Bioshock

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Gelnika, Aug 13, 2007.

  1. Bodrick

    Bodrick Ye Olde Supermod

    Messages:
    1,505
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Trident, that was a bit harsh :p
     
  2. dumpster_fox

    dumpster_fox Member

    Messages:
    1,716
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    *head explodes*
     
  3. Slithzerikai

    Slithzerikai I for one am glad the NF SMG 3 is gone

    Messages:
    3,643
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    To all people not wanting Vista, my Windows XP x64 is in order for DX10.
     
  4. rampantandroid

    rampantandroid Member

    Messages:
    2,664
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Do you know a god damn thing about vista? Without trying to be mean, I am SICK and fucking TIRED of repeating this over and over.

    The only god damn DRM is HDCP, REQUIRED to play HD content such as BluRay and HDDVD (Believe me, I know, I work on HDDVD stuff at work.) That's it! It is not specific to PCs, its required in home theater systems too.

    A co-worker has Vista running on an old P4, with 512 MB of RAM. Says it runs fine, if not better than XP.

    DX10 = made of win. Go look at the major differences.

    End of story (IE, read about what you want to bitch about before you bitch.)
     
  5. Serivas

    Serivas Member

    Messages:
    32
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yes, I do know its only for Blue-Ray and HD-DVD, it already degrades a games performance by default anyway.

    Your co-worker got it working on those system specs? Does he even load the shell? But seriously, how? I'd like to know. The systems I saw that were comparable were slower than a slug on a salt flat. Even the ones at a computer store that were on display.

    I agree! DX10 looks incredibly nice, I cant wait until I can get a computer decent enough to run a game that uses it. But so far, both of those are kinda rare.

    Let me quote myself and break it down further, just to show you that I do indeed know what I bitch about.

    Vista is more advanced, probably on par or exceeding MacOS 10.0.3 (don't know about macs much). Dividing all the major components into its own subsystems and separating the interface from the Kernal, this makes it more secure, and allows you to restart the individual subsystems to patch them without restarting your system as a whole. This also makes it easier to design around. Another nifty thing is its enforced encryption among computer components. Though this slows down the system some, this makes it harder to intercept data(But it wont encrypt stuff like credit card info and such unless you get Vista Ultimate). Also, though not exactly the most practical at the moment, is Vistas ability to use external storage medium as extra RAM. Currently, there isn't a medium that can keep up with a system internal buses, but in the future, there may be a port that is comparable with such. It would be awesome if I can sqeese out an extra few gigabytes of ram with a USB 3.0 thumbdrive, or a solid state hard drive with a special interface.

    I think the interface is a definite upgrade. From the My Computer window, it immediately tells you how much space is allocated on each hard drive, thusly removing a few extra steps. The file browser is also improved in that you can click on a folder you are currently in in the address bar to see other directories in the parent, you can also do this with the parents parent and so on. That would have saved me a lot of work if it was in XP. The gadgets in my view are clutter. But can be useful for viewing data at a glance if you don't mind having an obstructed desktop. Almost forgot but the Device management/Computer properties is a little improved, the Computer Properties window gives more information then XP at first, but I think that its a cop-out that the actual Device Manager is largely unchanged.

    It is indeed very pretty and easy on the eyes, especially with a more customizable interface then XP's default.(In windows, you rely on presets to chose you color. With Vista, theres a slider to change window colors.). The fade in/out effects are nice. The transparencies of things like the title bar and such are a nice touch, but not necessary, even though it seems as though somethings missing on the Home Basic version. There was a study that said all the shiny actually reduces user productivity. But I think its worth the few milliseconds each click... Then theres the new alt-tab. It looks neat but not necessary. I have already summised the cost of all this in the post I'm quoting this from, so I don't need to say it here.
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2007
  6. dumpster_fox

    dumpster_fox Member

    Messages:
    1,716
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Actually, it's been documented that playing a MP3 degrades your network performance (the DRM is connecting to servers somewhere), and Microsoft has confirmed this. Also, the protection they've put on the BluRay and HDDVD stuff ("premium content" files) slows down the moving, copying, and deleting of just plain normal files.
     
  7. rampantandroid

    rampantandroid Member

    Messages:
    2,664
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    That's funny, because...I don't see any degredation in my file copies; they are as fast as I'd expect them to be, if not faster (motherboard change can affect it...) but on the same HDs, copying from my old 160GB to my new 750 GB, it went quite fast, and copying all 149 GB of my old drive ran into no problems. Same for my external 320 to my 750. There IS a documented problem with Kaspersky locking up transfers, but that's it (Transferring over 16,000 some files will stall out.)

    Really? Please, do explain. I disagree with all it disabled (Component, SPDIF, etc) but I see no perf hit from it, nor have other comparisons I have seem. I just took the time to read a lengthly article on how Vista will suffer from DRM - they detail tilt bits and whatnot, and describe how I will suffer from just plugging a USB device in. Wait, I just plugged in my USB key and my iPod...I saw no effects they say I should have!

    And they say my CPU should be always in use due to DRM. Oops, it idles fine...

    Go on any forum (hardforums, anandtech, etc) and ask about Vista DRM - people who are much more knowledgable then I will saw the same thing - its overblown and being made out to be worse than it is. I fully agree that the DRM shouldn't be there - and I refuse to buy BluRay or HDDVD due to the HDCP on it (gee, anydvd disables that ANYWAY, so I guess you CAN get 1080P on HD Content!)



    Vista Home Basic; runs it fine on a cheapy old laptop.


    Bioshock, CoH, Lost Planet, Call to Jaurez are the current ones - many more to appear on the market soon enough. I think DX10 adoption is going about as fast as DX9 went.
     
  8. Serivas

    Serivas Member

    Messages:
    32
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Whaa? Tilt bits don't trigger from adding/removing devices, they go off if theres a fluctuation in the signal at all. Then of course, in fear of all the BS, its not like hardware manufacturers(where the tilt bits are supposed to be designed into, not the OS specifically, but according to MS specs) were going to implement them anyway.

    Yes, the DRM would take up processor time, probably not on IDLE when it doesn't have to run, but I think I heard it does anyways... been a while sense I read the article, I could be mistaken sense it was near Vistas release. Anyways, with the encryption, it needs stuff to encrypt, and it's proportional to the amount of data flowing, so its probably not noticeable on idle. But then again, its IDLING, you're not using the cpu power anyways. If you wanted to prove me wrong in that regard, give me a breakdown of your experience before and after upgrading to Vista. Did the frames drop significantly? Did they rise? Are they the same? I honestly can't care what happens at idle, if something wants to take processor time at that point, go for it. Its a waste of potential. (Yes, if DRM is actually taking processor power it's an issue, because that won't stop. but if I'm running SETI@Home its ok because I CAN stop it and its normally low priority anyways.[edited in because I feel like I need to clarify... and because I missed the preview button.]

    HOW? From what I saw using Vista Home Basic, these computer ran like shit. fresh out of the box even! The little old lady I mentioned in the shop only had the damned thing a week. Every example I saw on low-speced systems ran things horribly with Vista Basic. Though... due to the subjective nature of "it runs fine" you could be totally expecting the slow anything on it. sooo... lets try to get some real numbers. when it booted up, I think it took a good 3 solid minutes to get the the login screen, another 2 minutes spent loading desktop after login. Took roughly 2 minutes to get to IE7 and the homepage load started. Shutting down took about 5+ minutes, I had to force it off because I was impatient;could have locked.

    At Best buy, I toyed with a similar laptop model and it was pretty much the same, probably 10% faster.



    Bioshock has partial support, I think.
    CoH? If you're talking about City of Heros, then I say "LOL WUT?" but I think your not. So nm.
    Lost Planet? didn't that needed to be patched in?
    Call to Juarez: don't know much about about it.

    the future titles? I think there is 3 that I know is coming, then theres probably 5 or 6 I haven't heard of yet. But theres still plenty of DX9 titles released recently, and probably will be for the next few months, but probably not a lot overall. PC gaming is just kinda bleh at the moment with the exception of Bioshock. You didn't even mention DX10 hardware avalability, so I'm pretty sure you know about ATI's HD 2xxx line and a few nvidia cards that has the capability. They're relatively widely priced so I have no complaints there. Theres just not a lot of justification at the moment besides their ability to process current tech really well just for having better stats. Anyway, I don't know how long it took dx9, but I'm sure if you give it a month there'll be more stuff for it and it'll grow from there. I hope its not going to be used for more FPS's though.
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2007
  9. Trid3nt

    Trid3nt Member

    Messages:
    2,155
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    company of heroes he means
     
  10. Serivas

    Serivas Member

    Messages:
    32
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    OH! I didn't know they had dx10? Wasn't it released a few months ago earlier in the year?
     
  11. rampantandroid

    rampantandroid Member

    Messages:
    2,664
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    DX10 is in most games started recently; most game started within the past 1+ are slated to support DX10 in some manner. The dev. SDK has been available for a LONG time. SupCom has it in some manner, Company of Heros (Trident is right; you have to patch DX10 into CoH), EVE Online is getting it (has gotten it?) Lost Planet had some by default, new patch adds more (and improves performance), Bioshock (Unreal 3 engine) has full DX10 support but is not a total DX10 game, Call to jaurez was patched in.

    Other games? Crysis - full DX10 (look up screenies, awesome looking, supposedly NOT a video card hungry game either) Alan Wake, Unreal 3 are the top ones that come to mind. HL2 EP2 will have some support in some manner. ETC. Again, do research before you put it down; there are plenty of resources on upcoming games.

    DX10 hardware? Tons of it. DX10.1 makes it obsolete (big fat deal, they're adding in trivial graphical upgrades...and XAudio 2, YAY!) - much like the move to SM3 outdated videocards; just DX10 is doing it now rather than later (which is DAMN good.) The ATI/AMD 2900 series has been shown to be terrible at DX10. Frankly, its terrible at DX9 too, only doing marginally better than the X1900XTX; the 8800s at least have a large perf. margin over the 7900 series.
     
  12. Serivas

    Serivas Member

    Messages:
    32
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    ooohh, ok. thanks for letting me know.
     
  13. DeadReckoning

    DeadReckoning Member

    Messages:
    1,162
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Is it morally wrong for someone to enjoy killing little sisters?

    Just a theoretical question

    I saved them and got the cool but sad ending =[
     
  14. dumpster_fox

    dumpster_fox Member

    Messages:
    1,716
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Actually, Crysis will work with DX9 as well, and in fact a majority of the screenies and videos seen so far have been running on DX9. Also, Episode 2 will have a few DX10 features, but it doesn't require Vista to use them, which is really the major gripe here.
     
  15. rampantandroid

    rampantandroid Member

    Messages:
    2,664
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yes, it works with DX9, but their PRIMARY development is in DX10. It is the first game to show side by side comparisons of DX9 and DX10, which really show a large difference -in the one area that DX10 is a HUGE improvement: Foliage.

    On Ep2, I quickly looked (so I'm open to seeing a better link than what I found) but I found one rogue news report on DX10 stuff for EP2 in XP...and then found multiple forums saying that was BS - and what was supposed to be said is that DX9CE in Vista allows some DX10 functionality; but not in XP.
     
  16. Solokiller

    Solokiller Member

    Messages:
    4,861
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Gabe newell said ep 2 will use DX10 for accelerating some things, but everything looks the same on both DX9 and DX10.
     
  17. TheAllmightyMighty

    TheAllmightyMighty Member

    Messages:
    160
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    im downloading the full version right now =)
    errrrrm did i say download?? i meant im gonna go to the shop and buy it right now^^
     
  18. KILLX

    KILLX Banned

    Messages:
    4,357
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    PM me a link will ya?
     
  19. Slithzerikai

    Slithzerikai I for one am glad the NF SMG 3 is gone

    Messages:
    3,643
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Currently downloading Overlord, fuck Bioshock I wanna kill farmers.
     
  20. KILLX

    KILLX Banned

    Messages:
    4,357
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    send me a link to that too will ya?
     

Share This Page