SilentHill3 PC (demo)

So much for a GeForce 2 GTS outperforming the EE&GS

(couldn't resist!)

 

my GF4Ti4800 ran Halo like ass. i know many with DX9 cards struggling to keep uo with Halo. So much for PC > Xbox

but i am sure a GF2Ultra will outperform EE&GS in stuff like textures and IQ.

 

so much for troll free boards

i was gonna post something along the lines:

it's amazing how un-optimized PC games can really be.

i mean a game that runs at a more or less stable 30fps on a 300MHz+150Mhz 3 years old CPU+GPU having trouble with PC's in the range of the 2-3 GHz.... i mean, of course PC's run the game at much higher resolution with AA+AF, but bloody hell u'd think they would have enough headroom for those effects to be implemented without too much trouble....

can we leave the EE+GS>>>>PC hohohohozzz arguments aside? please. or they're gonna lock this one as well.

 

The game isn't optimized, and pretty much unoptimized. I think it is a development version in parallel with the PS2 version and then repackaged and released to the PC with minimal effort.

Anyway (anyway, what do you mean anyway ?, can't resist), I think the game runs fine on most systems when 1024x768/1024x1024 is selected, slower ones will need to compromise with 1024x512 or 512x512 and drop the resolution to lower than 1024x768.

If you have to compare that with the other mentioned game, H***, that one is a piece of junk port and is a pure shame IMO.

 

Yes, i mean, u'd expect a system at 10 times the clock-speed and many times the transistor count of PS2 to have enough headroom for a simple jump in resolution.... :?

 

I think both Halo and SH3 ports are pretty good and run fine on reasonable specced PCs (GF4, etc) if you want to reproduce their *exact* console versions in the original resolution, no AA etc. It's another thing that PC owners want everything to run at 1600x with 16x AA & AF. For that you apparently need very high end machines for both games. The good thing with PCs is that performance can only be an issue for couple of months or so. As soon as the faster hardware is released, performance is not the issue anymore... Reminds me that many people bitched when the first Unreal was released, but soon enough everyone had a machine that could run it super-smooth.

 

Your joking, one can only hope.

What I find even more disgusting is that you actually believe this. Your PC blows away Xbox by many leagues. I don't even have to look at the rest of your spec.

Do me a favor and go run HL2 if it ever gets released, you'll notice a better frame rate then Halo. That is how horrible of a port Halo is, it's almost as if they were told to make it run like shit.

 

Bought the Asian (Chinese/English) version today, an OST is bundled which contains 25 tracks (same as the European and US OSTs), the installation contains 5 CDs. The manual is really bad, even worst comparing to the US PS2 SH2 manual. I simply hate it.

I have heard that the UK version is a single DVD, not sure about US version.

The game runs like the demo, the same options exists in the configuration program, but there are now more options (extra options and others) in the options screen. It can save anywhere like SH2 PC version.

I will also buy the US and UK version (I am a maniac SH collector).

 

Ehm, are you sure that it's not a bootleg/hk-pirate version of the game(I've had some bad experiences with buying chinese/HK merchandise)?
The combination of Chinese/English and a really good price usually indicates that a game/DVD is not original/licensed(i.e pirated), and the manual is often really bad and printed on flimsy paper. Just a heads-up. I could of course be very wrong.

 

I am absolutely sure it is not a bootleg/pirated version as the game is from an official Konami local distributor. And I don't ever buy pirated software nor pirated games.

I knew that there will be a Chinese version from a previous Taiwanese announcement.

You can see the scans of the box, manual and the disc in my SH scans page.

http://www.felixmcli.org/sh-scans-boxes.html

edit: and BTW, Chinese support is also included in the downloaded demo.

 

GF2 is better in some ways (supports DOT3 lighting, texture compression, register combiners) PS2 is better in others (has more fill-rate, faster T&L, and is a fixed platform).

 

Sure, Giants Citizen Kabuto and Quake 3.

 

I think from the demo at least there is evidence the PS2 may never have been runing the title at 640x480. Check the selection for rendering resolution.

 

Just read the whole thread, explained already. It has nothing to do with the resolution PS2 version is rendering. It would make no sense to make the PS2 render 512 pixels vertical resolution, anyways.

 

why would it "make no sense" to render the title at 512x512 though it would make sense to render the game at 512x512 on a PC? What about 512x256?

btw where was this explained?

 

It doesn't make sense to render it at 512x512 on the PC either. It was probably only done because of lousy support for non power of 2 render targets on the PC. It was explained here by DeanoC:

 

Well, I've played the demo for a bit. The "rendering" and "screen" res was confusing at first, of course I pumped up the rendering res to 2048*2048, thinking it had something to do with textures (duh). My 64 meg GF4 4200 didn't seem to like that too much.

But with a screen res of 1280*1024, and a rendering res of 1024*512, it runs very well and looks pretty good on my XP1800/GF4 rig, which certainly isn't a monster these days (what was the framerate of the PS2 version, btw? From videos on X-Play a few days ago it looks to be mostly 30fps). Mouse control is OK, you can tell it's hacked joypad control as it's not nearly as precise as you would expect, but it still operates well enough - this isn't an FPS of course. I'll probably end up playing with a gamepad, that is if I ever get into it.

Graphics-wise, the main character is extremely impressive, but my same criticism from the PS2 screens exist when they appeared, in that (like a lot of PS2 games I've seen), the attention is applied to the main character and little else. Textures and world complexity are severely lacking, no doubt getting it to look this good with the PS2's limited memory was a feat, but some of the background textures look like they came from a Quake2-era game. The dark & gritty (or rather..."messy") appearance of the environment mask this somewhat though, you can get away with poorer textures in this game as opposed to one that's supposed to be accurately reflecting a real-world environment that's at least somewhat sterile.

That's not to say it looks bad, it certainly doesn't - the lighting effects largely overcome any small criticisms I may have about the background textures. Some aspects are very impressive, others definitely remind me I'm playing a PS2 port (and what the heck is with the fonts? Couldn't they have changed that for the PC release?).

Definitely freaky though...not sure about the gameplay at this point, never been a big fan of survival horror games, but the 2D control system (selectable in options) really helps here - can't stand the Resident-Evil style control system. Unfortuantely it appears the demo is very short, so I'm not sure how much of a feel I'm going to get from it.

But on the port-side, it seems to be fine to me. Runs quite well on my aging rig with reasonable settings, looks better than the PS2 version, decent selection of control options. If you're expecting to run a console port with a 2048*2048 backbuffer + AA, even on a 9800 Pro - then I think the problem is with your expectations folks, not with the coding job.

 

HA! and i thought i could get away with my 2Ghz+integrated Intel Graphics hardware at work just kidding

 

Here are some screens showing the different rendering options at 1024x768 that I have posted to some other forums before

http://www.felixmcli.org/silenthill3/sh3pc-rendering-256x256.jpg
http://www.felixmcli.org/silenthill3/sh3pc-rendering-512x256.jpg
http://www.felixmcli.org/silenthill3/sh3pc-rendering-512x512.jpg
http://www.felixmcli.org/silenthill3/sh3pc-rendering-1024x512.jpg
http://www.felixmcli.org/silenthill3/sh3pc-rendering-1024x1024.jpg
http://www.felixmcli.org/silenthill3/sh3pc-rendering-2048x1024.jpg
http://www.felixmcli.org/silenthill3/sh3pc-rendering-2048x2048.jpg

The names of the files already tell you the rendering option.

Overall speaking, the game looks really nice, but any rendering option over 1024x1024 (e.g. 2048x1024 and 2048x2048) will not yield acceptable performance even on current top 3D cards.