Bioshock

[Project Arcturus]

So... a quandary...

I'm running a 3 year old win xp system,
Athlon64 3500 @ stock
1 gb ram
win xp

It's pretty much obsolete at this point, and my gfx card, a radeon x800xl, is incapable of running bioshock at all

my question is this:
Is it worth making a minor (read: cheap) gfx card upgrade and trying to run bioshock at low res with at most med. settings? I'm thinking along the lines of a 7600GT and not much fancier than that.

For any other title I'd say F it but, System Shock 2 being among my favorite games of all time, this is killing me softly.

Anyone else trying to run this game on a comparable system?

To pre-empt: I know, I know, it's a great time to build a c2d system with prices what they are. lets just say the 75 bucks for a 7600GT is strain enough on the wallet.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy
The tweakguides guy got AA working on his machine

Link to his post

no AA
16x AA

AA off
AA on

If you read more of the thread he states that he was able to get AA working in XP, but not in Vista with either the DX9 or DX10 path. Applying AA in the NV cp or nHancer has no effect for me in Vista.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: swtethan
The only graphic glitch in dx10 for me was when the lady in the begining tried to break through the capsule. The screen flashed like crazy and tore a lot

That's because you have vsync disabled.

 

[speckedhoncho]

Originally posted by: Project Arcturus
So... a quandary...

I'm running a 3 year old win xp system,
Athlon64 3500 @ stock
1 gb ram
win xp

It's pretty much obsolete at this point, and my gfx card, a radeon x800xl, is incapable of running bioshock at all

my question is this:
Is it worth making a minor (read: cheap) gfx card upgrade and trying to run bioshock at low res with at most med. settings? I'm thinking along the lines of a 7600GT and not much fancier than that.

For any other title I'd say F it but, System Shock 2 being among my favorite games of all time, this is killing me softly.

Anyone else trying to run this game on a comparable system?

To pre-empt: I know, I know, it's a great time to build a c2d system with prices what they are. lets just say the 75 bucks for a 7600GT is strain enough on the wallet.

I couldn't agree more. The CPU, mobo, & mem combo is cheap, but the video card at $500 dollars is tough.

Granted the 8800GTS can play at modest resolutions with middle to high IQ, but what about games a year from now.

My goal is to get a C2D system after Nvidia releases its next chipset before the end of the year hopefully. CPU prices won't drop, but hopefully the 8800GTX will.

PS. Newegg's price for a 7900GTX 512MB card? $470. Maybe the 8800GTX won't drop that much.

 

[jim1976]

As many have said thus far I'm very disappointed by the quality of the textures.. Also the lighting/shadow effects could have been much better.. The PC version is clearer,crispier and give a more vibrant look than the 360 version.. It also runs extremely good @19x12 with everything maxed and easily doubles the framerate of 360.. DX9 version looks exactly the same with the "dx10" version (just a feature enabled)..

Overall though despite the fact that gfx are not something really great, they have an amazing professional artistic touch, that make the overall picture great..

If only they had made the gfx better,the game would have easily been a straight 10, if ou take into consideration the fact that it's almost perfect in all other aspects.. But with gfx around 8, I'd give it a 9..

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: videopho
I'm too lazy to read all previous posts but does this game support or have true native wide-screen mode?
Need to know that before pulling the trigger.
EA is on my sh^t list mainly most of its games are non w/s supportive.

No: "Official" discussion

You get chopped off 4:3 for widescreen.

Dang, think I'll updaye my Nvidia drivers for this...hate doing it.

 

[Zenoth]

So far I've played around 4 hours into the final game and I retain pretty much the same feeling I've had from the Demo.

Overall I'd rate it at around 8.5/10, maybe more 8.0/10 due to the poor textures (not everywhere though, but in majority). In terms of pure game-play and production quality from 2K, all I can say is that Bioshock is the best single-player first-person-shooter I've ever played since the original Half-Life back in 1998. It took around 10 years to get something worth it, but we're finally there folks.

 

[tuteja1986]

PC version 6 out 10
Graphic 8 out 10
Sound 10 out 10
gameply 9 out 10

overall feeling 10 out 10

TEchnical screw up but the best single player FPS i have in a long time since dues ex : )

 

[nitromullet]

A little update for AA and Vista... From http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=43819

XP: Forcing FSAA via the CP should work.

Vista: Add " -dx9mode" to the targetbox of your Bioshock shortcut. It should read something like this:

"X:\Games\BioShock Demo\Builds\Release\Bioshock.exe" -dx9mode

Now force AntiAliasing Compatibility-Mode "00000045: Rainbow Six Vegas" in nHancer and set your desired FSAA mode. This should work, but the drawback is, no dx10...

Seems to work, although I had the game crash on exit...

edit: it pretty much consistently crashes the game on exit for me when I do this... Plus, the game looks a lot worse, mainly the textures. The lack of jagged edges is nice, but not worth the lack of stability.

 

[Wreckage]

Yeah, the game runs great on a 7 series card (I can confirm). I did use the latest beta drivers that just came out.

I liked playing the demo and look forward to getting the full version. I don't think I would like playing this on a console though.

 

[Cabages]

So anyone having good results with an ATI card?

I spent all day just trying to get the demo to work, only to be greeted to nonexsistent textures that only show up when your close to the object.

I tried the hotfix, but it had some errors with installation so I went back to an older driver.

 

[Matt2]

Anyone on a 2900XT that can speak for it's performance in DX10 @ 1920x1200?

Trying to choose between PC and 360 versions.

 

[IcePickFreak]

No problems with the demo on the setup in my sig.. 1680x1050 with everything maxed in game, I usually average upper 40s to lower 50s, and the lowest I seen it dip was low 30s.

 

[Polish3d]

Cool game with good potential, will continue to play it, love the atmosphere. Poor textures however are quite distracting and detracting from the experience. It's a shame, with better textures and a little higher quality lighting to smooth things out it really could have looked fantastic. But when the "Little Sisters" for instance have giant pixels for eyebrows et al you can tell it's sloppily done.

And this sloppiness has past common and has become unacceptable.

So far (2 hours in) I would give the game:


Graphics: between 5/10 and 8/10, depending upon the area
Sound: 9.5/10
Controls: 8/10
Atmosphere 8/10 (would be 10/10 but shitty graphics keep kicking me out of suspension of disbelief and interrupting the experience for me, I'm having trouble getting immersed)
Premise: 10/10

Overall 8/10 so far


To compare I would give

HL2 9/10
Far Cry 9/10
BF2 9/10
Oblivion 8.75/10


I just started up HL2 and was annoyed by how much better much of the atmosphere looks on a 3 year old game than this one. HL2 has consistent texture quality, clean graphics, etc.

 

[Zenoth]

Yup, it's my only complaint about that game, the graphics, it's also the reason why I'm here talking about it rather than playing it.

When I look at this: http://www.unrealtechnology.com/screens/HDRGlow.jpg

I tell myself wow, nice engine ...

But when I see that: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5784/bio4ay2.png

It just makes me wonder if the game is really running using UE3. If only the developers would have kept such textures for the Low/Medimum settings, but no, they had to keep them for High settings and even under DX10. In my opinion it's simply unacceptable, not under a so called revolutionary engine such as UE3.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
Yup, it's my only complaint about that game, the graphics, it's also the reason why I'm here talking about it rather than playing it.

When I look at this: http://www.unrealtechnology.com/screens/HDRGlow.jpg

I tell myself wow, nice engine ...

But when I see that: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5784/bio4ay2.png

It just makes me wonder if the game is really running using UE3. If only the developers would have kept such textures for the Low/Medimum settings, but no, they had to keep them for High settings and even under DX10. In my opinion it's simply unacceptable, not under a so called revolutionary engine such as UE3.

People can disagree with me all they want, i believe the terrible textures are due to a couple reasons.

First one is that this is a form of a console port, even if not directly.
And due to the the tiny amount of memory on teh Xbox 360, i think they kept textures down.

Also, Bioshock isn't really UE3 natively either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioshock

They do state that they moved to a modified version of UE3, but considering roots are UE2.5, you get the idea.

So basically we have another game that's not really DX10, & once again, we got raped by the f*cking console market, since as Mark Rein has stated, what point is there is spending tons on PC games when everythings' being done for consoles primarily, & consoles are far more limited in graphics capability than PCs...

 

[CP5670]

The whole game seems rather consolized in general, not just the graphics. I posted some thoughts on the demo in the thread in the PC gaming forum.

 

[CaptainJackSwallows]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
Yup, it's my only complaint about that game, the graphics, it's also the reason why I'm here talking about it rather than playing it.

When I look at this: http://www.unrealtechnology.com/screens/HDRGlow.jpg

I tell myself wow, nice engine ...

But when I see that: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5784/bio4ay2.png

It just makes me wonder if the game is really running using UE3. If only the developers would have kept such textures for the Low/Medimum settings, but no, they had to keep them for High settings and even under DX10. In my opinion it's simply unacceptable, not under a so called revolutionary engine such as UE3.

the sidewalk in the ue3 screen looks about the same level of crap as the bioshock one. not saying your wrong, but ue3 isn't like WOW DETAIL EVERYWHERE. i personally agree with u though, and cant wait for ut3

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: CaptainJackSwallows

Originally posted by: Zenoth
Yup, it's my only complaint about that game, the graphics, it's also the reason why I'm here talking about it rather than playing it.

When I look at this: http://www.unrealtechnology.com/screens/HDRGlow.jpg

I tell myself wow, nice engine ...

But when I see that: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5784/bio4ay2.png

It just makes me wonder if the game is really running using UE3. If only the developers would have kept such textures for the Low/Medimum settings, but no, they had to keep them for High settings and even under DX10. In my opinion it's simply unacceptable, not under a so called revolutionary engine such as UE3.

the sidewalk in the ue3 screen looks about the same level of crap as the bioshock one. not saying your wrong, but ue3 isn't like WOW DETAIL EVERYWHERE. i personally agree with u though, and cant wait for ut3

That sidewalk in UE3 is far higher quality than that sorry attempt at a wall in BS

 

[Zenoth]

I swear I see comparable textures in Battlefield 2 (some of which are actually better than in some places in Bioshock). Even some textures in Halo 2 are better. It gets that bad in some places. Not all of them though, thanks God. The textures on that Lighthouse during the introduction, especially the stairs, it's high-res textures, well-made, has a fit-in-context humidity look to it, nice color. But after that it gets "meh", pretty much déjà-vue in games dating all the way down to 2002 or so. Some textures are Doom 3-like, others are "nice", it's a combination of absolute art quality and pure mess. And it makes the visual experience of the game extremely inconsistent.

 

[40sTheme]

Performance is great on my 7950GT, and I'm just using the 93.71s I've had for a while now. I might upgrade them later, but I don't feel like uninstalling and doing Driver Cleaner. Actually, I just don't feel like doing Driver Cleaner.

 

[lupi]

My 7600gt and 7900gs-sli both run the game fine at native so far. Only problem I've seen is that I have to disable hidef shaders or I crash after the loadscreen where the sphere docks (possibly mem related as I had to scavenge 1gig from one of my machines to run the other while waiting on a mem rma?).

 

[stureandre]

I have to say I'm a little disappointed in Bioshock..

First off, I got the game though steam. I preloaded 100% of the game, and waited patiently for 3 .p.m local time, when the game was being released. Then at 3, I tried to enable/activate the game, and nothing.. so a few more tries and 15 minutes later i can finally start to decrypt the game.. When it's finally decrypting, I have to download even more stuff for the game.. Even though I did a 100%.. that's righ 100% PRE-LOAD!!
With about 30 kB/s - 200kB/s for 3 more hours I can finally get the game to work..

Alright.. Sorry about that.. I just had to get it out. I know steam had a lot of traffic and all that but hey.. Come on..

Anyways, on to the game.

I fire it up, and it runs pretty descent on my 24" (1920X1200) at MAX avg. 40-60 FPS. Mostly in the higher range.. Textures look alright.. Nothing to scream about. But the complete lack of customizations is truly lame. The settings are very few and far between. No advance settings worth speaking of. Still the game is pretty good.

I played about 2 hours into the game and the story is fantastic. Great fun. Even is the most demanding scenes the game still does not drop much lower than 35 FPS. And then you see the animations.. When you see your enemies run around trying to kill you, they look fantastic. When you finally bash their heads in with you fgavorite wrench, what happens then? The animations goes straight to hell. They are jerky (I'm still maintaining 60 FPS here) and the ragdoll physics are just mediocre. Now.. Maybe the 360 cant handle the physics load, but sure as hell a good computer can. I got a cure 2 duo @ 3Ghz and that really should take care of all that without a problem.. And also.. I never found a setting in-game to change the level of physics to High or low.. It's just there..

Some of the textures and all that are not that great, but they managed to get the mood, which I do believe to be much more important. If I seem overly negative towards the game, don't get me wrong, I love it. It's right up there with HL/HL2, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, F.E.A.R. etc.. But with such a cool game, why no give us the full package. Why not include all the different settings and advanced options. The PC is much more powerfull than the Xbox, and will be probalby for a very long time. Give us the opertunity to use it fully!

Anyways.. This was my short review of Bioshock. I played the game in XP. Haven't tried Vista yet. Maybe when I finish.

Graphics 9(7)/10 Depending on area
Gameplay 9/10
Sound 10/10
Feel 10/10
Physics 7/10
Overall 9/10

Thanks..

*****************************************************************
My rig:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 3.1 Ghz
Corair DDR2 4 GB RAM
XFX 8800GTX
Acer X241W 24"
Enermax Liberty 620W PSU
Buch of HD's..


Edit: Added content

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
I swear I see comparable textures in Battlefield 2 (some of which are actually better than in some places in Bioshock). Even some textures in Halo 2 are better. It gets that bad in some places. Not all of them though, thanks God. The textures on that Lighthouse during the introduction, especially the stairs, it's high-res textures, well-made, has a fit-in-context humidity look to it, nice color. But after that it gets "meh", pretty much déjà-vue in games dating all the way down to 2002 or so. Some textures are Doom 3-like, others are "nice", it's a combination of absolute art quality and pure mess. And it makes the visual experience of the game extremely inconsistent.

That is precisely my experience as well. Given that the lighthouse shows what the game could have looked like, it seems that sloppiness in either building the game, or reducing its quality to make it more compatible was what occurred. I've rarely seen a game and certainly no AAA 10/10 title have this kind of slapped-together graphics. There's no way this thing should be acceptable in a supposed high-end title like this one.

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5784/bio4ay2.png

 

[450]

If it is alright to ask here... How does this game compare to System Shock 2 gameplay wise? I really liked that game and since this is supposed to be the "spiritual successor" I'd really like to hear some comparisons.