Is it really necessary to have amazing graphics to enjoy a game? I, for one, don't think so. Great games seem to never be defined by the level of detail in their graphics. I would consider many of the games that I really love to have sub-par graphics...even for when they were released.
PC gamers seem to get the shaft when it comes to gaming. I know PC gaming is an expensive habit. My machine is just over 2 years old and now I'm having to look at upgrading to even play Bioshock. Forget the fact that I can play just about any other new or even upcoming game with my rig, but why would Bioshock not support Shader 2.0 video cards? Some guy on the 2K forums got it working somewhat in 20 minutes, so why couldn't 2K?
For the record, I have a P4 3.2 GHz o/c'ed to 3.6, 256mb agp ATI X800GTO, and 2 gigs of RAM. Source games run at over 90 fps most of the time, so I really don't think my rig is outdated enough to warrant a $1700 update when it still screams through most of the stuff I throw at it.
The latest Steam hardware survey shows that barely half of the users have Shader 3.0 cards, and the majority only have 128mb or 256mb cards. So that would make you think that game developers wouldn't want to alienate 50% of the market they're aiming for by not supporting a shader version that TONS of people still use. Yeah, I COULD go on newegg and order a low-end PS 3.0 card for about $150, but in the scheme of upgrading a PC, would that really be a worthwhile investment to play one game and maybe hinder the performance of some of the other games I've played flawlessly with my X800GTO? The answer is simply no... If I have to upgrade, I'm not gonna buy another shitty AGP card that has the same amount of VRAM. I would have to replace everything from and including the motherboard up excluding my drives to make it worthwhile and last another few years. So, that comes down to about $1800 to play Bioshock when I KNOW I will be able to play Orange Box and Enemy Territory. Doesn't make much sense to me.
But don't get me wrong. I'm in no way a Bioshock hater. I loved SS1 and SS2 and I've been anxiously awaiting this game for a long time now. I'm just glad I didn't pre-order it, get it, and find out that my still very respectable rig won't even run it at all because of shaders to make some pretty water effects.
With the amount of developers working on next-gen console games to hit that mass market of people with 360's, it just seems like PC gamers are getting the scraps. Examples are definitely Bioshock and Oldblivion. They are both great games, but they are both obviously just PC ports of games originally designed for console.
Looks like I'll be buying a 360 in the fall when the 65nm chipsets hit the shelves. In the meantime, see ya on CS:S and TF2.
What do you think? Are graphics really that important to a good game?
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Shit no, graphics aren't important. A game I've yet to play, but everyone loves, Earthbound has some rudimentary graphics, but is supposedly amazing. I can still go back and play some good Atari and NES games, despite their horrible looks. Graphics help sell a game, but gameplay is where it really matters.
Shit, I have a friend who still plays Q3A 800x600 with the textures at the lowest quality, when his computer is damn well capable of maxing everything out.
First off, Pixel Shader 3 was introduced back with the 6 series of Nvidia cards. The 6 series was released in April of 2004. So if you had bought a Nvidia card 2 years ago, you wouldn't be having these problems right now. For future note, Nvidia has lead the graphics card market in reliability and performance for years now, and it's looking to stay that way, so buy Nvidia.
Your X800GTO cost the same as most of the 6 series cards, yet doesn't come close to matching them. Maybe it's the fact that the entire game was designed around using Nvidia hardware, even to the point that Nvidia released a beta version of their new drivers specifically enhanced for BioShock.
My backup rig even manages to run BioShock, it pulls off high texture and medium lighting settings, at 1024x768, holding a steady 30 FPS... and I could build my backup PC new for under $400 off Newegg, maybe $300.
I don't think graphics are the end all, but I don't see BioShock being as impressive or as immersive running on Unreal Engine 2. Many of the "next-gen" effects really make the game shine, the particle effects, water effects, Big Daddy animation, Little Sister looking at you and so on and so forth.
I used to be a PC gamer, but the monetary investment that is necessary is huge. When you compare that to a < $500 box with a great library of games, and completely optimized for gaming, it seems crazy.
@dgenerate
Exactly...it used to not be such a costly habit. Now a good gfx card that will MAYBE last a year and a half costs $600. Finally gonna make the jump to 360, I can't wait to get on live, hope I get a warm welcome being an Xbox newb though.
@nyteshade
Yeah, but the early Nvidia cards that ran Shader 3 were notoriously bad for framerates. When I built the computer, I was building it for Half-life 2 and I worked at a computer repair shop so I had access to pretty much any card I wanted and the X800 ran much faster than the early 6 series. And if I build a new PC, I'm not gonna half-ass it and build something thats already crap for $300...I'm gonna go quad-core, atleast 4 gigs ram, at least 2 nvidia GPU's, and terabyte storage so it will actually last me a while. In the computer industry you get what you pay for...cheaping out cheaps out your rig. And I'm not about to spend that kind of money when I can pick up a 360 for an initial investment of about $500.
The fact that I only understood about 15% of what you said is why I don't really play PC games. It's just too much to keep up with and spend money on for me.
Graphics are usually the fifth or sixth thing I care about when it comes to games.
Sounds like all you need to upgrade is your video card, and good seven series card from nVidia is less than $200.
Wowza, that is like woah.
Also I wuv you!