Bioshock wont work until I upgrade... I think

[Czar45]

Specs:

Win XP Proffessional
Athlon 3200+
Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb
1024 mb memory
Direct X Up to date
Video Drivers up to date + the radeon hotfix.

It wont work, it just wont work. I get to the menu select and theres no mouse, but i estimate where it is and highlight the options and select new game. I do so, it loads the movie with the dude in the plane, then it all goes to hell. I crash into big black boxes surronded by bubbles, fire, and a black background.

I read up on the forums and apparently you need some shader thing to run this game. Im gonna take a guess and my "outdated" card doesnt support the shader 3.0 or whatever it needs. Tell me how my card is outdated when it still costs 250 dollars online???@#@#?

If the state of the new game industry is to pander to console owners and make every game that is going to be ported sub-par on PC's, then well, that is just crap. They apparently spent too much time tweaking it specifically for the 360 and decided not to make it compatible with "older" stuff. I refuse to go out and get a new card for this game, because this is a whole lotta crap. 50 dollars to be precise.

[dandragonrage]

Your card is worth no more than $50. I can find people charging ridiculous amounts for stuff online, doesn't make it worth that.

Your system is at least 4 years old. You can't expect it to run new games forever. Your best bet is a total overhaul - new motherboard, CPU, PCI-Express video card. If you want to go with the latest, you'll also need new RAM (DDR2 or DDR3).

[your evil twin]

It's not at least 4 years old. At most it is 3 years old. My system's specs are pretty similar and I bought it the end of 2005, only 2 years ago.

My computer was a top of the range specialised gaming PC, and just because it happened to be ATI rather than nvidia I find that now only 2 years later there are games that it won't run. Wouldn't mind so much if ALL games had moved lightyears ahead and it couldn't run anything recent, but it is incredibly frustrating to be told that a system that can run STALKER or Supreme Commander or FEAR on maximum settings has become "outdated".

I'll be interested to know the figures for complaints and returns due to mainstream non-tech-savy people buying the game and discovering their seemingly "good" PC can't run it.

[sean10mm]

I'll be interested to know the figures for complaints and returns due to mainstream non-tech-savy people buying the game and discovering their seemingly "good" PC can't run it.

It says right on the box that your video card isn't good enough. Do you have to be "tech savy" to do that?

[dandragonrage]

It's not at least 4 years old. At most it is 3 years old. My system's specs are pretty similar and I bought it the end of 2005, only 2 years ago.

You bought an outdated system, then. A couple of my friends had similar systems when I went to college in 2003.

[your evil twin]

It says right on the box that your video card isn't good enough. Do you have to be "tech savy" to do that?

I dont' have a box. I've only downloaded the demo. Demo doesn't come in a box.

But there's plenty of stupid people out there who buy stuff without trying the demo first and without doing their research. And does it actually say "requires shader model 3.0" on the box? I doubt it, it probably says "x1300 or better", which won't mean anything to a non tech-savy person.

[dandragonrage]

which won't mean anything to a non tech-savy person.

If they don't know what the hardware means, they should walk up to one of the sales drones at the store and ask. Even a monkey could give them the answer.

If you don't check, it's nobody's fault but your own.

[Czar45]

Listen here, just because you have tons of money to waste on upgrading all the time, doesnt mean I can do the same. Why in the world would anyone look at the specific requirements, when pretty much every new game but this one will work on any graphics card. Sure it may be slow, but then you will know that you r card is really out of date. My card is fast, and can still run all modern games. Just because they choose to use shaders that specifically run on specific hardware, thats not my fault. What happened to the term compatability. I mean the hell, are we macs now, can only run our specific software on specific hardware. Absolutely ludicrous.

[dandragonrage]

Having upgraded within the last FOUR YEARS constitutes "all the time"? How about you go get a job instead of ☺☺☺☺☺ing that your FOUR YEAR OLD HARDWARE can't run a new game and that you're TOO LAZY to read the system requirements?

No matter how many ways you try to spin it, you are the only one at fault here. Your hardware is legacy. That is computer jargon for DAMN OLD.

[your evil twin]

Well, seeing how my computer can run Supreme Commander, STALKER, FEAR, Company of Heroes on MAXIMUM SETTINGS, would you consider that to sound like a "legacy" system?

3ghz procesor, 2 gigs of RAM, 256mb graphics card... that should be a decent gaming PC, but all of a suddensuddenly it matters WHICH 256mb graphics card you have.

Upgrading it with a decent recent graphics card would cost about as much as an XBOX 360. I've always been a PC gamer rather than a console gamer, but suddenly getting into consoles looks a bit more appealing...

In the good old days, if your computer didn't quite meet the requirements, that just meant the game would run slow, even on low settings. I remember years back playing old RTCW: Enemy Territory; it supposedly required something like an 1ghz processor but I was able to play it OK on a 750mhz processor since the rest of my system's specs were decent.

This is pretty much the first time I've ever encountered a game where the game simply won't run. Especially on hardware that is more than adequate for pretty much everything else on the market.

[dandragonrage]

3ghz procesor, 2 gigs of RAM, 256mb graphics card... that should be a decent gaming PC, but all of a suddensuddenly it matters WHICH 256mb graphics card you have.

Whine more. It was well known at the time that ATI was vocal about not caring about SM3. The high-end computer market has NEVER been something that the average person could understand without research. You didn't do that research and you got burned. Your own fault.

[your evil twin]

Well I guess that's slightly my fault too, cause I myself decided I didn't care about SM3. I got an ATI card because I wanted to play HL2, and everyone knew that HL2 ran better on ATI cards. And back then, HL2 was the only game that mattered. And would ever matter. In the whole history of the world.

By the way, the comment about asking a "sales drone in a store" about the hardware... I dont' know what stores are like in America, but I'm pretty sure that if I pick up a box of Bioshock and go to the counter in a store like HMV or Virgin Megastore and ask about the system requirements, they won't even know what a graphics card is, let alone whether the X1300 requirement means that it needs shader model 3.0. In the UK, the people that work in stores are there to take your money and put an item in a bag.

[dandragonrage]

Then that's what places like this are for. Or, for that matter, Google.

[Czar45]

I dont understand why you keep posting on these threads. If you can play bioshock, why arent you. Instead you waste your times trolling on forums.

[Captain Buffalo]

Specs:
Athlon 3200+
Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb
1024 mb memory

Your box is REALLY dated in gamer terms. Buy new hardware if you want to play contemporary games. If you can't scratch the cash together, wait until you can. See how easy that is? Really now, how is stinking up this place with misdirected anger going to help?

[dandragonrage]

I dont understand why you keep posting on these threads. If you can play bioshock, why arent you. Instead you waste your times trolling on forums.

Sorry to tell you this my friend, but you're the one with a chip on his shoulder thinking that 2k owes him a game that works on his legacy hardware. Why are YOU wasting your time on a forum about a game that you CAN'T PLAY?