Shattered Horizon: Graphic Overload

[Flames66]

Firstly let me set the scene. A friend and I downloaded Shattered Horizon for the free weekend on Steam. It appeared to be a good buy, innovative ideas and within my budget (I will not pay more than £10 for a game).

As soon as the downloads finished and we tried to play, we encountered some major problems. My friend uses Windows XP and it would not run. Apparently it doesn't run on anything less than DirectX 10. This was nearly enough for me to stop right there as, without company, it would be a greatly reduced experience.

However I decided to soldier on and give it a try as I am running Windows 7. Now comes my second problem. After a 10 minute loading time I finally got onto a server and found the game had a running frame rate of about 3 FPS. Confused, I went into the graphical settings and found them to be very poorly implemented, with only three options for each.

I set each to the lowest and tried again. After a slightly better loading time (very slightly) I got onto a server and was immediately told that the game was over. A new map loaded and I looked on in dismay as my laptop, diligently trying to process the overload to it's graphics card, presented me with about 10 FPS, even on lowest settings. I decided at this point that it was not worth continuing any further as the game was clearly another overdone festival of pointless graphics.

So here's the discussion. What do you think of the current trend for constantly expanding the graphics, at the expense of other aspects of gameplay and of lower end users?

Also what do you think of Shattered Horizon?

My opinion: Get it in the Bin!

 

[JamesCameron]

I was so enraged at the little message that popped up and stuck around like a bad smell saying "Shattered Horizon requires DirectX 10 or above using Windows Vista and above" (Takes a breath) that I made an account on this site and commented on my friend's post. I think a game like this not being compatible with previous version of an OS is just ridiculous. I did not even play the game so no comment on its content, upon seeing this message I did not even make any attempt to Google a fix for it or for further explanation. I immediately deleted the game followed by several swear words aimed at the manufacturers of the game and a lengthy conversation with Flames on the matter of principle and this game.

 

[phxprovost]

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....

 

[Flames66]

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.

 

[Baby Tea]

I think a game like this not being compatible with previous version of an OS is just ridiculous.

All things come to an end. That includes OS support.
Windows 95 or 98 isn't being supported, why not complain about them?
Windows XP is a bit different, obviously, as it's still very much in use. But it was bound to happen sooner or later. DirectX 10 is only on Visa and up, and if people want game companies to use the best assets available, then they can't be stuck in earlier versions of DirectX. So get a newer version of Windows, or live with the fact that you're using an ever increasingly outdated OS. That is, as they say, the way the ball bounces.

 

[Nimbus]

What, so you are angry because you didn't read (or couldn't understand) the system requirements, and automatically assumed that the game would work well on your system? Not the smartest reason to get mad at the game...

As for the trend? Why should I care about low-end users? If you can't spend a few hundred Dollars on a decent setup, you shouldn't expect to play the recent, highend games. It's as simple as that.

Also, trying to game on a laptop? Bad move.

 

[thiosk]

System requirements:

Direct X 10

If you have direct X <10, and you still bought it, not sure what to say to you, except XP has been around for a decade, and software changes over the eons.

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.

Likewise, no one gets pissy when they can't jam their PS3 disk into an XBox and have flawless performance.


Finally, I do not have sympathy for people who buy "gaming" laptops and try to game on them, then complain about problems. A desktop system, especially one parted together intelligently from a source like newegg, is much more cost effective. You buy a "gaming" laptop for gaming, you get an uncomfortable, heavy brick with heat and power consumption problems.

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

 

[Avaholic03]

I immediately deleted the game followed by several swear words aimed at the manufacturers of the game.

Yes, because we know what manufacturers are going to respond to is swear words. Maybe next time try a more calm, reasonable approach. There's a chance they would even refund your purchase (although I'm pretty sure Steam games tell you minimum system requirements before you buy them). More than anything, it sounds like you're just annoyed at your own stupidity for not doing a tiny bit of research before you bought something.

Also, to the OP: pretty much the same goes for you. Read the minimum specs before buying a game. Also, trying to game on a laptop (unless it's a really expensive laptop) is always going to be failing endeavor.

 

[JamesCameron]

If you had read up you would see that we only downloaded it for the free weekend... Also do not give me that rubbish about the whole OS support thing not being an issue. I can think of plenty of people who got their "arse" out when Halo 2 came out as "Games for Vista"

Edit: Also I have plenty of other computers in my house that have Vista on. This is not me disguising my frustration at not having the latest OS as a rant about ethics...

 

[Akiada]

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....

Pushing forward doesn't mean you can't have scalability. Valve's L4D2 looks amazing with all it's settings cranked. Yet you can make it looks terrible for pure performance as well and have it be as smooth as silk on even dated hardware.

What SH does is lack any scalability whatsoever. You MUST have great hardware or suffer the consequences.

Sure, one can jump on their high-horse and say "We cater to those with great machines!" but if you do that at the expense of everyone else (IE, no scaling like L4D2 does) you shoot yourself in the foot because then those people won't play and buy your game.

 

[Weaver]

This is a classic case of progress vs. consumer breadth.

Windows XP retailed in 2001, it is 9 years old. Direct X 10 video cards have been on the market for almost 4 years now.

It is not fun to have to support DX9 and DX10 as a developer. Now, with DX11 on the way what are they going to do? Support DX9, DX10 and DX11? That's just too much of a hassle. Eventually, DX9 is going to be phased out and the time of phasing out is upon us.

 

[JamesCameron]

Once again no clue...

 

[Flames66]

Also, trying to game on a laptop? Bad move.

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....

System requirements:

Direct X 10

If you have direct X <10, and you still bought it, not sure what to say to you, except XP has been around for a decade, and software changes over the eons.


Finally, I do not have sympathy for people who buy "gaming" laptops and try to game on them, then complain about problems. A desktop system, especially one parted together intelligently from a source like newegg, is much more cost effective. You buy a "gaming" laptop for gaming, you get an uncomfortable, heavy brick with heat and power consumption problems.

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

In order:

Nimbus. Yes I am trying to game on my laptop. 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.

phxprovost. Yes I am. Backwards compatibility is a requirement. Implement graphics settings so that they can be scaled down to look like Jedi Academy and then I might buy your game.

thiosk. See above about games that can run on my laptop. Everything else runs fine, this game doesn't, so this game is poorly designed for low end systems.

Pushing forward doesn't mean you can't have scalability. Valve's L4D2 looks amazing with all it's settings cranked. Yet you can make it looks terrible for pure performance as well and have it be as smooth as silk on even dated hardware.

What SH does is lack any scalability whatsoever. You MUST have great hardware or suffer the consequences.

Sure, one can jump on their high-horse and say "We cater to those with great machines!" but if you do that at the expense of everyone else (IE, no scaling like L4D2 does) you shoot yourself in the foot because then those people won't play and buy your game.

Exactly my point.

Oh and by the way, all please welcome my friend James to the Escapist.

 

[JamesCameron]

There is nothing wrong with his laptop. Trust me...

 

[syndicated44]

I consider Shattered Horizons more along the lines of an interactive benchmark then an actual game. I need to test my computer with it whenever I get 7 though.

 

[jamesworkshop]

SH was made by Futuremark is kinda of the point to test grahics hardware

 

[Flames66]

SH was made by Futuremark is kinda of the point to test grahics hardware

I wish they would do that with a different game. This game had all the features of something good.

 

[phxprovost]

phxprovost. Yes I am. Backwards compatibility is a requirement. Implement graphics settings so that they can be scaled down to look like Jedi Academy and then I might buy your game.

Im sorry but Dx9 is the plague of the pc gaming world and the second its truly dropped is the moment we can actually push forward with better engines and thus better games.

 

[Flames66]

phxprovost. Yes I am. Backwards compatibility is a requirement. Implement graphics settings so that they can be scaled down to look like Jedi Academy and then I might buy your game.

Im sorry but Dx9 is the plague of the pc gaming world and the second its truly dropped is the moment we can actually push forward with better engines and thus better games.

How is this the case? What is so limiting about it?

 

[FlashHero]

I run the game fine with a mere 9800 GTX+ ...i followed Shattered Horizon since before it came out...they only did DX10 cuz they used the same engine they make stress tests with(edited so it didnt stress anymore) and all in all the game it's self is okay..didn't like it so much after a week...I applaud their move with DX10 only for if everyone uses the old sys(dx9) then it wont die and i want it to die(DX 11 is already out dammit)...for the more ppl who upgrade the more upgrades that can be made.