I am having a ton of fun playing Battlefield: Hardline, when I can - but while I work on a much longer 'First Impressions and Screenshots' article for the blog, I wanted to share a short tutorial for Newer Players - something that I'm seeing asked in the game chat a lot - how to use the Sabotage gadget (the basics, how to use it, what it does, etc..).
Here then, is my first Video Tutorial for Battlefield: Hardline [hopefully the first of many!]
How To Use The Sabotage (A Mechanic Class Gadget Tutorial)
[Recording utilities used, System specs, music/backing track for the credits,
To perform game recording solely on the videocard, utilizing the high resources of today's little powerhouses sitting in our cases - resulting in high quality video and less lag while recording - sounds like manna from heaven. You might be saying, "Wait, the possibly of lowered performance hit and the possibility of a high-quality recording?.. if this is true, please stop teasing and just tell me now..". Well, dear reader, let me tell you that these things are indeed true [for the most part..].
Beginning with version 1.9.0, Bandicam (a game recording application) included support for utilizing NVIDIA's CUDA for recording your gameplay, touting high speed (less 'lag'), high compression ratio (smaller file sizes) and high quality. All you needed was a CUDA-capable NVIDIA videocard, the latest videocard drivers from NVIDIA, and Bandicam. In the most recent version of Bandicam (1.9.1) they have also included support for AMD's APP ACCELERATION and INTEL's QUICK SYNC.
For this QualityTest, I took an NVIDIA GPU and put it through the paces of some game recording with the accelerated H.264/AVC codec (as opposed to the CPU-based x264 for example), using Bandicam [which at the time of this writing, to my knowledge, was the only game recording app that could utilize accelerated/gpu-based AVC recording] to test things out. Here are my findings, shared just for you.
An example of an NVIDIA CUDA encoded game recording, this is a frame extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Unigine Heaven Benchmark Test @ 1080p). Click to see Full Size
Overall, recording with the GPU gave good performance (low performance hit / lag), fairly small file size output, with decent quality [surprising to anyone that has compressed video with CUDA in the past, I know, more info below]. It was only with certain games that the performance suffered (although this may be more the fault of optimization with the game's engine and not NVIDIA's programming) and it was slightly disappointing that the performance wasn't "that much faster" than other codecs [more info at the end about that]. For the most part however, game recording "live" with the GPU and directly encoding to a file using a compatible videocard is indeed nice and fast and produces comfortably-small footprint file sizes.
What file sizes are we talking about here?
I haven't looked at the specs for the codec and how it's utilized, but from what I can quickly see on the surface, it is using the h.264/AVC codec with my NVIDIA GPU, with Deblocking enabled and with a keyframe/I-frame inserted every 5 seconds. That doesn't leave 'a lot' of headroom for compression (x264 AVC usually defaults to 250-300 frames between keyframes which, at 30 frames per second, is more like 10 seconds to 'play with' for compression); but it still gave a nice small filesize when recording with VBR (Variable Bit Rate), where it would compress slower-motion areas and scenes when it could and increased the bitrate (to try to keep apparent quality) when needed in faster/high-motion sections.
An example of an NVIDIA CUDA encoded game recording, this is a frame extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Battlefield 3 @ 1080p). Click to see Full Size
Just below, you will find some data samples of game recordings that were done at incremental quality settings, showing the average bitrate of the recording overall and the sizes of the files produced as output
[(i)all game samples were recorded with accelerated/gpu-based H.264/AVC generated by NVIDIA's CUDA at 1080p unless otherwise indicated (ii)although test recordings varied in length between games, throughout each game title, all 4 tests of the same game were done with the same elapsed time]:
As you can see in the table above, due to the nature of Variable Bit Rate recording, setting a quality figure of "50" does not produce 'exactly one-half' of the bitrate or filesize of a "100" quality setting. The codec is adjusting as needed and where required, allocating more bitrate to complex areas and changes between frames, to help keep "apparent quality" near the desired estimate. Configuring the Quality setting of "100" is essentially telling everything to keep as much detail as possible - but it will only do so within the limitations of the codec being used (in this case, AVC) and how it is configured internally (the calculation time allowed per frame, the buffer allowed, etc), depending on how the developers have programmed it to encode.
An example of an NVIDIA CUDA encoded game recording, this is a frame extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Minecraft @ 1080p). Click to see Full Size
Overall, it seems that with CUDA, the file sizes are kept comfortably small - especially compared to a FRAPS or DXTORY codec recording. The bitrate doesn't stray too far from a 100,000kbps maximum (about 12 MB per second of video data) despite how much action is going on in the game at the time. At that bitrate, a half hour of straight recording would take up only about 22GB. Not too bad, especially if you are creating long recordings or can't afford that 4TB drive upgrade just yet. A Blu-Ray disc title typically uses a bitrate of 25,000-50,000kbps, so a GPU-based/accelerated recording is still allowing for more than double that bitrate to try to represent what is happening on the screen in viewable quality.
So then, what is the quality like?
Normally, if you ask anyone about quality who has used GPU-acceleration together with words like "video editing" and "compression", they will tell you: "It encoded faster, but the output looked craptacular..". I myself have tried off and on in the past to compress videos for myself and others with acceleration and every time I tried CUDA or AMD's APP.ACCEL for the final AVC output I was disappointed at the blotchy, blurred, 'macroblock-y' mess that comes out, unless I allow for a much larger bitrate than intended (and receive a correspondingly larger file size). Somewhat surprisingly then, it was nice to find that I did not need to confine myself to "100% Quality" and always expect huge filesizes with GPU-based game recording to get decent viewable quality, suitable for sharing.
A side-by-side comparison of four CUDA quality settings (100%, 70%, 50%, and 20%), these are frames extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Batman: Arkham City @ 1080p). Click to see Full Size
As can be seen in the screenshot comparison above, decent quality can be maintained at the 100% Quality setting, despite the speed of the encoding being done with H.264/AVC. I was pleasantly surprised, to be honest. Of course, Videophiles will notice slight Posterization and light MPEG-compression artifacts (such as Macroblocking) occuring even at 100% Quality if looked closely for; but for the majority of people, a quality setting of 100% (even down to 80%) should be found quite acceptable. I personally found that at 70%, the compression artifacts became more noticeable, especially the 'trails' that occur from the lossy Vector Quantization (the codec keeping track of where things are moving around between frames), which is why I chose 70% as the 'next notch down' on these tests. At a Quality setting of 60% and any setting below that, these 'trails' left behind are very apparent and in my personal opinion I do not recommend going below 60% for GPU-based game recording at this time, as the quality loss and compression artifacts become too obvious and may remain apparent even in a final render after editing.
An example of an NVIDIA CUDA encoded game recording, this is a frame extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Diablo III @ 1080p). Click to see Full Size
The screenshot above is a frame taken from a CUDA-produced Diablo III game recording. Even during a busy moment, with many things happening quickly on the screen, clarity seems to be maintained at a decent level, even the somewhat-hard-to-compress 'Red Text On A Dark Background' - and this video clip was recorded at the 80% Quality setting. Although some macroblocking is beginning to occur in the darker/flatter area of the upper left (as the codec attempts to keep detail in the high-motion areas by compressing the more static areas of the screen to a higher degree), the darker/flatter toolbar and stone floor overall do not seem to be suffering excessively. [As always however, my personal opinions on quality are mere suggestions based on my own tests and I encourage you to do a bit of your own testing, to find out what settings you would like to settle on and use for your projects]
Since the desktop/GUI can also be recorded with Bandicam, I decided to try record a web browser game with the GPU as well, for the people out there who like to record these games. I recorded two free online games, Lord of Ultima (a city/area building game) and Lottso Express (a bingo-style game), both of which are 2D (flat, board-like), which I thought would be a good example of more static detail (low-motion) compression.
An example of an NVIDIA CUDA encoded game recording, this is a frame extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Lord of Ultima, a web browser game @ 1080p). Click to see Full Size
Lord of Ultima takes up the entire desktop in this large example of low-motion/static area handling by the accelerated codec. The game, captured above, is largely non-moving, especially the toolbars and left portion of the screen. Recorded at GPU-encoded 100% Quality, the toolbars are clear, text is very readable, and even the darker, static area of the Town Hall pop-up is clean and macroblock-free (very little compression artifacts throughout the entire screen), very nice.
A side-by-side comparison of four CUDA quality settings (100%, 70%, 50%, and 20%), these are frames extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Lottso Express, a web browser game @ 384p). Click to see Full Size
Lottso Express runs in a small window, so I tested out recording at the exact resolution of this window (576x384) to see how gpu-acceleration handles lower resolutions. The differences inherent in the four Quality settings, in each of the four extracted frames from the CUDA recordings above, is shown. Although the top section/frame is quite clear (at 100% Quality), it quickly degrades as the quality setting goes down, but the recording still remains watchable. In my opinion, if one is recording just for themselves for fun, or just to share with a friend quickly, even a recording level as low as 60% quality may be acceptable when recording a low-motion 2D game with gpu-accelerated encoding; but I still recommend not going below the 70% Quality setting when recording a 3D (high-motion) game, to maintain enjoyability and clarity when using gpu-accelerated recording (such as CUDA, being used here).
[My tests presented here are only done with CUDA, as I do not own any other videocards capable of gpu-based recording at this time. Output quality may vary when recording with AMD's App Acceleration or Intel's Quick Sync. As always, I suggest doing a few short tests yourself to see what codec and settings you personally would prefer]
What are the configuration settings that can be changed?
There was not much available to configure, as far as the Quality settings and configuration, within the game recording application (Bandicam) at the time of this test. Certainly not as much as the x264 codec, with it's VFW interface, that has been developed over time by generous programmers/contributors. For CUDA, you can choose between Variable Bitrate and Constant Bitrate (allowing CBR if you wish to more precisely estimate the file size) if you wish, and you can utilize the CPU to assist with recording and compression as well, but that's about it. This may be a limitation in CUDA itself however, as I contacted Bandicam developers to see if there would be any deeper configuration options for the codec that CUDA is using (such as Deblocking settings and Partitions) and they got back to me stating that there were no other configuration options of that type available to include, at this time.
The interface for CUDA recording found within Bandicam's Video Format settings.
As always, remember that if sharing your video on streaming sites (which limit bitrate) and uploading sites (such as YouTube), your video will be recompressed [converted again] at settings much lower than your production video and detail will be lost (blurred/smoothed and show Macroblocking) due to the nature of recompression. Therefore, if wanting to save time, there is no need to create and upload huge-bitrate, finely-detail video, as can be seen in this comparison of an uploaded YouTube video and the output that people will be seeing afterward:
A side-by-side comparison of frames extracted from the Original Uploaded Video (Left), YouTube's 1080p Compressed Video (Middle), and YouTube's 720p Compressed Video (Right), showing loss of data/detail due to recompression. (Diablo III @ 1080p, high-motion scene, moderately-detailed game engine) Click to see Full Size
How about performance?
I don't usually talk much about performance when I do QualityTests or TestRuns, except for maybe a short paragraph on my own experiences or a "Personal Short Version/Opinion" section at the end. The reason is, every system is different and everyone has their system configured in different ways. I could say that GPU-recording ran great for me, but then someone with a laptop running a non-dedicated videocard will tell me how wrong I am and that it doesn't run well at all. I could say it lagged me out all the time, but there would be many who could run the same thing with no problems. A quick look at any Technical Support area of any forum anywhere is evidence of the fact that even with the same hardware, there are a bunch of people who will have no problem at all and a bunch who will be having no joy. So, I mainly leave the issue aside but I sometimes mention how it seemed to run for me and [especially if anyone asks directly] I would be happy to provide more information to those who want to know more about it.
For me, performance while recording with the GPU was a mixed bag. For the most part it seemed to work fine, but there were a handful of games that just didn't like it as much. Some were choppy or laggy when I began recording. The theory is, that recording with the many cores of a GPU, processing and encoding a frame to a file should be more streamlined, but in practice it seems to take more resources from the videocard itself than I expected. Perhaps it is due to needed optimization of the games or drivers, or perhaps it is my 'older' videocards that are beginning to get on in years (I was running two GTX 560 Ti's in SLI mode during these tests). I did find that some games preferred non-SLI mode when recording with CUDA (such as Diablo III, if I remember correctly) and things were smoother when recording that way; but for the most part, accelerated recording ran with about the same responsiveness as [and in some games, slower than] my own optimized settings for the x264 iteration of AVC. Not long ago, I spent a bunch of time testing and tweaking x264 to record with the H.264/AVC codec, finding the best settings for speed while maintaining quality - and in light of the performance I was able to tweak out of x264 - GPU-based-recording didn't impress me much [if talking strictly about performance hit here]... perhaps I'll end up just using my settings with x264, for now.
For more information, tests and tweaks that I did over time with h.264/AVC and the x264 codec, feel free to check out these articles here at the blog (some are the same as the above asection):
An example of an NVIDIA CUDA encoded game recording, this is a frame extracted from the CUDA-produced output file (Allods @ 1080p). Click to see Full Size
Overall, recording with gpu-acceleration was pleasantly surprising. Quality (at 100%) was better than I expected from it (it does taper off quickly as you lower the quality setting, however). The file sizes were comfortably small (about 25GB for an hour of recording at 70% Quality, about 45GB for an hour of recording at 100% Quality). The performance was a mixed bag for me, but for most games it was indeed fast and could get the job done. So, in essence, it managed to deliver on all promises. Not bad at all.
Have fun recording with your GPU and See You In The Games!
I recently got around to trying the 'Play For Free' version of the Battlefield series and created an account through their website to try this game out.
[I remembered much later that I actually had an account that I used during the Beta phase, but I completely forgot about that - and also what the game was like back then anyway - too much Battlefield 3 cleared all of that from my brain, I suppose!]
It is free to create an Account and play forever if you so desire, but there are also many options for purchasing weapons, armor, clothing, and other items with "Real Money".
The 4 classes available to play in BFP4F, with information on each. Click to see Full Size.
After creating a free account (which is assigned to an e-mail address), I started out playing the Medic class and it seemed to get more fun as it went along. You don't start out with paddles/defibrillators, but you do start out with a healing box that you throw down (as in Battlefield Bad Company 2), a Machine Gun (MG3), pistol (M9), Tracer Darts (a'la BFBC2) and a knife - but no grenades (yet). Running around dropping healing boxes and backing up my team was great and when I unlocked the Defibs, I felt like I was playing BFBC2. After getting used to the Controls (adjusting the sensitivity, changing some of the default hotkeys, etc) in no time it felt like good'ol Battlefield.
A hotel in Battlefield 2 (bottom) and the same hotel in Battlefield Play4Free (top)
Click to see Full Size
The visuals are akin to Battlefield 2, with extra shaders and effects mixed with some BFBC2 elements. For instance, you can 'spot' the enemy and the BFBC2-type 'triangle' appears above their head for a while and they appear on the map. The environment looks more like Battlefield 2 than Battlefield Bad Company 2, with many models (shapes) looking like they were pulled straight from BF2 and just converted. This is not a bad thing particularly, I enjoyed BF2 a lot, and with some shading, fog and other graphical boosts that were done, the game doesn't look too bad - especially when you consider it's a free-to-play title and won't cost you one cent if you don't want to spend it.
Graphics comparison between Low, Medium and High 'Video Quality' settings.
Click to see Full Size
I would have liked more complexity to many things, but it makes sense that they tried to keep the polygon/videocard usage down, supporting more types of machines/older ones, so that more people could play it (and they could also potentially make more money). It does look very playable, especially if you can turn things up a bit, and the gameplay is still The Battlefield Formula, which meant soon I wasn't paying attention to the graphics at all - I was too busy capturing points, driving teammates around, an' killin' an' healin'.. If you like the Battlefield style of gameplay, especially Battlefield2, you should enjoy playing this game.
Unlabeled comparison of that apartment complex that is forever under construction.
Click to see Full Size
The starting guns for the Medic were low accuracy and low damage and you will get killed a lot in direct firefights, but with some practice with short bursts and aiming down the sights, you can still kill others, even at a distance, and slowly start to make points. The starting rifle for the Sniper packs more of a punch of course, but seems to take forever to reload and has bullets that must be made out of solid granite, because they seem so heavy and drop so much. The starting guns for the Engineer was an RPG and [what I found to be,] a decent sub-machine gun (I have always been a fan of the PP-2000 though, I remember fondly running around in Bad Company 2 with Magnum Rounds in one /evillaugh). Recoil is high on these beginning guns, but I assume it gets better later on as more becomes unlocked at higher soldier levels. Grenades don't seem to go straight all the time, in random throws, which makes for some tense-but-funny bounces.
Although the PLAY NOW buttons will get you into the thick of battle very quickly, you cannot choose what game mode to play (Rush, etc). If you want to choose what game type to play or what server to play on, there is a server browser [indicated in the picture above with green arrows] button in the upper-right corner of the Launcher.
I found at the website, after logging in that there was a 'Starter Pack' for each class, a sort of 'preview' of a couple weapons that you can buy, which included a high-damage shotgun in it for my Medic. That was a lot of fun, if you don't mind having to run-and-gun into the frays, but it only lasted one day, then the gun disappears and is no longer usable anymore. Still, it was a nice little preview and I got some fast close-quarter kills with it while it lasted (see Video).
As with most online games that can possibly make money from you, the levels come fast at the beginning to get you hooked, then slow down quite a bit (I found it started to 'feel slow' around Level 6 or 7). You can purchase eXPerience boosters and as you level you can purchase more weapons as they become 'unlocked'. You gain free tokens called Credits as you play the game, but gain them slowly (automatically over time it seems, based on Time Played) and these Credits purchase weapons that [mostly] last one day (or items that have limited numbers of uses, such as healing bandages). You can purchase tokens called Funds ("Play4Free Funds", which used to be called "Battlefunds" during the Beta) with Real Money that you can use in the Store to purchase weapons as well, including versions that last forever. If you are willing to purchase Play4Free Funds, you can also unlock weapons and items 'early' with them, that is, be able to purchase/unlock and equip items before the level you would normally have to be to unlock and use them.
Shotgun trial (not that kind) and the hotel from BF2.
Click to see Full Size
For the shotgun that I mentioned earlier, using these Play4Free Funds purchased with Real Money, it would cost about $.06 to use for a day and about $1.00 to use forever. If you didn't want to spend any money for it, it seems that you can gain enough free tokens (Credits) to buy it for a day of play in about 5 or 6 rounds if your team is winning matches (about an hour of solid playtime) and just over twice that amount if your team is constantly losing matches. There was a sub-machine gun (a UMP-45) that was in the Engineer Starter Pack as a preview, and as another example, for that gun to use for one day, you would have to play about 5-6 rounds (each round lasting about 10-15 minutes) if you won most of them, and play about twice that long if your team kept losing. You can even purchase this gun (the UMP-45) to use forever with free tokens, but you would have to play about 4 hours a day for over 3 weeks and not spend much of the earned Credits on anything else. Quite a run, but if you are having fun playing the game anyway (and for free) the fact they give the option to purchase it that way is nice.
There is a Training section [the button is indicated in the picture above with green arrows] with trees and abilities to unlock for your soldier in order to drive vehicles, etc. For example: Medics do not start out with Defibrillators and must train for the equipment to revive fallen teammates.
You gain Soldier eXPerience by killing, capturing points, healing, etc and the XP gains you Levels, which unlock future items and weapons and each level gives you a Point that you can spend in MMORPG-style 'Talent Trees', where you can improve aspects of that Soldier or unlock different abilities, such as the ability for people to Spawn off of you or sense what direction damage is coming from (it doesn't do that at first), the ability to lay Claymores (and the ability to not trip them when you run by), fly vehicles and more. Thus, the more you contribute to your team by killing, capturing and healing, the more abilities to do these things you unlock. With the free Credits you gain over time as you play, the more you play, the more weapons and items you can unlock. The whole system encourages involvement and seems to work well, as there has only been a couple of games where I saw "AFK'ers" (people who have the game running but are Away From their Keyboard or not playing/helping). There were also a couple games where people said in Chat for others to "come stat-pad with them" (I left those games); but as I said, these were only a couple of games out of the 50+ I have played so far. Overall, everyone seems to be runnin'-n'-gunnin' and helping out their team just fine.
Soldiers supporting each other in a corner battle behind buildings.
Click to see Full Size
The sound in the game has differing cracks and booms for the various weapons with echo effects (Reverb) when you are inside buildings,etc and the vehicles each have their own engine sound [although there is some 'vehicle engine sounds' in the backing/environmental track that play in the background of each map (such as the rain and birds in jungle maps) that is somewhat confusing at times if your ears catch it in the background, you think a vehicle is nearby and it isn't]. I still laugh once in a while playing because every soldier uses The Wilhelm Scream. Nice. Most of the Voice Overs in the game sound like they came from BFBC2 but are tweaked a little. [The phrase when gaining control of a point still cracks me up, as it sounds like an old Clean & Clear commercial ("clear and under control.."), just like it did in BFBC2]. With the Communication Rose (Hotkey 'Q' and you choose an option, like Need Ammo) you can hear yourself and other Soldiers, but it's rare to hear someone spamming it.
If you are having trouble hitting the numbers for the different weapons and slots, or just want to change them, you can assign other keys for them in the Game Launcher under Settings (the gears button at the top). I liked to assign the numbers for items only, so my weapons are actually Spin Mouse Wheel Up for one and Spin Mouse Wheel Down for the other.
The music, which doesn't play during regular gameplay, is a nice hard-rock/heavy-metal take on the BF theme by Corroded. A looping 2-minute track called Age Of Rage plays while you are in the Game Launcher menu that sounds a lot like the music from The Terminator movies (not a bad thing). Short phrases from their version of the theme play when you Win, Lose or Level Up and a longer version plays while Loading. The hard-rock sound fits the game well.
Always take time to enjoy the scenery in life. Here are some trees and shadows.
Click to see Full Size
Overall, Battlefield Play4Free is like most free-to-play online games that use Microtransactions: it is in fact free to download, install and play and there is also the ability to purchase items and 'boosters' to level up/unlock items faster as well - but you don't need to spend any money on it at all if you really don't want to or cannot do so (and of course have the time to play to get what you want the slower/free way). Although it feels a little clunky to play at first if you're coming from the Retail versions of the Battlefield series, once you get used to the DirectX 9 graphics and mechanics, it eventually 'feels' like a Battlefield title (A Good Thing) and once you get used to it overall - it is a lot of fun to play (The Main Thing).
I almost forgot.. the gameplay video! This clip was a test of a few things at once; Bandicam's 'External Codec' setting using x264 (H.264/AVC) available in version 1.8.2/2012-09 [new version at the time writing this post began] and higher, Bandicam's automatic Logo overlay with transparency (our logo, lower right corner), BFP4F's one-day-only 'Starter Pack' 870 Combat Shotgun, and the uploading of a clip directly from the recorded file/output to YouTube.
Enjoy!
Video Specs and Tech Talk:
Recorded game: Battlefield Play4Free, Online FPS
Recorded with: Bandicam Registered Version @1080p
Recording codec: x264 (H.264/AVC) using the 'External Codec' implementation in Bandicam
Recording settings/variables: 'VeryFast' Preset, CRF23, 'Zero-Latency' Option selected, Logo option with transparency (our logo, lower right)
The first of many recordings testing out Bandicam's usage of other codecs installed in a system (called 'External Codecs' in the program), this clip was recorded using the x264 Advanced Video Coding codec. Not an editing-friendly codec (it is slower to seek/move between sections within an editing application and can have artifacting issues), it still manages to work well with little effect on framerate, with the proper settings. The Constant Rate Factor quality setting of 23, recording at 1920x1080, gave an output bitrate of about 20000kbps, resulting in a file size that uses about 150MB per minute of recording (a half hour of recording at this resolution and bitrate [with MPEG-4/AVC] would take up about 4.5GB).
The 'VeryFast' Preset in x264 auto-selects a few things, such as 1 reference frame per GOP, no Trellis encoding, no Deblocking, no CABAC and no B-type frames in the original recording/output. I suggest the faster Presets, as the slower ones compress far too much on-the-fly and create lag in the game and in the recording - more on this will come in a future article**. The CRF set at 23 allowed some 'breathing room' for recording and compressing on the fly (it is a medium quality setting, a CRF of 18 being more of a 'standard high-quality' MPEG-4 setting), it also saved a little bit of disk space as this just-over-two-minute file was only about 300MB. While still watchable and acceptable in quality, the absence of deblocking (to hide macroblocks and other compression artifacts) and the high compression of flat/low-detail areas, making them smoothed out/blurred is visible, however. It is suggested to use a higher bitrate/rate control factor (if the system can handle it), even though more diskspace will be utilized. Youtube seems to have recompressed it as well, as even at the '1080p' Youtube setting, some quality has been lost from the original uploaded file. Still, it seems acceptable for a medium quality recording setting.
I haven't played APB in over a year and decided to try boot'er up once again. It's now on Steam and works great. It automagically logs you in and informs you that if you don't have a Gamersfirst Account (the publisher for APB Reloaded) you can create one at their website for free. If you are a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series of games, this Free To Play (F2P) Player-Versus-Player action-oriented "MMORPG" is definitely one you should try. I did a 'First Impressions' article last year when I tried out the Reloaded Beta. That article is here: http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.ca/2011/09/apb-online-reloaded-beta.html
Since then, I have been having the passionate love-hate relationship with this game again; but having a blast overall. I see there are still a good influx of new players and people asking questions in the game and on forums and so I thought I would put together a few quick tips helping fellow Criminals with some concepts that will assist in speeding up making some cash (don't worry - Enforcer tips to come in the future).
You don't have to go all the way to a Joker Ammunition Vending Machine (if the closest is far away, especially when on a mission). You can Resupply at the nearest Mailbox and Vehicle Vendor/Spawn by hitting 'I' to open your inventory, then 'T' to resupply.
The game doesn't do a lot of hand-holding for an MMO, but there is a fair amount of text in the game and chat windows that inform you of things you can do as a Criminal. You can simply mug people walking down the street (in my opinion a slower way to make money). You can steal vehicles and sell them to Chop Shops for profit (the shops can be shown on the map). You can also ram-raid stores and grab all the loot that drops out. These are life lessons, people.
Here is a short video showing some tips for new players and concepts for criminals on how to make money a little bit faster (Locations shown are in the Financial District but concepts apply to any District, some footage was shot on a server that did not give full bonus/money for turn-ins):
I cover mostly Ram Raids and Chop Shops, but with some little tips and tricks thrown in. I created this video because I saw a few things in-game that I thought I'd help with. One was a new player attempting to ram a store front that wasn't 'raidable'. Another is players parking waaay-far-away from their fences/contacts and walking forever to turn in their goods. Like this poor guy below (don't worry, I blurred your name):
Maybe he didn't know you can drive into here and park closer. Even with that, Veronika Lee is in a very busy area. Enforcers traffic is high with their Contact and Impound Lot nearby and Criminals go to the Money Laundry not far from here. One will get you caught and the other will get your loot-laden ride stolen. I suggest the Fence location mentioned in the video for fast, more-out-of-the-way-and-therefore-away-from-people turn-ins. I like hyphens. I go over the differences in vehicles and how much each can carry and I also show some Chop Shops that are close to GA5 repair centers, so that it's a short/fast trip to drop vehicles off for faster cash.
Some things I didn't cover in the video but wanted to add are:
When ram-raiding, it is slower to stop the vehicle and back in, or smash straight in and then move the vehicle out of the way. If you want to be faster and lower your chances of getting Witnessed, learn to do a 'drive-by' ramming by coming in at a sharper angle and 'bouncing' off the store window, smashing it and collecting the loot after you stop just on the other side of it.
Loot-laden Vans and Trucks will drive slower. You will have to figure out your own balance of danger vs profit. If you are above $1500 in 'dirty money' and can be witnessed all the time by passing cops, don't use a slow vehicle if possible. But, if you want to get tons of cash at once and the District isn't very busy, using a full van again and again to go well over $1500 is possible if you stick to back roads and take an outside route around to the Money Laundry. It's all up to you. If you keep ram-raiding, just don't forget to repair your vehicle at a GA5 station, ram-raiding causes it damage too!
Chop Shops will not take multiple vehicles fast one after another. Mix it up a bit by doing some ram-raids on the way to the next Chop Shop area (repairing before you hand it in of course) or grab the most expensive vehicle you see and drive it straight to the next closest one. The choice is up to you.
If you've been playing constantly since Beta and are Rank FiveBillion and know all the little tricks in the game, you might not learn a lot from the video; but if you are a new player or are looking for help making faster money as a Crim, the simple concepts presented in the video will make your cash flow just a little bit more... flow-y.
Munenushi and his C4.. this time in Metro. If you are on the receiving end, we apologize ahead of time. This was done on a live server with random/unknown players. We're not sure if it's the biggest live/real/unplanned/legitimate C4 multikill so we're not going to say that, but if you are a fan of C4 in the Battlefield Series, enjoy:
- Recorded with Bandicam (For Edit Preset, Q70) at 1080p
- Music/BackingTrack by Munenushi
- Video Production and Editing by IFX (Media.ifx)
Recording your gameplay, whether it is for sharing with family and friends, uploading tutorials, contest/challenge entries, or just your own archive to watch when you are relaxing, is a great way to share and preserve gaming experiences. There are a handful of game recording applications out there today and while each one has it's ups-and-downs, I want to make a post however, focusing more on the problems people run into when trying to record their games. I wanted to quickly share some Tips that will help no matter which game recording software you have chosen as your own to use, whether your problem is 'it causes lag', 'framerate drops', 'video is choppy' or any other symptom. Here are some ideas to help you out, presented in order of the effect it should have on your game recording, from the most effect to the least:
Reduce the resolution of the game. That means instead of playing at 1920x1080, set the in-game resolution (usually in "Options") to something smaller like 1280x720 (720p HD) for example.
Reduce the resolution of the game recording. Not all game software will give you the same amount of choices for this, but reducing the resolution that the game is being recorded at (not the size you are playing at, set in the game, but the size of the frames being recorded, set in the game recording software such as "Half Size" or "75%" or a resolution like "1280x720"/"720p") will help reduce the amount of data your system is dealing with, and will help reduce things like framerate drop and recording lag.
Reduce or turn off Anti-Aliasing. This is one that can greatly affect recording smoothly but not many people think of it. When AA is on, video data is being 'processed twice' as stair-stepping is being detected on the frame, and then the video frame is being compressed for the recording itself. Do some tests on your system to see how lowering or turning off AA (even FXAA or Morphological/SMAA or 'Fast AA' albeit for reduced gain) has an effect on your game recording. You may need to set it in the video card's Control Panel and/or in the game itself.
Use the fastest drive on your system. If you have more than one drive in your rig, using something like CrystalDiskMark or Dxtory's built-in disk benchmark/testing tool (usable even in the Trial Version) or Nero's Burning ROM ('copy' using an image file, there is a drive speed tester in there), can help you find which drive recording to will be the smoothest/fastest. Always try to record to your fastest drive and the earliest (firstmost) partition on that drive that you can use for it.
Change the format you are recording into. By this I mean the recording codec you are using. Some codecs [COmpressor/DECompressors] that are used to handle the video data keep a lot of the detail but take up more space (like FRAPS' codec). Some codecs are 'lossy' and give up some quality in order to take up less space and keep the output file smaller (like Bandicam's MPEG-1 VBR codec). Some are just less taxing on the system or take better advantage of it (like the UT Video Codec's ability to use multiple cores of your CPU). If you have tried other things, try changing the codec and level of quality you are using. Record at 60% quality instead of 90% [Playclaw uses MJPEG set at 90% by Default and Bandicam uses MJPEG set at 80% for it's 'For Editing' Preset] and see if it looks ok to you (especially if you are recording at say, 1920x1080 and going to resize it down to 1280x720 for uploading).
Reduce the settings in-game. What I mean here is the Special Effects like lighting/shadow detail, graphic detail (complexity of the shapes/models/meshes and sharpness of the textures on them), effect detail (splatters and smoke) and even sound detail. All of these things make the system work harder (especially the CPU) to process them [very simplified; it must take data from the game files, process it, size and shape it and then finally show it on the screen and then buffer it and process it and write it to the recording file]. This will increase your frames per second in the game as well, and more of your system's resources can be put toward recording smoothly.
Reduce the frame rate of recording. This means, recording at 24 frames-per-second as opposed to say 60fps. There will be literally less frames for the program to deal with, and your system will not have to process so many and push them around, finally writing them to the recorded file. Dealing with less video data means that your system can handle it more smoothly, processing and writing slower to the drive being recorded to.
Defragment the drive being recorded to. These days, with how Windows7/NTFS and Linux's Journaling System handles files and with Solid State Drives, it is not as needed as in the days of yesteryear; but making as much space as you can and ordering the files as much as you can does still help with game recording overall.
Upgrade your system's hardware. I hate seeing and giving this advice, but it really does help with just about anything that you are trying to do with your computer, so I am including it, last (even though the effect a computer upgrade can have can be greater than any of the steps above). Game recording uses not just your video card, but also your motherboard (everything 'talks to each other' through it), your CPU (the traffic cop, dictating how fast everything should go and when), RAM (the holding and transport areas for most things), and finally the hard drive (which receives all of this data and computes writing it to the file). Purchasing anything as an upgrade, whether it is a newer/faster drive, processor or video card, will all help in game recording. Lastly, a dedicated Sound Card is always [always] more efficient for a system than using the Built-In/Onboard Audio. Even a good USB soundcard can help alleviate problems like sound stuttering, clicking and popping, static, input lag and other problems, as processing is done without bothering the CPU and using main system resources for audio.
Hopefully, these Tips will help you record your games, no matter what software you've decided to use/try to record with. As always, when having problem with programs, going to the Support portion of the developer's website, even if it is just a Forum there, is a good idea to look for help with a specific program and the problems you are encountering. These general Tips are more concerned with your computer and how it interacts with programs/games in general and should help 'No Matter What'.
Good luck with it and have fun!
For those of you still playing Diablo2 off and on, a new season of Ladder starts the 2nd of May, 2012! Don't worry, Blizzard has stated that it is NOT, I repeat, it is not the last ladder reset of D2, just because D3 is coming out:
See that, Other Game Companies? That's how you keep your customer base coming back for more... Thank you, Blue.
Heck there are still tens of thousands of players online and many more messing around on Single Player. I myself have recently been trying out The Cheat Engine on Single Player, but with the Hero Editor there is really no need, as you can give your character level 90+, level 90+ skills and max out your stash with goldz for gambling. Do a few Boss Runs, save the items as files, then you can import them into the other characters! I hope Diablo3 has this sort of thing... I don't want to sound like 'that forum guy/girl', but I may not purchase Diablo3 if it doesn't have Single Player. Even the annoying must-have-an-internet-connection Single Player is fine, as long as cheats and utilities are allowed for those of us who want to beef up our characters. [Must not... include rant about online single player games and them not working when servers/companies go down and how they should all be like Diablo2...]
Speaking of D3 (a separate post will be made about the beta), it seems like Gold and other things are all server-side. This makes sense, since D3 items are going to be able to be sold for "Real Life Money" and you don't want some hackers giving their characters a million goldz to sell for real cash. However, again, for those of us who like to supe-up our characters, the ability to have (built in?) cheats of some sort would be nice for isolated/offline single player gameplay. I purposely do not read/view too much on a game before it comes out and I haven't heard anything about Single Player in D3 and how it's going to be handled yet.
Distraction! This is a post about Diablo2, and so let's bring it back with some screenshots:
My Necro in NM Den. If you can change the game running from DirectDraw to DirectX, I highly recommend it.
The shading and colors are superior.
My Barbarian following in a Chaos and Baal Run in Nightmare. Yup, that's what I call the Necromancer Clay Golems.
My Hydra Sorceress running Hell Countess for Runes. My strategy was usually to teleport to her [I miss the old 3-level Tower] and then let the hydras kill her and her guards off. Pretty easy with decent Hydras. The one Hydra on me is for defence of the position.
Ahh! This is what happens when you don't play your characters for 90 Days and someone takes your name before you sign in again. Drat, I don't mind losing the item holders but she was a good sorc. Oh well, a chance to make new!
My 83 Wind Druid on Ladder. I was in the top 10 at the beginning, then stayed in the top 50 for a while, but I just can't keep playing and keep up. It was fun for a while anyway and I got some fast levels with good groups.
My Windy Druid found Ali Baba, woot! What's the best character to MF with these days?
Going through some items from Ladder on my Item Holders and found Warshrike, a nice throwing dagger weapon. Now where's my Throwing Barb again?
Found Jalal's Mane for my Bear Druid. Yesss!
My Bear Druid's Stun Strategy. Want easy PvM (player versus monster) fights? Just level a Druid to 24 and get Shockwave. Coupled with a nice strong Grizzly, just 'Stun-Em-And-Run-Em': Shockwave stun and let your merc and grizz clear em out. The only thing you have to worry about is what loot to pick up when it's all over.
My Necromancer can use Charged Bolt! Ok, he can't, but my Bonemancer entering Hell WSK looks like he does in this screenshot, due to some Lightning Enchantedseses-es near the Waypoint. Don't forget kids, if you hold the mouse farther away from your character when you cast Teeth, they will come out in a narrower cone, and if you hold the mouse closer to your character, they will come out in a wider spread.
A quarter of a million gold for dying? Man, I hope this doesn't happen in D3.. Ah, well it was about time for a break anyway..
That's it for now, see you in there!
N.B.: This post has been copy/pasted to a few blogs out there (that seem to mainly just copy/paste others' work). This is the original article (our logo is in the screenshots still and they left one of the copyright statement of ours intact). Please ask if you wish to copy/paste entire articles (thank you for the compliment I suppose) and it's great if you could just link to this one. Thanks, though.
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