Shattered Horizon: Graphic Overload

[jason27131]

I never said deliberately now did I? All i meant was that your words implied that if people don't agree with your points, they're a dumbass.

And seriously, if you bought a 500$ laptop and refuse to upgrade, you have no reason nor entitled to complain about anything. Like I said, Pc gaming is all about hardware, and if you have shitty hardware, you won't be able to run games. That's your problem, so don't ***** and complain about how you're entitled to play every game.

Finally, I already read your posts. You don't come out and say these things like a straight forward person, but you imply them, whether you mean it or not, and anyone who's not an idiot can see that. You go on and gloat about how Valve is so amazing with their engines, and think that every engine you can't run is automatically crap for not "scaling" to a low end pc.

 

[kibayasu]

Yes it is more concise, however it doesn't convey my point as well.

Your point, as you constantly remind us, isn't that you couldn't run Shattered Horizon but because there is a "...trend for constantly expanding the graphics, at the expense of other aspects of gameplay and of lower end users." Those are your words by the way. I get it, really, I do. Its a conversation I've had many times. However my example, instead of railing against a specific game you couldn't run, gets to the point. It uses Shattered Horizon as an example instead of complaining about it for an entire post. Speaking of your own words...

I did not say source is all it should ever need to run.

It runs HL2 and all the episodes, TF2, Portal and L4D2 perfectly. That is the highest level of graphics required as far as I am concerned.

Heh.

 

[jason27131]

1 word: owned.

 

[KnowYourOnion]

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.

Okay old boy chill out a bit, no need to the caplock-alypse! And for your information I did read your opening post and I apologise from the deepest pits of my heart if I offended you so with a simple mistake!

Oh and Shattered Horizon is most certainly a low budget game, this is the first game the developers have ever made so they probably aren't awash with money.

 

[Flames66]

I never said deliberately now did I? All i meant was that your words implied that if people don't agree with your points, they're a dumbass.

And seriously, if you bought a 500$ laptop and refuse to upgrade, you have no reason nor entitled to complain about anything. Like I said, Pc gaming is all about hardware, and if you have shitty hardware, you won't be able to run games. That's your problem, so don't ***** and complain about how you're entitled to play every game.

Finally, I already read your posts. You don't come out and say these things like a straight forward person, but you imply them, whether you mean it or not, and anyone who's not an idiot can see that. You go on and gloat about how Valve is so amazing with their engines, and think that every engine you can't run is automatically crap for not "scaling" to a low end pc.

Scalability is one of my requirements. If an engine does not have it, it is in my opinion a bad engine. That is my opinion and I am entitled to it.

Not everyone can afford to buy a new laptop every couple of months. I am economical with my money, so I won't buy new until the old is broken.

1 word: owned.

How about I come out and say it then. Yes I can imply things and use wordplay to get my point across. Apparently I have a better grasp of language than you, in spite of being dyslexic. For that reason I now give myself a pat on the back.

Finally, let's discuss the point of this thread rather than just try to find in my case convoluted, in your case direct ways to insult each other. Any more posts not related to the topic will not be graced with a reply.

 

[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.

Okay old boy chill out a bit, no need to the caplock-alypse! And for your information I did read your opening post and I apologise from the deepest pits of my heart if I offended you so with a simple mistake!

Oh and Shattered Horizon is most certainly a low budget game, this is the first game the developers have ever made so they probably aren't awash with money.

My apologies for the caps attack. Things were beginning to get heated by that stage and I had had to explain that several times already.

I see what you are saying about a lack of funds at the developers end. It would make sense to me for them to want to get as large an audience as possible for their game to increase their monetary worth. I do not believe that it's current state achieves that.

I did not say source is all it should ever need to run.

It runs HL2 and all the episodes, TF2, Portal and L4D2 perfectly. That is the highest level of graphics required as far as I am concerned.

Heh.

"As far as I am concerned." It is my opinion and I stated that, it is not presented as fact.

 

[KnowYourOnion]

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.

Okay old boy chill out a bit, no need to the caplock-alypse! And for your information I did read your opening post and I apologise from the deepest pits of my heart if I offended you so with a simple mistake!

Oh and Shattered Horizon is most certainly a low budget game, this is the first game the developers have ever made so they probably aren't awash with money.

My apologies for the caps attack. Things were beginning to get heated by that stage and I had had to explain that several times already.

I see what you are saying about a lack of funds at the developers end. It would make sense to me for them to want to get as large an audience as possible for their game to increase their monetary worth. I do not believe that it's current state achieves that.

It's no worries, I understand perfectly similar thing has happened to me at points.
They might be going for the whole Crysis crowd thing, so that the only people who can run it are the rich kids with their super duper monster machines.....while we plebs can only look on and sigh.

 

[braincore02]

I have no problem with graphical improvements. Yeah it could be viewed as dumb that they don't allow backwards compatibility with Dx, but in the end, you should have read the system requirements. I hope you learned your lesson.

This is so outstanding I had to comment on it. Do you understand how Direct X works? Have you got any programming experience? If you don't you should keep quiet. If you do you need to do some more research into programming related to graphics engines.

I'm a games programmer and can unequivocally state that this is not possible with a game like Shattered Horizon where they are using new techniques and technologies implemented in the latest Direct X version.

Also given that a large majority of laptops are for business and/or study purposes its fairly easy to generalise that a laptop cannot be reasonably expected to run games at the same level of performance as a similarly priced desktop system.

Jesus man relax, in your nerd rage you totally misinterpreted what I said. I said "yeah it COULD be viewed as dumb," I didn't say I thought it was dumb, but acknowledging the opinion of some others. I also posed my personal opinion, that I have no problem with advancements, and if you didn't bother to read the system requirements you shouldn't complain that you can't play the game.

 

[Signa]

he's an arrogant fool. He's complaining about not being able to play a game, then refuses to upgrade a 4 year old GPU.

These are the breaks of PC gaming. upgrade or don't play. Simple as that. Don't like it? GTFO then. Don't QQ.

Oh very well then here I go. I have made a thread making a valid point and requesting discussion. I stated my opinion at the start and then opened up the floor to debate. You have come into my thread with nothing but massive generalisations, insults and closed mindedness, assuming that everyone thinks the same way as you.

In future, please refrain from posting in serious discussions unless you have something relevant, understandable and most of all polite to add.

I think the problem here is you are letting FAR too much emotion into your posts. You say you never owned a console, so my saying you sound like a whiny console-tard is moot. Regardless, you are still gaming on a laptop and you sound angry about it. Granted, I was pretty angry when Bioshock didn't work on my PC only because of SM3 and not because my other stats didn't line up, but I didn't start threads to vent about it. I just grumbled about it being my first time ever not having the stats to run a game (I was insulted after all) until I got my new video card which is still rocking almost 3 years later.

I think you brought forth a good conversation topic, but the way you are presenting it is causing people to jump on you and not just discuss the merits and follies of games that don't scale well.

 

[Signa]

I spent over five hundred squid on my laptop

I think this is the crux of your problem. Depending on the laptop, $500 may mean shit. I just bought a $750 laptop (its in the mail) and I'm still on edge about what it might or might not do for me. I know the feeling of trying to stick with and love your purchase even when it's smacking you in the face with it's deficiencies, but you are now telling the internet about your problems while still being in denial. No one here is going to sugar-coat their opinion for you, and you're going to have to face facts that your machine isn't going to cut it much longer. If that's a problem, then take solace in the fact that you will be able to use your PC for all pre-source era games. Between console emulators and the barrage of gaming gold that was thrown at us between 97-02, you have PLENTY of use for your laptop still. Just hold out until you can upgrade and then all the current new games will be selling for far cheaper.

 

[kibayasu]

"As far as I am concerned." It is my opinion and I stated that, it is not presented as fact.

You're hopeless. Who the hell said you stated it as a fact? We are allowed to debate the merits of your personal opinions you know. Opinions are not unassailable bastions of personal knowledge. I don't care what your opinion is, I care about how you came to it. You said you didn't say Source engine graphics are all that needs to be produced. I pointed you to the very passage that you said it. You then throw out a non-sequiter about how its your opinion. This apparently nullifies what I said? Get a grip on reality.

Your tone continues to reek of arroganceand elitsm, and people responding to you are reacting as one would expect people to, with hostility.

 

[scotth266]

If you had bothered to read the game's page on Steam, it has in gigantic orange letters:

NOTE: DOES NOT WORK WITH COMPUTERS THAT ARE NOT DIRECTX 10 COMPATIBLE.

Failing to pay attention to that is not the game dev's fault.

 

[bismarck55]

I get a kick out of these hilarious anti-laptop crusaders. My $600 laptop runs mass effect, Dragon Age and Fallout 3 on mid to high settings, and I can put it in my bag bring it anywhere I want. I don't need a desktop.

 

[Ushario]

Jesus man relax, in your nerd rage you totally misinterpreted what I said. I said "yeah it COULD be viewed as dumb," I didn't say I thought it was dumb, but acknowledging the opinion of some others. I also posed my personal opinion, that I have no problem with advancements, and if you didn't bother to read the system requirements you shouldn't complain that you can't play the game.

Apologies, I think I made my statement a little too harsh.

Scalability seems to have developed into the major argument here so I'll address that.
Its simply unrealistic for people to expect cutting edge graphics and huge scalability in games, it takes an immense amount of time to implement the latest in graphics technology and it takes even longer to make everything backwards compatible with a million options to cater to the individuals system.

Its far cheaper for developers of graphically high end games to produce the best product possible to run on current technology than to do the same and have it scale back to five year old hardware. Its not at all an issue of needing this years top end hardware for Direct X 10.

If people take any issue with this there is a very simple solution, move to closed hardware with long life cycles. They are called consoles.

 

[braincore02]

Jesus man relax, in your nerd rage you totally misinterpreted what I said. I said "yeah it COULD be viewed as dumb," I didn't say I thought it was dumb, but acknowledging the opinion of some others. I also posed my personal opinion, that I have no problem with advancements, and if you didn't bother to read the system requirements you shouldn't complain that you can't play the game.

Apologies, I think I made my statement a little too harsh.

Scalability seems to have developed into the major argument here so I'll address that.
Its simply unrealistic for people to expect cutting edge graphics and huge scalability in games, it takes an immense amount of time to implement the latest in graphics technology and it takes even longer to make everything backwards compatible with a million options to cater to the individuals system.

Its far cheaper for developers of graphically high end games to produce the best product possible to run on current technology than to do the same and have it scale back to five year old hardware. Its not at all an issue of needing this years top end hardware for Direct X 10.

If people take any issue with this there is a very simple solution, move to closed hardware with long life cycles. They are called consoles.

No worries man. I agree with everything you say. Seeing as, aside from using a PC for all my non-console gaming needs, I am also a heavy Mac user, you can be sure I have no problem with sacrificing backwards compatibility for the sake of advancement.

 

[unoleian]

.

No one gets pissy when the apple IIe version of oregon trail refuses to run when you fold up the floppy and jam it in the CD drive.

Haha! This made my night. Well played!

---

It's funny, parts of this thread actually reminds me quite a bit of a rant I went on when I discovered the lack of DX8 support in Oblivion. Pretty much, almost exactly. I was very disappointed, very angry, but I grew to learn from it, at least.

Technology inevitably changes and advances, and sooner or later developers have to stop cramming legacy support into everything that they make. It utterly sucks and almost feels like a betrayal on some personal level when it happens to a game we've been looking forward to, but it's really just progress catching up to us.

 

[TheComedown]

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.

This is pretty much it, there is so much more then just a few colours flashing about on a screen when you're running the game.

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.

i wouldn't say that about dwarf fortress, I've heard of instances when even that can bring a decent mid range pc to its knees.

 

[rabidmidget]

I think it's actually the high CPU usage of shattered horizon that makes it require such high specs as it has very complicated gravity physics, which require a fast CPU.

Although a good GPU would still be needed obviously.