Uncia on 25/11/2003 at 23:20
Quote:
Originally posted by jay pettitt not if you dont have a 2.8 gig monster rig with a heavy weight graphics card it isn't. (damn, I prommised. I'm sorry)
What were your framerates in the Doom3 alpha? Considering that's the only other piece of software on the market that has dynamic shadows and is not a tech demo.
jay pettitt on 25/11/2003 at 23:54
(bugger, here I am again.)
Fina,
Some of the devs have commented on this somewhere or other. Those dynamic shadows are a big strain on our graphics cards (something to do with fill rate?). The only setting thats gonna make a difference is resolution. They're not expecting to have a miracle cure for the full release. but did hint that they'd be working with ati/nvidia to see if they could optimise stuff for a patch.
Hi Uncia,
Are you sure you meant me (possible continuity error)? I'm also one of the lucky few and replaced my ageing pc a couple of months ago with a veritable uber computer (2.6gig athlon, nforceII, radeon 9600 pro) so I can run the demo ok at 800x600. I never tried the doom 3 alpha so I can't make a comparison, but point taken, those shadows are resource heavy, next generation stuff. They're going to need next generation hardware to run. I'd have a less casual attitude about it if I was a normal person with a normal pc though. I'm not sure about the ethical/artistic/commercial sense in releasing a game that so many people wont be able to play without spending a fortune on an xbox or upgrades.
edit - fixed missing words and letters and other dyslexic shit
Blackjack on 26/11/2003 at 22:45
Well, I've played the demo enough now to know that I REALLY don't like it. Apart from numerous specific gripes, it just feels dumbed down. A huge patch / redesign might fix it, but that ain't gonna happen. I'll be interested in post-release player reviews (I don't trust the mags) but I'm probably gonna wait for it to hit the bargain shelves, if I bother at all.
Uncia on 28/11/2003 at 19:21
Quote:
Originally posted by jay pettitt Are you sure you meant me (possible continuity error)? I'm also one of the lucky few and replaced my ageing pc a couple of months ago with a veritable uber computer (2.6gig athlon, nforceII, radeon 9600 pro) so I can run the demo ok at 800x600.
Funny. I have a 2000+ with a GF4 4200Ti I bought for $80US and the game ran fine with everything but FSAA turned to max at 1024x768. Of course it depends on your definition of speed I suppose, but 10fps under heaviest load, 20 on average and 30 inside buildings is pretty much how I played the first game also; didn't complain then, won't complain now. :p
Also played SS1 at 5fps [3 on full screen]. Best damn game experience evar regardless.
Inline Image:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/images/icons/icon17.gifFreddo on 28/11/2003 at 19:56
It's good :cool:
As for the performance, I have an AMD 1800+ XP with a GF3Ti200 and it runs much smoother than DX1 did on my old comp, so I'm pleased.
Ah, remember the days in the mid 90s when 10 FPS or higher = good. Today gamers need 60 FPS to be pleased. Heh.
Keeper Arnal on 29/11/2003 at 05:07
So I played this again tonight (second time).
I changed the mouse lag to 0, turned off bloom, upped the res to 1280, made the interface green with no transparency at all. What's more, I turned the gamma down to 20. You know what, the game felt a lot better this time (and for some reason it didnt crash any more).
I'm still a bit annoyed by the lack of lean/reload/holster keys, clumsy interface and simplified interactions, but I think the darker gamma helped me overlook the simplistic world detail. When I play Thief, I do the same thing anyway.
Dusk-Sailor on 29/11/2003 at 22:45
As surprise much better that I feared after all negative comments I read.
I will start for the good thing for a chance:
Sound and FX is very good in my opinion! Very ambient sound with a dark mood, which let me hope for a similiar setting for Thief.
The jukebox songs are brilliant tracks (of course this is matter of taste, but in any case they are very professional produced).
Voice acting is done well for the persons in the demo.
Said that I think many comments on the ION Storm Forum are over-reacting.
25% complain it isn't like Deux Ex, I guess they would complain it would be too similiar, if it would be more like the first game.
25% of the complainment can easily fixed with adjustments in the .ini and setup as told in the ION Storm Forum by Chris C.
Also I prefer as few HUD as possible, so I turned everything off and made similar adjustments as told here before. Feeled much better than the default settings.
However I think it was very unprofessional from ION Storm to give an demo that obviously hadn't an proper User Test. That would have exposed the mis-setup .ini settings easily.
The very justified critics about that sloppiness and a sense for a more "PC fiendly" default settings would have settled that issues.
Anyway nothing that couldn't be handeld with a few adjustments from your side.
25% are "Matter-of-taste" things.
Like unified ammo or simplifying of handlings.
I can live with simplifisations in user handlings if it helps to focu for a good story and more role-playing feeling in terms of that your acting really has signifance on people and story (think of Fallout), rather than micro-management.
The demo is to short to say if it is so or not.
GOTHIC is a good example that simplified handligs CAN work really well.
So have to wait if DX:IW will stand up this promise or not.
The rest 25% of the critic I DO share, which are:
1) No leaning !!!!!!!!
As I prefer a sneaky alter ego this is really, really bad. I do not understand why they did skipped it and really hope for a patch here
2) The graphics were stripped down a lot I comparisation to the screen shots we did seen a year or something before. Don't understand why they did handled that with the User Setup. So the graphic is only medium compared to the state of the art.
However I can live with that, as I'm no graphic junkie.
3) AI must be improved!
4) PC don't need that BIG Fonts. This should really be simple to adjust for a more PC friedly setup from the devs I think.
The demo ran fine on my medium old PC (AMD2000, Ti4400, 1GB RAM)
That said Give it a try even that the expectations were so high it seams that for many people the demo doesn't met them.
ZylonBane on 30/11/2003 at 02:00
Quote:
Originally posted by Dusk-Sailor 25% complain it isn't like Deux Ex, I guess they would complain it would be too similiar, if it would be more like the first game.
I guess that that you guess WRONG.
the_grip on 1/12/2003 at 05:41
My review will be short, just like the demo.
Boring.
i was extremely disappointed with the demo. i had no performance issues, and everything went fine. However, i finished the demo in less than five minutes each time i played it in differing game styles. The gameplay seems to have reverted to a much simpler style that might suit 13 year olds, but having played games for over two decades now, i'm finding DX II to be almost like Super Mario Bros for FPS games. Maybe my expectations were too high, and i'm sure to buy the full game when i can... but i'm not expecting much now. Red Faction II, while another somewhat boring sequel, had more appeal to me than this does. Too bad, really. Here's hoping that Thief III doesn't suffer the same fate.
