If Far Cry works why not Battlefield 2...

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: PerfeK

Take a look at history. Find me another game that did this? I have no desire to play BF2 however to render a GF4 card out of date this quickly is pretty stupid. There are lots of people that don't upgrade their video cards that regularly. My Ti4200 pretty much plays any game out there except BF2. I am just happy I don't have any desire to play it.

Just spend 10 minutes to try and find a game that made a two year old card completely unusable to play the game.

I think you will have a hard time. Unless of course you try to refer to 3DFX but that was simply caused by 3dfx going out of business.

The 4*00 series is over 4 (four) FOUR years old. The 4600 was high-end in 2000/1.

You are smoking something.

Come up with some proof. It is a little over three years old.

Here is my best link for it.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-719-GeForce4-TI-4200-release-date.html

This is why it is so hard to keep the technology moving. People like Codewiz refuse to let the old stuff go. Developers have to deal with this by making sacrifices to ensure compatibility.

That is BS. Until there is a real TECHNOLOGY based reason to move on from a card, then I refuse to spend that type of money to replace something that does its job. $400 for a new video card is not something I am going to spend every 2 years. It is unneccessary except for when companies release games that force people's hands.

Pixel shaders is not something all that earth shattering. It was pure laziness to decide not to support older versions.

Can we control what EA does? No, it is their decision but that doesn't change the fact that it is a STUPID decision.

 

[sourceninja]

That is BS. Until there is a real TECHNOLOGY based reason to move on from a card, then I refuse to spend that type of money to replace something that does its job. $400 for a new video card is not something I am going to spend every 2 years. It is unneccessary except for when companies release games that force people's hands.

Pixel shaders is not something all that earth shattering. It was pure laziness to decide not to support older versions.

Can we control what EA does? No, it is their decision but that doesn't change the fact that it is a STUPID decision.

Who said anything about 400.00? I could get a comptable video card for 50-70.00 and a damn good video card for 150.00.

Originally posted by: obsidian

Originally posted by: sourceninja
OK, here's your answer.

EA pushes their devs to release way too soon, so the dev's had a choice, spend extra time writing in fallback support for outdated protocols that render slower. (doing all the optimizations that go with it, bug testing it, etc) and spend less time on content, bug fixes, gameplay, etc. Or develop to a more current spec (almost any video card made sense the fx 5200 is dx9 ps 1.4 compatible) save time in testing and optimizations. And possibly knock out more gameplay bugs and make better content and still meet EA deadlines.

The fact of the matter is that technology changes. Its like people complaining that a lot of new software wont work on windows 98. Its simple efficiency. They just looked at the demographic and found that the cost outweighed the gains of adding support for older video cards. That means your in a minority in their eyes, and minoritys get screwed.

Sorry, but Dice is not owned by EA. They also have the financial means to support their own devopement. I call total and utter bs on the "EA made us do it" excuse.

Umm, EA owns the publishing rights to the franchise. If they dont play ball, I bet you EA could just say fine, we are not releasing it, go home. I'm not putting the blame on EA fully. But i'm saying it was a factor. You have to look at all sides, time, money, difficulty, skill, realism. Why do very few games run on linux? UT2004 runs on linux, so every game company should make their game run on linux. Guess what? It doesn't work that way because not enough people run linux to make it worth the stress to their time constraints, money constraints, and difficulty. Its the same thing with keeping backwards compatiblity with older hardware. They have to draw the line somewhere. They drew it with the ait 8500+ and nvidia fx 5200+ (which btw are very very very cheap cards). Its not like you need a X800 or 6800 ultra 256 to play the game.

 

[imported_FishTaco]

Originally posted by: Codewiz

That is BS. Until there is a real TECHNOLOGY based reason to move on from a card, then I refuse to spend that type of money to replace something that does its job. $400 for a new video card is not something I am going to spend every 2 years. It is unneccessary except for when companies release games that force people's hands.

Pixel shaders is not something all that earth shattering. It was pure laziness to decide not to support older versions.

Can we control what EA does? No, it is their decision but that doesn't change the fact that it is a STUPID decision.

First can we stop using laziness as the reason why ps1.3 support wasn't added? The likely reason it wasn't added was money. Time equals money, as in programmer time, designer time, tester time, maintainence time. For reference here's a link to the version history of the pixel shader: DirectX pixel shader history. You can see a number of changes were introduced in 1.4. To support 1.3 time would have to be spent to workaround and overcome all those changes.

On your point about cost, I agree, $400 for 2 years of service is a very high price. The question becomes, how much exactly are you willing to spend per year? We do agree that computer hardware doesn't last forever right? So just how long should it last and at what cost? How long before you were actually planning to upgrade your system? Another year? Two years? Trying to get 4 or 5 years out of a system isn't unreasonable, but you have to expect problems like this cropping in the last year or two of your computer's life. You'll have to have some patience, just think, in a year or two when you do upgrade, BF2 will be in the discount bin or maybe in a boxed set with some expansion packs. Hopefully by then all the bugs will be worked out.

Did EA make a "STUPID" decision? They'll never know unless you as the consumer tell them. Boycotts don't work if the company doesn't know they are being boycotted. You have to gather your fellow geforce4 users and get them to write snail mail to EA, Dice, Nvidia and the press. Show them that you and your fellow geforce4 users were serious about purchasing their product and give them an idea of the number of sales they gave up. Email and internet petitions aren't very effective, you have to use snail mail so that you can create that moment in the EA board room where they bring in bags and bags of letters, each from a potential customer that they gave up. That might get them to realize their mistake. If you truely feel passionate about your cause, make the effort, get the ball rolling and show them the error of their ways, not just for BF2, but for all future games.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Childs

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: pkananen
no, creators of bf2 were too lazy to code for cards that use ps 1.3. They could have if they wanted to, but they were too lazy

they actually coded something?

I'm surprised by that too. I thought someone took BF 1942 + DC mod, crapped in a box, then sold it to me.

ROFL

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: jay75
If such detail can be shown in "far cry" why not battlefield?

Because they made a business decision not to spend the time and money to program in a way necessary to support the GF4 series hardware.

It's not a matter of laziness, this was clearly a decision that was made on purpose.

I have no idea the time and cost involved in programming for 1.3 shaders in addition to all the other shaders they programmed for, and I'm guessing you don't either.

Just like you don't want to spend $50-100 on a new card, they don't want to spend however much money it would cost to add the features to support your card. Clearly their market analysis said that they wouldn't make enough money from the addition of that feature to make programming for those cards worth the effort. Who do you have to blame? Ultimately those of us who HAVE upgraded their video card, because we are the ones who have made the GF4 series segment of the market so small that they can choose to ignore it and still make their profit targets.

I used to have a GF4 ti 4200. I upgraded from it over 2 years ago. I am partly to blame for your problem. I am not sorry.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: FishTaco

Originally posted by: Codewiz

That is BS. Until there is a real TECHNOLOGY based reason to move on from a card, then I refuse to spend that type of money to replace something that does its job. $400 for a new video card is not something I am going to spend every 2 years. It is unneccessary except for when companies release games that force people's hands.

Pixel shaders is not something all that earth shattering. It was pure laziness to decide not to support older versions.

Can we control what EA does? No, it is their decision but that doesn't change the fact that it is a STUPID decision.

First can we stop using laziness as the reason why ps1.3 support wasn't added? The likely reason it wasn't added was money. Time equals money, as in programmer time, designer time, tester time, maintainence time. For reference here's a link to the version history of the pixel shader: DirectX pixel shader history. You can see a number of changes were introduced in 1.4. To support 1.3 time would have to be spent to workaround and overcome all those changes.

On your point about cost, I agree, $400 for 2 years of service is a very high price. The question becomes, how much exactly are you willing to spend per year? We do agree that computer hardware doesn't last forever right? So just how long should it last and at what cost? How long before you were actually planning to upgrade your system? Another year? Two years? Trying to get 4 or 5 years out of a system isn't unreasonable, but you have to expect problems like this cropping in the last year or two of your computer's life. You'll have to have some patience, just think, in a year or two when you do upgrade, BF2 will be in the discount bin or maybe in a boxed set with some expansion packs. Hopefully by then all the bugs will be worked out.

Did EA make a "STUPID" decision? They'll never know unless you as the consumer tell them. Boycotts don't work if the company doesn't know they are being boycotted. You have to gather your fellow geforce4 users and get them to write snail mail to EA, Dice, Nvidia and the press. Show them that you and your fellow geforce4 users were serious about purchasing their product and give them an idea of the number of sales they gave up. Email and internet petitions aren't very effective, you have to use snail mail so that you can create that moment in the EA board room where they bring in bags and bags of letters, each from a potential customer that they gave up. That might get them to realize their mistake. If you truely feel passionate about your cause, make the effort, get the ball rolling and show them the error of their ways, not just for BF2, but for all future games.

I don't disagree with much of what you said.

Trying to get 4 or 5 years out of a system isn't unreasonable, but you have to expect problems like this cropping in the last year or two of your computer's life.

However, I don't think I have ever seen an issue like this before. Honestly, I would like someone to point out something like this happening in the past.

Sure, when you get to the 3-4 year range, you typically start lacking in the horsepower to run the games. Yet, the horsepower isn't the problem in this case. Just not supporting an older version of a pixel shader. I mean even Quake 2 kept support for software rendering AND opengl.

It is definately a money issue for the developer but I think it will cost them more money in the end.

I could be totally wrong tho.

 

[sourceninja]

Originally posted by: Codewiz

Originally posted by: FishTaco

Originally posted by: Codewiz

That is BS. Until there is a real TECHNOLOGY based reason to move on from a card, then I refuse to spend that type of money to replace something that does its job. $400 for a new video card is not something I am going to spend every 2 years. It is unneccessary except for when companies release games that force people's hands.

Pixel shaders is not something all that earth shattering. It was pure laziness to decide not to support older versions.

Can we control what EA does? No, it is their decision but that doesn't change the fact that it is a STUPID decision.

First can we stop using laziness as the reason why ps1.3 support wasn't added? The likely reason it wasn't added was money. Time equals money, as in programmer time, designer time, tester time, maintainence time. For reference here's a link to the version history of the pixel shader: DirectX pixel shader history. You can see a number of changes were introduced in 1.4. To support 1.3 time would have to be spent to workaround and overcome all those changes.

On your point about cost, I agree, $400 for 2 years of service is a very high price. The question becomes, how much exactly are you willing to spend per year? We do agree that computer hardware doesn't last forever right? So just how long should it last and at what cost? How long before you were actually planning to upgrade your system? Another year? Two years? Trying to get 4 or 5 years out of a system isn't unreasonable, but you have to expect problems like this cropping in the last year or two of your computer's life. You'll have to have some patience, just think, in a year or two when you do upgrade, BF2 will be in the discount bin or maybe in a boxed set with some expansion packs. Hopefully by then all the bugs will be worked out.

Did EA make a "STUPID" decision? They'll never know unless you as the consumer tell them. Boycotts don't work if the company doesn't know they are being boycotted. You have to gather your fellow geforce4 users and get them to write snail mail to EA, Dice, Nvidia and the press. Show them that you and your fellow geforce4 users were serious about purchasing their product and give them an idea of the number of sales they gave up. Email and internet petitions aren't very effective, you have to use snail mail so that you can create that moment in the EA board room where they bring in bags and bags of letters, each from a potential customer that they gave up. That might get them to realize their mistake. If you truely feel passionate about your cause, make the effort, get the ball rolling and show them the error of their ways, not just for BF2, but for all future games.

I don't disagree with much of what you said.

Trying to get 4 or 5 years out of a system isn't unreasonable, but you have to expect problems like this cropping in the last year or two of your computer's life.

However, I don't think I have ever seen an issue like this before. Honestly, I would like someone to point out something like this happening in the past.

Sure, when you get to the 3-4 year range, you typically start lacking in the horsepower to run the games. Yet, the horsepower isn't the problem in this case. Just not supporting an older version of a pixel shader. I mean even Quake 2 kept support for software rendering AND opengl.

It is definately a money issue for the developer but I think it will cost them more money in the end.

I could be totally wrong tho.

Everquest changes the video card requirements with an expansion. EVERY user of EQ had to upgrade to a dx9 compatable video card (the original game was dx 7) They also abaondoned users who were using glide instead of directX.

So it happens a lot.

 

[KoolHonda]

The real question should be why does BF2 not look or run any better than FarCry even using the modern hardware.

 

[kleinwl]

I tend to agree with the idea that games are cutting edge technology and the cost of keeping up with that edge is fairly expensive. You can cut down on your costs by not buying the latest and greatest games/hardware and letting stuff sit for a year or so... which is kind of frustrating... but is also much more cost effective ($20 games not $50, $250 video cards, not $600).

My particular machine is a P4 1.7Ghz w/ 512MB RDDRAM & a 9600SE (when I bought it 12/01 it shipped with a 64MB Nvidia card). However, I'm avoiding BF2 entirely due to it's memmory requires/etc. I'm also seeing that the min requirements for autoassult, etc. will be above my system. I'm just going to have to live with that for a while... and plan on replacing my system in a year, at which time I'll have owned this system for 5 years at the cost of $400/year (1 upgrade during the life of the system). Yes, it could (maybe should) be replace this year... and my costs would have been $500/year.... which, for me, is not excessive. I can play KOTOR2, and all my favorite games without problems.

So, while I feel your pain of not playing the latest games on your hardware... I also feel that you have to live with it. The need for updating systems has slown way down over the privious cycles (286/386/486) where a new computer was needed every 2 years to keep up. Relax, save up... and update when you feel ready. If you want, write EA... but also say that you wish they worked longer on optimizing the code, so that their game wasn't such a resource hog...

I doubt that they will change... nor do I think that we will continue to try to have the best hardware that our money can buy to play their games.

 

[AntiEverything]

Originally posted by: kleinwl
The need for updating systems has slown way down over the privious cycles (286/386/486) where a new computer was needed every 2 years to keep up.

Say what? There was 5 years between the 386 and 486. Then there was almost 5 years before the Pentium.

Video card upgrade have also sped up quite a bit. The jumps from CGA to EGA to VGA to SVGA took many years. If you want to keep up with the latest and greatest now it's every year.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: FishTaco
Sure, when you get to the 3-4 year range, you typically start lacking in the horsepower to run the games. Yet, the horsepower isn't the problem in this case. Just not supporting an older version of a pixel shader. I mean even Quake 2 kept support for software rendering AND opengl.

lack of GLIDE support and no drivers available forcind 3Dfx owners to upgrade. Software --> 3D requirement (sure Quake2, one specific game by a company KNOWN for it's backwards compatibility supported software mode, but how many OTHER games at the time did?)

Probably the most comparable parallel is games that required Hardware Transform & Lighting. This was a big one that excluded many people trying to hang on to older, but popular TNT & TNT2 cards.

It is definately a money issue for the developer but I think it will cost them more money in the end.

Based on your market analysis? I don't think anyone here knows the answer to that question, because how many people here have a good understanding of the real market they are targeting. One thing is for sure, they have sold quite a few copies with both the DVD and CDROM version holding different spots in the top 10 in sales #s.

 

[imported_FishTaco]

Concillian, you're quoting Codewiz, not me.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: FishTaco
Sure, when you get to the 3-4 year range, you typically start lacking in the horsepower to run the games. Yet, the horsepower isn't the problem in this case. Just not supporting an older version of a pixel shader. I mean even Quake 2 kept support for software rendering AND opengl.

lack of GLIDE support and no drivers available forcind 3Dfx owners to upgrade. Software --> 3D requirement (sure Quake2, one specific game by a company KNOWN for it's backwards compatibility supported software mode, but how many OTHER games at the time did?)

Probably the most comparable parallel is games that required Hardware Transform & Lighting. This was a big one that excluded many people trying to hang on to older, but popular TNT & TNT2 cards.

It is definately a money issue for the developer but I think it will cost them more money in the end.

Based on your market analysis? I don't think anyone here knows the answer to that question, because how many people here have a good understanding of the real market they are targeting. One thing is for sure, they have sold quite a few copies with both the DVD and CDROM version holding different spots in the top 10 in sales #s.

First off you can't even QUOTE ME correctly.

Second of all, 3DFX went out of business so any game not supporting Glide was a no brainer.

As for T&L, a lot games came out supporting it BUT they still supported the TNT and VOODOO cards using OpenGL. It just meant the CPU was taxed more.

I guess you reading abilities aren't up to par because I have no market analysis. See the "I think" part of my statement. That shows it is MY opinion. It is what I THINK. Just like I ended it, I COULD BE WRONG. It is just how I see it.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Somebody
Sorry, but Dice is not owned by EA. They also have the financial means to support their own devopement. I call total and utter bs on the "EA made us do it" excuse.

Wrong. EA owns a controlling share in DICE - they OWN the company, and DICE does what they say.

This has been common knowledge for a while now.


o EA Completes Tender Offer for Swedish Developer DICE

Redwood City, California -- Video game publisher Electronic Arts
(EA) announced this week that it has tendered its final offer to
shareholders in its bid to acquire Digital Illusions CE (DICE), a
Sweden-based game developer. EA already holds about 20% of DICE,
but an earlier offer to acquire the remaining shares of the company was
rejected by DICE shareholders. The company said 32% of DICE
shareholders now accept its offer, and with another 8.9% of shares it
has acquired in the market, it now holds a 59.8% controlling interest in
DICE. EA said the conditions for its offer had been met and that it
expects to close the transaction by Jan. 27.


More Info Here

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: AntiEverything
If you want to keep up with the latest and greatest now it's every year.

Latest 'n' greatest may be worse, like biannually, but pretty darn good 'nuff can still be achieved and dragged out with oddballs like ye olde Radeon LE or the legendary 9500 256-bit which I have been enjoying since January 2003. My 8500 had a nice run too.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: KoolHonda
The real question should be why does BF2 not look or run any better than FarCry even using the modern hardware.

Not that I've playes BF2, but I'm guessing there's quite a bit more going on during an intense BF2 session.
More players, vehicles, etc.
This will reduce the amount of detail you can have without turning it into a lagfest on anything but the highest end rigs.