Bioshock PC Demo available now.

[apfhex]

I got the trojan warning from AVG too. It's a false positive.

Mmm yeah. I still couldn't get setup.exe to run though. I ended up downloading it a third time — from Steam, which installed it for me and I was finally able to play it. Ran "well" at 1920x1200 with max settings, ran even better at a lower resolution though. Never dropped to an unplayable framerate. Looked VERY good.

 

[tbmx]

As promised...

2x2.66ghz
3 gigs
Radeon X1900T
1680x1050
Settings on High
Boot Camp 1.4
ATI drivers from 8/13/07
Full game
XP

I did three different tests in some heavy gun fights..

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
7401, 161171, 20, 61, 45.920

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
4946, 103247, 33, 61, 47.905

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
3900, 91119, 25, 61, 42.801

 

[octavian90]

Hey, I agree completely. To me, acceptably smooth would be a constant 25 fps (hovering around there is fine). If the low is 15-20, then it becomes annoying and affects gameplay.

800X600: 25 avg
640X480: 35-40avg
1024X768: ~15avg (playable, but not pleasant and stuttery)

Let me know how your tests go!

By the way, I think the culprit is the junky x1600 that apple left in the MBP revision...if only I'd waited a month fo the geforce cards =(.

 

[PinkZeppelin]

My SR MBP runs hotter than I would like it. The fans sound really low and I would like to turn them up; I'm using vista ultimate. If I ran warcraft 3 on OSX versus Vista, OSX ran cooler and had its fan around 6k but vista had its much lower. As for FPS on bioshock,
1440x900 12-15 FPS
1280x720 low 20's FPS
1024x768 25-32 fps
Those are on medium settings. Since like it smoother, I'm playing on 1024x768 but it still looks good.

 

[devious11]

The standard ForceWare package doesn't include support for mobile graphics (eg, the 8600m).


Edit: Some nice souls have repackaged them with mobile support. Might be worth a try.

I have a macbook pro with 8600m aswell and vista 32. i go to the site and download the drivers but when i run the setup.exe it either says that i'm not running windows or it cannot locate any drivers that are compatible with my hardware. ive tried like 6 different drivers and they are all giving me those messages. which one should i be downloadng specifically?

 

[devious11]

I have a macbook pro with 8600m aswell and vista 32. i go to the site and download the drivers but when i run the setup.exe it either says that i'm not running windows or it cannot locate any drivers that are compatible with my hardware. ive tried like 6 different drivers and they are all giving me those messages. which one should i be downloadng specifically?

sorry nevermind.. didnt see the modded inf i had to dl.. thought it would already be in there for me

 

[contoursvt]

Been playing the full version and so far with a Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz on Vista with a 7950GT 512MB I get the following framerates using FRAPS

1024x768 - min 33fps, max 80fps (depends of course...)
1600x1200 - min 18fps, max 44fps

The above is with everything turned to high detail but Vsync is off. I didnt notice too much tearing or graphical issues.

I noticed the min framerates were mostly during the cinematic scenes and max framerates when I was in darker areas of the maps.

I was expecting higher framerates from a 7950GT.... but maybe I'm just expecting too much.

 

[blaster_boy]

Yesterday evening I played part of the demo on my iMac 24inch, 2.16 CORE2DUO with 2 gig of Ram. Using Bootcamp 1.4.

No framerates, but on the default settings it ran reasonable smoothly. I did upgrade my nvidia drivers to the latest forceware though, as recommended by the game.

 

[Chone]

I tried the demo today on my MBP (2.16GHz CD, 2GB, 256MB X1600) with a fresh Win Vista 32-bit install. I installed the 7.8 "bioshock hotfix" cats and downloaded ATT (ATI Tray Tools) and overclocked the card to safe 430/430 clockspeeds.

The game is playable at 800x600 with textures and actors on high, high detail post processing is off. I'm not sure why other people get so great rates but that is what I got, doesn't matter much though, I won't be playing Bioshock on my MBP.

I didn't think the graphics were all that great (on the max settings), there are some cool effects here and there (and water looks really great) but the models are weird, lighting is confusing, uneven and unnatural and there is a disparity in the graphics quality among the game, also no AA. Also textures lack detail, thankfully the game doesn't lose any of its atmosphere because of it and the locations are masterfully done. Point is, I've definitely seen better looking games from a technical point of view but Bioshock ranks pretty high up there as far as artistic appeal goes.

As for demo impressions, I honestly expected more out of it, the level presented in the demo was just too linear and the two plasmids and weapons available were not that interesting to use, the only thing cool to do was electrocuting foes in water but that got old like the first time you did it 🙄 Also the game was too easy, sure it was fun coaxing enemies into getting into water but its kind of pointless when they do very little damage to you and the wrench disposes of them pretty quickly. I'll def' be playing on Hard.

The real purpose and appeal of the demo is nothing more than providing potential buyers a tool to measure performance and to introduce them to the story of Bioshock and the world of Rapture, the demo lacks as far as gameplay goes, I'm already sold but I can definitely see why some people were fairly unimpressed.

My recommendation is playing the full game before giving your verdict, I'm going to buy it soon and hopefully it will be what I am expecting it to be (great story, great atmosphere and setting and awesome "sandbox-like" combat). I'll definitely be getting because I'm damn interested to see what happens with Rapture and I'm interested in the sandbox-combat system and gameplay, even if the demo fails to show it miserably.

Okay I'll post more thoughts and impressions (probably in a new thread) once I get the full game and finish it (or at least play it quite a bit).

It is 5AM here so its off to sleep for me now 😀

 

[sikkinixx]

Well i loaded up fraps and the full version of Bioshock on my mbp

2.2ghz
2gb ram
128mb 8600m gt
1280x720
everything on high

In busy spots it dips down to about 15-20, still very playable to me but a little slow, just wandering around in any corridors is ~30 fps.

But I turned on "forced global lighting: I don't know what it is but my framerate went up to ~25 fps and 30+ when wandering around...

It doesn't run perfectly smooth, I would love a locked 30fps but I still think it looks better overall than the 360 demo did on my DLP, and being able to play it wherever I want is sweet and mouse+keyboard < stupid weapon select wheel.

 

[Freyqq]

mbp 2.2 stock

10-15 fps

1440x900, max settings, dx10 enabled

i tried dx9 to see the comparison and oddly enough..dx10 dropped by fps by only 2-3..

 

[PCMacUser]

The demo runs very well on my PC (listed in my sig), at 1920*1200 with all DX10 features on and all settings at maximum. *smug grin*

I've received the full version of the game, so I'll install it and update this with some actual FPS details for anyone who cares!

 

[Chone]

The demo runs very well on my PC (listed in my sig), at 1920*1200 with all DX10 features on and all settings at maximum. *smug grin*

I've received the full version of the game, so I'll install it and update this with some actual FPS details for anyone who cares!

We all knew the 8800 had to run this game on max (especially considering the mildly unimpressive graphics) but its still nice to know that if you spend 400 dollars on a card, it WILL run games at max settings.

 

[ratchetnclank]

Well after updating the drivers from laptop2go, the game works great. Haven't played around with the video settings yet but its seems playable at 1280x720 at medium settings. What setting are you guys on and is there a way to view your fps?

i downloaded the vista 32bit drivers but still got the hardware is not supported message am i doing something wrong?

 

[gloss]

We all knew the 8800 had to run this game on max (especially considering the mildly unimpressive graphics)

What game are YOU playing?

 

[PinkZeppelin]

i downloaded the vista 32bit drivers but still got the hardware is not supported message am i doing something wrong?

What I did was download the driver and the modded INF file. The modded INF file is there so you can install them. Theres a guild next to where you download the drivers if you had trouble, I did.
Also, I changed my power settings from better battery to better performance and got around +5-7 FPS, this is on vista. Been playing on 1280x720 high settings and very happy.

 

[FuzzMunky]

I installed the full game today.

I think I have found the perfect 2.4ghz SR MBP settings.

Using 163.44 drivers with modded INF from laptopvideo2go.

I goto Start Menu, Games. Right Click on Bioshock and run it under DX9.

I run at 1024 x 640 (widescreen)
Vsync is on (not much difference in framerate and now i have no tearing)
All options set to high
All features on except Force Global Lighting (which is a detractor anyway as I understand it)

I use 16x Anisotropic Filtering
and 4x Anti-aliasing.

My framerate is great. Hovers around 30-35 fps.

For some bizarre reason i get more fps with AF and AA on than I do if they are off.

Also, the full version seems to run faster than the demo... so far.

Oh yes, I also select Best Performance in power profile.

I will now try and up the resolution and see whats up with DX10 that causes it to slow even if you disable the DX10 features.

Im frankly amazed that this game is playing on highest settings so smoothly. Very impressed with the hardware.

 

[frick]

I installed the full game today.

I think I have found the perfect 2.4ghz SR MBP settings.

Using 163.44 drivers with modded INF from laptopvideo2go.

I goto Start Menu, Games. Right Click on Bioshock and run it under DX9.

I run at 1024 x 640 (widescreen)
Vsync is on (not much difference in framerate and now i have no tearing)
All options set to high
All features on except Force Global Lighting (which is a detractor anyway as I understand it)

I use 16x Anisotropic Filtering
and 4x Anti-aliasing.

My framerate is great. Hovers around 30-35 fps.

For some bizarre reason i get more fps with AF and AA on than I do if they are off.

That's because you can't enable AA in bioshock under DX9. You have to run it under DX10.

 

[bobber205]

How do you guys think it'll run on:

C2D 1.8
256 DDR3 7600gt
2 gigs of RAM

😀

I hoping it'll be somewhat playable. 😎

 

[FuzzMunky]

That's because you can't enable AA in bioshock under DX9. You have to run it under DX10.

That sort of explains things but not really.

Just to make clear, the AF works in DX9 (obviously you can tell straight way) but the forced AA doesn't (under Vista DX9). However, I still get a 2 fps bonus when I engage both options. I don't know if this is a glitch, but its bizarre that I can improve the graphics using the AF so much and if I engage AA, I get some fps thrown in. Wierd no?

I have since found out I can run quite happily on 1280x768 with a playable frame rate.

I would recommend to everyone to get the widescreen FOV fix available if you google. I use 0.84/0.82 settings for a 16:10 aspect ratio (like the macbook pro screen). It improves the experience greatly until they fix the issue at 2K.

 

[ratchetnclank]

What I did was download the driver and the modded INF file. The modded INF file is there so you can install them. Theres a guild next to where you download the drivers if you had trouble, I did.
Also, I changed my power settings from better battery to better performance and got around +5-7 FPS, this is on vista. Been playing on 1280x720 high settings and very happy.

thanks very much it is running very nicely now,you helped me alot.