heywood on 4/12/2003 at 15:07
Just a warning for anybody who is about to buy the game:
I just got the game last night and was disappointed to find out that the frame rate with the full game is considerably WORSE than the demo (throughout at least in the first level anyway).
I'm playing on a 1.6 GHz Athlon XP system with 512 MB. I started the game with Radeon 8500 card installed with Cat 3.9 drivers. I recently played Tron 2.0 on this machine at 1600x1200 with a smooth frame rate. The DX:IW demo was reasonably playable at 800x600 with 1x multisampling, no bloom, and Direct3D settings optimized for performance in the Windows display settings dialog. In the demo, 1024x768 was almost usable but it's too choppy in a lot of spots and gave me a headache.
The full game, on the other hand, is a slide show at 1024x768. Even 800x600 is too choppy to play in much of the 1st level. 640x480 produces an acceptable frame rate, but I wouldn't call it smooth. I haven't played a game at 640x480 in over 5 years, and needless to say, it looks like crap at that resolution and I have no interest in playing like that. On top of that, I kind of liked the look of Bloom in the demo, but so far in the game it looks awlful, literally everything is glowing like a light bulb. I should also note that changing the Direct3D settings in ATI '3D' tab of the display settings dialog made no difference that I could observe. Neither did changing any of the game's detail settings (shadows, lighting, models, etc.). Nor any of the tricks and tweaks mentioned in the Ion Storm & Eidos forums.
Next I tried a Radeon 9000 and a GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. It just so happens I've built one PC and upgraded another for family members as Christmas presents, so I had the chance to swap around graphics cards. The Radeon 9000 is a total non-starter. If you have one of these cards (or the 9200), forget about it. The GeForce was roughly the same as the Radeon 8500 except that Bloom looked better, like it did in the demo. So, at this point, I could play the game at 640x480. Or I could drop another $300 for a Radeon 9800 Pro, put the 8500 in my brother's machine, toss out the 9000, and hope for a better frame rate. Or I can simply let DX:IW gather dust on the shelf for a year or so until my next major PC upgrade. None of those options sound particularly appealing right now.
I just wanted to post this as a warning to anybody who was hoping to play this game on a midrange system. The game is worse than the demo. If you were stuck playing at 640x480 in the demo to get acceptable performance, you're probably not going to be able to handle the game at all. It seems that some of the "supported" cards are simply not going to cut it, e.g. Radeon 9000. I suspect the GeForce 3Ti and 4Ti are going to be pretty bad too. The Radeon 8500 and GeForce Fx 5700 Ultra work, but only at 640x480. If you want better resolution than that, you're going to need a high end card.
Aegeri on 4/12/2003 at 15:17
Funnily enough, I've heard of people who swear blind the full runs BETTER than the demo in every respect.
I guess the main solution is to simply drop your resolution and go from there.
Scots Taffer on 4/12/2003 at 15:45
I know someone with a 9800 Pro as well as a top end rig (nearly 3Ghz, 1G RAM) and he'll have DX2 by tonight or the next, and I'll see how it looks on his before I start getting worried - seeing as that's the rig I'm aiming for in the next two-three months.
heywood on 4/12/2003 at 18:02
Quote:
Originally posted by Aegeri Funnily enough, I've heard of people who swear blind the full runs BETTER than the demo in every respect.
I guess the main solution is to simply drop your resolution and go from there.
I dug through the Ion Storm and Eidos forums last night in frustration, and there are quite a few people who also noted that the game runs slower than the demo. However, some who are further into the game said that the frame rate is at its worst on the first level. Maybe some of the other levels will be more like the performance of the demo.
Quote:
Originally posted by Scots_TafferI know someone with a 9800 Pro as well as a top end rig (nearly 3Ghz, 1G RAM) and he'll have DX2 by tonight or the next, and I'll see how it looks on his before I start getting worried - seeing as that's the rig I'm aiming for in the next two-three months.
Can you let us know how it plays on his machine? I'm curious how much difference a 9800 Pro would make. Of course, I could pick up a new XBox and another copy of the game for less money than the 9800 Pro, and play the game as the designers intended...
Roachmojo on 4/12/2003 at 18:20
The full game runs like *ss.
Even at all low details (1x Sampling, Low Shadows, Low Lighting, no Bloom), 1024x768 is not an option. Even with no AA and no AF. Even on this system:
Coolermaster ATC-210-VX1 case w/Antec TruePower 430W PSU | Asus P4C800-E BIOS 1010 w/ 1Gb Kingston HyperX PC3200 | P4 3.0c @ 3.3ghz 220 fsb w/ Swiftech MCX4000 HS and ThermalTake Smart Fan II | 2-Western Digital Raptors in Raid 0 | e-Geforce FX 5900U 45.33 DX 9.0B w/ Viewsonic G810-2 | Creative SB Audigy 2 Platinum w/ CL inspire 6.1 6600 speakers | XP Professional with SP1
Unless you like playing at 10-18 fps, my framerate at the very first level...so I run at 800x600...and the framerate averages 18-24 fps.
I have tried different drivers to no avail. All of my 30+ games I have installed run beautifully, except Halo, but even Halo runs better than this!
[EDIT] Now you know how a FX 5900U performs on a 3.3GHZ system...
Gish on 4/12/2003 at 19:43
I can run the game at a very playable fps on 1024x768 on an athlon 2600+ and geforce ti 4200. 1280x1024 isn't that much worse either. I dunno why you guys with faster processors and video cards are running it so slow...maybe the game just runs better on amd...like most other games :cheeky:
David on 4/12/2003 at 20:04
I'm able to play the demo at a decent frame rate at 1280x1024 with everything on high on an Athlon XP2500 @ 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, MSI FX5900 on 52.16 drivers.
Epos Nix on 4/12/2003 at 20:05
I have to assume the game is optimized for Geforce 3 & 4 type video cards, considering that's essentially what the XBox is using. It seems people with Geforce FX or Radeon cards are the ones having problems, probably due to differences in the way shaders are handled on those cards compared to the Geforce 3 & 4's.
Personally I'm having no problem at all. I can run the game with all options (except bloom, which runs fine but looks like someone took a wet sponge to the screen), on my Radeon 9600 pro @ 1024x768. Incidently, Halo also runs great and I'm thinking the same fix I used to get that game working better -- setting AGP Aperture size to half my vid card's RAM -- might also have done good for Deus Ex 2. I also noticed that my BIOS had Fast Writes off by default, and turning that on helped somewhat.
Also, be sure you have DirectX 9.0b installed on your system. I noticed that Deus Ex 2 tries to install DirectX 8.1 by default, so be sure it didn't revert some of your files to earlier versions.
heywood on 4/12/2003 at 22:30
Quote:
Originally posted by Epos Nix I have to assume the game is optimized for Geforce 3 & 4 type video cards, considering that's essentially what the XBox is using. It seems people with Geforce FX or Radeon cards are the ones having problems, probably due to differences in the way shaders are handled on those cards compared to the Geforce 3 & 4's.
Personally I'm having no problem at all. I can run the game with all options (except bloom, which runs fine but looks like someone took a wet sponge to the screen), on my Radeon 9600 pro @ 1024x768. Incidently, Halo also runs great and I'm thinking the same fix I used to get that game working better -- setting AGP Aperture size to half my vid card's RAM -- might also have done good for Deus Ex 2. I also noticed that my BIOS had Fast Writes off by default, and turning that on helped somewhat.
The GeForce 3 and 4 cards are older and slower (generally) than the GeForce FX cards, so I'd be pretty surprised if they beat the FX cards on DX2.
The current top dog of the nVidia line is the FX 5950 Ultra. I tried the FX 5700 Ultra, which is their current "midrange" offering (positioned against the Radeon 9600 XT). It wasn't much different than the Radeon 8500. However, I did not try setting the AGP aperture size or using Fast Writes (that ATI startup utility keeps disabling it). I'll give that a shot when I get home. Thanks for the tips.
system shocker on 5/12/2003 at 00:34
Well, I am planning to get Deus Ex 2 tommarrow and can't play it on my 64 ddr ram SiS 650 on my "Gaming Laptop" so I will haveto play it on my geforce4 4200ti and I will tell you guys how it works out.
ps: we got a snow day today and I was really regretting that I wasn't able to play Deus Ex 2.
