PLUS the terrible difficulty. It was like Far Cry all over again. I HATED Far Cry because I couldn't beat it even on easy Stalker is the same. I get killed within 10 minutes every time. I found the graphics extremely unimpressive even compared to older games. It looks like an old Xbox game to me.
Purely a matter of opinion. I was disappointed after everyone said the graphics were good. The colors are bland, the textures are blurry, and the geometry is unimpressive. I honestly think even Doom 3 looks way better than Stalker. Purely IMO, of course
I was never impressed with the graphics before as I couldnt get it to play well at any respectable resolution on my X1900XT with HDR on, turning that on though seemed to transform it, and the grass textures are good. The others are pretty unremarkable, but it's not a BAD looking game. I'd place it above Doom 3 but below FEAR, above Far Cry and Half Life 2, but below Half Life 2: Episode One (purely because of how sharp the HL games are, very few crappy textures). Put Doom 3 to 2560x1600 and you'll realise why a game natively supporting high resolutions is important.. haha. Surprisingly though, UT2004 looks absolutely stunning, even at this res, as does Counter-Strike Source and even RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 looks pretty good. Zoom right in so a small section of a ride is in 30 inches of screen and it will unsurprisingly look ass, but higher resolutions are great for any strategy game for seeing more at once without compromising the detail on the models.
Why, what happens with Doom 3 in high res? AFAIK, it just looks better and better... though some of the bump mapping and textures are pretty bad, but passable.
None of the textures are particularly high res, so it all gets a bit bland as you increase the res. The clarity is still there because the textures are expanded to the correct resolution, but the detail in them is lost.
So games like FEAR are better for high res screens? I know the visual fidelity in FEAR is pretty extreme. The textures are just amazing and everything is absolutely awesome in 1920. I could never get my GTS to do soft shadows with AA though. Soft shadows only worked without AA. Which really isn't bad at all on this screen.
Not sure I really noticed the difference, I enabled it all, AA is certainly present, not sure about the soft shadows - meh, I've got shadows, so it's fine by me...
Try soft shadows without AA. You'll see what I mean. Unless ATI cards can do soft shadows and AA at the same time. I haven't tried it with the 4870 yet.
I wouldn't know, but I remember all the past hoo-hah about HDR+AA combined and the likes, as far as I know, the HD2000 series onwards solved all that.
The 8800GTS did AA with HDR in Oblivion just fine. It was a bit much for the card at 1920 x 1200. At 1680 x 1050 I could use 4xAA which looked like 1920 with 2xAA. The 4870 can handle full 1920 with 4xAA. Oblivion still looks sweet... with a few minor mods of course
Dead serious. The AA is such in Oblivion that it cleans up the image SIGNIFICANTLY. I was more than happy to settle for a lower res with some AA. No jaggies whatsoever. Anywhere. I also depends on what screen you have. Your 30" Dell should be pretty good out of native res. Try it.
For me, there's a big difference. In IQ AND jaggies. When out of native res the image just isn't as detailed. Try playing something like FEAR for a few hours at 1920, then pause the game and switch it over to 1680. The difference is immediate and noticeable. The jaggies are way more pronounced and it feels like the screen just took a dump on your desk. Some aren't as sensitive to non-native resolutions, but I've been using my 24" screen for over a year now and I can't stand anything less than 1920 res. I'm sure if it was on a 1680 native res monitor it would be far better. But I HATE playing games out of native res. Some are acceptable with AA, but in general, it looks like crap.
I can tell the difference instantly. The dell 30" is very poor out of native res, for the simple reason that there's only a 31% difference in pixel count between 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 on a 24". The next resolution down for me, however, is 1920x1200, which is a 78% change in pixel count, it's vast, it's like running 1280x800 on a 24". Spam, you're one to talk, you use minimum graphics settings... <ugh>
Maxed out, the difference between 1920 and 1680 is the difference between pretty and ugly. It makes everything so "out of focus" and less detailed. 1680 certainly took a lot away from my Crysis experience. Other than Crysis, I have no need for a 4870. But I wanted native res, and let me tell you, the game looks TWICE as good now. But on a 1680 monitor, it looks as good as 1920 does on my monitor.
That's only because you have LCD monitors. I was talking about 1600x1200 on a CRT vs 1920x1200 on a LCD.
