Rage really is pretty bad isn't it...

zanemoseley

Senior member
Feb 27, 2011
530
23
81
Got this game for about $5 from newegg recently figuring how bad can it be. Well I've played the first Borderlands and Rage reminds me of a bad Borderlands, I was thinking it would be more Quake/Doom'ish.

Not to mention I'm having graphic glitches (some type of horizontal shift) which make really annoying from that aspect, first game I've played on my new rig (1 yr old) with any major glitches. Then there was the PITA of trying to assign keys which I do a lot of being LH, this usually takes all of a minute but not on Rage. It would not accept some keys like the ENTER key which I typically designate the "use" button. What a POS.

Funny thing is I just got Metro 2033 off Facebook free and installed it after getting frustrated with Rage and it's immensely better. The graphics and textures whip the shit out of Rage and its a year older.
 

Qbah

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 2005
3,754
10
81
I played it for a few hours already and I kinda like it. Not really "OMG it's awesome" but it's OK. The low rez textures are a bit distracting though.
 

Ferzerp

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
6,438
107
106
I started playing it, and it was ok, I guess. Then I added a second card, and not only does it not work with SLI, but the mere presence of the second card makes the gpu transcoding option not work and the game performs very poorly without it. I paid about $5 for it, and I feel like I overpaid for it in the state it was left in.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
0
76
Technically Rage has a lot of problems and ID Software knows better than to release it in this state. But they never went back and fixed it which tells you all you need to know about their commitment to their customers.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
184
106
It's alright, but I never completed it. I do intend to, however, eventually.

There's one thing though, RAGE's animations (mostly on enemies of course) are sublime. I don't know who is responsible for creating those animations (haven't seen the credits to check the names) but the guy(s) need credits for that. It's one of the few aspects of the RAGE in my opinion that really stands out from the rest, maybe that's unfortunate but I see it as a positive since good animations in many recent games are of such low quality that it was refreshing in RAGE.
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,831
37
91
the DLC looks good...is it?
Rage would be better without the static quest givers and all the back n forth. I'd rather just play it straight through with some more giant monsters n such or maybe an open world Mad Max gameplay.

either way, it's sad to see they spent some 5 plus years making that POS and knowing that Tech 5 engine will never see any good use. why not just license it out? why is Zenimax so stuck on keeping that engine for such limited use? Not that it's that great of an engine really.
i found the "Megatexturing" or Virtual texturing use kinda odd, they couldn't use the high res texture for obvious reasons and though the idea sounds good, i noticed many, many items and places where there was a reuse of the same texture...or "stamped". since no repeated textures is supposed to be the highlight of using this method, it's odd that everything overall really looked the same and many things really were the same.
 
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Ferzerp

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
6,438
107
106
Not that it's that great of an engine really.

Considering how uninspiring rage looks, and how the engine in general performs, why would you want it used?

id jumped the shark before doom 3 and I don't think there is any coming back.
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,831
37
91
Considering how uninspiring rage looks, and how the engine in general performs, why would you want it used?

id jumped the shark before doom 3 and I don't think there is any coming back.

well one game doesn't really dictate how it could be used. "Prey" was imo, a great use of the Tech 4 engine.
The Doom 4 leaked shots looks like Rage enviro to me, so i don't have any faith in it, but i'm sure the engine would be great for certain types of games and likely could be used as a base for some more coding to make for a good open world game or something. But again, the megatexturing so far has remained unproven, but i'm sure it has potential under the right developer

How long do you guys think till ID has to file bankruptcy? well Bethesda may never let that happen but i can see Carmack's team being broke up. They should use Carmack to work on an engine of a much grander scale than let him do what he wants, clearly he's not in the right mindset anymore imo as far as his direction.
 
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zanemoseley

Senior member
Feb 27, 2011
530
23
81
I would give it some more time if it didn't have the major visual glitch. I've already got the latest AMD drivers and I'm sure Steam has the latest patches already installed so I'm not sure if it just doesn't like my setup or what.
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,831
37
91
Anyone try the DLC for it? looks interesting, i have half a mind to buy it right now even though i'm certain it will be mediocre.
 

spaceman

Lifer
Dec 4, 2000
17,563
150
106
ugh
the game is shit
if it isnt its pretty close
i stopped caring about 30 minutes into it
i hate borderlands too fwiw
 

coloumb

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,096
0
81
Rage was an ok game - however, I think id software should have stuck to the same formula of their past titles which helped them make millions.
 

wuliheron

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2011
3,536
0
0
LOL, another sucker who had no clue what he was buying and now is here to complain about five bucks they wasted.
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
126
Some textures just look so bad its laughable. Like looking at a phone on a table or pipes runnign along the walls in buildings seriously make me think HL2 had better graphics in some aspects.

If there was ever a game in dire need of a HD texture pack rage is it.
 

SlitheryDee

Lifer
Feb 2, 2005
17,252
19
81
I never had any glitches and I thought the game looked pretty good as long as you didn't look too closely. The colors and shadow quality just made it pleasing to my eye in general. Of course I noticed how shitty the textures were up close though. The worst part to me was that the game just felt bland and unengaging. I couldn't maintain interest in it. I probably played for a couple hours total before finally hanging it up.
 

Geosurface

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2012
5,776
4
0
The worst thing is that I paid $120 for Rage.

I don't remember exactly how it all went down (I have a god awful memory) but the rough outline was this:

I bought the PC version and it wasn't working well AT ALL on my rig. My very new rig at that time... massive texture pop in and other problems. Bad stuff. So, in my frustration and wanting to play it (been an id fan since Commander Keen and Wolf3D) I went and bought the XBox 360 version.

Now, I did eventually trade the XBox version in for a good amount, by trade in standards... it was still very new at that time and I don't think the trade in value had yet adjusted for it's poor reception, etc.

But still, id really bent me over the couch on this one.

I did end up enjoying the game reasonably well. Kinda. Parts of it...
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,831
37
91
Rage was an ok game - however, I think id software should have stuck to the same formula of their past titles which helped them make millions.

doom 3 and quake 4 sucked just as bad :whiste:
 

JamesV

Platinum Member
Jul 9, 2011
2,002
2
76
Rage was an ok game - however, I think id software should have stuck to the same formula of their past titles which helped them make millions.

I think they did stick with their formula, which was a mistake. Besides some tiny free roaming and driving, the game is basically a linear corridor shooter like Doom.

The engine itself is pretty remarkable, with the very large megatextures used in the landscape; the reason so many other textures look like shit is so those big textures would fit on a console disc. It was originally supposed to spew out code for PC and all consoles with one codebase too; but apparently that got dropped.

Great engine, mediocre game.
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,831
37
91
I think they did stick with their formula, which was a mistake. Besides some tiny free roaming and driving, the game is basically a linear corridor shooter like Doom.

The engine itself is pretty remarkable, with the very large megatextures used in the landscape; the reason so many other textures look like shit is so those big textures would fit on a console disc. It was originally supposed to spew out code for PC and all consoles with one codebase too; but apparently that got dropped.

Great engine, mediocre game.

The Engine contains all 3 engines but uses the single interface, so create it once, it spits out 3 versions. Compression was the problem, if Megatexture was uncompressed, it wieghs in some 1 Terabytes or more. That is the major downfall of virtual texturing, All of these different compression algorithms are lossy, meaning the data must eventually be decimated to reduce the size. As a result, texture quality is reduced.
Another problem, if they decreased the compression, console size is 22gb's. You reach closer to the peak bandwidth or seek time...now you have stuttering. ID chose to select lower mip levels which makes it look muddy but reduces stuttering.

Basically, for both console and PC, they maxed out what they were able to do within reason of the fact that most PC gamers don't have the most powerful rig with TB's of data.
Virtual texturing is a great theory, it just isn't the most practical which is why no one else ever used it. Some have done so in tech demo's, but the stuttering is too horrible.
Other issue is it's not Modder friendly.

Here is a list i found with the benefits and problems of this method

Benefits

Unique texel for every inch (or smaller) of your world!
Parallel distributable art pipeline (at least for painting surfaces).
Smaller, close quarter environments are sure to shine with this approach. I am eager and hopeful to see what Doom 4 could be in the confines of a space station.
Raw rendering performance is governed by just one parameter (triangle count) instead of balancing two (triangles and texture usage). Textures are a fixed overhead.
This technique can be used for all typical surfaces, animated or otherwise.

Disadvantages

Extensive tools required to work with this type of database. Photoshop is not a Megatexture editor.
Terabytes of shared storage space is required during development, typically on a networked drive and potential VPN access for outside contractors.
Getting the run-time implementation to work "right" is potentially years of effort.
The more sprawled an environment becomes the more surfaces you need. This means lower texel density or more aggressive compression will be required to maintain storage space criteria. Overall it will begin to degrade the quality and textures will become muddy. I am hopeful that the muddy bits I've seen in trailers for Rage are an artifact of Flash video and not the game but I have a feeling my suspicions are correct.

Unknown

The PC front is experiencing some changes. It's hard to say if this approach is feasible in the next generation of games. I suppose most game technology has issues surviving more than one or two generations anyhow, so this isn't too big of a surprise. There is also the hope that this type of content can be stored in the Cloud and streamed over a live connection for the players local area.
How much surface area can we cover before this technology explodes?
Will gamers be forgiving of a 100GB installation, or will it be a giant target when that gamer is looking to free up some space on their hard drives?
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,635
3,095
136
It looked too much like console trash for me to even consider. $5 can buy me two energy drinks which I can use to improve my BF3 late light longevity Pwnage supremacy destruction scheme.
 

Geosurface

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2012
5,776
4
0
I liked Doom 3 quite a lot. Quake 4 was not fantastic but I found it worth a play through.
 

StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
6,761
777
126
It's not bad imo. I played it for about about 10-15 hrs before moving on to better games. It's just.....forgettable. There's nothing in it that hasn't been done better somewhere else, and some of the textures are so bad it made my laugh out loud.