Game Demos

[zed]

No thread about game demo's?
I got a gfx card about a month ago but apart from a couple of webgl things I havent tried any 3d stuff on it. What are some peoples suggestions for graphically impressive game demo's I could try out?

 

[Malo]

The problem is game demos have really become a thing of the past, at least for big graphical games. There is the demos section on Steam though.

 

[zed]

Yes I saw that thing on steam, which one would you recommend. After the e3 I'm curious to see what things look like nowadays, one always can't tell from video's

 

[Rodéric]

You can wait for steam summer sales and get a few impressive looking games for cheap, like Crysis whichever version is latest, and Rage for example.

 

[Malo]

I guess the Steam 2 hour guaranteed money back could be considered a "demo" of a full game lol

 

[tabs]

There's quite a few nice looking free to play games out there:

• Hawken
• Unreal Tournament (the new one - it's in alpha but still fun to play online and very pretty)
• Planetside 2
• Heroes of the Storm (not particularly demanding, but I like the artwork)
• Warface (I seem to remember this looking good, was a while ago though)

Off the top of my head the only really nice looking playable demo I can think of is:

• Elite Dangerous (you can play the training missions)

 

[zed]

You can wait for steam summer sales and get a few impressive looking games for cheap, like Crysis whichever version is latest, and Rage for example.

The last game I brought was halo 1 more than a decade ago, i.e. I don't play games (even on my phone) I am interested in getting Pillars of Eternity though cause I used to like though top down games, they hardly push the hardware though

I guess the Steam 2 hour guaranteed money back could be considered a "demo" of a full game lol

true, though a bit dishonest and I could see that failing and me being lumped with something I dont want also it could lead to adverse effects for other legiment users

@tabs thanks, I'll look into those, Im wanting non online games. So not sure about hawken, UT, Planetside 2, Heroes of the Storm, Warface
FFS do they even make non online games anymore?

 

[Rodéric]

Check free to play games, some are rather nice looking, but I'm not sure any is cutting edge though...

 

[tabs]

Free to play games are rarely made for offline gaming from what I've seen.

With Unreal Tournament I think you can solo play with bot matches. Not tried it with this latest iteration myself yet, but UT bots are traditionally very well programmed and 'person-like'.

 

[zed]

I downloaded unreal tournament
turned everything up to ultra and ran at 4k resolution. I suppose its graphically better than UT2003 demo which I played a decade ago, but only marginally, I was not blown away OK it was alpha granted but still.
GTAV looks good (from the videos) same with uncharted 4 (from the e3 video) etc
Are there no PC demo's that get in the neighborhood of these? even if its just a limited area.

 

[tabs]

Spoiler

Are you sure your settings are right? I'm getting what you see in the first screenshot, rather than the second.

 

[Davros]

tabs if your getting what you see in the first screenshot and not the second how did you take the second shot ?


ps:
Dragon age 2 demo
http://www.videogamer.com/pc/dragon_age_ii/download/DragonAge2Demo_F93M2qCj_EnEsItPlRu.html

 

[zed]

Are you sure your settings are right? I'm getting what you see in the first screenshot, rather than the second.

yes everything on ultra, theres no DOF in the game AFAIKS (and so there shouldnt be, thus I assume the first shot is a bullshot)

yes textures etc are higher res & higher polygon counts, AO, reflections etc, the playing fields are as sterile as always. The ragdolls still selfclip & clip through walls etc lots of lights dont even cast shadows etc. OK its pre alpha but I would of hoped for more improvements in more than a decade, Im still running around and not casting a shadow, Im just this gun floating in space whilst Im playing?
cheers Davros I'll try out that dragon age 2 demo

 

[homerdog]

There are waaay better looking games than that. I guess there are no demos of them though.

 

[tabs]

You're playing on the really basic maps that are being worked on. When maps are in early development they're short of quality textures and doodads as they work on the layout and flow.

The screenshot I showed you is from one of the completed maps, Outpost 23. The other maps have "WIP shell" plastered on their icons.

Just jumped on myself and took a few screenshots. I tried to activate slomo so I could get some good ones but although I see the command line option I couldn't get it working. It's a bit late in the day to be figuring that out so hopefully you'll make do with these hastily taken gameplay snaps:

Album - little button in the top right for full res

I agree the screenshot before was a bullshot, (@Davros I grabbed both images off the net as I felt they were representative, please don't make me install UT2004 off of 7 disks) but aside from the depth of field you're going to struggle to notice a difference when you're playing the game.

I wouldn't get your hopes up for a ton of dynamic shadow casting lights in this sort of game. It's a fast paced arena shooter meant to be run at very high framerates with low latency. Personally I think the overall IQ is amazing.

There's definitely clipping issues, as the above album shows, with a few feet in floors. It's a pre-alpha though.

 

[Rodéric]

I think there's a Mass Effect 3 demo, not the most mind blowing gfx but it's rather nice.

 

[PixResearch]

You could download something like Unreal Engine 4 (free) and build one of their demo binaries (also free just download and click build).
There's loads of these.
Samaritan, elemental demo, etc are the famous ones and are all reasonably high end.

 

[homerdog]

Elite has a demo right?

 

[zed]

I wouldn't get your hopes up for a ton of dynamic shadow casting lights in this sort of game. It's a fast paced arena shooter meant to be run at very high framerates with low latency. Personally I think the overall IQ is amazing.

Why not? Surely in 2015 with PC's / API's so much more powerful than they were a decade ago in such a simple game this should be standard.
If ppl want higher framerate, they can buy better PC, lower res, disable shadows, lighting etc

cheers guys, I'll try some of those

 

[tabs]

Well, it's essentially up to the map makers. I doubt if Epic will outright disable engine features from the game. I would guess that core maps made by Epic staff would be rather conservative with performance hogging features, but a few modders will probably go nuts with it, a la UT2004.