Getting more out of an old GPU

If you have a 70 and above model of GTX 900/ 10 series GPU (or even a 5700 XT or so from AMD), congratulations! You are one of the few old hardware owners who can still run many latest games at 60 fps albeit with a few tweaks or compromises. Here are a few screenshots from a game released in 2022, running at 1440p 60 fps on a GTX 1070 Ti:

Ghostwire: Tokyo (2022), 1440p, 60 fps (GTX 1070 Ti/ Ryzen 5 4500)

Graphics Evolution

Video game graphics have evolved over the years in two distinct directions. One, the old rasterized image rendering way, where most of the improvements have been on shadows, ambient occlusion, and anti-aliasing. Here, shaders must be compiled whether at runtime or pre-compiled (latter more common at least on titles ported to PC from Playstation recently) for every lighting that can occur in the game, then those shaders would be combined with the textures to render the final image on screen. This has been around since the genesis of video games, with some revolutionary improvements over the years in the form of Physx, Hairworks, and Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA). It is a heavily parallelised computation that leverages CUDA cores in NVIDIA GPUs (and compute units on AMD).

The second path of evolution is of ray-tracing, introduced by NVIDIA in 2018 focusing on path-traced lighting, shadows, and reflections. This requires dedicated RT cores which are only available on NVIDIA, with AMD trying its best to compute it with the hardware they have but with limited success. RT, in all its wisdom, is still an NVIDIA thing. However, this did not really create a big impact in gaming, except to showcase tech demos and giving a topic of discussion among hardware enthusiasts who are yet to play at a locked 60 fps with this enabled in most games, irrespective of resolution (excluding super-sampling techniques i.e.), as of today. RT needs to have at least a 20 series card from NVIDIA, like RTX 2080 Super.

Gordon Moore of Intel had predicted that every 18-24 months the amount of transistors in a IC chip will double. In retail hardware, that loosely translated to double the computation every 2 years for the same price. So there is an exponential improvement in graphics processing from 10 years ago. However, the improvements in graphics cards are not exactly double with every generation (mostly 2 years apart), more like 30%, but this also included better power efficiency so Moore’s Law has not been too far off. That is what we have seen over the years with every GPU series launch up to RTX 30 series. However, recently the concept of “same price but better performance” has taken a backseat, and we now see 70 series cards priced at $600 compared to $330 (GTX 970, 2014) or $380 (GTX 1070, 2016). Inflation alone does not explain the gap, so we have to factor in the greed of manufacturers as well as impatience of the buyers.

As a result, high priced computer hardware combined with shortages due to COVID or Crypto-mining, has kind of broken the regular practice of upgrading GPUs every 2-3 years when a new series launched. Whether it was for the better performance or efficiency, or gaming at a higher resolution owing to better monitors, gamers would upgrade that GPU without touching other parts of the PC until another couple of years, then the new GPU would remain on a completely new system until it is upgraded a year later to utilise the increased performance of new CPU. Games would also make use of higher sized texture files and increase in CUDA cores to render more life-like images, so it was symbiotic growth between the hardware and software in PC gaming.

All of that went for a toss with higher demand of CUDA cores for crypto mining in 2020, and COVID ensured more people stayed indoors so demand for PC hardware increased manifold. With excess demand in silicon, electronics price would only grow north. So it is not a surprise that cards have surpassed any expected price even after factoring in inflation.

However, fortunately or not, video game graphics have not that much evolved to warrant a price increase. For one, rasterization based rendering does not have anything new to offer other than better shadows and ambient occlusion, and RT is embraced by statistically insignificant number of new games. Rather, the PC industry is now headed to porting of games that were once superhits on consoles, like Spiderman, Uncharted, God of War, and recently Last of Us, which have always made it to the bestseller charts when released on PC. Gamers always wanted “good’ gameplay and story over graphics. Those interested in fast-paced multiplayer titles anyway would not settle for less than 120 fps, which is why multiplayer games have even less requirement in GPU evolution. So unless we enable RT to create a new wallpaper in game, or make amusing charts talking about how current generation hardware is not there yet and RT is ahead of its time, we can still do with old hardware just fine.

Not a single video game is a bestseller today because of it’s ray tracing abilities. Not a single video game was awarded for its visuals due to new hardware.

Bare necessities for immersion

The vast majority of PC gamers need the below 3-4 things for immersion:

1. 1080p or 1440p, with higher resolution relevant only at close range. So someone playing on a monitor at 2 ft may need 1440p, someone playing on a TV might be ok with 1080p.
2. 60 fps locked. Some may be ok with 45 or 50 even, provided there is minimal delta between average and 1% framerates.
3. Anti-aliased image that does not have jagged edges, but image should still be sharp enough and not blurry due to temporal aliasing.
4. Good draw distance, without texture popping in at 5 feet from an object, including its shadows.

Any of the above if not satisfied may break immersion. But a game that is well optimised to offer these basic necessities, is much more enjoyable and worth playing for a long time.

Far Cry 5, 1440p, 60 fps locked (GTX 1070 Ti/ Ryzen 5 4500)

For #1, we need a capable GPU as resolution scales with number of computation units (or CUDA cores). For #2, we need a CPU with decent enough L3 cache and at least 3.5 GHz clock speed for the fastest core, with 6 cores or 8 threads at least for the new game engines. For #3, part of it can be achieved by the game engine, and part of it by some tweaks in super sampling. The last point also mostly depends on the game engine but can do with higher L3 cache like #2, and a faster IO enabled hard disk, i.e. a SSD drive (not necessarily NVME Gen 4 or such; a normal SATA will also do).

Soft Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Vegetation, Texture Quality, Volumetric Fog, and Post Processing, etc. are not that much important in my opinion (some shadows will always be there due to the game engine), and evidently do not tax the system more than the settings like resolution, framerate, aliasing, which is why in most games these settings appear on a different menu than the others.

Resolution

Most monitors nowadays are 1080p at least, but the focus has moved from resolution to also the size. The human face has not widened over the years (funnily or not), so the most optimal FOV has remained at around 27 inches when sitting at about 2 ft from the sceen, which is standard distance for any desktop user. This size is larger than the most common widescreen size of 24″, so it already feels bigger. However, for office work if we just port the 1080p resolution to a 27″ monitor, the fonts may not look good enough, so 1440p native resolution is better. So ideally, a 27″ monitor at 1440p is all we need for gaming. Of course, you can have even more screen estate at 32″, and if you have the money, a 4k resolution might be your pick. But 1440p is good enough even on 32″ that too for office work, so it is certainly enough for gaming. Other specific tasks like publishing or photography may need 4k at 32″ or more, but we will restrict this discussion to gaming so 1440p is our target resolution, and on a 27″ display.

If we play on a large screen TV (40″ and above), we can further reduce the resolution to about 1080p as the sweer spot, because the viewing distance is more here so the need for higher resolution (i.e. better pixel density) reduces. Again, our eyes can only see so much, and they have not changed in anatomy over the years.

Framerates

As of this writing, the cheapest CPU that has at least 6 cores and 8 threads is a Ryzen 5 4500, at $75. The only downside of this is just 8 MB L3 cache, but that should be ok if we settle for at most 60 fps with most of the performance relegated to the GPU. This means we should try to play at the highest resolution possible.

If we need more fps, we can consider a Ryzen 5 5500 at $110, because any higher will just have the advantage of PCIE Gen4 for the SSD, which won’t matter much for our target group (the old GPUs are Gen 3 anyway). A Gen4 capable motherboard will also shoot up that component’s cost (i.e. a B550 over a B450).

I have provided a table at the end for games that I played using two old GPUs. Apart from Ryzen 5 4500, I also have a i5 10600k currently (see the table for specific games). These CPUs have replaced Ryzen 3 1200 and i5 6400 that I had previously. The R3 1200 was overclocked to 3.8 GHz all cores, from a boost clock of 3.4 GHz in just one out of the box. The i5 6400 was run with scaling governor set to performance in case of Proton (Linux).

Aliasing

Aliasing partially depends on the game engine, which we gamers cannot do much about. Certain games have very good aliasing implementation, like Ghost Recon: Wildlands, whereas the same publisher’s next game, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, aggressively blurs the image to reduce aliasing drawbacks. This game also needs Temporal aliasing for any acceptable rendering of the game world.

Most games have their built-in AA solutions, among FXAA (full screen AA), MSAA (multi-sample super sampling), and TAA (Temportal Anti-Aliasing). Each of these carry some penalty. FXAA is the cheapest but also the worst, MSAA is extremely taxing (equivalent to running at a resolution that is high by the same factor as the MSAA setting, i.e. 4x MSAA on a 1080p means each elements in the rendering pipeline individually would be rendered at 2160p (2x 1080 x2) so it is as taxing as running the game at 2160p), and TAA is too blurry so needs some kind of sharpening, which again adds up to GPU work.

A golden rule while running an old GPU is to avoid using any kind of anti-aliasing in game, instead achieve that indirectly by other means.

As gamers we can take a few measures to improve aliasing alternative to what the game engine offers. Firstly, we can render the game at a higher resolution than the native resolution of the display. On a 1080p monitor, this can be 1440p, or on a 1440p monitor, this can be 1728p or 1800p depending on whether the game can run smooth enough. The higher the resolution, everything in the rendering pipeline also increases, i.e. shadows, ambient occlusion, water, reflections, etc. So a card with limited VRAM capacity or bandwidth may not allow much room here. Higher resolutions can be achieved using NVIDIA DSR or AMD equivalent RSR. The game will think the monitor has higher resolution, and we can select that in menu, though native resolution of the monitor still stays the same, so we downsize the rendered image which gives us anti-alliasing. In fact, older aliasing techniques like MSAA (multi-sample super sampling) use this technique only.

On top of this an additional optimization can be software based, but this is limited to AMD’s FSR (which works with at least 10 series cards, wont work with a GTX 970 i.e.), and NVIDIA’s Image Sharpening (NIS, available with 500 series drivers). An ideal scenario (which I have used occasionally wih Ghostwire: Tokyo) is to have DSR at 1440p on a 1080p monitor (27″), and AMD FSR set to Quality. It is perfect for gaming at 2 ft away from screen, and alias effects are minimal with steady framerates.

Texture pop-in

This is also heavily dependent on the game engine. Far Cry 4 e.g. had one of the worst texture pop in when flying the gyrocopter, but that was considerably improved with Far Cry 5, both using same Dunia engine. Another game notorious for pop-in is GTA V, including the shadow lines being rendered live at 5 feet from the player, and no shadows beyond, even if the object is distinctly visible.

Outside the game engine the only optimisation we can try is to use a SSD and reduce background programs. A 2.5″ SATA SSD is very cheap nowadays, with 1 TB at around $40-$50. This can considerably improve the experience but not guaranteed to if the game engine is not optimised enough. So a PCIE Gen4 SSD will also not be able to prevent pop-ins in Far Cry 4. For what it is worth, no gaming device is completely free from this issue, not the least the Series X and PS5 with much higher storage bandwidth.

Far Cry 4 is notorious for texture pop-in, especially trees when viewed from top.

Patches and DXVK

Sometimes if we are lucky, bug fixes and optimisation patches are published up to a few years later than initial release of the game. E.g. Dying Light received a lot of patches up to 2022, when it last updated. With every patch came improvements and optimisations, allowing me to play it at 1440p 60 fps with not the GTX 1070 Ti but the older GTX 970, that too on Linux (Proton). The same thing applies to GTA V, which runs at even more than 1440p on a 970 (granted it is an old game, but the more optimised patches were released only a few years ago).

Another way to improve performance is to use Vulkan instead of DirectX. Some games natively support Vulkan, like Read Dead Redemption 2 (2019) and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (2021), which in spite of being new could run decently on the 1070 Ti, the latter even at 1440p. For other games we can use a hack in the form of DXVK, which involves putting a couple of dlls on the game root directory (same location as its exe). But DXVK is better only with games using up to DirectX 11, and will not work with 3rd party launchers when used online, because it basically routes the driver calls through itself, which is tampering by definition. So the games with 3rd party launcher need to be played offline. Another option is to play the Steam version on Linux, with Proton which is nothing but a more evolved version of DXVK. So automatically the layer will be applied.

Summary

In summary, using not more than a 1080p monitor (27″ if you need more FOV), using custom graphics settings instead of presets, using DSR or other super sampling techniques including FSR but not MSAA or others provided by the game, and /or Steam Proton can enable us to use old graphics cards at 1080p-1440p at 60 fps, with a bit of luck even locked framerates if the game engine is good enough, without spending too much on CPU and other PC parts as long as they satisfy some basic requirements like 8 threads or SATA SSD storage.

Games optimally playable with GTX 970 or 1070 Ti

I will end with a list of games with very good visual fidelity, played using a GTX 970 or GTX 1070 Ti, which are still holding their fort strong even into 7 and 5 years of ownership respectively. Unless otherwise mentioned, they were all at 60 fps locked. The year of play is mentioned in brackets, so that it reflects latest patches at that time. (Steam) Proton indicates Linux, and Vulkan indicates that instead of DirectX.

Title	Year Played	GPU	CPU	Resolution	Remarks
Far Cry 4	2016, 2023	GTX 970, GTX 1070 Ti	i5 6400, R5 4500	1440p	R5 + 1070 Ti
Fallout 4	2016, 2022	GTX 970	i5 6400	1440p	Proton (2022)
Grand Theft Auto V	2017	GTX 970	i5 6400	1440p
Rise of the Tomb Raider	2018, 2023	GTX 1070 Ti	R3 1200 OC, R5 4500	1080p	Proton
Divinity Original Sin 2	2019	GTX 1070 Ti	R3 1200 OC	1440p	Proton
Doom 4	2020	GTX 970	i5 6400	1440p	Proton
Dying Light and The Following	2020	GTX 970	i5 6400	1440p	Proton
Hitman 2	2020	GTX 1070 Ti	R3 1200 OC	1440p	Proton
Assassin’s Creed: Origins	2021	GTX 1070 Ti	i5 10600k	1440p
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint	2021	GTX 1070 Ti	i5 10600k	1440p w/ FSR, 1080p	Vulkan
Red Dead Redemption 2	2021	GTX 1070 Ti	i5 10600k	1440p	Vulkan
Cyberpunk 2077	2022	GTX 1070 Ti	i5 10600k	1440p
Ghost Recon: Wildlands	2022	GTX 1070 Ti	i5 10600k	1152p
Far Cry 5	2023	GTX 1070 Ti	R5 4500	1440p
Ghostwire: Tokyo	2023	GTX 1070 Ti	R5 4500	1440p

This chart may be updated in future with more titles

SpongeBob NoPants

The Forest

2018, PC, Single Player (Steam/ Proton on Linux)

Bad combat is aplenty in the video game industry. Depending on the perspective, it can often be masked as “difficult” game that “noobs” don’t get. With support of a few keyboard warriors rushing for their 5 mins of self-righteousness by downplaying any neutral gamers’ concerns, the devs do not see why they need to “learn” how to make a good, engaging game.

The cheapest way to make a game “difficult” without understanding how those Castlevanias and Elden Rings became fan favorites, is to make the enemies spongy.

Basic Game Design 101: in every turn of combat, there is a damage by the player to the enemy, and vice versa.

Skyrim had the simplest way of explaining it, by using the ratio of enemy-induced damage to player-induced damage. A value of 1 meant the player and enemy will both induce same damage to each other, whereas a ratio higher than 1 will make the game more difficult, lower than 1 would make it easier.

Designing this ratio for different difficulty options is not exactly rocket science. At the very least, a game should follow the 1:1 ratio in what they define “normal” mode (not hard, not easy). Of course, narcissist developers often consider their game to be “above the fold”, and if it helps them get good sleep at night, sure they may put this ratio higher in the normal mode itself, but in that case the least we can expect is a lower mode that “does” have the unit ratio, especially if there is no learning curve like FromSoftware games.

The Forest, an open world “tactical” survival game, has neither. It has 4 difficulty modes – Peaceful (no enemies), Normal (easiest mode to actually have enemies), Hard (more difficult enemies), and Hard Survival (more difficult survival added to the previous option). So people wanting to play “with” enemies have to select at least “normal”. What if now, Endnight games the developer, make the ratio ridiculously high so that an enemy can kill you in 3 hits, but you need at least 10? A fan-made wiki promptly defines the combat as “aims to be realistic”! Because as we all know, realistic combat must have this ratio higher than 1. As a neutral gamer, if you die on the 10th day, you’re supposed to feel proud and compelled to put more effort to “learn” the game, “strategize” your moves, “upgrade” your weapons, or even follow the “saintly” advice of running away from combat altogether until you become stronger!

Your time has no value. Your enjoyment does not matter. Only matters is your money that you’ll spend in the blink on their “Early Access” game, which they will finish after 2-4 years. They want you to pay* for that “demo” so that they can earn even before offering the complete product, and the only way to make you do so is to build an aura around that you worship. A false sense of non-existent learning curve needs to be induced upon you. And did I mention that this is the only game existing in the world so if you don’t learn, you’re missing out?

What if your katana cannot block but a cannibal with her bare hands can block fine?. Come’on, cannibals are “hardened” right? That is why when you hit them with a burning weapon, the cloth immediately burns out as if you hit a water sack. And even if they burn full body and get charred, they are still hardened enough to come at and smack you for the next 10 mins. What if you spend mana while descending a rope but you don’t spend a dime of it while rowing your raft with 2 hands even in a storm? Surely you can forgive because it is “aiming to be realistic”? Or so much you can carry that you spread them out like a bedouin vendor at the push of a button but you cannot carry more than 5-6 tablet case medkits or 2 Aloe-Vera leaves?

The design doesn’t make sense in so many areas. Why would you build a gazebo or a fireplace (that is useless for anything) instead of finding your son?

What is the point of building a theme park when you can just hide from the cannibals or make faces at them from a distance at sea?

The story does not turn the game into tower defense at any point. Why do skulls not have any impact on keeping the natives away, since they already use it to depict their residential boundaries?

How does meat become edible after drying for just a day? If drying works so fast (perhaps we are in an equatorial island where the Sun is hottest), why is there no concept of dried leaves on the ground that we could have used to extend the fire? Or perhaps use the sticks lying around everywhere for that purpose? And speaking of short-life of the fires, why is there not a fire extinguishing option, if not with water, at least by stomping on it? You cannot sleep arbitrarily. I get that, and in a way prevents misuse of food. But what I don’t get is why we cannot pass the time? Say wait for some time when seated on a sofa in the yacht that is safe enough?

Darkness is stupidly dark. Even if there is a moon shining brightly and human eyes usually get adjusted to darkness, we cannot see jack unless one of the color gradient options are used, that too only marginally better. Inside a cave too, human eye adaptation does not work. It is not an RTX implementation. It is just that lights are set to disabled at places as a lazy way of thumping their chest – look how realistic our game is! The terrain design too, is frustrating. There are gradually sloping cliffs that you cannot climb, even if you can jump that much height from one platform you built to another. There is not much variation in the flora or fauna, so if it was meant to be an equatorial paradise, its residents certainly don’t fit the ecosystem. Maps and documents have a weird angle and do not fill the entire screen. It was quite a few days before I could actually see what was in the map after I had collected it.

Did you know that you cannot make the crashed plane your first home? About 10 rows of 3+3 seats which you cannot rest/ sleep on, but have to build a bed or a shelter to save. You cannot build a wall at the aircraft’s opening, which would have made it a really secure base giving you enough time to expand it if you want. You cannot make a makeshift blanket from so many unpicked clothes in those luggage cases, even if you can make armor from much smaller animal skins by the same principle. You cannot yank one of the protruding iron rods and make it your first weapon. Because you are playing a “realistic” survival game, where realism is defined only by the devs and their cultist disciples.

“They’ll fix it, perhaps already working on it as we speak” you say. Yes, being in Early Access for so long gives them the advantage of not having to bother with accountability. That is what video games have become. Release the first version as Early Access, and perpetually keep patching after getting feedback on even the basic stuff. As long as the developer “listens” to feedback, why would they need to get it right the first time?

Because they did not learn to make a game by following the most basic lesson in gaming – playing it. It is their “learning-by-trial-and-error” experiment which we the customers should sponsor. The Overwhelmingly Positive reviews do not paint the full picture, because combat has been tweaked several times in this game from Early Access days to full release. They provide cheats though, and this might be one of only a few games where you can still get Steam Achievements with them enabled.

The worst thing about this game’s design is that the enemies on the island spawn effectively only after the 7th day, when you are first exposed to the piece of crap combat, by the time you would have passed Steam’s return window and cannot refund. Intelligent, isn’t it?

*Thankfully, I resisted the temptation and bought the game only recently at 75% or so discount. I don’t buy early access games neither do I ever pre-order. But that is just me.

Pros

• Excellent performance on Linux. Steady 60 FPS with minimal frame drops only when loading new areas
• Visual fidelity at par with some AAA games. One of the first games to use Unity Engine
• Environment is designed to deforest and build upon. More versatile than Fallout 4
• Enemy jump scares and horror moments. That demonic laughter!

Cons

• Spongy enemies.You’re not though
• Badly designed melee combat. Enemies can block. You, on the other hand, ha ha ha!
• Hilarious mutant design. Stupid-legged animals
• Forced to build new shelter even with usable aircraft. You’re playing “their” game, not yours
• Grindy resource gathering in single player mode. All sins forgiven with multiplayer support, right?

6/10

KDE on Windows

Windows 11 is just round the corner. Big Brother of Seattle would be releasing the next version of Windows very soon. While sometime back they announced Windows 10 would be the last major version to come, it seems that statement aged as bad as Bill Gates’ quote (whether he actually said it or not, still remains a legend):

640K (memory) ought to be enough for everyone

But that is ok, as priorities change. What changed more this time is that Microsoft seems to be following other designs than introducing their own. For the last few releases, their Metro UI, Fluent Design (Windows 10 on desktop/ tablets), etc. have mostly served as new directions in app design. This time though, they came up with something that Linux users have for some time already experienced, especially those on Konqueror Desktop Environment (KDE) Plasma UI. Even GNOME seems to be an inspiration, but the similarities are much more with KDE, and I first thought it was KDE on WIndows. I myself do not use KDE in my daily driver (I have had more stability with GNOME, on Manjaro/ Mint/ Pop OS which I have used the most), but KDE is pretty popular, and it feels great to be part of the Linux community that offered something inspiring to a company who sell OS for a living (at least they did even 10 years ago before Azure came up).

Features like panel, desktop widgets (or desklets), virtual desktops, extended monitor support etc. are not new to Linux and Linux users take them almost for granted (both KDE and GNOME). Putting the start menu at the center had the funniest of justifications, i.e. “to put the user at the center”. I wonder if so far the users were not at the center with Start Menu on the left, what with all the telemetry and data collection that was from the user only. But marketing BS aside, the design certainly looks good, and KDE seems to have had a profound influence on the UX team. There is no harm in copying the good things, whether from Mac OS or Linux. Some will attribute the central dock to Apple, which is true, but even KDE have had that for a long time (taken from Mac OS of course).

Another major change this time is the extra emphasis on games. Some time back it was “developers, developers, developers…” by the legendary Steve Ballmer. This time Microsoft knows that the last bastion that has still not fallen for them, is the support for video games, and this need to be called out explicitly, because Steam/ Proton is breathing heavily on its neck. With more than half of the top 10 games and top 100 games running flawlessly on Linux with Proton, it is not far when even gamers won’t need to use Windows for gaming. Already any person with around 3-4 years of PC experience can find their way through in Linux. My dad’s laptop runs Linux since last 8 years, and not for one day did he face any trouble doing stuff he wants, which is mostly limited to documents/ spreadsheet and occasional browsing/ youtube/ music. Of course, he is not into gaming so that helps, but when more than half games that people play are supported and run well, it is just a matter of time before the dependency ceases.

Microsoft is also focusing heavily of XBOX game pass, which is a pretty good deal for people who play a lot of video games, though the thought of not having the flexibility to play any time after I bought and instead be forced to play when it is in the library, seems to be a downer for me. I still seem to like having options about a product I purchase. But your mileage might vary. Windows 11 seem to have even better integration with XBOX Series, with the introduction of DirectStorage (XBOX Velocity Architecture) in DirectX APIs, which will make games have better parity with XBOX (same code base, engineering design, etc.).

So Microsoft needed to highlight their capabilities in video games support, in which admittedly they are still miles ahead of Linux. However, with recent advancements in Vulkan, DXVK, and Proton (which now even supports DRM apps like Uplay and Origin clients better), it won’t take much long to eventually port the new DirectX 12 Ultimate stuff to Linux as well.

It is indeed a great time to be a PC gamer, and a Linux user.

Hellraiser

Doom

Single Player, PC (Windows, Linux Steam/ Proton), 2016

Are you a middle-aged gamer missing the fluidic pace of video games where monstrous guns tearing apart tough bosses used to put a smile on the face and you felt a sense of worthiness of your time? Do you long to play a game where gameplay is paramount and not entangled in a narrative? Do you have some good memories of brilliantly designed video games from the 90s – 2000s, which gave you much bang for your buck even with pixel graphics that you did not care? And are you also a Heavy Metal fan?

Well then there is Hell waiting for you (pun intended). Step into the Praetor Suit of the Doomguy, and unleash hell on Hell! Set aside your fears that modern money-grabbing game developers might have diluted the USP of one of the oldest and most famous video game franchises on earth. It is time for the demons to be afraid, not you.

The video game industry is going though an inflection point. On one hand we see sales at all time high (because of lockdown of course), on the other hand actual quality of games are racing each other to a bottomless pit. Every year we see shiny new tech promising the moon, and some franchises have undoubtedly created excellent immersive worlds to wander in. But somehow the worlds feel empty, and only 1-2% efforts are actually worthwhile. Some developers like Larian Studios have offered awesome role-playing worlds (Baldur’s Gate 3 is in good hands, we can safely say). But the plague of copy-pasting the same thing every year, from Activision to EA, have not let us experience the real gameplay we miss.

I Did

John Romero and John Carmack created Doom in 1993. Since then almost 30 years of “innovation” have passed, but the original appeal of such games still remain today. Back then it had low bit 3D pixel graphics (much worse than Minecraft), but who cared? Video games have always been about gameplay. If one does not have it, then it is not a proper “video game”, period. It can be a good movie perhaps, but a game has very specific requirements. Firewatch, Life is Strange, etc. are 3D novels with excellent narration but video games they ain’t. Companies have tried hard to make a perfect game, but the moment they compromised on the gameplay, there is no chance of success. Because we have changed the very definition of success, we often misunderstand it.

Gameplay is the soul of a video game, just like screenplay is of a movie. A weak screenplay cannot be overcome by talented actors or directors, because it cannot hold the audience for 3 hours. A video game is supposed to have the gamer engaged for 20-30 hours; it is impossible to do so if gameplay is weak. I feel sorry for the mobile game developers; they have no idea what a game is. They just think that an app with some fancy graphics, interactivity, and (eventual) cashgrab mechanics make it one. It is like insert-shiny-new-tech-jargon driven development; it can build software fast, but quality or innovation cannot come with it, because the focus is to make money at any cost, not innovation even as a by-product. This is why we dont have as much innovation in software today as we had 20 years ago.

But I digress. Most game developers trying to pull something new from their backyard, fail to grasp the basic things that make a game good – and they are gameplay (whatever genre it might be – FPS, RPG, RTS, Sim, does not matter), pace, and anything that helps keep the player engaged. So when Id Software released Doom in 2016 as the 4th title in the series, many were skeptical about whether it is just going to be a cashgrab milking the franchise – swing a carrot before the donkey and get the money. We were relieved to find that it was not. Id knew exactly what we wanted and missed, and gave us just the game Doom is meant to be.

In the first room you begin the campaign, you are very excited after 12 years since Doom 3. Suddenly you see lots of text in a monitor screen. You hold on the excitement, prepare yourself to read the lore. The Doomguy understands, and tears apart the monitor! You don’t have to read any more, and ready your weapon. Simple messages like this, that “Doom is back”, manifest the nostalgia and make the game so much better. Every time you pick a new weapon, it is more powerful, and the Doomguy takes a good look at it before readying it. “Bring ’em on”, as BJ (from Wolfenstein, another creation by Romero) would say.

Guns, Lots of Guns

Each gun is special, and upgrades branch out into parallel paths, depending on how you want to play. Gun switching is F.A.S.T., just like old school classical shooters. There are arenas you can unlock at each level to test out some guns against time limited trials, if playing the game also understandably reminds you of Quake in some occasions. There are also armor and health upgrades.

There is no reload in any gun. Why would there be? It is DOOM, not some p*$$y “military tactical” shooter that schoolkids play every day in the comfort of their momma’s basement, swearing at the next noob for getting pwned by a headshot, feeling proud that it makes them “at par” with a real soldier out there. They know more about a battlefield than the NATO soldiers or US Navy Seals I am sure. Some game I don’t remember the name, makes you waste the ammo in magazine if you reload prematurely. I mean how much time would a person have in the world, to “enjoy” such grind? What has the world done to them?

At Doom’s Gates

The game looks pretty on Mars. Lighting is excellent and textures are high quality. It has the most screenshots I clicked among titles in my Steam Library. Maps are large; the player is not restricted to corridors unlike Doom 3. It feels good too, running and jumping around the UAC facilities, flanking the bosses at each level to shoot them before they could turn around; emptying your guns at the summoners then using the chainsaw to refill the ammo (great design, that), or even just rip and tear them apart with your hands in an extremely satisfying melee animation. Yes, you are indeed the “villain” out there. The Hell maps are a little dark and parody of religious cultism, but do not take away the fun at all. It is a perfect dichotomy of scientific world of the UAC and the cultist world of Hell. Yin and Yang.

There are easter eggs, opening up additional areas from original Doom if you pull a lever subtly hidden. It encourages exploration. There are scale models of Doomguy in different outfits to be found, including in a Vault-tec suit since Id is now owned by Bethesda (it is unbelievable that publishers of Doom could also publish Fallout 76). The collectibles also unlock upgrades; they are not just for show. And there are user created “SnapMaps” that you can download and play. They are actually good, not some half-hearted map design. Some have also created maps from old titles, which evoke nostalgia if you play them. SnapMaps increase your playtime by few more hours. The only problem I found in some large, leveled maps was lack of checkpoint saves.

Enemy AI is also well-designed. The demons flank and try to out-number you. You have to think to use the right weapon against the right demon. Some bosses re-spawn after you empty the arsenal at them, so using the most powerful weapons at the start is imprudent. Maps often have 1-2 boosters scattered around, which increase your speed, damage, or stamina. Sometimes you want to hold on to them until the final bosses like Baron of Hell or Summoner appears. Some enemies like the shielded guards need you to flank them from behind and puff a grenade, as the shield is invincible. It is by no means a mindless shooter.

If Argent Energy had a tune, it would be Mick Gordon’s composition.

If you are a heavy metal fan, then even if you don’t play this game, do yourself a favor and play the Doom soundtrack list on Youtube. Not the first time in this review that I will say someone was made for something; it is providence. Mick was made for Doom and Doom was made for Mick. You won’t be alone if you feel as if the soundtrack includes the game, not the other way round! The BFG Division is best according to me, but Rip and Tear, and especially Vega Core, put you literally out of the world (pun intended). But the real deal is when music plays in the background as you shred the demons to pieces. When you defeat the 3 end-game bosses, the effect that the slowly rising volume of Mick’s composition has on you, is priceless. That experience needs a playthrough; not even watching walkthroughs can give the feeling. Towards the end, some UAC guards salute you after you defeat a boss; the Doomguy salutes Mick.

Vulkan, the BFG of rendering APIs

It is as if Doom was made for Vulkan. The framerates were so consistently locked at 60 FPS on Linux (Mint and Pop OS, when I played it), that often I felt as if I was on Windows. Absolutely no stutter on GTX 970 at high to very high settings in 1080p or even 1440p, on a game released 2+ years after the (arguably) “Video Card of the Decade”. (Though at 1440p, I did not tax the system with AA; it was not required.) The game also has excellent built-in frame stats; you won’t need MangoHud or other 3rd party tools. Sadly, it was the time when the dual fans of my 970 gave up, but with two DIY 120 mm fans strapped with zip ties to the heatsink, the monster was back in action. The only problem I had with graphics is the 3D map, somehow it felt not smooth when zooming or panning it.

Doom is an easier game to run on a 970, granted. But when several things (Linux, 970, Vulkan) come together to make your experience unforgettable, it increases respect for each.

A challenge I have for myself is to play Doom again, with a controller. It natively supports them, but the game was too old school for me to try that way. It feels good when a game invites you to try another playthrough; haven’t happened to me in a long time.

Thank you, Id Software.

Pros

• Nostalgic journey to the good old days of classical video games
• Excellent performance on Linux, thanks to Vulkan
• Fast paced, timeless gameplay design
• Extremely satisfying combat and variety of guns
• Enemy AI is good; not a mindless shooter
• RPG like upgrades to weapons, armor without getting in the way
• A benchmark in video game soundtrack
• Custom user created “SnapMaps”

Cons

• Panning/ zooming the 3D map not as much fluidic
• Only checkpoint saves, no quicksaves
• Platforming is a little off; can be frustrating
• Voice acting could be better

9/10

Grind Apocalypse

Dying Light

Single Player, PC (Linux – Steam/ Proton, Windows), 2015

Open World games have been a revelation. The option of “freedom” to the player to do whatever he likes however he wants, has always been a bait that gamers from the bygone days of corridor FPS have not been able to overcome. Back in time when I first played Max Payne, I wondered how great it would be if we could go to all those buildings that one saw from the rooftops of NYC. There was a level where Max would jump from one rooftop to the next while chasing drug peddlers, before finally hopping on to the roof of a (running) metro. Few years later Far Cry was released, and we got the first taste of what a really open world shooter could be if it wanted to. (Although Far Cry original was still not as open as subsequent titles of the series. )

Then we have the endless RPGs like Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Some of their stake to fame was precisely the open world they offered, and the freedom to do any quest in any order. I still have not finished Skyrim‘s main quest line, but I uninstalled it a couple of years and 500+ hours later, so that I did not miss out on other games. 

As gamers we have evolved since then. And now I do not have that enthusiasm about a game like Skyrim anymore, as I want to spend my gaming time on a variety of titles instead of just grinding through. I do not play video games to waste time (I guess most of us do not have time to waste for that matter). I play them for the immersive experience they offer, and that cannot be just restricted to 1-2 games. 

The first time I saw a really innovative design to prevent grinding was Divinity: Original Sin. It is an isometric RPG which without duplicating a single fight, already runs into 150+ hours, with incentive to restart another new game if you wanted a different class or difficulty.

The golden formula of preventing grind is to not respawn enemies.

Once you have cleared an area, thats it. You can go back, but there won’t be any fight to win and gain (fake) XP. This makes the player really think of how to win the first time, because if you miss out on the XP, there is no second chance. This is really the best way to engage the player and not waste his time.

Some other open world games took a less strict approach, where option of grinding is left to the player to decide. For example, in Far Cry (newer ones), you can clear an outpost or a fortress and that area becomes less hostile. Now if you want to have a repetitive hostile experience, you could reset the outposts, but that is up to you.

Which brings us to Dying Light. A zombie apocalypse open world where there is no fast travel (not even between safe houses), no quick save/ safe house save, and endless swarm of zombies to keep you “engaged”. It is designed from ground up to be a grindfest. 

In the initial “slums” area, you start doing quests. You clear an area of zombies (there are some innovative kill moves and animations, and parkour is good if you don’t get a headache from the post processing), but ten minutes later, you see exact same horde to fight through again*. It quickly becomes repetitive. There is an incentive to find loot for crafting, but how many times would you want to explore an area with zombies again and again (loot re-spawns too, like Fallout or Elder Scrolls). Most irritating is when you complete a quest and just want to do the last step, i.e. return to the quest giver. If the person is in another corner of the map, you have to go through the entire length to reach there, because the devs did not give a fast travel option.

Why can’t we fast travel in a map which is large enough (for navigating on foot)? If you want to make the players “feel” the apocalypse, it could have still been kept albeit more innovative. For example, you could designate some main safe houses for fast travel instead of all (one in each corner or region). You could “charge” some money for fast travel. Or it could be a perk in survivor skill tree that enables fast travel in a region where you have revealed all locations.

And by the way, there are enough things devs have put in the game to make it not so immersive anyway. In a zombie game, you can get bitten and live without regular dose of antidote “antizin” for days. Virals can jump buildings, but cannot jump fences of safe houses even in the day when that blue light is not on. 

In one safe house (which the player unlocks as part of main quest), there is a small gap between a blocking van and the fence. A viral fell there while chasing me. The game magically lifted the viral up and threw outside the fence! I literally saw the “corrective” animation.

*There is a mission to blow up a “nest” at a later stage, but even after that, zombies keep spawning out of thin air. (And the concept of nest itself is hilarious, as the mutation is supposed to be transformative, not reproductive.)

When a zombie attacks you, the moment animation starts, you can’t do anything. You have to wait 2-3 seconds, take a health hit, and then the quick time “escape” event of smashing the button prompts. Even if you are carrying a gun and should be able to instantly fire. After some time, I unlocked a skill to instantly break free (though that still prompts after 1 second, instead of 2-3). If you sacrifice realism in the name of a bad skill tree design, there is no justification to not reduce the player’s frustration.

The awful skill tree frustrates further; by locking certain helpful skills behind useless ones so that you have to waste skill points to unlock the helpful ones. To be able to perform a drop attack from above, you first have to “learn” to pound your weapon to the ground! And some skills that should be available right from the start, have to be unlocked later, like stomp. Why would you need to be “adept” in combat, in order to put your foot on the ground?

And if that was not enough, they clubbed this grindfest with only checkpoint saves. You cannot save even after you reach a safe house. Lets say you “smartly” decide to finish some quests in proximity, then come to a safe house and call it a day before starting to haul your *** to the other corner of map. Next time you load up, you won’t start from that safe house, but from the one closest to your current objective. How you traveled between the 2 safe houses then, if the game decidedly had not included the fast travel option? The “immersive” design, turns out, is not so immersive after all.

The biggest problem of devs is the deceiving objective of doing “something new”. To be fair, this is an issue with most devs these days. Even though they are not re-inventing the wheel, they will “disable” some perfectly validated mechanics like save games, fast travel, unwanted post processing effects disabling, etc. so as to irritate the customers who gave them money for their livelihood. Who in their right mind decides to keep a blurry post process effect and not give a menu option to disable it? It is “post” processing effect, i.e. extra work after processing, then why can’t we turn it off? In Far Cry 4, they had this excellent option of disabling loot flashes. It immensely helped make the game more immersive. Then in Far Cry 5, suddenly you don’t have that option any more. You are again back to seeing streaks of light running over a loot object. Disgusting to not have something that was working fine, had a menu option, and broke immersion without. If someone wants, they can just keep it enabled right?

Another issue is community events. I am in a single player campaign, with visibility to other players set to hidden. Even then suddenly I find more virals spawning because of a stupid community event that I do not want to participate. They enabled that setting without my consent, spoiled my session, made me waste time by going to the main menu and disabling it (cannot be done in current session by the way), a setting which does not persist on next restart. So they will again enable at a whim. Just STOP with the online/ community bullshit already. And if you have your head shoved up so high, ASK first before enabling it.

Crafting is another grindfest. You have all ingredients to create 10 med-kits. Guess how many you can create at once? Just 1. So you have to repeat the task 10 times. It was really simple to have a “quantity” option right? Exactly the way they have quantity for ammo during purchase. So you can buy multiple quantities together, but not craft. Lockpicking is a random variable, and has nothing to do with it being hard/ medium or easy lock. You can open a hard lock in one flash, then break 2 lockpicks to pick the next easy lock. In the spirit of wasting the player’s time, the pin will vibrate after 90% travel, just so you can restart again.

Parkour is a hit or miss. In some places the jump did not grab the ledge but on retrying it did, but I was not sure what I did differently. So called “realism” vaporizes into thin air like camphor, when you see how far you can jump with momentum from a couple of steps, or how high your can pull yourself up with the support of few fingers.

The story starts promising, until you end up with the same kind of zombies as in Left 4 Dead, which do not fit the lore at all. I don’t understand the obsession these zombie-game devs have with boomers, goons, spitters, and demolishers. I thought the lore was about a certain Olympic games like event that witnessed a pandemic or biological warfare. They could have just kept the roster to regular zombies and virals, with variable behavior during the night (which is the game’s USP). Instead of focusing on variety of AI and aggression, they made volatiles and demolishers, designed to frustrate the player, e.g. the pin-point accuracy of a demolisher throwing an unlimited supply of concrete blocks not visible around where he is standing and picking them up, or around 3000 HP of the volatiles.

Modern Game Dev 101: When you are out of ideas, just increase the health points of enemies and make them bullet sponges. Pretend that your gamers are just schoolkids taking pride in fake achievements.

The final nail in the coffin is, well, the final mission. No other game in my 25+ years of play has screamed louder that why manual saves, not checkpoint saves, are important to respect players’ time. The game mostly cheats the player, especially at the penultimate stunt where you have to proceed exactly the way “they” want, and not how “you” want with the available tools which you have gathered throughout the grind, the most important of which they disable because otherwise it could have been just one-try completion, which they can never accept. And if you somehow luckily manage to reach the climax, you’ll be greeted with one of the biggest facepalm moments in video game history. You’ll question your sanity – is this really why you retried the last mission so many times?

Checkpoint saves are not for intellectually challenged devs like Techland, who is B.A.D. at designing mission progression.

That it is not a AAA game is evident from production quality of voice acting and dialogues. It is not necessarily a bad thing of course, but given how already the game tires the player, the story does nothing to keep up engagement. Not to mention, there is also zombie fatigue. This genre is so overdone that every game feels tiring.

But Dying Light certainly has some good things. For one, the melee combat is very good; beheading a zombie with a nail hatchet in one sweep, discovering that there is actually a right moment when to swing the weapon for the perfect shot, is very satisfying. Then there is a sense of achievement with mastering arrow trajectory and gun recoil, and makes it totally worth. The setting and weather effects are well done. Graphics are quite immersive for a 2015 game. Rain and dust particles do not reduce FPS. Light effects are also good. Collecting drop loot from airplanes, then giving to the Quartermaster often give you better XP than the main quests, and can be satisfying. This also gives a chance to fight non-zombies (i.e. the antagonist’s men), as the zombies lack any variety after some time. Background music is also decent, but more pronounced in main campaign quests than others.

[Update 2021] The Following DLC comes as a somewhat saving grace. An hour into it and one can realize the DLC is what the base game should have been in the first place. (Speaks loads about the misplaced priorities of the company.) The devs got more time for the DLC after base game launch, and it shows. The Following branches out into a parallel story line within the game’s setting, with open farmlands and a buggy to travel around and mow down zombies with, the latter also bringing in new vehicle loot system, crafting requirements, and skills. The map though larger than both Slums and Old City, is still plagued by original game’s design choices, like how we can have such a large horde of zombies in farmlands is beyond any sane comprehension. The choice of safe houses are arbitrary, hunting towers act as spawn points but do not have beds to rest, but apart from these nitpicking, the DLC offers a better experience overall than the original game. There are better weapons, and the vehicle offers new ways to kill the cursed. Dialogues and voice acting, even lip sync seem to be better, so is the design of “nature freaks” (unique bosses) with Doom-esq weak points that require a little thinking to take down efficiently. The Following actually feels like the project that the devs may have wanted to do in the first place, but could not because of a poor higher management.

Officially, the game is natively supported on Linux. Just check out it’s Proton DB page, you will know what a big joke that is. Why Linux ports still use OpenGL instead of Vulkan, or do not go the Feral Interactive/ Gamemode way, I cannot understand. Linux gamers ought to be taken more seriously, because Linux is a platform where games are not pirated for. Though to be fair, after disabling film grain/ noise/ sun shafts, and putting CPU in performance mode, I did get a 1440p, locked 60 FPS performance using Proton (DXVK) on a GTX 970. So technically, the game is certainly worth.

I bought the “Enhanced Edition” at 70% discount, and for that price, it can certainly be recommended, to even Linux gamers. Only this edition is recommended though, as the base game masks the solid foundation the game has underneath, which is only revealed by the DLC . The original game was definitely never worth the asking price at launch. It is not a AAA title, not in terms of design and game mechanics.

[Update 2021] Techland has shamelessly patched the 6-yr old game with ads for their upcoming Dying Light 2 in game textures. So they have the time to put ad textures in their patches, but not the time to fix the post processing or bugs. A big thumbs down for the company. They have successfully influenced my decision to not buy the sequel at launch.

Pros:

• Linux open world at a discount
• Satisfying melee combat/ animations and innovative parkour
• Immersive graphics and particle/ weather/ gore effects
• Technically robust performance (only after some ini file tweaks)

Cons

• G.R.I.N.D.F.E.S.T. 
• No manual saves, not even safe house saves, only checkpoints
• No fast travel, even between liberated safe houses
• Slow, boring crafting mechanics
• Bad skill tree design
• Community events which spoil your session without notice and cannot be permanently disabled
• More time in traveling across map, killing re-spawned zombies, than actual quests
• Headache inducing post processing effects that cannot be disabled in menu
• Unnecessary patches to put ads of the DLCs/ sequel in game textures

6 / 10