17 replies to this topic

[Starquestman]

I think last time I played, MWO was either in Beta or just stepping out of Beta. I've tried to poke around every once in a while, but my machine wasn't up to par.

Just has some work done to it - new HDs, including a solid state, fresh Windows installation, hoping I'll get a frame rate that actually lets me score a shot or two before dying.

But I gotta know - what's with the Solaris 7 name tag now? I mostly remember Solaris from Mechwarrior 4 mercs as the formal chivalrous battle arenas with Duncan Fisher's sultry voice gawking in impression at rookie Spectre's domination of the field.

We getting any Duncan Fisher? Or is this just a title to differentiate from the new Battletech game coming out? Fill me in!

[JudauAshta]

solaris bought PGI that's what happened

[IIXxXII]

Starquestman, on 06 June 2018 - 04:22 PM, said:

We getting any Duncan Fisher? Or is this just a title to differentiate from the new Battletech game coming out? Fill me in!

There's a guy who does a good Duncan Fisher impression in this game on twitch:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/269657724

[Cloves]

Nothing to see here (Solaris), please move along... Just kidding. The game is much better than it was in Beta, but is slowly passing away. They recently spent a ton of time and effort on the new mode/branding Solaris, which pretty much died on arrival. There is still a ton of beautiful mechs you can stomp around in and shoot folks with, but it’s pretty much all about 12 v 12 quick play these days. The maps are bigger and we have more of them now. Most of the Battletech mechs are now represented I believe (or at least a few variants at least) so you should be able to find some of your tabletop favorites. Still not exactly the tabletop as some changes where made to make it work as a one person one mech first person shooter in a PVP environment. A new company that markets and monitizes the game differently took over after the original one sold $500 mechs with a gold paint scheme. It’s one of the least pay to win free to play games I can think of and they are very generous with giving away things they normally charge for, so if it matters to you you can cruelty play for free. Much drama has occurred, and is still ongoing, but we have a great community by and large, and very few toxic players and screaming kids. Give it a try if your new machine can play it, it’s free!

Edit- forgot to really answer your question. Yes we have Duncan Fisher. I would not say we have any chivalry in our 1v1 mode. Mostly we have seven different ques to wait in in three minute blocks to watch a one minute intro to have a two minute fight. And those seven different ques can have 0-7 different players active in them, so fight diversity is not much a thing, if there is anyone to fight against at all. Overall it’s about the same time investment to do a 12v12 game, with 1/4th of the rewards, if you are lucky.

Edited by Cloves, 06 June 2018 - 04:56 PM.

[Bombast]

Starquestman, on 06 June 2018 - 04:22 PM, said:

We getting any Duncan Fisher? Or is this just a title to differentiate from the new Battletech game coming out? Fill me in!

Duncun Fisher does do commentary in Solaris. Even with how slow it is to get a match, it gets fairly old, to say nothing about how absolutely brutal Duncan is. I've seen people get moderation warnings for things less rough than what Duncan pulls off.

[Starquestman]

Thanks everybody!

Welp, spent a few hours downloading, joined a match, hag graphics problems when I tried to switch to fullscreen. When that finally went away, I still had the terrible framerate I always had.

Im running an Asus G73 I bought back in December of 2012 - 8 gigs of RAM, Intel i7-2630QM ... 2.00GHz quad core... 64-bit - stock graphics card... I think my core is threaded to 8 "cores", so I may try again with threading disabled - but still, at lowest graphics settings, there shouldn't be any reason this can't handle the game, right? Ive got other games like Trackmania (albiet not as intensive) I play at full spec with zero issues.

[Cloves]

Stock graphics. That one thing is going to kill your ability to play many video games. For 100, get a dedicated card and you will see massive changes in most video games.

[Spheroid]

That is why buying a gaming laptop is a fool's errand. If you would have invested that same (substantial) amount of cash in a desktop we would not be having this conversation.

Your computer has no future. Upgrade.

[Starquestman]

Main reason I bought it was as a mobile studio machine for my music and personal use - works perfect for that. But for all the other games it plays just fine, I hoped MWO at lowest specs would at least be... playable.

I do have a custom desktop machine, but that thing stays offline 100% of the time and is dedicated strictly to studio software. Best decision I ever made for it!

Would hyperthreaded 8 cores be better or worse than reverting to just quad core operation? And, being as though the wife probably isn't going to let me drop another grand into a gaming machine... are there any external graphics cards that could at least make MWO run at a playable framerate? I use external audio cards (usb) for recording all the time, unsure if anything exists like that for video.

[Suko]

Starquestman, on 08 June 2018 - 07:04 AM, said:

Main reason I bought it was as a mobile studio machine for my music and personal use - works perfect for that. But for all the other games it plays just fine, I hoped MWO at lowest specs would at least be... playable.


I do have a custom desktop machine, but that thing stays offline 100% of the time and is dedicated strictly to studio software. Best decision I ever made for it!


Would hyperthreaded 8 cores be better or worse than reverting to just quad core operation? And, being as though the wife probably isn't going to let me drop another grand into a gaming machine... are there any external graphics cards that could at least make MWO run at a playable framerate? I use external audio cards (usb) for recording all the time, unsure if anything exists like that for video.

Honestly, buying a $500 ready-to-go rig would be sufficient for MWO these days (if that was your primary interest). That same PC would actually be capable of playing most of today's modern games at a reasonable level. With so many of today's AAA games going "cross platform" between consoles and PCs, it means the games have to be capable of being played on a VERY wide range of PC hardware.

Just know that MWO is extremely dependent on the CPU and less-so on the GPU. So even if you got some kind of external graphics card for your laptop, I don't think it will help out your performance much.

Edit: Unfortunately, now is not a great time to upgrade or build a PC. Thanks to Cryptominers, GPU prices are ridiculous. And thanks to supply/manufacturing shortages, Memory is also really expensive.

Edited by Suko, 08 June 2018 - 08:50 AM.

[Spheroid]

Your CPU is not irredeemably weak. Disable HT and make sure you are running in performance mode.

On the graphics side set particles and shadow effects to lowest possible. Those massively kill frame rate. We have a dedicated hardware section on this forum I suggest you post there.

Your single thread performance in passmark is 1314, a figure that exceeds my ancient Phenom. I can still play.

Edited by Spheroid, 08 June 2018 - 09:32 AM.

[Stridercal]

IIXxXII, on 06 June 2018 - 04:46 PM, said:

There's a guy who does a good Duncan Fisher impression in this game on twitch:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/269657724

Played a match with this guy a while back... freaking amazingly hilarious!

[Starquestman]

Thanks for the advice everyone!
I made some tweaks, got the machine running on custom performance settings, and on a cooler table couldnt figure out how to disable hyperthreading, but so far its manageable!

Got a chance to play Solaris mode; it is well done. It feels like a starting point, and I hope it gets managed well and grows. And for sure -
Solaris runs on Duncan!

[LordNothing]

IIXxXII, on 06 June 2018 - 04:46 PM, said:

There's a guy who does a good Duncan Fisher impression in this game on twitch:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/269657724

i think i dropped with that guy a couple times.

[LT. HARDCASE]

Starquestman, on 07 June 2018 - 08:56 AM, said:

Thanks everybody!

Welp, spent a few hours downloading, joined a match, hag graphics problems when I tried to switch to fullscreen. When that finally went away, I still had the terrible framerate I always had.

Im running an Asus G73 I bought back in December of 2012 - 8 gigs of RAM, Intel i7-2630QM ... 2.00GHz quad core... 64-bit - stock graphics card... I think my core is threaded to 8 "cores", so I may try again with threading disabled - but still, at lowest graphics settings, there shouldn't be any reason this can't handle the game, right? Ive got other games like Trackmania (albiet not as intensive) I play at full spec with zero issues.

Starquestman, on 09 June 2018 - 04:41 PM, said:

Thanks for the advice everyone!
I made some tweaks, got the machine running on custom performance settings, and on a cooler table couldnt figure out how to disable hyperthreading, but so far its manageable!

Got a chance to play Solaris mode; it is well done. It feels like a starting point, and I hope it gets managed well and grows. And for sure -
Solaris runs on Duncan!

Hmm 2012 G73.... does it has an Nvidia GTX 460M? Yeah that GPU will struggle with MWO.

You also may want to download HWMonitor to make sure the laptop isn't overheating and downclocking.

Edited by LT. HARDCASE, 09 June 2018 - 08:17 PM.

[Starquestman]

Looks like the SPECIFIC visual problem I had... was the battery?

Anytime I start a game, I guess it overtaxes the shot battery, so it flickers inbetween battery and plugged in mode... and each time it changes, it interrupts the display and graphics processing ti display a graphic informing me it has done so.

Unplug battery, plug in charger, works alright! Minimum settings, but at least I can get a target now!

[NimoStar]

Stck graphics isn't a gaming laptop. Gaming laptops have dedicated graphic cards just like desktops can.

Sounds like your laptop does switch graphics to integrated on battery and dedicated on power.

So, always use it with power and don't unplug or it will crash (or configure to use dedicated on battery. Yet this may fry your PC and/or terminate the battery very quickly)

Edited by NimoStar, 22 June 2018 - 09:10 PM.

[Starquestman]

NimoStar, on 22 June 2018 - 09:09 PM, said:

Stck graphics isn't a gaming laptop. Gaming laptops have dedicated graphic cards just like desktops can.

Sounds like your laptop does switch graphics to integrated on battery and dedicated on power.

So, always use it with power and don't unplug or it will crash (or configure to use dedicated on battery. Yet this may fry your PC and/or terminate the battery very quickly)

Using it plugged in, no battery, minimum settings seems to get me by))

Yeah, I got the machine originally for music production. I wanted i7 power, big screen, and backlit keys so I could take my studio software everywheres. Its really more of a mobile desktop than a laptop anyway - and for what I needed it for, it's worked great!

But I figured, heck, if it's marketed as a gaming machine, it should be at least CAPABLE of MWO on min settings. A new battery might fix the power problem.

Maybe in a few years (after we buy slightly more important things like a house, and car for the wife, and full-on recording studio lol) I'll spec out a dedicated gaming desktop.