Serious Sam 3 BFE

[tabs]

That's one thing I didn't like about the settings in SS2. The option names I could usually understand, but the different settings you could choose for them were often vague in meaning and as to which was 'best'.


Sparkly bits: Average, Good, Awesome, Nice, Shiny or Marvellous

That's wasn't really a choice, but it's how I remember them being.

 

[Mize]

I'd drop all AA settings except 4X SSAA. FXAA on top of that will just mess up texture details.

Adding MSAA might clean up edges slightly more but that 4X SSAA is already a huge performance hit. Maybe experiment with 2X MSAA + 4X SSAA.

It defaults (on Ultra) to maximum MSAA + maximum FXAA.
I haven't played with the settings much other than to crank everything for that one screenshot.

 

[Malo]

Is there any way to show wireframe to view their tessellation?

 

[Mize]

I can try from the console.

 

[swaaye]

It defaults (on Ultra) to maximum MSAA + maximum FXAA.

That makes sense since FXAA will "help" with shader and texture aliasing that MSAA does nothing for. But when you use SSAA you get everything anti-aliased anyway and it's done far better than FXAA.

 

[Davros]

Object highlighting, more dumbing down and its not exactly a complex game to begin with.
What next a sign with an arrow saying "this is a gun, run over it to pick it up click button A to fire. firing the gun in the direction of enemies will kill them"

I don't know any console players but are they really that dumb ?

 

[hoho]

Object highlighting is almost needed here considering how dark and full of "fluff" many places are, without it I'd miss majority of items. Also, it's not like it makes the game that much easier. I'm playing on hard and get my ass handed to me plenty of times and it's still just the second level. I'd dare to say the game is MUCH harder than the first one was. I'd love to see how anyone is capable of finishing it with a remote on mental difficulty.

 

[Mize]

SS3 isn't meant to be an imserssive other world experience...it's a fast-paced, mayhem, twitch-shooter.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.

Not sure if it can be turned off, but I'll check.

 

[Man from Atlantis]

Serious Sam 3 BFE: 15 graphics card benchmark test

Spoiler

 

[tabs]

Wonder why they went for DX9?

 

[homerdog]

Doesn't it support up to DX11 as well?

But I'm with you, there's literally no need for a DX9 path in a hardcore PC game these days. Avalanche made that call with JC2 back in early 2010 and it I heard no complaints about it. And I think BF3 proves that you can do a lot more if you drop the legacy DX9 stuff.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Damn, on the one hand I kind of miss the cartoony and highly colorful graphics that lent an almost whimsical air to the rampant violence of the first Serious Sam. On the other hand, DAMN those graphics look good.

And tesselation. Wooooo. And not to such a ridiculous extent that it cripples a certain manufacturer's card for absolutely no reason.

Damn, now I'm in a quandry. No time to play it, but I want to SEE it. Do I wait and hope for a Christmas sale and time to play it? Or do I grab it now, reward the developers, and look at some eye candy and hope I eventually have time to play it?

Regards,
SB

 

[hoho]

I can see myself playing this game a LOT in the future, especially the survival mode. I managed to survive for a bit over 4 minutes in the canyon and killed something like 1k enemies but there were over 140 thousand of them still left It should be even better in co-op.

 

[Mize]

you know...I might be wrong about tessellation...I installed Deus Ex HR the same night and maybe that was the one with the tessellation option during install?

I'll try to check today sometime if I can get some breathing room from work.

 

[Man from Atlantis]

Wonder why they went for DX9?

http://forums.steamgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=26578080

Alen (Croteam) with some info about DirectX and why went for Dx9.. They dont want to abondon XP users.. It may not seem like a lot, but STEAM's last hardware survey showed roughly 18% using WinXP 32 bit, and roughly 1% using WinXP 64 bit..
It's not a huge number, but it's still a portion of the intended consumer base.. and the fan base..

 

[homerdog]

The decision between using DX9 and 11 is very complex and advanced topic. One part of it consisting of the fact that Microsoft has never retrofitted DX10+ onto WinXP, which was a big mistake and a great hurdle for DX10 and DX11 adoption. But that's just one part. There's a lot to be said about all this situation, but the gist is that DX9 is still the best choice.

This seems to be quite the opposite of what every other dev is saying. Specifical DICE, who made a game on DX11 only that will sell many times over what SS3 will sell. (of course DX11 isn't the reason BF3 will sell more than SS3, but dropping DX9 was nothing but a boon from everything repi and friends have stated time and time again)

I'd like to hear the specific reasons why DX9 is still the best choice, other than consolitis and the Windows XP myth.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Considering the graphical options available to PC gamers, I don't think we can pin consolitis on this title. It offers us far more options and control than other Dx11 titles. And being Dx11 doesn't make a title any less console friendly.

Basically like Blizzard, they decided that appeaing to an extra 20% (or 30%+ in Blizzards case with SC2) of the buying market was worth it. Nothing wrong with maximizing your return on investment.

Regards,
SB

 

[hoho]

Also I wouldn't dare to say the game actually misses something for not being done with DX11. It looks WAY better than nearly everything I've seen this year.

 

[Mize]

SSE3:BFE is definitely not consolitis. If anything it's a perfect balance because it keeps literally GOBS of PC settings but supports controllers and up to 4-way split-screen gaming on a PC!

 

[homerdog]

I don't accuse SS3 of being consolitis, just trying to figure these reasons why DX9 is so superior. Consoles are generally considered the #1 reason why PC ports don't use anything >DX9, particularly now that the PC gaming world has moved on from WinXP.

Steam needs a statistic: % of PCs that have gaming capable hardware but are still on WinXP. The number would be unsurprisingly very low, but it would be nice to have some concrete data. This "20% of the market they'd be missing out on" is largely systems that are too outdated to run the game in the first place.