BioShock Game for PC

[yairhol]

Have any of you played this game?
It is rated as one of the best first person shooter games EVER.
It got a score of 97 on one site and 90 and above on others.

Is it really that earth shattering?

Regards,
Yair

[DangerousBeliefs]

From what I've seen... you'll need a really powerful computer to play at anything near playable...

Sound familiar? Doom 3 was supposed to be this awesome FPS and you had to upgrade your computer to something mega powerful.

And then you spent all your time wandering around in the dark. :rolleyes:

[Dr. Lao]

I got it today and played it a bit.

Its freaky.

Graphics are great, I have them turned all the way up, and, its not super fast (AMD dual core 4200 with a Nvidia 7900), it is fast enough.

The action is wild.

The story is basically an underwater version of Galt's Gulch (from Atlas Shrugged) society that somehow went bad, really bad and is populated with some nasty folks. Bits and pieces of what went wrong come out via flashbacks and recordings and logs. Its kinda like Deus Ex.

You can implant different things in your body, like the ability to throw electric bolts or telekinesis and the like.

The whole environment is art deco to the extreme and the attention to the smallest detail is there.

If I were foolish enough to have Vista, and an 8000 series card, I could play in DX 10, but that ain't happening.

[athon]

I'm playing it on X-box. I love retro sci-fi stuff, and am wetting myself over Fallout 3 coming soon. In the meantime this game fills my craving perfectly. It has very nice gameplay, the mood is awe inspiring, and the story so far is pretty cool.

I've got a decent sized LCD tv screen, and with the lights out I do find myself literally holding my breath.

I want to know - is there anybody else who just can't bring themselves to killing a Little Sister? Or am I just a big pansy?

Athon

[Zax63]

I want to know - is there anybody else who just can't bring themselves to killing a Little Sister? Or am I just a big pansy?

Athon

I haven't been able to do it either and I'm really tempted to see what the difference is between harvesting and rescuing. I'll probably play through once with all rescues and then give it a try the other way.

As for the original question - I wouldn't rate it quite that high. All the pieces(story, graphics, sound, weapons) are very good but for me the game play is lacking somehow. It's not that I don't enjoy it but I find that an hour or so of play is enough and I move on to something else. There just isn't that "I've gotta know what happens next" feeling. I have not gone very far into the game so maybe it picks up later. I'm just about to enter Fontaine Fisheries for those who are playing.

[IllegalArgument]

I want to know - is there anybody else who just can't bring themselves to killing a Little Sister? Or am I just a big pansy?

Athon

I'm a big pansy too, I completed that game and got a bonus for saving all the girls and a nice cutscene.

So, there is a reward for being good.

Not sure about being bad. :)

[JonnyFive]

If I were foolish enough to have Vista, and an 8000 series card, I could play in DX 10, but that ain't happening.

It runs pretty well in DX10, although the difference graphically is pretty minimal. Basically, it looks 1% more polished with the shaders, that's about it.

On the plus side, the newer nVidia drivers seem to have eliminated the massive performance hit for using DX10. I've got an 8800 GTS, Core2 E6600, and 4 Gb of RAM and it runs smooth as butter with everything maxed at 1920x1080.

I cannot bring myself to kill the little sisters, especially after I found the audio recordings that explain more about where they got the girls from and all that.

[bujin]

I've only got the demo. My set-up is the same as yours, only with 2Gb RAM instead of 4Gb. Runs really smooth in 1280x1024 (I don't bother going any higher).

I've just got to find out how to stop the bugger crashing on me after a few minutes play!

[JonnyFive]

I've only got the demo. My set-up is the same as yours, only with 2Gb RAM instead of 4Gb. Runs really smooth in 1280x1024 (I don't bother going any higher).

I've just got to find out how to stop the bugger crashing on me after a few minutes play!

You mentioned that in the other thread, I remember.

I don't know why it would be crashing, unless you're having issues with the video drivers or something. You have anything resource-intensive running in the background, like anti-spyware or anti-virus software?

[seraosha]

I've only got the demo. My set-up is the same as yours, only with 2Gb RAM instead of 4Gb. Runs really smooth in 1280x1024 (I don't bother going any higher).

I've just got to find out how to stop the bugger crashing on me after a few minutes play!

Try playing with your comp. case off. Sounds like a heating issue.
And please be careful...no one wants a dead gamer.

[bujin]

I don't think it is a heat issue. It could be something to do with the graphics card drivers - on the recommendation of the demo, I upgraded to the latest ones (which appeared to be still in beta). Perhaps if I'd left them as they were, it might have been ok.

The only other game I've had crashing in is Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Everything else works fine.

I do have anti-virus and anti-spyware software running in the background, but I certainly don't want to turn them off! I've done that in the past and been infected with dozens of viruses within seconds! :D

[JonnyFive]

I don't think it is a heat issue. It could be something to do with the graphics card drivers - on the recommendation of the demo, I upgraded to the latest ones (which appeared to be still in beta). Perhaps if I'd left them as they were, it might have been ok.

You could try rolling back to the latest non-beta drivers, perhaps. Other than that, make sure Windows is up to date, blah blah blah. It's probably not that, so I'd give the drivers a shot and see what happens.

I do have anti-virus and anti-spyware software running in the background, but I certainly don't want to turn them off! I've done that in the past and been infected with dozens of viruses within seconds! :D

Geez, what the hell are you doing with that computer?! :)

Truthfully, I've never had any problems with my AV software (AVG Free before, Avast! now) causing crashes. Is the software set to auto-scan after a set period of time? I had the computer lock up once or twice because AVG decided that the best time to run a full hard drive scan was while I was playing a resource hogging game.

[pspaddict]

I do have anti-virus and anti-spyware software running in the background, but I certainly don't want to turn them off! I've done that in the past and been infected with dozens of viruses within seconds! :D

Anti-virus programs really do eat up a lot of resources. You can disconnect from the Web and try playing the game that way.

[JonnyFive]

Anti-virus programs really do eat up a lot of resources. You can disconnect from the Web and try playing the game that way.

The big problem with the AV programs is if the enter active scanning mode (which does use a lot of resources), or if they decide to bork up something in the processes the game needs.

I'm not sure about the whole market, but every AV program I've had running in passive mode uses maybe 1 - 2 Mb of RAM at most, and < 1% of the CPU resources (it doesn't even register on the Windows CPU monitor). Unless the program starts scanning, it shouldn't cause performance-related issues - the big problem is if it decides a game process or file is suspicious and does something with it.

[seraosha]

Incorrect graphic drivers would give you display errors, or no display at all.
Set your CMOS to warn you of extreme temp changes on your CPU, and set your software interface for your vid card to monitor temp.

A few minutes of play then a drop to desktop, or a full system crash is exactly what a heating issue would do.

Certainly a bunch of memory intensive apps running in the background are not going to help, but I disagree on that being the primary issue.

Good luck, as I hear from friends that that game is very cool.

[bujin]

I'll try the CMOS thing to see if it is a heating issue, but I haven't had any other issues, and I use my computer a lot! I'll try rolling back to previous drivers too see if that helps.

My AV software doesn't auto-scan or anything like that, so that's not the issue either.

[JonnyFive]

Incorrect graphic drivers would give you display errors, or no display at all.

I was thinking more of stability issues, as bujin is currently using the latest beta drivers from nVidia, and their stability with various hardware/software configurations is still up in the air.

The worst-case with having the wrong drivers is that they won't do anything, and Windows will default to its 800x600 (or 640x480 or whatever), 16-bit color default driver mode.

Set your CMOS to warn you of extreme temp changes on your CPU, and set your software interface for your vid card to monitor temp.

Unless he's heavily OCing, or playing in a very hot room, I don't know if heat is a likely culprit. In my experience, the overheating components tend to get unstable and you see artifacting and other related issues (slowdown on the processor) before they start getting crashy.

If he is overclocking the video card by a lot, it might be heat, or it might simply be that the card can't run that clock/memory frequency without generating sufficient data errors to cause crashes.

It is worth taking some temperature readings, though. nVidia's control panel will report your GPU temp, which is a good place to start, and your BIOS should report your CPU temp (there are programs under Windows that can also report this info, I believe).

A few minutes of play then a drop to desktop, or a full system crash is exactly what a heating issue would do.

Possibly, but it could be caused by other issues as well. I've seen apps crash randomly due to conflicts with video codecs, driver conflicts, conflicts with other running programs, conflicts with the OS, conflicts with APIs installed on the computer, and all kinds of crap.

Certainly a bunch of memory intensive apps running in the background are not going to help, but I disagree on that being the primary issue.

Generally, the problems I've seen with background apps doesn't tend to be memory or CPU use so much as conflicts when trying to access various resources. Sometimes a background process will try to access a chunk of memory, or a CPU resource that the game is trying to use, and the programs can't resolve the problem so it crashes.

If the issue is overuse of resources, you're more likely to see slowdown rather than crashing. It might crash if the system is really bogged down, but that should be pretty apparent.

Good luck, as I hear from friends that that game is very cool.

I really, really is. :)

Anyway, bujin, is this a problem with other games? What are your GPU/CPU temperatures? Are you overclocking anything, and by how much? Anything weird running in the background?

[JonnyFive]

I'll try the CMOS thing to see if it is a heating issue, but I haven't had any other issues, and I use my computer a lot! I'll try rolling back to previous drivers too see if that helps.

My AV software doesn't auto-scan or anything like that, so that's not the issue either.

That's good. Well, see if the drivers help and then go from there.

For a while the game Oblivion would keep crashing on me because it was fussy about some video codec I had installed (the game tried to use something in the system that was somehow related to the memory the codec occupied, and it didn't like that). God, that was a pain in the ass.

[Cuddles]

So, there is a reward for being good.

Not sure about being bad. :)

I don't know if there's a reward for being bad, but I'm well on my way to finding out.:p

I have to say I am a little disappointed with this game overall, mainly because of all the claims that were made about it. Firstly, I've seen lots of articles going on about the choices available and the open nature of the game, but it's pretty much entirely linear with a fixed storyline and very little in the way of choice. Secondly, while the graphics are very good, the fuss made about the water just isn't justified. Yes, it all looks good while lying in puddles or as spray, but a lot of the moving water still looks about as realistic as crepe paper. There are also quite a few places where there has obviously been no effort made at all. One that really caught my eye was a curtain that was just a flat wall with a drawing of a curtain, no attempt to put any realism at all.

Overall, I'm with Zax63. It's a good game, and one that I'll play to the end and probably come back to at some point, but it just doesn't have the compelling quality that marks a really good game. The graphics are up to date, but nothing really ground-breaking. The sound is standard surround. The gameplay is linear. It has some nice ideas, like the plasmids, but nothing really new. Although I haven't finished it once yet, it seems that there is no replayability since other than alternate endings the whole game will play exactly the same every time. I like it, it's fun and atmospheric, but it's certainly not the "shooter 2.0" that it's claimed to be.

Edit: I'm not sure where people get performance issues from. I've got a fairly old (~2 years) Pentium D and GeForce 6800 and I can run it with full graphics with no problems at all.

[IllegalArgument]

I agree it's not the next generation of shooters.

It is an extremely solidly built shooter, it's like watching a well executed action movie, ie Die Hard 4.

Good ending spoiler

After rescuing all the children, you leave the city with them, they grow up, go to college, get married and have children. As you lay dying on your bed of old age, they are there to comfort you.

Sweet and sappy ending.


No idea about the bad ending

[JonnyFive]

I'm not clicking on that until I finish the game, god damn it! :D

[bignickel]

The whole 'securom' running under System privileges does not want to make me install this anytime soon, until someone gets that sorted out. Especially if you're limited to only 5 (total) installs.

Need to wipe your hard drive due to worm or virus activity? Hard drive gets trashed? Better hope that it doesn't happen more than 5 times.

Generally, if I buy software, I prefer to be the one to decide if it runs or not, not some company after the fact.

http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=5805

[bujin]

Unless he's heavily OCing, or playing in a very hot room, I don't know if heat is a likely culprit. In my experience, the overheating components tend to get unstable and you see artifacting and other related issues (slowdown on the processor) before they start getting crashy.

Yup, that's my experience too. I've had a graphics card that overheated before and before it totally died, I had lots of coloured dots all over the screen.

I'm not OCing - I never bother with that. And my room isn't particularly hot either. I think it's adequately cooled for a standard C2D chip.

It is worth taking some temperature readings, though. nVidia's control panel will report your GPU temp, which is a good place to start, and your BIOS should report your CPU temp (there are programs under Windows that can also report this info, I believe).

I'm just looking for an application that will do that. I'll report back when I have some numbers!

Anyway, bujin, is this a problem with other games? What are your GPU/CPU temperatures? Are you overclocking anything, and by how much? Anything weird running in the background?

The only other game I've had problems with is Splinter Cell: Double Agent. It crashed quite frequently, but always when I had died and tried to reload the level, and only on one particular level - after a while, it sorted itself out!

Other games I've tried with no problem are:
* Hitman: Blood Money
* Armed Assault
* MS Flight Sim X
* Orbiter
* Thief: Deadly Shadows
* The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
* STALKER

There's nothing much running in the background that should cause problems.

Anyway, as I say, I'll get back with some temperatures as soon as I have them!

[bujin]

Right. My graphics card is reporting at around 58-60 degrees when "idle" (not really idle, as there's a small amount of stuff going on in the background, but it's pretty negligible). Running the Bioshock demo with the GPU monitor in the background, it crashed in the same place as last time, and the highest temperature appeared to be around 74 degrees.

I checked around on the net and I see that nVidia GPUs are capable of going a lot higher (90 or 100+) without any problems.

As for the CPU, I installed Motherboard Monitor, but I'm having problems configuring it, as my motherboard (Abit IL9 Pro) isn't listed. So I used the CMOS thing instead. The system temperature is running at a very cool 29 degrees and the CPU at 38 degrees. Of course, that's when the system is idle, so it will go a lot higher than that, but it doesn't sound as if it should be overheating when busy!

[IllegalArgument]

If it makes you PC gamers feel any better, I have had some glitches on my 360.

Every 20 loads, the whole system freezes up and I have to reboot the thing.

Fortuately, I only use the load command about 3 times a day.

[JonnyFive]

Right. My graphics card is reporting at around 58-60 degrees when "idle" (not really idle, as there's a small amount of stuff going on in the background, but it's pretty negligible). Running the Bioshock demo with the GPU monitor in the background, it crashed in the same place as last time, and the highest temperature appeared to be around 74 degrees.

I checked around on the net and I see that nVidia GPUs are capable of going a lot higher (90 or 100+) without any problems.

Yeah, I have my 8800 GTS OCed up about 20%, and it regularly runs mid 70's or low 80's under load with no problems.

As for the CPU, I installed Motherboard Monitor, but I'm having problems configuring it, as my motherboard (Abit IL9 Pro) isn't listed. So I used the CMOS thing instead. The system temperature is running at a very cool 29 degrees and the CPU at 38 degrees. Of course, that's when the system is idle, so it will go a lot higher than that, but it doesn't sound as if it should be overheating when busy!

No, it doesn't sound at all like heat is your problem, you're not running anywhere near the temperatures required to cause the processor to start dropping data and crashing. I've found the stock cooler on the C2D to be pretty good, and it does a decent job of keeping the processor cool even with moderate overclocking.

You switch the video drivers back a revision yet? Any improvement from that?

[bujin]

You switch the video drivers back a revision yet? Any improvement from that?

Didn't have time to do that last night, and I'm out again tonight, so I'll try it tomorrow and report back! :D

[JonnyFive]

Didn't have time to do that last night, and I'm out again tonight, so I'll try it tomorrow and report back! :D

Cool, let me know how it works. That's my best guess right now, but I guess we'll see.

[bujin]

Nope.

I rolled back to the previous drivers (6.14.10.9794 - 23 Feb 2007), and it's still behaving in exactly the same way, and always in the same place (just after the security drone thingy shoots at the splicer)

[bujin]

Now I've gone the other way. I've put the beta drivers back on and I've installed the latest DirectX 9.0c release (Aug 2007). I've also uninstalled and reinstalled the demo.

Still the same.

I'm off to shout at, swear at and kick my computer for a bit.

[rockoon]

I downloaded the demo and it runs very fine with high fgx settings at 800x600 on my system, which is:

AMD64x2 3800+ (each core is 2ghz)
2 gigs corsair ram
NVidia 7600 GS (512 meg video memory)


I was however disappointed with the demo.. after watching several developer narated videos I had the impression that the game was sort of open-ended without the typical "follow the one-and-only-path-through-the-world" FPS paradigm .. perhaps it is just the demo that doesnt live up to expectations..

[JonnyFive]

Now I've gone the other way. I've put the beta drivers back on and I've installed the latest DirectX 9.0c release (Aug 2007). I've also uninstalled and reinstalled the demo.

Still the same.

I'm off to shout at, swear at and kick my computer for a bit.

That's pretty strange. Are all other hardware drivers up to date? Sound, primarily.

I was however disappointed with the demo.. after watching several developer narated videos I had the impression that the game was sort of open-ended without the typical "follow the one-and-only-path-through-the-world" FPS paradigm .. perhaps it is just the demo that doesnt live up to expectations..

I learned a hard lesson from the hype surrounding the game "Fable," which was great fun, but nothing like the developers made it out to be: Don't listen to developer hype.

It's like asking for a parent's opinion on how smart their kid is - you will never get an unbiased, accurate opinion.

The demo isn't the greatest representation of the whole, but if you absolutely hated it, you probably won't like the full game. The full game is largely linear, with the option to explore a bit within whatever current area you're in. Granted, you can travel around to areas you've already explored pretty freely, but there's not much point to it once you've explored everything.

[bujin]

That's pretty strange. Are all other hardware drivers up to date? Sound, primarily.

I think so - I'll have to check.

[Cuddles]

No idea about the bad ending

After killing all the children you take all the ADAM for yourself and set out to take over the world with an army of zombie splicers. Mwahahahahaha.

Sadly, after all the effort with sound and graphics and making it really atmospheric, I thought the end sequence was rather short and boring. Didn't really give the sense of achievement that finishing some games does.