Maybe that is the "secret" you seek, though I had already parenthesized it in my previous post.

Now I have a Radeon X1650 and twice the RAM, but had to scale back settings quite a bit since release, all the way to minimal and at a lower resolution. I am more than willing to put up with bad resolutions and minimal graphics at this point in my life though, since I stopped caring long ago about graphics.

Originally Posted by wetnap

even tf2 run best with atleast 2 cores.

Which was back-ported from Left 4 Dead long after TF2 had already been released. Until that time, the only way to get dual core support working was some work-around hack. TF2 worked just fine then on a single core (and still continues to work as far as I am concerned), especially since the Source engine was built for it.


Anyway, telling people to get new computers is not the solution, unless of course those same advocates are giving away computers for free. It does not help in the slightest, especially since the people with this problem are already able to play the game.

The main issue is that there is an interface being displayed inside a game in this day and age that does not scale to the resolution that is used. That, in and of itself, is absurd.

[wetnap]

I don't know about that, I remember those athlon xp processors, i had one, pin modded or whatever for overclock and the rest, and the jump in performance for even counterstrike source when I ditched it for a p4d then to a core 2 was noticable, never mind for team fortress 2 which is highly cpu dependent like all source engine titles.

Tf2 works on a single core in the way that it works on a 9 year old system, poorly. Even on a core 2 the difference between 1 and 2 cores in tf2 is noticable, you go from not quite smooth to silky smooth. I didn't "upgrade" through all those systems because I was getting 60fps with an athlon xp and was dicking around, there clearly was an impetus for getting something faster, so the idea that the athlon xp was that fast in its time does not ring true for me at all.

You act like someone is being elitist because they have indoor plumbing. The fact is your pc was extremely out of date, and even 3 year old budget on their release processors like athlon x4's can run this easily. I think with your attachment to old pc's you've lost touch with just how much progress theres been in computer hardware, 3 year old budget hardware more than enough to play this game is not asking for much at all.

telling people to buy new hardware has always been the solution, its why we have battlefield 3. you want to look at whats being asked of systems, go look at actual modern game requirements. by that standard tf2's requirements are down right minimal.

Nothing you ran 9 years ago is the same, the windows xp alone has gone through hundred patches or whatever, nothing runs the same because everything does more, you cannot compare apples to oranges.

[wetnap]

Here look
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2349/2
by 2007 your 3200+ was off the scale slow already. and even then @1600x1200 for hl2 eps 2 which is close to the engine of team fortress if not the same it takes a radeon hd 2600 xt to reach 60fps.

you could reach 60fps with the 9800 on hl2 original from 2003 yes. but how much did you pay for a 9800 gtx or whatever all in wonder in 2003? probably almost the cost of most of a new system these days. that was quake 3 era gaming.

[C2Talon]

Originally Posted by wetnap

You act like someone is being elitist because they have indoor plumbing.

As do you. Not everyone can buy a new computer on a whim. Not everyone has the ability to read text at a 9600x7200 resolution because of vision problems, so they may have to turn it to 800x600 or worse. Not everyone wants to play all the latest and shiniest games. And definitely not everyone needs to play them at the highest settings at all times.

Originally Posted by wetnap

The fact is your pc was extremely out of date, and even 3 year old budget on their release processors like athlon x4's can run this easily. I think with your attachment to old pc's you've lost touch with just how much progress theres been in computer hardware, 3 year old budget hardware more than enough to play this game is not asking for much at all.

My PC is extremely out of date? How so? I can play games that were released just months ago with no problem. You seem to assume everyone must always have the shiniest, fastest, and newest everything. I am not one of those people. Heck, even my cell phone is older than my gaming computer. There is no need to fix what is not broken.

Originally Posted by wetnap

telling people to buy new hardware has always been the solution, its why we have battlefield 3.

If the person has an unlimited supply of money, or you are supplying the hardware free of charge, then maybe. However, some may not have the means to buy a computer on a whim or even at all. There are also plenty of crap computers out there that sit right beside decent computers on the shelf and are similarly priced. Some of the crap computers can only barely run TF2 if very desperate, because of poor integrated graphics, or only 2gigs of RAM on a Win7 machine, or what-have-you. Hardware is really not the end-all solution for all of life's problems. Some issues that are not hardware-related at all.

What of those with vision problems that cannot read text on screen unless it is at 800x600 or worse? If the the person can only read the text when the game is displayed at 800x600, then new hardware is not going to fix an interface that only works at 1280x or more. My mother has a PC that would probably put your own to shame, but she definitely cannot have the resolution at max for anything because of her vision. And while I initially played TF2 at 1600x1200, it became annoying to have to focus on small text in the very corners of the screen instead of just being able to see it peripherally. I actually moved to 1024x768 long before it became a necessity due to feature creep.

Then there is the problem that the OP states that it is not a hardware issue at all. It is the software. Plain and simple. If the interface is being displayed in-game, then there is no reason it should not scale to whatever resolution the game is using at the time. It is akin to being forced to use a console-game-like interface in a PC game, though even those scale proportionately with the resolution, unlike TF2's trade interface.

Originally Posted by wetnap

you want to look at whats being asked of systems, go look at actual modern game requirements. by that standard tf2's requirements are down right minimal.

What do other games have to do with TF2? For some people, TF2 may be the only game they play, or at least the most resource-intensive one.

Originally Posted by wetnap

Nothing you ran 9 years ago is the same, the windows xp alone has gone through hundred patches or whatever, nothing runs the same because everything does more, you cannot compare apples to oranges.

Really? When is the last time Planescape: Torment received an official patch? How about Deus Ex? Age of Empires? How about any game that does not have a constant revenue stream? Those usually only have one or two patches, tops. Games getting patches more than a year after they has been released are still the exception, not the norm.

As for the Windows XP you mention, I assume it probably runs better than it ever has, but then that is an operating system, and not the software running in it. One of the strengths of Windows is that it can run everything that has run on any version of Windows, ever. The only problems that crop up are when lazy programming in the early days assumed, for example, that Windows is always installed at "C:\WinNT", or that it will absolutely refuse to install if the Windows version isn't a very specific one, or that the Windows version detected is not a 32-bit one, or other lazy, hard-coded assumptions. However, most programs released after Windows XP came out do not make as many game-breaking assumptions.

Originally Posted by wetnap

you could reach 60fps with the 9800 on hl2 original from 2003 yes. but how much did you pay for a 9800 gtx or whatever all in wonder in 2003? probably almost the cost of most of a new system these days. that was quake 3 era gaming.

It does not matter how much I paid for something. It is already mine and does not require me to buy it again; it is money already spent and cannot get back. New hardware, however, does require a cost, and money that I would prefer use on other things. My situation is analogous to the following: there is a new Nintendo handheld called the 3DS. I own an older DS. However, I have not, and will not, be buying a 3DS any time soon. All of my DS games continue to work on my DS, so I do not feel it is worth it to "upgrade" to a 3DS until there are enough 3DS games that I actually want to convince me otherwise (something more than just the token same Mario and Zelda).

[Waaper]

Originally Posted by Animal00000

No need to insult monkeys like that.

Could you tell me how they got our computers again... ?

[randomstuff06]

I get the feeling most of the people screaming that everyone should update their rigs every 2 years probably have careers and stuff.

As great as that is, some of us can't even afford health insurance, much less upgrade a still-operable system that's worked reliably for years.

[BlandSauce]

Toaster gaming or not, a change was made that has caused problems for some players without a visible improvement for any.
By most definitions, that is a bad thing.

[Hippie3112]

Im running it fullscreen 14/9 and i cant do the trading too.

[wetnap]

Originally Posted by C2Talon

As do you. Not everyone can buy a new computer on a whim. Not everyone has the ability to read text at a 9600x7200 resolution because of vision problems, so they may have to turn it to 800x600 or worse. Not everyone wants to play all the latest and shiniest games. And definitely not everyone needs to play them at the highest settings at all times.


My PC is extremely out of date? How so? I can play games that were released just months ago with no problem. You seem to assume everyone must always have the shiniest, fastest, and newest everything. I am not one of those people. Heck, even my cell phone is older than my gaming computer. There is no need to fix what is not broken.


If the person has an unlimited supply of money, or you are supplying the hardware free of charge, then maybe. However, some may not have the means to buy a computer on a whim or even at all. There are also plenty of crap computers out there that sit right beside decent computers on the shelf and are similarly priced. Some of the crap computers can only barely run TF2 if very desperate, because of poor integrated graphics, or only 2gigs of RAM on a Win7 machine, or what-have-you. Hardware is really not the end-all solution for all of life's problems. Some issues that are not hardware-related at all.

What of those with vision problems that cannot read text on screen unless it is at 800x600 or worse? If the the person can only read the text when the game is displayed at 800x600, then new hardware is not going to fix an interface that only works at 1280x or more. My mother has a PC that would probably put your own to shame, but she definitely cannot have the resolution at max for anything because of her vision. And while I initially played TF2 at 1600x1200, it became annoying to have to focus on small text in the very corners of the screen instead of just being able to see it peripherally. I actually moved to 1024x768 long before it became a necessity due to feature creep.

Then there is the problem that the OP states that it is not a hardware issue at all. It is the software. Plain and simple. If the interface is being displayed in-game, then there is no reason it should not scale to whatever resolution the game is using at the time. It is akin to being forced to use a console-game-like interface in a PC game, though even those scale proportionately with the resolution, unlike TF2's trade interface.


*chop for babble*.

Sorry, asking people to upgrade to the point where they have rigs that match budget rigs from 3 years ago is NOT elitist at all. You are the one living in some kind of bizzaro reality where no one can afford an iphone or 500 dollar budget gaming pc rig. As I said, if you are that poor, you should reconsider gaming at all, gaming is expensive, your broadband is expensive you just aren't going to make a convincing argument if you are going to claim that you are so poor that you can't afford a few hundred dollars on your hobby once every few years.

Not sure how you got to talking about screen fonts, sorry, if you can't read fonts, you get a bigger display, a cheap HDTV is 1080p these days and if you are as blind as you say 1080p over a 32" is damn huge, and cheap. What you paid for a 19" lcd or even a crt a few years ago nets you a 42"+ lcd tv these days.

modern o/s have rendered interfaces and text that scale perfectly and you can set the interface dpi to match your requirements, but I guess you wouldn't know that because you are using windows xp with its primitive implementation of interface dpi/size setting. Thats the price you pay for not staying with the times. Windows 7 is 3 years old at this point btw if you were wondering just how out of date you are getting.

Sorry, if your cellphone is older than your gaming pc which you said was 9 years old? I don't remember or care exactly, you have an issue with technology in general, carriers upgrade you for free after a few years or for almost nothing, the cost of a replacement battery is equal to the price of their new budget phone, so why you would refuse I don't know, but that just tells me all I need to know, you don't really have valid objections, you are just stubborn to a fault.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally Posted by randomstuff06

I get the feeling most of the people screaming that everyone should update their rigs every 2 years probably have careers and stuff.

As great as that is, some of us can't even afford health insurance, much less upgrade a still-operable system that's worked reliably for years.

If i couldn't afford health insurance, issues in a videogame should be the least of my concerns.

By the way, last time i updated my rig was 4 years ago. But i made it with prevision about the future.

I'm sick tired of people 'investing' in computers, buying the cheapest (and usually crappiest) they can throw in and pretend that magically it will be able to run AAA games four years from now when it can barely run the actual ones.
Because computers are asy and stuff...

[MasterOfDerping]

i bought this game and it runs on my PC. i understand that i wont be able to run newer games but i think its garbage that some of u ppl think think that they should upgrade the engine or something so it can only run on high end comps. that wouldnt be fair at all they should just make a tf3

[phalanx1337]

most people would expect a game that is many years old to function on a computer in the era the game was created for

[MasterOfDerping]

Originally Posted by wetnap

Doesn't ring true, I first ran it on a p4d and it wasn't great even then. How a 9 year old computer ran at 1600x at its release I don't know. 1600x1200 was pretty high end resolution at the time. Force lowering of dxlevel? Now it runs smooth even on 3 year old budget hardware from my experience...so its not a big deal. A 9 year old computer would use something like a single core pentium 4 which is so slow by modern standards yes, it would crawl in such a game, especially when modern games..even tf2 run best with atleast 2 cores.

For reference a pentium 4 dual core can barely run portal...yes its that slow. Not much faster than an atom netbook processor.

i have a duel core pentium 4 run l4d2 and tf2 pretty decently at like 30fps sometimes lower

[nanosheep]

Spend thousands of dollars on a computer parts just for gaming. Sounds like money well spent.