Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal FortKnox's Journal: Deus Ex 2: The Invisible War 43

Journal by FortKnox
The demo for it was released on Saturday (slashdot story on release). Requirements: 1.3GHz Machine.
DAMNIT!
So, someone d/l it and tell me whatcha think of it (don't give me what you think of the graphics... its hardly a game where graphics matter... its all about the story!).

Now... I just need enough cash to upgrade my machine......
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Deus Ex 2: The Invisible War More

Deus Ex 2: The Invisible War

Comments Filter:
  • all that tells me is that artists and/or programmers have become some of the lazy bastards in the world. Have these people never heard of "polygon count" and "good code"?
    • until you can point out where there code is sloppy and where they are wasting polys, i'll give them the benefit of the doubt. or maybe until i see it looks bad and the ai and interactive environment behave poorly. people (not everyone, but the target audience for video games) demand better graphics, smarter ai, and more interaction. they come with a price. such is the way of progress.

      and i'm sure they've heard of those things. at the beginning of the project, i'm certain that the artists were given po
      • well, I admit you are right to a point, but it's probably not time to be over a gigahertz to play a video game. A year ago when we were finishing up Age of Mythology for christmas release, we set our specification at a Pentium II 450 specifically because our team had decided it would be best to keep the number of players who might need an upgrade to the minimum. Sure, it had low- and hi-poly setups, but it would run, and it would run playably. both RTS and FPS have been running in full-3D for at least a
        • you could have a point. now that i think about it, i think i remember doom 3 having sub-GHz requirements. of course, i'm going to guess that it would be a totally different game without the shadows and reflections. i downloaded the demo but haven't played it yet.

          a possible explanation is that the creators at eidos feel some part of their art will be lost on a slower system. by art i mean the whole game, not just the graphics. or maybe it's just a matter of meeting the deadline and not having as much t
          • it's fine. hope I didn't sound angry in my response, i've just had a frustrating past couple weeks and everything seems to come out that way. I haven't exactly played up the game developer thing around here mainly because I was in the testing department, which isn't that relevant to most discussions around here. on Age of Mythology, though, as well as some projects back at Mindscape during my 14 months or so there, my main area of expertise was performance and hardware compatibility, which is admittedly
            • i never thought you sounded angry. chances are people who complain about games around slashdot aren't involved at all with making them. sorry to have lumped you in with them. i thought i'd shot my mouth (fingers) off a little quickly, so sorry about that. it's cool to hear about your experiences in "the industry," at least for me.
              • yeah, I know how that goes. Basically, what got my goat as far as the 1.3 spec went was that it seems like the kind of thing that a QA department should have fought tooth and nail, if possible. That sort of thing goes in cycles. In my stint at Mindscape, for example, QA fluctuated from having no power at all and being slapped around like a red-headed stepchild and being the end-all be-all of whether a game could be released, so naturally what I read the thing initially as was "QA department for DE2 was s
                • Are you still in the industry?

                  I hear the only way to get in is to 'know someone on the inside'...

                  Soooo.... any chance an older Java (but I started with C++) coder could get a job 'on the inside'? ;-)
                  • well, i'm currently out of work, but it's likely Ensemble Studios will pick me back up this spring. Most of their stuff is in C++. note that they are Microsoft (owned by the Borg, part of the MS Gaming Studio) so who knows what lies in store for the future languages of choice. Knowing MS, it'll probably involve C# or .NET depending on the Borg's decisions and ES's counterassaults.

                    And it's true, 90% of the time it takes knowing someone on the inside. Unfortunately, it usually takes someone on the inside
                    • yeah, such has been my luck.

                      Going from Java to C# is cake (I graduated as a C++ programmer, but got stuck in Java, so that's what I do).
                      What I -really- need to do is make some sort of demo or something to catch some eyes.


                    • Yep, make a demo, show your skills. Just keep in mind that demos don't have to be visual. A game is mostly NOT about how it looks, but much more about how it plays and feels. Once a delicious programming extravanganza, video cards have turned gfx effects into the easy part. What realy matters is: "can you write space invaders for us right now?" as someone was once asked on a jobinterview.

                      There are a few very good books out on game programming, called the game programming gems. If you can dig that stu
                    • patterns ain't no thang... use'm all the time at work. I work in a pretty sophisticated consulting shop.
  • This is why I console- I just don't have the time nor inclination to feed the upgrade cycle.
  • Tell me about it. I have to upgrade my system for the thousands of digital pictures and movies expected in the next year. Oh wait... that's not a bad thing! ;)
    • Nit picky, I know, but there is no Massachusetts Supreme Court.

      • Nit picky, I know, but there is no Massachusetts Supreme Court.

        I'm not sure I understand. The senior court in Massachusetts is the "Supreme Judicial Court". I think that you are not nit picking on the lack of the word "Judicial".

        As an FYI, in NY, the Supreme Court is the trial level court, one per county. Their decisions are reviewed by the Appelate Division of the Supreme Court. The highest court in the state, what would ordinarily be called the supreme court, is the Court of Appeals.

        • Actually, that was the nit I was picking. In MA, it is never called the Supreme Court. Always the Supreme Judicial Court or the SJC. Often I think things are different in MA just to be different. Actually, it is probably because they were called that long ago and they don't want to change it in order to conform. Good for them.
      • Better now?
  • Not groundbreaking. Not an entirely new thing. A logical extension of the series.

    Plenty of stuff to interact with. The demo can be finished guns blazing or stealth.

    Complaints: a 'floaty' feeling. There is an .ini mod for this. HUD too tight (in center). There is an .ini mod for this. Levels a bit cramped and limited. I'm not too worried about this. I assume that the levels are only part of larger levels. It's dark. Plan on cranking up the gamma, brightness, and contrast. The health and bio energy readouts
    • Cool... I was hoping you had checked it out. If its an extension of the first and has a great story like the first (It -has- to... its Warren Spector!), then I'm going for it. The upgrade is mostly for DX2, but I'll also be looking at HL2, too.

      Actually, the upgrade is to help me code side projects (try opening JBuilder, mysql, tomcat, and a browser at the same time on an 800MHz, 256MB memory machine) ;-)
      • The story is the main selling point, and I obviously have no idea on that:) There were books littered around, like in Baldur's Gate. Flipping through them in DX:IW gave a few hints and a taste of things.

        Yeah, I seriously doubt your machine is going to run the game:) All reccomendations I've seen for DX:IW say that 768 is a minimum for RAM. I've seen no consensus on the chip or graphics card. Some people supposedly have 3.04 PIV machines with Ultra5900 (or whatever that top end Nvidia is) and are complainin
        • Requirements as per electronic boutique [ebgames.com].

          Looks like they are saying the bare minimum is 256MB Ram. Honestly, I think the demo is just a slapped together thing to keep people happy until next week. I've heard a lot of people say that the demo is setup for xbox, not PC (which really screws stuff up on the video side of things). So, I assume, once the game comes out, it'll handle the graphics without the amount of firepower that the demo needs.
        • So I have this wimpy dual Amd MP 1800+ system with only 512 of PC2100 ram on an AGP 4x bus with the ASUS V7700 (GeForce2 GTS).

          I have been dreading the system requirements on that game. 768 MB of ram?!?! Crap! That is a lot just for a game.

          Also, I wonder if the ATI 9600 Pro can do well enough with this and / or HL2. If not, do I need to go to the 9800 Pro?

          jason
          • I would definately give the demos a try. Remember that MP systems generally don't matter for games, as they ignore the extra processor. The best you can hope for is that the OS and background tasks grab one, and leave the other free for the game.

            I've no idea if 768 is the minimum. I think the official minimum is 256. I've heard of people having problems with 'only' 512. I have 768, and it runs fine.

            I've been a little worried about video cards lately. Depending on what you have to spend, the GF4 cards (non
            • Bah! I have had soooooo many problems with the detonator drivers for this GF2GTS. I am not going back to nvidia for a while.

              My first big AGP card was the ATI All-In-Wonder with the Rage 128 chip. Very cool. I paid up the yin/yang for that card. TV tuner was fabulous. Serriously, up arrow to change channel up. Down for down. TV to desktop so the tv was your desktop. The video recording didn't work at all. I sure did try though.

              Then I got Tribes. I played Tribes a lot. So I purchased the nVidia
        • Some people supposedly have 3.04 PIV machines with Ultra5900 (or whatever that top end Nvidia is) and are complaining.

          Those people would be complaining if it was giving less thirty-gajazillion FPS. It's an excuse to upgrade their graphics card again, despite the fact their current one works just fine.
          • That's why I value demos over reviews. I've never been led astray by paying attention to the a demo. I've been burned by listening to reviews (Black and White, anyone?)
            • Black&White wasn't a terrible game. It was slow, ackward, and very different than the 'normal' game. People that bitch about innovation should give it a try.

              Having said this, I played it for about a week after I bought it, then it sat on the shelf.

              Eventually, I reinstalled it to give it a second chance. I enjoyed it a lot more the second time. I forced myself to give it a chance, and learn the system as if I hadn't played a game before. It helped out a bunch, and the game was interesting (heh,
              • I'd give it another shot, but there's far to much important stuff going on right now. Like the finale of Joe Millionaire, C&C: Zero Hour (a second time), DX:IW, and categorizing my navel lint.

      • Actually, the upgrade is to help me code side projects (try opening JBuilder, mysql, tomcat, and a browser at the same time on an 800MHz, 256MB memory machine)

        Doesn't that start ringing any warning bells? I mean seriously? What are you doing that should chew up your memory? An IDE, a database, a web browser and a web/app server? The whole lot should easily run without problems in 128MB, let alone 256. Proof again that Java is pretty much the wrong solution, whatever the problem. It has some nice ideas in

        • Sorry, not much in the mood to argue much about java and such, but if you tried to do the same thing with visual studio, SQL Server, .Net, and a browser, I know it'd cause the same amount of issues. Its not the java I'm coding, but everything I have open.
          • No, it's the java (jbuilder and tomcat particularly). I wouldn't dream of using any IDE, let alone visual studio. Nor would I use SQL server :-) Not intending to argue, but I could certainly achieve the same functionality in far less memory. Maybe my Java experiences have unfairly jaded my view of it, but I can only go by what I've seen...
  • I also grabbed the demo for the RTS star wars game (can't remember the name) and it played like a slide show for me. That is even with all settings cranked down to their lowest.

    Then again. I am still running a GeForce2 GTS (64MB) on an AGP4x Dual AMD MP.

    I guess DX7 doesn't cut it any more. :-)

    jason
    • Galactic Battlegrounds? That's strange. I think I played that on a machine with a GeForce2 with no problems. (Might have been on my GF3, however.)

      According to something, somewhere:) for DX:IW, if you have an NVidia card, you should have DX9 installed.
      • I am just planning on all games released after this July would need dx9. The Tron demo was horrible on anything but 800x600 and low detail levels. I have wanted to try the "Once Upon a Knight" game as well, but the issues are worse. I can't even load the game.

        jason
  • I live right next to (5 minutes away) from 2 discount computer shops. They sell good hardware, it's just in a warehouse and they hire kids to ring it up. Low margins, high volume.

    I built an XP1800 w/ 256MB ram, 20GB hdd for $250 (including case.)

    Check them out, http://www.enuinc.com [enuinc.com]

  • I'm still lost in the world that is the online multiplayer portion on Halo for PC. My handle is Chupathingy and I'm totally addicted. I can't see any game past it right now. It feels like I'm back when QuakeII was released (1998?) and spent many an hour as a Cartman mod screaming obscenities behind a rail gun.

  • Apparently, my geriatric pixel shader is insufficient. The game won't even try to run. It just pops up an error message behind the transparent main window of the game, which itself covers the screen. I had to to find the error.

Slashdot Top Deals

Neutrinos have bad breadth.

Close