BioShock

[Mor.Evil-1]

Coming out soon,

Going to play?

Make a post.

[TronFAQ]

You bet. I have my Limited Edition pre-ordered. (Though due to some controversy over the quality of it, I'm debating cancelling the pre-order and just getting the regular version.)

I've been waiting for this game ever since I first heard about it. System Shock 2 was an amazing game, with few peers. I'm hoping Bioshock lives up to its predecessor.


The only problem is . . . my current PC can't handle Bioshock. I have to build a new system, first. And I won't get around to upgrading until next month, at the earliest. So even though I'll have the game, I won't be able to play it for a while. CryBabySun

[win3k]

Morning chaps

I'll certainly be getting this just as soon as its available. Unfortunately, my current PC just scrapes past the minimum requirements, so I'm not sure how much prettiness I'll manage to get. Could be time for an upgrade.

win3k
<edit>
I don't suppose anyone knows about Bioshock's moddability?
</edit>

[zook_one]

I'm with you guys, I'm planning to build myself a new system maybe next month.

[zook_one]

I went to a party this weekend that had a bunch of Video Game Developers at it. They had Bioshock going on the XBOX 360. People seemed pretty captivated. It sure seems rough trying to play fps shooters with a game controller though. It is damn bloody... people getting literally drilled by big daddies.

I would of rather seen Guitar Hero going for a party myself... but to each their own.

[TronFAQ]

It's pretty sad how the 360 version of Bioshock gets the spotlight, when you consider that originally Irrational planned it to be PC only. But 2K forced them to make a 360 version as well.

I don't suppose anyone knows about Bioshock's moddability?

No one knows yet. But in the past, Irrational has typically released their tools and encouraged modding. Someone also found a bitmap in the PC demo referring to the map editor. Mistake, or a hint of things to come?

[Kain-Xavier]

I've yet to play the PC version, but I did check out the Xbox 360 version. It looks fantastic and plays well. It's also very atmospheric. I imagine that anyone who enjoyed the System Shock series will thoroughly enjoy Bioshock. My roommate cut into 5 hours of his sleep playing the game. :p

[win3k]

Evening chaps.

My first thoughts on the PC version - spoiler free.

Sound/atmosphere as lovely as you could possible wish for.

Performance on my rig? crapulous.

My rig is somewhere around the minimum spec needed. No major issues with activating the game (Securerom's rootkit notwithstanding); first install to first load and play < 30 minutes.

To get anything even remotely playable (and that's stretching the word "remotely" somewhere past breaking point), I had to turn pretty much every piece of eyecandy off, and wind the resolution to ugly level (800x600). Even at this (dosbox) level of quality, the performance smells of poo, urine, and infectious discharge.

For the benchmarkers, I'm running an Athlon 64 3400+ (@2.2 GHz), 1 GB ram and an Nvidia 6600GT w/ 128 Mb ram. Not exactly an Alienware top-of-the-range. Not exactly a PC world bargain basement manager's special.

My honest opinion is: if your spec is somewhere around the level of mine, just don't bother. Upgrade (and wait for the Securom bullshit to vanish - it will, if there is a God). Personally, I won't play any further than I have (about half an hour playtime, fact fans) until I've done my next upgrade, and 2K have returned from the darkside - a game of this obvious quality *needs* to be played as it was designed, and without the redundant and invasive rootkit that they (for whatever reason) decided to force upon us, the legitimate gaming community.

ttfn

win3k

[TronFAQ]

The SecuROM copy protection is indeed absolutely horrible, and I hope it's abolished by the time I upgrade to a new machine and finally play it. The negative press about the rootkit DRM has been very widespread, so here's hoping 2K will back down and remove it completely soon.

And yes, this latest version of SecuROM is a rootkit, no matter what 2K says. It places malformed keys in the Windows registry that are hard to remove, creates files that are also difficult to remove, stays behind even after you uninstall the game, and monitors the active processes on your compter and refuses to run Bioshock if it sees anything it doesn't like. Even running something as simple as Process Explorer prevents you from playing the game unless you reboot! :?


BTW, Layer was kind enough to create a video of the game running on his machine. He did it in DX10 at 1680x1050 with all the details set to maximum, using the latest version of FRAPS. The video is about 158MB and encoded in XViD.

http://files.filefront.com/Bioshock2avi ... einfo.html

His computer's specs are the following:
Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13ghz
2GB DDR2 @ 800MHz
8800 GTS 640MB
Vista Home Premium 32-bit


I have to say, the game looks stunning on his setup. Also, it still ran reasonably smooth, considering he was using FRAPS at the same time to record the action. If you have trouble watching the video in Media Player (I did, at any rate) then try using VLC instead.

[xistence]

Don't think i'm coming to soon to play BioShock OS (come on, with 1.9 GB as demo it must be an OS), as my system don't even fulfill the minimum requirements (that said, i can't even see the geometry in the demo, damn shaders...). But after i updated my system (so in 2043-44) i'll think i'm going to get it... yeah i think...

So if i'm allowed to make telephone calls from my retirement home (or can use my cyber-implants) i'll get in contact to you all.

[TronFAQ]

Got a kick out of this, and couldn't resist posting it.



I don't think pirating the game is the answer, but this was too damn funny not to post.

[Daddyo]

Saw Layers video, that game is whacked! Graphics I havent seen the like before, almost could be animated movie.

I thought that the "Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13ghz" was a typo for clock speed, until I read that the 3 GHz are $1000. Guess off topic, but if you have a single-threaded game, are there enough goodies in that new processor (cache/FSB bandwidth) to make it worth the huge drop in clock speed you can get can get cheap on p4's?

[zook_one]

Well my machine could not even launch the Demo. But then I have a Matrox Card in my machine so maybe that's it.

[Mor.Evil-1]

Are you guys refering to the Demo,
Where the creator of the game talks,
And takes you on a walk through of a level?
(If so that demo ran like a champ on my set up).

Or did they finaly release a Demo for the PC?

Mor

[TronFAQ]

I thought that the "Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13ghz" was a typo for clock speed, until I read that the 3 GHz are $1000. Guess off topic, but if you have a single-threaded game, are there enough goodies in that new processor (cache/FSB bandwidth) to make it worth the huge drop in clock speed you can get can get cheap on p4's?

If a game is single-threaded, you'll be stuck running it at 2GHz. While if a game is multi-threaded and can take advantage of the second core, the processor's performance will effectively be 4GHz.

That being said, even at 2GHz the Core processor is more efficient than the P4. So that even with the two chips clocked at the same speed, the Core is faster than the P4.

I have a Matrox Card in my machine so maybe that's it.

Afraid so. You'll need one of the latest ATI or nVidia cards to run the demo or the game itself.

Or did they finaly release a Demo for the PC?

They certainly did:
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_biosh ... loads.html

But you need hefty hardware to run it. I think you have one of the GeForce FX video cards, correct? Unfortunately, that card won't run the demo or the game. I'm stuck in the same boat. My ATI X800 can't run the demo or the game, either.

The minimum requirements to run the demo or the game are listed here:
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1579

Also, the demo comes with SecuROM too. Only 2K neglected to tell anyone about that. The demo doesn't need to be activated, but it's just annoying that copy protection software is included with a demo. PDT_Armataz_01_27