After a bit of a false start yesterday, the BioShock demo is now out and available for download. It's getting a good rap so you might want to check this one out.

from what i heard, this demo will murder my PC, and then chop it into tiny bite sized pieces. but what the hell the previews look mad, am downloading now, thank you ausgamers.

Nvidia has new beta drivers out which offers enhanced performance and reliability within Bioshock (among other things).

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html

Nvidia has new beta drivers out which offers enhanced performance and reliability within Bioshock

I still don't get why graphics drivers have to "support" specific games/applications.

Or is this what sets consumer cards apart from the Quadros? As in, the Quadros meet the [CAD-oriented] graphics specs 100% while the consumer ones take a few shortcuts and break often.

I still don't get why graphics drivers have to "support" specific games/applications.

Money. Some people will go and fork out a tonne of cash on the latest video card just for the release of a game, Crysis will be a very good example in that respect. If you have a gcard mob saying, buy our cards, our latest drivers will give you 10fps better over the competitor in x game then people will go for that (most likely not taking into account there's other factors in a PC that will increase/decrease performance). It sucks that that happens but seems to be coming more common.

I bought a new video card for Bioshock, Crysis, UT3 etc etc. That being said if I can download drivers which improve performance for a particular game...then why wouldn't I download them?

awww gamershell has an iinet mirror up but its full :(
keen to see how this fairs on my compy, would definitely prefer pc to xb0x

I figured in nvidia's case at least the updates were mostly to add the game profile n stuff?

Even though I'm sure my PC could more than do it justice, I still think I'm gonna get it on 360. I just seem to enjoy lounging out in front of the tv to do my gaming these days instead of sitting in a chair in front of a PC, just feels too much like work if I do that.

I still don't get why graphics drivers have to "support" specific games/applications.

Well, a new game comes out. Its renderer may use a feature differently or far more frequently than other titles have, causing some driver code that may not have been an issue before to become a slight bottleneck. Therefore Nvidia makes some driver optimisations and reshuffling to speed up or increase compatibility with the new renderer. Users download the new drivers, get better FPS or reliability in the game, and are happy.

Makes sense to me???

Khel: get a more comfy PC chair?

I don't think the issue was comfort, more that sitting in front of a computer feels like work.

pfft, get a new job then :D

this demo is gonna rape my pc. and not in a good way.

my pc is very ok considering how much better i can get and it ran well on my system. i almost regret getting the 360 version thinking my pc wouldnt handle this at all. and i havnt even installed the upgraded drivers yet

Hey sweet I didn't know that even if you are capped (which I am) you can still download off iinet at full speed.

wtb smaller demoes :/

Does this demo differ in any way to the XB360 demo? (other than being 400 meg bigger)

awww gamershell has an iinet mirror up but its full :(

Don't go to the actual Gamershell site, go to iigh.iinet.net.au. Then you'll find this handy direct link:
http://iigh.iinet.net.au/demo/BioShock_PC_Demo.zip

hahaha holy s***, thanks dude. why didn't I know about this before now? :S

Awesome, downloading it now. Hopefully my Athlon 6000+ and 8800GTS will run it fine.

Any feedback on the game itself yet?

I have yet to download the demo, however after speaking to a mate thats played it the verdict was great engine, average game.

With all these 100% review scores it has had the poo hyped out of it.

I couldn't care about the engine really, its a brilliant game first, and a pretty game second to me. I think the one thing that might catch some people offguard is it seems to be getting pushed as a first person shooter, and its really not, its a first person rpg/adventure game.

I gave the demo a go on one my friends PC's dual core Pentium's 2gig ram and a 7600gt and it ran well at 1024xwhatever.

The game definitely has atmosphere and the water effects are extraordinary. The story line seems intriguing and I would very much like to see how the much toted AI goes. The demo seemed a bit linear though and I'm a bit iffy on how that will pan out for the rest of the game.

The combat went well, nice options in how to deal with various enemies. The end non playable demo bit's showed a lot more in the options for dealing with enemies. I just hope exploring and whatnot has a similar option level.

EDIT: Also, I thought the demo was a little short for the 1.8g download. So if you're reluctant to download due to bandwidth limitations then I'd wait and buy the full game if your already intent on buying it.

last edited by Tollaz0r! at 20:47:27 21/Aug/07

I enjoyed the demo. The story, location, atmosphere etc all looked very promising. Apparently this demo is based on a version of the game that is almost a year old too, so hopefully only better things are to come of the full version!

The demo was great but reasonably short (like all demos I spose :P).

Gives you a good taste of the atmosphere and the combat. The hacking minigame is fun too (hack drones and make them fight for you). Enough to get you really hooked anyway :P

The audio in this one is just brilliant, so if you have a decent surround system or good headphones, crank them up for it.

Demo performend very smoothly at full detail (everything switched on) and 1680x1050 on my AMD 4400+ @ 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM and 640MB 8800GTS (overclocked). This was the DX9 mode as I'm on XP not Vista.

last edited by orbitor at 23:17:53 21/Aug/07

Tried playing it before but all that happened was the screen stayed black but I could hear the splash screens. Had to reboot to get outta it. I noticed after the install it mentioned something about newer nvidia drivers available but I couldn't be bothered installing them. I'm guessing that may have been the problem.

I put on the new August 20th Nvidia BETA drivers...163.44 I think it was.

Didn't try the demo prior to instlaling the new drivers so can't say if it changed anything.

The game doesn't support widescreen correctly. It is doing a Pan and Scan!!! wtf! read over here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4883

This is also on the 360 version..

God damn it runs like ass. My machine is a couple of years old but even so it doesn't deserve this sort of treatment :[

Looks like I will be upgrading sooner than I thought.

I just installed the latest forceware drivers from nvidia and the demo works properly now. Runs flawlessly on my machine with everything maxed out with my widescreen res at 1680x1050. Only problem I can see is the AA. I'm getting some jagged lines on things but I couldn't see any option to change this. Maybe it will be in the full version.

From what I've read there is no AA support in the demo, lets hope its not the case for the retail release otherwise I have no idea how it has gotten all these 100% review scores :/

When GRAW came out the same thing happened with that, AA support was added months later. I installed it buggered around for 15 mins trying to get AA to work, found out it wasn't supported then uninstalled the POS.

After you've played games with AA enabled its something you can't go back from, its just too painfully ass looking. In this gaming age you cannot release games now without AA and AS and expect them to be anything other than second rate IMO.

Such an awesome looking game, was wondering why my cut scene stopped then realised I was in the game. Was running on old drivers on a 6600gt, might need to do some overtime and buy a new computer.

make sure the md5sum for the downloaded file is the same as whats on our website and you should be fine

So, is the PC demo the same as the 360 demo?

I'm pretty confident its a false positive

i bought a new cpu for the honour of running the demo... it seems good.

Looks lush and AA'd on xbox... so I dunno.

Looks lush and AA'd on xbox... so I dunno.

it doesn't look aa'd at all on the 360 version

i downloaded it, played it, now i'm over it
gg

To be honest, I dont like it. It reminds me too much of Doom 3, and we all know what a joke (gameplay wise) that was. The graphics are great, I'll give them that, but its the same old formula. Walk to trigger point, trigger monster, fight it with super graphic effects, rinse, repeat, with occasional cut-scene or story. The production values are great, but the game itself is 'meh'.

I don't even know where to start with that...seriously...If that's honestly how you view this game then it's your loss really.

Are you playing the same game as everyone else AK-47?

there's lots of different ways to kill enemys, be it dependent on ammo type used, plasmids, traps etc. also you get a camera which is up to you to be used to research enemies, making it easier to kill them, also unlocking new plasmids. also it is up to you in the way which you gather adam, which is spent on purchasing new plasmids, additional plasmid slots, health/eve upgrades etc.
also there are the voice recordings which add a big part to the game, finding some of which helps with the mission goals. add to that the fact that there actually is a storyline and character interaction, the only way I can possibly understand how you can compare this game to doom 3 is that you have accidentally gone out and bought doom 3 by mistake.
you suck

Here here! The demo is right at the start of the game, so they're trying to ease you into everything. When you play the game later on you have to use the environment in order to take down the guys properly...obviously chronies are going to be easy, but taking down big daddies...well you gotta use some skill to do that otherwise you'll get mopped up.

For a FPS, it's got quite a lot of depth and variety. I can't believe you're comparing it to Doom 3...this game has actual atmosphere that's what scary, not a f***ing door opening behind you and a monster walking around.

Watch this:


last edited by Tael at 22:44:32 22/Aug/07

The game doesn't support widescreen correctly. It is doing a Pan and Scan!!! wtf! read over here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4883

This is also on the 360 version..

some crafty buggers at widescreengaming have made a patch that fixes this for the demo. you can check it out at http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5927

hopefully they have a patch for the full game soon too

I couldn't care about the engine really, its a brilliant game first, and a pretty game second to me.

You've changed!

And this game appears to use the same formula as Doom 3.

You don't play games much, do you?

Yeah the lack of NPC interaction makes it completely different to Doom3
The movie at the end of the demo screams FPS

Wake up smell the coffee before its too late!

I am judging this completely on the demo btw, I have read nothing about this game and I don't intend to now.

I mean, how did you break - I mean 'open' - the lock exactly???


last edited by Strange Rash at 08:26:26 23/Aug/07

there's lots of different ways to kill enemys, be it dependent on ammo type used, plasmids, traps etc...

Yer yer. AK-47, I think, was bitching about how the flow of movement was very linear. No exploring really. It is obvious that there are going to be many ways creative ways to kill enemy. What the demo showed however was that the exploration of the game world could be very linear indeed, much like Doom 3 was.
I'm hoping that it was railed because it was a demo and the start of the game. I'm hoping that it would soon branch out so that you could explore the world of your own accord. As in, hrmm the mission says I need to get from point A to point B... bugger that, I'm going to see what is at point C and D.

I've played probably 5 hours now, and from what I can tell it's quite linear.
That being said, I think non-linear progression through a game like this is overrated. I think as a story is in play you can have more intense moments when it's linear.

The way you go through the 'levels' though is somewhat open-ended. But it is a linear game.

Man, I just got my copy delivered from DVDCrave. My Big Daddy figurine is broken, the drill arm has snapped off.

The full version of the game apparently requires you to uninstall the game if you want to install it again in future, otherwise you'll only be able to install it 2 times maximum. Something to keep in mind when you're about to format your drive.

Also, uninstalling keeps Securom on your system ..

(Source )

If you have a gcard mob saying, buy our cards, our latest drivers will give you 10fps better over the competitor in x game then people will go for that

You missed the point of my post and went off-topic. You're talking about PR, I'm talking about why nvidia/ATI would have driver changelogs saying they just made a game not crash anymore, etc.

Well, a new game comes out. Its renderer may use a feature differently or far more frequently than other titles have, causing some driver code that may not have been an issue before to become a slight bottleneck

Bottleneck I can understand, but stuff like reliability and artifact fixes? I would have assumed that's what the Direct3D/OpenGL specs are meant to clarify. They aren't exactly ambiguous unless it comes to vendor-specific extensions.

last edited by parabol at 09:59:59 23/Aug/07

heh, this game definitely requires a powerful PC, I couldn't even unzip the installer on my gaming box (then again it's only a P4 so I probably don't have much chance of playing it anyway but im still going to try lol). Could only unzip it on my opteron.

edit: wow, it's actually playable on my P4.

last edited by Nailbomb at 21:15:36 23/Aug/07

Man, I just got my copy delivered from DVDCrave. My Big Daddy figurine is broken, the drill arm has snapped off.

Read this:

As often happens with large shipments, a small percentage of the Big Daddy units reached retailers damaged. Since it stinks to get a broken figurine on launch day, we're putting a plan into place if you do receive a damaged Big Daddy.

Go to www.2kgames.com/bioshock/busted and, later this week, enter your info if you have received a broken figurine. We will ship you a pre-paid box to send your damaged Big Daddy back to us. And since it will take some time to get your new Big Daddy to you, will will be shipping you a printed BioShock art book to help tide you over until your Big Daddy is back to you."

s*** game, played for 10 mins, time to uninstall, my 2 cents inc gst.

Anyone know if the limited edition is still available to buy anywhere online? besides ebay.

Not sure if this has happened to anyone else but when I uninstalled the demo, windows said it was gone but there was still a 1.6gig file still sitting in the program folder under the company name.

Nah, didn't say that for me, but during gameplay and during the uninstallation, my HDD was making some sounds I've never heard it make before...