chakkman

I quicksaved the hell out of the Dishonored games. Mostly because, like cabalistic wrote, not to play 5 minutes of the same again. Guess we have to agree to disagree on this, as we simply have a different approach towards games. And, guess what: That's why it's great to have quicksave AND checkpoints. As we're both happy that way.

Splinter Cell is a good example. On Xbox, in the first 2 Spliter Cell's, there was no chance to quicksave, and the game only save on checkpoints. Some sections were so freaking hard because of that that I quit playing Pandora Tomorrow because of that. I think that's a great example of how checkpoints can really ruin your game. Fortunately, the PC versions of the first games all had manual saving.

Reminds me of those synthetic "Don't K.O. anyone" objectives in TDM. (which don't make sense at all, BTW. No noble men who just got his valuable scepter stolen gives a damn how many of his lower guards or city watch got hurt in the process) I still think it should be left to a player how he plays a game. Of course your whole gameplay design dictates some things, but, the more open you are to different playing styles, the more satisfying it will be, for everyone. Checkpoints are a departure from that. They dictate how people design their personal game experience. It's not how I would design my game. I would design it so that everyone can decide for themselves how often and when they save the game. Also, let's face it: Checkpoints are usually in the games because people are either too lazy to save, or forgot it, and then freak out because they have to re-play a good portion of the game since the last save. Typically checkpoints are NOT implemented as a gameplay decision.

Notice what's happening though? You teach the player how he has to play your game, opposed to giving him the chance to play the game his way. The best games I played let me play them the way I want to play them. That's why I enjoy the Bethesda RPG's so much, for example. They give me the choice whether I want to play a sneaky Thief-y character, or a gun blazing, or axe swinging brute. THAT is freedom in gameplay, not conditioning and teaching the player. With the option to quicksave the game, you give everyone the chance to play the game his way, removing quicksaving, and insisting on checkpoints takes away the option to play your way.

Not sure if I like that, TBH. I like to be master of my gaming experience, and, limited saves, or that rewind ability takes away from it. I absolutely detest games with checkpoints and no manually saves as well. It CAN make sense, if it fits into the gameplay, but, it can be pretty annoying as well, if the game is so challenging, and distributes those checkpoints more scarcely in later levels.

Already reported this a couple of days ago:

Looks awesome.

The thing is, the ingame mission downloader is so comfortable (and I'm sure that many people use it, opposed to manually downloading the FM's, and having to specify the correct folder for them). I don't know how the ingame downloader picks the mirrors, but, if some of them are so freaking slow, it maybe would make sense to get rid of them. That said, I have no idea of course how the mirros are chosen, who runs them, and why the missions are either on this or that mirror. All I know is that some missions take seconds to download, and others take 15 minutes. At the very least, I think it would make sense to implement a cancel button, when you don't want to hold a coffee break.

Downloading missions through the ingame downloader is a hit and miss. Some missions download very fast, others are so slow that I wonder if the mirror only allows modem connections... (had a mission yesterday which took like 15 minutes to download... for 200 MB or so) That's the big issue I have. Downloading the mod files themselves through the updater always has been reasonably fast for me. The problem are the mirrors with the missions.

Thanks again for the good tips. Don't think I learned that much about making TDM more performant than today. Someone should really sticky this, especially the thing with the AA, it really worked wonders (just tried Briarwood Manor, and, apart from someplaces, I always had 60 frames plus). And, yeah, I use stencil shadows. Maps do have a big impact as you say. Regarding the power plans: Nope, I always run the balanced plan. Sometimes when I'm doing music with software synthesizers, I switch to the high performance plan, which is necessary to avoid audio drop outs when there's a lot of CPU load.

Aha! I always wondered about that. Thanks.

Yeah... I never really cared. It always lagged in some places, and was fine in other, so, I never bothered.

I turned off the ingame anti-aliasing now, and use FXAA. Wow, pretty big impact. I didn't know that AA was so critical in this game. I could even crank up some of the other options now, without significant impact, and easily run 60+ frames with Nvidia forced VSync in any area of the training mission now. Thanks for the tip, I'm pretty sure the other missions will run fine now as well.

Yeah, I noticed quite an impact when I set the AA from x2 to x4. I remember someone actually recommended to activate FXAA in TDM in another thread. Should work then?

Yeah, I'm planning on getting a new computer next year, it's pretty slow now. Would it be a good idea to use FXAA in the Nvidia driver instead of TDM's anti-aliasing? Any performance to be improved that way?