Mirrors Edge Video

[Keysplayr]

Link to Video. 6MB low res 640x360 for bandwidth limited purposes.

 

[Wreckage]

Screw Bandwidth!

http://images.tweaktown.com/vi...orsEdge_PhysX_720p.wmv

720p

 

[Keysplayr]

You know, I didn't even realize AT had this on the homepage. Ah well, we can discuss it here anyways.

 

[nRollo]

The PhysX version always looks better in what we've seen so far, nice to more content to play with.

This could conceivably get to be like GLIDE was next year- now that the new games are starting to come out with both non/PhysX versions people will have to start taking that into consideration when buying cards. When I got my first Voodoo1 there were only a handful of games out that used Glide, but it made a big difference in the gaming experience, soi it was what you wanted to have.

Looking forward to playing this.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The game sucks...HARD. No amount of physics will make it worth buying.

I'm waiting for gameplay impacting physics usage. Until then it doesn't mean a thing to me. I may turn it on because I can, but I wouldn't feel slighted if I could not.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
The game sucks...HARD. No amount of physics will make it worth buying.

I'm waiting for gameplay impacting physics usage. Until then it doesn't mean a thing to me. I may turn it on because I can, but I wouldn't feel slighted if I could not.

If you could turn it on, why wouldn't you? When you played this game, what parts didn't you like about it?

 

[DSF]

It does seem cool. Might be a good use for my 8800GT when upgrade time comes around.

Is there anything special that needs to be done or anything extra that needs to be purchased to use an 8 or 9 series Geforce card as a PhysX card?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
The game sucks...HARD. No amount of physics will make it worth buying.

I'm waiting for gameplay impacting physics usage. Until then it doesn't mean a thing to me. I may turn it on because I can, but I wouldn't feel slighted if I could not.

If you could turn it on, why wouldn't you? When you played this game, what parts didn't you like about it?

You couldn't roam around. It had a huge city to jump through (that's basically what you do...jump between rooftops) and you were limited in where you could go. Like invisible walls almost. At first glance I expected something more free roaming. It's somewhat linear. Also the combat portions are very annoying. The control is not very crisp and you end up having to try again many times because of this. Not for lack of skill, but lack of fluidity in how the combat works with the controls they give you. Mostly the collision detection is what hurts in this area. The punching and kicking is repetitive. The moves didn't seem varied all that much. The environments seem to be the same when they're not. A lot of the world looks the same when it comes to the design of the buildings. The running and jumping is very fluid and gives a real sense of jumping over a rooftop, but the other little things distracted me enough to make me dislike it.

The concept is there and it just needs some more variety and spice. The campaign is short as well, but most games these days suffer from this so I can't gripe too much about that. This game reminds me a bit of Oni in a way. That game started off from concept very strong and when you played it there was a sigh of disappointment.

I played it on PS3, but I don't expect much to change in the PC version with the exception of Physx support.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: DSF
It does seem cool. Might be a good use for my 8800GT when upgrade time comes around.

Is there anything special that needs to be done or anything extra that needs to be purchased to use an 8 or 9 series Geforce card as a PhysX card?

Nope, just turn it on in the control panel.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
The game sucks...HARD. No amount of physics will make it worth buying.

I'm waiting for gameplay impacting physics usage. Until then it doesn't mean a thing to me. I may turn it on because I can, but I wouldn't feel slighted if I could not.

I'm seeing a common theme with you cmdredd:

Every game "sucks". I've seen you post FarCry2 sucks, Crysis sucks, WoW sucks, and now Mirrors Edge sucks.

They all suck. LOL

For the love of Anand, don't flame/bait/troll people. See you in 4 weeks.

-ViRGE

 

[ronnn]

Speaking of the most common theme here.............

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
The game sucks...HARD. No amount of physics will make it worth buying.

I'm waiting for gameplay impacting physics usage. Until then it doesn't mean a thing to me. I may turn it on because I can, but I wouldn't feel slighted if I could not.

I'm seeing a common theme with you cmdredd:

Every game "sucks". I've seen you post FarCry2 sucks, Crysis sucks, WoW sucks, and now Mirrors Edge sucks.

They all suck. LOL

No, but there's a point where I say to myself that PC gaming gets Console leftovers or games that are good in concept but fail at release.

Fallout 3 was ok, I enjoyed that one except for the short main storyline. I don't like FC2 because of the mission aspect, I already played GTA4. Plus the engine has some stuttering issues that need fixing up.

Crysis has a trashy engine. Plus the alien theme...I don't like that too much really. I mean, it starts off pretty good...fighting Korean army guys and whatnot. Then you get to the alien portions and I got bored of it all. Half-Life 2 did something similar but you knew it was coming from the begining.

WoW, well I never liked Warcraft to start with and the game is entirely too easy. Once you level up a fair bit it becomes all repetitive fighting trying to get the latest items and whatnot. Every online game is this way so I can't fault it in that regard, but i just wasn't feeling it. Mirrors edge...you got my little write up on why I hate it.

Left4Dead, now that's a fun game. Not because of any fancy physx or any silly DX10 marketing campaign, but because it runs well on a wide variety of hardware, still looks good, and is damn fun.

It's all opinion, but when a game is fed the hype Crysis and Far Cry 2 got I expect a bit out of it. I also expect it to run well on the latest hardware. FC2 does run well, but still suffers from some stuttering and other glitches that are probably in the engine itself and need some patching.

I'm picky these days, I guess since I have done most of my gaming on consoles and I've grown tired of the FPS genre a bit and games that are poor ports (GTA4) for the PC. I've grown to love games like Metal Gear Solid and gems like Little Big Planet. I'll admit, I do like Gears of War 2 and intend to purchase that if Santa doesn't deliver it .

Can you kind of see where I'm coming from. I say sucks and you probably take it literally but by sucks in my mind I'm thinking disappointment. Sucks is just the word I throw around all the time, used to work at gamestop and when we were talking games if you threw sucks out there it generally meant it's not worth the $50. In our little world anyway.

 

[The J]

The PhysX stuff in the video looks pretty while watching it, but I can't really say that I'd notice it while playing the game.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: The J
The PhysX stuff in the video looks pretty while watching it, but I can't really say that I'd notice it while playing the game.

That's what I think about most usage of physx. It looks nice when you're looking for it but honestly during game play it's not a deal breaker if something more rudimentary was there instead. It's not exactly something I think most people look at when they're blasting something away or whatnot.

 

[SSChevy2001]

I got to agree with cmdrdredd mirrors edge sucked. All it was run to red, jump, run some more, jump, fall and die, reload, run again, ........ Boring . Got to level 2 pulled out the disc and popped in Gear of War 2. The next day it went right back to gamefly.

Physx support can't help this game.

 

[n7]

This isn't meant to be flaming, but it's still nothing but a useless checkbox feature for nV IMHO.

I have a card capable of this wonderful feature & honestly, i couldn't care less.

Until developers really start utilizing this, & i don't mean with silly added effects, but i mean actually really designing it right in the game (& not in a gimmicky way like they've all been thus far), i really am not thrilled.

I also am not excited about the prospect of this being a proprietary nV feature...

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: n7
This isn't meant to be flaming, but it's still nothing but a useless checkbox feature for nV IMHO.

I have a card capable of this wonderful feature & honestly, i couldn't care less.

Until developers really start utilizing this, & i don't mean with silly added effects, but i mean actually really designing it right in the game (& not in a gimmicky way like they've all been thus far), i really am not thrilled.

I also am not excited about the prospect of this being a proprietary nV feature...

Proprietary feature...isn't that the catch though? What if it catches on and oh wait...ATI can't have it cause ATI won't pay Nv to use it. And you know what then? Every game starts using it...then what? $800 NV cards?

I don't see it happening given the fact that devs don't want to totally alienate ATI users like that, the market may be leaning in NV's favor but it's not a monopoly.

It probably won't catch on, and likely not until DX and/or OGL use physx natively in the API for the GPU will it really take off. NV is pushing for it because they own the one PPU company that had working hardware and games that made use of it. They want to remain in control of that and anything they can do to push it as a "necessary feature for gamers" they will do. I don't think Havok will go anywhere either. Intel got that and I doubt highly that Intel is ready to use it in any viable way very soon.

All in all it's one of those things you think "hey maybe it'll be cool if they did this..." but they probably won't simply because it's limited to one specific hardware set and that hurts potential sales.

 

[Wreckage]

Cell Factor is a great example of PhysX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3TU65KaPXI

The fact that NVIDIA has given this feature to every recent card owner for free is unprecedented.

I really can't think of any video card feature in the last several years that has had as great an impact on game play.

Other than partisan trolling, I can not see a reason to complain about such a great freebie.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd


It probably won't catch on

You could not be more wrong. Several studios (including the recent announcement of 2K games and EA) have committed to using PhysX.

Now I can understand being upset if your video card does not support it.... I guess.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: n7
This isn't meant to be flaming, but it's still nothing but a useless checkbox feature for nV IMHO.

I have a card capable of this wonderful feature & honestly, i couldn't care less.

Until developers really start utilizing this, & i don't mean with silly added effects, but i mean actually really designing it right in the game (& not in a gimmicky way like they've all been thus far), i really am not thrilled.

I also am not excited about the prospect of this being a proprietary nV feature...

2K Games, EA hop on the PhysX bandwagon

ATi could possibly use PhysX but I doubt they will. You have to admit though. nVIDIA has one impressive noise machine. Look how the supposed "importance" of PhysX has changed after the acqusition of Ageia by nVIDIA!

 

[SickBeast]

I just wanted to make a couple of points:

1. The PhysX features for this game can be run on the CPU so it is not NV-specific if you have a good enough CPU. The article doesn't specify how decent a job the CPU will do, but it is there as an option.

2. Downplaying the importance of PhysX effects is ridiculous IMO. Why are you guys balking at more eye candy?

IMO we won't have really good widespread hardware-physics content until a year or so after DX11 is released.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
I really can't think of any video card feature in the last several years that has had as great an impact on game play.

Game play? So far I don't know of any popular release where it affects game play, just ones where it adds a little more eye candy.

Out of curiosity is there a list of games where PhysX affects game play beyond adding extra debris and such?

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
2. Downplaying the importance of PhysX effects is ridiculous IMO. Why are you guys balking at more eye candy?

For me, it's because I wasn't expecting hardware based physics to be just additional eye-candy. I envisioned it enabling more real world interaction with in-game items. Wooden boxes that come apart differently depending on whether you're shooting them apart, throw a grenade in them or run them over with a truck. The way it is right now, you're left with pretty much the same identical pile of wood scraps no matter which way you choose.

I think the level of eye-candy in current games (heck, even HL2) is enough to keep me immersed. What I want now is a more physics based environment.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Look how the supposed "importance" of PhysX has changed after the acqusition of Ageia by nVIDIA!

Its pretty obvious why Nvidia's acquisition of Ageia made PhysX relevant. The technology was always interesting, the main obstacle to widespread adoption was that it required dedicated hardware that was *expensive* with few titles that supported it. This all changed when Nvidia made the announcement hardware PhysX could run on any GeForce 8 and higher class video card, meaning the install base instantly went up to 70+ million machines with Nvidia CUDA-capable GPUs (+ whatever else sold in the last few months).

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Proprietary feature...isn't that the catch though? What if it catches on and oh wait...ATI can't have it cause ATI won't pay Nv to use it. And you know what then? Every game starts using it...then what? $800 NV cards?

I don't see it happening given the fact that devs don't want to totally alienate ATI users like that, the market may be leaning in NV's favor but it's not a monopoly.

It probably won't catch on, and likely not until DX and/or OGL use physx natively in the API for the GPU will it really take off. NV is pushing for it because they own the one PPU company that had working hardware and games that made use of it. They want to remain in control of that and anything they can do to push it as a "necessary feature for gamers" they will do. I don't think Havok will go anywhere either. Intel got that and I doubt highly that Intel is ready to use it in any viable way very soon.

All in all it's one of those things you think "hey maybe it'll be cool if they did this..." but they probably won't simply because it's limited to one specific hardware set and that hurts potential sales.

I think its pretty obvious that PhysX will continue to gain momentum. Historically, game developers have openly embraced new technology that allows them to implement features that differentiate their product from the competition. I'd say the most relevant example would be Creative's SoundBlaster line and EAX. Despite market share that has continuously decreased along with a relatively high cost for hardware, EAX continues to thrive in current titles and clearly adds a tangible benefit to the end-user experience.

But I wouldn't worry about ATI, its obvious they'll downplay the significance of PhysX until they obtain access to it for free, which will most likely come with DX11. Again, similar to EAX I'd expect some kind of DirectPhysics wrapper that allows non-CUDA parts to run hardware accelerated physics. And I doubt Nvidia will care, they'll still get to emblazon their big green PhysX logo right next to their TWIMTBP badge.