 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
OK, so I've wondered about this before... If I were to install Crysis on
my PC, would I actually be able to play it? Or would my PC melt into a
pile of liquid metal?
Deservedly or not, Crysis has an almost mythical reputation for being
the most extreme test of 3D hardware available on the market. (Aside
from purely synthetic benchmarks, anyway.) Will my feeble old rig cope?
- AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ (Socket 939)
- 3GB RAM
My current graphics card is an nVidia GeForce 7900GT, but it's dying.
I've just ordered an nVidia GeForce GTX 260, but it hasn't arrived yet.
The official Crysis website *claims* that anything better than a GeForce
6800GT should work - but it that like M$ telling us that Vista will
"work" with a Pentium III? What do you need for the game to play *properly*?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Crysis really got a bad rap when it came out[1], but it's quite playable
on your machine.
The catch, of course, is that you can't turn all the settings up to
their highest. It won't look as nice as the marketing screencaps, but
it'll still be pretty sweet.
[1]They "futureproofed" it by making the highest settings absolutely
insane.
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Chambers wrote:
> Crysis really got a bad rap when it came out[1], but it's quite playable
> on your machine.
>
> The catch, of course, is that you can't turn all the settings up to
> their highest. It won't look as nice as the marketing screencaps, but
> it'll still be pretty sweet.
>
> [1]They "futureproofed" it by making the highest settings absolutely
> insane.
...so it's like the original Halflife? (I.e., when it came out, there
was hardly a machine in the land that could run it at all detail, but
today it's a trivial matter for any half-decent GPU.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] dev null> wrote in message
news:497c5181$1@news.povray.org...
> The official Crysis website *claims* that anything better than a GeForce
> 6800GT should work - but it that like M$ telling us that Vista will "work"
> with a Pentium III? What do you need for the game to play *properly*?
Define 'properly'. If you mean with settings 'mostly' turned to
'high', then a 260GT should do it.
If you mean 'play the game ok', then you can play it with your present
7900GT easily - you'll probably use something like 50/50 low/medium settings
for the best result. My 6600GT plays it fine with mostly low and a few
medium settings.
You'll love the game! (And then you can play my map, lol!) :)
And then of course, if you go a step further and get Warhead, I can
play online with you and we can kill eachother!! <eg>
~Steve~ (GaussMaster)
>
> --
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> OK, so I've wondered about this before... If I were to install Crysis on
> my PC, would I actually be able to play it? Or would my PC melt into a
> pile of liquid metal?
You won't be able to play it with the highest quality settings, but
that doesn't mean you can't play it at all. It has, naturally, quite
many quality settings, and if you turn them all to minimum I bet it
will play really slick. Of course it will look like crap, but that's
another issue.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:497c6512@news.povray.org...
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> OK, so I've wondered about this before... If I were to install Crysis on
>> my PC, would I actually be able to play it? Or would my PC melt into a
>> pile of liquid metal?
>
> You won't be able to play it with the highest quality settings, but
> that doesn't mean you can't play it at all. It has, naturally, quite
> many quality settings, and if you turn them all to minimum I bet it
> will play really slick. Of course it will look like crap, but that's
> another issue.
Actually warp, it's not that bad once you get used to it.
Yes, you get jaggies, and you won't get the good stuff like parallax
occlusion mapping with low settings, but everything looks ok as is, to be
honest.
~Steve~
>
> --
> - Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Chambers wrote:
> > Crysis really got a bad rap when it came out[1], but it's quite playable
> > on your machine.
> >
> > The catch, of course, is that you can't turn all the settings up to
> > their highest. It won't look as nice as the marketing screencaps, but
> > it'll still be pretty sweet.
> >
> > [1]They "futureproofed" it by making the highest settings absolutely
> > insane.
>
> ...so it's like the original Halflife? (I.e., when it came out, there
> was hardly a machine in the land that could run it at all detail, but
> today it's a trivial matter for any half-decent GPU.)
Yes, except Halflife was one of the best games ever and Crysis just a bland tech
demo.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
nemesis wrote:
> Yes, except Halflife was one of the best games ever and Crysis just a bland tech
> demo.
OK, so what made Halflife so great? I have my ideas, but I'd like to hear
from some others first.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darren New [mailto:dne### [at] sanrrcom]
> OK, so what made Halflife so great? I have my ideas, but I'd like to
> hear
> from some others first.
Couldn't tell you, I thought it was rather bland.
In fact, the puzzles were contrived and the plot cliché. It wasn't any
better than Duke Nukem 3D, yet it gets all kinds of praise that the other
doesn't.
And the sequel...
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > Yes, except Halflife was one of the best games ever and Crysis just a bland tech
> > demo.
> OK, so what made Halflife so great? I have my ideas, but I'd like to hear
> from some others first.
This is something I have been wondering myself as well.
IMO Half-Life is greatly overhyped. The only thing which was more or less
innovative at the time was the long, playable intro. However, other than
that the game is a rather typical straightforward first-person shooter
with minimal storytelling. IMO it wasn't even technically/graphically
the most advanced game of the time. Rather average, really. The weapons
were rather inventive, I grant you that (and something I miss from the
sequels), but otherwise there isn't really anything special.
Half-Life 2, however, is a completely different story. Great writing
and storytelling, great technology, great playability...
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> IMO Half-Life is greatly overhyped. The only thing which was more or less
> innovative at the time was the long, playable intro. However, other than
> that the game is a rather typical straightforward first-person shooter
> with minimal storytelling.
Yeah.
My take was that it had a lot of different environments (indoor, outdoor,
alien, swimming, ladders, etc), the long intro at the beginning to get you
into it, a fair amount of humor and friendlies who helped you out in various
ways. And of course the Freeman/Barney/Shephard trilogy was cool - I haven't
seen that elsewhere. There were lots of different aliens, lots of different
weapons that weren't all just Same Old Same Old.
The story was kind of flat and the individual levels were rather intestinal,
but it didn't get old because of the variety.
That's not to say that made it great, but those are the things I appreciated
about it.
Undying had the same plethora of environments but the weapons and enemies
were kind of lacking, made up for with an even better story. Alice I have a
hard time judging just because I like the book so much. :-)
> Half-Life 2, however, is a completely different story. Great writing
> and storytelling, great technology, great playability...
I haven't done HL2 yet. Now that I have a machine that can handle it, maybe.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> OK, so I've wondered about this before... If I were to install Crysis on
> my PC, would I actually be able to play it? Or would my PC melt into a
> pile of liquid metal?
Download the demo? FYI I have a 5900 too and it played fine if I fiddled
about with the GFX settings (ie things were all set around middle values).
It got a bit choppy in places when there was a lot of action, so I suspect
if you put it on minimum it would be fine. With a new GTX 260 you'd be
laughing.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote in message news:497d6a03@news.povray.org...
With a new GTX 260 you'd be
> laughing.
Oh, I missed that it was a GTX. Yep, should play fine.
~Steve~
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> Download the demo? FYI I have a 5900 too
Ooops meant 7900, my old GPU was a 5900!
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> IMO Half-Life is greatly overhyped. The only thing which was more or less
> innovative at the time was the long, playable intro. However, other than
> that the game is a rather typical straightforward first-person shooter
> with minimal storytelling. IMO it wasn't even technically/graphically
> the most advanced game of the time. Rather average, really. The weapons
> were rather inventive, I grant you that (and something I miss from the
> sequels), but otherwise there isn't really anything special.
Well, I played Quake II from beginning to end. Not easy when you don't
have a 3D card! (I wonder - are modern games even *playable* without
one?) And then I played it all again on a machine that had 3D acceleration.
The next game I played was Halflife. Now, I don't know what other games
existed at the time, but compared to Quake II, Halflife was a hell of a
lot different.
- The locations were varied and interesting. Ordinary-looking office
blocks, secret underground laboratories, giant industrial machinery,
military bases, strange experimental test labs... and then if you
somehow manage to battle through all that lot, Xen. Wow. I mean, just wow.
- I lose count of how many alien creatures you have to do battle with.
Small blind headcrabs, huge gargantuas, the vortigaunts and technitions,
bullsquids, zombies, troops of soldiers, the massive tenticle creatures,
the little sound-horn wotsits... It would take an age just to catelogue
them all!
- Unlike Quake, the environment was more reactive. Walking a few miles
to get to the test chamber, and then walking all the way back out again
seeing it smashed up was really vivid, for me. And the way stuff blows
up or falls apart when you touch it... Man, some of that stuff really
made me jump out of my skin! In Q2, the map is just a passive maze for
you to run around, flicking the occasional switch, and the enemies are
the thing that hounds you.
- The weapons. I mean, you've got everything from a crowbar to a rocket
launcher. You've got pistols and machine guns, and then you've got the
tau cannon (my favourit game weapon *ever*!), the gluon gun, the snarks,
the tranquiliser gun, a sniper rifle, grenades, trip mines, a magnum...
All in all, I spent *months* playing through the game. I mean that! It
took about 6 months for me to complete it. And I was loving every
minute. There was a real spirit of adventure - like it was worth
replying the same room 8 times just to see what on earth would be round
the next corner. And it was always something new!
(And then I immatiately set about tacking Opposing Force, and then Blue
Shift, and then Gunman...)
> Half-Life 2, however, is a completely different story. Great writing
> and storytelling, great technology, great playability...
HL2 is technically superior in every imaginable way. (Well, you'd be
kind of upset if it *wasn't*, right?? I mean, how many years later is it?)
I still remember running it for the first time, and being *stunned* that
you could make characters like that just out of flat polygons painted to
textured and hacked to look smooth. On the other hand, the last computer
game I'd seen running was HL1...
The physics feature was also pretty neat - and, AFAIK, brand new in
gaming at that time. (Of course, today seemingly *all* games in this
class feature it.)
I could go on about how much superior the game technology is, but the
fact remains... it was *boring*. They took out all the stuff that made
HL1 fun. There's no interesting locations, no impressive weapons, no
varied enemies... there's nothing interesting. (And we won't go into the
ending. Everybody knows all about that!)
- The location is the same throughout: It looks like Luton town center
on a bad day. There is a small amount of variation, but not much.
- Enemies? Well let's see now: Various human soldiers, headcrabs (which
I hated in the first place), zombies (so... basically more semi-humans)
and those annoying manhacks. And that's it.
- Weapons? Again, a pistol, an SMG, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, and
that's about it. (Oh, and the very cool but mostly useless gravity gun.)
- You can drive things now. Unfortunately all the drivable craft handle
*horribly* badly. But then, I guess controlling things like that with
only a digital keyboard is never going to work that well...
HL2:EP1 was even more graphically amazing (particularly inside the
citadel), but most of it just involved battling through a room in pitch
blackness with no ammo while seemingly endless numbers of zombies run at
you. Seriously, killing things in the dark using only a crowbar is *not*
my idea of a good time.
HL2:EP2 at last is a step back in the right direction. The inside of the
antlions' nest is... astonishing! (What can I say? I love caves!) The
regular antlions are pretty boring, but they added now, more interesting
ones too. The sequence with the guard is a little too intense for me,
but overall it's really great stuff.
(I replayed this recently. I notice that they've turned the difficulty
way down on many areas of the game since I played it the day it was
released. Like, the guards now die *before* you've exhausted your entire
ammo supply. Stuff like that.)
I'm interested to see what HL2:EP3 does...
Also, I wonder: Will games ever reach the stage where textures are
sufficiently high resolution that you can actually read the writing on
stuff?? Will we ever get believable character animation?
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> With a new GTX 260 you'd be laughing.
>
> Oh, I missed that it was a GTX. Yep, should play fine.
*All* of the GPUs in the 200-series are designated "GTX". (I don't know
why... Perhaps something to do with nVidia's new naming scheme?)
So anyway, I asked Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units
Comparing your high-end 6-series to my low-end 200-series, we have:
| GeForce 6600GT | GeForce GTX 260
Gigapixels / second | 2.000 | 16.128
Gigatexels / second | 4.000 | 36.864
Gigabytes / second | 16.000 | 111.900
The GeForce GTX 260 also generates approximately 715 gigaFLOPS peak
processing power (single-precision only).
Given that you claim your 6600GT "handles" Crysis, and all of the
performance data I can actually obtain for both cards gives the GTX260
has roughly ten times "better", in theory the GTX260 should eat it up...
We shall see!
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> IMO Half-Life is greatly overhyped.
One thing I do remember what that the game AI was supposed to be
"amazing". I didn't really find it to be so... Seemed pretty average to me.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:497d8f76$1@news.povray.org...
> >> With a new GTX 260 you'd be laughing.
>>
>> Oh, I missed that it was a GTX. Yep, should play fine.
>
> *All* of the GPUs in the 200-series are designated "GTX". (I don't know
> why... Perhaps something to do with nVidia's new naming scheme?)
Hmm, you're right, my bad.
>
> So anyway, I asked Wikipedia:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units
>
> Comparing your high-end 6-series to my low-end 200-series, we have:
>
> | GeForce 6600GT | GeForce GTX 260
> Gigapixels / second | 2.000 | 16.128
> Gigatexels / second | 4.000 | 36.864
> Gigabytes / second | 16.000 | 111.900
>
> The GeForce GTX 260 also generates approximately 715 gigaFLOPS peak
> processing power (single-precision only).
<sniff> Don't do that to me. I'm sad now... <sniff> :/
>
> Given that you claim your 6600GT "handles" Crysis, and all of the
> performance data I can actually obtain for both cards gives the GTX260 has
> roughly ten times "better", in theory the GTX260 should eat it up...
>
> We shall see!
You won't be disappointed! :)
When will you get the 260? Today?
~Steve~
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Comparing your high-end 6-series to my low-end 200-series, we have:
>>
>> | GeForce 6600GT | GeForce GTX 260
>> Gigapixels / second | 2.000 | 16.128
>> Gigatexels / second | 4.000 | 36.864
>> Gigabytes / second | 16.000 | 111.900
>>
>> The GeForce GTX 260 also generates approximately 715 gigaFLOPS peak
>> processing power (single-precision only).
>
> <sniff> Don't do that to me. I'm sad now... <sniff> :/
Heh. Well, yours is a 6-series. Then they made the 7-series. After that
came the 8-series. Then there was the 9-series (which is really just
rebadged versions of the 8-series - hence unpopular). Now we have the
200-series. And... according to the numbers above, it's "only" 8x
faster. 2004 for the 6-series, 2008 for the 200-series. So in 4 years,
it's "only" got 8x faster. Ho hum!
Well, I guess if I feel rich enough I could always add a second GTX260
at some point... I *do* have an SLI motherboard. >:-D
(No, seriously. I'm kidding. I really can't afford to do stuff like
that. Besides, the CPU is old enough already...)
>> We shall see!
>
> You won't be disappointed! :)
I ****ing will if it doesn't work with my motherboard! o_O
(The card is PCI Express 2.0 - and I'm not sure that my motherboard is.)
If not then I guess I'll be replacing the entire PC rather than just the
graphics card... but let's hope not, eh?
> When will you get the 260? Today?
I bought it using the super-hyper-ultra-mega-saver delivery option.
So... next week? Maybe?
(It's daft really; if you want it tomorrow, gotta pay lots of money. But
if you go with the cheap delivery option, often it arrives the next day
*anyway*! :-P But we'll see...)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:497d9d5b$1@news.povray.org...
>>> Comparing your high-end 6-series to my low-end 200-series, we have:
>>>
>>> | GeForce 6600GT | GeForce GTX 260
>>> Gigapixels / second | 2.000 | 16.128
>>> Gigatexels / second | 4.000 | 36.864
>>> Gigabytes / second | 16.000 | 111.900
>>>
>>> The GeForce GTX 260 also generates approximately 715 gigaFLOPS peak
>>> processing power (single-precision only).
>>
>> <sniff> Don't do that to me. I'm sad now... <sniff> :/
>
> Heh. Well, yours is a 6-series. Then they made the 7-series. After that
> came the 8-series. Then there was the 9-series (which is really just
> rebadged versions of the 8-series - hence unpopular). Now we have the
> 200-series. And... according to the numbers above, it's "only" 8x faster.
> 2004 for the 6-series, 2008 for the 200-series. So in 4 years, it's "only"
> got 8x faster. Ho hum!
Well, that's ok.
>
> Well, I guess if I feel rich enough I could always add a second GTX260 at
> some point... I *do* have an SLI motherboard. >:-D
I was going to suggest that but people seem to have problems running
it.
>
> (No, seriously. I'm kidding. I really can't afford to do stuff like that.
> Besides, the CPU is old enough already...)
>
>>> We shall see!
>>
>> You won't be disappointed! :)
>
> I ****ing will if it doesn't work with my motherboard! o_O
>
> (The card is PCI Express 2.0 - and I'm not sure that my motherboard is.)
I found these quotes just now:
"It doesn't matter, PCI-E 2.0 cards will work on PCI-E 1.x systems as well.
The PCI-E 2.0 spec is a fairly new one (Jan 2007). Currently, only the X38
chipset from Intel and the nForce 7 from NVIDIA support PCI-E 2.0."
And:
"A Short 2-3 inch black slot is usually a PCI Express slot (usually PC
less than 2 years old will have these)"
So you should be ok if you have these slots.
>
> If not then I guess I'll be replacing the entire PC rather than just the
> graphics card... but let's hope not, eh?
>
>> When will you get the 260? Today?
>
> I bought it using the super-hyper-ultra-mega-saver delivery option. So...
> next week? Maybe?
>
> (It's daft really; if you want it tomorrow, gotta pay lots of money. But
> if you go with the cheap delivery option, often it arrives the next day
> *anyway*! :-P But we'll see...)
You'll get it tomorrow then.
~Steve~
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>>> <sniff> Don't do that to me. I'm sad now... <sniff> :/
>> Heh. Well, yours is a 6-series. Then they made the 7-series. After that
>> came the 8-series. Then there was the 9-series (which is really just
>> rebadged versions of the 8-series - hence unpopular). Now we have the
>> 200-series. And... according to the numbers above, it's "only" 8x faster.
>> 2004 for the 6-series, 2008 for the 200-series. So in 4 years, it's "only"
>> got 8x faster. Ho hum!
>
> Well, that's ok.
LOL!
>> Well, I guess if I feel rich enough I could always add a second GTX260 at
>> some point... I *do* have an SLI motherboard. >:-D
>
> I was going to suggest that but people seem to have problems running
> it.
In the majority of benchmarks I've seen, SLI is either the same speed,
or *slower* than a single GPU. (!!) o_O
However, with more recent benchmarks that seems to be changing. In the
very latest benchmarks, 2-way and 3-way (and even 4-way) SLI does
actually come out (sometimes a lot) faster. I have no idea why this
would be the case; maybe until now games tended to be CPU-bound? Or
maybe it's a bandwidth issue somewhere?
Anyway, I only have 2-way SLI available, so... ;-)
(And as I say, I'd sooner build a new PC then run two GPUs. Probably
much bigger return on investment there!)
>>> You won't be disappointed! :)
>> I ****ing will if it doesn't work with my motherboard! o_O
>>
>> (The card is PCI Express 2.0 - and I'm not sure that my motherboard is.)
>
> I found these quotes just now:
>
> "It doesn't matter, PCI-E 2.0 cards will work on PCI-E 1.x systems as well.
> The PCI-E 2.0 spec is a fairly new one (Jan 2007). Currently, only the X38
> chipset from Intel and the nForce 7 from NVIDIA support PCI-E 2.0."
Well that's nice to know. :-}
Seriously, Tom's Hardware is great for figuring out the latest
up-to-the-minute trends. But if you haven't been following this stuff
for a while, it's really hard to find a good overview for quickly
getting up to speed again...
>> I bought it using the super-hyper-ultra-mega-saver delivery option. So...
>> next week? Maybe?
>>
>> (It's daft really; if you want it tomorrow, gotta pay lots of money. But
>> if you go with the cheap delivery option, often it arrives the next day
>> *anyway*! :-P But we'll see...)
>
> You'll get it tomorrow then.
Heh. Actually this time it looks like they're going to purposely not put
it in the mail until Friday. Presumably this is a ploy to force more
people to hand over extra cash. :-P
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> OK, so I've wondered about this before... If I were to install Crysis on
> my PC, would I actually be able to play it? Or would my PC melt into a
> pile of liquid metal?
New idea for case material: Gallium. Then it most definitely would melt
into a pile of liquid metal. XD
>
> My current graphics card is an nVidia GeForce 7900GT, but it's dying.
> I've just ordered an nVidia GeForce GTX 260, but it hasn't arrived yet.
>
> The official Crysis website *claims* that anything better than a GeForce
> 6800GT should work - but it that like M$ telling us that Vista will
> "work" with a Pentium III? What do you need for the game to play
> *properly*?
>
I would think it would run acceptably, but I haven't messed with Crysis,
so I don't really know from a practical standpoint.
--
~Mike
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> - I lose count of how many alien creatures you have to do battle with.
Really? You lose count quite easily, then.
Let's see, the non-boss enemies are: The headcrab, the zombie, vortigaunts,
the barnacle, the houndeye, the bullsquid, the alien grunt, the soldier and
the alien controller. That's 9. Plus the bosses.
In HL2 we have 3 different types of headcrab (regular, fast and poison),
3 different types of zombie (regular, fast and poison), the barnacle, the
antlion, 3 types of combine soldiers (metrocops, combine soldier and
combine elite), turrets, combine gunships and striders. That's about 14,
depending on how you want to count them.
> - Weapons? Again, a pistol, an SMG, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, and
> that's about it. (Oh, and the very cool but mostly useless gravity gun.)
HL has 14 weapons, HL2 has 11 (plus various fixed weapons here and
there).
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> - I lose count of how many alien creatures you have to do battle with.
>
> Really? You lose count quite easily, then.
You noticed? :-P
> Let's see, the non-boss enemies are: The headcrab, the zombie, vortigaunts,
> the barnacle, the houndeye, the bullsquid, the alien grunt, the soldier and
> the alien controller. That's 9. Plus the bosses.
>
> In HL2 we have 3 different types of headcrab (regular, fast and poison),
> 3 different types of zombie (regular, fast and poison), the barnacle, the
> antlion, 3 types of combine soldiers (metrocops, combine soldier and
> combine elite), turrets, combine gunships and striders. That's about 14,
> depending on how you want to count them.
Maybe that's just it - there are several slightly different versions of
enemy, but the numer of actual enemies is quite small. And of those,
only the antlions really have that "other-worldly" feel to them that was
so awesome about HL1.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Invisible [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> Also, I wonder: Will games ever reach the stage where textures are
> sufficiently high resolution that you can actually read the writing on
> stuff?? Will we ever get believable character animation?
If you mean read the writing on walls, then they're already there in a
lot of games.
As for "believable character animation," the answer is yes. Many
current generation games use motion tracking for the animation,
resulting in quite realistic movement.
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Also, I wonder: Will games ever reach the stage where textures are
>> sufficiently high resolution that you can actually read the writing on
>> stuff?? Will we ever get believable character animation?
>
> If you mean read the writing on walls, then they're already there in a
> lot of games.
OK. I guess I just haven't played any of them yet. (Hey hey, I'm
probably gonna try Crysis in a little while... heh.)
> As for "believable character animation," the answer is yes. Many
> current generation games use motion tracking for the animation,
> resulting in quite realistic movement.
Hmm. That's not actually what I meant. Perhaps I should have said
"believable character performance". Lots of the dialogue sequences I see
still look scripted and static.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> If you mean read the writing on walls, then they're already there in a
> lot of games.
> As for "believable character animation," the answer is yes. Many
> current generation games use motion tracking for the animation,
> resulting in quite realistic movement.
One trend in gaming which seems to be becoming popular is to try to make
the games as immersive as possible.
First-person shooters are pictured from the point of view of the
character itself, but still the vast majority of FPS games fail to be
*really* immersive, like you *really* were there, rather than feeling
that you are simply watching the TV.
Some games are slowly making the way to more immersiveness. There was
a game demo, which name I now fail to remember, about some kind of soldier
in a heated battlefield, which was awesomely immersive. I don't know if it
was just a pre-rendered demo or real-time, but at least it could have been
real-time.
Another game which succeeds pretty well in immersiveness is Mirror's Edge.
I was so impressed by the demo that I had to buy the game.
Mirror's Edge also has a rather peculiar style. Rather than aim for
absolute realism in how the environments are rendered, there's a mixture
of realistic models and stylistic texturing. The texturing may not be
realistic, but more artistic, but it works surprisingly well.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> One trend in gaming which seems to be becoming popular is to try to make
> the games as immersive as possible.
>
> First-person shooters are pictured from the point of view of the
> character itself, but still the vast majority of FPS games fail to be
> *really* immersive, like you *really* were there, rather than feeling
> that you are simply watching the TV.
Yeah, I definitely get that.
On the other hand... it's pretty hard to devise a game that's really,
truly immersive. Part of the problem is that today we have real-looking
humans like Alyx Vance, but they still don't behave in a particularly
real way yet. [Because simulating the human brain, or even some vast
simplification of it, is still a theoretical research project, not a
real-world possibility.]
Actually, just the other day I was playing CSS (yes, I realise that's
pretty ancient by now) and I was struck by just how stupid the
computer-controlled players are:
- On one hand, a bot runs along a belcony, jumps down in front of where
I'm hiding, instantly notices me hidden in the corner and kills me with
a single shot to the head. Very few humans could ever do that. On the
other hand, that's because bots don't "see" the way a human does. They
*know* exactly where you are, and have random time delays and random
mis-aim factors added in.
- The bots have absurd difficulty navigating obsticles. I watched one
bot spend 150 seconds trying to get past a pillar in the middle of the
room. A single step either to the left or the right would have instantly
solved the problem, and yet the bot stood there, his face half burried
in the wall, jumping up and down and trying to shoot the wall out of the
way.
- The bots have a ludicrous lack of tactical awareness:
+ Oh no! There's an enemy shooting me! Let me just stand still in
front of him while I casually reload...
+ Oh no! All my teamates at bomsite B have just died, and now the
bomb has been planted! Well, I've been stood at bomsite A since the
start of the round, and I haven't seen or heard a thing, but I guess I
should spent a few minutes checking that the bomb isn't here. Rather
than, say, run to the other bombsite in time to actually defuse the bomb...
+ Oh no! All my teamates are dead! I should continue sitting here
guarding this empty alleyway. Rather than, say, go attempt to complete
the objective or something before the timelimit runs out...
+ My personal favourit: The whole team gets mowed down in one corner
of the map. The one remaining bot in the team goes "where could they be?"
It strikes me that an ant typically has no problem navigating around
obsticles. I wonder how big an ant's brain is? Or how good its eyesight
is, for that matter. I don't know if this is just because CSS sucks
(it's quite old now) or whether people still haven't figured out a way
to fix this kind of thing.
Actually, to be honest, I have no clue how you even implement something
like a bot for an FPS in the first place. The CSS bots are better than
anything *I* could implement! o_O
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:497dd513$1@news.povray.org...
> (Hey hey, I'm probably gonna try Crysis in a little while... heh.)
Are you going to install the patches first?
~Steve~
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Invisible wrote:
> you to run around, flicking the occasional switch,
That was the other thing. The keys to progress were all different. It wasn't
like Quake, for example, where you're running around looking for *keys*, or
Doom3 which (as far as I can see from what I know of it) you get thru doors
by finding PDAs and passwords and such. You had mortar rounds, fan buttons,
jet engines, train gates, etc etc etc you had to figure out, and they all
made sense.
> The physics feature was also pretty neat - and, AFAIK, brand new in
> gaming at that time. (Of course, today seemingly *all* games in this
> class feature it.)
Even Thief3, except they don't use it for anything, as far as I've found. :-)
> Also, I wonder: Will games ever reach the stage where textures are
> sufficiently high resolution that you can actually read the writing on
> stuff??
In games where it matters, yes. The Myst series, for example, has all kinds
of clues in books (being a story about magical books, you see), so you have
to be able to read them.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Invisible wrote:
> Actually, to be honest, I have no clue how you even implement something
> like a bot for an FPS in the first place. The CSS bots are better than
> anything *I* could implement! o_O
Damn, you had to include that paragraph... Just as I was about to reply "go
make your own then".
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Invisible wrote:
> Well, I played Quake II from beginning to end. Not easy when you don't
> have a 3D card! (I wonder - are modern games even *playable* without
> one?) And then I played it all again on a machine that had 3D
> acceleration.
>
> The next game I played was Halflife. Now, I don't know what other games
> existed at the time, but compared to Quake II, Halflife was a hell of a
> lot different.
How big were either of those games? Try this one, 96 kilobytes. You'll take
less than an hour to beat it though :)
http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> How big were either of those games? Try this one, 96 kilobytes.
I was thinking about that. If you start comparing a 64K program on a
Commodore 64 to a 64K program on Windows with DirectX 10 installed, you get
entirely different kinds of programs. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> > How big were either of those games? Try this one, 96 kilobytes.
> I was thinking about that. If you start comparing a 64K program on a
> Commodore 64 to a 64K program on Windows with DirectX 10 installed, you get
> entirely different kinds of programs. :-)
The 96 kB is slightly less impressive when you think that it's using
a humongous multimedia library installed in all Windows systems (namely
DirectX).
I wonder how much larger the program would become if it had to draw
everything in software...
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp wrote:
> The 96 kB is slightly less impressive when you think that it's using
> a humongous multimedia library installed in all Windows systems (namely
> DirectX).
The thing is, many textures would be larger than 96KB by themselves if they
were compressed bitmaps!
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Actually, to be honest, I have no clue how you even implement something
>> like a bot for an FPS in the first place. The CSS bots are better than
>> anything *I* could implement! o_O
>
> Damn, you had to include that paragraph... Just as I was about to reply "go
> make your own then".
It's something I'd love to do, except that
1. I have no idea how to program AI.
2. I have no idea how to program in C.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> It's something I'd love to do, except that
>
> 1. I have no idea how to program AI.
Learn how to then, plenty of info on the web, or get a book.
> 2. I have no idea how to program in C.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> 1. I have no idea how to program AI.
>
> Learn how to then, plenty of info on the web, or get a book.
The amusing thing is... artificial intelligence was actually one of my
final year degree modules! :-P
Sure, if you want me to build a 3-layer feed-forward artificial neural
network and train it by supervised learning to classify a sense space
into several categories using a backpropogation algorithm, I can do
that. But that's not really applicable to programming an intereactive
bot to nagivate around a map and shoot things.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> The amusing thing is... artificial intelligence was actually one of my
> final year degree modules! :-P
>
> Sure, if you want me to build a 3-layer feed-forward artificial neural
> network and train it by supervised learning to classify a sense space into
> several categories using a backpropogation algorithm, I can do that. But
> that's not really applicable to programming an intereactive bot to
> nagivate around a map and shoot things.
Perhaps not, but why not just start with a basic map and see what you can
come up with code-wise? You can probably use Haskell for this and just use
text output if you can't do graphics. Start with a simple 2D map with
obstacles and a "target", then you can gradually make it more complex and
see how you get on. Could be quite a fun little project with loads of
possiblities for expansion.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
scott wrote:
> Perhaps not, but why not just start with a basic map and see what you
> can come up with code-wise? You can probably use Haskell for this and
> just use text output if you can't do graphics. Start with a simple 2D
> map with obstacles and a "target", then you can gradually make it more
> complex and see how you get on. Could be quite a fun little project
> with loads of possiblities for expansion.
Hmm... I could build a simple PacMan game engine that accepts "user
input" via TCP. And then I can either control it by hand, or write
various computer programs to drive it... Interesting. ;-)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> Hmm... I could build a simple PacMan game engine that accepts "user input"
> via TCP. And then I can either control it by hand, or write various
> computer programs to drive it... Interesting. ;-)
Sounds like a good start :-) YOu can write one program to control the
enemies and one to control the player. You could even then invent another
system for the enemies to communicate directly with each other over TCP to
make sure they are covering the map efficiently to catch the player. Haha,
imagine playing PacMan where the AI actually are AI and block you in
straight away then close in on you, it would be impossible to play!
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Invisible wrote:
> 2. I have no idea how to program in C.
Make a Haskell AI.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> 2. I have no idea how to program in C.
>
> Make a Haskell AI.
http://www.xkcd.com/534/
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
scott wrote:
> Perhaps not, but why not just start with a basic map and see what you
> can come up with code-wise? You can probably use Haskell for this and
> just use text output if you can't do graphics. Start with a simple 2D
> map with obstacles and a "target", then you can gradually make it more
> complex and see how you get on. Could be quite a fun little project
> with loads of possiblities for expansion.
Random idea: You know how some software uses an "evolution" algorithm
where it randomly generates new candidates "similar to" the existing
one, and gets you to "artificially select" which ones "survive"?
Well, suppose I program a whole bunch of bots, each with an individual
neural network to control it, and them them "survive" by... not getting
shot by its competetors? :-D
[Yes, I know, it's completely infeasible in reality. But it's a neat
idea...]
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 1/28/2009 1:32 AM, Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
> Well, suppose I program a whole bunch of bots, each with an individual
> neural network to control it, and them them "survive" by... not getting
> shot by its competetors? :-D
>
> [Yes, I know, it's completely infeasible in reality. But it's a neat
> idea...]
Not only is it feasible, if done right it can be quite practical.
--
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Well, suppose I program a whole bunch of bots, each with an individual
>> neural network to control it, and them them "survive" by... not getting
>> shot by its competetors? :-D
>>
>> [Yes, I know, it's completely infeasible in reality. But it's a neat
>> idea...]
>
> Not only is it feasible, if done right it can be quite practical.
I rather suspect that to get any "interesting" behaviour, you'd need an
infeasibly large neural net. Also, to train them all by a genetic
algorithm, you'd need to start with a hell of a lot of them. I suspect
the computer power required would be prohibitive.
Let us not even go into the difficulty of designing a neural network in
such a way that it can accept temporal sensor data and generate motor
commands...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> you to run around, flicking the occasional switch,
>
> That was the other thing. The keys to progress were all different. It
> wasn't like Quake, for example, where you're running around looking for
> *keys*, or Doom3 which (as far as I can see from what I know of it) you
> get thru doors by finding PDAs and passwords and such. You had mortar
> rounds, fan buttons, jet engines, train gates, etc etc etc you had to
> figure out, and they all made sense.
In a slightly sick kind of reverse-psychology way. ;-)
"WARNING: Do not obstruct laser." OK, now I know what I need to do...
>> Also, I wonder: Will games ever reach the stage where textures are
>> sufficiently high resolution that you can actually read the writing on
>> stuff??
>
> In games where it matters, yes. The Myst series, for example, has all
> kinds of clues in books (being a story about magical books, you see), so
> you have to be able to read them.
It's just that games like HL2 and CSS and so on seem to have lots of
stuff with writing on it that you can't actually read...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
