PC Enthusiast-Fi (PC Gaming/Hardware/Software/Overclocking)
Dec 17, 2012 at 10:00 AM Post #196 of 9,120
No kidding, man. If someone were to tell me this was a PS4 or Xbox 3 game I'd be inclined to believe them.

Anyone know of a good screenshot utility that isn't Fraps? Don't need anything fancy like benchmarking or video recording.
Umm fraps. There are others but no need if you already have one
 
Dec 17, 2012 at 11:25 AM Post #197 of 9,120
Hawken is beautiful!
 
Dec 17, 2012 at 3:10 PM Post #199 of 9,120
Dec 17, 2012 at 5:32 PM Post #200 of 9,120
Quote:
What is your build?

 
AMD Athlon II X4 2.9GHz, 4GB RAM, Geforce GTX650 Ti. A pretty modest build, yet runs this game like a champ.
 
EDIT: Tried MSI Afterburner for screenshots, didn't work any better than Fraps. Radeon Pro works a little better, but still not ideal. Seems it might just be an issue with the game.
 
Anyway, more yummy screenshots.




 
Dec 17, 2012 at 6:27 PM Post #201 of 9,120
Okay, thanks, my i5 3570k and GTX 480 should run it like a champ! It's the only game I'm installing on my SSD, Still downloading, as my internet speed is ____<150kb/s (Yes, kilobits :frowning2:).
 
Dec 17, 2012 at 6:33 PM Post #202 of 9,120
Quote:
Okay, thanks, my i5 3570k and GTX 480 should run it like a champ! It's the only game I'm installing on my SSD, Still downloading, as my internet speed is ____<150kb/s (Yes, kilobits
frown.gif
).

You live in Texas, the (commercial) bandwidth capitol of the U.S.
 
How can you even surf on 18-19kB/s. 
 
Dec 17, 2012 at 6:34 PM Post #203 of 9,120
Ouch, that's about how my friend's internet is. Practically unusable!
 
Thankfully the game is pretty small. I think it's only like 4.5GB.
 
Dec 17, 2012 at 6:39 PM Post #204 of 9,120
You live in Texas, the (commercial) bandwidth capitol of the U.S.

How can you even surf on 18-19kB/s. 
Yeah, it SUCKS big time. But we live in the country, and that's the fastest any ISP offers to us, we pay $45 a month for it, OUTRAGEOUS!!! :veryevil:
 
Dec 17, 2012 at 6:52 PM Post #205 of 9,120
Quote:
Ouch, that's about how my friend's internet is. Practically unusable!
 
Thankfully the game is pretty small. I think it's only like 4.5GB.

I know right!?
Quote:
Yeah, it SUCKS big time. But we live in the country, and that's the fastest any ISP offers to us, we pay $45 a month for it, OUTRAGEOUS!!!
very_evil_smiley.gif

I see internet speed on the news a lot and I don't think a lot about it. But seeing as how somepeople still live with speeds like that, it is outrageous!
 
I pay $50 a month for 25Mb/s-28Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up
 
That means I can download 12.6 GB's in an hour at max speed theoretically not factoring that the data units are wrong anyway as data is binary and in bases of two.
 
 
 
Build Quality:
Other Dunu's like the DN 17 have had such a solid metal build that it was actually a con. They weighed too much and thus dropped like rocks. This could cause damage and chips. The DN19's now take a hard plastic approach at the driver housing. The housing itself is extremely light but static. The nozel can not be moved around to fit different ears. I will get into this later. They do feel like they will get destroyed if they are stepped on hard however as it is just very light. 
 
 
Microphonics:
The DN 19 are meant to be worn over ear with the guiders or without. It is nearly impossible to wear them without going over and behind the ears. There is thus little microphonics. Moving the chin slider up virtually eliminates the rest of the cable moving sound.I don't keep the chin slider all the way up to my chin. With the cable tight, I prefer it about 1.5 - 2 inches beneath my chin.
 
Fit problems:
The problem is a bit widespread but not too large. The nozzle can not be moved and thus the shallow insertion, big driver housing, the housing "hump" near the nozzle and the immobile nozzle itself causes fit problems for some. Next, the damper port is also another cause. If you can see from the pic's below, they are right near your ear. They can prevent your ear form getting a seal.
 
 
 
 
Shallow or Deep insertion? You pick:
I am a user of Medium tips always. I thought I was seeing things when I found the medium tips to be quite small upon first sight. In reality, they are. They do create a seal of sorts but are more of the tip to just barely be inserted as a seal at all but kinda sit on the ear opening after being inserted. I am fine with this kind of seal but I found that the large tips of both the black and gray allowed for different sealant pattens. The gray's went farther into the ear and were more hard and responsive to expanding inside the ear. I did a wide variety of tips and choices. I found the shallow mediums to fit me best. Why? Dunu's(not just them) are a bit more prone to the diaphram vacuum. This is where on insertion, the backwards suction after the seal is created, the diaphgram will itself get compressed or sucked up You can hear this as a pop of air when insertion or de-sertion of the IEM's. The shallows allow a lesser rate of that happening. But as to what sounds better for whoever, it is your call.
 
 
 

Shallow or Deep insertion? You pick:
I am a user of Medium tips always. I thought I was seeing things when I found the medium tips to be quite small upon first sight. In reality, they are. They do create a seal of sorts but are more of the tip to just barely be inserted as a seal at all but kinda sit on the ear opening after being inserted. I am fine with this kind of seal but I found that the large tips of both the black and gray allowed for different sealant pattens. The gray's went farther into the ear and were more hard and responsive to expanding inside the ear. I did a wide variety of tips and choices. I found the shallow mediums to fit me best. Why? Dunu's(not just them) are a bit more prone to the diaphram vacuum. This is where on insertion, the backwards suction after the seal is created, the diaphgram will itself get compressed or sucked up You can hear this as a pop of air when insertion or de-sertion of the IEM's. The shallows allow a lesser rate of that happening. But as to what sounds better for whoever, it is your call.
 
Cable Tangling:
They don't tangle as easily as the DN19 nor many other IEM's actually. It may be due to a different cable composition. The DN17 also part of silver impact series cable feels different.
 
Isolation:
They don't leak much. But they do let in some sound in. They didn't isolate as well as the deeper inserting IEM's like the TF10 or the ones using tougher driver material. The IEM driver assembly and housing itself is extremely light. Harley's do penetrate the DN19 even on loud volumes.
 
In ear Feel:
Excellent. The cable guides have a patent pending but with or without them, they fit well. The shallow insertion (general) and static fit may cause a problem with some. I myself have a personal problem where my right ear's opening is different from my left's. I myself prefer no cable guides while at the desk and cable guides while going for a jog.
 
Usability:
The cable guides have caught onto the wire itself or other things a few times while pulling them out but it wasn't really annoying. The cable itself is just solid, slick, long enough to not be an annoyance in daily activities while still being just long enough for use with a desktop unit that may not be too close to you. However the dampers are a problem. I realized why they gave you over 20-30 after my first week using them. The driver damper port is too small to be machined accurately(read: cost effectively) and same with the dampers. And thus you literally screw in the dampers with a clockwise motion. This will take a few tries at first. However I have noticed that the dampers screw plastic mold will sometimes break. I have had this happen twice where they become useless because the screw mold is gone so they won't hold. 
 
 
 
 

 
 
Isolation:
They don't leak much. But they do let in some sound in. They didn't isolate as well as the deeper inserting IEM's like the TF10 or the ones using tougher driver material. The IEM driver assembly and housing itself is extremely light. Harley's do penetrate the DN19 even on loud volumes.
 
 

 
 
In ear Feel:
Excellent. The cable guides have a patent pending but with or without them, they fit well. The shallow insertion (general) and static fit may cause a problem with some. I myself have a personal problem where my right ear's opening is different from my left's. I myself prefer no cable guides while at the desk and cable guides while going for a jog.
 
 

 
 
Usability:
The cable guides have caught onto the wire itself or other things a few times while pulling them out but it wasn't really annoying. The cable itself is just solid, slick, long enough to not be an annoyance in daily activities while still being just long enough for use with a desktop unit that may not be too close to you. However the dampers are a problem. I realized why they gave you over 20-30 after my first week using them. The driver damper port is too small to be machined accurately(read: cost effectively) and same with the dampers. And thus you literally screw in the dampers with a clockwise motion. This will take a few tries at first. However I have noticed that the dampers screw plastic mold will sometimes break. I have had this happen twice where they become useless because the screw mold is gone so they won't hold. 
 

 

 
Sound Quality Introduction:
I was not deeply impressed with the DN 17 Crater but I am with the DN 19. The main lesson from the DN 19 is that Dunu can craft a beautiful looking, feature packed and good sounding IEM at a competitive price. Now before I reveal my thoughts, lets get into the part we all wanted to read.
 
Highs:
A problem the DN 17 had was that its highs were all over the place and EXTREMELY bright and fatiguing. I wish to announce that the problem for the most part has been rectefied. It still is not as smooth as I want it to be but the DN 19 delivers crisp highs. It needs to smooth out some flucuations in the highs. They are crisp and articulate but don't go too too high either. This is good and bad. It depends on what type of person you are. Some can't stand highs that (don't have sonic problems) burn into your brain. And some want more. I have heard enough of IEM's and headphones that try to deliver highs on a tech sheet but don't go back to engineer them. And that is why for this range of a product, I will welcome an item that has an engineer high frequency range(yet one that doesn't sounds that high freq lovers will want)
 
Mids
 
Vocals:
The vocals are not overly forward. They are in between in the forward role and taking a backwards role. This also highly depends on the song but with practice one can put it at where it lies. I have to say that it would be one that is just slightly behind the mid based instruments and other parts of the track. They are clear and on the warm side. The bass can sometimes be so strong that while it won't muddy up the mids, it will make it a bit hard to "hear" what is being said. (Will talk about dampers later). It is a very sweet sounding vocal.
 
Instruments:
Very clear, seperated with good timbre. Some strings do come off a bit metallic or just streak off but for the majority of the time, the DN 19 produces instruments clearly and accurately. It is generally above the vocals and boy does the guitarist let you know that he is in the front. 
 
Lows(no damper):
The low freq range is not like a car bass. It isn't tight but just because a low freq responce is not tight in its execution mean it is more like a car bass. It punches along with a rumble and hit every now and then. I can't say that I dislike it as I listen to a lot of modern mainstream music(I tested with plenty of oldie favorites now). The mid bass and upper bass is extremely prevelant and has quite the rumble that will sometimes overtake the vocals and mids as the front row man(but won't distort them). They do have a decent sub bass extension that would do well with the IEM. It isn't specially deep but does create the sub rumble that accompanies the massively delicious bass on these IEM's. 
 
Lows (damper):
Much more controlled. I may even say that the sub bass may itself be affected a bit negatively with it. For those that want less bass, this is a good solution as these things on bassy songs will really start rocking. 
 
Dampers and gray tip combo:
Dunu recommends Dampers and gray tips for a more clear and "neutral" combo. That is exactly what they do. The dampers reduce and "engineers" the bass a bit and the deeper inserting gray tips seal off your ears but also make the entire mid range clearer. This has a negative consequence with it however. I found that with this combo and many others that I tried (dampers and black tips) that it would increase fatigue. Anything from the default dampers and medium tips will increase the fatigue that these produced. The mid instruments became more metallic with them and vocals a bit too bright for my liking. It would be up to your choice. Try them out.
 
 
Dec 17, 2012 at 11:55 PM Post #206 of 9,120
Quote:
 
AMD Athlon II X4 2.9GHz, 4GB RAM, Geforce GTX650 Ti. A pretty modest build, yet runs this game like a champ.
 
EDIT: Tried MSI Afterburner for screenshots, didn't work any better than Fraps. Radeon Pro works a little better, but still not ideal. Seems it might just be an issue with the game.
 

Windowed mode with no border? Then the normal Print Screen key should work.
 
Dec 18, 2012 at 9:07 AM Post #208 of 9,120
Dec 18, 2012 at 9:56 AM Post #209 of 9,120
Finished upgrading my rig over the last few months. Upgraded the RAM from 3 GB 1333 MHz to 12 GB 1600 MHz, the graphics card from GTX 285 to GTX 670 OC, and installed an extra HDD and an SSD as boot / primary drive:

Motherboard: ASUS P6T

CPU: Core i7 920 @ 3.33 GHz (cooled by Scythe Mugen 2)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 12 GB 1600 MHz 9-9-9-24 (due to CPU OC running at stock 1600)

GPU: Gigabyte GTX 670 OC

SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB and Samsung Spinpoint F1 1 TB

PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro M500 (500W)

And then some external stuff like a 1 TB Western Digital MyBook, Razer peripherals (Blackwidow, Deathadder 3.5G), and of course my DAC, amp and headphones.


Couldn't be happier with the upgrade.

My GTX 285 was struggling with games from the past year (did remarkably well up to the newest games with a slight OC, even at high settings); the GTX 670 can run everything smooth as butter at the highest settings again.

The 3 GB of RAM started to hold the PC back as well, so I decided to skip 6 GB and go straight to 12 GB. No worries there.

Finished installing the SSD yesterday and spent some time completely reinstalling Windows 7, copy-pasting my backups back and forth, and reinstalling my programs. Enabled AHCI mode. The upgrade from HDD to SSD is immediately noticeable, very happy with that. Loading times have plummeted down and copy-paste actions are so much faster.


I guess the CPU is due for the next update to my system, but it's handling everything easily still.
 
Dec 19, 2012 at 12:02 AM Post #210 of 9,120
Started playing Red Faction Armageddon, and I gotta say, this game has some incredible sound design. Like, seriously, some of the best I've ever heard in a game. One of the most impressive things about it is the ambient sounds, and how they aren't static. As you turn to look around, the sound actually pans to keep it's place in the environment. Most games that have ambient sound just keep it in one channel, so even if you're turning, it stays in the left or right ear. (I'm looking at you, Skyrim!)
 
Also, the sound of buildings and stuff falling is just awesome, and being able to hear the rubble scrape together as you walk over it is a nice touch. There's also a lot of variety in the sounds, so when you hear a building being crunched, it doesn't sound the same for every one.
 
Really, really neat.
biggrin.gif

 
Oh, also, I just remembered: As your gun gets lower and lower on ammo, it makes a different noise when firing.
 

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