Guides

Destiny 2 Incompatible with AMD Phenom II?

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

Update 31 Oct, 2017:

Original story:

I just published my List of Games That No Longer Run on AMD Phenom a month ago, and then Bungie’s Destiny 2 launches on Oct 24th. The launch has raised the ire of tons of Phenom II users, as the game seems to be crashing mightily on those processors. In the developers’ known issues thread, the following SSSE requirement is mentioned:

  • SSSE3 Required: Destiny 2 will not run on processors without Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (SSSE3).

Wait, what? Usually, the common problem with games not running on Phenoms is their missing SSE 4.1+ support! This time around, the problem is SSSE3 (“Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3,” not to be confused with SSE3!), which is unfortunately supported in AMD processors only after the Bobcat architecture, released in early 2011.

Destiny 2 is only the second game released with the SSSE3 incompatibility, with Resident Evil 7 (which was later patched for support) being the first. The system requirements for the game are as follows:

Minimum Requirements Recommended Specifications
Operating System
Windows® 7 / Windows® 8 / Windows® 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
Windows® 7 / Windows® 8 / Windows® 10 64-bit (latest Service Pack)
Processor: Intel
Intel® Core™ i3 3250 3.5 GHz or Intel Pentium G4560 3.5 GHz
Intel® Core™ i5 2400 3.4 GHz or i5 7400 3.5 GHz
Processor: AMD
AMD FX-4350 4.2 GHz
AMD Ryzen R5 1600X 3.6 GHz
Video: NVidia
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660 2GB or GTX 1050 2GB
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970 4GB or GTX 1060 6GB
Video: AMD
AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB
AMD R9 390 8GB
Memory
6 GB RAM
8 GB RAM

Destiny 2 is, honestly, the first game with minimum requirements that make me finally wonder whether it would actually run on my 3.8GHz Phenom II. All other incompatible games to date have had much lesser minimum requirements. Will investigate once the situation changes; other Phenom II users have reported that the game ran fine in beta, however.

Crucially, Bungie have added the following modifier to the SSSE3 incompatibility:

PLEASE NOTE: We’ve seen a number of reports of crashes on CPUs that fall below our stated minimum specs (E.G. AMD Phenom II series). We are investigating the issue and will attempt to fix the crash, but these CPUs are below minimum spec and are not officially supported.

What do we know to date?

  • Fixing the classic SSE4.1+ incompatibility has not been a major hurdle to developers at all.
  • I am so far unsure of the seriousness of the SSSE3 incompatibility, but it was fixed in Resident Evil 7, and
  • The Destiny 2 betas apparently did work for Phenom users.

Given that the betas did work – which comes off a little bit as false advertising -, the chance of the issue being fixed is relatively high. Whatever changed since launch? All in all, though, I must advise Phenom II users to not purchase the game and wait while the team attempts to amend the situation.

Update 31 Oct, 2017:

Destiny 2 received Hotfix 1.0.5.1 on Monday, October 30, 2017 at 10 AM Pacific (5 PM UTC), which fixes the SSSE3 incompatibility with AMD Phenom II CPUs.

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Warframe Starter Guide for Plains of Eidolon

Martyn Zachary 96 Comments

Warframe is huge right now – and for good reason – after their latest big update, Plains of Eidolon, has come out. It is indeed a fantastic update to a fantastic game. If you are thinking about jumping in, here are 12 important things about Warframe you absolutely need to know before starting out.

1. Warframe is really, truly free

Warframe is free to play. Really! Make no mistake: If you want, you’ll never have to pay a single dime. It is common for the games press to make the mistake of thinking you have to pay in the game, because the marketplace is built that way – but apart from cosmetic items, you can truly get everything without paying – either by grinding for it, or trading for it.

Let it be known, however, that Warframe is a “patient gamers” (shoutout to /r/patientgamers/), a “gamedeals” type game for non-paying customers: It is a long-term investment, and requires you to be patient, and wait for things to come to you in waves. Some items are available only periodically, others come and go.

I repeat: You have to be willing to wait in Warframe – especially if you want to play for free. If you’re impatient, then Warframe is not the game for you.

2. Warframe runs on a potato

Warframe is one of the best-optimized games available today. It can almost be run on the oldest, most garbage entry-level laptop that you can imagine. Plains of Eidolon’s Cetus hub is currently a bit stuttery for everybody, but the actual gameplay content runs on pretty much everything. (more…)

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Fallout: New Vegas 2017 Soft Touch Modification Guide

Martyn Zachary 46 Comments

To celebrate Fallout‘s 20th anniversary, I figured it would be fun to completely start from scratch and tool the Bethesda Fallout game series for new, fresh playthroughs. Since I have now spent an evening’s worth of catching up on, and customizing, each of the Fallouts, I figured I might as well put my lists out here. In fact, I have actually written an article on Planescape: Torment (hilariously obsolete today, with the new Enhanced Edition out) before, and it’s a ton of fun to share this type of info!

I’m personally a fan of a “soft touch” style of modding, so the purpose here was to create a list of

  1. recently updated,
  2. light, and
  3. simple

modifications that work to make Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas more playable. Modding Bethesda games is pretty fun, as there are so, so many options. If you get too trigger happy, however, it can also be quite frustrating – much like the games themselves!

If you do want to follow this tutorial, either as your setup, or as a basis for adding on more modifications, for the purpose of playing and/or purchasing Fallout: New Vegas, I recommend the Steam Ultimate Edition version. Unlike Fallout 3, New Vegas works quite fine on Steam.

This tutorial operates under the assumption that you are on Windows, have all the DLC, and are running Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition version 1.4.0.525. (more…)

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Fallout 3 GOTY 2017 Soft Touch Modification Guide

Martyn Zachary 2 Comments

To celebrate Fallout‘s 20th anniversary, I figured it would be fun to completely start from scratch and tool the Bethesda Fallout game series for new, fresh playthroughs. Since I have now spent an evening’s worth of catching up on, and customizing, each of the Fallouts, I figured I might as well put my lists out here. In fact, I have actually written an article on Planescape: Torment (hilariously obsolete today, with the new Enhanced Edition out) before, and it’s a ton of fun to share this type of info!

I’m personally a fan of a “soft touch” style of modding, so the purpose here was to create a list of

  1. recently updated,
  2. light, and
  3. simple

modifications that work to make Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas more playable. Modding Bethesda games is pretty fun, as there are so, so many options. If you get too trigger happy, however, it can also be quite frustrating – much like the games themselves!

If you do want to follow this tutorial, either as your setup, or as a basis for adding on more modifications, for the purpose of playing and/or purchasing Fallout 3, I recommend the Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition on GOG.com – simply because it doesn’t have any of the Steam or GFWL dependencies.

This tutorial operates under the assumption that you are on Windows, have all DLC (i.e., the GOTY edition), and are running Fallout 3 version 1.7.0.1. (more…)

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Top Five Left 4 Dead 1/2 Custom Campaigns

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

In August 2010, Chet Faliszek announced Valve would begin to rotate biweekly custom-made campaigns on the official servers of Left 4 Dead 2:

Every two weeks we are going to feature a new community campaign on our servers. We will feature one campaign at a time to make it is easier to find games. We’ll be keeping it featured for two weeks so people can familiarize themselves with the maps for competitive play. 1)http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=4194

Though we wholeheartedly agreed with Valve on their choice to start their campaign off with 2 Evil Eyes, their subsequent picks have not been as bold as we had hoped, as the team has since gone on to pick Detour Ahead, City 17, Haunted Forest, Dead Before Dawn, One 4 Nine and I Hate Mountains. Now that the slow trickle of maps seems to have dried up – sans Cold Stream, of course, which is still a river running wild – we wanted to introduce to old and new players alike a list of five great Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 custom campaigns – that is, the best maps Valve is yet to highlight.

We applied a loose criteria to this list of Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 maps. First and foremost, each level was to be available for both games. Second, we expected proper playability on the “expert” difficulty setting. Third, all these levels enjoy a degree of popularity in the community, so as to make finding servers and players easier.  Fourth, we did somewhat consider artistic merits like overall look and feel, setpieces, setting and brushwork.

Fifth, we also sought out campaigns that would adhere to the gameplay standards and Left 4 Dead fiction as defined in practice by Valve. This meant no nasty surprises, traps, or major changes to campaign flow. The reason all the campaigns below have been tested and completed on the “expert” difficulty level is because we found that this particular setting best reveals the extent of balancing (or lack thereof) in terms of campaign length, pacing and structure.

(more…)

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