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Bioshock - holy this is a disturbing video

I'm getting this game come Tuesday morning. I just cant decided on PC or Xbox 360 version. I played the 360 demo, which was really good. IGN said that the PC version offers better graphics and performance on DX10 chips--I wonder if this would work well on a new 24" iMac (the 2600 is a DX10 chip, I believe).

Steve
 
Steve1496 said:
I'm getting this game come Tuesday morning. I just cant decided on PC or Xbox 360 version. I played the 360 demo, which was really good. IGN said that the PC version offers better graphics and performance on DX10 chips--I wonder if this would work well on a new 24" iMac (the 2600 is a DX10 chip, I believe).

Steve
Click to expand...

The HD 2600 is indeed a DX10 chip but remember you need Windows Vista.

Try the demo tomorrow and then you can decide which version you prefer.
 
Can anyone post some iMac (2600 Pro) benchmarks when the demo comes out ?

I would like to know whether the 2600 can handle DX10 games in BootCamp with ease or not...
 
MDP said:
Can anyone post some iMac (2600 Pro) benchmarks when the demo comes out ?

I would like to know whether the 2600 can handle DX10 games in BootCamp with ease or not...
Click to expand...

lol, now way in hell are you playing Bioshock on an iMac. You'd be hard pressed to find any semi new game that plays properly on that garbage.
 
The bottleneck for running BioShock on an IMac will obviously be the Vid Card; the processor and rest of the IMac's hardware are more than good enough.

The Min. Spe. VidCard for BioShock is only a NVida 6600/ ATi x1300. The 2600 PRO may not be the most amazing Vid Card on the market right now, but it's a heck of a lot faster than an x1300. So I'd expect to at least be able to run the game on an IMac in Bootcamp.


But while the 2600 PRO makes the "minimum" cut, benchmarks put it below the "reccommended" Vid Card -- NVidia 8600 or better *if* DX10 compliant; otherwise NVidia 7900GT series w/ 512MB VRam. So I'm sure you'll have to tone down the settings to get a decent framerate. Exactly how far you'll have to tone things down to get a good frame rate would seem to depend a lot on how much of an advantage the DX10 thing gives the 2600 PRO card. All of the benchmarks I have seen thus far for the 2x00 series cards are DX9-based. And here, these cards haven't exactly impressed.

But supposedly, the 2x00 series architecture is optimized for DX10. It is interesting that the "reccommended" card for Bioshock in a DX9 generation card is a 7900GT, but the "recommended" card for a DX10 generation card is only an 8600. 7900GT blows the 8600 out of the water right now on most DX9-based games. If this is a indicator of things to come, then the current dissappointing performance of the cheaper DX10 cards (both NVidia and ATi) may dissappear as gaming titles move to DX10.

I'd be curious to see what kind of framerates, and at what settings, folks are getting with the IMacs myself. It will be a good first indication of what performance is going to be like on the new DX10 games.
 
i am wondering how well it will work on my 2.2ghz mbp, 128mb video card ftw! :D I would love to be able to play it during the 4 hour break I have between classes this upcoming semester but the dern card in this thing will probably hold me back :(

oh well, 360 version it is I suppose (unless the demo runs nicely that is...)
 
I am going to buy the 360 version, but am also planning on downloading the demo in bootcamp to see if it will run on my older iMac (CD/2.0/2.0/x1600 128). I am not expecting anything great, but who knows!
 
Tested the demo on my PC. Dualcore AMD @ 2.2GHz with a 7950GT and 2GB RAM running Windows XP. Slower CPU than the iMacs but faster graphics card.

1024x768 with High Details had some rather bad frame rates. Especially in places with a lot of effects, or when I moved around in bigger places. Could occationally pause for a couple of seconds.
Have to stay I wouldn't enjoy playing through the full game at this setting, though I did manage to get through the demo.
Looked pretty nice though, except for the low resolution.

1680x1050 with Low Details was playable. It wasn't perfectly smooth, but I kinda got used to it. The difference in quality compared to the High setting was noticable (to me), but probably isn't such a big deal if you haven't played it High before.

Some stuff from the README:
BioShock is optimized for dual core machines.
Click to expand...
For best performance, we recommend a dual core processor and either a Nvidia 8800 or an ATI(R) Radeon(TM) X1950 or 2900XT equivalent card.
Click to expand...
BioShock requires support for Pixel Shader 3.0 or higher to run.
Click to expand...

It also mentions some known problems with framerate stuttering on NVIDIA cards, which might have affected performance in my test. Some new drivers will be out today which should fix it. Or not. Don't know if it affects the 79xx series.

I'll see if I can get fraps running for some real frame rates...


Edit: Ran it again @ 1024x768/High Detail. Was better this time, in that it didn't have the pauses, but still wasn't smooth. Fraps reported framerates of around 20-30 fps, though it certainly felt slower and I'm not sure if I trust it. Or maybe I'm just overly sensitive to sub-50/60 fps.

Also tried at 1680x1050/High Detail. Max 15 fps and 2-3 second pauses. No fun :p
 
For anyone interested, the PC Demo can already be obtained through ausgamers.com, many people have already.

http://www.ausgamers.com/files/download/html/30227

I'm downloading but at the speed its going right now I'll probably have the full game before the demo :p

Anyways, I skimmed through the 2K Forums (trust me, be glad the macrumors community is as great as it is :)) and people are reporting the game is playable at 800x600 with high texture/high models and everything else on medium or off on a 6600GT, since the X1600 is slightly better than it, I'm thinking Bioshock will be just fine at 1024x768 with the same settings on X1600 Macs, especially after applying the ATI bioshock hotfix.

I'll report back with results on my C1D MBP when I get the demo or the full game, whichever comes first.
 
The demo was playable on my old iMac (which I just sold & shipped). Same deal on the MacBook Pro. I haven't gotten a new iMac yet...still deciding on what to get.

So anyways, I went to the store and got the 360 version come Tuesday morning. Played all day, then my HDTVs screen went blurry and acting funny. Turned off the Xbox, restarted--what do you know, this xbox, which I just got back from the service center a week ago, says System Error E74. :mad: I called customer support [again], and now it needs to be replaced. Classic Microsoft quality products.

Steve
 
I have had my head buried so deep in the books that I didn't even see that this was released. I've been following this ever since it was a rumour that there was going to be a SS2 follow up.

The Ars Technica review just came out and they gave it a 10! (Of course, we all expected that, but still, an Ars 10! :cool:)

Unfortunately, I won't have a gaming machine for...years, so if you wouldn't mind sharing your Bioshock experiences, I would greatly appreciate living vicariously through you. Thanks.
 
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