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Gears of War PC Performance and IQ - DX10 fails

Stills really don't do the game justice. It's running real smooth on my system at 1280x1024, everything on high except the post processing effects (set to default). I thought Gears was a looker when it came out, but this just wipes the floor with it in terms of texture detail.

gow1.jpg
 
Runs pretty well on my laptop.

You need to see how it runs. The screens really don't do it justice. Here are some I took of it running on my laptop.

GOW4.jpg

GOW3.jpg

GOW2.jpg

GOW1.jpg
 
here are some shots I took tonight:

89qjic3.jpg


6og56qt.jpg


72hnyg2.jpg


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everything's maxed and it's still running perfectly...besides that annoying stutter problem when it loads a new area.
 
Mamesj said:
here are some shots I took tonight:



everything's maxed and it's still running perfectly...besides that annoying stutter problem when it loads a new area.
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What are the specs of your PC?
 
Mojovonio said:
Has there been one, just one successful DX10 game?

But look at the contrast between this and DX9.

DX9 had 2 engines being coded for it before it even launched, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3.

Everyone knew both engines would go on to other games, so investing in a DX9 card was a good idea.

But what's the point of going DX10?

UE3 works better in DX9, which will be one of the main platforms for PC games for a while.

MS fucked up bad with this.
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Doom3 is OpenGL, and is primarily DX8.1 class (only one effect cant be enabled on DX8 chips (the heat distortion effect).

Half-life 2 and the original iterations of the source engine were designed around DX8, and DX9 upgrades (such as more complex shaders for the water, and a few other things) were added later into development. Source engine now is a different beast entirely from what it was back in 2004.

There really werent any engines that were 100% rooted in DX9 until recently (after 360 launch). UE3 is about as complex as DX9 gets, we havent even begun to see what DX10 can do, and likely wont for at least 3 more years (once 360 is out of the picture and a DX10+ compliant console is released). Devs are going to focus primarily on the 360 as far as graphics and add small features from there on PC.
 
Wow at those shots.

The textures on environments are simply *mindblowing*. Characters could use some work, though.
 
Kabouter said:
Really? I always thought the characters looked great in Gears.
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It's like the face has high-res textures why the armor has somewhat lower. Not talking about polycounts at all, just textures.

Maybe I'm just seeing things or the camera got to close to a character.

I really love the wet stone look the walls in those pics have, though.
 
Borys said:
Wow at those shots.

The textures on environments are simply *mindblowing*. Characters could use some work, though.
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It gets better too. I haven't figured out how to take screens from within the game so I'm stuck with the token print screen command (1 shot at a time) so I haven't been able to capture much, but Act 4 looks absolutely insane on PC. And I'm genuinely impressed about how consistent the quality is. There are the odd poor textures, but generally everything has this super sharp quality to it. And it runs buttery smooth.
 
can't wait to beat it this weekend, to see how the later stages look. I wanna see "all dat juice."


and for some odd reason, out of all the good shit I capped, I'm most enamored with Baird's hair. The angle the lighting, and the dirty blond color make it look like the best hair I've seen in a game ever, in that one shot :lol
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
It gets better too. I haven't figured out how to take screens from within the game so I'm stuck with the token print screen command (1 shot at a time) so I haven't been able to capture much, but Act 4 looks absolutely insane on PC. And I'm genuinely impressed about how consistent the quality is. There are the odd poor textures, but generally everything has this super sharp quality to it. And it runs buttery smooth.
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FRAPS
 
Ikuu said:
FRAPS
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Yeah, I was considering that, but doesn't FRAPS introduce a certain overhead? The game runs buttery smooth right now, and I don't want to mess with that. I might have to though, as the next area looks god damned incredible.
 
Anyone running Gears at or around the minimum specs:

Processor2.4+ GHz Intel; 2.0+ Ghz AMD
RAM1 GB
Video CardNVIDIA GeForce 6600+, ATI X700+

That's about exactly the level I'm at with my out of date computer and while I'd like to check Gears out on the PC (if for no other reason to just play it with mouse+keyboard and for the extra levels), I'd need to run it at 1440x900 due to my monitor. If it's going to run like ass (as minimum can so often do) then I'll just wait until I build a new PC (probably next year).
 
You'll probably have to settle for low to medium settings, but it should still look good. But if you're for sure going to upgrade soon, you might as well wait. This game with everything set to high looks incredible.
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
Yeah, I was considering that, but doesn't FRAPS introduce a certain overhead? The game runs buttery smooth right now, and I don't want to mess with that. I might have to though, as the next area looks god damned incredible.
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probably not enough to affect the game. it plays the same with fraps on for me.
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
Yeah, I was considering that, but doesn't FRAPS introduce a certain overhead? The game runs buttery smooth right now, and I don't want to mess with that. I might have to though, as the next area looks god damned incredible.
Click to expand...

Only if you capture videos.
 
Ok, some shots. I was actually surprised; FRAPS claims that the game is running at a solid 60fps, and that's with everything on high and at 1280x1024. No AA though, as I don't think it'd be worth the performance dip.

GOW_001.jpg


GOW_007.jpg


GOW_006.jpg


GOW_003.jpg


GOW_009.jpg


GOW_008.jpg


GOW_002.jpg
 
gearsofwarpcscreenshopt1235254.jpg


Off-topic, but must be said.

Gears Of Wars got mega awesome reviews on the 360. Now its on the PC it isn't getting reviews as good, despite the better graphics and more stuff.

Why?

Also.. HOW THE HECK DO YOU I USE THE CHAINSAW? Is this something you are supposed to find out later in the game? I've tried pressing the E button, shoot button, space button when near the Locust dudes, but nothing happens. I just end up dying.
 
I think the default is F (melee). You can either press F when you're close to an enemy, or rev up the chainsaw by holding down F while approaching the enemy.

About reviews... different standards, I suppose. And the game is a year old, so I guess there is some assumed level of progress, although I sure as hell haven't noticed much of that progress.
 
Well, the obvious improvement is the accuracy of the mouse. But overall they seem to be alright. I guess some will prefer the controller though.
 
I started playing with kb+m, but I ended up plugging in a controller anyway. I couldn't get used to the keyboard style controls, which is weird, but I guess I'm accustomed to playing Gears with a controller. Although, I almost switched back to mouse when those damned lambent wretches appeared.

Is anyone playing this in DX10? I'm too fond of that static "60" fps counter to even bother with DX10, but my computer isn't exactly top of the line.
 
Anyone know where the saves are located? I want to try it out in Vista, but I don't feel like going through every chapter again so it'd be nice if there was some convenient saves folder I could copy and paste to the other drive.
 
My Documents\My Games\Gears of War for Windows

??

Not sure though. Why not try installing Gears on another PC, then copy that folder onto a USB stick and test that way?
 
I'll look around. Although with the game being one of those only one save at a time, maybe there is no such thing as your typical save files here.

On a separate note, holy crap @ the increase in difficulty in the new chapter. I'm getting my ass kicked, and I'm not even past the third checkpoint.
 
Laptop: Dell XPS M1730
Windows XP Pro
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7600 @3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 4GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512.0 MB
1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (60Hz)
 
These new chapters don't seem very carefully designed. Aside from mostly feeling like cutting room floor material in terms of design, the performance took a dive during these chapters, and only these chapters. Went from a rock solid 60fps to dips down to 30 at times. Weird.
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
These new chapters don't seem very carefully designed. Aside from mostly feeling like cutting room floor material in terms of design, the performance took a dive during these chapters, and only these chapters. Went from a rock solid 60fps to dips down to 30 at times. Weird.
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Well you know they featured advanced new features far too advanced for the X360, so it shouldn't be surprising that even the mighty PC stumbles while rendering them.
 
That's sarcasm, yeah? I mean, it looks bloody awesome on PC, but I'm not sure what exactly would be pushing it here. Maybe a bit more enemies, and that Brumak, but then those scenes aren't the ones with the biggest performance drops.
 
Gears Of War got god reviews on the 360 was because it was the only AAA game on the system. There simply is no reason why this game should score as well as the orange box.
 
Lostconfused said:
Gears Of War got god reviews on the 360 was because it was the only AAA game on the system. There simply is no reason why this game should score as well as the orange box.
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Meh. Gears of War is a damned good game, "only AAA game on the system" or not. The dazzling visuals probably gave it more of a pass than it deserved at the time, but it's the upper crust of shooter games regardless of whatever shortcomings it might have.
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
Meh. Gears of War is a damned good game, "only AAA game on the system" or not. The dazzling visuals probably gave it more of a pass than it deserved at the time, but it's the upper crust of shooter games regardless of whatever shortcomings it might have.
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I am not going to disagree but when i started it up on my pc i couldn't help but feel incredibly apathetic. It is a great shooter, i just don't think i will ever play it again.
 
Played a bit with 4x AA. Didn't take much of a hit with 8x AF running as well. Instead of a straight 60, it goes like 56-60.

Definitely cuts down on what little flickering there is. 8xq AA looked super nice, but dropped it to like 30-35

Lostconfused said:
I am not going to disagree but when i started it up on my pc i couldn't help but feel incredibly apathetic. It is a great shooter, i just don't think i will ever play it again.
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inteteresting. it's one of the more intense games I've ever played...

Gonna be even better when my Sennheiser HD-555s get here on Monday :drool:
 
Lostconfused said:
I am not going to disagree but when i started it up on my pc i couldn't help but feel incredibly apathetic. It is a great shooter, i just don't think i will ever play it again.
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I've finished the campaign like five times in co-op on 360, and I actually wanna play it again in co-op. So I certainly disagree with you there.
 
Kabouter said:
I've finished the campaign like five times in co-op on 360, and I actually wanna play it again in co-op. So I certainly disagree with you there.
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The only thing i can think of when playing the campaign
"Great i have 3 more berserkers to deal with, now i have 2 more, 1 more then Raam, ugh" I quit at 3

edit: But as i said, i am not a big fan of shooters. So you dont have to take me seriously or anything like that.
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
That's sarcasm, yeah? I mean, it looks bloody awesome on PC, but I'm not sure what exactly would be pushing it here. Maybe a bit more enemies, and that Brumak, but then those scenes aren't the ones with the biggest performance drops.
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I mean for Christ's sake it's just a big fucking monster. There are plenty of X360 games with big fucking monsters stomping about.
 
Draft said:
I mean for Christ's sake it's just a big fucking monster. There are plenty of X360 games with big fucking monsters stomping about.
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If the tech issue deal is legit, I'd wager it has to do with the areas being generally larger and more densely populated by enemies than any of the areas in the original game.

But I doubt that's the issue anyway. I have a feeling these chapters will be made available for 360 in some fashion soon enough. Not that I'd touch a console version of this ever again after playing it in this quality, but for those who don't mind the dip in quality and desperately want to play these chapters I'm sure it won't be a long wait.
 
Lostconfused said:
The only thing i can think of when playing the campaign
"Great i have 3 more berserkers to deal with, now i have 2 more, 1 more then Raam, ugh" I quit at 3

edit: But as i said, i am not a big fan of shooters. So you dont have to take me seriously or anything like that.
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Eh, you started off by saying that the game doesn't deserve as high of a score as another shooter (package), and now you say you're not even a fan of shooters?
 
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