Heh, nice, they've either optimised it or the netcode is huge.

Anyway, you enjoying it?

It is downloading for me now. If anyone spoils it for me they get a three week ban.

a) That would be abuse of the ban system.
b) It's a demo for the first level of the campaign, how would it be spoilers?
c) Only Aaron has it. The rest of us can't download it yet.

Did you spend an extra £10 just to get the Demo slightly earlier?

a) I agree.
b) I agree.
c) I am downloading it with about 40 minutes remaining on the download. He got it because EA are lying <THESE WORDS MAKE ME FEEL BIG> faced shit licking wallet pinching fanny's and released the public single player demo less than 24 hours after the preorder exclusive customers. I mean, seriously, what was the point in spending the extra money if we're just going to get the same as everybody else?

*30 minutes until finished download*

It's out now? Why did noone tell me!?

Hmm, looks like it's not actually officially released, but it's been leaked, possibly. Either that or it's a fake.

Hmm, just got a link... 1.77GB... Hmm.

Also, just found, it's a leak.

Well, it would be great if it didn't crash as soon as I enter the water.

But I've just restarted after installing the beta Nvidia graphics drivers, and I'm going to try again.

So you guys know: It has a 64bit binary, and it has DirectX 10!

I'm downloading now, I'll be trying it out later.

Hmm, 64bit and DX10... does it support multicore?

Mine only seems to run on one core. The 64-bit binary is broken, though; that's what was causing the game to crash as soon as I hit the water. DX10 looks good, especially the sunbeams!

Multicore should definitely be a priority for developers now, moreso than 64bit and stuff.

Well I've just played the demo, and it was impressive...

Firstly, as a DX9 user I was only allowed to use "High" settings and not "Very High". Landscapes looked incredible, but draw distance for small objects, like rocks barrels and people was appaling. I was fighting some people, and I could only see them with binos, even though I would have easily been able to hit them using the reflex sight... Also, up close and personal textures were a bit lacking...

The weapon customisation was nice, but I barely changed it once I had my standard setting. The AI was decent and would work together, and also took a lot of body hits before they went down. It would have been nice if after putting 10 bullets into their body they would atleast show some form of damage, rather than just running to cover with minor injuries and confusion. That may just be me used to other games, though.

Suit modes were nice, though you'll spend all your time in armour, the other modes drain energy way to fast. I used strength a bit when necessary.

Oh, and us DX9 users do atleast get to lay waste to the environment. I used a vehicle mounted machine gun to chop up a tree.

In all it seems like a good game, though with moderate emphasis on stealth due to the damage mechanics and AI. The game certainly does have some nice polish, if if some areas are a bit lacking. Some other touches like breathing (your aim shudders) are both nice and annoying at the same time.

The demo took me about an hour to complete on easy, I avoided one fighting section and was forced to develop fighting skills to progress. The ending left me wanting more with the aliens suddenly appearing...

I've been reading accounts on the beta forums. For some people it works on Vista 64.

And I have it, so now it's time to see what the SP campaign is like!

I shall post screenies in a few minutes.

Thankfully, I suffer with none of thse problems, being a VHigh mode person.



That's definitely true of the demo, but not of the full game. The demo is very limited in that respect.



This is especially true throughout the whole game including the multiplayer component. Maximum armour is like a 'restore energy' mode as well as a defensive mode.

Well for the VHigh stuff... I'm annoyed, DX9 CAN handle a lot of the options there, there are minimal amounts of special effects that won't work on DX9. Why should I be stuck with a blurry texture just because I don't want Vista. The textures in question are mainly the cliff rock textures.

As for draw distance, it appears to be around 100-150m using the binos' range meter. When the gun can quite easily hit to that range (I'd assume), it's not good. It also just looks bad when fairly big and noticeable objects start appearing in front of you. This was most noticeable attacking the beach (the radar thing), you could see barrels in binos but not in normal view, even though they would be big enough to see. I don't mind distant objects being lower rendered, but they need to be there.

I can understand weapon customisation extending in the full game, there's not many weapons in the demo anyway (fists, pistols, SCAR, FY71, shotty and nades, I think). I liked dual pistols though, lol.

Being out of armour mode made me feel vulnerable, and the other modes used up a lot of energy, especially speed sprinting and cloak.

OH YES!!!!!

Apart from killing a couple of dudes at the start I stealthed my way through the whole rest of it. The ai is awesome!

At one point one of them caught a glimpse of me as I was recharging. I immediately cloaked and legged it a few metres before going prone.

I watched as they circled the bush I had been in, then slowly one of them checks, remarks that I'm not there, then they fan out.


I love the conspiracy. It's the aliens right at the beginning! I so live this! Must have!

Can't have it on high textures though, everything goes cell shaded and nasty. :/


Still, while the graphics might look nice, the gameplay is also awesome.

http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZ ... spdemo.exe

reminder for

Woa, I didn't know that you were interested in this game too Bratty!



And Mark, I have looked on the net, and tried myself, and in my opinion there is nothing wrong with the draw distance. And I'm running it on the lower detail settings!

I get view distance problems when I run everything on low detail mode on my other computer. I notice shrubbery popping in to view when I get quite close to them. I don't experience it on very high mode at all, though. It's to be expected really.

In very high mode, I can see pretty much everything.

Skillers, you'll have to post some screenshots of your problem! Stay in the same position, use the binoculars, then take a screenshot. Then do it again without the binoculars, looking down your weapon or something.

I can very well believe that you are having problems with the demo. It's even more buggy than the multiplayer beta. The 64bit binary crashes without fail, as does the editor, and the demo has twice caused my system to blue screen. I get system lock ups too. I can confirm that the 64bit mode runs very smooth, whereas the 32bit mode runs choppy.

I read that it only runs slowly in 32-bit if you are running it in 32-bit under a 64-bit operating system.

Also, I do not have a beastage system, I scrape the minimum specs. Yet I simply have yet to have any problems with the draw distance.

Also, the Sandbox pwns.

Yeah, the Sandbox isn't too bad! It's very memory hungry though! I can't run it well on any of my systems.

Right, I've taken pictures of this draw distance thing (I was thinking the same thing, Aaron). I've put them all in one pic.

I'm standing on top of the cliff looking down on the radar jammer, I'm aiming directly at the explosive barrel on the pier, which is reported as about 82.25m away, by the binoculars.

I was running at 1280x960 in windowed mode (yeah yeah, I know) with all settings on high and AA on 16xQ.



From top left;
Binos with one click of zoom
Binos with default zoom
Reflex sight (on a FY71)
Standard view (with FY71)

Each image above has been cropped, but it's native resolution was kept, no enlarging or shrinking here.

Right, in the first pic we see everything how we should, all is well.
The second pic we start to see traces of draw distance. Noteabley, the blue barrel above the explosive (red) barrel is there but partley rendered, looking like a per pixel basis. The green barrel to the right is also exhibiting a few missing pixels. The little box ontop of the nearest crate has also vanished.
Third pic (reflex sight), all the barrels have gone, except the explosive (which I'm aiming at). The left crate at the back has disappeared and the one on the right is starting to show problems. The rocks on the beach to the bottom of the pic are also showing issues, with random pixels not there.
Final pic (normal view). Everything on the pier has vanished, as have the rocks on the beach. The explosive barrel appears to have a few rendered pixels, though.

I could recreate a similar results on the beach, with rocks exhibiting these effects. It's also work noting that as you move towards something it will start appearing with the pixel effect.

I figure this would be acceptable at longer ranges, but this range is ideal sniping range with the reflex sight, and this can screw some shots up. I'm not sure it's effect on people, but it does affect their cover.

That's actually quite bad! I don't get this problem though.

Can you try and recreate a similar situation? Maybe try from further away.

Also, is this what you go on your other comp?

Yes, but I can only really play it on low detail mode, so I get view distance problems all the time!

I'll grab some screenshots from my game tonight if I can, but I don't have any editing software.

Strange that it says 1.77GB everywhere else. The official download is 1.1GB!

the rest is spyware