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You don't need to read any reviews for this game. Just buy it and play it!

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May I have a key too, please? (Linux Mint)

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Quoting: SabunThe Open Source drivers seem to lack any form of UI now though, so there's no centralised way for me to check temps/driver version/card number/GPU performance settings and so on so forth like you could with Catalyst or Nvidia's GUI program.

You might be interested in this:
https://github.com/marazmista/radeon-profile

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Quoting: jdubHopefully Unity 5 will make it easier to port nix games, lots of bugs in 4 it seems

unity 5 will still suffer same problem. no development environment on linux, which makes it kinda "let's cross fingers" solution

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Quoting: GuestAnyway, my post was because generally if you're trimming down the cost, a cheaper CPU for better RAM is normally worth it for games, regardless which company (cheaper AMD vs costly AMD, cheaper Intel vs costly Intel, or a mix thereof).

Do you have anything to back this up? I have seen quite a few benchmarks of games with different kinds of ram and for afaik it makes no difference unless you have an igp. Linustechtips did some testing a few weeks ago, his results were that there is no difference between 1333mhz and 2100mhz in terms of gaming performance.

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Source and The Universim both catch my eye. Spy Chameleon looks fun but I don't know if it's the sort of game I'd normally play. Voxel Quest (pending name improvement) has potential, certainly worth watching.

And let's face it, Woodie Tree Adventures is cute as hell.

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Quoting: SkullyI don't see a real future for AMD at all anymore. Their cpu's well under perform while generating alot more heat and use more power. Their GPU drivers suck in Linux compared to Nvidia. And even on windows you have more issues. Currently your better off just buying the best Intel cpu and Nvidia gpu you can with the budget you have for your build.

Unless they pull something out of their butts, the fx-8350 cpu I recently/regrettably bought for my missus will be the last sale from me. I should of just got her an i3 or low i5 for same price. It would perform better for gaming and wouldn't become a room heater while sounding like a it's about to take off into the sky. I had to buy an aftermarket cooler for it and disable core boosting to shut it up, or my partner wanted me to rip it out and put her old parts back in lol.

P.S I used to be a lover of AMD's cpu's. Never liked ATI cards though, due to same issues they still suffer from with AMD.

\\


I have that CPU and it rocks, of course I compile my own software for up to 70% gains, hell I encode at close to 300 fps on this monster. use arch (ABS) or gentoo and this set this beast free. As for their cards, I have had many and haven't been let down since I stopped using Windows since the opensause support handles older cards and catalyst for the newones... I also own an intel i3 with built in video and my llano destroys it for gaming. that's a full gen after i3 mind you. oh but what lies we tell ourselves huh?

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I can safely say I have never heard of any of these

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I'm really looking forward to kartsim, voted for it as soon as I saw it in Greenlight.

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Be sure to let them know that doc.

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As a backer, I'm quite ***ed about that. Even worse, they didn't say anything about it in the last backer update; at least not directly, only that a new FAQ was put up. And really, who would expect this bombshell hidden inside there?

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QuoteSo, what do you the readers think AMD will do in future?

Limited to the FOSS/proprietary drivers matter the answer is: the usual? AMD invested a lot in FOSS drivers so they won't abandon it but they still need a few years to reach at least OpenGL/OpenCL parity with Catalyst, so for a few years probably nothing will change, except maybe trying to reduce duplicate work from driver teams as they revealed at GDC2014 but that's just an internal detail that won't affect the final user significantly.

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Right now I'm quite content with my Phenom II X4 - Radeon HD6670 - fglrx combination.
Until mid-2013 however, it sucked to own an AMD system. Every fglrx update would make me break out in sweat in anticipation of a borked system. That's not the case anymore.
Yes, I wouldn't complain about speedier development also, but that's about it.

On the pro side is what kept me an AMD customer since a long time: They hit the sweet spot considering bang-for-buck and power consumption.
A lot of AMD products beat competitors that cost double the price.
Energy ? My above mentioned configuration (with the HD6670 being passively cooled): 75 W idle, <130 W on load. And it's by no means a weak system.

As said, not for performance enthusiasts, surely. But me, trying to build the most efficient system I can, I do hope that AMDs Open-Source efforts gain more traction and will sort out some of the remaining weaknesses.

God forbid a PC hardware monopoly. The gone by Microsoft era would look harmless and innovative in comparison.

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im looking forward to playing this new port, old one is really dated and lack features.

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Quoting: GuestJust to drop another comment in here: don't forget about RAM affecting game performance. Slow RAM + fast CPU can be much worse than fast RAM + slow CPU, regardless of core count. It counts doubly with integrated graphics.

I am guessing this was in reply to me with the serious sam 3 example?
fx-8350 has ddr3 1800
i7 has ddr3 1600

but you are right ram does affect game performance. This just makes the fx-8350 look even worse lol

I feel pretty buthurt over having purchased that chip. I watch my partner playing the same games as me with often lower settings and or not as smooth :( at least I made it quiet now for her. They should supply a much bigger fan an heatsink like intel does, so the fan doesn't have to spin at the speed of light when it's under load.

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I got it from a Humble Bundle, and it's really worth playing. Good atmospheric puzzler, and just the right difficulty for me. Some tough rooms, some easier ones. The swapping and the story are worth some thoughts about identity. (Google for the space station's name Theseus if you're interested.)

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Quotefuture however doesnt indeed look good if they dont plan to refresh their FX series..

I agree with this. I have been watching them, and there hasn't been any news of something new from them. I'm worried.

Graphics wise, the 14.4 Catalyst drivers in Ubuntu 14.04 with my HD5750 have been good. This isn't at 1080p though (running at 1600x900). The nightmare that was AMD Catalyst 2012 seems to be no more, but that's only with my limited runtime so far (barely a week). FPS still dips like nuts in L4D2, but can reach above 100fps as well. The open source drivers work with Unity games now, but I haven't actually tested them for FPS performance.

It would seem AMD are improving, but at a snails pace. I am eager to see the open source drivers flourish, as it would mean just plug and play. That would be the best case scenario. The Open Source drivers seem to lack any form of UI now though, so there's no centralised way for me to check temps/driver version/card number/GPU performance settings and so on so forth like you could with Catalyst or Nvidia's GUI program.

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Quoting: Xpanderi seriously disagree from the CPU part. Fx-83xx series are still super good when it comes to performance/price ratio. Linux is pretty nicely multithreaded in general so more cores beats i3/i5 every time.. special when you compile or multitask a lot.. single core perf is dissapointing indeed.. and power consumption is more like FUD for desktop usage.. idle is about 15-20W more than intel ones and under load its just 30-50W more than intels, without overclocking.. that would make about 10-15€ bigger electricity bill per year when you run your cpu at load 8 hours a day...
AMD FX series are all unlocked CPUs, easy to OC and get even more performance out of them.. ofc power usage goes up as well but who the F cares if you have enough good cooling system.
i dont see them failing at all.. i'd take FX8320 every time over i5 4550 or 4650 and its cheaper than those.

future however doesnt indeed look good if they dont plan to refresh their FX series.. APU series are pretty weak in terms of CPU power... and GPU drivers are poor as well.

Yes Linux is multithread and more cores win, but that doesn't apply to games yet. Most games are still using 1, sometimes 2 and rarely 4. So most games run *** due to poor single core performance and they also stink at floating point calculations due to having a shared fpu unit in each module.
Then take into account that the fx-8350 runs at 3.9ghz and boosts to 4.1, while the i7 is 3.6 with boost to 3.9. An I5 would be everybit as good for gaming as my i7 due to games using 4 or less cores.

eg. Serious sam 3 on Linux. In the performance options cpu performance, my fx8350 has to be set to lowest or framerate drops below 60 alot. My i7 can have it on ultra. same distro, same gpu

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Quoting: Half-ShotI still don't know where I stand with AMD. I love having a good FOSS driver that is quickly gaining features and preformance, and is actually included with the kernel but AMD themselves need to do more, catalyst is a dead end.

However my AMD processor is still good after 5-6 years, and Intel give me no incentive to shell out my piles of cash.

Catalyst may be a dead end in the long run, but it has served a short-term purpose for some of us. If AMD were able to get good FOSS drivers released with the hardware, I wouldn't bother with catalyst. As it is now, it takes a while for the free drivers to get good, and catalyst is the stop-gap that makes me willing to buy a new radeon card and game with it during the couple years that the free drivers take to become decent.

AMD driver support is definitely worse in the short term but a better long-term solution than nVidia. I've had to deal with old nVidia cards for work before, fighting with both legacy and reverse-engineered drivers, and don't want to mess with that on my own time. In contrast, I just gave my previous gaming machine to a family member, and it is at the point where catalyst was no longer needed for the fresh Mint install. With Intel still not being an option for gaming, I am grateful to have AMD as a choice that is "good enough" for the short term and is even better for the long term.

Speaking of Intel, when my current i7 was brand new last year, I gave a try at gaming with the onboard graphics and it still just wasn't working out (without even trying anything with unusually high graphics demands). Since Intel is the one with piles of cash (not AMD as others pointed out), I wonder if they will ever bother to invest enough to make on-board GPUs competitive with mid-range video cards.

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I still don't know where I stand with AMD. I love having a good FOSS driver that is quickly gaining features and preformance, and is actually included with the kernel but AMD themselves need to do more, catalyst is a dead end.

However my AMD processor is still good after 5-6 years, and Intel give me no incentive to shell out my piles of cash.

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Hopefully Unity 5 will make it easier to port nix games, lots of bugs in 4 it seems

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Quoting: fedsoI mean pictures between the text instead of at the top of the article so I can read and look at the pictures at the same time... just a wish, not a complaint :)

Even if it was a complaint I don't mind.

The screenshots for my reviews have historically been a sore spot here, as with all of the website changes over the past few years on GoL they have been broken and restored so many times to make them in-line with whatever the current web engine arrangement is that it is not funny. That is the disadvantage of Liam always busily working away on the next great thing - it may make the website better, but it does make it a pain to keep certain articles in line.

I could try and look into some different arrangements though; if I do find one that works better for me I would feel obligated to go back and do the same for all of my previous reviews as well however. ;)

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Quoting: Anonymous

Quoting: fedsooh... Liam personal opinion, I thought the article on arstechnica! I expect to read Liam's opinion on GoL so I didn't even thought that it could have been a problem, I guess I agree with mirv and I see this more like an "opinion column" than "news".

AMD fanboy detected.

lol, almost, I'm a Linux fanboy in ethernal conflict when talking about GPUs: Intel good FOSS drivers but behind Windows drivers, AMD usable FOSS drivers and acceptable proprietary drivers, Nvidia great proprietary drivers but no decent FOSS drivers...

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Quoting: SkullyI don't see a real future for AMD at all anymore. Their cpu's well under perform while generating alot more heat and use more power. Their GPU drivers suck in Linux compared to Nvidia. And even on windows you have more issues. Currently your better off just buying the best Intel cpu and Nvidia gpu you can with the budget you have for your build.

Unless they pull something out of their butts, the fx-8350 cpu I recently/regrettably bought for my missus will be the last sale from me. I should of just got her an i3 or low i5 for same price. It would perform better for gaming and wouldn't become a room heater while sounding like a it's about to take off into the sky. I had to buy an aftermarket cooler for it and disable core boosting to shut it up, or my partner wanted me to rip it out and put her old parts back in lol.

P.S I used to be a lover of AMD's cpu's. Never liked ATI cards though, due to same issues they still suffer from with AMD.

i seriously disagree from the CPU part. Fx-83xx series are still super good when it comes to performance/price ratio. Linux is pretty nicely multithreaded in general so more cores beats i3/i5 every time.. special when you compile or multitask a lot.. single core perf is dissapointing indeed.. and power consumption is more like FUD for desktop usage.. idle is about 15-20W more than intel ones and under load its just 30-50W more than intels, without overclocking.. that would make about 10-15€ bigger electricity bill per year when you run your cpu at load 8 hours a day...
AMD FX series are all unlocked CPUs, easy to OC and get even more performance out of them.. ofc power usage goes up as well but who the F cares if you have enough good cooling system.
i dont see them failing at all.. i'd take FX8320 every time over i5 4550 or 4650 and its cheaper than those.

future however doesnt indeed look good if they dont plan to refresh their FX series.. APU series are pretty weak in terms of CPU power... and GPU drivers are poor as well.

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Quoting: SkullyI do wonder what they did with all that money they must of made, cause as you say now intel have the money to pour into getting better and better. AMD could of done the same when they were king.

AMD was never king financially. Intel could always eat them for breakfast in terms of the size of their bank account.

Still, I am one of those people still using a Phenom II X4 for gaming, and I only upgraded to that relatively recently. In the future I will probably go with one of the new AM1 Athlon or Semprons they are putting out now.

Quoting: SkullyI should of just got her an i3 or low i5 for same price. It would perform better for gaming and wouldn't become a room heater while sounding like a it's about to take off into the sky. I had to buy an aftermarket cooler for it and disable core boosting to shut it up, or my partner wanted me to rip it out and put her old parts back in lol.

I legitimately do not have much experience with newer Intel parts, but the main reason I use AMD CPUs now is because of terrible thermal performance that Intel had back in the day.

Not that this ever was meant to be a CPU discussion, but anyway...

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Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: fedsoThank you for another great review! Even without pictures (they would help breaking the length of the text) these are outstanding articles!

Not quite sure what you mean about not having pictures... I spent quite a bit of time getting the ten screenshots for the review.

I mean pictures between the text instead of at the top of the article so I can read and look at the pictures at the same time... just a wish, not a complaint :)

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Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: fedsoThank you for another great review! Even without pictures (they would help breaking the length of the text) these are outstanding articles!

Not quite sure what you mean about not having pictures... I spent quite a bit of time getting the ten screenshots for the review.

It sounds like the preference would be to intersperse them in the text, maybe the screenshots even got overlooked being grouped up high like a banner...

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Quoting: AnonymousSorry Hamish, just a bit pedantic for my taste. No offense intended.

Fair enough, but I think people can find the Wikipedia article on their own. ;)

Quoting: fedsoThank you for another great review! Even without pictures (they would help breaking the length of the text) these are outstanding articles!

Not quite sure what you mean about not having pictures... I spent quite a bit of time getting the ten screenshots for the review.

Quoting: fedsop.s. I think there is a typo at the end, "sold Linux release" should be "solid Linux release"

There is always going to be one. :|

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Quoting: migizi@Skully Yes Intel has great chips, but that wasn't always the case. If AMD didn't come in and kick their but in the P4 era they would have never innovated to where they are now. You also have do your research and buy what feel is best for you. Don't just buy based on price. AMD is still working to become profitable and the PC market doesn't help that. Intel has the money and power to buy their way into computers. They can pay companies money to use their chips so their user base goes up. It's all politics.

I'm not entirely sure what kind of games people are playing lately that you need an i7 extreme to get good game play. I'm still using my Phenom II x4 low powered CPU from 5 years ago. Out performs the i5 I have in my laptop that's only a couple years old.

As far as the FX line goes, they haven't put a lot of love in that because they are focused on the APU line. HSA is where they want to be and I believe that is the right direction. Leveraging the GPU for more stuff will make their chips outperform Intel. It's just going to require time for wide spread support.

Once AMD can star to generate a consistent profit they can work to hire on more people to improve their drivers and product line. You want them to get better, then you have to support them.

I agree it wasn't always the case, hence why I said I was once an AMD cpu user.
I also agree that intel wouldn't have worked so hard to get ahead if AMD hadn't been so good.
I do wonder what they did with all that money they must of made, cause as you say now intel have the money to pour into getting better and better. AMD could of done the same when they were king.

I also agree that your Phenom IIx4 is a great chip, it was after that they went crap. I would swap the fx-8350 for your chip in a heart beat. My mate still has his Phenom II x4 black edition and it's great. You definatly don't need an i7 like mine for gaming, but I do alot of other stuff like game development and video editing ect.

While I would like them to get better, and I have supported them in the past. I will not support them now by buying their inferior products. They can just get some more investors or something instead.

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The question it's not if it's bettere proprietary or free drivers, the question is what kind of drivers offer me the best experince and performance?
I think that also for AMD the fglrx are the best for gaming, but at the moment are far away from Nvidia performance and stability, switching to free model need to open-sourcing it to gain enought performance and to support in time all the new hw, i don't think will happen soon.

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