How are you?

[Mathew Steel 151]

Recently, I've been fairly busy with school and work and family! I haven't been active on the forums much. However, I still take an interest and occasionally read a few threads. I simply want to know, how are you? :)

[Crusader1307 298]

Great, Matthew, glad to see you back. Hope all is well.

[Mathew Steel 151]

Things are a lot better than they were! Definitely looking up from here. Glad to hear you're okay!

[Lord_Chris 251]

Great, thank you. And it's wonderful to hear everything seems better for you than they were. :)

[EaglePrince 230]

Same here, pretty busy, but all well. :) Glad to hear it's better at you (sorry if this sounds stupid in English, but you get what I mean :) ).

[Mathew Steel 151]

Awesome to hear that you're all doing well! I'm glad.?

 

EaglePrince, your English is fine :D?I believe you meant "better for you". Don't bear yourself up, your English is better than that of thousands of the British population! :P

[EaglePrince 230]

Yeah, that's what I meant. :D Well I don't know, but I still think that I should improve my English more. :D

 

I'm glad to see you coming by from time to time. :) Maybe we will get rid of those obligations some day, and be able even to play at least few good multiplayer games. ;) What is also good for me - I have a new GPU, and I am finally able to play Stronghold 3 and Crusader 2 smoothly. Now the time is the only issue, but at least I can see others from my family happily playing their games. :)

[Mathew Steel 151]

That is great news! Could I ask, what GPU did you purchase? :)

[EaglePrince 230]

It's Nvidia GeForce GT 730. :) It's one of the cheapest at this moment with 2GB of memory, but it works pretty well with those games that are the most important to me and others in the family. Actually, it runs smoothly any game any of us likes to play. :)

 

First a friend of mine borrowed me his GPU, and I was stunned how fast it loaded a Stronghold 3 game, and how the game ran on it - especially as I thought I would have to buy a new CPU to have performance like that. Unfortunately I had some compatibility issues with the GPU he borrowed me, and then I decided to spend some money to buy a new at least as good GPU myself. :D I should say - I did have some issues with the old one, but the old one still works. Only the cooler doesn't do the job so well, and I would have to open the case and to clean it and "oil" it. It wouldn't be too hard for me to do that now and then, but like I said - when I saw what I could get, I knew what had to be done. :D

Edited September 25, 2016 by EaglePrince

[Mathew Steel 151]

There are definitely worse ones you could have bought! I mean, if the games you play are mostly strategy sky-view games, then that should do nicely. If your CPU is lacking, and you do notice FPS drops, just up the resolution :)

 

Glad to hear your gaming experience is improving! :D

[EaglePrince 230]

Well, at this moment we only play strategy games. My mothers plays The Sims 3 which ran well on the older GPU too, and my brother mostly plays European Truck Simulator 2. My guess is that he will be able to play American Truck Simulator as well when he comes home - he's in Germany right now. At least I expect it to run decently.

 

Yeah, we could say it is a low end GPU by the definition for nowadays standards, but I can see the difference, and luckily for me - it's not that there were games I wasn't able to play, it was that I had some games that didn't have quite good performance. With this one performance is much better. Crusader 2 is the newest game I'm going to play with it, and it perhaps even more optimized than Stronghold 3 (with difference that in Crusader 2 you can have more AI opponents, which can make Crusader 2 lag).

 

And yeah, there were options to get a used GPU for same money, but I prefer to have a warranty and to be able to replace it in case the GPU turns out to be incompatible with other components. Also, it would be too much to give like 200 euro for a GPU (average salary in Serbia is about 400 euro).

 

Regarding "just up the resolution", you mean to make a smaller resolution such as 1024x768 (in SH3 and SHC2 it's set on something about 1300x800, something like that)? That's what I have already done. :)

 

Yeah, and I hope I will be able to make a gaming event some time soon, and to have that experience with you guys. :D I could also try making some gameplay video. Back when I got the Crusader 2 licence, I got it to make the gameplay video, and those which I made were lower quality. This would be my way to repay to the good guy Firefly who gave me the game when I wasn't able to buy it. :)

[Mathew Steel 151]

You said your CPU wasn't that powerful. If you turn the resolution up, so higher, it puts more load on the GPU instead. This tends to boost performance in cases where CPU bottlenecks are present :)

[EaglePrince 230]

Interesting, I will certainly try that. :) I didn't know that GPU can compensate a weaker CPU like that. Thanks for advice. :)

 

EDIT: So, that would be the exact point of buying those most expansive high end GPU's? I mean, even if the CPU is slightly older (still, better than mine, I assume), buying a GPU like that gives way better experience? I mean, those GPU's should be able to run demanding games with high performance, even if CPU is not so powerful? Of course, I still assume that it cannot replace RAM, and of course - CPU has to meet at least minimal system requirements.

Edited September 27, 2016 by EaglePrince

[Mathew Steel 151]

Not entirely. The CPU still needs to tell the GPU what to do, and it will not be able to do so to the GPU's full potential if it is a bottleneck. The GPU will still perform better than an old GPU, yes. But not to its full potential and not its full performance. However, resolution is very dependent on the GPU, meaning turning the resolution up will certainly make use of the GPU more, even if there is a CPU bottleneck!

 

Hopefully I explained this clearly :)

[EaglePrince 230]

Yes, it is much more clear to me now. :)

[Nigel 71]

Hi guys,

 

just dropping in to say that I am still with you, even if I have been rather silent recently.

 

I am taking a bit of a break from Stronghold and have re-discovered Mount&Blade Warband. The game is not new (2010, I think) but very fun. I am enjoying the open world aspect of it, roaming the land with my warband with no fixed script and the freedom to go wherever fate takes me :)

 

But that does not mean I have stopped Stronghold. I am sure I will get back to it eventually - I always have.

Meanwhile I am still here and enjoy reading your posts.

[Crusader1307 298]

Glad to hear from you, Nigel! Although this is a Stronghold Fan based Site, you can always talk about just about anything. Been a while since you and I "rode the fields" as Goodman and his most trusted Compatriot. Hopefully, that Thread will pick up in the future.

 

Again, don't be a "stranger"......

[EaglePrince 230]

I see you're in Mount&Blade right now, my friend. :D Glad to hear you're with us. I too play a non-Stronghold game these days. As a kid I used to play Colin McRae Rally 2 a lot, and now I got Dirt 3 and Grid on Steam. I've been enjoying Grid for some time now. :)

 

And of course, that doesn't mean I'm away from Stronghold, but it's just that I'm very busy lately, and I find playing this racing game better for a short brake. :)

[Mathew Steel 151]

Stronghold seems to be one of those very nostalgic games. I find myself going back to it after a while, playing it for a week or so, then leaving it again for a few months. Not because I don't enjoy it. It's just the way things turn out :D

[EaglePrince 230]

Well, the way I look at it - this is not the came you leave aside after each week of playing, but those are games that you always come back to! :D

[Isaiah 19]

Stronghold is one of a few games I still play even after winning.

 

Anyway, I'm doing fine, but I am quite busy at times. I stop by here whenever I start playing Stronghold again.

[Crusader1307 298]

Well at least you stop by.......always welcome!