Shattered Horizon: Graphic Overload

[Master Kuja]

The internet is for porn, laptops are for casual games.

Well your problem is quite clearly that you have a laptop.

I beg to differ, my laptop is both lightweight, doesn't run disgustingly hot and it plays every new game that's been released lately on the highest settings, casual games my arse when I've been playing Bad Company 2 and the like with all the settings cranked to max.

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What you have to remember though is that TF2/Half Life 2 etc are all quite dated games with low system requirements and XP is also VERY dated, I mean hell, it IS 9 years old. Whilst I was a huge fan of XP I accept the fact that times change, things move on and that new technology is released.
As has also been said, Futuremark do purely release benchmark applications, Shattered Horizon is just another one in their list.

However, I will hold my hands up and agree with you here, the ever rising trend of focusing so heavily on graphics has become something of a plague to the gaming industry, when money gets pumped into making things look pretty instead of creating a gameplay experience that is both fun and enjoyable, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

 

[FallenJellyDoughnut]

The internet is for porn, laptops are for casual games.

Well your problem is quite clearly that you have a laptop.

I beg to differ, my laptop is both lightweight, doesn't run disgustingly hot and it plays every new game that's been released lately on the highest settings, casual games my arse when I've been playing Bad Company 2 and the like with all the settings cranked to max.

---

What you have to remember though is that TF2/Half Life 2 etc are all quite dated games with low system requirements and XP is also VERY dated, I mean hell, it IS 9 years old. Whilst I was a huge fan of XP I accept the fact that times change, things move on and that new technology is released.
As has also been said, Futuremark do purely release benchmark applications, Shattered Horizon is just another one in their list.

However, I will hold my hands up and agree with you here, the ever rising trend of focusing so heavily on graphics has become something of a plague to the gaming industry, when money gets pumped into making things look pretty instead of creating a gameplay experience that is both fun and enjoyable, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Where did you get this and why was I not informed sooner? Gimme specs, links, and $3000

 

[ConfusedCrib]

You say it's an awesome game, and then randomly hate it just because you can't run it. It's a fun multiplayer game that shows the future of graphics.

 

[Master Kuja]

Where did you get this and why was I not informed sooner? Gimme specs, links, and $3000

Honestly I bought Alienware because I had around a thousand kicking about, doing sweet FA, and a laptop was just more convenient for me because I'm on the move a lot.
It's an M15x before the stock specs went to shit, I'm running an Intel Core i7 with a 4ghz turbo boost clock which works utter wonders in game, an Nvidia GT 240m (Hyrbid/SLI enabled) (The GTX 260m upgrade fell JUST out of my price range), 4gb DDR3 RAM and Windows 7.

Yes, I'm aware I could have built a desktop for much cheaper, but as I said, a laptop was simply more convenient for me because I travel a lot, the heat sinks are great, it never dangerously overheats. Sure, it gets quite warm at times, but it's really not an issue, it's a brilliant machine that I really don't regret buying because it runs everything I can throw at it perfectly.

 

[jason27131]

Uh, since when can a GT 240m run Bad company 2 on highest settings without lag? Hell, a GTX 260 on the pc can just run it at 40 fps with an i7, and a GTX 260 desktop card is like 2 - 3 times more powerful than a GT 240m.

And OP, just because you can run L4D2 and Portal means shit. They run on an engine that's around 4 years old now, while Shattered Horizon runs on a benchmarking engine. It's like complaining that Crysis doesn't run smooth on your pc just because you can run L4D2. Just no. Go sob your story to someone else who actually gives a damn.

Bottom line is: you don't meet the reqs. L4D2 and SH have completely different engines, so just because one works doesn't mean the other one will automatically. Low-end users are NOT entitled to play every game there is, because gaming is a priviledge. Devs can stop making games tomorrow, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it, so stop crying about how low-end pcs should be able to run every game. Pc gaming means med to high end machines. That's the cost of playing games on pc. Deal with it and stop QQing.

 

[Flames66]

You say it's an awesome game, and then randomly hate it just because you can't run it. It's a fun multiplayer game that shows the future of graphics.

That's the problem. Graphics really don't need to get any better than HL2 level. Other things need to be focussed on now like better AI.

 

[Skullmaster123]

Uh, since when can a GT 240m run Bad company 2 on highest settings without lag? Hell, a GTX 260 on the pc can just run it at 40 fps with an i7, and a GTX 260 desktop card is like 2 - 3 times more powerful than a GT 240m.

And OP, just because you can run L4D2 and Portal means shit. They run on an engine that's around 4 years old now, while Shattered Horizon runs on a benchmarking engine. It's like complaining that Crysis doesn't run smooth on your pc just because you can run L4D2. Just no. Go sob your story to someone else who actually gives a damn.

Bottom line is: you don't meet the reqs. L4D2 and SH have completely different engines, so just because one works doesn't mean the other one will automatically. Low-end users are NOT entitled to play every game there is, because gaming is a priviledge. Devs can stop making games tomorrow, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it, so stop crying about how low-end pcs should be able to run every game. Pc gaming means med to high end machines. That's the cost of playing games on pc. Deal with it and stop QQing.

That doesn't change the fact that L4D2 and Portal still have pretty high tech graphics.

 

[Flames66]

Uh, since when can a GT 240m run Bad company 2 on highest settings without lag? Hell, a GTX 260 on the pc can just run it at 40 fps with an i7, and a GTX 260 desktop card is like 2 - 3 times more powerful than a GT 240m.

And OP, just because you can run L4D2 and Portal means shit. They run on an engine that's around 4 years old now, while Shattered Horizon runs on a benchmarking engine. It's like complaining that Crysis doesn't run smooth on your pc just because you can run L4D2. Just no. Go sob your story to someone else who actually gives a damn.

Bottom line is: you don't meet the reqs. L4D2 and SH have completely different engines, so just because one works doesn't mean the other one will automatically. Low-end users are NOT entitled to play every game there is, because gaming is a priviledge. Devs can stop making games tomorrow, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it, so stop crying about how low-end pcs should be able to run every game. Pc gaming means med to high end machines. That's the cost of playing games on pc. Deal with it and stop QQing.

That doesn't change the fact that L4D2 and Portal still have pretty high tech graphics.

Exactly. There is a massive focus on graphics in the games industry which is driving all but the most dedicated PC gamers to the consoles.

I personally will not upgrade to anything newer for gaming until my laptop packs up and stops working. My point is that this focus on graphics means that I have very little interest in most new game releases because I'm probably not going to be able to play them, they probably will not meet my often very specific requirements and by the time they are at a reasonable price they will be about 10 years old anyway.

 

[jason27131]

If you think L4D2 and Portal have high tech graphics, you're wrong. Go check out the texture differences between Crysis and L4D2. Huge difference. The textures in Portal are horrible. The only saving grace is the HDR lighting, but that's standard in all games now. Even the Unreal 3 engine is better than the valve engine, other than the pop-in textures which is annoying.

Valve engine is the easiest engine to run on a low end system, so comparing games made from valve engines to other games is not a fair representation of a machine's power at all.

Exactly. There is a massive focus on graphics in the games industry which is driving all but the most dedicated PC gamers to the consoles.

I personally will not upgrade to anything newer for gaming until my laptop packs up and stops working. My point is that this focus on graphics means that I have very little interest in most new game releases because I'm probably not going to be able to play them, they probably will not meet my often very specific requirements and by the time they are at a reasonable price they will be about 10 years old anyway.

How is a graphics drive pushing pc gamers to consoles? Pc games have superior graphics in nearly every game there is. Console are for casual gamers that can't afford to spend $800 for a machine that can play games. That's right. $800 is all you need to buy a pc capable of running crysis on high at 30 fps @ 1650 x 1050. Tha may seem hugely expensive compared to consoles. But then again, almost everyone has a pc that costs at least $600, and if you add in the cost of a console, around 300$, you got enough money to buy a gaming pc. So don't give me bs about how gaming pc's are expensive as hell. They're not.

And seriously, your talk is one of a person who can't afford to play games at all. Reasonable price? what's reasonable? 10$? Face it. All AAA games are at least 50$ these days, and if you can't afford that, quit gaming. What you're basically saying is that you will stop gaming until games you want turn 10 years old, and looks and plays like complete shit compared to games coming out 10 years from now.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Well your problem is quite clearly that you have a laptop.

As I mentioned before, my laptop can run TF2, L4D2, Hl2 and all the Episodes and Portal perfectly. All of these games look great without any of the DirectX 10 stuff that this game requires. These are therefore much better games (in my opinion) as they can reach a larger audience without costing them an arm and a leg for new hardware.

So as I said before, Shattered Horizon can Get in the bin!

That's because they're old games build on an even older engine. Don't expect new games to run on old hardware. Not that it's that bad actually, building a computer that runs modern games smoothly isn't as nearly as expensive as one would think.

That's the problem. Graphics really don't need to get any better than HL2 level. Other things need to be focussed on now like better AI.

Nothing 'needs' to be. Gaming in general doesn't 'need' to exist. You can't just expect that everyone caters to you. Fact is; hardware progresses, that's normal, and it makes perfect sense that game developers use that hardware.

And proper AI needs some beefy calculations as well which also requires you to upgrade your hardware, if you think it's just the increased graphics that's been increasing hardware demands on games then you're sorely mistaken. It's not just pretty pictures that put a load on your computer. Heck, with your example, Shattered Horizon, I'm not even sure it's the uber graphics that requires such a high system, my bet lies with the extensive physics in that game.

I don't think you know much about computer hardware and what makes games tick. That would explain all this.

 

[KnowYourOnion]

So your mad that a game studio is trying to push forward and drop legacy support to better improve the end product and your also mad that your laptop cant run a game created by a studio that does nothing else but create graphic benchmarks?.....right....

Not the case. I am saying that over done graphics are holding the games industry back. They are taking all of the budget that could be spent on more worthwhile endeavours such as improving AI or hiring writers.

James on the other hand is fuming out of principal.

You mean hiring writers to work on a plot in a game that doesn't have a single player (as far as I'm aware)

and AI for what is most certainly an online game

and there's nothing wrong going overboard on graphics, it's the developers choice if they want to make their game incredibly good looking at the expense of losing customers who can't run it.

Did you actually check the system specs before you bought it?

 

[Hiphophippo]

Where did you get this and why was I not informed sooner? Gimme specs, links, and $3000

Honestly I bought Alienware because I had around a thousand kicking about, doing sweet FA, and a laptop was just more convenient for me because I'm on the move a lot.
It's an M15x before the stock specs went to shit, I'm running an Intel Core i7 with a 4ghz turbo boost clock which works utter wonders in game, an Nvidia GT 240m (Hyrbid/SLI enabled) (The GTX 260m upgrade fell JUST out of my price range), 4gb DDR3 RAM and Windows 7.

Yes, I'm aware I could have built a desktop for much cheaper, but as I said, a laptop was simply more convenient for me because I travel a lot, the heat sinks are great, it never dangerously overheats. Sure, it gets quite warm at times, but it's really not an issue, it's a brilliant machine that I really don't regret buying because it runs everything I can throw at it perfectly.

I'm the exact same only I have an ASUS laptop. Mobility is a deciding factor for me hence the laptop instead of desktop purchase.

You can't tell anyone differently though. People have it set in their minds that laptops are apprently 10 years behind the hardware curve despite mine playing Shattered Horizons perfectly fine on very high settings. Any mention of a laptop and people scream LOL LAPTOP but just laugh at them. They don't know any better.

edit

I like that this guy is parading around his opinion of gaming graphics as fact. If developers want to continue to wow me with great graphics I say let them. Obviously a game does not have to have state of the art graphics to be amazing. It's a bonus.

And I love bonuses.

 

[jason27131]

The only reason why you can run games on a gaming laptop on high on dated hardware (in terms of performance, not release date) is because most laptop have really low res. like 1400 x 900 res. Very few laptops actually have high res like 1920 x 1080, and that's a huge factor in terms of gaming.

But I agree with you on the graphics. Things progress, and so does hardware. That's why devs take advantage of them. It's like saying we don't need new consoles after ps2, because ps2 graphics are good enough.

 

[Master Kuja]

I'm the exact same only I have an ASUS laptop. Mobility is a deciding factor for me hence the laptop instead of desktop purchase.

You can't tell anyone differently though. People have it set in their minds that laptops are apprently 10 years behind the hardware curve despite mine playing Shattered Horizons perfectly fine on very high settings. Any mention of a laptop and people scream LOL LAPTOP but just laugh at them. They don't know any better.

edit

I like that this guy is parading around his opinion of gaming graphics as fact. If developers want to continue to wow me with great graphics I say let them. Obviously a game does not have to have state of the art graphics to be amazing. It's a bonus.

And I love bonuses.

Yeah, the mobility factor was such a big issue for me, so we're in pretty much the same boat.

My friends seem to have a similar idea in their head, they think that because I have a laptop, it's instantly inferior despite the fact that one of my friends owns a rig outfitted with a Dual Core 2.6gh processor and an 8800gt, and my laptop has wiped the floor with his desktop FPS wise on pretty much every game we've played time and time again, these days I just ignore it, in the end my laptop was a choice of convenience, mobility and raw power. It does all three outstandingly well and I'm happy with it.

The only reason why you can run games on a gaming laptop on high on dated hardware (in terms of performance, not release date) is because most laptop have really low res. like 1400 x 900 res. Very few laptops actually have high res like 1920 x 1080, and that's a huge factor in terms of gaming.

Serious question, would you call 1600x1080 low res? Just out of interest.

 

[jason27131]

nope. I call that med - high res. Most med - high res laptops have hardware that can run games at the level, so I'm not saying anything about that. When I say gaming laptops, I don't mean the ones that are 1200 +. I mean the ones most people can afford, and that's the gaming laptops around $900. I assure you, a 1700$ laptop will have no problem playing any game out right now on max details at 1920 x 1200.

 

[Flames66]

You mean hiring writers to work on a plot in a game that doesn't have a single player (as far as I'm aware)

and AI for what is most certainly an online game

and there's nothing wrong going overboard on graphics, it's the developers choice if they want to make their game incredibly good looking at the expense of losing customers who can't run it.

Did you actually check the system specs before you bought it?

Let me answer your last point first. I DID NOT BUY THIS GAME, I WAS PLAYING THE FREE WEEKEND ON STEAM! DID YOU EVEN BOTHER TO READ MY POST BEFORE REPLYING?

Now for the first two, I was not talking about just this game, but about trends in games in general. Graphics takes precedence over other aspects of the game.

And yes I agree that it is the developers choice, however I won't buy games where this is the case and neither will allot of other people. I am much more interested in lower budget games where the people in charge did some creative thinking rather than just throwing money at a game until it works.

How is a graphics drive pushing pc gamers to consoles? Pc games have superior graphics in nearly every game there is. Console are for casual gamers that can't afford to spend $800 for a machine that can play games. That's right. $800 is all you need to buy a pc capable of running crysis on high at 30 fps @ 1650 x 1050. Tha may seem hugely expensive compared to consoles. But then again, almost everyone has a pc that costs at least $600, and if you add in the cost of a console, around 300$, you got enough money to buy a gaming pc. So don't give me bs about how gaming pc's are expensive as hell. They're not.

Now what is that in Pounds Sterling? My laptop cost just over £500 and plays all my other games perfectly.

And seriously, your talk is one of a person who can't afford to play games at all. Reasonable price? what's reasonable? 10$? Face it. All AAA games are at least 50$ these days, and if you can't afford that, quit gaming. What you're basically saying is that you will stop gaming until games you want turn 10 years old, and looks and plays like complete shit compared to games coming out 10 years from now.

Reasonable price is no more than £10 for most games (I will go up to £15 for a game that is exceptionally interesting).

 

[Tharwen]

I didn't like Shattered Horizon. I think there was a free weekend already and I tried it then, and I just found it to be at the level of a free mod put together as an experiment. The graphics were pretty bad, the controls were pretty bad, and it just wasn't particularly entertaining.

 

[Sebenko]

Didn't you read the system requirements?

I don't think he even looked at the store page. It's in BIG orange text:

OP: why are you kicking up such a stink about one game which won't run on XP? It's not like they hid that fact away.

Tech moves on. Sure, you say "oh, let's stay at HL2 graphics". Who's going to make developers stop improving? Ban graphics better than HL2? SH was all about graphics. Should they be banned from saying "lets see how good we can make a game's graphics"? Should cars like the Bugatti Veyron (built as a technical exercise) be banned?

 

[Bobzer77]

my laptop

Well there's your problem.
Laptops are fine for a bit of Dwarf Fortress or Dawn of War on the go but not for any serious gaming.

I thought Shattered Horizon was amazing though, great graphics, amazing and original gameplay and the new maps they released are great fun and brilliantly designed.

 

[Flames66]

OP: why are you kicking up such a stink about one game which won't run on XP? It's not like they hid that fact away.

Tech moves on. Sure, you say "oh, let's stay at HL2 graphics". Who's going to make developers stop improving? Ban graphics better than HL2? SH was all about graphics. Should they be banned from saying "lets see how good we can make a game's graphics"? Should cars like the Bugatti Veyron (built as a technical exercise) be banned?

You're not listening are you? I am not trying to force anyone to do anything. I am simply stating my opinion. I've stated it so many times in this thread that I will not state it again for your benefit, but here's the overall point:

I will not buy Shattered Horizon because I consider it to be a graphics oriented piece of Cetacean Ejaculate. This is a shame because it also had some innovative features that I was interested in, the reason I decided to try it out in the first place. I advise anyone who uses a low end system, or values backwards compatibility not to buy it either.

my laptop

Well there's your problem.
Laptops are fine for a bit of Dwarf Fortress or Dawn of War on the go but not for any serious gaming.

I refer you to this post:

Well your problem is quite clearly that you have a laptop.

As I mentioned before, my laptop can run TF2, L4D2, Hl2 and all the Episodes and Portal perfectly. All of these games look great without any of the DirectX 10 stuff that this game requires. These are therefore much better games (in my opinion) as they can reach a larger audience without costing them an arm and a leg for new hardware.

So as I said before, Shattered Horizon can Get in the bin!