whoa, it seems ati kicks the crap out of gforce in doom3

http://www.digital-daily.com/video/abit-ti4200-8x/index02.htm

i was suprised to see that the ati 9700 pro literally plays with thje best of the best. man this is suprisisng to say in the least since the game was made on a gforce3????

Why so surprised? the Radeon 9700 supports all that the GeForce 3 does, and much more, besides being a crapload faster. Just cos the Game was written with the GeForce chipsets in mind, that doesn't mean a faster ATI card would do worse.

wait but look. compared to the gforce 4ti 4200's the game runs par and subpar speeds. but with the ati, it kicks them royally.

That would be because the 9700 kicks the Ti 4200 royally.

Kain the 9700 is like a year newer then the ti cards.

hm... ithought that the gf4 ti's where kings of their domains.
o well.

Hah! Give me a break, Kain. As it stands, no released consumer-level part can even touch the 9700 Pro. Right now, there IS no competition with ATI. And I'm afraid that's not likely to change, even when the much-vaunted Geforce FX comes out.

kain said:

hm... ithought that the gf4 ti's where kings of their domains.
o well.

They are Nvidias leading card right now yes, and they were the kings at one time. My old voodoo 2 card was once unbelievable, not anymore.

sorry
i didnt relize how powerfull the 9700pro was.

Just as I predicted. Nvidia will become the next 3dfx, and fine Canadian products will conquer once again.

Welcome to last April ;)

I hope that Nvidia actually does become the next 3dfx. That way, ATI will have the monopoly, the video card industry will halt, and the game industry will be forced to focus on games and gameplay. Just like the 70's and 80's when any technology improvement was 5 years apart.

Except, that won't happen, and the videogame industry is already focused on games and gameplay. Congrats. You're just whiny because you pine for the days when you were young and games which were exactly the same but with different sprites seemed radically different.

Well, that's your opinion. It didn't convince me, but you're entitled to it.

AndrewB said:

I hope that Nvidia actually does become the next 3dfx. That way, ATI will have the monopoly

Competition is good for the Graphics card industry. It drives prices down.

AirRaid said:

Competition is good for the Graphics card industry. It drives prices down.

I know that. Did you understand what I said? Good for the graphics card industry = good for graphics in games = bad for everything else in games. What would the industry do if the selling point wasn't always "Breathtaking graphics!"? It would have to adjust. That's my opinion.

Here's a question for you AndrewB:

How on earth can good graphics = bad gameplay, considering that different people work on these aspects of the game (artists for graphics, programmers and level designers for gameplay)?

How on earth can good graphics = bad gameplay, considering that different people work on these aspects of the game (artists for graphics, programmers and level designers for gameplay)?

The bosses decide that graphics = good, so they fire level designers and beta testers and hire artists for the money.

I've seen plenty of games with good graphics combined with awesome gameplay. Why Doom of course! The old one that is. Back in the day it sported some really kickass graphics and first rate gameplay - proof that good graphics does not always ruin the possibility of good gameplay.

And I don't care that graphics in newer games are a thousand times more complex - companies are similarly larger (id has grown considerably larger than before as far as number of employees goes) and their employees are similarly more skilled and experienced, plus developers spend far longer time on making a game now than before.

So yes, developing a game with good graphics takes a shitload more time, but they still spend a lot of this time implementing gameplay.

To me, the sheer level of concentration on graphics and arbitrary attempts at boring realism (where realism is still ridiculously far off) negates the possibility of a game being built on the foundation of an outstandingly addictive yet simple formula of fun and irressistibility. I know when I have to literally force myself to play a game (Half-Life, RTCW, WC3, MOH), and when a game pulls me in and makes me play it (SimCity 2000, SC3000, SimCopter, Stunts, Hexen, Goldeneye, Zelda: OOT, and many others).

Let's just go through each one of those games.

Half-Life: Popular, but far too rigid and inflexible for my interests. No replayability value.
RTCW: I made it near the end of the game, but pretty much had to make myself play it. Again, too rigid and linear.
WC3: NPC acting totally turned me off. The NPC's sounded like they were auditioning for a student film. Awkward gaps in the very lame conversations. The game was very colorful and built with a good engine, but lacked richness in its atmosphere, and yes, had a rigid layout.
MOH: I talked about this in another thread. It's an outrageous RTCW clone, is so incredibly unoriginal and uninspired, the rehash of rehashes, I have to force myself to play it. I will no longer do that.

SimCity 2000: I spent hundreds of hours on this game, doing all sorts of experimental things, fiddling around, trying to make the nicest map layout. The list goes on.
SimCity 3000: A graphics and audio upgrade, with some key gameplay changes. It didn't hold my interest as much as SC2000, because there was no terrain editor (import a black & white .bmp file my ___), and I couldn't explore the cities in a helicopter.
SimCopter: Hundreds of hours of entertainment. Gameplay and a solid addictive formula is really what this game is about. Graphics are kind of poor, but the game is so fun that you don't even care. Plus, the AM radio station music is groovy, soothing, and jazzy, and the commercials are classy and hilarious. The only downside is how easy the game is once you learn it, and lack of copter upgrades after 1/3 of the way through the game.
Stunts: Amazing true-3D racing sim. Mostly just race-against-the-clock. Has a built-in track editor that is so amazingly easy to use. Controls are perfect, just incredibly easy to use and amazingly intuitive. Plus, there are many easter eggs, glitches, and fun little secrets that make the game incredibly sweet, leaving you experimenting for hours.
Hexen: Had rich, rich atmospheres. Juts think of Darkmere. Chilly, foggy, gloomy (yet not dark), and very surreal. One of those games where after you stop playing, the atmosphere sticks with you and feel like you're still in Darkmere (my favorite level).
Goldeneye: A truly original FPS. You could only save at the beginning of each level, which is vital to the tension and scariness of the game (watch and learn, developers). Great atmosphere, amazingly good multiplayer, plus it had great graphics for its time.
Zelda: OOT The way a game should be. Exploration, exploration, say it again... Exploration! Freaking great music and atmosphere as well. I've never been so emotionally moved after finishing a game. So sad that the experience was over. Oh well...

I think I'll go take a break now...

AndrewB: It's clear to me that you and I do not share the same taste in gameplay.

RtCW: A game that I consider the best fps since Doom 2 really. It may be liniar but so what? I find it damn fun to blast Nazis, undead and, to a degree, mutants with the weapons available to me in that game - granted the last level is not my idea of fun and neither is the forest level, but pretty much the rest of the levels are fun imo. The game has a nice flow and overall feel to it and the weapons are kickass - some of them even slightly original. Not to mention some of the humourous conversations between Nazis. And then there's the atmosphere - it may not be terrifying like Doom, but the dungeons of Castle Wolfenstein had a wonderful sinister atmosphere with the moaning of the prison cell inmates and rattling of chains, etc.
Same with the crypt, wonderfully suspenseful atmosphere and the fog effects added a lot to it (as did the music).

If they had made this game simpler than it is now (which should be perfectly possible) it would have been even more entertaining to play.

SimCity 2000: "God" games will never appeal to me, boring. You spend several hours watching a city from above altering a few numbers and otherwise doing nothing but place new builings and add zones.
SimCity 3000: appealed a little more to me, but only because events and news tickers were more funny - wouldn't play the game myself - I've tried though.

HeXen: Agreed, this game rocks, both because of simple, yet fun gameplay and because of atmosphere.

So once again: Good graphics and good gameplay can be married, I am not convinced by your arguments AndrewB, sorry.

AndrewB said:

MOH:[/b] I talked about this in another thread. It's an outrageous RTCW clone, is so incredibly unoriginal and uninspired, the rehash of rehashes, I have to force myself to play it. I will no longer do that.

What the hell... MOH: AA is just like the other Medal of Honour games on the Playstation, all of which came out yonks before RTCW.

BTW AndrewB... would another game that appears on your list of favourites by any chance be the Sims?

Anyway, I'm a fan of exploration RPGs as well, although my two favourites would have to be Ultima 7 (part 1, part 2 was a bit of a let down) and Morrowind (now THAT is a truly non-linear game).

NiGHTMARE said:

What the... MOH: AA is just like the other Medal of Honour games on the Playstation, all of which came out yonks before RTCW.

I got RTCW a year before I got MOHAA. Whatever came out first, it matters not. One is a clone of the other, and both are rigid and unoriginal.

BTW AndrewB... would another game that appears on your list of favourites by any chance be the Sims?

Hmm. This is sort of an in-between game. It had me playing for a few weeks, but it soon became obvious how the game was rigid, in that there were just a litte too many things that you couldn't do, and everything was hard-code programmed. This hard-code programming limited the exploration of the game. For all the time they spent hard-coding every little detail, they probably would have been better off programming the Sims to react based on a complex AI algorithm, resulting in a type of ordered randomness, keeping the game fresh and replayable.

I remember reading an article about a year ago, which demonstrated how a group of people managed to create this program where the characters reacted to the environment based on figuring out what the best action for them to take would be in real-time. So when placing the characters on a wobbly bridge, they would grab onto the string handrails and brace themselves to stay on the bridge. They said it was relatively simple to create such an engine, and it used relatively little disk space. They said that games would likely start using this type of engine-AI soon. I SO hope that is the case.

I think that games should move more toward something like this. Make the computer do the brunt work of delevopment, and end up with a flexible and interesting end product. Think of SLIGE, only much farther developed. Sure, with such a system, easter eggs and weird bugs are ineviteble, but for games that use such engines, those glitches usually turn out to be interesting, fun, and sometimes hilarious to discover.

Well AndrewB, I will say you’re taste in games is... unique... (I think you’re the first person I’ve ever met who liked sim copter) but I have to say the stranded you rate FPS buy are a bit warped. How can you like Goldeneye, but hate RtCW? RtCW basically is Goldeneye for the PC.

I never cared for all the things the more "sophisticated" gamers eat up. To me "linear" is just a silly buzz word that people like thrown around to make themselves feel smart. But all really, every game ever made is linear. Sure, there might be more then one way to finish something like dues ex, but there is always a "best" way. In act, in some ways, "non-linear" tend to hurt my enjoyment of a game. I keep stopping and thinking, "I could have done that better". I like the nuts and bolts FPS, why do you think I enjoy Quake 3 over Unreal tournament? Half life over Deus Ex? The only exception I can think of are the thief games and system shock II. And while a love them to bits, I don’t really play them much.

Ct_red_pants said:

(I think you’re the first person I’ve ever met who liked sim copter)

Actually, there was a period where I liked to play sim copter - didn't care about the graphics quality. But then I realized that just about every city was like the same to play in - same missions over and over again and there was stupid bugs that would prevent you from completing a mission.

The idea was original, but sadly somewhat poorly executed.

I dunno about RtCW being unoriginal, but damn fun is what I find it - I only wish that they had made the game much simpler to play (I mean, wtf do you need the ability to kick for? - it's a gimmick!)

dsm said:

I mean, wtf do you need the ability to kick for? - it's a gimmick!

Option 1: Animate a hand to move his machinegun to one hand and use the free hand to open the door.

Option 2: Animate a kicking foot to open a door.

Those lazy basterds opted for option 2 and sold it as a feature! It is time you tell them DSM!

dsm said:

same missions over and over again and there was stupid bugs that would prevent you from completing a mission.

I would have appreciated more missions, more copter accessories, and more content, but that's really the mark of a good game. When you crave more of it. I guess I'm just the only one who does.

By the way, give me any SimCopter mission and I can guarantee that I can finish it for you. I once won the game 3 times in one day. There's no mission that I can't complete.

And also, I agree about the kicking thing. Like wtf is up with all these useless key functions in games. There's nothing fun about having to configure all reaches of the keyboard to do things that are not fun to do. For example, the reload button should be the same as the use button. When two keys are never ever used at the same time, they should be merged. They rarely seem to do this. Oh well.

(Chalk up an extra point for Goldeneye.)

kick button was great for finshing off undead when they fall on the floor (saving ammo) and distroying greats without switching weapon or wasting ammo. (have your sten ready to blast the two gaurds in front of the great).

one must fall xxxx( some number ): i played this game to death. its freeware now.
halflife:first real 3d game i could play on my leet p2 333
simcity:good but for people that spend too much time one things
simcopter: i cant stand not being able to do what i want
ms flight sim: cant get enough of it
age of empires2 or age of wonders: absolutly the best strategy games. i mean where can you have 200 people attcks all at one with ome mouse click? still dont like the 200 person limit
descent: too confusing
warcraft:ok but not good enough
diablo2: i dont like it when i have to use the mouyse button repetedly to do some things all the time.
serious sam: cant get enough of it
unreal tournament: cant get enough of it
starcraft: like to play when i get bored but i quit when a 9 yearold kid stomps the shit out of me within 5 minutes.