Another game requiring SM 3.0

[ktimekiller]

Gah, another game that cannot run without SM 3.0, im losing alot of games lately cause of this damned requirement! I wanna play bioshock!!!

[The Brick]

Time to upgrade perhaps?

[ktimekiller]

! No Never

[ktimekiller]

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5680

This guy worked on it for 20 minutes and got it working partially, I see no reason why bioshock is sm 3.0 only.

[Flyingdebris]

get with the times, gramps

[ktimekiller]

Recent games make me furious, its as if they made a pact with microsoft to force a 3.0 to make users buy nvdia instead of ati or something.

[giant384]

Recent games make me furious, its as if they made a pact with microsoft to force a 3.0 to make users buy nvdia instead of ati or something.

wtf are you talking about???
the last 2 generations both ati and nvidia have sm3.0 supported cards.
also this has nothing to do with the company.
bioshock is run off of the unreal 3 engine which is sm3.0 only and created by epic games.
i could swear i heard that ut3 would work on sm2.0 though.

[Laivasse]

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5680

This guy worked on it for 20 minutes and got it working partially, I see no reason why bioshock is sm 3.0 only.
This is an interesting thread. It would be nice if they manage to come out with a complete working version of that 'fix'.

[StardogChampion]

This time around forcing us to upgrade is slightly bullshit. Bioshock isn't revolutionary graphics-wise, that's main reason I'm annoyed. SM2 can handle any Bioshock screenshot smoothly.

Here's some screenshots on my X800 (Shader Model 2-only card) using a patch created in 20mins by someone on the forums:
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/6960/untitled1copygu3.jpg
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/7079/x800sm2ap3.jpg
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/861/x800sm22ph8.jpg

And you tell me my card's behind the times when it runs this SMOOTHLY? The only reason it won't run is simply because of SM3.0.

wtf are you talking about???
the last 2 generations both ati and nvidia have sm3.0 supported cards.
also this has nothing to do with the company.
bioshock is run off of the unreal 3 engine which is sm3.0 only and created by epic games.
i could swear i heard that ut3 would work on sm2.0 though.
Please don't post crap. Unreal Engine 3 supports SM2.0. Crysis will support SM2.0.

[VictimOfScience]

*runs to get that damn fix*

[sharp]

This time around forcing us to upgrade is slightly bullshit. Bioshock isn't revolutionary graphics-wise, that's main reason I'm annoyed. SM2 can handle any Bioshock screenshot smoothly.


Stardog,

Do you have a link to that SM2.0 patch?

[Laivasse]

It's in the thread that ktimekiller linked...

[Asus]

It isn't about what SM2.0 can do or not but that developers don't want to support multiple shaders/paths or whatever. At least that is what I've seen them say in interviews.

I really wonder how much rewriting of the shaders they did if any. Just disable parts that were completely incompatible with SM2.0? But it's obvious they don't have it all working from the few screen shots I've seen. SM2.0 can do some of the stuff in SM3.0 but you'll get lower performance and maybe some glitching because it can't do as many instructions.

[theotherguy]

Wow, I've got to get that patch. Perhaps someone will mod it and create SM 2.0 shaders for things that are missing.

[Dalamari]

Good thing I've got a 360, no need to upgrade or get some patch

SUCK IT!

[theotherguy]

Good thing I've got a 360, no need to upgrade or get some patch

SUCK IT!

But you did have to spend ~$500 for it :hmph:

[ktimekiller]

wtf are you talking about???
the last 2 generations both ati and nvidia have sm3.0 supported cards.
also this has nothing to do with the company.
bioshock is run off of the unreal 3 engine which is sm3.0 only and created by epic games.
i could swear i heard that ut3 would work on sm2.0 though.

please dont post shit..

[Tick]

buy a new graphics card,stop complaining.

[clarky003]

He's allowed to complain if he wants the shader model switch has left alot of people owning popular cards out to dry so to speak, wait.. there's a patch for an X800? that will allow the demo to work with SM 2.0 : O?.

[ktimekiller]

He's allowed to complain if he wants the shader model switch has left alot of people owning popular cards out to dry so to speak, wait.. there's a patch for an X800? that will allow the demo to work with SM 2.0 : O?.

In a way yea, its still in progress, but its modified game files to allow your bioshock to run without SM 3.0

[Sam]

Anyone got a list of which cards support 3.0 and which don't?

[StardogChampion]

X1300 and above support it.

GF 6200 or 6600 (?) and above.

Although don't expect those to run it majorly well. I think the x1600 is barely on par with the x800.

EDIT: This is on the box - (Nvidia 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI x1550)

[Spoonoop]

pisses me off that crappier nvidia cards have 3.0 and my x800xl has 2.0 - I still dont plan on buying a new card for a while. Not until it's impossible for games to run on my X800XL or it becomes aged beyond repair. I will squeeze every last bit of power out of it before i give it up!

[StardogChampion]

pisses me off that crappier nvidia cards have 3.0 and my x800xl has 2.0 - I still dont plan on buying a new card for a while. Not until it's impossible for games to run on my X800XL or it becomes aged beyond repair. I will squeeze every last bit of power out of it before i give it up!
You'll be able to use it for Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3.

Generally just lazy Xbox 360 ports you won't be able to.

[Malfunction]

If I were any of you with SM 2.0 cards, I'd use this as a good excuse to upgrade my gear. =D

[OmegaX]

Glad you posted this, I have an x800 and was about to buy the game. Kind of dissapointing because the card runs almost all games decently. Guess I'll just stick to my 360 for gaming until I can afford to upgrade.

[Asus]

Anyone got a list of which cards support 3.0 and which don't?
ATI X800/850 (SM2.0b) and older do not. X1300-x1900 series do and HD2400-2900 goes up to SM4.0 with DX10.
Nvidia 5900 (SM2.0) and older do not. 6200-7900 support SM3.0 and 8500-8800 goes up to SM4.0 with DX10.

X1300 and above support it.

GF 6200 or 6600 (?) and above.

Although don't expect those to run it majorly well. I think the x1600 is barely on par with the x800.

EDIT: This is on the box - (Nvidia 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI x1550)
It's odd that they list the X1300 as supported but say excluding the X1550 (same card and exact specs as a X1300 Pro, just renamed). X1050 is also a renamed product but it is not really from the X1000 series and does not support SM3.0. Originally named X550 (SM2.0b).

X800 (high end SM2.0b card 1 generation older) is faster than the X1600 (mid range SM3.0 card). Possibly double the FPS if stressed.

[theotherguy]

X800 (high end SM2.0b card 1 generation older) is faster than the X1600 (mid range SM3.0 card). Possibly double the FPS if stressed.

Which is a shame, because the X1600 is the highest vid. card that will work for my aging AGP motherboard.

[Asus]

It really depends what X1600 model. Some are really low and others are higher on the scale.

What about the X1950 Pro? (http://goodblimey.com/archives/2006/12/21/visiontek-radeon-x1950-pro-agp-256mb-review/2/) 6800GT is similar to an X800 Pro/XT.

[StardogChampion]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Radeon-X1950-PRO-512MB/dp/B000RF7GMS/ref=pd_sbs_ce_6/026-2370645-5852439?ie=UTF8&qid=1187719204&sr=1-4

512mb one there. $300... :/

[giant384]

And you tell me my card's behind the times when it runs this SMOOTHLY? The only reason it won't run is simply because of SM3.0.


Please don't post crap. Unreal Engine 3 supports SM2.0. Crysis will support SM2.0.

my god so many ignorant people on here. god damn this is worse then the people who complain about upgrading there whole system for pci-e. if you want to play a game you have to upgrade for it. dont expect to play everything with a 3 year old card. also why are you bringing the crysis into this???i already know it uses at least sm2.0;it runs on the crytek2 engine where bioshock is unreal 3 engine.

[StardogChampion]

my god so many ignorant people on here. god damn this is worse then the people who complain about upgrading there whole system for pci-e. if you want to play a game you have to upgrade for it. dont expect to play everything with a 3 year old card. also why are you bringing the crysis into this???i already know it uses at least sm2.0;it runs on the crytek2 engine where bioshock is unreal 3 engine.
What are you talking about?

And what do engines have to do with it? "Unreal 3 engine" (which doesn't exist), is actually called the Unreal Engine 3 (http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml), and it will run fine on SM2.0 cards. Bioshock only chose SM3.0 because of the Xbox.

The point is that the X800 range of cards are not running games slowly. It's not like we're using GF4ti4600's chugging along at 2fps then complaining that Bioshock doesn't work. The X800+ can handle Bioshock easily, yet just lacks SM3 support.

Hi, hi, capital letters.

[VictimOfScience]

So I got it working with my x850xt pe with the latest sm2.0 fix from that thread on the other site and with the ATI hotfix that is available. A lot of the textures are still missing, but it is more than playable.

On a side note, I just saw an HDMI-enabled 360 Premium in the wild so I will likely pick that up tomorrow because I seriously doubt that the Falcons will be out much before Christmas if at all this year. This one at least has the new heatsink, so it should hopefully not be a problem....

[sea]

A patch that allows Pixel Shader 2.0 support?

I guess I'm downloading that demo now.

[Asus]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Radeon-X1950-PRO-512MB/dp/B000RF7GMS/ref=pd_sbs_ce_6/026-2370645-5852439?ie=UTF8&qid=1187719204&sr=1-4

512mb one there. $300... :/He's in Texas so it would be USD.
A lot cheaper for the 256MB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241041) and 512MB verions. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161082) on newegg.

[ktimekiller]

my god so many ignorant people on here. god damn this is worse then the people who complain about upgrading there whole system for pci-e. if you want to play a game you have to upgrade for it. dont expect to play everything with a 3 year old card. also why are you bringing the crysis into this???i already know it uses at least sm2.0;it runs on the crytek2 engine where bioshock is unreal 3 engine.

This game is nowhere close to REQUIRING a SM 3.0 as with any other game that came out with requirement of a Sm 3.0. It is sheer laziness of ports, and developers.

[Tick]

This game is nowhere close to REQUIRING a SM 3.0 as with any other game that came out with requirement of a Sm 3.0. It is sheer laziness of ports, and developers.

gtfo

[sea]

Okay, tried the patch. That sucked ass. Looks like I'll have to wait for either a new video card or a Pixel Shader 2.0 patch that actually works properly.

[Gargantou]

This game is nowhere close to REQUIRING a SM 3.0 as with any other game that came out with requirement of a Sm 3.0. It is sheer laziness of ports, and developers.Actually, afaik it might be the UE3 that's at fault, name me one released UE3 game that supports SM2.0..

[Tick]

I cant believe people think 2k was being lazy,you people are just being cheapskates when you are using a card that is older then 2years you fail on the only fault lies with you, not with the Game Devs.

[Asus]

It seems to me that before DX10 if a developer wanted to keep things simple and cost effective that they would just stick with DX9 (SM2.0) and DX9c (SM3.0). Maybe DX8.1 if they could afford it. The two paths they go with have just moved up to DX10 and DX9c with regular DX9 being that optional 3rd support.

[clarky003]

Lawd, what the hell is wrong with some of you people?. Ok even though I'm updating my rig at the end of the month, It's pretty easy to understand not everyone has the time and energy to blast out on a new computer or extra parts to play games that could support SM 2.0 shaders if they had just f***ing bothered to scale it better.

Can some of you people not appreciate that not everyone has the luxury to spend every waking moment saving exclusively for expensive PC hardware?. Obviously to make it worthwhile at the moment you have to invest in something that isn't exactley cheap.

The point here is this clearly can run on SM 2.0 if the developers had bothered with more support, and at their benifit. Appropriately atleast Crytek are bothering to include SM 2.0 support. So lets get this straight, this whole debate is about scalability, and the lack of it with some games like Bioshock.

[Pi Mu Rho]

Actually, afaik it might be the UE3 that's at fault, name me one released UE3 game that supports SM2.0..

Roboblitz.

[Asus]

We know it could probably run with SM2.0, maybe less detail or effects. But just because it could doesn't mean they would make the choice to support it. Probably not much experience with the new UE3 and this game title is new to them. No previous Bioshock games to make work on this one easier and save time. I bet they just want to make sure costs are low enough and they make money on a title that is unproven.

If anything there should have been tons of complaints about Splinter Cell not supporting SM2.0. Existing franchise, no DX10 version either. Just DX9c SM3.0 support.

[theotherguy]

It really depends what X1600 model. Some are really low and others are higher on the scale.

What about the X1950 Pro? (http://goodblimey.com/archives/2006/12/21/visiontek-radeon-x1950-pro-agp-256mb-review/2/) 6800GT is similar to an X800 Pro/XT.

Ooh, I didn't know X1950 had an AGP model!

I might save up a bit for this and buy it sometime around christmas, and that should last me until about christmas 2009, which is when I plan for a full upgrade.

[clarky003]

We know it could probably run with SM2.0, maybe less detail or effects. But just because it could doesn't mean they would make the choice to support it. Probably not much experience with the new UE3 and this game title is new to them. No previous Bioshock games to make work on this one easier and save time. I bet they just want to make sure costs are low enough and they make money on a title that is unproven.

If anything there should have been tons of complaints about Splinter Cell not supporting SM2.0. Existing franchise, no DX10 version either. Just DX9c SM3.0 support.

I think the great reviews of Bioshock is what has got everyone in an uproar about this now, just the fact that it's more appealing to a large amount of PC gamers, including roughly that 1/3 of players who don't have SM 3.0 cards.

[StardogChampion]

If anything there should have been tons of complaints about Splinter Cell not supporting SM2.0.
There was, but Ubisoft aren't exactly thinking about the PC market nowadays. There were a lot of threads of the forum when the demo came out, but I don't think too many were bothered since DA was a Shanghai game wasn't it? And it seemed to be a buggy PC port.

[Asus]

Yeah, although it didn't seem as much as with Bioshock. It didn't seem to spread to other forums as much that were not SC forums.

[giant384]

Lawd, what the hell is wrong with some of you people?. Ok even though I'm updating my rig at the end of the month, It's pretty easy to understand not everyone has the time and energy to blast out on a new computer or extra parts to play games that could support SM 2.0 shaders if they had just f***ing bothered to scale it better.

Can some of you people not appreciate that not everyone has the luxury to spend every waking moment saving exclusively for expensive PC hardware?. Obviously to make it worthwhile at the moment you have to invest in something that isn't exactley cheap.

The point here is this clearly can run on SM 2.0 if the developers had bothered with more support, and at their benifit. Appropriately atleast Crytek are bothering to include SM 2.0 support. So lets get this straight, this whole debate is about scalability, and the lack of it with some games like Bioshock.

if you dont have the money to spend on at least $100 card then please stop complaining!!!! you can easily obtain a sm3.0 card for cheap. dont give the excuse of having older hardware and people pitying you.

[clarky003]

I've got plenty to upgrade my computer at the end of this month, and that wasn't my point :/ , but well done for missing it.

[StardogChampion]

if you dont have the money to spend on at least $100 card then please stop complaining!!!! you can easily obtain a sm3.0 card for cheap. dont give the excuse of having older hardware and people pitying you.
Get out the thread giant. $100 for a worse card ain't going to happen.

Oh look, you're one of those type of people that puts their PC's specs in their sigs. Have a nice life.

[Sir Phoenixx]

You can get a 7900gs for $100-120, or a 7600gs for $60-75 (plus shipping/taxes)

[ktimekiller]

if you dont have the money to spend on at least $100 card then please stop complaining!!!! you can easily obtain a sm3.0 card for cheap. dont give the excuse of having older hardware and people pitying you.

first of all, my ****ing card runs every game that comes out perfectly ****ing fine, it isnt the outdated card thats the problem, its the ignornace of people like you and the developers lately igonoring the need of other pc users. (like half of them)

[Laivasse]

if you dont have the money to spend on at least $100 card then please stop complaining!!!! you can easily obtain a sm3.0 card for cheap. dont give the excuse of having older hardware and people pitying you.
Why are you acting like such a fool? People have repeatedly stated that the type of cards you can get for cheap which support SM3 are actually probably slower than the x800 and x850 which Bioshock doesn't support, yet which are still very common cards among gamers.

So enjoy your beefy gaming rig. The type of hardware elitism you worship is eventually going to kill off PC gaming and make that rig useless anyway - and I'm saying this with a Radeon x1950 in my PC.

[giant384]

whatever guys,but whining about it wont get you anywhere so just stop

also a 7900gs is 2 times better then a x850 will ever be for around 100-200usd

[Kyorisu]

Can I also suggest the 7900GS? Bought mine back around April for $195 compared to the $400+ 8800.

[ktimekiller]

whatever guys,but whining about it wont get you anywhere so just stop

also a 7900gs is 2 times better then a x850 will ever be for around 100-200usd

wow.. gtfo this thread, whining? obiously Bioshock can be played perfectly fine as demonstraited by this dude who worked on it for mere 20 minutes and came up with a workable patch

[Fliko]

wow.. gtfo this thread, whining? obiously Bioshock can be played perfectly fine as demonstraited by this dude who worked on it for mere 20 minutes and came up with a workable patch

Gtfo
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4126/after2mb7.jpg
That and the fact that shaders aren't being cached, so load times are insane.

Can some of you people not appreciate that not everyone has the luxury to spend every waking moment saving exclusively for expensive PC hardware?. Obviously to make it worthwhile at the moment you have to invest in something that isn't exactley cheap.
Thats why we have consoles.

[giant384]

wow.. gtfo this thread, whining? obiously Bioshock can be played perfectly fine as demonstraited by this dude who worked on it for mere 20 minutes and came up with a workable patch

i wouldnt call that patch perfect....infact its not even close. also yes most of you are whining(those who cant play that is)

[StardogChampion]

i wouldnt call that patch perfect....infact its not even close. also yes most of you are whining(those who cant play that is)
Well stop whining about us whining. At the end of the day 2k aren't getting $50 from people who want to spend money on it. I'll be happily playing UT3 and Crysis that both look better than Bioshock before I upgrade. The end, now quit trolling the thread.

[phantomdesign]

Recent games make me furious, its as if they made a pact with microsoft to force a 3.0 to make users buy nvdia instead of ati or something.

I blame ATI because nvidia jumped all over PS 3.0 and ATI lagged way behind. Same with DX 10. My preference is OpenGL across the board because no one owns it (consider MS did make DX10 vista only).

[VictimOfScience]

Just got my HDMI-/Zephyr- enabled 360 Premium (which the EBGames manager didn't even know existed--big surprise) and am looking forward to a long night under the sea with my fresh new shiny copy of Bioshock 360. Can't wait!!!