S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Bits

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 8:42 pm

[Game -> Update]

<html><body>ThereÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s been a good amount of activity concerning <A HREF=http://stalker-game.com/ target=_blank>S.T.A.L.K.E.R.</A> this past week. <A HREF=http://mediaviewer.ign.com/mediaviewer. ... _id=480467 target=_blank>IGN</A> and <A HREF=http://www.tothegame.com/screenshot.asp?screens=10259 target=_blank>ToTheGame</A> received a handful of new screenshots. HereÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s a couple sampled from <A HREF=http://www.shacknews.com/screens.x/obli ... n22097.jpg target=_blank>Shacknews</A> today:<blockquote><center><A HREF=http://www.shacknews.com/screens.x/obli ... n22094.jpg target=_blank><img src=/madmaxrw/stalker15a.jpg></A> <A HREF=http://www.shacknews.com/screens.x/obli ... n22096.jpg target=_blank><img src=/madmaxrw/stalker16a.jpg></A></center></blockquote>I should also mention <A HREF=http://www.guru3d.com/article/article/91/3 target=_blank>Guru3D</A> and <A HREF=http://www.gamersdepot.com/events/nvidi ... ay/002.htm target=_blank>Gamers Depot</A> offered their impressions of <A HREF=http://stalker-game.com/ target=_blank>S.T.A.L.K.ER.</A> based on a recent presentation at NVIDIA Editor's Day 2003. They donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t go into much detail and photos werenÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t allowed, but they seemed to genuinely dig the showing. Anyway, there are a few more goodies I didnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t mention at the <A HREF=http://stalker-game.com/ target=_blank>official site</A>.</body></html>

Briareus · Post by **Briareus** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 9:52 pm

Nice draw distance. I wonder what the framerate is and what the system specs are for these shots.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:52 pm

It's running on GeForce FX cards, which means it ought to run about as well on an ATI card that costs about half as much.

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:03 pm

I don't know. GSC made this whole exlusive Nvidia deal so their cards have more features and generally run the game better.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:17 pm

With a geforcefx you can get huge hands like in the second pic?

My favourite screenshot so far is This

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:08 am

March can't get here any faster...

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:08 pm

ATI totally own Nvidia.

My friend has an FX 5200 I think, and my Radeon 8500 is owning it.

Briareus · Post by **Briareus** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:30 pm

s4ur0n27 wrote:ATI totally own Nvidia.

My friend has an FX 5200 I think, and my Radeon 8500 is owning it.

Yes, because it's all in the card. Hard drive (speed/cache), Mobo (brand/amd/intel), ram (speed/amount), 3rd party drivers/applications running wouldn't have anything to do with it? (that was sarcasm)

I don't find it totally suprising that your higher end 4 series-equiv card is faster than the low end 5 series card. That's usually the way it works.

I just upgraded my home system from a GeForce3 to an 8500 Pro and I want my GF3 back in there. While the 8500 lets me render games at a higher res and bit depth with the same framerate as the GF3, ATI's drivers are still crap compared to nVidia's (stability and desktop performance/features).

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:45 pm

That screen #1 looks sick.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:13 pm

We have about the same computer, except he got a Barton 2800+ and I 2700+, we bought it from the same place(he just HAD to have more then me lol).

But w/e, I agree the new Catalyst 3.8 are pretty bad, I heard they caused overheating and stuff. I didn't get em yet because ofthe overheating thingy, since I'm overclocking my card a bit.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:18 pm

Briareus, in identical systems, ATI cards generally outperform equivalent (and often supposedly superior!)) nVidia boards. As for drivers, ATI did kina mess up the 3.8 Catalysts, but previous released have been rock-solid and Catalyst 3.9 will be out soon to fix the 3.8 issues--which I haven't noticed on my 8500, might I add.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:20 pm

Yup. Nvidia's days as the king of the hill are over -> Thank God, look at those prices!

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:50 pm

ATI is Canadian or something GO CA NA DA!

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:53 pm

I'm with Briareus on this one. If you want stability Nvidia is perfect. That's what I've always been more concerned over since trading in my last ATI card for Geforce. Anything that helps keep things from fucking up is number 1 in my book.

Briareus · Post by **Briareus** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 11:11 pm

Spazmo wrote:Briareus, in identical systems, ATI cards generally outperform equivalent (and often supposedly superior!)) nVidia boards.

o rly.

Sure, ATI wins these, but by only a few frames. I'd give up those extra frames for stability and utility any day of the week.

EDIT: One other thing I wanted to mention (but was unable to find verification on the interweb) was in regards to the image quality. I've read in more than one review how ATI cards tend to drop polys that nVidia cards don't. The last time I read it, the writter was referencing how an explosion in a game looked really good on nVidia but pretty flat on ATI since it dropped a lot of polys that were obscured but could be seen through the alpha textures on the fore polys.

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:18 am

Briareus wrote:Nice draw distance. I wonder what the framerate is and what the system specs are for these shots.

That is nice. My question is, is it used though? Project I.G.I. had great distances in it. For an FPS, being outdoors, running around outside of military camps was great. Unfortunately, they completely rooted it by having only the typical 'one way in' for most maps. A front entrance with all the other gates that were mysteriously locked and completely unlockable, except when certain predefined events occured (like the guards running out when the alarm went off and unlocking them).

As for graphics cards. Pfft. Anything that can handle more than 8 bits is excessive.

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 3:52 pm

have you seen these... molerats(?)?

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:54 pm

Woah. SEXY.

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 10:03 pm

DarkUnderlord wrote:
Briareus wrote:Nice draw distance. I wonder what the framerate is and what the system specs are for these shots.
That is nice. My question is, is it used though? Project I.G.I. had great distances in it. For an FPS, being outdoors, running around outside of military camps was great. Unfortunately, they completely rooted it by having only the typical 'one way in' for most maps. A front entrance with all the other gates that were mysteriously locked and completely unlockable, except when certain predefined events occured (like the guards running out when the alarm went off and unlocking them).

As for graphics cards. Pfft. Anything that can handle more than 8 bits is excessive.

Yeah, IGI2 is a great game. Too bad it runs like complete shit. It's choppy as hell wether I run it at 1024x768x32 with all the pretty effects or 640x480x16 with the lowest settings possible. Sloppy programmers, I yell ya. Codemasters bit off more than they can chew, me thinks. Too many games in too little time... slipshots!

/rant

Negadas · Post by **Negadas** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:36 pm

That game looks fucking awesome.
____
It will use Open GL because its powered by NVidia but it should run fine with a ATI card (Direct X) Direct x is better in my opinion.